hello believe nation welcome to another
Google+ Hangout today I’m really excited
to have a special guest with me mark
Suleiman he’s a serial entrepreneur
launched numerous companies he’s an
author he is an expert on social
marketing influencer marketing is a
regular contributor at Forbes and a
whole bunch of publications and so today
we’re talking influencer marketing and
how to use it to grow your business mark
welcome aboard Thank You Evan really
appreciate it great to be here so you
know I want to dive in and learn about
influencer marketing but just kind of
really quickly off the top for people
who are watching who may not be familiar
with the term what is influencer
marketing and how can use it to grow
your business
sure yes I have something play in the
background sorry about that so when you
think you were playing in the background
because it away anyway so the big thing
about influencer marketing is that you
want to find influencers in your
industry that can help move the needle
so when you talk about influencer
marketing it’s just leveraging the
promotion and content creation
capabilities of influential people in
your space you know with if one
influencer is influential in one space
they might not necessarily be
influential others so it’s important to
know what the context is but influencer
marketing is just the use of influencers
in your marketing efforts and is this
something that every entrepreneur can
use or is it a specific kind of business
or specific stage of business now we
will find a business or a school or
government entity or a social College
that couldn’t use influential people I
mean if you think about this goes back
thousands of years right – when you had
whether it was a priest or a rabbi or
what-have-you
a mayor of a small town there have
always been influential people in these
areas and right now in the digital age
it’s just a lot easier to harness them
and get them working on your path got it
so in the in the kind of the pre-show
you said that you had a formula that you
use and if you willing to share with the
audience so that the magic formula took
you all these years to develop what is
it yeah I mean I’m gonna make it sound
like it’s easy it’s really not so if you
think of three concentric circles right
in between in the middle you have an
outer layer and then you have a third
layer so three concentric circles at the
center is what I call viral content
another one laughs well how can you
create viral content I can assure you
there are people that every time put out
content it does go viral look no further
than people on YouTube or Instagram or
even some people on Twitter although I
look at Twitter’s a promotion engine not
sent necessarily a content creation
engine although I’ve been proved wrong
by a few people recently so you could
find people that can create viral
content and what you do from there is
let’s say you’re recruiting an e-book
and you want this person who’s very
influential it’s got a YouTube channel
or maybe he’s got a blog that every time
you know they put out a blog they get
500,000 viewers you want them creating
this ebook for you and then second layer
if you think of three concentric circles
the second layer are 50 to 60
influential people these are what I call
mid tier influencers you want them
promoting that content and creating
their own content based on the theme of
that ebook and this again is just an
example so imagine what happens here
you’ve got viral content then you have
50 people in the industry they’re also
promoting that content creating their
own content so now you’re starting to
see the herd effect and that third outer
layer is the press so you got to get the
press you don’t have to but it really
you know is it is the exclamation point
on any of these campaigns that we run
get the press to promote and to talk
about what just transpired with this
viral content that was promoted by
influencers and know that the press is
breaking up so if you get those three
layers working in concert you have a
guaranteed success and that’s what we’re
well known for and that’s why people pay
us the big bucks I love it sounds like a
ton of work so that’s why I hire you
guys right that’s right
or you go to our platform and use the
people that are there let’s talk about
that so you launch a platform that
called rainforest and that as my
understanding helps you connect sports
stars athletes to brands that have a
product I could use an athlete to
endorse it and your plot component takes
care of all of that is that somewhere
where the yeah that’s a good summary
we’re kind of the match calm right now
you know where we’ll match people up we
don’t run walk you through the campaign
that I just
subscribe that’s for later but yeah we
will match you up with the right
influential people to help move the
needle it’s not just athletes it could
be somebody like yourself that’s got a
very popular Google hangout or a podcast
or somebody on YouTube with that gets
huge reach I mean some of the people
that can move the needle aren’t athletes
they’re they’re primarily people that
run for example a baseball hitting
clinic on YouTube that every time he
puts out a video he gets three million
views can you imagine that 3 million
views and these are people that you know
no one’s heard of outside of their
subscriber base but they kill it each
and every time they put out content so
if I can get a bat into his show that’s
better than any television commercial
right are you a baseball fan yeah I am
yeah now as much as a football fan but I
am watching the World Series who are you
cheering for the Royals even though I’m
next
Giants fan I’m so cheering for the
Royals I want to see in the women I’m a
Jays fan but we didn’t make it so I’m
going Royals too
yeah American League I got a question
here from Denny who’s asking what is it
cost to work with an influencer well you
know it’s a great question so there’s
and let me take it up a step there are
three things that motivate influencers
one of course is you could pay them to
is you make them more famous in their
industry 3 is they want to be attached
to a social cause or they want to be
able to work with something that they
believe in like a successful campaign so
those are the three primary ways of
motivating motivating and influencer so
what it should cost you should base your
cost on you know how much engagement
they get and how many views they get on
average so if you go to a YouTube
channel and you look at 3 million views
and then you say well what would it cost
me to get that kind of engagement on you
know with a Facebook ad I’d be
astronomical actually so you know
there’s no set price that’s why we
created a marketplace so that you can
negotiate back and forth but you know
you kind of gotta have to look at ok
what what is this going to do for me and
is the ROI worth it I mean it should be
dollars for dimes if you’re spending 10
cents you want about a buck in return
got it
what
my minimum budget to kind of get started
on this or people who are watching and
thinking I don’t know if I have enough
money to do this is there a minimum
budget that I need this just to start
kind of being serious in the game well I
mean if you want a viral content
producer it’s 10,000 minimum if you just
want a bunch of promoters you know mid
to your promoters might say a couple of
thousand even get 50 people to do it for
five grand and these people can move the
needle you know imagine 50 people
promoting anything of yours to your
target audience and you know they have
the proven ability to influence them
that could be pretty powerful and that
could go way up right I mean that’s
that’s there those are the bottom
figures yeah yeah obviously you know you
want Jessica Alba you want people and
it’s gonna cost you more than five
thousand dollars but but that that’s
that’s reasonable right like 5k that
that’s within anybody’s reach to be able
to spend on the marketing campaign that
that’s quite affordable it’s it’s
shocking the more entrepreneurs don’t
see this as a strategy to you maybe
maybe before it’s been too inaccessible
or too difficult or they weren’t aware
of the concept what do you think no
that’s exactly right it isn’t easy
coordinating 50 people so especially
people that feel they you know a lot
some of these people are prima donnas as
you can imagine others are very cool so
coordinating 50 people is extremely
difficult and that’s why people would
hire us as consultants to come in and
show them how to do that and you run
these campaigns for them so now you know
we’ve got a platform that’ll help you
manage that process we’re not all the
way there yet I don’t want to pretend
that we are but we’re closing in on
Barry wants to know if you have some
examples of clients you’ve helped and
what the campaign looked like sure yeah
so you know I kind of just described the
formula we have a client that’s kind of
in the financial space and we we got a
famous author to create a ebook for them
and so that’s the viral content we had
the famous author we had the the e-book
we got 60 people in the finance space to
kind of promote this book and again I’m
accelerating this is a 60-day timeline
and then we got Yahoo Finance to pick it
up and they tweeted out that there was
over five million views now you can go
google this it’s called the retiree next
door it’s an e-book
and then you could see what we did on
Yahoo and why Yahoo that Yahoo article
exploded it exploded it because you had
50 to 60 people that were promoting it
and then they wrote their own blog piece
about it and pointed back to the Yahoo
article so my client received thousands
and thousands of downloads of their of
their ebook and thousands of signups for
their site it was a remarkable campaign
and that just happened
very cool who was the author of the book
you know I forgot her name I have a team
member that handles all that stuff but
just google the retiree next door and
you could see you could see it very cool
so the people who are on the site who
are the influencers you’ve expanded
beyond sports now is it I mean I guess
we still add into the list but is it is
it predominantly online or you is that
we try to focus like on the YouTube
stars and the influencers are you trying
to focus more on kind of amazing stuff
well it depends on the channel I mean if
you look at we always look at our
clients target audience and where they
hang out if it’s YouTube great you know
we want to be on YouTube if it’s
Instagram you know we want to be on
Instagram so that’s where we start if
it’s offline we typically will pass on
that because it’s just harder and more
expensive so in terms of where we go we
follow the audience and we set up
campaigns depending on where they’re
where they’re hanging out so if you’re
if you’re looking at an athlete you’re
trying to find an athlete that has a
large online presence if it’s Twitter or
Facebook or YouTube they have an
audience that when they promote
something people are going to pay
attention yeah I mean if you’re talking
about that what we call rainmakers these
are people that create viral content
every time we’re not looking for
athletes you very few athletes outside
of Jeremy Lin that really create viral
content every time they put something
out on on YouTube for example actually
there’s a lot of snowboarders and
skateboarders that do it on Instagram so
I don’t want it to mean all athletes but
you know it’s funny most of the people
now that are doing it are people that
have been able to to prove themselves in
the sports market but they’re more of a
marketer or commentator or a content
creator it’s less the athletes you know
athletes really haven’t been trained on
how to do this we’re going to help them
in the next year so and then back to
your other question yes we started with
sports on the platform
but outside the platform of services we
handle all industries but we had to
focus somewhere right it’s hard to
market to everybody so the platform
we’re starting with sports but you’ll
see just get into other verticals in the
next couple of years God I said if I go
to rain forest is just sports but but
there’s more coming
there’s more coming if you want
something outside of sports you know you
just call us up but we’ve got a whole
services arm that does like the finance
example other verticals as well perfect
yeah the idea behind the platform is
that then I’ll run everything myself as
an entrepreneur like you know oh I could
find the athlete I can find the
influencers and then I run the campaign
and manage all the headache myself that
is exactly right and we’ll try to reduce
that headache for you right doing it
doing it because we know we’ve been
doing this for five years doing it
offline is a very unique skill set a lot
of things going going – doing it
manually like we do now there’s a whole
bunch of psychology that’s involved with
paying it forward and and getting people
to set up win-win relationships with
these influencers that when you go to
market together they win you win that’s
it’s a lot of work I’ll have to tell you
so the platform is there to facilitate
all of the management of that also the
identification and then the payment of
it and that that takes out about right
now it’s taken about 50% of the work and
by the time we’re done you know we’re
hoping it’s completely DIY that’s
awesome do you care your you know your
three circle model and kind of give best
practices and articles I mean nobody
they won’t all have access to you and to
your team to talk one-on-one but are you
sharing articles and content and best
practices to help them on the path well
let me ask you this should I I mean this
is really our secret sauce what would
you do well I mean you’re here sharing
it it’s it’s really more about and I
think right like they have to be able to
I think a lot of people would see that
and might get scared like they may think
it’s easy and then you look at it as
like wow that’s way too much work and I
want to call these guys up and just have
them take care of it but if I don’t have
the budget to do it yet I liked at least
you know you want people to have success
on rainforests yeah oh and I bend my 10k
and that may be to me that’s a lot of
money and and it doesn’t work out you
know I may not be seeing great things
but
for us I’m not gonna come back and use
it again you know maybe I tweet bad
things about it you know you want people
to have set up for success using your
platform yeah so any client on
rainforest you know we we give them
everything they need to be successful
but I was asking more of you know I was
struggling with this right I could lay
out what what it takes to do this you
know in an article and it’d probably be
pretty power uh probably pretty popular
because you know it’s people are
struggling as to how to do this
correctly and efficiently and I was just
wondering if you thought that would be a
net benefit to us cuz I’m struggling
with it I know I wouldn’t mind doing it
I just don’t want to give away too much
too soon
yeah I think it’s a woman I mean I think
it shows off your expertise it shows
that you guys really know what you’re
talking about and bigger brands who have
the bigger budgets are gonna say wow
like these guys are definitely the
pioneers of leaders in this space and it
also gives kind of a roadmap for people
who are using it on the self search side
to be set up for as much success as
possible right so if you’re doing you
know ebook and then influencers and then
media you’re not gonna share your
contacts say hey hear that here all the
mean if you believe – go out – and most
people are paying for but at least
explaining the process I may be some
kind of template emails you might send
out or you want people to have success
right if I go on and I have huge success
using your self-serve platform and I
realize like it’s a crazy amount of work
but you helped me get somewhere and I’m
gonna share that story right I’ll make a
video but I’ll tell my friends it powers
the influencer marketing movement and
you guys are right at the front I guess
I mean the only fear would be if
somebody can out execute you guys right
like you share your sauce and somebody
can take it and do it better than you
but you’re the one with the track record
the experience the team tool to make it
happen yeah I think you’ve got me
convinced I’ve been leaning that
direction and it’s just always always
hard to do the big reveal rights like
Houdini giving up his magic tricks
sometimes so yeah I think I’ll probably
do it so be on the look up on the
rainforest blog for that post yeah cool
let me know I wanna I wanna I want to
maybe launch a campaign cool so sports
is now wouldn’t you say you’re going to
launch your other verticals or
for us well you know we gotta get the
sports vertical down to a point where
you can run it yourself without our
involvement once we have that in place
then we’ll pursue other verticals so I’d
say within the first the next not six
months problem okay
and the sports people now are the ones
who are they’re gonna be creating the
content is that the idea these guys are
creating the e-book or the you know
whatever Instagram picture they’re
they’re creating it or they’re the
influencers I’m gonna help you promote
that content or both yeah I mean there’s
really three types of people that are on
the platform one of the content creators
which we feel are you know critical to
success of any campaign too are the
promoters these are people of mid tier
influencers that know how to promote
things but three are the connectors
these are people that if you want to be
introduced to the head of the NBA these
are people that can make that
introduction so it’s it’s everyone in a
platform to enable your success
essentially is what it boils down to so
those are the three types of people that
are on there now God and I guess you can
sort them by category and pick the one
that you want to go with you can’t by
geography oh yeah oh I’m liking that
yeah so you know to get started what’s
my first step do I have to create a
profile on rainforest is it how do I
create a campaign and start launching
one yeah so if you’re a brand you know
you go on you create a profile we’ll get
in touch with you because when it’s all
White Glove service we just launched a
couple months ago and then will actively
work with you to make sure that the
campaign is successful and then we’ll
you know you could search the campaign
for the right influencers we can make
recommendations we can also find people
if we don’t have the right people for
you so that the platform’s where you
start but you’ll have a team that’s
assigned to you at no extra cost to make
sure that you’re successful cool I’m
getting a question from Jason who’s
saying what motivated you to start this
business
great question Jason what motivated me
was it is extremely painful to do this
without a platform we’re talking
hundreds of hours just in identifying
the right people
and then contacting them as you can
imagine contacting 5060 people to do
anything and then managing them
throughout the process paying it forward
setting up win-win relationships
extremely painful but extremely
rewarding by far if you run an
influencer campaign the way I described
it with the three concentric circles
you’ll shave five years of of PR spend
probably three or four years of lead
generation spend all within you know
three to six months I mean it’s really
that powerful imagine getting all the
Oprah’s you know every time Oprah held
up a book she’d sell a million copies of
it imagine getting the Oprah’s of your
industry to promote what it is that
you’re doing now the copy out of course
is and this is what we can’t fix is they
gotta like your product your products
gonna be good
all right be the best but they gotta
like your product so how does it work so
say I’m selling a new toothbrush that’s
the best ever
and I want you know Magic Johnson to
promote this thing yeah I have to ship
these up through you like I sent it to
you and you send it to all the guys or
how does that work well it depends I
mean if you could buy it on Amazon you
know you send them a coupon code or you
know you you you get them the the
product that’s the least of the problems
you know for the the most difficult
thing especially with a guy like Magic
Johnson who I wouldn’t waste my time but
there’s far better people not that he’s
not he’s a bad person they’re just
people are more motivated to be
successful here and make you successful
but let’s say it is him yeah you get
into sand see if he likes it and then
see if he wants to be an ambassador or
you know he wants to endorse it or
whatever is your goal is to work with
him so that’s all coordinated on the
platform so that’s an interesting point
who do you look for then if it’s not a
Magic Johnson he’s not motivated you
know he’s doing his real estate stuff
who were the types of athletes and I
guess experts that you’re then trying to
recruit to make this little platform
successful yeah I mean dirty little
secret is is that Fame in the offline
world of the television or movie world
does not equate to the ability to move
the needle right when I talk about
moving its awareness its engagement its
lead generation
it doesn’t necessarily equate I mean I I
see very little overlap it’s really the
people
that have become content creators and
promoters that are on the periphery of
the space that are really the ones moved
the needle I mean if you look at all the
youtubers that are generating you know
millions and millions of views every
episode that put out don’t want one
example I like to give this Mis climber
Ozzie foots on Believe It or Not makeup
once a week and she on average last time
I checked was getting four million views
per episode I mean what television
program is that right
so she’s just putting on makeup no
nobody she’s not a superstar she’s not a
famous model she just developed this
channel over time organically and it’s
grown into this huge phenomenon and now
she’s killing it she’s 18
Wow so it’s really targeting the guys
who already have an online focus and are
trying to grow yes and can move
audiences to act and and draw draw
attention to things that they like it’s
it’s not necessarily the athletes yeah
I’m wondering how does that transit in
in an athletes world do you need the
guys who are doing the I don’t know how
many officers are doing kind of how-to
videos like that but when is it the ones
who are active on Twitter and responding
to their fans and really engaging or how
do you quantify that in the athletes
world well I I almost look at most
athletes as promoters so a lot of them
on Twitter can really promote the living
daylights out of things but then that
goes away right the next day nobody’s
looking at that tweet but in the moment
if you got a bunch of athletes that are
promoting something and some of these
athletes you know get hundreds of
thousands of responses every tweet that
they get but it’s ephemeral it just it
goes away but it’s good for promoting
content that already exists that’s why
if you look at the inner circle that is
really where you got a focus is creating
getting somebody to create viral content
or as a possibility cream-oil content
then getting the promoters the athletes
to promote that and to add a discussion
by creating a little bit of micro
content themselves or a blog post or
something like that that is the secret
sauce that we figured out it took us a
long time and then of course with the
press layer that just makes it even more
legitimate and solidifies this her
effect that happens do you see
yourselves growing or
expanding to the point where you bring
on some of these athletes or experts
almost as an agency model and help train
them to be better and make them there’s
a lot of the athletes they may not you
know they’re great at basketball or
football or whatever but maybe not great
at pitching product that that girl who
has that four million views is awesome
eye makeup but again in terms of
pitching product and promoting something
they may not be great at it and that’s a
lot of work for you to educate and train
and I’m wondering if you know our rain
forest agency model might evolve where
you could coach these people to to be
better and represent them because a lot
of them they don’t want to handle the
product side of things right just let me
make youtube videos just let me play
basketball and you handle all that and
teach me how to how to pitch the
opportunities when they come in yeah and
there’s already companies that are kind
of do that just focused on YouTube I
think that’s where we’re gonna have to
go is really you know you just create
the content we’ll take care of
everything else
so there’s another model you know that
you’ll see in version two where we try
to minimize their participation but we
want their authority so we get their
authority and then we handle everything
else that needs to happen in order to
help the brand succeed so a little
cryptic but that I definitely don’t want
to give away we’re doing next but you’ve
hit the nail on the head I mean the big
problem is these athletes aren’t
marketers so they’ll do little things
like you know tweets but unless they’re
used to creating content it’s a
challenge getting them to do that yeah
but I mean training awareness following
a system and a process yeah it’s all
doable and having somebody like Magic
Johnson and Michael Jordan who’s done a
lot of stuff outside of just playing
their sport let me ask you this how
would you do that how would you set up a
training program because I’d be
interested in what your thoughts are on
that
um I think it would start with some of
the the athletes and experts who are
already kind of more well-known one of
the bigger audiences that you’re working
with right now who don’t really want to
focus on the business development side
of things so for example in my business
I have an agent and he goes on
represents me in cells
the hills and you know speaking
engagements and all that stuff and part
of what he does is every week I have a
training call with a media coach and we
look at you know she challenges me to
make different videos and to make other
types of content and we review it
together and then you know he’ll review
it once a month and give me advice and
back in tips and so I’ve gotten better
my videos have gotten better everything
I’ve done has gotten better which helps
me tremendously what also helps him go
out and sell me and so I’m part of kind
of his stable of people he focuses only
on kind of thought leaders experts
doesn’t touch athletics and you know
it’s not as wide-reaching as you would
be but I found that process really
valuable and I can only imagine people
who have bigger audiences and me and
maybe well-known in a different field
like athletics struggling to develop the
communication side especially when it
comes to video I’d be able to tell their
story and really develop an audience
that can last beyond their athletic
career like into the future and really
build a movement around their brain a
lot of these people have this you know
Authority their their passion of what
they do but they’re not necessarily
business people and can you get experts
and so they need help and you guys could
easily help people do that as an extra
service and having a platform to be to
be able to then help promote them to
people is a awesome benefit as well so
you would you know you’d have to sign
them to some kind of exclusive right and
then or at least work with their current
agent and have some kind of arrangement
where we would train them because I
would hate to train them and have them
go someplace else I don’t know what your
thoughts are on that yeah you have to
have you’d have to have something I mean
I have a contract you’d have to have a
contract if you’ve written in and and a
lot of agents like so the agent I’m with
is unique where a lot of agents don’t
provide the training like I get a weekly
call with a media coach to help me get
better on the videos that exist in a lot
of agencies and that could be your arm
right you can
a percentage of every deal that is made
so the agent takes 23% defendant 15%
outfit the client you know you can take
a cut of that in them or in for training
them and then take a bigger out of that
it’s you have a platform and clients as
well that’s a good idea
we got to put some more thought into
that because it’s definitely needed out
there I just look at it as a monster
task right now you can imagine almost no
one has media training they have media
training in terms of what to say what
not to say about theirs their game on
the field right for it but in terms of
promoting and working with brands to you
know free content or to promote content
or promote products they love I don’t
know of anyone doing that Wow yeah for
its version – yeah we’re pretty ready up
it’s crazy the time flies ah people
watching where can you learn more about
you yes so you can go to rain forests
comets both are a why in forest calm and
or you could go to forbes.com slash mark
Fidel Minh I talk about marketing a lot
in social mobile as well on the forums
as well thank you Mark so much for
joining us everybody who watched asked
questions thank you guys this will be
posted to YouTube for consumption
whenever you guys want thanks mark have
a great day we’ll talk to you thanks
Evan it was a pleasure thank you yes
bye
Google+ Hangout today I’m really excited
to have a special guest with me mark
Suleiman he’s a serial entrepreneur
launched numerous companies he’s an
author he is an expert on social
marketing influencer marketing is a
regular contributor at Forbes and a
whole bunch of publications and so today
we’re talking influencer marketing and
how to use it to grow your business mark
welcome aboard Thank You Evan really
appreciate it great to be here so you
know I want to dive in and learn about
influencer marketing but just kind of
really quickly off the top for people
who are watching who may not be familiar
with the term what is influencer
marketing and how can use it to grow
your business
sure yes I have something play in the
background sorry about that so when you
think you were playing in the background
because it away anyway so the big thing
about influencer marketing is that you
want to find influencers in your
industry that can help move the needle
so when you talk about influencer
marketing it’s just leveraging the
promotion and content creation
capabilities of influential people in
your space you know with if one
influencer is influential in one space
they might not necessarily be
influential others so it’s important to
know what the context is but influencer
marketing is just the use of influencers
in your marketing efforts and is this
something that every entrepreneur can
use or is it a specific kind of business
or specific stage of business now we
will find a business or a school or
government entity or a social College
that couldn’t use influential people I
mean if you think about this goes back
thousands of years right – when you had
whether it was a priest or a rabbi or
what-have-you
a mayor of a small town there have
always been influential people in these
areas and right now in the digital age
it’s just a lot easier to harness them
and get them working on your path got it
so in the in the kind of the pre-show
you said that you had a formula that you
use and if you willing to share with the
audience so that the magic formula took
you all these years to develop what is
it yeah I mean I’m gonna make it sound
like it’s easy it’s really not so if you
think of three concentric circles right
in between in the middle you have an
outer layer and then you have a third
layer so three concentric circles at the
center is what I call viral content
another one laughs well how can you
create viral content I can assure you
there are people that every time put out
content it does go viral look no further
than people on YouTube or Instagram or
even some people on Twitter although I
look at Twitter’s a promotion engine not
sent necessarily a content creation
engine although I’ve been proved wrong
by a few people recently so you could
find people that can create viral
content and what you do from there is
let’s say you’re recruiting an e-book
and you want this person who’s very
influential it’s got a YouTube channel
or maybe he’s got a blog that every time
you know they put out a blog they get
500,000 viewers you want them creating
this ebook for you and then second layer
if you think of three concentric circles
the second layer are 50 to 60
influential people these are what I call
mid tier influencers you want them
promoting that content and creating
their own content based on the theme of
that ebook and this again is just an
example so imagine what happens here
you’ve got viral content then you have
50 people in the industry they’re also
promoting that content creating their
own content so now you’re starting to
see the herd effect and that third outer
layer is the press so you got to get the
press you don’t have to but it really
you know is it is the exclamation point
on any of these campaigns that we run
get the press to promote and to talk
about what just transpired with this
viral content that was promoted by
influencers and know that the press is
breaking up so if you get those three
layers working in concert you have a
guaranteed success and that’s what we’re
well known for and that’s why people pay
us the big bucks I love it sounds like a
ton of work so that’s why I hire you
guys right that’s right
or you go to our platform and use the
people that are there let’s talk about
that so you launch a platform that
called rainforest and that as my
understanding helps you connect sports
stars athletes to brands that have a
product I could use an athlete to
endorse it and your plot component takes
care of all of that is that somewhere
where the yeah that’s a good summary
we’re kind of the match calm right now
you know where we’ll match people up we
don’t run walk you through the campaign
that I just
subscribe that’s for later but yeah we
will match you up with the right
influential people to help move the
needle it’s not just athletes it could
be somebody like yourself that’s got a
very popular Google hangout or a podcast
or somebody on YouTube with that gets
huge reach I mean some of the people
that can move the needle aren’t athletes
they’re they’re primarily people that
run for example a baseball hitting
clinic on YouTube that every time he
puts out a video he gets three million
views can you imagine that 3 million
views and these are people that you know
no one’s heard of outside of their
subscriber base but they kill it each
and every time they put out content so
if I can get a bat into his show that’s
better than any television commercial
right are you a baseball fan yeah I am
yeah now as much as a football fan but I
am watching the World Series who are you
cheering for the Royals even though I’m
next
Giants fan I’m so cheering for the
Royals I want to see in the women I’m a
Jays fan but we didn’t make it so I’m
going Royals too
yeah American League I got a question
here from Denny who’s asking what is it
cost to work with an influencer well you
know it’s a great question so there’s
and let me take it up a step there are
three things that motivate influencers
one of course is you could pay them to
is you make them more famous in their
industry 3 is they want to be attached
to a social cause or they want to be
able to work with something that they
believe in like a successful campaign so
those are the three primary ways of
motivating motivating and influencer so
what it should cost you should base your
cost on you know how much engagement
they get and how many views they get on
average so if you go to a YouTube
channel and you look at 3 million views
and then you say well what would it cost
me to get that kind of engagement on you
know with a Facebook ad I’d be
astronomical actually so you know
there’s no set price that’s why we
created a marketplace so that you can
negotiate back and forth but you know
you kind of gotta have to look at ok
what what is this going to do for me and
is the ROI worth it I mean it should be
dollars for dimes if you’re spending 10
cents you want about a buck in return
got it
what
my minimum budget to kind of get started
on this or people who are watching and
thinking I don’t know if I have enough
money to do this is there a minimum
budget that I need this just to start
kind of being serious in the game well I
mean if you want a viral content
producer it’s 10,000 minimum if you just
want a bunch of promoters you know mid
to your promoters might say a couple of
thousand even get 50 people to do it for
five grand and these people can move the
needle you know imagine 50 people
promoting anything of yours to your
target audience and you know they have
the proven ability to influence them
that could be pretty powerful and that
could go way up right I mean that’s
that’s there those are the bottom
figures yeah yeah obviously you know you
want Jessica Alba you want people and
it’s gonna cost you more than five
thousand dollars but but that that’s
that’s reasonable right like 5k that
that’s within anybody’s reach to be able
to spend on the marketing campaign that
that’s quite affordable it’s it’s
shocking the more entrepreneurs don’t
see this as a strategy to you maybe
maybe before it’s been too inaccessible
or too difficult or they weren’t aware
of the concept what do you think no
that’s exactly right it isn’t easy
coordinating 50 people so especially
people that feel they you know a lot
some of these people are prima donnas as
you can imagine others are very cool so
coordinating 50 people is extremely
difficult and that’s why people would
hire us as consultants to come in and
show them how to do that and you run
these campaigns for them so now you know
we’ve got a platform that’ll help you
manage that process we’re not all the
way there yet I don’t want to pretend
that we are but we’re closing in on
Barry wants to know if you have some
examples of clients you’ve helped and
what the campaign looked like sure yeah
so you know I kind of just described the
formula we have a client that’s kind of
in the financial space and we we got a
famous author to create a ebook for them
and so that’s the viral content we had
the famous author we had the the e-book
we got 60 people in the finance space to
kind of promote this book and again I’m
accelerating this is a 60-day timeline
and then we got Yahoo Finance to pick it
up and they tweeted out that there was
over five million views now you can go
google this it’s called the retiree next
door it’s an e-book
and then you could see what we did on
Yahoo and why Yahoo that Yahoo article
exploded it exploded it because you had
50 to 60 people that were promoting it
and then they wrote their own blog piece
about it and pointed back to the Yahoo
article so my client received thousands
and thousands of downloads of their of
their ebook and thousands of signups for
their site it was a remarkable campaign
and that just happened
very cool who was the author of the book
you know I forgot her name I have a team
member that handles all that stuff but
just google the retiree next door and
you could see you could see it very cool
so the people who are on the site who
are the influencers you’ve expanded
beyond sports now is it I mean I guess
we still add into the list but is it is
it predominantly online or you is that
we try to focus like on the YouTube
stars and the influencers are you trying
to focus more on kind of amazing stuff
well it depends on the channel I mean if
you look at we always look at our
clients target audience and where they
hang out if it’s YouTube great you know
we want to be on YouTube if it’s
Instagram you know we want to be on
Instagram so that’s where we start if
it’s offline we typically will pass on
that because it’s just harder and more
expensive so in terms of where we go we
follow the audience and we set up
campaigns depending on where they’re
where they’re hanging out so if you’re
if you’re looking at an athlete you’re
trying to find an athlete that has a
large online presence if it’s Twitter or
Facebook or YouTube they have an
audience that when they promote
something people are going to pay
attention yeah I mean if you’re talking
about that what we call rainmakers these
are people that create viral content
every time we’re not looking for
athletes you very few athletes outside
of Jeremy Lin that really create viral
content every time they put something
out on on YouTube for example actually
there’s a lot of snowboarders and
skateboarders that do it on Instagram so
I don’t want it to mean all athletes but
you know it’s funny most of the people
now that are doing it are people that
have been able to to prove themselves in
the sports market but they’re more of a
marketer or commentator or a content
creator it’s less the athletes you know
athletes really haven’t been trained on
how to do this we’re going to help them
in the next year so and then back to
your other question yes we started with
sports on the platform
but outside the platform of services we
handle all industries but we had to
focus somewhere right it’s hard to
market to everybody so the platform
we’re starting with sports but you’ll
see just get into other verticals in the
next couple of years God I said if I go
to rain forest is just sports but but
there’s more coming
there’s more coming if you want
something outside of sports you know you
just call us up but we’ve got a whole
services arm that does like the finance
example other verticals as well perfect
yeah the idea behind the platform is
that then I’ll run everything myself as
an entrepreneur like you know oh I could
find the athlete I can find the
influencers and then I run the campaign
and manage all the headache myself that
is exactly right and we’ll try to reduce
that headache for you right doing it
doing it because we know we’ve been
doing this for five years doing it
offline is a very unique skill set a lot
of things going going – doing it
manually like we do now there’s a whole
bunch of psychology that’s involved with
paying it forward and and getting people
to set up win-win relationships with
these influencers that when you go to
market together they win you win that’s
it’s a lot of work I’ll have to tell you
so the platform is there to facilitate
all of the management of that also the
identification and then the payment of
it and that that takes out about right
now it’s taken about 50% of the work and
by the time we’re done you know we’re
hoping it’s completely DIY that’s
awesome do you care your you know your
three circle model and kind of give best
practices and articles I mean nobody
they won’t all have access to you and to
your team to talk one-on-one but are you
sharing articles and content and best
practices to help them on the path well
let me ask you this should I I mean this
is really our secret sauce what would
you do well I mean you’re here sharing
it it’s it’s really more about and I
think right like they have to be able to
I think a lot of people would see that
and might get scared like they may think
it’s easy and then you look at it as
like wow that’s way too much work and I
want to call these guys up and just have
them take care of it but if I don’t have
the budget to do it yet I liked at least
you know you want people to have success
on rainforests yeah oh and I bend my 10k
and that may be to me that’s a lot of
money and and it doesn’t work out you
know I may not be seeing great things
but
for us I’m not gonna come back and use
it again you know maybe I tweet bad
things about it you know you want people
to have set up for success using your
platform yeah so any client on
rainforest you know we we give them
everything they need to be successful
but I was asking more of you know I was
struggling with this right I could lay
out what what it takes to do this you
know in an article and it’d probably be
pretty power uh probably pretty popular
because you know it’s people are
struggling as to how to do this
correctly and efficiently and I was just
wondering if you thought that would be a
net benefit to us cuz I’m struggling
with it I know I wouldn’t mind doing it
I just don’t want to give away too much
too soon
yeah I think it’s a woman I mean I think
it shows off your expertise it shows
that you guys really know what you’re
talking about and bigger brands who have
the bigger budgets are gonna say wow
like these guys are definitely the
pioneers of leaders in this space and it
also gives kind of a roadmap for people
who are using it on the self search side
to be set up for as much success as
possible right so if you’re doing you
know ebook and then influencers and then
media you’re not gonna share your
contacts say hey hear that here all the
mean if you believe – go out – and most
people are paying for but at least
explaining the process I may be some
kind of template emails you might send
out or you want people to have success
right if I go on and I have huge success
using your self-serve platform and I
realize like it’s a crazy amount of work
but you helped me get somewhere and I’m
gonna share that story right I’ll make a
video but I’ll tell my friends it powers
the influencer marketing movement and
you guys are right at the front I guess
I mean the only fear would be if
somebody can out execute you guys right
like you share your sauce and somebody
can take it and do it better than you
but you’re the one with the track record
the experience the team tool to make it
happen yeah I think you’ve got me
convinced I’ve been leaning that
direction and it’s just always always
hard to do the big reveal rights like
Houdini giving up his magic tricks
sometimes so yeah I think I’ll probably
do it so be on the look up on the
rainforest blog for that post yeah cool
let me know I wanna I wanna I want to
maybe launch a campaign cool so sports
is now wouldn’t you say you’re going to
launch your other verticals or
for us well you know we gotta get the
sports vertical down to a point where
you can run it yourself without our
involvement once we have that in place
then we’ll pursue other verticals so I’d
say within the first the next not six
months problem okay
and the sports people now are the ones
who are they’re gonna be creating the
content is that the idea these guys are
creating the e-book or the you know
whatever Instagram picture they’re
they’re creating it or they’re the
influencers I’m gonna help you promote
that content or both yeah I mean there’s
really three types of people that are on
the platform one of the content creators
which we feel are you know critical to
success of any campaign too are the
promoters these are people of mid tier
influencers that know how to promote
things but three are the connectors
these are people that if you want to be
introduced to the head of the NBA these
are people that can make that
introduction so it’s it’s everyone in a
platform to enable your success
essentially is what it boils down to so
those are the three types of people that
are on there now God and I guess you can
sort them by category and pick the one
that you want to go with you can’t by
geography oh yeah oh I’m liking that
yeah so you know to get started what’s
my first step do I have to create a
profile on rainforest is it how do I
create a campaign and start launching
one yeah so if you’re a brand you know
you go on you create a profile we’ll get
in touch with you because when it’s all
White Glove service we just launched a
couple months ago and then will actively
work with you to make sure that the
campaign is successful and then we’ll
you know you could search the campaign
for the right influencers we can make
recommendations we can also find people
if we don’t have the right people for
you so that the platform’s where you
start but you’ll have a team that’s
assigned to you at no extra cost to make
sure that you’re successful cool I’m
getting a question from Jason who’s
saying what motivated you to start this
business
great question Jason what motivated me
was it is extremely painful to do this
without a platform we’re talking
hundreds of hours just in identifying
the right people
and then contacting them as you can
imagine contacting 5060 people to do
anything and then managing them
throughout the process paying it forward
setting up win-win relationships
extremely painful but extremely
rewarding by far if you run an
influencer campaign the way I described
it with the three concentric circles
you’ll shave five years of of PR spend
probably three or four years of lead
generation spend all within you know
three to six months I mean it’s really
that powerful imagine getting all the
Oprah’s you know every time Oprah held
up a book she’d sell a million copies of
it imagine getting the Oprah’s of your
industry to promote what it is that
you’re doing now the copy out of course
is and this is what we can’t fix is they
gotta like your product your products
gonna be good
all right be the best but they gotta
like your product so how does it work so
say I’m selling a new toothbrush that’s
the best ever
and I want you know Magic Johnson to
promote this thing yeah I have to ship
these up through you like I sent it to
you and you send it to all the guys or
how does that work well it depends I
mean if you could buy it on Amazon you
know you send them a coupon code or you
know you you you get them the the
product that’s the least of the problems
you know for the the most difficult
thing especially with a guy like Magic
Johnson who I wouldn’t waste my time but
there’s far better people not that he’s
not he’s a bad person they’re just
people are more motivated to be
successful here and make you successful
but let’s say it is him yeah you get
into sand see if he likes it and then
see if he wants to be an ambassador or
you know he wants to endorse it or
whatever is your goal is to work with
him so that’s all coordinated on the
platform so that’s an interesting point
who do you look for then if it’s not a
Magic Johnson he’s not motivated you
know he’s doing his real estate stuff
who were the types of athletes and I
guess experts that you’re then trying to
recruit to make this little platform
successful yeah I mean dirty little
secret is is that Fame in the offline
world of the television or movie world
does not equate to the ability to move
the needle right when I talk about
moving its awareness its engagement its
lead generation
it doesn’t necessarily equate I mean I I
see very little overlap it’s really the
people
that have become content creators and
promoters that are on the periphery of
the space that are really the ones moved
the needle I mean if you look at all the
youtubers that are generating you know
millions and millions of views every
episode that put out don’t want one
example I like to give this Mis climber
Ozzie foots on Believe It or Not makeup
once a week and she on average last time
I checked was getting four million views
per episode I mean what television
program is that right
so she’s just putting on makeup no
nobody she’s not a superstar she’s not a
famous model she just developed this
channel over time organically and it’s
grown into this huge phenomenon and now
she’s killing it she’s 18
Wow so it’s really targeting the guys
who already have an online focus and are
trying to grow yes and can move
audiences to act and and draw draw
attention to things that they like it’s
it’s not necessarily the athletes yeah
I’m wondering how does that transit in
in an athletes world do you need the
guys who are doing the I don’t know how
many officers are doing kind of how-to
videos like that but when is it the ones
who are active on Twitter and responding
to their fans and really engaging or how
do you quantify that in the athletes
world well I I almost look at most
athletes as promoters so a lot of them
on Twitter can really promote the living
daylights out of things but then that
goes away right the next day nobody’s
looking at that tweet but in the moment
if you got a bunch of athletes that are
promoting something and some of these
athletes you know get hundreds of
thousands of responses every tweet that
they get but it’s ephemeral it just it
goes away but it’s good for promoting
content that already exists that’s why
if you look at the inner circle that is
really where you got a focus is creating
getting somebody to create viral content
or as a possibility cream-oil content
then getting the promoters the athletes
to promote that and to add a discussion
by creating a little bit of micro
content themselves or a blog post or
something like that that is the secret
sauce that we figured out it took us a
long time and then of course with the
press layer that just makes it even more
legitimate and solidifies this her
effect that happens do you see
yourselves growing or
expanding to the point where you bring
on some of these athletes or experts
almost as an agency model and help train
them to be better and make them there’s
a lot of the athletes they may not you
know they’re great at basketball or
football or whatever but maybe not great
at pitching product that that girl who
has that four million views is awesome
eye makeup but again in terms of
pitching product and promoting something
they may not be great at it and that’s a
lot of work for you to educate and train
and I’m wondering if you know our rain
forest agency model might evolve where
you could coach these people to to be
better and represent them because a lot
of them they don’t want to handle the
product side of things right just let me
make youtube videos just let me play
basketball and you handle all that and
teach me how to how to pitch the
opportunities when they come in yeah and
there’s already companies that are kind
of do that just focused on YouTube I
think that’s where we’re gonna have to
go is really you know you just create
the content we’ll take care of
everything else
so there’s another model you know that
you’ll see in version two where we try
to minimize their participation but we
want their authority so we get their
authority and then we handle everything
else that needs to happen in order to
help the brand succeed so a little
cryptic but that I definitely don’t want
to give away we’re doing next but you’ve
hit the nail on the head I mean the big
problem is these athletes aren’t
marketers so they’ll do little things
like you know tweets but unless they’re
used to creating content it’s a
challenge getting them to do that yeah
but I mean training awareness following
a system and a process yeah it’s all
doable and having somebody like Magic
Johnson and Michael Jordan who’s done a
lot of stuff outside of just playing
their sport let me ask you this how
would you do that how would you set up a
training program because I’d be
interested in what your thoughts are on
that
um I think it would start with some of
the the athletes and experts who are
already kind of more well-known one of
the bigger audiences that you’re working
with right now who don’t really want to
focus on the business development side
of things so for example in my business
I have an agent and he goes on
represents me in cells
the hills and you know speaking
engagements and all that stuff and part
of what he does is every week I have a
training call with a media coach and we
look at you know she challenges me to
make different videos and to make other
types of content and we review it
together and then you know he’ll review
it once a month and give me advice and
back in tips and so I’ve gotten better
my videos have gotten better everything
I’ve done has gotten better which helps
me tremendously what also helps him go
out and sell me and so I’m part of kind
of his stable of people he focuses only
on kind of thought leaders experts
doesn’t touch athletics and you know
it’s not as wide-reaching as you would
be but I found that process really
valuable and I can only imagine people
who have bigger audiences and me and
maybe well-known in a different field
like athletics struggling to develop the
communication side especially when it
comes to video I’d be able to tell their
story and really develop an audience
that can last beyond their athletic
career like into the future and really
build a movement around their brain a
lot of these people have this you know
Authority their their passion of what
they do but they’re not necessarily
business people and can you get experts
and so they need help and you guys could
easily help people do that as an extra
service and having a platform to be to
be able to then help promote them to
people is a awesome benefit as well so
you would you know you’d have to sign
them to some kind of exclusive right and
then or at least work with their current
agent and have some kind of arrangement
where we would train them because I
would hate to train them and have them
go someplace else I don’t know what your
thoughts are on that yeah you have to
have you’d have to have something I mean
I have a contract you’d have to have a
contract if you’ve written in and and a
lot of agents like so the agent I’m with
is unique where a lot of agents don’t
provide the training like I get a weekly
call with a media coach to help me get
better on the videos that exist in a lot
of agencies and that could be your arm
right you can
a percentage of every deal that is made
so the agent takes 23% defendant 15%
outfit the client you know you can take
a cut of that in them or in for training
them and then take a bigger out of that
it’s you have a platform and clients as
well that’s a good idea
we got to put some more thought into
that because it’s definitely needed out
there I just look at it as a monster
task right now you can imagine almost no
one has media training they have media
training in terms of what to say what
not to say about theirs their game on
the field right for it but in terms of
promoting and working with brands to you
know free content or to promote content
or promote products they love I don’t
know of anyone doing that Wow yeah for
its version – yeah we’re pretty ready up
it’s crazy the time flies ah people
watching where can you learn more about
you yes so you can go to rain forests
comets both are a why in forest calm and
or you could go to forbes.com slash mark
Fidel Minh I talk about marketing a lot
in social mobile as well on the forums
as well thank you Mark so much for
joining us everybody who watched asked
questions thank you guys this will be
posted to YouTube for consumption
whenever you guys want thanks mark have
a great day we’ll talk to you thanks
Evan it was a pleasure thank you yes
bye
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