Influencers get a lot of attention and can make a lot of money.
But what about the brands they are endorsing? Where do brands fit as this new frontier of eCommerce continues to unfold?
Brands are as much at the center of things as influencers. In fact, you could say the two are intertwined.
“It is a two-way street,” according to Forbes. “…A symbiotic relationship between brand and influencer, as they help each other grow and refine their branding.”
Maintaining a commanding position at the intersection where brands and influencers meet is BILI—which stands for “Because I Love It.” BILI raised over a million dollars through seed and bridge rounds; and doubled the valuation of its company since it began about a year ago.
BILI empowers influencers to become their own ‘mini-retailers,’ reducing costs for everyone involved, especially brands.
Influencers create their own personalized online store at store.BecauseILoveIt.com, featuring their favorite products.
They also receive a personalized store link to share across any social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. The link can also be shared by text and email. BILI handles the hard work of transactions, customer service and logistics, while the influencers can monitor their real-time sales on their personalized dashboard. An example creator testimonial explaining the process can be found here, BILI.
BILI targets mid-to-macro influencers, typically with 50,000 to 500,000 followers, respectively, instead of mega-influencers like Kendall Jenner, who have millions of followers. It may sound counterintuitive, but this strategy is positioned for success.
Influencers with fewer followers are typically more specialized and tend to have a more engaged audience, with data showing their engagement rates to be two-to-three times higher than mega-influencers.
Collaborating with influencers can also boost a brand’s SEO. A promotion or product review left on a creator video can lead to customers searching for related keywords, increasing a brand’s rank across search engines. This, in turn, can increase web traffic and generate sales.
Any brand that ships directly to consumers in North America can leverage the company’s 10,000+ influencer database.
With a performance-based system, BILI enables influencers to earn commissions and fees for endorsing products directly from the brand, working seamlessly across all social media channels.
“They love and share the product with the people who love them,” said BILI Co-Founder and CEO Adrian Capobianco, who emphasized the importance of an influencer’s personal connection with their audience.
BILI aims to transform its 10,000+ influencers into a retail channel for brands, so they can reach the more than 200-300 million people who engage with these influencers each day. According to a Nielsen Analytics Company survey, roughly 92% of consumers rely on influencer recommendations before making purchase decisions.
Furthermore, BILI seeks to cut out the middleman. When a brand works with an influencer through a traditional retailer, it may receive only 45% on each dollar. However, by partnering with BILI’s influencers directly, brands can earn 65-80% on each dollar, with no upfront or fixed costs.
BILI also helps brands to scale their sales operations.
“With BILI, brands can scale their sales efforts in a risk-free and cost-effective way,” emphasizes Capobianco. “Our platform allows creators to reach potential shoppers directly, every day, without succumbing to the control and dominance of retailers. BILI offers a new, unique sales channel for brands that enables them to access customers in an unprecedented way.”
BILI capitalizes on the opportunities presented by the under-utilization of mid-to-macro influencers. And it taps into the strong audience relationship nurtured by influencers who have fewer followers than mega-influencers. Mid-to-macro influencers maintain a stronger connection with their audience because everything unfolds on a more personal scale. Followers may put more trust in the products they endorse because they feel more connected to the individual influencer.
The origins of BILI date back to the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Adrian reconnected with an old business partner, Howard He, and the two began talking about high-end clothing stores. They observed that, with the drop in retail store traffic, shops were dispatching consultants into client homes.
From there, they shifted the conversation to influencers, their social savviness, and how technology could scale this process. It was during this conversation that Capobianco and He realized the potential of expanding their platform to every potential category of influencer, creating an aggregated community of creators and providing an opportunity for businesses to sell through them.
“How do we help every creator capitalize on their connection with hundreds of millions of potential shoppers? How do we enable them to monetize their efforts?” Capobianco recalls thinking.
This vision laid the groundwork for a next-generation social media retail operation that harnesses the power of influencers while helping them to earn a fair share for their efforts.
As the brand continues to scale its offering, they haven’t stopped innovating. Currently, they are integrating AI-driven technologies to help creators develop posts quicker and more efficiently. It’s this type of innovation and testing that will keep BILI at the forefront of this quickly growing industry.
Visit becauseiloveit.com to learn more.
