March 25, 2025 • 27 mins
Influencer marketing isn’t what it used to be. Brands are shifting from chasing big names to working with highly engaged niche influencers. So how do you find the right influencers and create partnerships that actually drive results?
I’m joined by influencer marketing expert Sherri Langburt, who’s breaking down what’s working now and how brands can maximize their influencer partnerships.
If influencer marketing is part of your strategy, this episode is a must-listen.
In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:
- How to measure real influence beyond just follower count
- Why nano & micro influencers are outperforming big names
- What’s working in UGC & brand partnerships right now
- How AI is shaping the future of influencer marketing
…And More!
This Episode Was Made Possible By:
Riverside All-in-One Podcast & Video Platform
Visit Riverside and use the code DREA to get 15% off any Riverside individual plan. We use it to record all our podcast interviews: https://onlinedrea.com/riverside
About the Guest:
Sherri is the founder and CEO of BabbleBoxx, an influencer marketing agency that helps brands mix influencer strategies into their marketing plans for a true omnichannel experience. Early in Sherri's career, she created one of the first SaaS-based influencer marketing platforms, which eventually led to what would become BabbleBoxx. Her approach to marketing invites a 'slow the scroll and engage audiences' strategy by connecting hand-picked influencers across categories with companies of all sizes to execute co-sampling and signature “boxx” marketing strategies largely dependent on social content.
Sherri is an excellent and experienced speaker who has received outstanding reviews for content and delivery. Sherri was the Keynote speaker at the national 2022 AMA Digital Marketing Conference. Other speaking engagements have included the Path-to-Purchase Institute - Executive Network Conference, ANA Influencer Marketing Committee Conference, Digital Summit, and CEO Club of Baltimore. She is also an avid supporter of non-profit and educational organizations, including Feeding America, G.L.A.D.D, UJA, The Ronald McDonald House, U.C.L.A., and Seton Hall University, where she lends expertise and is often a guest speaker at events. Sherri offers volunteer one-on-one business counseling to the Women’s Center for Entrepreneurship of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Website: https://babbleboxx.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/babbleboxx/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/babbleboxxofficial/
Go to the show notes for all the resources mentioned in this episode: https://onlinedrea.com/350
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you are curious to dive into the world of influencer marketing,
especially getting the right influencers in your
corner so that they can help you promote your brand and your
business, this episode of the Mindful Marketing podcast is
for you. But before we dive into this fantastic conversation with Sherri
Langburt, first, a word from our sponsor.
(00:21):
Riverside is the all in one podcast recording and editing tool
that I use for this right here show. I use it to edit not
only the audio in the video. It is like chef's kiss, magical,
making the entire process so, so easy.
Plus I love their magic AI
clips. Their little AI robot in the background pulls
(00:43):
out the most impactful moments of the episodes without me having to
comb through and do it myself, resizes them for social media. So those
vertical videos you see on TikTok and reels, those all come from
magic AI inside of Riverside. It's literally one click. It
spits out 10 clips. I pick the best one and away I go saves
me so much time. If you want to get on the Riverside train, check it
(01:06):
out today, the links in the show notes, and make sure to use my code
DREA, D R E A, at checkout to get 15%
off your membership. I'm excited for this conversation
today because I have been on both side of sides of the aisle as an
influencer and as a marketer, and I'm excited to get into what's
working here now in today in 2025 with influencer marketing. And
(01:28):
with that, Sherri, welcome to the show. Thank you so much,
Andrea. Nice to meet you. Thanks for having me. Yes. I'm really excited for
this conversation. But to give our listeners some context,
tell me, how did you get into the world of influencer marketing?
K. I kinda stumbled upon it. I was working corporate America,
way back when, and, kind of one of the things that I
(01:51):
was working on was ad sales. And our business was
really subscription focused. And as I started to
kind of explore ad sales opportunities, a lot of the
brands were looking to work with influencers. And
so we put that into our fold, and it kinda started to work
really well. And that's when I said, I am gonna go break out on my
(02:12):
own because no one is doing this and no one is focusing on it. And
I'm gonna start an agency that focuses on helping
the brands and the agencies find the right influencers
to do their content promotions. Yeah. I love
this. And I feel like people think, you know, influencer marketing is
a new thing, but brands have been using other people to
(02:35):
promote their content and their their products for a while. But for those
people who are listening, how do you how do you define an influencer?
What is an influencer? I mean, look. I think that there's
different ways to define, and I think everyone has their own definition.
Certainly, if you're looking at a TikTok or Instagram or a Pinterest or a YouTube,
it's gonna be very different from the type of influencer that you find on
(02:57):
LinkedIn. And I think that it's also very different if you are
in pharma or finance where there's high like, highly regulated
industries versus beauty or food or fashion.
So but, you know, in the industry, I think, you know, there's
different thresholds. So there's, like, the nanos, the micros, the macros,
the megas, and all the way up to celebrities, and those are different thresholds.
(03:20):
Most people would say a nano is someone who has a
following on any of these given platforms of over 5,000
followers. Some would say it's 2,000. I personally think it should
be 10,000. So anyone upward of that, and
then the tiers start happening as you go higher.
Okay. I wanna get into this because I feel like the world of
(03:41):
influencer marketing has changed a lot. So for context, I used to be
a fashion blogger. I worked I would say, like, if I were gonna
name drop, I worked with Steve Madden, like, in 2012. So
this was, like, this was, like, at the time, it was weird. My
friends were like, what are you doing? How how do you have photos with Steve
Madden? Right? And I'm like, oh, I just have my little blog and my YouTube
(04:04):
channel. I think it's changed so much
over the years. Right? So, you know, if we're taking
2012 to today, like, what are some of the changes at influencer
marketing that have happened over the years?
Interesting. It's, like, when you start to think about what's going on right now with
TikTok. Right? I think back then, because I've been doing it
(04:25):
even longer than two twelve 2012, blogs were still a
thing. And long format content in a blog and the beauty of that
was there was not just the written and the video that you could put in
there, but there was placements for programmatic. So but
you owned your channel. TikTok, like, wasn't a
thing. Pinterest was still kind of a thing. Like, people loved
(04:47):
Pinterest. And so I think, you know and I think that
static was still much more of a focus than
video. So there's just so many things that come into play. You could also look
again at the different verticals and industries. You know, people
certain industries have been later to the game. I think we've gotten very niche,
very specific, in terms of, like,
(05:11):
before it was like, oh, we need mom bloggers or mom influencers or
mom creators now saying, we need women who live in Chicago who will eat
organic and have, you know, a blue cat and, you
know, three boys who, you know, don't eat meat.
It's so specific now, because there's so many
creators, and I think you have to when we talk about, you know, these buds
(05:33):
where it's like the the content has to be authentic. Well, you
know, if you wanna do a campaign and you're a retailer, but the influencer that
you choose shops at your competitors, that's not authentic. So there's a
lot more that goes into it than just, you know, we need a mom
influencer. Yeah. It has changed so much. And I
think for the better because I think, you know, brands can get,
(05:55):
these influencers that are their their communities are so bought in. Like,
they're so tuned in. It can make or break a a brand.
So when you and your company are kind of, like, looking at these influencers,
how can you tell if they're they actually have influence? Because I've been on
these Internet streets for a while. I know people could buy followers. So how do
you tell if they're, like, actually influential? So you look at the
(06:17):
engagement rates. Right? And you could look at, you know, a like
to me is a vanity metric. So anyone scrolling
I have a a big heart, so whenever I see anyone post I'm liking,
I might not even look at what they're doing. And that's just me as a
human. Right? So I think you look at the comments, and even if
they had, you know, great amount of engagement on the comment side,
(06:40):
are the comments relevant? So if I'm talking about, you
know, a new, you know, protein shake, but everyone's commenting
on my haircut, not relevant. So looking
at the comments, looking at, I think, some metrics that
people don't look into, and you could ask the influencer for this, is previous
content that they shared. Not just the comments, not just the likes,
(07:02):
but the saves, the reshares. Because the saves
show how many people had intent to go back, maybe attempt to
purchase. The shares show, like, how many people thought that this was
engaging enough to circulate with other people, so the viral nature of the
content. You could also look in stories if there was links or, you
know, kind of those stickers. So sticker taps, link clicks. I think
(07:24):
it's everything that you have to look at and not just, like, right
up front what you're seeing as as a as an onlooker from their stats.
Yeah. And it's definitely gotten more complicated too, both on
the influencer sides and the brand side of, like, looking at those
success metrics. And I think one of the challenging things is,
you know, the you mentioned, like, niche communities.
(07:47):
Sometimes the niche communities can at first appear
smaller, but they they're very influential. And you
mentioned, you know, with this nano all the way up to celebrities. So, you
know, when a brand is looking at you know, should we go with a bunch
of nano influencers, or should we go after, like, a bigger influencer?
How do you decide the mix between the smaller, like,
(08:09):
niche communities and the larger, like, more seemingly
impactful influencers? So
I'm, I think it obviously boils down to your objectives and your
goals, and every brand is different. But as a marketer, I
look at, if I could get one person who's gonna create
one set of content and reach one audience
(08:31):
versus, let's just say, one is the same amount of, you know,
financial investment as 10 or 20 or
30. But I should get those multiple people that add
up to the amount of followers and engagements and as the
one, why wouldn't I want to have diverse content,
multiple sources of content, different formats of content, reach different
(08:52):
audiences, etcetera? And so that's kind of where I look
at it. I think it's not that one performs
better than the other in terms of just the reach. It's everything else. Are
your goals to get more content? Are your rules to goals to tap into new
audiences? Are your goals to reach people throughout the country in different locations, different
voices, different interests? Maybe within
(09:15):
the same niche, but a little bit different. I think that's why I'd always go
for the more versus the one. Yeah. Yeah. I I definitely see
the beauty of that too. Even from, like, a brand perspective now, you have so
many more assets to be able to, like, circulate around Yeah. Like, your
community and all of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of
UGC, what do you see working really well right now?
(09:35):
Because I think that engagement's down across the board. Like, we all can
see that, especially on our beloved Instagram. It's just not like it used to
be. So what what are, like, the types of content UGC
pieces that are working really well right now? I don't know if it's
just necessarily the UGC. I think it's also little touch points.
Right? There's little places that people aren't leveraging,
(09:58):
like making sure the content is in your highlights. If
you're hiring an influencer, have that in your contract for a few days or a
week. Making sure they don't remove the post after they got paid.
Right? So making sure it stays up there. There's a little notes feature.
There's all these different areas. Link in bio. I
think that there's all these different areas that are small, tiny
(10:20):
touch points that can end up helping optimize
optimizing the content more or
showcasing it, like, referencing it more is what I'm trying to
say. You know, obviously, you look at
something like TikTok and how it impacted and all these trends. I think
we're gonna go away from those sounds and those trends a little bit, and it's
(10:42):
gonna be more meaningful content. So more the educational, more
the experience of me and my life and how I live my
life as opposed to, like, you know, a wee you know, a cute song. I'm
not saying they're gonna go away, but combination of some of
these touch points that no one is it's all the little, you
know, kind of toggles you could turn to make something work
(11:04):
even more. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. And I think this
just goes for, like, marketing in general. Like, there's so many
different places where you can connect, so might as well use them all to your
advantage. Okay. So when we think about working with influencers,
one of the things that was frustrating for me when I was working for with
influencers is that it really is like relationship
(11:26):
management. Right? Like when you're when you're working with someone, you're
partnering with them, and there's a lot of trust involved there.
So when brands are looking at building those relationships, building trust
with influencers, what are some of the things that brands can think about as they're
starting to go down the path of working with some of these
influencers? So, obviously, given creators are creator because
(11:48):
they're creative. Right? And so giving them that freedom,
one of the things that we see that works really well is collaborating with them
in terms of the content. So giving us concepts in
advance so that you go back and forth and it's a mutual
dialogue. Because I think what creators have to realize too is
sometimes, if there's 10 creators on the campaign, everyone's submitting
(12:11):
the same idea for a recipe, like a poke bowl idea for a
rice bran. And so it's not that the brands are trying to get
pushback. It's that they definitely don't need 10 pokeball
recipes. It's hitting the same thing. And so giving the creator
you know, I think it goes both ways, giving them some flexibility and
creative control in terms of submitting concepts, but also on the
(12:33):
creator side, you know, really understanding that it's not
that the brand is trying to give you pushback. We do sometimes see brands that
are just you know, we don't like what what the influencer's wearing,
but that should be in the upfront. Like, a brand should kind of if you
don't like what she's her her aesthetic, it's personal, it might
not be on brand for you, then you shouldn't, you know, kind of engage with
(12:56):
them. So I think giving the influencers the
autonomy to do creative, but having parameters in control and letting them
know why, as long as you let them know the why. Like, we're not trying
to be too rigid. We just have different creators submitting ideas, and
we wanna make sure we have, you know, a broad, you know,
pool of options from which to choose. And also, another
(13:18):
thing is, you know, what we always have talked about, like, these ongoing
partnerships. So, you know, instead of just working, like, one and done, we need
you for this, have that ongoing relationship with the influencer.
So maybe it's that you do an always on program with the influencer,
you know, during key seasons or, you know, four times a year
so that they know in advance that their year is as a partner
(13:42):
as opposed to just like, you know, we need you and, you know,
next up, we're gonna go with someone else. Yeah.
Yeah. I find that interesting, like, the long term partnership piece
because I find myself, just like as a human, gravitating towards
people who talk very consistently about the things that they love. Right? And
so when, brands can find those influencers
(14:04):
who are already kind of having those conversations, I think that really does make
it, you know, mutually beneficial. What
about from the influencer side? I'm just curious, just
wanna be a little bit nosy too about this because I think
influencers have to also be selective about the brands that they work with. So
what are what are the some of the things that brands can do to make
(14:26):
their products interesting enough that, you know, the top influencers,
top creators wanna work with them. I need to say one thing before
because it highlights for both. It's a bridge. I see a lot, you know, when
you're not working with an agency and you're an influencer and you're an independent,
and then your bill doesn't get paid for the
thirty days, the six whatever the terms are, the sixty days, the ninety days.
(14:50):
And I think everyone should just understand that most influencers are, you know, solopreneurs,
and they don't have a legal team to go chasing a bill, making
sure you pay your bills on time, because it really impacts the like,
I'm gonna cry like, it's just so heartbreaking to see that and I get
it. You know, huge multi conglomerate, one influencer's
invoice is getting lost amidst bigger payments that have to go out,
(15:13):
but being sensitive to the
creator environment and that, you know, these people, you know, are working with you
and for you when they need to get paid on time. Some of the
one of the things, you know, in terms of how do you make your products
stand out, I think merch. I mean, you started to see it the
past few years, but merch is just and I see it
(15:34):
not just like everyone thinks like, okay, I'm gonna create a water bottle. Bottle. It
doesn't have to be a water bottle. There's so much creative. Or if you're
a service brand bringing things to life with merch because
think about finance. Like, what am I gonna show that's really so interesting in
finance? There's nothing, you know, and there are
things. Like, we've done little baby onesies for an insurance brand.
(15:56):
So the moms with life insurance, it brings it to life. I
think anything that you could do, we have to understand that the world is
so visual right now. And even if you're a brand that
maybe doesn't have a product that is visual or as a
compliment to a product that is visual, you know, adding that merch is
great. We do the custom boxes, not just for the
(16:18):
unboxing experience, but for the the staging
properties within the kit. Because when an influencer gets
a kit, they have all this other unique items that create that
whole experience and gets them excited, and then their photos and their videos
are more elevated, etcetera. So so those are some of the things that we're seeing
that really move the needle in terms of, you know, kinda
(16:40):
making things stand out. Yeah. I I always love a good
unboxing. I'm always the one who, like, if if my faithful influencer
is unboxing, I'm watching it. I'm watching the whole thing. Like I wanna see
give me the packaging, like let me hear the crinkle, I need to
experience it. And I think it is like you said it's a
very sensory experience no matter if you have physical
(17:02):
products or not. But one of the things that you mentioned that I'm curious about
too is, like, photos and videos. Is there a particular
style of content that's working really well right now for influencers?
Is it all video or are photos still are they still alive
and well? Well, Instagram just came out with the new algorithm,
like, the big reveal of how their algorithm's gonna work. I think it dropped this
(17:24):
morning. And so I think it's it's really gonna focus on
video. Personally, again, it goes back to the brand and
what they need. We have brands that reach out that they still need
the static because they're using that static for other things.
Right? They need it for ads. They need it for their website. They need it
for product, you know, product books, things like
(17:46):
that, sales kits. So it really depends. One of the things
that I think so many companies think about or
focus on is we need the social awareness. But I'm always pushing, like,
omnichannel. Right? How do you like, influencers is not
just like, oh, what's the ROI on influencer? But that's only when you look at
it with from through the lens of, like, how many how much awareness
(18:09):
and how many sales am I getting? But if you really look at it, like,
how could we take the influencer content, which technically is
elevated, and drop it into various other parts of
marketing, A, the consumer journey is gonna be much more
cohesive and you could save money because you're not gonna be like someone's not gonna
be sitting there saying, Oh, I need to go buy an image from whatever
(18:30):
platform they use to buy images or videos on. There's so many other use
cases. So I think looking at it through a more holistic lens
through the entire marketing organization is important. Yeah.
Honestly, to me, that's one of the biggest benefits of working with influencers is
that you have a team creating content for you that you can
then leverage in other elements. When I was working on this on the agency
(18:53):
side for this, one of my biggest clients was a product, like, a beauty
brand where we would do photo shoots. We would do the
style video shoots, but those weren't the top performing content pieces. It was our
UGC from our influencers that would drive
the the content forward. So we were, like, repurposing the heck out
of it because it made the most sense from a brand perspective
(19:15):
and not just on social, but, like, on the website, in the emails. Like, there's
so many different ways you can leverage these assets, especially, you know, depending
on how your contracts are laid out. Like, there's so many different things you could
do as a brand with that influencer content. So yeah. I mean, you paid for
it. Might as well use it to the its fullest extent. Right? Right.
Yeah. So when we're thinking about that, like, headed into
(19:37):
this upcoming year, one of the biggest things, I think challenges that
brands are bumping up against is, like, the AI conversation.
So what what are influencers what are brands doing to
mitigate the risks of AI? But then, also, I would love to hear
about, like, some of the benefits of AI in influencer marketing as
well. You know, I think that you have to make sure
(20:01):
that the approvals and checkpoints are in place to make sure that something doesn't
look you know, it's just like my 13 year old. He comes home from school
and he thinks he's gonna pull one over, you know. And I know when he
uses AI and the teacher knows when they use AI and, you know, there have
to be checks in place. But I do think it has
merit, right? You're stuck on creating ideas for your
(20:22):
content calendar. You could be really specific. I don't think
anyone is gonna go out and copy exactly, but it's an
idea generator. It helps you think of ideas. It helps
you check your work. So you could put in, you know, a guidelines
from a brief and then upload, you know, the caption copy and say, does this
make did I miss anything? Can you edit this? I think it's a
(20:44):
good kind of tool in terms of idea generation
and editing and things like that. But I don't think I think the
influencers themselves, they're not gonna start replacing themselves and
replacing real footage with fake footage in an
full video because this is what they do. Yeah.
Yeah. A %. And I think AI can feel
(21:06):
scary. And, yeah, there are some people who are, like, using it maliciously. But I
think for the most part, like, if we learn to embrace it and use it
as a tool to help us with our creative work, it could be it could
be really interesting use case. And I think there's just so many ways
that we haven't even explored yet, like, the the true extent of
how it can help. You mean someone put in my name
(21:27):
into some I don't know what platform and said, can you create a BabbleBox
podcast that would be five like, the thirty second intro? And it was like me
talking, introducing a podcast.
Wild. Yeah. Well, time will tell. Time
will tell. I'm not doing it, but I'm just saying it's like, I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah. I really hope we don't have AI influencers,
(21:49):
but I mean, I already see it happening.
So yeah. Okay. I would love to
hear some success stories as well. So I think one of
the challenges, especially for brands who are newer
to influencer marketing, is that sometimes we can't conceptualize.
Like, what does success look like as we're starting to deploy some of
(22:11):
these strategies? So can you share an example of a campaign that really stood
out to you where the influencer had a an impact on
the brand's success story? I'm gonna give you two because I just did a
campaign wrap up call with the client. So we have a program that we designed
specifically for smaller emerging brands because we know influencer can be
daunting and expensive. And so we do these themed
(22:33):
boxes where there's five brands in a box. Not
brand specific, it's a theme. So we just did a kid's toy one for
holiday. And that campaign, it's
less expensive because you're pooling your ad dollars. It goes up to 20
influencers. So you're getting a lot of bang for your buck. They're all micros.
But when we looked at the stats, there were like
(22:56):
a hun like, beyond it's not just the
impression reach. It was the views were over, like, 300,000
views. The likes, the comments were over fifteen, sixteen,
17 thousand. I mean, it was outrageous. So I think, you
know, looking at, like, different creative
ways to do influencer, that's one example.
(23:19):
You know, I I think you have to also frame it. You know, a lot
of times, a newer brand, an emerging brand, everything is ROI
focused. They're dependent on that sale. And so if that's
where you are, that's okay. But then I would just focus on
working independently, find one or two people, search for people who
actually know your brand maybe or writing about your brand, and work
(23:40):
with one person and grow it organically until you get to two people or
three people when you could afford it. I think the misconception is I'm gonna work
with one influencer, and they're gonna get me this many sales. And once you
think it's just sales driven, it's not just sales driven. As I said
before, there's so many other ways in which
an influencer can move the needle for you. So they're saving you in
(24:02):
terms of creating your own content now. All you have you have a content library.
You know, you could use these assets. You can boost an influencer's content. You could
turn it into ads. You can use it for your website, your newsletter, you
know, ratings and reviews, endorsements. Like, look at this
influencer who worked with us. So I think thinking of creative
ways, and I'll give you an example. Like, on smaller spends,
(24:25):
you know, if you spend you know, it's not gonna be if I spend
$5,000, I'm gonna get $15.20, $30,000. You have to think
of other ways, in which you're gonna
monetize that content. I'm not saying it can't happen. It
does happen. But, you know, repeating
a message over and over, especially when you're a smaller brand and no one
(24:47):
knows who you are, is really Yeah. And I
think that's one of the beautiful things that I love about influencer marketing is, like,
it's not us patting ourselves on the back going like, oh, our product is awesome.
It's like someone else, like, validating that for our for
us and in our marketing. And I love this idea of the curated
box, like, influencer box. It's such a
(25:10):
brilliant idea. Beautiful. I love it. So if someone's listening to this and they're like,
okay. I need I need to work with Sherri and her team. Tell
us more about how you help brands and influencers work together. So we
work on the brand side. Right? We have thousands of influencers, but we
work on the brand side. We do brand dedicated campaigns, which is what
probably everyone knows and sees the locks. Right? A regular influencer
(25:32):
campaign. We have our co promotions, which are these themed
multi brand solutions. We have all different boxes (25:35):
food,
new mom and baby, pet, kids, health
wellness. Those bring in five non competing brands. And then we do
the custom kits too. But essentially we're working with
companies or the agencies to come up with the strategies, find the
right program, make up the whole kind of
(25:57):
scope of work for what we're gonna do, and then we find the influencers that
fit the specific need that we're looking to do. Yes. I
love this. So if you're listening to this and you wanna work with BabbleBox, I'm
gonna put a link in the show notes online
dreya.com/350 so you can learn more. Where
else can people connect with you online? I'm on LinkedIn under Sherri
(26:18):
Langford on LinkedIn, and then BabbleBox is BabbleBox
official on LinkedIn, on Instagram, and all the other
channels as well. And then our website. Oh, awesome. Awesome. I'll put all of those
links in the show notes, y'all. Check them out. Sherri, thank you so much for
being on the show today. Thank you so much. It was so lovely chatting with
you. Yes. And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the
(26:39):
Mindful Marketing Podcast. Make sure you join us in the Mindful Marketing Lab if you
Marketing Podcast. Make sure you join us in the Mindful Marketing Lab if you wanna
go even deeper into these marketing strategies. We have a special
guest coming in the lab this month to talk all about playfulness in
marketing and in our business, so stay tuned for that. And I'll have a new
episode for you next Tuesday, so I'll see you then. Bye for
(26:59):
now.
If you are curious to dive into the world of influencer marketing,
especially getting the right influencers in your
corner so that they can help you promote your brand and your
business, this episode of the Mindful Marketing podcast is
for you. But before we dive into this fantastic conversation with Sherri
Langburt, first, a word from our sponsor.
(00:21):
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out today, the links in the show notes, and make sure to use my code
DREA, D R E A, at checkout to get 15%
off your membership. I'm excited for this conversation
today because I have been on both side of sides of the aisle as an
influencer and as a marketer, and I'm excited to get into what's
working here now in today in 2025 with influencer marketing. And
(01:28):
with that, Sherri, welcome to the show. Thank you so much,
Andrea. Nice to meet you. Thanks for having me. Yes. I'm really excited for
this conversation. But to give our listeners some context,
tell me, how did you get into the world of influencer marketing?
K. I kinda stumbled upon it. I was working corporate America,
way back when, and, kind of one of the things that I
(01:51):
was working on was ad sales. And our business was
really subscription focused. And as I started to
kind of explore ad sales opportunities, a lot of the
brands were looking to work with influencers. And
so we put that into our fold, and it kinda started to work
really well. And that's when I said, I am gonna go break out on my
(02:12):
own because no one is doing this and no one is focusing on it. And
I'm gonna start an agency that focuses on helping
the brands and the agencies find the right influencers
to do their content promotions. Yeah. I love
this. And I feel like people think, you know, influencer marketing is
a new thing, but brands have been using other people to
(02:35):
promote their content and their their products for a while. But for those
people who are listening, how do you how do you define an influencer?
What is an influencer? I mean, look. I think that there's
different ways to define, and I think everyone has their own definition.
Certainly, if you're looking at a TikTok or Instagram or a Pinterest or a YouTube,
it's gonna be very different from the type of influencer that you find on
(02:57):
LinkedIn. And I think that it's also very different if you are
in pharma or finance where there's high like, highly regulated
industries versus beauty or food or fashion.
So but, you know, in the industry, I think, you know, there's
different thresholds. So there's, like, the nanos, the micros, the macros,
the megas, and all the way up to celebrities, and those are different thresholds.
(03:20):
Most people would say a nano is someone who has a
following on any of these given platforms of over 5,000
followers. Some would say it's 2,000. I personally think it should
be 10,000. So anyone upward of that, and
then the tiers start happening as you go higher.
Okay. I wanna get into this because I feel like the world of
(03:41):
influencer marketing has changed a lot. So for context, I used to be
a fashion blogger. I worked I would say, like, if I were gonna
name drop, I worked with Steve Madden, like, in 2012. So
this was, like, this was, like, at the time, it was weird. My
friends were like, what are you doing? How how do you have photos with Steve
Madden? Right? And I'm like, oh, I just have my little blog and my YouTube
(04:04):
channel. I think it's changed so much
over the years. Right? So, you know, if we're taking
2012 to today, like, what are some of the changes at influencer
marketing that have happened over the years?
Interesting. It's, like, when you start to think about what's going on right now with
TikTok. Right? I think back then, because I've been doing it
(04:25):
even longer than two twelve 2012, blogs were still a
thing. And long format content in a blog and the beauty of that
was there was not just the written and the video that you could put in
there, but there was placements for programmatic. So but
you owned your channel. TikTok, like, wasn't a
thing. Pinterest was still kind of a thing. Like, people loved
(04:47):
Pinterest. And so I think, you know and I think that
static was still much more of a focus than
video. So there's just so many things that come into play. You could also look
again at the different verticals and industries. You know, people
certain industries have been later to the game. I think we've gotten very niche,
very specific, in terms of, like,
(05:11):
before it was like, oh, we need mom bloggers or mom influencers or
mom creators now saying, we need women who live in Chicago who will eat
organic and have, you know, a blue cat and, you
know, three boys who, you know, don't eat meat.
It's so specific now, because there's so many
creators, and I think you have to when we talk about, you know, these buds
(05:33):
where it's like the the content has to be authentic. Well, you
know, if you wanna do a campaign and you're a retailer, but the influencer that
you choose shops at your competitors, that's not authentic. So there's a
lot more that goes into it than just, you know, we need a mom
influencer. Yeah. It has changed so much. And I
think for the better because I think, you know, brands can get,
(05:55):
these influencers that are their their communities are so bought in. Like,
they're so tuned in. It can make or break a a brand.
So when you and your company are kind of, like, looking at these influencers,
how can you tell if they're they actually have influence? Because I've been on
these Internet streets for a while. I know people could buy followers. So how do
you tell if they're, like, actually influential? So you look at the
(06:17):
engagement rates. Right? And you could look at, you know, a like
to me is a vanity metric. So anyone scrolling
I have a a big heart, so whenever I see anyone post I'm liking,
I might not even look at what they're doing. And that's just me as a
human. Right? So I think you look at the comments, and even if
they had, you know, great amount of engagement on the comment side,
(06:40):
are the comments relevant? So if I'm talking about, you
know, a new, you know, protein shake, but everyone's commenting
on my haircut, not relevant. So looking
at the comments, looking at, I think, some metrics that
people don't look into, and you could ask the influencer for this, is previous
content that they shared. Not just the comments, not just the likes,
(07:02):
but the saves, the reshares. Because the saves
show how many people had intent to go back, maybe attempt to
purchase. The shares show, like, how many people thought that this was
engaging enough to circulate with other people, so the viral nature of the
content. You could also look in stories if there was links or, you
know, kind of those stickers. So sticker taps, link clicks. I think
(07:24):
it's everything that you have to look at and not just, like, right
up front what you're seeing as as a as an onlooker from their stats.
Yeah. And it's definitely gotten more complicated too, both on
the influencer sides and the brand side of, like, looking at those
success metrics. And I think one of the challenging things is,
you know, the you mentioned, like, niche communities.
(07:47):
Sometimes the niche communities can at first appear
smaller, but they they're very influential. And you
mentioned, you know, with this nano all the way up to celebrities. So, you
know, when a brand is looking at you know, should we go with a bunch
of nano influencers, or should we go after, like, a bigger influencer?
How do you decide the mix between the smaller, like,
(08:09):
niche communities and the larger, like, more seemingly
impactful influencers? So
I'm, I think it obviously boils down to your objectives and your
goals, and every brand is different. But as a marketer, I
look at, if I could get one person who's gonna create
one set of content and reach one audience
(08:31):
versus, let's just say, one is the same amount of, you know,
financial investment as 10 or 20 or
30. But I should get those multiple people that add
up to the amount of followers and engagements and as the
one, why wouldn't I want to have diverse content,
multiple sources of content, different formats of content, reach different
(08:52):
audiences, etcetera? And so that's kind of where I look
at it. I think it's not that one performs
better than the other in terms of just the reach. It's everything else. Are
your goals to get more content? Are your rules to goals to tap into new
audiences? Are your goals to reach people throughout the country in different locations, different
voices, different interests? Maybe within
(09:15):
the same niche, but a little bit different. I think that's why I'd always go
for the more versus the one. Yeah. Yeah. I I definitely see
the beauty of that too. Even from, like, a brand perspective now, you have so
many more assets to be able to, like, circulate around Yeah. Like, your
community and all of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of
UGC, what do you see working really well right now?
(09:35):
Because I think that engagement's down across the board. Like, we all can
see that, especially on our beloved Instagram. It's just not like it used to
be. So what what are, like, the types of content UGC
pieces that are working really well right now? I don't know if it's
just necessarily the UGC. I think it's also little touch points.
Right? There's little places that people aren't leveraging,
(09:58):
like making sure the content is in your highlights. If
you're hiring an influencer, have that in your contract for a few days or a
week. Making sure they don't remove the post after they got paid.
Right? So making sure it stays up there. There's a little notes feature.
There's all these different areas. Link in bio. I
think that there's all these different areas that are small, tiny
(10:20):
touch points that can end up helping optimize
optimizing the content more or
showcasing it, like, referencing it more is what I'm trying to
say. You know, obviously, you look at
something like TikTok and how it impacted and all these trends. I think
we're gonna go away from those sounds and those trends a little bit, and it's
(10:42):
gonna be more meaningful content. So more the educational, more
the experience of me and my life and how I live my
life as opposed to, like, you know, a wee you know, a cute song. I'm
not saying they're gonna go away, but combination of some of
these touch points that no one is it's all the little, you
know, kind of toggles you could turn to make something work
(11:04):
even more. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. And I think this
just goes for, like, marketing in general. Like, there's so many
different places where you can connect, so might as well use them all to your
advantage. Okay. So when we think about working with influencers,
one of the things that was frustrating for me when I was working for with
influencers is that it really is like relationship
(11:26):
management. Right? Like when you're when you're working with someone, you're
partnering with them, and there's a lot of trust involved there.
So when brands are looking at building those relationships, building trust
with influencers, what are some of the things that brands can think about as they're
starting to go down the path of working with some of these
influencers? So, obviously, given creators are creator because
(11:48):
they're creative. Right? And so giving them that freedom,
one of the things that we see that works really well is collaborating with them
in terms of the content. So giving us concepts in
advance so that you go back and forth and it's a mutual
dialogue. Because I think what creators have to realize too is
sometimes, if there's 10 creators on the campaign, everyone's submitting
(12:11):
the same idea for a recipe, like a poke bowl idea for a
rice bran. And so it's not that the brands are trying to get
pushback. It's that they definitely don't need 10 pokeball
recipes. It's hitting the same thing. And so giving the creator
you know, I think it goes both ways, giving them some flexibility and
creative control in terms of submitting concepts, but also on the
(12:33):
creator side, you know, really understanding that it's not
that the brand is trying to give you pushback. We do sometimes see brands that
are just you know, we don't like what what the influencer's wearing,
but that should be in the upfront. Like, a brand should kind of if you
don't like what she's her her aesthetic, it's personal, it might
not be on brand for you, then you shouldn't, you know, kind of engage with
(12:56):
them. So I think giving the influencers the
autonomy to do creative, but having parameters in control and letting them
know why, as long as you let them know the why. Like, we're not trying
to be too rigid. We just have different creators submitting ideas, and
we wanna make sure we have, you know, a broad, you know,
pool of options from which to choose. And also, another
(13:18):
thing is, you know, what we always have talked about, like, these ongoing
partnerships. So, you know, instead of just working, like, one and done, we need
you for this, have that ongoing relationship with the influencer.
So maybe it's that you do an always on program with the influencer,
you know, during key seasons or, you know, four times a year
so that they know in advance that their year is as a partner
(13:42):
as opposed to just like, you know, we need you and, you know,
next up, we're gonna go with someone else. Yeah.
Yeah. I find that interesting, like, the long term partnership piece
because I find myself, just like as a human, gravitating towards
people who talk very consistently about the things that they love. Right? And
so when, brands can find those influencers
(14:04):
who are already kind of having those conversations, I think that really does make
it, you know, mutually beneficial. What
about from the influencer side? I'm just curious, just
wanna be a little bit nosy too about this because I think
influencers have to also be selective about the brands that they work with. So
what are what are the some of the things that brands can do to make
(14:26):
their products interesting enough that, you know, the top influencers,
top creators wanna work with them. I need to say one thing before
because it highlights for both. It's a bridge. I see a lot, you know, when
you're not working with an agency and you're an influencer and you're an independent,
and then your bill doesn't get paid for the
thirty days, the six whatever the terms are, the sixty days, the ninety days.
(14:50):
And I think everyone should just understand that most influencers are, you know, solopreneurs,
and they don't have a legal team to go chasing a bill, making
sure you pay your bills on time, because it really impacts the like,
I'm gonna cry like, it's just so heartbreaking to see that and I get
it. You know, huge multi conglomerate, one influencer's
invoice is getting lost amidst bigger payments that have to go out,
(15:13):
but being sensitive to the
creator environment and that, you know, these people, you know, are working with you
and for you when they need to get paid on time. Some of the
one of the things, you know, in terms of how do you make your products
stand out, I think merch. I mean, you started to see it the
past few years, but merch is just and I see it
(15:34):
not just like everyone thinks like, okay, I'm gonna create a water bottle. Bottle. It
doesn't have to be a water bottle. There's so much creative. Or if you're
a service brand bringing things to life with merch because
think about finance. Like, what am I gonna show that's really so interesting in
finance? There's nothing, you know, and there are
things. Like, we've done little baby onesies for an insurance brand.
(15:56):
So the moms with life insurance, it brings it to life. I
think anything that you could do, we have to understand that the world is
so visual right now. And even if you're a brand that
maybe doesn't have a product that is visual or as a
compliment to a product that is visual, you know, adding that merch is
great. We do the custom boxes, not just for the
(16:18):
unboxing experience, but for the the staging
properties within the kit. Because when an influencer gets
a kit, they have all this other unique items that create that
whole experience and gets them excited, and then their photos and their videos
are more elevated, etcetera. So so those are some of the things that we're seeing
that really move the needle in terms of, you know, kinda
(16:40):
making things stand out. Yeah. I I always love a good
unboxing. I'm always the one who, like, if if my faithful influencer
is unboxing, I'm watching it. I'm watching the whole thing. Like I wanna see
give me the packaging, like let me hear the crinkle, I need to
experience it. And I think it is like you said it's a
very sensory experience no matter if you have physical
(17:02):
products or not. But one of the things that you mentioned that I'm curious about
too is, like, photos and videos. Is there a particular
style of content that's working really well right now for influencers?
Is it all video or are photos still are they still alive
and well? Well, Instagram just came out with the new algorithm,
like, the big reveal of how their algorithm's gonna work. I think it dropped this
(17:24):
morning. And so I think it's it's really gonna focus on
video. Personally, again, it goes back to the brand and
what they need. We have brands that reach out that they still need
the static because they're using that static for other things.
Right? They need it for ads. They need it for their website. They need it
for product, you know, product books, things like
(17:46):
that, sales kits. So it really depends. One of the things
that I think so many companies think about or
focus on is we need the social awareness. But I'm always pushing, like,
omnichannel. Right? How do you like, influencers is not
just like, oh, what's the ROI on influencer? But that's only when you look at
it with from through the lens of, like, how many how much awareness
(18:09):
and how many sales am I getting? But if you really look at it, like,
how could we take the influencer content, which technically is
elevated, and drop it into various other parts of
marketing, A, the consumer journey is gonna be much more
cohesive and you could save money because you're not gonna be like someone's not gonna
be sitting there saying, Oh, I need to go buy an image from whatever
(18:30):
platform they use to buy images or videos on. There's so many other use
cases. So I think looking at it through a more holistic lens
through the entire marketing organization is important. Yeah.
Honestly, to me, that's one of the biggest benefits of working with influencers is
that you have a team creating content for you that you can
then leverage in other elements. When I was working on this on the agency
(18:53):
side for this, one of my biggest clients was a product, like, a beauty
brand where we would do photo shoots. We would do the
style video shoots, but those weren't the top performing content pieces. It was our
UGC from our influencers that would drive
the the content forward. So we were, like, repurposing the heck out
of it because it made the most sense from a brand perspective
(19:15):
and not just on social, but, like, on the website, in the emails. Like, there's
so many different ways you can leverage these assets, especially, you know, depending
on how your contracts are laid out. Like, there's so many different things you could
do as a brand with that influencer content. So yeah. I mean, you paid for
it. Might as well use it to the its fullest extent. Right? Right.
Yeah. So when we're thinking about that, like, headed into
(19:37):
this upcoming year, one of the biggest things, I think challenges that
brands are bumping up against is, like, the AI conversation.
So what what are influencers what are brands doing to
mitigate the risks of AI? But then, also, I would love to hear
about, like, some of the benefits of AI in influencer marketing as
well. You know, I think that you have to make sure
(20:01):
that the approvals and checkpoints are in place to make sure that something doesn't
look you know, it's just like my 13 year old. He comes home from school
and he thinks he's gonna pull one over, you know. And I know when he
uses AI and the teacher knows when they use AI and, you know, there have
to be checks in place. But I do think it has
merit, right? You're stuck on creating ideas for your
(20:22):
content calendar. You could be really specific. I don't think
anyone is gonna go out and copy exactly, but it's an
idea generator. It helps you think of ideas. It helps
you check your work. So you could put in, you know, a guidelines
from a brief and then upload, you know, the caption copy and say, does this
make did I miss anything? Can you edit this? I think it's a
(20:44):
good kind of tool in terms of idea generation
and editing and things like that. But I don't think I think the
influencers themselves, they're not gonna start replacing themselves and
replacing real footage with fake footage in an
full video because this is what they do. Yeah.
Yeah. A %. And I think AI can feel
(21:06):
scary. And, yeah, there are some people who are, like, using it maliciously. But I
think for the most part, like, if we learn to embrace it and use it
as a tool to help us with our creative work, it could be it could
be really interesting use case. And I think there's just so many ways
that we haven't even explored yet, like, the the true extent of
how it can help. You mean someone put in my name
(21:27):
into some I don't know what platform and said, can you create a BabbleBox
podcast that would be five like, the thirty second intro? And it was like me
talking, introducing a podcast.
Wild. Yeah. Well, time will tell. Time
will tell. I'm not doing it, but I'm just saying it's like, I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah. I really hope we don't have AI influencers,
(21:49):
but I mean, I already see it happening.
So yeah. Okay. I would love to
hear some success stories as well. So I think one of
the challenges, especially for brands who are newer
to influencer marketing, is that sometimes we can't conceptualize.
Like, what does success look like as we're starting to deploy some of
(22:11):
these strategies? So can you share an example of a campaign that really stood
out to you where the influencer had a an impact on
the brand's success story? I'm gonna give you two because I just did a
campaign wrap up call with the client. So we have a program that we designed
specifically for smaller emerging brands because we know influencer can be
daunting and expensive. And so we do these themed
(22:33):
boxes where there's five brands in a box. Not
brand specific, it's a theme. So we just did a kid's toy one for
holiday. And that campaign, it's
less expensive because you're pooling your ad dollars. It goes up to 20
influencers. So you're getting a lot of bang for your buck. They're all micros.
But when we looked at the stats, there were like
(22:56):
a hun like, beyond it's not just the
impression reach. It was the views were over, like, 300,000
views. The likes, the comments were over fifteen, sixteen,
17 thousand. I mean, it was outrageous. So I think, you
know, looking at, like, different creative
ways to do influencer, that's one example.
(23:19):
You know, I I think you have to also frame it. You know, a lot
of times, a newer brand, an emerging brand, everything is ROI
focused. They're dependent on that sale. And so if that's
where you are, that's okay. But then I would just focus on
working independently, find one or two people, search for people who
actually know your brand maybe or writing about your brand, and work
(23:40):
with one person and grow it organically until you get to two people or
three people when you could afford it. I think the misconception is I'm gonna work
with one influencer, and they're gonna get me this many sales. And once you
think it's just sales driven, it's not just sales driven. As I said
before, there's so many other ways in which
an influencer can move the needle for you. So they're saving you in
(24:02):
terms of creating your own content now. All you have you have a content library.
You know, you could use these assets. You can boost an influencer's content. You could
turn it into ads. You can use it for your website, your newsletter, you
know, ratings and reviews, endorsements. Like, look at this
influencer who worked with us. So I think thinking of creative
ways, and I'll give you an example. Like, on smaller spends,
(24:25):
you know, if you spend you know, it's not gonna be if I spend
$5,000, I'm gonna get $15.20, $30,000. You have to think
of other ways, in which you're gonna
monetize that content. I'm not saying it can't happen. It
does happen. But, you know, repeating
a message over and over, especially when you're a smaller brand and no one
(24:47):
knows who you are, is really Yeah. And I
think that's one of the beautiful things that I love about influencer marketing is, like,
it's not us patting ourselves on the back going like, oh, our product is awesome.
It's like someone else, like, validating that for our for
us and in our marketing. And I love this idea of the curated
box, like, influencer box. It's such a
(25:10):
brilliant idea. Beautiful. I love it. So if someone's listening to this and they're like,
okay. I need I need to work with Sherri and her team. Tell
us more about how you help brands and influencers work together. So we
work on the brand side. Right? We have thousands of influencers, but we
work on the brand side. We do brand dedicated campaigns, which is what
probably everyone knows and sees the locks. Right? A regular influencer
(25:32):
campaign. We have our co promotions, which are these themed
multi brand solutions. We have all different boxes (25:35):
food,
new mom and baby, pet, kids, health
wellness. Those bring in five non competing brands. And then we do
the custom kits too. But essentially we're working with
companies or the agencies to come up with the strategies, find the
right program, make up the whole kind of
(25:57):
scope of work for what we're gonna do, and then we find the influencers that
fit the specific need that we're looking to do. Yes. I
love this. So if you're listening to this and you wanna work with BabbleBox, I'm
gonna put a link in the show notes online
dreya.com/350 so you can learn more. Where
else can people connect with you online? I'm on LinkedIn under Sherri
(26:18):
Langford on LinkedIn, and then BabbleBox is BabbleBox
official on LinkedIn, on Instagram, and all the other
channels as well. And then our website. Oh, awesome. Awesome. I'll put all of those
links in the show notes, y'all. Check them out. Sherri, thank you so much for
being on the show today. Thank you so much. It was so lovely chatting with
you. Yes. And thank you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the
(26:39):
Mindful Marketing Podcast. Make sure you join us in the Mindful Marketing Lab if you
Marketing Podcast. Make sure you join us in the Mindful Marketing Lab if you wanna
go even deeper into these marketing strategies. We have a special
guest coming in the lab this month to talk all about playfulness in
marketing and in our business, so stay tuned for that. And I'll have a new
episode for you next Tuesday, so I'll see you then. Bye for
(26:59):
now.
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