Sverve: Bringing Brands and Influencers Together
By
Lucia Manzo
Consumers are relying on online recommendations from people they know or trust when making purchasing decisions more than ever before. In fact, 40% of social media users have purchased an item after sharing or “favoriting” it on these sites. (*Source: Forbes)Despite advertising’s best efforts, word-of-mouth marketing today still remains the strongest tool to build organic and effective brand awareness. Successful crowd funding sites and social media platforms such as indiegogo and Facebook, twitter and Pinterest are certainly strong vehicles to catch the attention of large pre-existing same-interest groups. But at the starting line to marketing success, how can brands build and or engage those large groups of eager fans? Who will your marketers be?
Recognizing the power of our peer-to-peer consumer culture, Sverve was born. Actually, at the time, we were Hashtip, an ecommerce social share site for moms. We were a small team sitting at home trying to utilize those influential voices for successful word of mouth marketing. We did our homework. We asked brands how they connected with influential bloggers. We asked influential bloggers how they connected with brands. We weren’t satisfied with the answers we got – there was no good, affordable way for bloggers and brands to connect with each other for successful marketing.So, we did what every young, ambitious, hard working and opportunity-seeking entrepreneurial mind does: we pivoted our business.
Since its pivot in December 2012, Sverve (an amalgamation of social verve) has run over 500 campaigns for clients of all sizes and reaches an online community of over 300M. A 500 Start-Up Accelerator graduate and VC backed firm, we have created social media platform that intelligently connect brands and influential online voices. Brands and influencers partner-up via Sverve to create refreshing and organic marketing buzz that incorporates the influencer’s persona into the brand’s online marketing, none of that outdated broken-record-player-style of online marketing.
Clients such as California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) have been pleasantly surprised at “The Sverve Effect” – how our products amplify and measure social word-of-mouth marketing and analytics. CPK’s Pinterest sweepstakes was targeted to build brand awareness. Within three weeks, Sverve’s 300+ activated influencers spread the word about CPK and brought 2000+ user entries, exceeding campaign expectations and raising the bar for CPK’s social marketing.
Gone are the days when marketers spend months to build media lists for a campaign of this scale. Building brand awareness is now a joint effort, where partnerships between brands and influential online voices become invaluable and profitable. Understanding the challenges bloggers and brands face when growing their blogs and brands, respectively, we believe, is the secret to creating turnkey solutions for marketing success; Sverve aims to further grow their targeted match-making platform while staying true to their goal for transparency.
Lucia Manzo is the Chief Brand Officer for Sverve.
