Interview with Twitter Influencers on How They Work with Agencies & Get Topics to Trend

Over the last 2 years, Twitter influencers have changed the way they "influence". Once they used to be known as subject matter experts, today the phrase is synonymous with contest organizers; and agencies flock to them looking to get their brand's hashtags trended.

We decided to interview a group of Twitter Influencers on how they have managed to build relationships with agencies, their process of working, their gratification and the other aspects of being a Twitter Influencer. For obvious reasons, we decided to keep this anonymous. So here it goes:

How did you land your first campaign? How did you pull it off?

We were working as influencers for a campaign. We realized that the agency was struggling to manage the influencers. Since we knew most of the influencers in that campaign, we offered to manage their team at no extra cost. The campaign did well and the agency was pretty happy with the way we had managed. So they offered us their next campaign. Thus, our journey began.

Are there certain aspects that you consider while taking up a campaign? Or do you accept every campaign that comes across your way?

Frankly speaking, initially we grabbed every campaign which was offered to us to build relationships with the agencies. We experimented by working in different types of campaigns. In the process, certain types of campaigns did not get good feedback from clients and agencies. That’s when we decided to be choosy while accepting campaigns. Nowadays, we review the campaign plan and give feedback/suggestions to the agencies. When we arrive at a common ground only then do we take up the project.

How do you get work offers these days?

We focus on delivering quality on work front, so once an agency does an activity with us and likes our work, they are intent on offering us more work. Since we have friends in a few agencies, the word has got around and we get offers from people to whom they recommended us.

How often do you get work these days? Is the volume increasing or decreasing?

There is a lot of work happening these days but the volume has decreased because sometimes we are extremely busy with multiple campaigns that refrain us from taking up new campaigns.

What kinds of brands approach you the most?

FMCG,  Automobile, Smartphone, Bollywood, etc.

How much do you get paid for the contests?

This is something which we can not disclose. But we can only say that it justifies the work we do.

How do your followers react to you holding such contests?

There is a mixed reaction to it. Some are okay with it. Some are not.

Some people are of the opinion that you are milking your followers who followed you for other reasons. What do you think about this notion?

The same people never say that Cricket and Bollywood celebrities are milking their fans who watch them on TV for other reasons. Rather, they enjoy it. Then, why not this?

Of late, people are getting annoyed by the overdose of Twitter contests. How do you view such a trend?

Absolutely, agreed! But if you notice, there is always a specific crowd who play the contests. So each Twitter user has a choice to stay away from contests.

What are the usual mandates that brands/agencies come to you with?

When we are promoting a certain brand on a TL, the agency tells us not to promote/talk about competitive brands and to avoid negative tweets at all costs. Also, we do not react to any tweet that could affect the brand.

Do you think getting a topic trended really helps?

It does help to get some visibility and with the correct Hashtag it acts as an advertisement for the brand. It’s like putting the first page ad on a leading newspaper, everyone who opens the paper sees it, so a Hashtag trending is quite similar to that. Like they say “Jo dikta hai, who bikta hai".

We all know that this trend might soon wane off. What will you do then?

Let’s just say, “We will dance until the music stops”.

Do you think contests really help brands?

Contests help them gain followers and assist in trending a Hashtag and brands which are new to Twitter can do few contests/giveaways or achieve an India trend to get noticed and build up audience. Once people come to know that their favorite brand is on Twitter, they can continue with organic interaction with followers.

Twitter has millions of users in India and if your brand is within the top 10 trends in India, many people are getting to see the same, so it definitely is a powerful medium to reach out to the youth of our nation.

How do you manage to trend a topic? How often do you get topics trended?

We have a team of influencers with good outreach that help us get trended. We manage 10-12 trends every month, including few worldwide trends too. Some of our contest keywords too trend for a few hours, apart from the hashtag.

What if you don’t manage to trend a topic? Is your payment withheld or do you still get paid?

We have a record trending of almost 98%. It is only due to technical issues in trendsmap or any breaking news at a national level that we could not manage to achieve a trend. But we have managed 100% in the third party trend list servers like @TrendsmapIndia, @trendinaliaIN etc. which agencies and clients are happy with.