Ep. 110 The Future of Micro-Influencers in Mobile App Growth

Today’s guest shares the story behind the “micro” social influencer campaign that exploded their app’s growth and became their number two growth channel. We’ll dive deep into what defines a micro-influencer, the value they bring, the helpful ways to manage them for successful app marketing, and what the future of influencer marketing may look like.

Ludie Veloso is the VP of operations for the AirBrush app at Pixocial, a subsidiary of Meitu. Before her current role at AirBrush, Ludie was their Global Growth Lead, managing teams around the world. Prior to AirBrush, she was the content director for Naranya Market Brazil. She is based out of Portugal and has a background in economics.

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• What are some keys to your success merging people from different cultures around the world into a unified team?
• What’s the rationale and advantage of having a team of 35 people spread out across the world?
• What had the most impactful effect on your app’s growth besides the people who make up your team?
• How do you categorize a micro-influencer?
• Are influencers at this stage getting paid like an affiliate would?
• What’s your strategy for managing so many micro-influencers?
• How do you safeguard against influencers not being a good fit for your brand?
• What are you excited about for the future of influencer marketing?

• 1:55 Ludie’s background
• 5:02 What brings a team together
• 9:57 Localization
• 12:30 Growth with micro-influencer marketing
• 16:39 The campaign that proved a point
• 20:31 Paying micro-influencers
• 22:47 The different uses of micro- vs enterprise-level influencers
• 25:00 Influencer managers
• 28:56 Quality control with influencers
• 31:21 The future of social influencers

(5:17-5:29) “The first challenge was you’re going to die unless you do this, this, and this. So we kind of had to come together as a team in the very beginning with a shared sense of, ‘We need to make this [app] happen.’”

(31:46-32:08) “For a long time, we would have influencers who this was just their side, their job hustle. Now it’s actually their lives. They grew so much. So I think what’s exciting to see is how much more professional this is and how much more we can actually achieve because now we’re getting into campaigns and partnerships with our eyes open.”