Content Squads: A Reactive-First Approach to Influencer Marketing.

Content squads are teams of digital storytellers who pitch and create content for your brand, on their own schedule. And unlike traditional influencer marketing, there is no brief: once your squad has wrapped their head around your brand and goals, they’re free to make content when they feel the moment is right (and once you’ve approved it, of course). This means creators can wait for trends to naturally emerge, making their content more reactive, authentic and ultimately impactful. 

The global influencer economy is worth 21.1 billion USD – it’s huge and it’s not going anywhere. But zoom out a bit and you realise that it’s still a relatively new phenomenon. So, like all new things, this is an industry that’s shifting, evolving and figuring itself out. And one big shift that’s happening right now is in the dynamic between brands and influencers; what once was a basic value exchange is turning into something a bit more co-creative. 

In a nutshell: instead of prescriptive briefs and one-off contracts, influencers across the board are being given more and more freedom by brands to decide what and when they post.

We’ll dive into all the reasons why brands are adopting a more co-creative model of engaging influencers in a second. But you’ve probably already guessed the BIG one: freedom for creators leads to better results for brands. And content squads, which we’ve been using to supercharge Bumble UK’s social content for the past two quarters, are the perfect example. 

How do content squads work?

You know the basics. Your brand, or an agency like us, hires a squad of influencers on retainer to pitch and create content on their own schedule. But you may be wondering about the finer details. And while there are infinite ways to go about managing your content squad, we’re happy to share our top tips for getting the most out of it.

• Get the timing right. There are two things to consider when it comes to the timing of your content squad. First, the length of your retainer period. You want to leave long enough for the creators to understand your brand and find the right time to post – the whole idea is to not rush it and trust their expertise when it comes to which trends and cultural moments to arise, naturally. But you also don’t want to leave it so long that, by the end of the retainer period, your original brief is no longer relevant. Three-to-six months is standard.
• Approve content as fast as possible. The second time-related aspect of content squads is the approval period that you give them. This is really important because perhaps the biggest benefit of content squads is that they’re reactive; so we recommend aiming for 24 hours to approve their pitches, to allow them to jump on trends as quickly as possible. 
• Keep the brief wide open. To reiterate, the whole point of content squads is to keep them on a relatively low leash. So, after bringing them up to speed on your brand guidelines, products and motivations for hiring them, you need to give them as much creative control as you’re comfortable with. Whether the content is published on their own channels or yours (or both) is up to you.  

There’s an important caveat here: hiring influencers on a six-month retainer is budget-dependent, and not as feasible when it comes to mega influencers. That’s why the content squads we work with are mostly made up of micro-to-nano influencers – but working with smaller creators comes with its own benefits, which we’re about to explore. 

What are the benefits of content squads? 

It’s taken some time to convince the industry. Still, generally, brands are realising that giving creators more creative control, and more time to wrap their heads around a brief, leads to better quality content and higher engagement and ROI as a result. So, new models that reflect this, like content squads, are emerging – usually as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, traditional influencer marketing.

Here are a few things that content squads can do:

• Help your brand be more reactive, faster. The traditional influencer marketing comes with a (necessarily) longer approval process. But the advantages of having a 24-hour turnaround time from pitch to publishing are obvious: it allows your squad to jump on trends while they’re hot, making the content more contextually relevant and more likely to be picked up by the algorithm – and your audience. 
• Produce more authentic content. The content squad process is a lot more similar to influencers’ usual routines. Influencers post organic content when they feel it’s the right moment, so why not do the same with branded content? Consumers know what’s authentic and what’s not, particularly when it comes to influencers they love, so they’re more likely to engage with and act upon content that feels real – especially from micro-to-nano influencers, who traditionally perform better than those with higher follower counts in terms of engagement and conversion metrics. 
• Populate your ad ecosystem with familiar faces. Working with a core team of influencers – even if just as a complement to your usual always-on strategy – has the natural benefit of boosting ad recall, due to the repeated nature of the brand-influencer engagement. The more one influencer works with your brand, the bigger the impact on your audience. 
• Act as an extension of your social team. Handing over creative control to a team of dedicated influencers takes the pressure of constantly monitoring social trends and moments of your team. Of course, there’s no such thing as autopilot marketing, but these specialists spread a wide net, so they might catch the little things you’d normally miss. 

That said, the traditional model of influencer marketing isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. One-off influencer contracts will always be necessary, and highly valuable, to the marketing flywheel. But new models like content squads are emerging – not as a replacement for, but as a complement to the mainstream. And hopefully, now you understand why. 

If you’re interested in learning more about content squads and what they can do for you, get in touch today. Alternatively, download our latest White Paper to read about how content squads can power up your community-building strategy by authentically connecting your brand with niche audiences on a long-term basis.