When Chike Nwoke was a student at the University of Maryland College Park, he took note of a unique marketing tactic used by energy drink company Redbull.
The company would hire students to represent their brand on campus, which would ultimately drive more drink sales. For Nwoke, this showed that “everybody has influence,” and that people are more likely to buy a product or subscribe to something when it’s endorsed by friends or family members.
That ultimately led to the concept of Klippit, a platform designed to facilitate “micro-interactions with brands.”
Nwoke says the app is a new way to think about influencer marketing, where an individual endorses a product to their growing social media audience.
Brands and merchants list deals, and users are compensated for posting about the brands and retailers they are already interacting with.
As Nwoke says, the app “rewards you for the stuff you already do…like taking food pictures.”
In turn, brands benefit from the opportunity to engage directly with customers through a growing influencer network. There are currently just over 20 brands on the platform.
10,000 people joined the waitlist for the influencer app. Nwoke says the official launch is to come in the next three months.
COVID AND INFLUENCER MARKETING
COVID has certainly changed digital marketing and influencer marketing, as brands have had to get creative about the way they acquire new customers.
It has been particularly hard for restaurants, which are working with limited seating capacity and need to find ways to “bring in more customers at a lower cost,” said Nwoke.
But the pandemic hasn’t stopped Klippit’s growth. The team, which is currently seven strong, recently pitched virtually to Atlanta Startup Village and is involved in the KnowCap accelerator program.
They are also in the process of raising their first funding round.
