Instrumental aims to change influencer discovery with DSCVRY.team

With the popularity of social media, influencer marketing has become ever more popular with brands over the last few years. 

Brands have realised that it can be very effective to collaborate with social media influencers and use their credibility to affect their followers’ views (and purchasing decisions).

Finding the most effective influencer for the brand or product is not always an easy process, and this is what DSCVRY.team by Instrumental aims to solve.

DSCVRY.team is a response to the challenges of influencer marketing, understanding what both brands and agencies want, aiming to help them discover, track, and analyse all the available online influencers.

According to Conrad Withey, CEO of Instrumental, this new process could be described as “Brand A&R”, or else, a new way to find non-music talent, by discovering emerging stars in fashion, beauty, food & drink and lifestyle verticals.

DSCVRY.team is currently tracking more than 3 million social stars, generating 400 billion views per month and the early results indicate that it may help brands discover influencers they wouldn’t even know existed, as it’s not always the case of finding the most popular choice, but rather the most relevant.

This is an interesting turn for influencer marketing as it’s starting to mature, offering more effective collaborations, customised to the needs of each brand or agency.

This may also be beneficial for social influencers, as they now have more chances to be discovered and forge meaningful collaborations with the right brands that align with their focus and their audience.

According to a feature in PR Week, here are five reasons brands should imitate the music business and embrace A&R, along with influencer marketing:

1. So many influencers: there are new social influencers coming up every day, which makes it harder for a brand to track them, monitor their success and decide who makes the right fit.
2. So much content: it’s not just the number of influencers that is increasing, but also the amount of content, which creates another challenge for brands trying to stand out and make an impact.
3. Things change every day: as trends constantly change on social media, it’s harder to monitor what makes someone popular and whether the ‘level of influence’ is maintained. How do you decide if a person is currently popular enough to fit your campaign?
4. Influence is global: The good thing with influencer marketing is that it has a global potential and that’s why many international companies have embraced it successfully. Moreover, it can also get extremely local, targeting a specific location, or target group, which brings out further opportunities for a brand’s campaign.
5. Influence gets expensive: Influencer marketing can become expensive, but the cost may be reduced if a brand is able to discover early influencers who have the potential to skyrocket their fame in the short-term future. That’s how an influencers’ discovery platform may be useful.