In today’s article, we’ll be discussing influencer marketing tools on YouTube. Before we jump right into that, though, we’re gonna by start by explaining the concept of influencer marketing to you, and why it’s so important.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing deals with marketing that’s done through influencers. Most marketing simply targets large groups of people- certain demographics they think would be interested in the product or service that they’re marketing. Influencer marketing insteads targets smaller groups or individuals who can influence those groups. These people, as you might have guessed, are known as influencers, and getting an influencer to push your product can be more effective than traditional methods of inarketing. If you don’t know how this pertains to YouTube, get ready.

Examples of YouTube influencers

People who can be classified as influencers are all over YouTube. In fact, the biggest YouTubers have all taken advantage of marketers at some point, who pay them to make videos featuring or reviewing their products. In the gaming circle, one need only take a glance at figures like PewDiePie, Smosh or Markiplier to see influencer marketing at work. YouTubers who do unboxing and reviews, however, are a little more direct about it. Tech youtubers like Unbox Therapy and LinusTechTips are openly sponsored by the manufacturers of the products they cover, but they are trusted voices that aren’t afraid to criticize a problem’s flaws.

Importance of influencer marketing

Working with influencers doesn’t necessarily mean just getting them to say nice things about your product- the big plan is really just to get your product out there. People who watch review channels are paying attention to products that might have otherwise passed them by because they care about the personality that’s showing them off.

Influencer Marketing Tools

Most of the sponsorship and branding that goes on on YouTube is a form of influencer marketing, so influencer marketing platforms like Reelio, FameBit and the other entries on this list can work quite similarly, with the goal of linking creators to brands or vice versa. Meanwhile, proper influencer marketing tools like Niche can help you use tools to measure statistics on your followers and interact with them directly.

Reelio

Type: Platform

Requirements: High

Reelio is an influencer marketing platform, but this one exhibits fairly high requirements, at a whopping ten thousand subscribers. You can still sign up for the platform, but there’s really no point in doing so until you’ve already hit the requirements. However, the service is highly-rated, so if you can get up there, you should probably consider using it.

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Niche

Type: Tool/Platform

Requirements:  None/Low

Niche occupies this list of influencer marketing tools as both a proper tool and a platform. With no barriers to entry, Niche allows creators to measure their “reach” by platform, showwing followers and engagements. Engagements count the number of time a user interacts with a post or video, while followers count subscribers on YouTube and followers on other platforms. Once you’re big enough and have been using Niche for a while, you can enjoy more advanced statistics on how your channel grows so you can get a better idea of how you’re doing in the grand scheme of things.

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FameBit

Type: Platform

Requirements: Medium

Famebit is a platform that connects creators on various platforms (but primarily YouTube) with brands and agencies that would like to work with them.  However, FameBit has a few barriers of entry. Small YouTubers may not be able to get work with them at all, and larger YouTubers are typically approached by businesses on their own or aim for platforms with higher requirements. To take advantage of FameBit on YouTube, you need to have at least five thousand subscribers.

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Epoxy

Type: Tool

Requirements: Premium ($20-$110), Free With Some MCNs

Epoxy is a tool that allows you to more easily engage with your audience. Aside from sharing your videos across various platforms, Epoxy lets you take a closer look at your followers on those platorms and lets you choose ways to interact with them. It focuses less on measuring your reach and your followers with advanced metrics, and more on ways to interact with them. An interesting bonus feature it offers is a specialized wrapper for YouTube videos. On a surface level, embedded YouTube videos using Epoxy will look like just any other, but they make a slight difference by having all of the videos that pop up after the end of your video also be from your channel. For channels that need to encourage mulltiple views to get people hooked enough to subscribe, this is a huge boon. This is less a tool to reach influencers and more a tool to act like an influencer and get up there to begin with.

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Grapevine

Type: Platform

Requirements: Low

Grapevine is a lot like FameBit, except with a much lower barrier of entry, at only one thousand subscribers to start connecting with brands and agencies. You can still sign up, too, but there’s no real reason to start until you’ve passed that threshold.

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Grin

Type: Platform

Requirements: Low

Grin is an influencer marketing platform that focuses on “micro-influencers”. We focus on micro-influencers (not celebrities) because they connect more deeply with their audiences. With Grin, you don’t need millions of followers to join marketing campaigns and make money. In fact, we prefer that you don’t have that many followers! We require that influencers have between 2k and 500k subs to sign up. Our platform has deep cross-network stats for every influenccer in our system, and we offer a complete end-to-end campaign management solution for marketers. In addition to our platform, we also offer a free tool for YouTubers to track their Live Sub Count. YouTube actually doesn’t allow you to track your live subscriber count on their site. Their counts are delayed up to 48 hours so we built the free Live Sub Count tool.

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Moving Forward

Becoming an influencer on YouTube isn’t easy.

It’s essentially a combination of multiple huge challenges that any growing YouTuber has to face: gaining a large following, dealing with brands and businesses that want to work with you, existing in a large community of creators, and taking advantage of influencer marketing tools to increase the size of your footprints and your relevance in the YouTube space. Fortunately, here on our blog, you have a great place to start tackling all of those goals. Certain influencer marketing tools (like Epoxy) are free with YouTube networks (MCNs). If you’re a small YouTuber, you might want to learn more about working with YouTube networks. Fortunately, we have an article on the top YouTube networks for small channels. The primary purposes of the influencer marketing tools in the article are about establishing connections to brands and audiences. To learn more about sponsorship on YouTube, you can also follow that route. To become a true influencer on YouTube, you’ll need to build your circle. Using our list of influencer marketing tools and the information we’ve given you here and elsewhere on our blog, you can start building your channel into something truly great.