🔥 Are you still renting your audience?

5 Insights on Influencer Marketing 

Who…

✅ Started her career at TBWA\Chiat\Day calling out traditional ad execs for being out of touch with Millennial behavior and opening up socials for Michelin & Nissan?

✅ Built Ulta’s first Influencer Marketing program?

✅ Helped generate $17 million/month in organic revenue as Head of Social at Alo?

IT’S ROBYN NISSIM, Webby-award winner, Social Proof Agency founder, and all-around EXPERT at influencer Marketing. 

We sat down to talk about what creator Marketing should look like in 2025 and beyond.

Here are 5 insights from the episode about how you can build creator programs that actually drive results, not just vanity metrics – by finding your brand’s superfans, turning influencers into ambassadors, and connecting all your channels into a giant growth flywheel. 

1️⃣. You NEED Organic Social.  

Robyn’s Take: “A Marketing hill that I will die on is that you need organic social. I don’t care what the data says because there’s still not enough data to prove that it’s not worthy. Organic is the audience that you want, the audience that’s gonna ride for your brand and create brand affinity and brand love. It’s your community…as opposed to renting an audience.”

This isn’t a hot take. iI’s the playbook. Robyn is saying what more marketers need to admit: organic is where real brand equity is built. Paid social is a faucet. Organic is a well. One gets you attention. The other builds loyalty, trust, and long-term revenue.

You don’t need a viral video. You need consistency, relevancy, and actual COMMUNITY. That’s what powers $17M/month in organic revenue like Robyn built at Alo. That’s what earns you a spot in your customer’s scroll without paying for every impression.

When your feed is lifeless or purely promotional, you’re not just invisible. You’re signaling to your audience that you don’t get it. And if your brand doesn’t live where your buyers live (social), you’re just a name with a logo.

Takeaway: Organic is the cost of entry now. Not the cherry on top. Start by asking: what % of your team’s effort is going to audience building vs audience renting? Even shifting 10% of your budget toward consistent, creative, community-first content could change your brand’s future.

2️⃣. Influencer partnerships should be long-term relationships, not 1-off transactions.

Robyn’s Take: “I think you need to give [creators] a 3-month trial or a minimum of a few weeks where they’re talking about your product consistently. […] Whereas if you’re signing an influencer with a one-off deal, chances are they might convert, but you’re not setting them up for success.”

This is where most brands miss. They treat influencers like ad slots. But real influence isn’t built in a single post. It’s built through consistency. Through trust. Through time.

A one-off post might give you a spike, but that spike fades fast. Because people can smell the difference between someone who’s just cashing a check and someone who actually uses the product. When a creator’s mention feels like a to-do list item, your audience tunes out.

Robyn’s approach flips the mindset. She invests in creators like she’s investing in media partners. She gives them time to tell the story. Room to experiment. Permission to be themselves. That’s how you earn better creative. That’s how you build real momentum.

When a creator talks about your brand more than once, they don’t just convert. They become advocates. And the magic happens when they keep talking even after the contract ends.

Takeaway: One-off deals give you one-off results. But long-term creator partnerships build lasting impact. Look at your influencer strategy. Who’s actually growing with you? Who could be? Think like Robyn. Find the people already talking about your brand and give them the time and space to turn up the volume.

3️⃣. Great Creator Content Starts With a Great Brief.

Robyn’s Take: “You have to align your influencer strategy exactly with your social strategy…[Your ideal creators] would get specific briefs…really segmented out briefs that were very clear about, ‘Hey, you can do whatever you want in the video, but here’s the premise.’”

Great content starts with a great brief. And bad content starts with….you get the idea. 

A great influencer brief doesn’t just tell someone what to say. It gives them the why, how, and who behind the campaign.

When Robyn worked at Alo, she created SUPER-specific briefs that requested hard workouts, weights, and yoga in the video content – and each brief was tailored to each creator’s strengths. 

A good brief includes:

– Objective: Are we driving awareness, traffic, sales, or UGC?

– Target audience: Who are we speaking to, and what matters to them?

– Messaging pillars: Core ideas, product benefits, or brand values to highlight.

– DOs and DON’Ts: Clear boundaries around what’s required vs. off-limits

– Visual direction: Tone, setting, brand aesthetic.

Influencer Marketing success isn’t just driven by who you partner with. It’s also about making sure you give your partners the tools and the direction to get your point across.

Takeaway: Strong briefs drive strong results. Go back and audit your last 3 creator briefs. Were they specific enough to inspire the right content? Do they explain the goal, the audience, the angle, and the tone? If a stranger got it, could they confidently make something great? If the answer is no, rewrite them before your next campaign goes live.

4️⃣. Your Next Great Creator Might Already Be a Customer.

Robyn’s Take: “I was constantly combing through the comments. If somebody was tagging us a lot or making really good organic content, we’d reach out. 9 times out of 10, they said yes.”

Robyn didn’t always start with big-name influencers. She started with the people already showing up. The fans. The ones tagging the brand, posting about the product, and doing it with real love. Not a contract.

This is where most brands leave money and momentum on the table. They overlook their own community and chase cold outreach. But creators who already talk about you are low-friction, high-impact partners. They don’t need to be sold on your product. They’re already in.

And the best part? Their content feels more authentic because it IS more authentic. No forced scripts. No awkward first impressions. Just a real customer who already knows how to tell your story in their language.

Takeaway: Start your next creator campaign by mining your own comments, tags, and DMs. Who’s already talking about you? Who’s creating for fun? Those are your warmest leads…and your most believable voices. Build with them first. Then scale.

5️⃣. Build a Flywheel, Not a Funnel.

Robyn’s Take: “You have to have this flywheel of these four really strong things. …Once you’ve figured out that sweet spot between social Marketing, influencer Marketing, and events, amplify ALL of that with paid media. That’s how you stand out.”

Rather than treating each Marketing channel as a silo, brands should create a flywheel, where every arm moves all the others forward. Organic Social → Creators → Events → Earned Media → Back to Organic → (Repeat)

Sound familiar? Our guest on the last episode, Nick Tran, talked about the flywheel, too. That’s how important it is. 

When creators post about you, your organic social earns credibility, and your events attract more interest. You can compound this effect by using paid to amplify things people were already saying about you.

You also now have performance-grade content for retargeting with paid media, and A+ website assets and social proof. And around the flywheel goes! 

Earned media in 2025 is all about algorithmic visibility and it starts with what creators and community are saying.

Takeaway: Go back to your last campaign. What piece of content could have been reused, repurposed, or re-amplified across channels? Did your influencer content show up in paid? Did you film your event for future assets? Pick one missed connection and bake it into your next strategy. That’s how the flywheel gains speed.