How These Influencers Launched Their Own Digital Agency
A&E co-founders Amra Beganovich and Elma Beganovich
With 2.2 million followers between the two of them, sisters Amra and Elma Beganovich knew what it took to make it big as social media influencers and what brand were looking for with their influencer campaigns. This insider knowledge of the industry is what inspired them to launch their own digital agency, A&E. As an agency, they’ve worked with major companies like Netflix, Wells Fargo, Johnson & Johnson, and more.
Keep reading to more about their shift from the influencer to brand side of the business and get their tips on making it as an influencer!
SIMPLY: Tell us about how you two launched A&E. What inspired the business, and how did you get it up and running?
ELMA BEGANOVICH: Our namesake brand, A&E, as a digital marketing agency, launched by sheer accident. It was late 2012 and influencer marketing was not even coined as a common term! Amra is an economist and at the time was working on World Bank projects in Washington DC, and I was at Georgetown Law enrolled in the Securities and Financial Regulation LLM. At the time, we, along with many other of our friends, felt disconnected from the mainstream media; most women cannot afford to spend thousands on skincare or $100,000 on plastic surgery, so we decided to launch a DIY blog. One night, Amra sat up all night and learned HTML and CSS code and put together our first blog!
Our blog garnered over 100,000 unique monthly visitors in just shy of three months, and shortly after, brands started approaching us. I remember it was Rodial, Deborah Lipmann and Paris Hilton’s manager who oversaw her line of handbags, and asked us to collaborate on an exchange basis. I realized then that this was a business if companies were willing to expend their own labor and product cost in order to advertise through us. Essentially, as our following grew, we outgrew many of the small brands, which had been advertising with us, and the repeated request was “can you replicate your own success for us as a brand on social media?”
Essentially, Amra and I put our heads together and decided to give it a try, and this was the birth of A&E as a digital agency. Essentially, we expanded our services into product photography, started working with talent agencies to cast models and influencers for eCommerce shoots, built branding guidelines for internal teams, managed social media accounts, performed marketing research and analysis on competitors, organized events, and activated influencer marketing campaigns. We began with start-ups, which were at the beginning the focal point of our business, and grew into servicing corporations with their digital marketing efforts.
SIMPLY: What was your first major "win" with the company?
Definitely one of the first major wins for A&E was coverage in notable business press like Financial Times. I remember one of their notable technology reporters came into our office in Times Square to interview us. The other milestones were coverage by The Wall Street Journal and going to the Bloomberg studios to record our first TV appearance. Corporate clients, such as Essilorluxottica, Huawei, and Nestle were also major wins for the company.
SIMPLY: How have your backgrounds as influencers prepared you to facilitate relationships between brands and influencers?
Being part of the influencer community definitely helps with staying up-to-date with the latest campaign strategies, whether because of our network of personal friends or constantly being invited by communication teams or marketing teams to be part of campaigns.
In effect, this allows us to advise brands to better understand the market and the perspective of influencers in order to build better relationships long term. Also, I think the data side of it is always clear, as we closely monitor the latest technologies launched by Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for monitoring insights and demographics to better align the brand’s goals with their influencer partners.
SIMPLY: How have you noticed the influencer industry shift in response to the coronavirus pandemic?
The influencer industry has had to shift to adjust to this so-called “stay at home economy.” Influencers are no longer able to work with brands to set-up an environment to create binge-worthy content, whether it’s a spectacular fashion show or a dreamy getaway to the world’s most desirable destinations. Instead, influencers have had to look around their homes and be creative to come up with content that their followers can relate to aesthetically and emotionally.
Another important note is that influencers have also felt the pressure to become socially responsible and become part of the conversation, whether it was to encourage their followers to wash their hands and stay at home or state their views on the Black Lives Matter protests. As the old adage still rings true: with power comes responsibility.
SIMPLY: What do you look for in influencers when casting campaigns, and what are the key factors of success that you measure with brand campaigns?
We look at the brands the influencers have worked with, we look at their reputation (outside of Instagram), and insights and analytics when we can. The key factors of success include: engagement, brand sentiment, and insights and analytics. Nowadays, brands are really deeply involved with monitoring influencers and making sure their values also align with the brands’. For example, if we are picking influencers for a campaign that promotes sustainability, we give priority to influencers who have shown on several occasions their commitment to environment preservation. In another words, the match needs to be authentic and fit naturally since the influencer becomes a mouthpiece and ambassador for the brand’s mission.
SIMPLY: Any advice for influencers looking to secure more brand partnerships?
Align yourself with values and stick to them. As an influencer you are also a brand, and you must make sure that you have thought it through. What are your values? What is your brand persona? Which consumers does your brand speak to? Make sure you are loyal to those followers and are providing valuable content, including advice, that the consumer can feel and relate to your words and see themselves in your story. Don’t forget that!