How to Build an Influencer Marketing Software?

Are you interested in how to build influencer marketing software or an influencer marketplace? In this article, I’ll provide a brief introduction to influencer marketing and influencer marketing software development and give a step-by-step guide on how to build it.

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In this article

1. A Brief Introduction to Influencer Marketing
2. The Advantages of Influencer Marketing
3. Examples of Successful Influencer Marketing Campaigns
4. The Global Market for Influencer Marketing
5. Examples of Influencer Marketing Software or Platforms
6. Creating Influencer Marketing Software
7. Frequently Asked Questions on Creating Influencer Marketing Software

With many of the highest-earning bloggers and influencers earning 10s of millions of dollars per year, this is a lucrative market to explore.

Cision PR Newswire quotes a Grand View Research report about the influencer marketing platform market. The report anticipates that this influencer marketplace will reach $23.52 billion by 2025. It projects a CAGR of 26.8% during the 2021-2025 period.

A Brief Introduction to Influencer Marketing

Let’s first talk about influencer marketing. This type of marketing utilizes both traditional marketing approaches and influencer marketing software tools such as social media platforms, etc.

Influencer marketing allows companies to utilize top influencer endorsement via influencer marketing agencies and influencer marketing software platforms to enable them to effectively market their products and develop a better brand affinity with potential customers through influencer campaigns.

Furthermore, it allows retailers to optimize influencer content for the modern content-driven marketing campaigns used today. When brands and influencers collaborate, it results in effective influencer marketing programs.

Influencers are different from “celebrities” in the traditional sense. They have built their fanbase by generating large followings on social media as well as on the web, often for little more than their looks. However, due to the nature of social media, their fans trust them as they believe they know them. 

When you rope in an influencer for your marketing campaign, you are targeting their millions of social media followers. Read more about it in “What is influencer marketing: an in-depth look at marketing’s next big thing”.

The Advantages of Influencer Marketing

There are various advantages of influencer marketing, e.g.:

• You can build brand awareness by collaborating with influencers to find the right audience.
• Investing in influencer marketing helps you to diversify your audience.
• It’s easier to boost audience engagement when you incorporate influencer marketing.
• Influencers endorsing brands can improve the trust that consumers place in your brand.
• You can overhaul your content strategy by working with influencers. That’s because influencers create engaging content for their audience.
• You can improve your SEO with the help of influencer marketing.
• Influencer marketing drives better sales conversions.

Read “7 unknown advantages of investing in influencer marketing” to learn more about this.

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Examples of Successful Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Many businesses have used influencer marketing to great effect, e.g.:

• At the 2020 influencer market awards, Dior was the gold winner for the best beauty campaign. Dior partnered with Buttermilk, an influencer marketing agency. They created one of the best influencer marketing campaigns. The campaign celebrated the launch of Dior’s Forever Foundation.
• In Canada, Sony created one of the top influencer marketing campaigns for PlayStation VR. The company worked with mid-tier influencers, micro-influencers, and nano-influencers on this. Sony looked for popular influencer profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube.
• Motorola collaborated with YouTube influencers for the launch of its Moto Z family and Moto Mods.
• Sony worked with Instagram influencers to boost the marketing for its Xperia Z5 smartphone.
• Bedrock Real Estate promoted its “Anthem of Us” campaign to show the vibrant side of Detroit by collaborating with influencers.
• Dunkin’ Donuts worked with Snapchat influencers for the campaign for National Donut Day.
• Chase worked with Andy Roddick, an American former world no. 1 professional tennis player to make their sponsorship of the 2016 US Open Tennis Championship special for fans.
• Häagen-Dazs created an influencer marketing campaign to promote its “BOGO” (buy-one-get-one) promotions in New York. The campaign wanted to promote sampling events at well-known New York retailers like Walgreens stores. It was a good example of finding the right influencers. The company partnered with perfect influencers that targeted millennials in New York.

Find more examples in “15 Influencer Marketing Examples to Power Your Influencer Campaign Planning”.

The Global Market for Influencer Marketing

The market for influencer marketing is growing. A Globe Newswire report states that this market will reach $2.85 billion by 2025. The report estimates a CAGR of 8.2% during the 2021-2025 period.

The leading influencer marketing agencies

As Clutch reports, the following agencies lead this market:

• The Influencer Marketing Factory;
• Viral Nation;
• OMNI Agency;
• LYFE Marketing;
• Megaphone Marketing.

Examples of Influencer Marketing Software or Platforms

We now review a few influencer marketing software.

1. Upfluence/ influencer marketing platform

Upfluence is an influencer market platform for e-commerce. One of the leading influencer marketing platforms, it uses artificial intelligence (AI) to link influencers with their users more effectively.

Upfluence offers several useful features, e.g.:

• You can search a large database of influencers. This influencer marketing platform claims to have over 3 million influencers in its database.
• Businesses can search for influencers using over 20 search criteria.
• This platform enables you to connect with influencers.
• Upfluence includes all relevant campaign management features.
• You can collaborate with your team using this platform.
• Upfluence has robust analytics, and you can measure the ROI of your campaigns.

2. AspireIQ/ influencer marketing platform

Aspire is a well-known influencer marketing platform. It’s also known as AspireIQ.

You can use it to search for influencers and content creators via different keywords. Aspire helps you to get the maximum number of inbound influencer proposals for your influencer programs. The Aspire search engine makes searching for relevant influencers easier.

This influencer marketing platform enables influencer discovery across several social networks. These include Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc. Aspire can increase the outreach of your brand by enlisting popular bloggers too.

You can, therefore, easily establish successful partnerships with influencers. Aspire provides all the necessary tools for influencer relationship management too.

Aspire uses powerful algorithms to monitor the engagement rate of influencer marketing campaigns. It provides a social media monitoring tool to track brand affinity, and it offers other campaign reporting tools. Whether you have an eCommerce or other business, Aspire helps you to measure the right KPIs concerning your campaigns.

Aspire provides the necessary tools for end-to-end influencer marketing management. Start-ups and enterprises alike can use this influencer marketing management tool to their benefit.

3. Traackr/ influencer marketing platform

Traackr is a data-driven influencer marketing platform. It offers the following advantages:

• It offers services like discovery, campaign management, influencer collaboration, and campaign reporting.
• The company provides real-time insights into your campaign.
• It helps you to formulate the right influencer marketing strategy for your target audience.
• Whether you lead a small business or enterprise, Traackr can streamline your influencer marketing.
• The company provides a massive set of influencers to boost your social media marketing efforts.
• Traackr helps you to find the right influencer content to appeal to your target audience.

Creating Influencer Marketing Software

I will explain the steps you need to take to build an influencer marketing software solution. These steps are as follows:

1. Agree on the project scope of influencer marketing software

Onboard an initial team with a project manager (PM), a software architect, and a few business analysts (BAs). This team needs to collaborate with the business stakeholders and create a project scope statement. It should define the project scope and project plan.

I recommend the following scope:

• Build an influencer marketing solution with features like Upfluence.
• Offer a web app, an Android app, and an iOS app.

2. Identify the right methodology

The above-mentioned scope is good enough for you to launch the product in the market, subsequently, you can enhance it based on market feedback from your users.

You can launch a product with the above-mentioned scope. That helps you to get market feedback. Subsequently, you can enhance the product based on the feedback.

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We can call such a product an “MVP” (“Minimum Viable Product”). You can use the “Agile” methodology for the iterative enhancements needed to develop your MVP as you get more and more customer feedback.

Read “What is software development life cycle and what do you plan for?” to learn more about Agile.

3. Deliberate on the development approach

The PM and architect should work together to develop the best development approach. I recommend the following:

• Use a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) platform for developing the web app. For developing mobile apps, use a Mobile-Backend-as-a-Service (MBaaS) platform.
• Develop native Android and iOS mobile apps. Native apps develop the best user experience, performance, and security. That’s what you want for your influencer marketing software. If you want to reduce development costs, then consider cross-platform mobile development. However, cross-platform mobile apps can’t match the native user experience.
• Use web frameworks to expedite web development. You can use SDKs (software development kits) to expedite mobile development. Use 3rd party APIs (application programming interfaces) when suitable.

For the reasons we have just explained, this development approach improves the chances of your success.

4. Induct the rest of the team to build influencer marketing software

You now need to cover the other roles in the team, which are as follows:

• UI designers;
• Frontend web developers with skills in JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Angular, React.js, etc.;
• Backend web developers with Node.js skills
• Android developers with Java expertise;
• iOS developers with Swift skills;
• Testers;
• DevOps engineers.

Building an influencer market solution is a strategic project, therefore, I recommend that you hire a field expert development team. Read our guide “Freelance app development team vs. field expert software development teams” for more information.

5. Find the right managed cloud services platforms

We recommend you use AWS. It offers well-known PaaS and MBaaS platforms.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is the PaaS platform from AWS. It offers the following advantages:

• It manages the cloud infrastructure, networking, storage, operating system, middleware, and runtime environment.
• You can focus on web development instead of managing the IT infrastructure.
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk offers services like databases and DevOps tools.
• You can easily integrate 3rd party APIs or host your APIs using this platform.
• You can build your CI/CD pipeline easily with the AWS DevOps tools.
• This PaaS platform offers APM (application performance monitoring) and auto-scaling solutions.

Use the same AWS account to access AWS Amplify, i.e., the MBaaS platform from AWS. Amplify has many advantages, e.g.:

• It handles cloud infrastructure, persistent storage, etc. This lets you concentrate on the front end since you don’t need to manage the back end.
• Amplify makes it easy to integrate 3^rd party APIs and scale your app.
• You can easily implement features like user management, push notifications, security, etc. when using AWS Amplify.

6. Sign-up for an influencer marketing API solution

You can use a leading 3rd party API to implement influencer marketing features. We recommend you use the Upfluence API. This API solution offers the following advantages:

• You can access the Upfluence influencer data.
• This API enables you to access the Upfluence influencer metrics. You can access the Upfluence analytics too. This helps you to create useful dashboards in your app.
• Your app users can easily search for influencers and find new influencers.
• The Upfluence API enables you to access the audience demographics data for the influencers in its database. You can fine-tune your campaign using this data.

Contact the Upfluence support team for guides to integrating its APIs.

7. Find a payment gateway API solution

You need a payment gateway integration for your influencer marketing solution. We recommend you use Stripe.

You can integrate a payment gateway easily with this API solution. Check out the following documentation:

• The Stripe documentation;
• The “Payments” guide from Stripe;
• Stripe API reference;
• The “Accept a payment” page on the Stripe website where you can access its SDKs;
• The Stripe iOS SDK documentation;
• The Stripe Android SDK documentation.

Contact Stripe for the pricing information.

8. Get a bulk SMS solution for the push notifications feature

You need the push notifications feature in the mobile app, and a bulk SMS solution helps here. Sign up with Twilio. Use the SMS service offered by it.

Check out the messaging services documentation provided by Twilio. Visit the Twilio pricing page to view its pricing plans.

9. Procure a test automation aid

Your mobile apps should work with all relevant mobile devices. You need to test it against a wide range of devices.

You can’t achieve this with only open-source test automation frameworks. Sign up with Digital.ai, which was formerly known as Experitest.

Digital.ai offers a mobile device & browser lab via the cloud. You can use it to test your app against different browsers and devices.

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You can also use “Digital Test Analytics” from Digital.ai. This consolidates your test results for mobile and web and provides you with valuable insights.

10. Find a suitable PM tool

We recommend you use the “Scrum” framework to manage this Agile project. Read about this framework in our guide to scrum development.

The Scrum framework works as follows:

• The PM works as the “Scrum Master” and forms “Scrum Teams”. Developers and testers work together in these cross-functional teams.
• A “Product Owner” provides the requirements in a “Product Backlog”. The scrum team estimates them.
• The team follows a process called “sprint planning”. It schedules the requirements in “Sprints”, i.e., iterations.
• A scrum team discusses the project status in “Daily stand-up meetings”.
• The business stakeholders review how the app works in a “Sprint review meeting”. They provide the approval for the sprint in this meeting.
• A scrum team conducts a lessons-learned exercise after a sprint. It’s called the “Sprint retrospective meeting”.

We recommend you use Jira, a robust PM tool to help manage your team.

11. UI design

Your web and mobile apps need user-friendly UIs, therefore, the UI design team should consult the appropriate guidelines. The following guides are useful:

• “User interface design guidelines: 10 rules of thumb”, for designing the web app UI;
• “Human Interface Guidelines”, for the iOS app UI design;
• Material design guidelines, for designing the Android app UI.

12. Coding, testing, and deploying the web app

You need to do the following for developing the web app:

• Code the front end of the web app using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. You can also use front-end web frameworks like Angular or React.js.
• Code the back-end of the web app using Node.js. This open-source runtime environment for JavaScript helps you to create performant web apps.
• Use an IDE like Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA.
• Add databases to your app by following the relevant AWS Elastic Beanstalk instructions.
• Integrate the APIs/SDKs for Upfluence, Twilio, and Stripe.
• Test your web app. Deploy it using the AWS Elastic Beanstalk Node.js deployment instructions.

13. Developing the Android app

Developing the proposed Android app involves the following:

• Use Android Studio, the popular IDE to code this app.
• Use Java to code the app since it’s well-established in the world of Android development.
• Integrate the 3^rd party APIs and SDKs with your code.
• Use Espresso and the Digital.ai mobile device lab to test the Android app.
• Read “Publish your app” for instructions on how to publish the app to Google Play.

14. Coding, testing, and publishing the iOS app

Use Xcode to develop the iOS app. Code the app using Swift, the modern language preferred by Apple.

You need to take the following steps:

• Integrate the SDKs/APIs for Upfluence, Stripe, and Twilio.
• Use XCTest and the Digital.ai mobile testing lab to test the iOS app.
• Follow the instructions in “Submit your apps to the app store” to publish the app to the Apple App Store.

Let’s repeat the steps you need to take for building your influencer marketing software:

1. Agree on the project scope of influencer marketing software
2. Identify the right methodology
3. Deliberate on the development approach
4. Induct the rest of the team to build influencer marketing software
5. Find the right managed cloud services platforms
6. Sign-up for an influencer marketing API solution
7. Find a payment gateway API solution
8. Get a bulk SMS solution for the push notifications feature
9. Procure a test automation aid
10. Find a suitable PM tool
11. UI design
12. Coding, testing, and deploying the web app
13. Developing the Android app
14. Coding, testing, and publishing the iOS app

Congratulations on building your influencer marketing solution MVP!

Planning to Launch Your Influencer Marketing Software Solution?

Note that the market for influencer marketing software solutions is competitive, and your product should stand out from the crowd. We have tried to provide the best platforms, tools, and frameworks in this guild to help you. However, developing such an app is very complex.

If you do not have all the skills and expertise that such a project requires, then why not take a second to let us know about your project requirements via this link, and one of our dedicated account managers at DevTeam.Space will get in touch to answer any questions that you might have.

DevTeam.Space is an innovative American software development company with over 99% project success rate. DevTeam.Space builds reliable and scalable custom software applications, mobile apps, websites, influencer marketing platforms and apps, live-streaming software applications, speech recognition systems, ChatGPT and AI-powered solutions, and IoT solutions and conducts complex software integrations for various industries, including finance, hospitality, healthcare, music, entertainment, gaming, e-commerce, banking, construction, and education software solutions on time and budget.

DevTeam.Space supports its clients with business analysts and dedicated tech account managers who monitor tech innovations and new developments and help our clients design, architect, and develop applications that will be relevant and easily upgradeable in the years to come.

Frequently Asked Questions on Creating Influencer Marketing Software