Meet Trendster.io, Egypt's First Influencer Marketing Tech Platform

The influencer marketing industry has been growing rapidly worldwide, but there weren’t any digital tools to assist brands and agencies in Egypt in connecting with and managing influencers, until Trendster.io made an interjection.

Founded by seasoned influencer Clorinda Siag and established entrepreneur Ali Ezzat, Trendster.io is the first influencer marketing platform in Egypt. The platform aims to connect brands with relevant influencers to create powerful and engaging online campaigns, by providing a two-sided data driven platform which provides all the necessary tools to run faster and more effective influencer marketing campaigns.

The platform provides detailed, solid influencer insights that allow brands and agencies to save lots of resources that could be spent on research. In regards to the influencers, Trendster.io provides them with a tool that connects them with relevant brands and allows them to pursue, and monetise their efforts.

“We aim to solve the three main problems facing the industry today which are seeking out and connecting with the right influencer, managing the campaigns, and finally tracking the results,” Siag told Startup Scene.

Trendster.io initially launched an early version of their platform a couple of months ago and it was essentially used to see if influencers would be interested in such product.  After coming to the conclusion that a product like this would add a lot of value to the industry, the platform went through an assessment period, to rebuild it and include all the features that would make it a two-sided platform.  The new product includes the management and communication tools, and has launched in the beginning of July 2019.

Siag has years of experience in the influencer marketing industry, and directly noticed the massive potential for improvement while working in an agency and running influencer marketing campaigns. Her experience was leveraged accordingly when creating a tech solution that would satisfy all the required needs to run a successful influencer marketing practice.“Our goal is to connect brands with social media influencers through data and cutting-edge technology as well as give them the tools to measure the success of their influencer marketing activities. Our purpose is to empower brands with technological tools to adapt and conquer the digital age,” says Siag.

Trendster.io views itself as a regional player in the Influencer marketing space, exclusively to the Middle East and African markets, by creating a large community around influencer marketing and boosting the market’s efforts on how to effectively use the power of influence to reach their target audience. By doing so, they intend to grow the influencer marketing industry in Egypt, and making it accessible to all brands, agencies and influencers in the market.

The tech-based startup takes the time to find the right talents in the technology space and build a well-rounded team who’s able to develop state-of-the-art technology to support their business goals. The platform has an integrated smart management system that facilitates the process to track a campaign’s progress, review deliverables, requests amends, and more features that allow for a smooth interaction. Running a campaign which would take several days to roll out can be done in a matter of minutes on Trendster.io.

As an influencer, you are able to apply, get invited to campaigns, negotiate the terms, and get paid doing what you love. Usually, influencer marketing campaigns are run in extremely traditional ways such as roaming social media and creating excel sheets, which has become an outdated process due to how dynamic the industry is.  However, the startup aims to make the process much easier and smoother for all parties involved, whether brands, influencers, or agencies.

“As Trendster.io, we believe in the power of content creators and we hope to create more opportunities for all these talented individuals to work with brands and start introducing the concept of co-creation. Content creation is an open-ended tool and a powerful means of communication, and we support the idea of getting paid to do what you love and what you’re passionate about. We also seek to support micro-influencers that brands might not know anything about,” Siag explained.

With the advent of technological breakthroughs in the artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning fields, Trendster.io plans to leverage these technologies to create an analytics powerhouse that will pave the way for truly influential marketing campaigns and allow brands to enact their vision when it comes to content creation.

Graduated from Falak Startups which has been the only investment in the company to date, Trendster.io are in late stage discussions with high profile private investors “who are experienced in the industry and whom will add significant value to the business,” Siag said.

Furthermore, the startup aims to empower brands with an in-depth influencer selection process, that includes sophisticated content matching tools, to help them comb through the vast sea of social media.

Nowadays, influencer marketing accounts as the fastest-growing online customer-acquisition method. The industry is, in fact, expected to hit $10 billion by the year 2020. The market is rapidly shifting, with renowned social media networks evolving every day with little to predict what the future holds. However, it’s strongly believed that influence will always exist, with technologies created to cater to the platforms that are most effective. “Owing to those facts, and that only competition can bring about the best product, and that this market is still developing in Egypt, we believe that it was definitely a risk worth taking,” Siag concluded.