The Growing Trend of Influencer Houses

One of the fascinating new trends in the influencer space is that of influencer houses. You may have heard The Hype House, probably the biggest example in the U.S., is queued up for a Netflix distribution deal after starting on social media channels. There’s another in the U.S. called the Sway House, yet another called Club Beverly Hills.  The concept borrows from the original reality TV show -- The Real World on MTV. Influencer Houses bring together some number of large audience content creators and put them in a big, fancy house with each other to collaborate, create content, participate in challenges and more.  There’s a lot of smarts behind these things: Talent agencies created them to cross-promote client audiences and grow each influencer’s network, while at the same time building a frequently watched episodic content creation -- a TV show -- that can be monetized with advertising, merchandise, syndication deals and even big network distribution. But is this really influencer marketing? Or is it entertainment with online influencers playing the parts?  I invited two of the people behind Wave House, an influencer house concept out of the United Kingdom to help us understand it all. Jidé Maduako originated the Wave House concept to support his stable of influencers at Yoke Network and is the primary producer of the series. Ali Clifton helps produce the show and series through Brave Bison, a social content firm in the U.K. that partners to support Yoke’s mission with the show.  I talk to them about the concept, the reasons for being, the end game and I even dig into whether or not these are reality TV shows or overacting zaniness to get eyeballs. You’ll appreciate the discussion, I’m sure.  This episode of Winfluence, the podcast, is sponsored by Julius. I mention that software more than others in my book because it’s the platform I’ve been using for a few years now to find influencers, engage with them and manage campaigns.  Julius has powerful filters that let me drill down find outdoors influencers who also love jazz music. Or the content creators who are dermatologists in Chicago. But it certainly also gives me the mega influencers and celebrity influencers I might need to help launch a product or campaign around any type of product. And in most cases, it has contact information so I don’t have to go fishing to reach them. All the elements of campaign management are in the software, too. I love the fact I can assign a purchase price or value to every single social deliverable that is a part of campaign, automatically track it based on when the influencer says they’ll post, and get an ROI report for each element.  You know I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t true -- You owe it to your brand or agency to do a demo of Julius today. Go to jason.online/julius and request one.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices