Webfluential, Student Village partnership opens up opportunities

123RF

With Student Village’s extensive youth networking capabilities, Webfluential will now offer a more targeted influencer variety, enabling brands in their youth specific marketing efforts.

Marc Kornberger, director of Student Village, says, “The collective strategic focus of the partnership is to offer a globally superior tech platform to empower brands in the accuracy of their influencer marketing efforts.”

Youth marketing has grown to become a larger focus for marketers, with influencer marketing becoming an essential brand communication tool, as peer-to-peer influence has been the youth’s key source for informing their purchasing decisions. Influencer marketing to date however, has been focussed on a broad spectrum of influencers that could only be selected as appropriate for campaigns, based on ranking, topics and industries they engage in.

“It is vital to the current influencer landscape that brands do away with a blanket strategy and focus on relevant community influencers instead, because the youth market is guided by those closest to them.”

Together the brands are also aiming to create an opportunity for young, up and coming influencers to establish themselves and use the platform as a launch pad. With celebrities having been brands’ first focus to reach the youth previously, brands will now be able to target students through their significant peers as well.

Murray Legg, co-founder of Webfluential, adds, “The youth market provides an opportunity for brands to engage with their audiences through effective influencer marketing campaigns. Millennials spend much time on social networking sites and online via their phones, creating an ideal setting for people to influence people. We feel that Student Village is a perfect partner to execute on campaigns of this nature and add value to the brands and customers that they serve.”