Musical.Ly Primed for Influencer Marketing

Marketers are constantly looking for the next big thing they can leverage to cheaply and easily gain access to consumers. Social media marketing and the use of market influencers have both been found to yield high return of investments with relatively low costs when compared to more traditional advertising methods. A new social media app, rapidly growing in popularity, may be the next mountain that marketers look to summit.

The app is called musical.ly, and it was launched a little less than three years ago. It allows users to create short videos of themselves lip syncing along to their favorite songs and share them with their friends. It originated in China, and grew immensely popularity there before making its way west in 2015. Currently, the app has 130 million users, 40 million of whom are considered daily active users. Half of those 20 million reside in the United States.

All of these are impressive numbers, but how do they do marketers any good? The key here lies in the social media aspect of the app. Users follow their friends as well as celebrities and other people and get a constant feed of their videos as they are created. Just as with YouTube or Vine, other social media platforms that specialize in video, some users have created substantially large followings simply through their exploits in the app. It is these users that can be called upon to help spearhead influencer marketing efforts.

Another aspect that makes this platform one that marketers should consider for their influencer marketing efforts is the fact that the user base tends to skew towards young females, a demographic that is traditionally difficult to reach. If marketers can forge partnerships with users who have gained fame from using musical.ly, they can have access to a large user base through an app that currently has not been leveraged much for influencer marketing. Marketers should at least explore this possibility as they look to further advance their marketing strategies.