You read that right. This company experienced a 6100% rise in TikTok followers in just eight weeks using the power of influencer marketing.
The company is called Swimply – it’s like the Airbnb of pools. You list your private pool with an hourly rate and renters come to enjoy your backyard paradise.
When you think about all the unused pools and gorgeous backyard spaces not being taken advantage of, this concept starts to make a lot of sense. It’s a great way for pool owners to draw in revenue that helps care for their outdoor spaces, while utilizing the “staycation” trend that took off during quarantine.
Tapping into influencer marketing strategies allowed this company to exponentially grow over the summer. In Hollywood Hills, Swimply rented a massive mansion pool to 20 top influencers over eight weeks, where they splashed around and created original content. Each influencer had a tracking monitor link that allowed Swimply bookings to be traced back to their content.
In the two month period, the #swimply hashtag grew in views from 1,000 to 100 million. The Swimply Instagram account gained 27,500 followers and their TikTok grew by 122,000 followers.
The only tricky part of this campaign was to match the influencers’ content with the Swimply brand and target audience. The company targets families with children who may be hosting birthday parties or trying to keep their kids entertained during the days – yet some of the content the influencers created involved drinking and other seemingly “frat boy” activities.
This goes to show that influencer marketing can create some potentially sticky situations for brands looking to get their name out there. Instead of carefully planned campaigns with written scripts and teams of people ensuring the content is on-brand, influencers are testing ads in real-time to millions of people. The brand did educate their chosen influencers on Swimply’s values and vision, but then, they let the influencers do the rest.
Sometimes, it’s surprising which types of content gather the most online attention. For example, one TikTok video that gathered 46 million views was a basic challenge where the influencers dove in and touched the pool wall, without actively swimming. But, this goes to show that real content gathers real attention. Posting coupon codes or exclusive deals would never have gotten the company the same number of views and followers.
Swimply made waves this summer by unlocking the potential of influencer marketing. The company was founded in 2018 and since then, has experienced 5,000% year-over-year growth. Will other brands catch onto this influencer marketing trend and see similar growth? Only time will tell.
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