THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
The recent labor shortage has been one of the most challenging problems businesses have faced. Currently, there are around 3.9 million total Uber drivers globally, but in Q2 of 2021, the ride-sharing service struggled to maintain enough supply of drivers to support riders. Uber partnered with The Social Standard to innovate on a new campaign to turn TikTok influencers into recruits to get trustworthy, genuine, and quality-focused individuals to sign-up to drive. The following strategies accelerated the growth of new drivers to join their ride-sharing business.
For influencer marketing to be successful, you must know your consumer, creator, and the ideal platform/s for activation. Uber and The Social Standard applied this comprehensive approach to maximize its creator campaign to its full potential.
Understand consumer data and apply it to an influencer marketing strategy. 67% of Uber users are Gen-Z and Millennials. This target group of users, familiar with the service, could potentially serve as a treasure trove of potential drivers. Next, the brand needed to find aligned influencers with the aligned user audiences that would communicate authentically and the value of driving for the brand.
A solid influencer strategy develops candidate personas of ideal individuals for the campaign. Uber chose to activate 18-to-30-year-olds influencers currently driving for a competitor service (Lyft, Postmates, etc.) or someone looking for extra work. This group is often looking for additional pay and enjoys the work-as-you-wish structure of Uber.
Short-form videos are consumed most by younger demographics. TikTok is well known for its overwhelmingly Gen-Z audience, making it the ideal social media platform for the Uber campaign. Content that performs well on TikTok has the highest likelihood of converting well on Instagram Reels. Therefore, Uber could test performance on one channel and repost for paid/organic campaigns on others.
When working with talent, it’s critical to allow freedom of expression. Influencers want to work on campaigns that are collaborative, open to multiple options, and fun to create. To push the pedal and increase driver recruitment, Uber provided influencers a detailed brief that communicated instructions about the activation, suggestions on direction, including what they should say and ideas to explore, and explained the benefits of driving with the service.
Uber understood the alignment! They made their goal simple: attract new drivers to the service by opening up the campaign across various categories, ranging from financial to comedy. A survey cited monetary incentives as the most popular reason individuals elected to drive with Uber, with the flexibility of work schedule as the second most popular reason. Audiences of financial/money-conscious influencers would resonate with the campaign, as would those that pursued their passions/alternative goals. This broad spectrum allowed The Social Standard to partner the brand with creators most likely to engage and sign-up to drive.
Uber activated eleven influencers, with a total reach of over 3 million, including comedian Tyler Regan (1.3 M followers) and investor Sara Finance (700k followers), to communicate the benefits of driving for Uber. The highest-performing skits and narratives were selected for paid media and boosted on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram Reels, improving campaign reach while highlighting the earning potential of ‘the most underrated side hustle.’
Businesses seeking to hire new employees at scale should consider an influencer campaign. The campaign ran for two months, resulting in over 186,000 impressions and 24,000 likes, with 22% of viewers watching the entire video.
Scale Your Influencer Marketing
The Social Standard is a full-service influencer marketing agency driven by setting the standard for the industry and then reaching even higher. Our team is obsessed with finding the right influencers for our partners. But we are way more than just matchmakers. We are strategists that develop effective campaigns to delight, inspire, entertain and hit business goals. From concept to seamless execution, we work with clients such as Adobe, FiatChrysler, L’Oreal, Motorola, and others, positioning them as pioneers in innovative influencer marketing and helping talent thrive in the creator economy. Want to learn more about our agency’s work? Shoot us an email at partner@sostandard.com. We’d love to collaborate!
