Yet, influencers are the modern way to reach audiences, and their content dramatically outperforms most content that comes directly from brands. That’s why more than half of marketers say they already rely on influencer marketing to increase brand awareness, audience engagement, credibility and trust, and even revenue, per the Q1 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey.
The same survey found that most brands focus their partnerships on 10 influencers or fewer, and 59% plan to forge new partnerships in 2025. To grow and scale effectively, marketing teams must overcome common hurdles like unclear ownership, budget constraints and inefficient processes.
Over the last few years at Sprout Social, we transformed a handful of ad hoc influencer activations into a robust influencer marketing program that sits at the center of our marketing strategy. Rather than placing the responsibility solely on the social team, we built a cross-functional influencer and creator marketing machine that spans many departments and functions—and that has been one of the keys to our success.
The result: Partnerships with dozens of unique creators and hundreds of pieces of content that drove more than 400 million impressions, 100K+ engagements and a large volume of leads.
To go from one-off partnerships to building a sophisticated influencer marketing strategy that is executed across the organization, we needed to align our efforts with clear business goals, define and report on impactful metrics that are tied to our core business KPIs, and rebuild our entire process from top to bottom. Let’s dive into how we implemented these changes, and steps you can follow to create a best-in-class influencer program of your own.
