Become a paid influencer with Sowbeez

During a 30-minute discussion, we had the pleasure of listening to Julien Couderc's enriching career path. With over twenty years' experience as an entrepreneur, Julien launched Sowbeez, a platform that gives consumers a voice.

What is Sowbeez?

Sowbeez has a simple promise: to turn any citizen into an influencer. Faced with the advent of UGC (User Generated Content) and the influence market, Sowbeez is shuffling the deck by offering consumers the chance to become ambassadors for their local businesses.

From the Smoothie Bar to Sowbeez:

It was while studying in the United States that Julien discovered the smoothie bar concept. Although it had already been democratized on the American continent, in Europe it was still relatively undeveloped. Although he didn't open his first smoothie bar on his return to France, his passion for entrepreneurship was already there. Julien moved between the creation of several businesses, from e-commerce for decorative objects to the creation of a clothing brand. Opportunities followed one another, and although they weren't all the same, they all gave him the experience he needed to understand the needs of retailers.

"When we sold our clothing brand to a major textile group, we embarked on a new project, but this time in the restaurant business. On the outskirts of Toulouse. We opened four restaurants that quickly became The Place to Be, and it was thanks to this last project that Sowbeez." Julien tells us.

Local influence for retailers:

In France, 150,000 influencers share the market. With their active and engaged communities, these true brand ambassadors have considerable striking power, which Julien has taken advantage of to promote his clothing brand.

"We used national and international influencers to promote our brand. The results were there for all to see, and we knew that influence was a marketing strategy that worked very well."

Julien naturally adapted this winning strategy to communicate about his restaurants.

"This time, the influencers were our customers". he explains. "We asked them to post photos in exchange for a free drink or dessert." Julien completes.

Word of mouth: the best form of communication.

It's probably the oldest of all communication strategies: word of mouth. Nothing is more valuable than the advice of a satisfied customer.

"To communicate about our restaurants, we've tried everything: Google Ads, Facebook ads and all those methods that, in the end, cost a lot of money and very often have a lower return than word of mouth. On social networks, we're drowned out by advertising. We really wanted to make a difference, by giving pride of place to the words of those who speak best about us, i.e. our customers."

Julien and his partner have turned their customers into influencers, and the natural communication undertaken by their consumers has quickly borne fruit.

"We were fully booked mornings and evenings, and there were long queues in front of the restaurants. Each restaurant brought in between €600,000 and €700,000 in sales over the course of a year, which is considerable for a town with a population of 60,000. explains Julien.

Sowbeez uberizes influence:

Quite naturally, the two partners sought to outsource* their influencing activities.

"We thought we needed to automate our strategy, so that citizens and professionals could connect through an automated platform. In this way, we're creating a simple, secure place for anyone wishing to create content for a business or company they love to get paid. And in a tense economic climate, we're responding to a real issue, which is purchasing power."

Influence: Small communities pay big dividends

For some years now, companies have been turning to micro-influence for its generally higher engagement rate. Paradoxically, as the number of subscribers increases, the number of post interactions decreases. Sowbeez has taken this notion on board and made it its spearhead.

"The reach of a publication posted by a consumer is 7 to 12 times more effective than a third-party communication. Simply because their community is generally made up of people they really know. The trust given to content seen is therefore much greater than that given to influencer content." says Julien.

Sowbeez: how does it work?

Regardless of social network or number of followers, with Sowbeez anyone can become an influencer.

"We have developed an artificial intelligence with Harvard physicists specialized in algorithms. Based on some twenty criteria, it calculates the right price for each post published on social networks. Depending on the format (real, story, photo), the time posted, the social media engagement of the creator or even his or her location, our technology is able to determine how much the citizen will earn from his or her publication, as well as the likely spin-offs for the merchant."

Thanks to the power of its technology, Sowbeez gives companies a real view of the earnings generated by the influencers powered by the platform, while remunerating each creator in line with their investment.

Whether you're a company or a future influencer, we invite you to click here to discover Sowbeez, the future of the influencer market.

_{*"is a recent phenomenon in the field of economics consisting in the use of services allowing professionals and customers to put themselves in direct contact, in a quasi-instantaneous way, thanks to the use of a digital platform" Wikipedia}