Mustafa Mohamed and Jidé Maduako
George de Freitas
With marketing budgets squeezed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and production having to pull the shutters down, advertisers, apps, and brands are increasingly looking to TikTok influencers as a cost-effective marketing channel. And performance-based influencer marketing network Yoke Network wasted no time in seizing the opportunities this presented.
Launched by Jidé Maduako and Mustafa Mohamed in 2018, Yoke Network helps apps grow by driving downloads through social media influencers, and helps social media influencers by matching them with brands in order to better monetize their content. It has already worked with some of the biggest influencers across all social media platforms and exclusively manages a roster of top TikTok creators.
Former Leicester city footballer Maduako, 25, and Mohamed, 23 met as students at Lancaster University and bonded over their London roots. They launched Yoke shortly after graduating and it can already count names such as PicsArt, Warner Music Group, and Badoo among its clients.
Mohamed had been studying for a master’s degree in computer science, with plans for a career in data science. “I was really interested in AI and Machine Learning,” he says. “I made it to the final stage in the interview process for a job at Amazon, but not getting any further was the push I needed to start something myself.”
Maduako had spent a year playing football at Leicester City when he realized that he didn’t actually want a football career. He says: “I’d known for a while that I wanted to start my own business, but wasn’t sure what, so I decided to go to university to study economics, where I met Mustafa.”
By the time they were thrashing out ideas for their new venture, Maduako had already landed his first job at health and fitness app Sweatcoin. He says: “The app was promoted using a performance-based influencer marketing model, so influencers were paid when the app was downloaded by someone seeing their content. It was clear there was a huge demand for influencer content, and also a huge desire from influencers to better monetize what they were doing.”
The pair came up with the idea of creating an ecosystem to link app marketers to influencers, and influencers to more apps. The result was Yoke Network, which has three parts to the business. The influencer marketplace is run via a mobile platform where influencers read a brief, copy the link, then create content to promote it and get paid by their performance. It also has a full-service agency with influencers ready to create TikTok campaigns for brands, and an influencer talent management agency.
Mohamed says: “We are currently working with over 2,000 influencers, mainly TikTok influencers, from the U.K. and U.S., and around 34 brands, including Badoo, PicsArt, Revolut, Hoppa, Atlantic Records, Universal, and Pretty Little Thing.”
What sets TikTok apart from other channels is that it is a creative-first platform with an algorithm that is driven by the quality of the content rather than the name behind it, as Mohamed explains.
He says: “You can have hundreds of followers and go viral and get millions of views if the content is good. This makes it a better creative platform than other social channels because the model really allows creators to come out of their shell. By comparison, Instagram now feels pretty stale. And content that begins on TikTok accounts for much of the interesting content you find elsewhere.”
Engagement on TikTok is also much higher than for other social channels, while influencers on the platform have fan bases with considerable numbers. “We can see how engaged people are from what can be achieved,” says Maduako. “When an influencer pushes an app, it’s clear that the right content can generate considerable download numbers.”
TikTok was relatively untapped by influencer businesses when Yoke Network first came on the scene, but competition is now steadily increasing. The business received an unexpected boost from the COVID-19 pandemic, with more people using TikTok to pass the time during coronavirus lockdowns, and more celebrities joining it. Since the start of quarantine, Yoke Network’s revenue has doubled and the business is growing rapidly.
Mohamed says: “In 2019 we generated revenues of £250,000 ($308,000). We doubled that in just the first quarter of 2020 and expect to turn over £2 million ($2.5 million) by the end of this year. Before the pandemic, we had a team of nine, plus one part-time person. We’re now hiring to fill a further four new roles and within the next few weeks we expect to be a team of 14 or 15.”
Lockdown also had a positive impact on the team’s work-life balance, something that often goes ignored in the early days of starting up. “You often work crazy hours in a startup, but COVID-19 has pushed some of the team towards a more balanced lifestyle, so they’ve had time to exercise and get enough sleep, while also increasing output.”
The business was with set up costs of around £1,000 for the website. It signed up its first client within the first three weeks and has been profitable since launch. Initial funding of £40,000 was raised to hire staff and fund growth, and last August they secured £250,000 in seed funding.
One of the key drivers of growth for Yoke Network has been TikTok’s move into the mainstream, and the new features that have been introduced to make it more advertiser-friendly. “Advertisers taking TikTok more seriously has definitely been good news for us.”
