Influencer partnerships have become powerful tools for brands aiming to engage audiences authentically, but they also carry risks. With some social media personalities leaning into controversy to maintain their relevance, brands face a dilemma: how to ensure their partnerships align with brand values and won’t spark backlash. Enter AI-powered tools, which now offer sophisticated solutions for screening influencers’ backgrounds and content.
Lightricks’ SafeCollab: Streamlining Influencer Vetting with AI
Leading the charge is Lightricks, best known for its popular AI-driven image and video editing tools. This week, Lightricks expanded its offerings with SafeCollab, an AI-powered influencer vetting tool integrated into its Popular Pays creator collaboration platform. SafeCollab automates influencer vetting, enabling marketers to quickly evaluate potential partners’ histories for any content that might harm the brand.
Traditionally, vetting influencers involves combing through years of posts across platforms, manually analyzing videos, comments, and social media histories—a time-consuming process. SafeCollab harnesses large language models (LLMs) to expedite this due diligence by scanning posts, videos, and audio, providing a risk assessment that flags problematic content within minutes.
The Need for Vigilance in Influencer Collaborations
One high-profile example of this need for caution involves lifestyle influencer Brooke Schofield. With her polished online presence and significant following, Schofield seemed like a perfect collaborator for the clothing brand Boys Lie. But after the partnership launched, past posts surfaced in which Schofield expressed controversial views, sparking a backlash that forced Boys Lie to sever ties.
With a tool like SafeCollab, marketers could preemptively catch red flags, scanning creators’ entire social media histories and assessing them against customizable risk parameters. This approach could prevent associations with influencers who may not align with brand values, helping companies avoid unexpected controversies.
AI-Driven Vetting: Faster, Smarter, and Continuous
SafeCollab takes vetting a step further with real-time monitoring, alerting brands to any new content that might not align with their guidelines. This continuous tracking covers audio, text, and video uploads, instantly flagging posts with graphic language, inappropriate images, or promotion of sensitive topics like violence or drug use.
Through this automation, SafeCollab also reduces marketers’ need to re-assess influencers continuously, saving time and maintaining brand integrity without extensive manual research.
Expanding AI’s Role in Brand Safety
Beyond influencer screening, Lightricks is innovating in AI-driven content creation tools. Its apps like Photoleap and Videoleap leverage AI to streamline video editing and enhance creative outputs. SafeCollab exemplifies Lightricks’ AI-first approach by applying automation to influencer marketing, providing brand marketers with tools that simplify complex tasks while boosting confidence in their partnership choices.
The use of AI in brand safety is expanding, and tools like SafeCollab are setting a new standard for responsible influencer partnerships. For brands, this means staying focused on authentic connections with their audiences while sidestepping potentially damaging associations.
Sources: https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/news/ai-is-helping-brands-avoid-controversial-influencer-partnerships/https://www.insperity.com/blog/strategic-business-partnerships/
