Do you want to grow your business? Do you want to gain more visibility for your business? In almost every circumstance, the answer is yes. #InfluencerMarketing is hot property right now, and when you think about what it can do for your business, it’s not hard to understand why. Social media has caused a huge shift by changing the balance of power between customers and brands and this has set things up perfectly for influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is built on the foundation of word-of-mouth recommendations. This gives you the power to collaborate with industry relevant influencers, tapping into their creativity and engaging their audience in an organic way. The sky's the limit... What is Influencer Marketing? Influencer marketing is a form of marketing in which focus is placed on influential people rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orients marketing activities around these influencers. It's not much different from when a friend recommends a restaurant to you. You’re happy and appreciative that they recommended it because you value what they have to say. Influencer marketing is the same concept, it allows you to target an audience through an influencer that the target audience trusts. Influencer marketing isn’t actually a new process, It has been happening for a long time, we just haven’t noticed it. Celebrities and athletes were the main influencers and brands would partner with these individuals to promote their companies. With the power of the social media movement, we have seen brands shift in the way they utilise influencer marketing by working directly with creative social influencers and agencies. Influencer marketing allows you to tap into a pool of incredible people who are extremely talented, respected and cover every variety of topic, from all over the World. Should my brand be using influencer marketing? Absolutely. Influencer Marketing can be one of, if not the biggest ways to catapult your brands growth and deliver stronger ROIs on your marketing campaign. It is an incredible way for you to create brand loyalty and trust in a time where this is an extremely important factor in a customers journey. Also we are in a time where traditional advertising methods are not as effective and word of mouth can be the fix for this. Get Inspired To keep up with all things #InfluencerMarketing, including tips, tricks and interesting articles, head over to to the Ritual Blog. You may even find yourself inspired to start crafting your influencer campaigns. You can also join our world leading FREE academy where you will receive industry leading training and material on everything influencer marketing. Influencer marketing can be a long and tiring process if you have to manually search for the right talent. You can use a company like us to help you with the correct software to find the right talent and ensure your campaign goals are achieved.

When it comes to influencer marketing, there are so many different types of partnerships that a brand can have with an influencer. Through the various means of connecting with your consumer through the voice of an influencer, you are more likely to achieve a higher performance and have a stronger voice in the online conversation while also delivering high quality content. With influencer marketing becoming so popular, the opportunities that are available for both brands and influencers is limitless. We wanted to create a list to explain the different types of partnerships between brands and influencers. One-Off Payment. This is by far the most popular method used currently as it allows advertisers to offer an influencer a one off payment to promote their brand. These types of partnerships usually make for great campaigns as it allows the influencer to create a one-off unique piece of content that fits in will with their current message. This is great for the brand and audience as the content is organic and natural, and also usually high quality content. One off campaigns are great for brands that want to create brand awareness. This type of partnerships is usually for one piece of content and is paid as a simple flat fee. Brand Ambassador When an influencer is perfectly inline with a brands message it often means that they can talk more frequently about the product or brand in a way that is still organic. Influencers can be extremely strong ambassadors for a brand as they might already have the perfect target audience with which they can share the brands message in an organic way which mutually benefits everyone. This can deliver amazing results for brands as it allows them to be part of the conversation through someone with an already established influence, while also potentially getting really high quality content produced related to their brand. It also gives off the sense of loyalty as the influencer will continuously promote the brand wherever it organically fits. Bringing a brand ambassador on board is one of the most powerful and effective ways of using influencer marketing. This type of partnerships is usually for a continuous fee or free products/access. Product Only Commission This is one of the most popular methods of influencer marketing. It works well when the influencer is inline with the brands message. For example, if my business sold high-end tennis rackets it would make sense for me to get high profile tennis influencers using my products. This type of partnership allows brands the opportunity to let influencers use their products or services for free, while hoping that they promote it in a positive way. It also allows the influencer to refer people to the product and earn a commission for the new business they bring. This is a great way to get influential people using your products, and if they love them then the benefits could be huge for brands. Summary; There are lots of different types of partnerships that brands and influencers can create. We have mentioned the key relationships in the current influencer marketing picture. There are many different factors which could decide with type of influencer partnership best suits your brand and it really comes down to what you’re trying to achieve. That being said, all brands should be looking into how they can develop influencer relationships and get themselves heard in the conversation. Get Inspired To keep up with all things #InfluencerMarketing, including tips, tricks and interesting articles, head over to to the Ritual Blog. You may even find yourself inspired to start crafting your influencer campaigns. You can also join our world leading FREE academy where you will receive industry leading training and material on everything influencer marketing. Influencer discovery can be a long and tiring process if you have to manually search for the right talent. You can use a company like us to help you with the correct software to find the right talent and ensure your campaign goals are achieved.

We had an action packed Saturday at the NEC for Insomnia 62 this weekend! YouTube superstars Syndicate, Caspar Lee and Terroriser, with a combined fan base of nearly 20 million, had the chance to meet some of their viewers at the event. With the largest attendance, this year's event was the biggest Insomina event to date. A number of the industry leading gaming companies such as Dell, GAME, PlayStation and Razer attended the event to showcase their new products. NintendoUK had an awesome stand at #i62 where attendees could join in a game of Donkey Kong. A number of teams from Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region battled it out for the Call of Duty World League (CWL) competition for the $200,000 event prize. YouTuber Caspar Lee held a meet and greet at the event. His passionate fans faced a lengthy queue to meet him but we have no doubt it was worth the wait! Keen Caspar went for the win on Fortnite as his eager fans stood by in anticipation. ​​ One of our creators, Kevin Chapman, attended Insomnia for the Saturday and Sunday – he participated in the Football Manager World eSport Championship on the Sunday, which had a total prize pool of £25,000. Unfortunately, Kevin got knocked out fairly early, but for one of the first proper eSports event for Football Manager he thought it was really well organised. Kevin spent some time on the show floor on the Saturday too and really appreciated the opportunities to meet up with subscribers for selfies and handshakes. Be sure to check out Kevin's i62 vlog! Some smaller YouTubers such as Badzz, itswatsonyt, Willx and Jordi Fox arranged their own “unofficial” meet and greet. They had a great turnout with over 50 people coming from across the UK to meet them. This turn out was a great achievement taking into account the fact that they have a combined fan base of 20,000. Our minds were blown away by this years event, you can find some of our favourite moments in our highlights video below. We’re hoping to see you at #i63 and we have no doubt there are bigger and better things to come for the next Insomnia event.

Have you wanted to be sponsored by a brand on YouTube? Do you consider it to be the next step? As markets change and develop, brands are very careful in choosing who represents their products. So here’s your 101 guide where we break down steps that can be taken to get sponsored on your social media. Brands Are Selective You’ll get the most interest from brands if your content is original, top-quality, have an engaged and active audience, and have a family-friendly channel. This not only exposes their content to engaged consumers but also has their brand promoted by a professional and high-quality content creator. So how can you attract brands? REGULAR UPLOADS! Make sure you content is consistent in quality, as well as coming out on a regularly schedule. Maybe a few times a week. BE SAFE! Make sure that a brand will be comfortable advertising on your channels. Try to aim for PG-13 content and avoid those R-ratings. MAKE GREAT VIDEOS! You can read our other articles on how to make the very best content you can, but this is a self-explanatory point! LOOK BEYOND YOUTUBE! Make sure you engage with your users across social media platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, Vine, and also Snapchat if you’re not shy! You can read our recent announcement regarding EPOXY to get the latest on social media cross-action. BE PERSONAL! Brands love when you can give their products their own personality from your point of view. Incorporate products into your videos! FACE TIME! Showing your face will give Brands more trust in you and make it more likely for your pitches of sponsorship to succeed. Try to keep these points in mind when looking for partnerships with brands, but keep an open mind and be aware not every brand is the same! But don’t stop trying. The more effort you put in, the more likely success will come your way Get Inspired To keep up with all things #YouTube & #InfluencerMarketing including tips, tricks and interesting articles, head over to to the Ritual Blog. You may even find yourself inspired to create and grow your own audience! You can also sign up for our FREE academy and get expert guidance on all things YouTube.

We’re so happy to announce on the 31st March we will be at Insomnia 62, bringing you all major content live from the UK’s biggest gaming festival! With so much going on down at the event, it’s really worth tuning into our live blog this Saturday. No doubt the show that’s returning this weekend will be the biggest Easter show yet. YouTube superstars Syndicate, Caspar Lee and Terroriser, with a combined fan base of nearly 20 million people, will be meeting fans and enjoying the countless gaming features and events on offer. We will also be bringing you exclusive live coverage from the Call of Duty World League (CWL) competition from the event. Where teams from Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region battle for the major stake in a $200,000 event prize. Not only are creators the main aspect of the event but such companies as Alienware, Dell, GAME, Playstation and Razer amongst others are at the show showing off their new products and letting everyone test them out down at the event. We are looking forward to seeing you down at the event and check out our social medias below to see exclusive videos live from the event as it happens!! You can immerse yourself in all of the i62 action as it happens. We will be covering it live from 9am on the 31st March. You can view here. Also get live updates from our social medias: - Twitter - Facebook - Instagram

Instagram has today launched a shopping service on it's platform that gives influencers and retailers the opportunity to turn their social media posts into a platform to sell their products and merchandise. Instagram originally launched shopping in the US last year, and has been trialled in the UK by a range of brands. Influencers currently use Instagram as a way to advertise products, connect with their customers and also promote products using the platform. With Instagram's new shopping capability, this will allow influencers to monetise their posts by selling their merchandise and products directly! Mobile sales have become one of the main sources of growth for influencers, and now they will be able to direct customers to their own stores directly through tagged posts on Instagram. Ritual Network offers a solution that lets influencers design, set up, and manage their stores across multiple sales channels, including web, mobile, social media, marketplaces, brick-and-mortar locations, and pop-up shops. With the addition of Instagram, this now offers another solution to shorten the consumers journey to your products! In a survey of small businesses conducted, 42 per cent said they would rather point customers to their Instagram profile than their website. This presents a huge opportunity for influencers as it gives them the capability to sell their products to a market of over 800 million monthly users seamlessly. At present, Instagram told Verdict it has no plans to charge commission or directly monetise the Shopping feature, but it is expected to bring further traffic to an app which already draws 500 million users per day. How to set it up: Requirements To use Instagram sales channel, you need to meet the following requirements: You need to be located in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy or Brazil. You need to have a Facebook channel with an approved Facebook Shop. You need to use the Online Store sales channel. You need a business profile on Instagram. You need to have an online store with Ritual Network, Shopify or similar. Before you can set up the Instagram sales channel, you need to make sure that you have a Facebook Shop page and that you have added products to your Facebook catalogue. The next step is to make sure you have an Instagram business account. To convert any Instagram profile into a business profile, complete the following steps: Using Instagram, open your profile and then go to your settings. Tap Switch to business profile and follow the steps to connect Instagram to your Facebook business page. Make sure that you connect to the Facebook page that you added to Shopify. If you're an influencer, will you be taking advantage of this feature? We certainly will.

2017 started off with good and bad games, the hype of Halo Wars 2 was good, but quickly let down by the fall of Mass Effect Andromeda. We’re hoping that 2018 will bring new and exciting games for us to all love and enjoy. Find out below our personal top picks of 2018 with their release dates. Sea of Thieves A Way Out Far Cry 5 God of War Red Dead Redemption 2 Sea of Thieves If you’re a fan of pirates and sailing the seas then you will love this game. Rare’s pirate-themed action-adventure cooperative multiplayer game is setting sail on the 20th March this year. The game features an open world experience for a group of players via a pirate ship, each player assumes different roles such as steering, hoisting sails, navigation and even firing the cannons! The game features a cross-platform play between Windows PC’s and Xbox One’s so you can play with your friends on either system. Yes, you can fire your friends (or enemies) out of a cannon. Sea of Thieves released on Xbox and PC this March 20th. A Way Out One of the most unique games to come out of E3 2017, “A Way Out” is developed as a Co-Op only action adventure game designed to be played from a third-person perspective. It is specifically designed for split-screen cooperative multiplayer, this means it must be played with another player via local or online play. You play as inmates Leo and Vincent who begrudgingly work together in order to break out of prison. Unique gameplay is presented through the persistent split-screen, one player could be trapped while the other must free him. A Way Out releases on Xbox, PS4, and PC this March 23rd. Far Cry 5 The next instalment in the Far Cry series isn't going to send you back in time, in fact it’s going to modern day USA. As the player, you will find yourself in the fictional region of “Hope County, Montana” which has been thrown into disarray by a cult known as the “Project Eden’s Gate”. You’ll play as Hope County’s newest deputy sheriff and band with the unturned townsfolk to take down Eden’s gate in this thrilling action adventure. The player has the choice of playing the campaign alone or with a friend through the game’s cooperative multiplayer mode known as “Friends for Hire”. Far Cry 5 releases March 27th on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. God of War The fourth “main” entry into the God of War series is set as a soft reboot for the franchise and will take the series into the world of Norse mythology, quite different from the previous games where the focus was Greek Mythology. You’ll play as Kratos, as he returns as the main character and you will be accompanied by his son named Atreus. The game sticks to the defined norm of slaying creatures along the way making use of Krator’ new lighting axe weapon, but you can expect quite a lot more character development between the main protagonist and his son. God of War releases April 20th as a PlayStation 4 exclusive. Red Dead Redemption 2 Easily one of the most anticipated games of 2018, fans have long awaited for another Red Dead Redemption game since the original 2010 title. This western-themed adventure game is again set in an open world environment where you control “Arthur Morgan”, an outlaw and a member of the “Van der Linde gang”. The game will feature both single player and online multiplayer components and will be the third entry in the Red Dead series, serving as a prequel to the 2010 title. The game currently has no confirmed release date at the time of writing but we do know it will release on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this year. Let us know which games you're looking forward to on Twitter or Facebook!

If you’ve been around YouTube in the past few months then you would have heard of the Community tab. Today we have started to roll it out to all of our creators and we’re going to give you some top tips on the best ways to use it! To give a brief overview of the tab, it’s a fun and new way to share your creativity all while interacting with your audience on YouTube. The tab can be used for things such as asking your subscribers for input on your next video with a poll as well as teasing the best moment from a recently uploaded video by sharing a GIF! Have a video idea but want to get feedback from your audience first? Well now you can! The quick and easy process of making a post asking your audience's opinion is a smart idea. Your audience can comment their opinions on your post in the community tab, leaving you with great feedback! You can even heart comments from viewers or reply to them with images and GIFs. Increasing engagement is key! With the Community Tab you can make use of it to highlight live streams, promote events you’re attending and even cross-promote between channels. This helps to keep your subscribers up to date and informed with what you are doing. The Community tab provides a great opportunity to keep your channel organised as well as keeping your audience in the know. The New Community Tab Changes The Way You Engage With Your Fans! Use the Poll feature to get your subscribers input on something! Maybe you are stuck between the idea of a Video or Live stream? Ask your audience to vote on the poll and see which one comes out on top. This is a great way to increase engagement for the channel as well as see what your audience are looking for. Make sure to inform your audience about the Community tab! As the feature is new, most viewers will not be aware of it straight away. It can help to inform subscribers on what it is and where they can find it. You can explain to them that they’ll start seeing new pictures, polls, GIFs and much more in their subscription feed. Having a posting schedule for the community tab can also help to increase returning traffic to the page. Aligning your video or live stream schedule with the community tab can go a long way to increasing engagement. Kickstart your Community tab! Give your audience exclusive access to some of your behind the scenes areas that aren’t normally shown on the channel. Consider posting pictures of what videos you have been working on as well as featuring exclusive content that your audience can't find anywhere else. If you can offer unique experiences in your Community tab then it will go a long way to making subscribers return for more. What do you think about this new feature? Will it improve your YouTube experience and help to build more of a community element on the platform? Let us know what you think! Get Inspired To keep up with all things #YouTube including tips, tricks and interesting articles, head over to to the Ritual Blog. You may even find yourself inspired to create and grow your own audience! You can also sign up for our FREE academy and get expert guidance on all things YouTube.

YouTube have introduced a Trending tab on their homepage and apps that shows a list of videos currently gaining traction. This is an amazing new feature for showcasing the very best videos on YouTube! There is a clever trick to this which is more obvious than may first appear! Let us share this little secret trick with you. YouTube announced on their blog yesterday a new Trending feature to coincide with the release of their YouTube Rewind 2015 video, a recap of the year on YouTube. With YouTube Trending it’s now easier than ever to find the hottest new videos that are quickly gaining views. As YouTube say on their blog: “It’s the best way to catch the videos, creators, and trends that people watch, share, and talk about each and every day. See ’em as they take off and before they appear in YouTube Rewind 2016.” The Trending tab uses an algorithm that examines videos based on their comments, views and “external references”, assumably how much a video has been shared. The tab will vary slightly depending on your location, for localised content, but won’t relate to your viewing history in any way. On the YouTube Android application you can also select from a number of categories including music, gaming, and news, for specific viral videos. My personal experience of the Trending tab so far has shown a slightly mismatched feed of news clips, celebrity moments, sports and famous YouTubers videos. Whether this feature is likely to appeal to people is yet to be seen but whether it does or not, having only been released for a day I’m sure we can expect to see improvements especially if YouTube curate the feed to a greater extent. Get Inspired To keep up with all things #YouTube including tips, tricks and interesting articles, head over to to the Ritual Blog. You may even find yourself inspired to create and grow your own audience! You can also sign up for our FREE academy and get expert guidance on all things YouTube.

A problem which most content creators encounter and a tough challenge all of us have is coming up with that quirky yet cool video idea which will hopefully rake in the views. But others find it much harder, and more frustrating, to invent a catchy video title, which they are happy with creatively, and one which helps you appear in any search results. There is a clever trick to this which is more obvious than may first appear! Let us share this little secret trick with you. User Search A large proportion of your video views will actually stem from user search. Especially if your subscriber count isn’t in the hundreds of thousands, you will get more views from searches than your subscribers. This is where a title becomes so important to your discoverability. Before creating your video, think about the title and what you would search for to find the video? How can you make the title so that people click on it? Crafting Titles The trick is to tailor your YouTube titles to what the viewers are currently searching for. This will indicate the most popular searches for your content. For instance, if your video is on a Headset unboxing, then type this into the YouTube search bar and study the results. As you can see in the image, “test”, “review”, and “microphone” are shown as some of the more popular results. To craft a title, simply take these key words to form something similar to “Turtle Beach X12 review an unboxing, including microphone test!”. This method will make sure you hit those key searches and increase the maximum amount of views you will receive. When crafting a video, always have your video title in mind. Never mislead the viewership. In a world riddled with click bait articles and videos with sexy thumbnails:  titles which trick viewers into clicking the video, only to find the content to not match will only lead them to click away from the video, looking for the content they’re actually after, so tricking your viewers with click bait and suggestive thumbnails will only lead to a reduced watch time, and therefore a reduced income. All of your video metadata should accurately reflect the video content and this will lead to a longer Watch time! Get Inspired To keep up with all things #YouTube including tips, tricks and interesting articles, head over to to the Ritual Blog. You may even find yourself inspired to create and grow your own audience! You can also sign up for our FREE academy and get expert guidance on all things YouTube.

Media Contact Company Name: Ritual Network Ltd. Contact Person: Thorsten Schauer - Global Operations Manager Email: thorsten@ritualnetwork.com URL: www.ritualnetwork.com Address: Chancery Lane United Kingdom, DN17 4HN TWO TECH GIANTS FROM THE EAST & WEST HAVE FORGED A NEW ALLIANCE TO REVOLUTIONIZE VIDEO DISTRIBUTION GLOBALLY RITUAL NETWORK FROM THE UK & GLOBAL TONE COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY FROM CHINA HAVE OFFICIALLY SIGNED AN AGREEMENT TO ENABLE VIDEO CREATORS FROM THE WEST TO REACH CHINESE SOCIAL MARKETS December 11th, 2017: Ritual Network Ltd., in the United Kingdom has proudly announced that it has created a new partnership with Global Tone Communication Technology Co., Ltd. Both companies have made this new partnership official by signing an agreement on Tuesday, November 14th, 2017. Global Tone is managing the localized service and video distribution service for Ritual Network in China and the new partnership will make Ritual Network one of the first Western market Multi Channel Networks to offer it’s services for Western video creators to the Chinese Market. “We are very excited to bring the videos of the creators from the West to the Asian market.” Said Lewis Walker-Bell, the CEO of Ritual Network, while announcing the partnership. “We are a world leading multi-platform entertainment company and YouTube influencer management agency and Global Tone is a global leader of cross-language big data technology and service provider. This makes this new partnership of ours an ideal combination.” He added. According to the CEO, Global Tone will be managing the localized services and video distribution for Ritual Network in Asian markets. In addition, this partnership will have a great impact on video creators from the Western market because with this step they can reach with a new and larger audience in China. Moreover, this partnership between the two tech giants will not only increase the views of videos but will also increase the monthly revenue a creator earns. Besides the globally renowned social platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, the new partnership will also expand the reach of these videos on all the popular media platforms on the Chinese Market such as Yoku, Tudou, Iqiyi and several others. For more information on Ritual Network, please visit their website at: www.RitualNetwork.com To find out more about the Global Tone Communications, please visit their website at: www.gtcom.com.cn/en Or email Thorsten Schauer, Global Operations Manager of Ritual Network at: thorsten@ritualnetwork.com