How Sprout Social built the playbook behind its own creator network

We walked into Cannes Lions this year with 280+ creator relationships already built — sourced, qualified and managed using Influencer Marketing by Sprout Social, the exact same product we sell to brands to develop and execute their own influencer programs. Cannes turned out to be the midpoint, not the finish line: what we learned there became the model for scalable creator engagement within our own strategy, an approach that now runs year-round.

A model that breaks the mold

Any brand chasing creator attention is balancing two finite resources, time and money, and a transaction-driven approach concentrates both on one or two creators and a handful of posts. Cannes is a single event with hundreds of activation opportunities, so we needed hundreds of creators—not just the two or three we’d be able to activate through high-touch outreach. Instead, we split our effort across three tiers: 1)a small group producing authority content tied to our own social intelligence work, 2)a mid-size group serving as relatable faces with clear deliverables, and 3)more than 200 amplifiers given a framework to participate but no added incentives — a deliberate way to see who would show up as advocates without being paid to.

"We didn't start the relationship on the beach — we started it months earlier, solidified it at Cannes, and now have a much stronger continuation point for working with these creators in the future." — Adriana Cicero-Oringi, Creator Partnerships Lead
 

The how

• Launched one brand intake page. We put up our own Influencer Marketing Recruit landing page on May 1. By May 15, a few hundred creators had applied, about 4X what we'd planned for.
• Made screening questions required and standardized. Every applicant answered the same set of qualifying questions: who they wanted to meet, when they'd be on the ground, why they were going. That let us compare answers side by side instead of wasting time trying to reconcile whatever details came in through a DM or email message.
• Checked self-reported numbers against real data. We used Creator Hub, also part of Influencer Marketing, to check what applicants said about their reach and niche against the platform's own data and verify Brand Fit before approving applicants or sorting anyone into a tier.
• Invested early and deeply in relationships. We hosted multiple webinars, opened a WhatsApp group and wrote personalized Cannes plans for each creator that covered who to talk to, which events to prioritize, where to find the brands they cared about and how to navigate their first Cannes. Those plans came directly from what applicants told us — many were first-time attendees who said plainly that guidance and community, not swag, was what they needed most.
• Turned creator interest into warm introductions. When applicants named specific Sprout Social customers they wanted to meet, we flagged those matches directly to customer success managers and account teams. 
• Turned intake data into social intelligence. Because every applicant answered the same questions and had that information checked against platform data, we handed our EMEA counterparts a ready-made creator network for an upcoming London event, and used the same regional insights to source local creators for Essence Festival, WNBA All-Star Weekend and Dreamforce.

The business impact

The approach at Cannes generated both earned media value and press coverage of the activation, which positioned Sprout Social as a thought leader on the creator economy — one of the major themes at Cannes this year.

While the Cannes effort was in flight, two additional signals came through that the team moved quickly to leverage. The first: when asked which brands they wanted to meet at Cannes, a striking number of creators named Sprout Social unprompted and unaided, and many also named Sprout Social customers. The Social team leaned in, flagging creator engagement opportunities to CSMs and customer accounts directly and making introductions within Sprout where aligned to creator interests.

Secondly, the application link started circulating on its own, with creators posting that they had applied and were hoping to hear back. Sprout again leaned into the momentum, with Social Team members posting to their own networks to share their excitement about meeting the creators and the quality of applicants, doubling down on branded posts promoting the program. Now post-Cannes, interest in the program has kept spreading. The initial cohort has grown to a pipeline of 600+ creators looking to join Sprout Social’s creator network. Creators are sending product feedback based on their experiences across brands, which are being routed into Product and Product Marketing teams. Meanwhile, the Social team is mapping creator interest categories to Sprout Social products beyond Influencer Marketing, opening the door to a wider set of creator opportunities across the brand. Campaign planning and execution continues, prioritizing activations that leverage the existing creator network.

What would it take for you to build a network that's still growing months after the event ends? Where are your creator efforts needing a strategic, scalable assist?