Naomi Bacon and Antina van der Veen launch book influencer platform ChallyPop

Tandem Collective founder Naomi Bacon and BookInfluencers.com founder Antina van der Veen have launched online competition platform, ChallyPop, aimed at influencers with support from Simon & Schuster UK (S&S UK).

The new platform “marks the next chapter in influencer marketing and is set to revolutionise how content creators are viewed and valued,” the founders said.

The publisher sets up a challenge, providing guidelines and a prize budget. Creators are invited to post their submission publicly on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube Shorts and upload a link to the ChallyPop site. A judging panel ranks the content purely based on quality, creativity and effort, not looking at follower count or number of engagements. A set number of creators is then rewarded with a cash prize, ranging from £10 through to £250 for the winning entry.

To test the platform, more than 100 people participated in a week-long soft launch challenge to create a post about their most anticipated reads for this year, attracting a follower count of 428,000 and an Instagram launch reel which went viral within hours, ChallyPop said. The winning entries can be viewed here.

To mark the launch, ChallyPop partnered with S&S UK on three simultaneous challenges for a thriller, romance and fantasy title, with Laura Woods’ romance, Under Your Spell, garnering the most entries.

Bacon said: “Influencer marketing needs a radical rethink. We’re seeing diminishing marketing budgets, creator fatigue, consumer cynicism and lower return of investment. ChallyPop is our solution.

“While macro influencers still have an important place in marketing campaigns, and we don’t see this as a replacement for that, we believe huge value lies with micro influencers who should be rewarded for their creativity — and not the size of their following. We’ve seen it work brilliantly for the music industry and now it’s time for publishers to get on board.”

Van der Veen, also the founder and c.e.o. of book influencer platform BookInfluencers.com, said: “With ChallyPop we are challenging bookstagrammers, booktokers and readers in general to get creative and make content that stands out from the crowd, because we believe the bookish community needs something new. ChallyPop invites creators to rethink their content strategy while publishers get to see exciting new content for their books as creators compete for the top ranks.”

Richard Vlietstra, deputy head of marketing at S&S UK, said: “When the ChallyPop team presented their platform as a way to reward creators with followings of all sizes and level the playing field in favour of quality over quantity, we jumped at the chance to work with them. We were so impressed with the entries we received for the challenges across multiple platforms, as well as the views and engagement they generated. The ChallyPop model blended seamlessly with our existing influencer strategy and helped create tentpoles of activity around the launches of major titles.

“We also loved that we could use influencer content as part of our Meta ad creative, which has sparked exciting conversations about using ChallyPop to source and collaborate with cutting-edge creators across Instagram and TikTok.”