We make brands highkey famous.

That’s the five-word elevator pitch we give our prospective clients when asked what HighKey is all about.

Whenever I make this pitch, there are two inevitable questions that follow: how do we make brands highkey famous… and why.

I’ll get into the ‘how’ first.

Through HighKey Clout, we help our clients grow their social media presence—from having a couple hundred followers to having tens of thousands overnight. It’s a business model based on one simple win-win-win principle: providing value to every person and brand involved in the process.

In a nutshell, what we do with HighKey Clout is tap into elite social media influencers and Instagram celebrities to host high-value giveaways sponsored by our clients.

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Here’s how everyone involved benefits from this model:

First, the influencer derives benefit from the typically large compensation they get for allowing to host the giveaway. Second, the influencer’s followers benefit from the opportunity to win large giveaway prizes like top-of-the-line computers and Iphones. Finally, the HighKey Clout client who sponsored the giveaway gains a huge boost in their personal brand overnight after gaining the influencer’s followers.

At first glance, this business model seems like it can be employed by just anyone. In a way, that may be true. After all, anyone may sponsor giveaways and have an influencer host it for them on Instagram. However, one thing I can’t discount is the years of hard work that went into building the kind of connections that allows us to set up these giveaways almost instantaneously.

Just imagine how many DMs celebrities like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, and Bella Thorne get on a daily basis. It would be a long shot to simply send them a message and expect a timely response, if not for the previous collaborations they’ve had with our other brand, HighKey Agency—a public relations company that develops personal brands through online press and social media marketing.

Aside from those already mentioned, HighKey Agency has had collaborations with Kevin Hart, Snoop Dogg, 6ix9ine, Floyd Mayweather, Noah Schnapp, Tyga, Lil Baby, Dababy, Offset, 21 Savage, Rick Ross, among others. These are just some of the celebrities we’ve built long-term relationships with, and are thus able to tap for influencer giveaways.

In other words, the only reason we are able to help our clients grow their social media following overnight is because we already put in years of work building the HighKey brand first. After all, building a brand is not a short-distance sprint, but a full marathon, one that demands consistency and resilience.

Personally, my brothers and I (and HighKey co-owners) took many hits before we were able to build a strong brand out of HighKey. We’ve made inventory mistakes with our first company, HighKey Technology. We’ve trusted the wrong people. We’ve accepted ridicule and judgment from back when we were banking on silly viral videos to grow our following on Instagram. Still, we pushed on and that’s how we were able to pull through and amass hundreds of thousands of followers.

Following our first few highly successful giveaways, word spread about our services. People started messaging us to ask when the next giveaway would be, and before we knew it, we had a full pipeline of clients hoping to get their turn for a giveaway.

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And that’s how we were able to make the difficult job of helping clients grow elite social brands look easy.

Now that we’ve established how we help brands get highkey famous, let’s move on to why all this is important.

So important, in fact, that I believe any person who wants to remain in business in the next five plus years should start establishing an elite social media presence starting today. See, in today’s highly digitized world, clout is currency. It is the fundamental basis of culture, and it dictates whether or not a company or a brand can stay afloat and on top of people’s minds for the years to come.

As a matter of fact, I’d go as far as to say that branding is the number one most important thing in the world for anyone in business, or wants to be in it. Any one who wishes to make an impact on a community must have influence over it. And to have influence over a community, one needs to create relationships with thousands and thousands of people. The mere mention of their name or brand should be able to incite an emotion, or at least spark a good memory. That’s where a strong personal brand comes in handy.

See, without an established brand, companies and businesses would be forced into the winless commodity market. They’d be forced to find other ways to stand out like competing on prices, a war that leaves no winners. That’s why branding is one of the most important, albeit often underappreciated, parts of building a successful business empire.