AUSTIN—MSLGroup has launched a new influencer relationship management product designed to drive branded conversations. The product will be built on a social, word-of-mouth marketing platform from SocialChorus and piloted for MSL’s global network in North America through its social media practice, Social Hive.

According to Stephanie Agresta, MSL’s global director of social media and digital, brands need to tap into social word-of-mouth marketing in more sophisticated ways to drive better scale and metrics of their next generation programs. “Influencer relationship marketing is becoming one of the most powerful marketing tools of the social age, and its true potential has hardly been tapped,” she says.

According to Joe Burton, president and chief operations officer of SocialChorus, large scale social engagement is increasingly driven by a group of influencers called the “power middle.”

“These influencers typically have a smaller, but fiercely loyal audience of 2,500-25,000+ unique monthly visitors to their blog or other social networks,” Burton says. “Due to the nature of their niche communities, we’ve found that Power Middle influencers drive significantly higher engagement rates than paid media and owned alternatives.”

SocialChorus is a social marketing and software-as-a-service technology company that uses cloud-based software to enable relationships between brands and hundreds or thousands of their advocates and fans.