Behind The Tool: Kirsten From minisocial
Kirsten Baumberger did not set out to build a creator marketing platform. She and her co-founder were running a social media agency in 2018 when one thing became impossible to ignore: creator-focused work was outperforming everything else they were doing for brands, and the infrastructure to do it well at scale simply did not exist yet.
That observation became minisocial, a fully managed creator marketing platform that handles the entire workflow from booking to content approval. Brands submit a brief, approve their creators, and review content as it comes in. The back and forth, the follow-ups, the coordination, minisocial handles all of it. No long-term commitments, no busy work, and partnership ad access included in every project by default.
Kirsten has been building in the creator economy longer than most, and the way she thinks about the space challenges some of the most common assumptions brands make about how creator programs actually work.
We sat down with Kirsten to talk about where brands go wrong, the shift toward creator community over one-off campaigns, and the advice that changed how she moves.
What was the moment you realized this was a massive problem you needed to solve?
"Back in 2018, our social media agency at that time was mainly only doing creator-focused work, that's what was performing and that's when minisocial was born."
What's one thing most brands get wrong about this problem?
"They focus on creators as a single-use tool. Only reach or only content. Creator campaigns are at their best when it's multifaceted, content and community together."
How did your background lead you to this opportunity?
"Before minisocial my co-founder and I ran a social media marketing agency that worked with brands of all shapes and sizes it was a great way to learn how so many industries work and how creators can work within those spaces."
What's the feature customers fall in love with first?
"Partnerships ads/Whitelisting access is included in our projects by default giving brands the ability to test as much as they want."
What makes minisocial different from other solutions out there?
"We're a fully-managed platform, we give brands all the control without any of the busy work. We handle al the back and forth with creators from booking to follow ups, all brands have to do is submit their brief, approve their creators, and then approve the content as it comes in! We also have no longterm commitments or agreements, brands just pay per project they choose to spin up, which makes us friendly for teams with budgets of all sizes."
What's a big shift happening in your industry that brands aren't talking about enough?
"The focus on creators as a part of your community, we have a community program where brands can partner with the same creator for posts monthly over the course of 3 or 6 months, this allows for trust building with the creators audience and an ongoing stream of content for partnership ads."
What's one lesson you learned the hard way while building your company?
"It's ok to say no! Not every brand is the right fit for minisocial and what we offer, now we know who our core brand profile is, and we don't bend to allow, let's say a landscaping company, to work with us. We know the results wouldn't be good so we stay in our lane, where we know we can execute."
If you could go back to Day 1, what's one thing you'd do differently?
"Not to get distracted by the noise and glamor around fundraising. Raising funding is a great tool but as a business we were already profitable and didn't need it so we should have spent less time on it early-on."
What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
"You're allowed to take up space!"
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