Behind The Brand: An Exploration of Employees' Roles in Managing Influencer Partnership at Bohopanna Yogyakarta

Abstract

The growth of digital marketing has encouraged companies to utilize influencers as a promotional strategy. However, the success of influencer partnerships depends not only on influencers themselves but also on employees who manage and support the collaboration. This study aims to analyze employee roles, supporting and inhibiting factors, and strategies applied in managing influencer partnerships at Bohopanna Yogyakarta Branch. A qualitative study used to collect data through in-depth interviews, involving the branch owner, store leader, sales promotion girl (SPG), and sales promotion boy (SPB), and were analyzed using interactive model. The findings reveal that successful influencer partnerships are supported by complementary employee roles in decision-making, coordination, communication, and operational support. Supporting factors include harmonious workplace relationships, strategic use of social media, incentive systems, and positive relationships with influencers. The main challenges consist of high collaboration costs, varying influencer effectiveness, limited product understanding, and increased employee workload. Coping these challenges, the company implements selective influencer recruitment, product briefing, market-oriented campaign timing, flexible communication, and continuous campaign evaluation. This study concludes that the success of influencer marketing is strongly influenced by employees’ ability to manage communication, coordination, and adaptation throughout the collaboration process.