Tanisha Colon-Bibb started Rebelle Management in 2019 when a friend, who was a rising influencer, asked Tanisha to be her manager. Before that, Tanisha didn’t really see herself managing talent in the influencer marketing space. She has been an entrepreneur, running a business in the public relations and communications industry. 

She also has plenty of experience in fashion and education after college, but it was public relations that really stood out and she used her knowledge on PR to now manage her roster of talent under Rebelle Management and help them succeed. 

Jumping Into the Influencer Marketing Space

Starting from being a manager to her friend, Tanisha saw how fast the influencer marketing industry was growing. 

“The industry is aligned to marketing, and my background is in communications and marketing, so it was really a no-brainer for me. What interested me was seeing my friends who were influencers and how they were using their unique voices to really change the lifestyle of their communities. They could introduce their communities to products and brands that they wouldn’t have thought about. I find that really powerful.”

Tanisha saw the opportunity on how she could help influencers who are just starting out so they could attain success and work with brands they love. That’s how Rebelle Management began.

What Rebelle Management Represents

Rebelle Management is a talent management company for the modern-day talent who’s not siloed to any one industry. 

“Our influencers don’t want to be stuck with just one niche. They live full lives and they want to be able to influence all of those points of their community with all those layers of themselves.”

The agency’s talent roster consists mostly of black, LGBTQ, and influencers from other minorities. But Tanisha emphasized that Rebelle Management doesn’t strictly cater to just one type of person. 

“It just kind of grown like that because that’s the majority of my network and I love it. I also find that black and minority creators and talent are the ones that seldom get the opportunity to join management companies. We’re the type of company that wants to help creators from the ground up.”

Making Things Happen for Emerging Influencers

Tanisha also shared the dream of Rebelle Management, which is to help upcoming influencers to reach whatever goals and dreams they have as a talent brand. 

“Naturally, we’ve just aligned ourselves to the black and minority creators, which is great and I love it. But I don’t see myself closed off to other types of influencers. My vision for Rebelle Management is to provide managers to creators that really care about them, to see the best of them, that really work hard for them, and to be the people that make things happen.”

What makes Rebelle Management stand out is how they work with their talent. They see the potential of a creator and develop that. The company does a really good job at packaging the talent, giving them time to refresh their brands, stories, and voices. Once the talent are ready, then it becomes so much easier to pitch them out. 

“I enjoy working with smaller brands because I love the whole process of the development phase. And then once you get the talent on the road, then they do what they do and we do what we do, and then it just kind of grows from there.”

Working with Reebok

One of the most memorable collaborations for Tanisha was the campaign with Tracy G, her first client, and Reebok. The project lasted for four months and she really loved working with the team. 

Understanding what the brand wanted was vital in the success of the campaign. Also, Tracy was already a huge Reebok fan, and with the span of time for the campaign, she was really able to give her audience the beginning, middle, and end of the content. 

“We want to really be able to tell something and we want it to be engaging and fun. We don’t want to just peddle product to the audience. So I really, really loved Rebook. I loved the content that came out of it.”

Tanisha said that it was the people that made the collaboration memorable. It was collaborative but it felt organized. Reebok knew what they wanted but there was room for collaboration and they were super collaborative. 

The Future of Influencer Marketing

“We’re definitely getting into more data.” Tanisha talked about how she sees the next trends in the influencer marketing space.

“The idea of how much to pay influencers and how much the brand should allocate is definitely something that I think both sides are thinking about a lot more. The quantitative value of working with someone as a marketing strategy makes sense. So we’re looking more at data, understanding it better, like followers versus engagement, and what does all of that really mean?”

Tanisha further discussed how helpful it is to be able to measure the influence that a person has on their community. She believes that there will be an even greater understanding of the value of the influencer as a whole. Beyond the number of followers, other questions needed to be asked, such as can the influencer drive numbers, sales, or clicks? They have to be valuable and their numbers need to be valuable.   

Takeaway

When asked about what her hopes are for the future of influencer marketing, Tanisha shared that it would be great if brands can understand how relationships work in the influencer marketing space. 

“Some brands use creators as like a billboard rather than a partner. It’s important to build genuine relationships with people and not just tell them what to say. I hope they care more. I hope to see collaborations done in a more thoughtful way.”