Weber Shandwick Partners with Niche to Engage World's Leading Social Content Creators

NEW YORK, Nov. 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Weber Shandwick announced today it has formed a partnership with Niche, a leading network of social media's most influential and prolific content creators. The partnership is Niche's first agency-wide venture, providing Weber Shandwick with full access to the company's proprietary relationship platform as well as strategic discovery and engagement within a community of over 5,000 social media creators and influencers with a reach of more than one billion followers. Working in partnership with Niche, the firm will engage this community for content ideation, co-creation and distribution across visually-driven social networks, including YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine and Snapchat.

The partnership accelerates the opportunity for brands and social creators to take advantage of the rapid shift toward visual influence, the convergence of visual-based storytelling with the democratization of professional grade media creation and community-building via social media.

Weber Shandwick and Niche will partner closely with client brands, working together to build talent into engagements that benefit both companies and creators. Weber Shandwick and Niche will also collaborate to evolve Niche's technology platform to enhance functionality, social creator engagements, program analytics and more.

"The ability for individuals to produce and share top-quality, professional-grade content through visual social networks is changing the dynamics of media engagement and influence, especially in regards to content producers amassing thousands, and even millions, of followers," said Chris Perry, president of Digital, Weber Shandwick. "For brands, this new landscape demands understanding and building relationships with highly-influential creative sources, giving them access to production and storytelling opportunities that they can capture and share in their own authentic way."

Perry continued, "Niche has captured the power of this movement by building a vast community of creators producing compelling content that's optimized for their social media platforms and community of followers. We see great opportunity to work in partnership with Niche, combining their access to creator communities with our highly-tuned experience in content-creation, creative production and strategic engagement to help clients share their stories as part of this massive cultural shift."

"Mobile creators represent the future of media, audience and influence. Over the past year, we've built the definitive network of creators, numbering over 5,000, across 16 social media platforms and six continents," said Rob Fishman, co-founder of Niche. "By partnering with Weber Shandwick, we'll direct new and exciting opportunities within the network, drive value and efficiencies for Weber Shandwick clients, and together improve the burgeoning creator economy."

The partnership builds on Weber Shandwick's legacy of leadership in content creation and engagement in the digital era. This includes Mediaco, the firm's award-winning content publishing and distribution offering that delivers a comprehensive and consultative approach to brands as media; Mediaco Publish, a custom content management system (CMS) developed by the firm's content technology unit specifically for brand content operations; Go Live, the firm's real-time production and live-streaming capability that incorporates live storytelling, broadcast quality-production and social distribution; wpForGlass, the first-ever WordPress plugin developed to allow Google Glass Explorers to publish directly to a self-hosted WordPress blog; and firebell, the firm's award-winning, proprietary application that allows clients to participate in real-time online crisis simulation drills in a secure, off the-internet environment.

Founded in 2013, Niche is a community of relevant and influential social media creators, prominent on rising platforms like Vine, Instagram and Tumblr with a total reach of more than one billion followers. With both software and services, the company helps creators engage, thrive and monetize. Its partners, including 100 leading brands, leverage Niche's proprietary software platform and services to activate across the rising creator landscape. Alongside Niche's creators, the company helps partners acquire new users, develop audience, generate buzz and solicit engagement.

About Weber Shandwick
Weber Shandwick is a leading global public relations firm with offices in 81 countries. The firm's diverse team of thinkers, strategists, analysts, producers, designers, developers and campaign activators has won the most prestigious awards in the world for innovative, creative approaches and impactful work, including being honored as a 2014 Ad Age A-List Agency, The Holmes Report's 2014 Global Agency of the Year, and winning 23 Cannes Lions together with its Prime unit since 2009. Weber Shandwick was also named PRWeek's International Consultancy of the Year and The Holmes Report's Best Healthcare Consultancy in the World in 2013, in addition to earning numerous best place to work accolades. The firm deploys deep expertise across sectors and specialty areas, including consumer marketing, corporate reputation, healthcare, technology, public affairs, financial services, corporate social responsibility, financial communications and crisis management, using proprietary social, digital and analytics methodologies. Weber Shandwick is part of the Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG). For more information, visit http://www.webershandwick.com.

Contact: Michelle Selesky

Company: Weber Shandwick

Phone: 212-445-8088

Email: [email protected]

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