Founded 2011 | ||
Parent organization Yello Digital Marketing Inc. | ||
Althea lim co founder of gushcloud swear on your family la
Gushcloud is an influencer marketing and media company based in Singapore.
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Marketing agency crowdsourced social media gushcloud future of engagement
Founding
The company, an influencer marketing network, was cofounded in 2011 by Vincent Ha, and Althea Lim, who had previously founded Gush Ad. In March 2012, the company raised seed money from Singhome Fund. In the first five months about 27,000 users joined the site, in order to be a part of the company’s advertising campaigns. A San Francisco office was opened in 2012, and the company began to move into Indonesia.
Gush Media
In October 2013 Gushcloud partnered with Newcast to launched Gush Media. Paul Bischoff described it as, “a marketplace where brands can find local ‘influencers’ to promote their products.” Potential clients enter the details of the social media influencers they want to work with into a search engine, which brings up ideal candidates to work with. Bischoff states further that, within two hours of selecting a candidate, the “social media influencers will start posting about the products and services via their online channels,” whether it is via their blog, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or other feed. In 2014 the company ran a hackathon in Malaysia entitled Hackademy, the largest in the country. As of February 2015, Gush Media managed about 200 social media influencers. Later, Gush Media was renamed Gushcloud.
Criticisms
A public dispute developed in late 2014 between Gushcloud and blogger Wendy Cheng, an influencer sponsored by one of Gushcloud’s competitors. Cheng alleged that Gushcloud inflated the viewership statistics of the influencers they represented and did not follow proper procedures for marking sponsored social media posts, in addition to creating campaigns that targeted a client’s competitors negatively. In response, Gushcloud co-founder Lim planned to meet with other social media marketing firms to establish industry and ethical guidelines, which Cheng stated was a positive move.
Timothy Ho wrote of the dispute that, “It may be exciting to follow the catfight… but at the end of the day, it is all about business.” Ho pointed out that while Gushcloud’s finances had been misquoted in earlier news articles, the company had expanded substantially since its founding, and Cheng had misstated the reality of Gushcloud’s financials over time. He also pointed out Cheng’s financial relationship with Gushcloud’s competitor.