Kin Community, an online women’s lifestyle network headquartered in Santa Monica, has launched a new branded content division called Kin Studios, which boosts the company’s ability to craft online video campaigns for advertisers.

The new arm will house half of Kin’s 40-person staff and be co-run by Lauren Merriam, Kin Community’s vice president of sales, and Beth Le Manach, its vice president of programming.

Kin Studios will offer soup-to-nuts creative and production services for brands and marketing agencies looking to create online video and social media content with its roster of 100 influencers, which cater exclusively to the women’s lifestyle market. Kin’s audience is 78 percent female and its creators have more than 100 million social media followers, in addition to 42 million YouTube subscribers.

“Even two-to-three years ago, brands were thinking of content as one-off campaigns,” said Le Manach. “Now they understand they have to think a lot more like publishers.”

Branded content, in which advertisers pay media firms such as Kin Community and the YouTube stars they work with to feature their company, products or services in videos, offers a more lucrative revenue stream than YouTube pre-roll ads.

“The majority of our revenue comes from branded content,” said co-founder and Chief Executive Michael Wayne, who noted it’s also the fastest growing source of revenue. “We’ve seen more than double the amount of inbound opportunities than we saw in all of last year.”

Some of Kin’s current brand partners include Beiersdorf, Procter & Gamble Co. and Wilton Industries.