How to Secure (and Maintain!) Brand Partnerships
Whether you’re just starting out as a creator or you’re an established influencer with thousands of followers, it’s important to know how to work with brands if you’re looking to monetize your content. Below are some best practices and advice for securing brand partnerships for all types of influencers.
Determine Proper Rates for Campaigns
It’s important to ensure you’re requesting the appropriate sponsored content rate when participating in campaigns. Determining your sponsored content rate for different pieces of content before you start collaborating with brands will prepare you to negotiate when necessary.
Your rate will often fluctuate from campaign to campaign depending on:
Your social media analytics (follower count, reach, impressions, engagement rate, etc.)
How many pieces of content the brand is asking for
How many platforms to which the brand wants you to post
How much time it will take you
Whether or not you have an existing partnership with the brand
Once you start gaining experience and getting the hang of participating in campaigns, it’s normal to gradually increase your rate as your number of followers, reach, and impressions increase overtime as well.
Build an Engaged Audience
Maintaining a dedicated following will help you form strong connections with your audience, leading to greater engagement. Demonstrating transparency and posting consistently will allow your audience to trust your brand recommendations.
Other ways to solidify a devoted audience and increase your engagement include:
Asking your audience questions (i.e. how they feel about a product)
Responding directly to comments
Considering to host a giveaway
Be Professional
Being professional and treating a brand partnership as you would any other job is an important aspect of successfully securing (and maintaining!) a partnership. Here are some ways to execute professionalism when communicating with brands:
Answer emails/DMs within 12-24 hours
Thoroughly read the agreement and deliver on all of the components
Submit content on-time (or early, if possible!)
Make things easy - Collect your content in one organized format that makes it easy for the brand to review
Create professional photos
Ensure your sponsored content captions are well written
Double check your spelling and grammar
Make sure the brand name and tags are spelled correctly
Be sure your captions read fluidly
Be mindful of other commitments
Avoid working with the brand’s competitors
Schedule time in your calendar for each campaign
Don’t accept a partnership if you don’t have the time
Choose Brands that Align with You and Your Audience
Choosing brands that you genuinely use and believe in should be your number one priority when securing partnerships. It’s crucial to authentically promote a product because you truly enjoy it and your values align with the brand’s mission. You likely won’t be able to achieve transparency and authenticity with your audience if you, yourself, are not a sincere fan of the brand and everything it has to offer.
At the same time, it’s important that the products you promote align with your own voice and brand personality. For instance, if your account is focused on health and nutrition, you wouldn’t partner with a junk food brand, right? Rather, your account should stick to a specific topic, so if someone needs tips on nutritious recipes, for example, they know who to go to.
Following the above tips will help you land successful brand partnerships. Reach out to us if you have any questions about the influencer campaign process, or apply to join our Tribe if you’re ready to start collaborating with food + beverage brands!