From the Influencer: 4 Tips for Working with Creators
For more information about Julius or our blog, please contact Russell Wilde Jr.
By: Anjali Shah
As a blogger, I love working with and partnering with brands. It’s a great way to help my readers find products that I think they would benefit from, and I enjoy giving exposure to brands I believe in. After working with brands for over 5 years now, I’ve reflected on which aspects of the working relationship have gone well and where things could have gone better in the past. Here are 4 tips I’d give brands when they are looking to work with creators.
1. Choose the right partner, do your homework
Before reaching out to a content creator, make sure you research any creator’s previous work, voice, what they care about, and their visual aesthetic to ensure they fit with your brand. Not every content creator will be right for you — for example, my blog focuses on healthy food, and I’m vegetarian, but I often get pitches from brands that make either junk food or meat products (obviously not a good fit! :) ). The best partnerships I’ve experienced are from brands that really read through my blog and do their homework before reaching out to me. When they do reach out they already have an idea of why their brand may fit well with my blog’s mission and vision. And usually they are right!
2. Make it a two-way relationship, both parties should benefit
In any partnership, both advertisers and influencers should benefit: Advertisers should help creators to grow their audience and reach, while content creators should help brands to create, promote and deliver impactful content that will reach a targeted audience. Additionally, transparency and communication is important from both sides — so that everyone has a clear sense of the expectations and commitments from either party.
3. Allow for creativity
Bloggers and creators are very committed to their personal voice. When promoting a brand on my blog, I always want to make sure that it’s authentic: that I’m promoting a brand I believe in and would use myself, and that the post reads as if I was talking to my readers personally. The best partnerships are when the brands allow me to have creative freedom over the post. And I think this applies to all bloggers: while they are creating content for your brand, in order for it to resonate with their audience, it needs to be in their voice. The best posts are those that keep the brand in mind, but are in the blogger’s style — vs. heavily branded content that feels out of place. Trust that the blogger knows their audience and what will work for them.
4. Be clear about payment
While the first step to finding a brand that I’d like to work with always has to do with whether that brand aligns with my blog’s values, it’s always nice when the brand has a clear outline of what the “terms” of the relationship will be. Most posts from a brand are considered “sponsored” content, which generally require payment in some form (whether it’s a giveaway, or a one-time fee, or the brand providing tools and resources to help elevate a blogger’s content, etc.) — defining this ahead of time is always helpful, so that both parties are clear on what each one is getting from the relationship.
Anjali Shah is a food writer, board certified health coach, and owner of The Picky Eater, a healthy food and lifestyle blog. Her work has been featured on Oprah.com, Women’ s Health, Cooking Light, Reader’s Digest, CNN, Food Network, Glamour, Ladies’ Home Journal, Whole Foods, SHAPE, and at Kaiser Permanente. Anjali grew up a “whole wheat” girl, but married a “white bread” kind of guy. Hoping to prove that nutritious food could in fact be delicious and desirable, she taught herself how to cook and successfully transformed her husband’s eating habits from a diet of frozen pizzas and Taco Bell to her healthy, yet flavorful recipes made with simple, wholesome ingredients. Through her blog, The Picky Eater, Anjali shares her passion for tasty, healthy cooking. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram.
Julius, a Thuzio solution, is a SaaS influencer marketing platform that provides marketers with rich social data, advanced search capabilities, and the campaign management tools required to organize a successful influencer marketing strategy.
For more information about Julius, our influencer marketing software, or our blog please contact Russell Wilde Jr.
