Inside story: why would an influencer work with you?

The rela­tion­ship between influ­encers and the brands they rep­re­sent is crit­i­cal when it comes to the suc­cess of an influ­encer mar­ket­ing cam­paign. 

When choos­ing a cre­ator or influ­encer to part­ner with, savvy mar­keters must con­sid­er the individual’s expe­ri­ences, needs and aspi­ra­tions. 

Expe­ri­ence Klear first-hand

Due dili­gence at the out­set ensures that both par­ties are aligned and share the val­ues and per­spec­tives that, when meshed in a mar­ket­ing cam­paign, will elic­it the best pos­si­ble out­come. And, fur­ther down the line, such a pos­i­tive pair­ing is like­ly to avert any mis­un­der­stand­ings that could poten­tial­ly dam­age a brand.

We ask three influ­encers why they work with par­tic­u­lar brands, the red flags that make them turn away, and what they believe makes a pro­duc­tive part­ner­ship.

How to Become a Suc­cess­ful Con­tent Cre­ator and Influ­encer in 2023

Sami­ra Kazan 

A for­mer pro­fes­sor at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don, Kazan has built up a 1.2million fol­low­er base on Insta­gram over the last eight years. She is also author of the Alphafood­ie, a most­ly plant-based food blog.

“I am very selec­tive with the brand deals and col­lab­o­ra­tions I say yes to. They need to be a prod­uct which I use, or I believe in. The brand has to be the right fit for me, my val­ues and the nature of my blog and social media feeds.

For every 10 brands that approach me, I might only accept one pro­pos­al. The main red flag for me is brands being too pre­scrip­tive about the con­tent. I don’t want them to force me to say some­thing that I don’t want to. It’s almost like the brand man­ag­er or mar­ket­ing offi­cer thinks they know bet­ter than the influ­encer. 

If they come to me for a col­lab­o­ra­tion, then they must like my writ­ing and film­ing style already. So why not keep that rather than dic­tat­ing to me what they want? I am flex­i­ble. I under­stand that the brand wants to get their mes­sage across so there is always some back and forth between myself and the brand, or more often, the agency work­ing for them.

At the moment, I am doing some work for a kim­chi brand, as it is a prod­uct that I eat, and I like its healthy prop­er­ties. I am known for intro­duc­ing the tor­tilla hack over the inter­net, which is essen­tial­ly com­ing up with a whole dif­fer­ent bunch of ingre­di­ents you can have in a tor­tilla. My fol­low­ers love it, so I decid­ed to intro­duce ideas such as how to have kim­chi with tor­tillas, as well as kim­chi choco­late and ice cream. 

I thought this would fire up some debate and pro­vide my fol­low­ers with a rea­son for them to save the con­tent. Just me eat­ing kim­chi with rice would be too bor­ing. The brand chose three ideas. Because nobody can guar­an­tee that any cam­paign will suc­ceed, the brand paid me half my fee upfront with the rest to fol­low on com­ple­tion.

I tend to favour longer term part­ner­ships from brands, which can last from between six months to up to a year. I think this is good for me and for the brands, as hav­ing more reg­u­lar con­tent, rather than a one-off, strength­ens your fol­low­ers’ con­fi­dence in your posts. They see that you are doing it because you like the brand and you reg­u­lar­ly use it. You are not just stand­ing there smil­ing inane­ly at a bot­tle for the mon­ey. Hav­ing a series of posts as a pack­age is also more effi­cient and cheap­er for brands than a one-time deal. They get more for their spend. 

A no-no for me are brands that send you a con­tract the day before you start work, who want to own all copy­right and too heav­i­ly edit your work. That can be very stress­ful.

Some brands have sent me per­son­al mes­sages thank­ing me for the cam­paigns. If they treat me nice­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly then I have no prob­lem pro­mot­ing and men­tion­ing them in my posts every now and again, even if there is no deal in place.” 

Down­load the free influ­encer con­tract tem­plate here

Lau­ra Jane

Rela­tion­ship blog­ger Lau­ra Jane runs the Style of Lau­ra Jane web­site and has 10,500 Insta­gram fol­low­ers. She has worked with brands includ­ing the BBC and Super­drug.

“As well as being finan­cial­ly lucra­tive, work­ing with brands can boost my vis­i­bil­i­ty and gen­er­ate new web­site vis­i­tors. It’s also great to try new prod­ucts asso­ci­at­ed with my indus­try so I can stay cur­rent and up to date with trends.

The brand must align with my val­ues and be rel­e­vant to my audi­ence. As such, I pre­fer to work with eth­i­cal and sus­tain­able com­pa­nies.

There are usu­al­ly two dif­fer­ent types of brand cam­paigns – one is a spe­cif­ic plan where a brand has a set list of prod­ucts that I can review. With this type of cam­paign, there is often a con­tract detail­ing how many sto­ries and reels they want by a cer­tain date and with a con­tent approval request. These tend to come from small­er rather than larg­er com­pa­nies.

Some brands ask me for feed­back on whether this is do-able and, if so, how we should both work togeth­er. Blog­gers and influ­encers can nego­ti­ate terms. I accept con­tent approval if it ensures prod­uct accu­ra­cy rather than ask­ing me to say cer­tain phras­es or sen­tences. 

The oth­er type of cam­paign is more relaxed. Occa­sion­al­ly, brands will email to pro­pose col­lab­o­rat­ing to gain expo­sure. I can then sug­gest ideas that I think will work well with my read­er­ship and nego­ti­ate a con­tract. This type of col­lab­o­ra­tion rarely involves con­tent approval.

I have noticed that as I’ve devel­oped my blog, brands trust me to decide how to pro­duce and pub­lish con­tent. I think com­pa­nies are real­is­ing that ask­ing influ­encers to repeat a par­tic­u­lar script doesn’t come across as gen­uine. A suc­cess­ful influ­encer col­lab­o­ra­tion must feel authen­tic, which is why influ­encers should be encour­aged to address the pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive aspects of a prod­uct.

A big red flag is when a brand is not open and upfront about the col­lab­o­ra­tion. They may avoid dis­cussing the fee or encour­age me to sign a con­tract before final­is­ing spe­cif­ic details. It’s also a red flag if a brand wants to col­lab­o­rate but fails to explain why they are a good match. It can feel that they have just mes­saged me with­out even read­ing my blog. 

I want to have a phone call with them and be able to go back and forth with ideas. I don’t want to say the same things that oth­er influ­encers and blog­gers are also repeat­ing.

Anoth­er ‘don’t’ is that I’m against sign­ing con­tracts that request full usage rights with a set fee. In addi­tion, if I’m work­ing with a brand that I have not used before, it must have pos­i­tive reviews and strong cus­tomer feed­back. 

When it comes to com­mu­ni­ca­tion with brands, it’s great when they want to dis­cuss ideas and talk about their prod­uct with you before final­is­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion. Rather than send­ing a gener­ic email with an oppor­tu­ni­ty that they have prob­a­bly sent to many oth­er Insta­gram users, an ide­al col­lab­o­ra­tion involves a detailed con­ver­sa­tion before the agree­ment, a check-in mid­way through and then a con­ver­sa­tion after.” 

Hay­ley Knight

Micro trav­el influ­encer on Insta­gram with 2,200 fol­low­ers.

“My hus­band and I have been trav­el­ling per­ma­nent­ly for two years, work­ing remote­ly and doc­u­ment­ing our expe­ri­ences. We have an Insta­gram com­mu­ni­ty full of peo­ple who we meet up with around the world as we go.

We have only just start­ed work­ing with brands includ­ing the Trav­el­gram itin­er­ary app, who we know work with influ­encers – and who we fol­low our­selves. We got in touch with them and oth­ers direct­ly and said that although we were small, we have great growth ambi­tions. You have to be proac­tive if you are our size.

We are very selec­tive in the brands we choose. We are both veg­an, so we don’t want to work with a non-veg­an trav­el brand or one that pro­motes non-veg­an ethics. We have to believe in them for our fol­low­ers to believe in the con­tent. The mes­sage has to be weaved in nat­u­ral­ly in a paid post.

I want to be able to talk to brands, have good con­ver­sa­tions with them and build a rela­tion­ship. I like them to be respon­sive to our requests as well. Get­ting your fees upfront is anoth­er plus because there are so many time wasters out there who want you to put this and that post togeth­er but then tell you that they don’t have a bud­get.” 

Learn how to be suc­cess­ful at influ­encer mar­ket­ing:

The relationship between influencers and the brands they represent is critical when it comes to the success of an influencer marketing campaign. 

When choosing a creator or influencer to partner with, savvy marketers must consider the individual’s experiences, needs and aspirations. 

Experience Klear first-hand