Influencers 101
Hi Picky's
A while back, a message from a wonderful fellow Picky member slided into my DMs on my IG page (@Natje_9999), asking me how I became an Influencer and how she can become one too, so after telling her how I started and providing her with some (hopefully good) tips and tricks, I was thinking I might as wel share a full explanation here, since I noticed that many aspiring Influencers are asking themselves the same question.
Let me start by saying that I only have a bit over 2400 followers on IG (and a bit over 12.000 followers on all Social Media accounts combined), so I'm definitely not some famous, big shot celebrity Influencer (not even close! š), but I did work together with over 100 brands (some very famous and big, others small, indie and rather unknown by most) and I love to share my experience, thoughts and knowledge with others, and especially if my words can help them! š
Feel free to bookmark this discussion if you find this post helpful but beware, it's a really long read! I'm really breaking down every step here and even sharing tips on where to find other free goodies to feature in your posts and I will definitely add some more things along the way too (things I forgot to mention before, I'm sure there's still a lot I didn't quite covered yet! š), so bookmarking always is a great idea! š
šø The very beginning! šø
So, for starters, I assume you already own some skincare, make up or haircare products, since you're on Picky and since you have to wash your face, hair and body once in a while too... š Start by reviewing those on your IG page or blog. Reviewing those will cost you nothing, since you already own them. It's a good way to start building your page, your brand and your following base and it will help you gain experience. If you have published reviews on Picky, you can just copy paste them into a new IG post, FB post, blogpost or whatever social media channels you use.
šø Getting freebies! šø
Another good way to receive free products for testing and reviewing purposes is to participate into the Picky giveaways, obviously, and to register yourself into testing and reviewing communities, platforms and apps, like Influenster, Brandbassador, Collabor8, The Plug, Octoly, 08L, Bzz Agent and We Are Eves. Personally, I haven't got any experience with Octoly, 08L and Bzz Agent, because they don't collaborate with people based in my country, but if your based in the USA or Canada, you should be fine. Brandbassador, Influenster, The Plug and Collabor8 are operating worldwide (although it's possible it depends on the brand they're working with) and We Are Eves is mainly targeting people living in Belgium and The Netherlands. Also, people living in Belgium and The Netherlands could give Freeviews.nl and the Beauty&You Community inside the Ici Paris XL app a try. I've recieved free products from both of them. For people living in Asian or Middle Eastern countries, they could try the app starNgage. I also collaborated with brands on Tomoson, Promoty and the Dealspotr Influencer Marketplace. I'm sure there are many more websites, apps and platforms to get freebies to review, try doing a Google search for similar apps and websites.
šø Let's talk social media channels! šø
For IG, make sure you have a Creators Account or a Business Account (or transfer your personal account into one of those, this can be done in your settings) so you'll be able to see your statistics. Also make sure your profile is public. Nobody can see your posts when you have your account set on private and it doesn't really helps to be an Influencer when you're not influencing anyone, right? So there's really no point at all in having a private account. Get rid of it! š Obviously, this goes for all social media accounts, not just IG! š
For an appealing and consistent looking feed, try using a colour scheme / colour palette, with similar or matching colors. I always use grey or pink backgrounds or a plant as my background when photographing products. By repeating the same colors and backgrounds, your feed will look nice and sleek and your posts will match together beautifully. I added a screenshot of my feed below, feel free to check it out, or just head over to IG and come visit me! š
šø Crafting the perfect post! šø
When crafting a post, it's really important to pay attention to both the quality of your photography and videos as to the text in your post. You want professional looking posts, right? Do a spelling check if needed! English isn't my native language either, I understand it can be difficult to write in another language, but that's why people invented translation websites and apps! š Regarding your photography or videos, make sure the background is looking neat and attractive, the product(s) you're featuring in your post or that you're reviewing should be looking clean and clearly visible and pay attention to the light too. It's best to use natural daylight while shooting. You can go outside and shoot in nature, you can use props (jewellery, flowers, ...) if you like, or just keep it clean and crisp (with a white or other solid colour background like paper or fabric, for example), but always make sure your pictures and videos are well lit, aestheticly pleasant to look at and looking professional. Experiment if you like, you will find your own style eventually, but keep it pretty and nice! You don't need an expensive, high quality camera, I usually use the camera on my phone or my very old DSRL camera, just make sure your photography looks great. Also, don't feature other brands in your sponsored pictures, unless it was mentioned before and approved by the brand when you made the agreement (like when doing a shelfie post or something like that). If you use other products as props, make sure they're from the same brand, brandless or there isn't any other brandname visible.
Make sure to mark every post with all the relevant hashtags and also tag the brand of the product you're reviewing or featuring. This will help you to build your following base (because hashtags are followed by Influencers, brands and people interested in the topic you're covering) and to start a professional relationship with the brand. If the brand is tagged, they will notice and if your post is good and memorable enough, they might just regram your post or even keep you in mind when they're looking for Influencers in the future. Always make sure you use the #ad, #spon, #pr, #gifted or #sponsored tag when featuring gifted or sponsored items, to make sure you're doing it the legal way. Influencers are obligated to mark sponsored posts like that to let their audience know that they received items for free, in exchange for a review or a post. It's basically to let them know it's advertising, like a commercial. If you can't think of any other relevant hashtags yourself, you can check out posts from other Influencers with similar posts or try a hashtag generator website or app. Besides the #ad, #sponsored etc hashtags, you should also mark your post as a paid collaboration in your post settings, even if you don't get paid in money but received a free item in exchange for a post. It's silly, I know, but it's the law... š
When posting a sponsored review, always be sincere, authentic, honest, true to yourself and as detailed as possible. We wanna know how you personally experienced the product and we wanna know everything, not just what the brand claims or what ingredients it contains! We wanna know how it looks like, how it feels like while and after using the product, what the packaging is like, how it makes you feel and look and what you think about the ingredients and the results! š And that goes for Picky reviews too, by the way! š Another thing, if you don't like the product you're reviewing, just say so in your post or send an email to your contact person with the brand to determine if you should post a bad review or post nothing at all. Don't let them change your review to make it positive, it will tackle your authenticity and make you unbelievable and unprofessional!
Last but not least in the crafting a post departement: personally, I often end my posts with a question for my audience, to engage communication and boost my engagement ratings. Just another little tip to get those numbers up! š
šø Build that audience! šø
Follow other Influencers and brands to build your following base. Engage with their profiles and engage with the comments left on your own account too. Real engagement is what you need to mark yourself as an established Influencer. Real, honest and authentic engagement might even be more important than the amount of followers you have! Don't ever buy followers, they're bots, they're not real and they don't increase your engagement rate at all, since they don't leave sincere comments (and often even don't leave any comments at all) And don't play follow / unfollow games, it doesn't help you to gain followers and makes you look unprofessional and childish!
šø Landing branddeals! šø
Obviously, the websites, apps and platforms I mentioned earlier are a good start to establish yourself as an Influencer and you can go on and use them as long as you wish and like, I still use them too, but after you established yourself as an Influencer and your page, brand and following base has grown, you can start by emailing brands you wanna work with too. You can find many PR friendly brands by looking at what collaborations other Influencers, similar to you, did. (Come check out my page @Natje_9999 to see what collaborations I did to get inspired, and while you're there, don't forget to hit that follow button! š) As a beginning Influencer, it's smarter to start with smaller, rather unknown brands instead of the big, famous brands. The big famous brands usually work together with equally big and famous celebrity Influencers while the smaller brands often can't afford those types of expensive Influencers and are happy to work with smaller and starting Influencers too. But there's no harm in trying the big brands, so send them an email if you like! š
Start your email by telling them who you are and what you do, give them some insights regarding your following base and their demographics (how many followers do you have, how old are they, where are they based, what are their genders, etc... All of this can be found in the statistics on your IG account, that's why you need a Creator or a Business Account), tell them why you think you and the brand would be a good match (and if you can, elaborate that with some examples), why you wanna work with them and describe your proposal (it helps to have an idea of what you wanna do, prior to sending that email, like featuring their brand in a giftguide or an unboxing post / video or reviewing one of some products in particular, because you can list all of it in your email) Be as detailed as possible. If you have worked with brands before (even through a Picky giveaway, through Influenster or through whatever other platform, website or app you use), it's good to list these brands down in your email too, to show your experience. You could also include your ratings if you want to get paid, but I recommend to start with collaborations based on a bartering exchange (a free product in exchange for the publicity you're generating) To give you an idea of paying gigs: I usually work for free products and have received anything between 1 product, a box filled with products and even the entire collection. I've received products that are rather cheap, but I also received some really expensive products, and I have been paid in actual money for like only 2 or 3 times. And if I was paid for a collaboration (on top of the free products) I never earned over $100. I just wanted to keep it real here, to avoid any dissapointments, but don't let it stop you from getting paid though, you can always ask a brand if they're open for paid collaborations, but keep in mind that starting inflfuencers rarely get paid in money, they usually get to keep the products for free as a reward, in exchange for the work they're doing and, in some cases, a percentage of the earnings the brand made with the Influencer's affiliate link or discount code. Anyway, include all relevant information you can think of. Think of it like a resume. Don't forget to include your links, give them a thank you for reading your email and close your email with the invite to contact you (like "If you have any thoughts or ideas, feel free to contact me! I hope to hear from you soon!" or something similar) and your contact info. You can attach a Media Kit if you like (it looks really professional) but although I do have one, I rarely attach it because all relevant information is already mentioned in my email. Media Kits can be created online or with an app like Canva and it basically contains onformation like a picture of you, some insights into your following base (the amount of followers on each Social Media Channel, some graphs showing the top 5 countries your followers are based in, their ages and their genders in percentages, a small list of brands you've worked with, your rating (if you're looking to get paid), your contact info and 1 or 2 examples of your work. Ideally, a Media Kit is 1 or 2 pages long and it basically is your resume as an Influencer, just like the email you're sending to pitch brands. In my experience, sending an email is enough, if that email contains all information the brand needs, but sending a Media Kit along with your email definitely won't minimise your chances for a collaboration.
Also, beware of scamming practices! Beginners or smaller Influencers (me included) often get DM's or emails from brand ambassadors or brands, urging them to contact the brand for a collaboration. If a brand offers you free products but makes you pay for shipping (which often is more expensive compared to the products you will be receiving) or offers you a discount to purchase products for you to review, you're not collaborating with them, you're a customer! Influencers and Bloggers never have to pay when collaborating with a brand! It's a mutual agreement, with mutual benefits and you paying for products to advertise the brand doesn't include any benefits for the Influencer, just for the brand, since they will get free publicity while you will get nothing but products you've actually paid for. Procedures like that aren't collaborations, they are purchases! Plain and simple! Something to keep in mind when discussing a possible collaboration with a brand! š If you, before concidering a possible collaboration, wanted to buy the products they're offering anyway, and you can buy them at a discounted price instead of the full price, it might be worth it, but only if you were planning to get them anyway. Watch out for regular scammers too, especially when you publish your email adress publicly. I recently received an email, claiming to be from Shein, saying they wanted to work with me and send me clothing each month, while on top of the free clothing, I would be receiving a payment of $1000 per post. Needless to say that it wasn't a real proposal from Shein. It wasn't Shein at all. Coincidently, I emailed Shein a collaboration proposal a few days before receiving that email and they said they only work together with Influencers with over 10k followers on IG, so I immediately knew that second email was a scamming attempt. Be very cautious so you don't get fooled or scammed!
If you land a collaboration (congrats! šš), always keep the agreements between the brand and yourself in mind and hold on to them. Don't break them. Communication is key!
Well, I think I covered it all! If you have any additions to this discussion or any follow up questions, feel free to drop them in the comments below! And as I mentioned before, feel free to bookmark this discussion if you found it to be helpful!
Follow my IG if you like, I always follow back!
Find me with @Natje_9999! š
Thanks for reading! ā¤ļø
