ON WORKING WITH YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER . . .
My boyfriend is also my photographer, but that decision was not an overnight one! We actually dated for a full year before deciding to jump on board together and take that step. I think it’s hard to work with someone you are dating, and if you decide to do that, make sure you’re always on the same page and you are both level-headed when it comes to making business decisions. I also think it’s super important to separate business from personal issues, so you have to learn how to do that. It’s not as “couple goals” as it seems!
ON WOMEN DOMINATING INFLUENCER MARKETING . . .
I think women deserve to ask for the fees if they work hard. Women are driving this market because we have built strong brands with strong audiences that listen to us, and that drives an amazing return on investment for brands that want to work with us. We are the new faces of digital marketing, and we have the power to influence thousands of people, and that’s extremely valuable at this time.
Building a digital brand is not an easy process, and takes a lot of work, time, and creativity. I’ve worked extremely hard to build myself up to where I am today. I didn’t wake up with a million followers overnight—it took seven years. I’ve been through the process of people saying no to me a thousand times, looking down on me, brands constantly rejecting me and my work, etc.
I would tell young girls who want to do this job to really think about what is going to differentiate them from everyone else and be true to their actual personality and content. I see a lot of girls trying to get into this world now, and they’re all copying each other’s exact photos and replicating things, which isn’t going to propel a brand much further. You have to stand out and show people why you are truly unique!
ON HINDSIGHT BEING 20/20 . . .
I wish I knew not to listen to anyone who told me social media wasn’t a real job! I doubted myself more than I should have. Now I know that if you work hard at it, anything can turn into your full-time job! Also, just be patient with the process of learning how to create content, edit, shoot, etc. Over time, you will learn the ropes and get better and better at it, just like anything else. Looking back at my old photos, I see how far I’ve come with creating content and building an audience, and it’s amazing to go through that learning process.
CHAPTER 4
The Press
How do you get sites and brands to notice you?
Before you start putting yourself out there for everyone to see, you’ll need to make sure your digital house is in order. Whenever you reach out to someone, or if your name comes across their inbox, the first thing they will do is google you. As I said in Chapter 1, one of your first search results should be your website, and it’s really important that your site is top-notch. When someone is casting for a campaign, the pages of your site are where they are going to find all the information that makes them want to hire you. Three simple pages can be the difference between getting hired and getting passed over.
SO, TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF
You need to make sure you have both an “about” and “partnership” page, and these pages are crucial. This is where I want you to tell me everything I could possibly want to know about you. And I mean everything. This is a real request I’ve gotten:
We’re looking for a female musician who is from New York, but now lives in LA. In a perfect world, she has a dog and is vegan.
Pretty detailed right? Now for comparison, the typical bio looks like this:
XYZ influencer is a lover of fashion, dogs and wine. She started blogging as a hobby and has turned it into a full-time career. She wants everyone to know they are beautiful and can have great style on a budget.
UGH. Insert face palm emoji here. This person could totally be who I’m looking for, but she could also be completely wrong for the campaign. I check out her site a little more and see that she has a partnership page, so I go check it out. It’s just a bunch of logos from past partnerships she’s done. Sigh. So, I still don’t know if she’s right or not. In a perfect world it would be set up like this:
ABOUT PAGE
• Nice hi-res photo of your face. As stated in Chapter 2, when I pitch influencers to companies, I almost always have to make a deck. I’ll need a photo of you. Having a friendly, professional-looking headshot on your site works a lot better than some random selfie you posted on Instagram.
• A few lines speaking to potential readers who stumble across your blog and want to know what you’re about. This lets me know the type of audience you are trying to attract. This might say, “Hey guys! Welcome to my blog. If you want Carrie Bradshaw’s closet, but you’re super broke, this is the site for you. We’ll talk about how to look high fashion on a low budget and how to find the best sales and deals the Internet has to offer.” From this I would gather your audience is on the younger side, loves Sex and the City and Manhattan, and wants to be stylish on a super lean budget. That means I probably wouldn’t pick you for a crazy expensive purse, but I would choose you for a semiannual sale for a major department store.
• One video from your YouTube page, most likely your trailer. This lets me see how you are on camera without clicking out to your YouTube profile. If you don’t have a trailer, pick your favorite video that gives a real sense of your personality. And if you’re still working on your YouTube presence, just upload a video of yourself saying your name, what your site is about, and where we can follow you to see more of your content. Make it look nice, but it doesn’t have to be super edited. It’s just to help me hear your voice and see your personality.@thegreylayers is a perfect example of why this is necessary. Her photos are very editorial with an elevated attitude, but when I met her she was super bubbly and down to earth. Talk about versatility! It completely opened up the possibilities for her, because I knew if it was a video campaign we could do all sorts of fun beauty tutorials and she would still be a good fit.
• Three to five of your favorite Instagram posts. This lets me check out what you think are your best pieces of content. Make sure to embed these, just like you embedded your YouTube trailer; I don’t want to have to click through to get to your Instagram page. Highlight your range and include posts from different categories and different styles: style, beauty, travel, flat lay, etc.
Now I know the persona you’re presenting to your audience and can determine, at least on the surface, what type of person is following you. The next page you want to spend a lot of time on is your partnership/collaboration page.
PARTNERSHIP PAGE
Some of the content on your partnership page will be a repeat of what’s on your about page. And that’s okay, because you never know which page a casting director will land on. She may go straight to the partnership page to see if you’re game for her campaign before she researches you some more. Don’t make her have to read through your partnership page and then have to read your about page. It should all be in one spot and read pretty much like a cover letter/résumé:
• Different hi-res photo of your face. See previously.
• Name, what you do, and three things that describe you. XYZ influencer is a style blogger who loves dogs, wine, and affordable clothing.
• Where are you from and where do you live. A native of Miami, Florida, XYZ went to Rutgers University in New Jersey, Go Knights!, and after graduating with a BA in economics moved to New York City. After a few too many cold winters, she headed west and now calls Los Angeles home.
• What you do/did for work. XYZ worked for a few fashion brands in the finance department, but she was always more interested in patterns and fabrics than Excel spreadsheets and pie graphs. In 2015, she took the plunge to work on her blog full-time and she hasn’t looked back since.
• Things we might not know about you. In her spare time XYZ loves looking for gems at flea markets and on eBay and has never met an estate sale she didn’t like. She also takes karate, jujitsu, and Krav Maga three times each week. She’s not very good, but she feels like a badass after eac
h class. When she’s not shopping or exercising, she’s working with XYZ charities to provide women who are looking to get back on their feet with chic clothing for job interviews.
• Anything else. You’ll usually find XYZ hanging with her boyfriend Chris, her best friend Meredith, or her dog Roxy.
Now I don’t know about you, but this is the greatest biography I have never seen. I know her name, her three favorite things, where she’s lived and where she lives now, where she went to school, what she did for a living, that she’s super into shopping and exercising, she does charity work, and that she has a boyfriend, a best friend, and a dog. I’ve just thought of seven campaigns XYZ would be perfect for and she doesn’t even exist. Is she perfect? Well yes, because she is fictional, but you should strive to be as well-rounded as she is.
On your partnership page you should also list the types of collaborations and projects you are interested in doing/have done. It might look something like this:
XYZ influencer is available for collaboration on the following projects:
• Ambassadorships
• Sponsored blogs, vlogs, and social posts
• Facebook Live videos
• Events and meet and greets
• Photo and video shoots
• Other projects that will help tell your story to my engaged audience
All content created will be promoted with at least one Instagram Story, single post, or gallery. Rates will vary depending on scope of work, usage, and exclusivity, but please reach out to me with all budget levels. I would love to learn more about your objectives and figure out ways we can work together within your budget. Contact me at [email protected].
This is NOT the place to put giant logos from all the brands you’ve done campaigns with because one of their competitors might see that and not hire you. We learned this lesson in Chapter 2 and it applies here as well. What you CAN do is create a category for all of your sponsored posts and link to them. That way, if brands want to do the extra legwork they can, but you won’t unnecessarily take yourself out of the running.
CONTACT PAGE
If you have a really robust partnership page, you won’t really need much on your contact page. It can be really simple like:
If you are a brand and you’d like to collaborate, please email [email protected].
If you are a publicist, a member of the press, or a reader of the blog and you’d like to get in touch, please email [email protected].
You can pretty much use any variation of this and it will work. One thing you should not do is have a contact form and nothing else. I usually put a lot of time and effort into my outreach letters and oftentimes want to send an attachment so influencers can have a better sense of what I’m describing. When I see a contact form it makes me want to give up because all my beautiful formatting gets lost and I can’t attach anything. And if for some reason you don’t respond and I want to follow up, I’ll need to fill out the form again. Why are you making it so hard for me to give you money?
The only thing worse than a contact form is having no contact information at all. There have been numerous times when I’ve looked on an influencer’s blog for her contact information and not found it. Or I found an email and it bounced back. Help me help you!
Now that your digital house is in order, it’s time to get on people’s radars.
BLOGGER ROUNDUPS
I’m sure you’ve seen these roundups on the internet: “10 Design Instagrams You Must Follow” or “The 25 Most Stylish Bloggers In New York” or “12 YouTubers To Follow If You Want To See English and Spanish Language Videos.” You may think it’s difficult to get on those lists, but it’s really not. All you need to do is head on over to the website and find one of these roundups. Look up the person who wrote it and get in contact with them. If they have an email you can shoot them a note that says something like:
Hi Writer,
I wanted to thank you for compiling the roundup on [insert roundup where you found them]. I really like XYZ influencer you included and started following her for inspiration.
My name is XYZ and I am a [beauty, fashion, travel, lifestyle, fitness, etc.] blogger/vlogger from XYZ city. I recently hit [25K/50k/100K] followers and wanted to send you a note in case you are working on future roundups where I might be a fit. I’d be more than happy to send you my press kit or my one-sheet if you’d like more information. You can also check out my blog, YouTube, and Instagram.
Thank you so much for your time,
Influencer
Now I can’t guarantee you that you’ll end up in a future roundup, but if this doesn’t give you a fighting chance, nothing will. If you can’t find an email address for the person, feel free to follow her on Instagram. If it feels right in your bones, tweak this message a bit and slide into her DMs. It sounds a little stalker-ish, but if you’re polite and your content is good, she shouldn’t mind. People do it to me all the time, and I either follow them back or add them to my database so I don’t forget about them.
One way to definitely be included in a blogger roundup is to create your own. It sounds crazy, but there are quite a few people I have found because they used this tactic. There’s no shame in creating a blog post called “10 Style Bloggers from Houston You Should Be Following” finding nine other accounts you think people should be following, and writing a little blurb on each one with some photos and links. You’ll make some friends in the process and when I google “style bloggers from Houston” your site will probably come up. One word of advice: Make yourself the first blogger. I know some bloggers think they shouldn’t do this because it will make them seem full of themselves, but sometimes I find who I need before I get to the end of the list or my search gets cut short. How sad would it be if you put yourself all the way at the bottom and I never got to you?
PR MAILING LISTS
Long before influencers were getting paid crazy amounts to create content, they would create content in exchange for free products, services, and VIP access. Since pretty much everyone and their mom now demands a fee before they post anywhere, you can become a publicist’s new BFF by posting for free . . . for now.
Most publicists work on retainer and as part of their job they need to secure placements for their clients. Of course they want to be in all the big newspapers, magazines, and websites, but smaller businesses would be super happy appearing on your site as well. If your audience is in their target demo and your content looks nice, you should have yourself a partnership.
I’m sure you are bombarded with ads for new products and services on Facebook and Instagram. Well, these brands are potential partners for you. If you see a brand you like, head over to its website and look for the “press” link; it’s usually at the bottom. On that page you’ll find press releases, hi-res images, and ta-da, an email for its publicist. You can send her a note that looks like this:
Dear Publicist,
My name is XYZ and I am the blogger behind nameofblog.com and @instagramhandle.
I recently saw an ad for XYZ product on Facebook, and after doing some research, I realized this is totally something I would buy for XYZ reason.
I recently hit [25K/50k/100K] followers and XK page views per month and wanted to reach out and discuss a possible partnership. In exchange for complimentary product, I would write a 250- to 500-word post about your product complete with custom photos and will promote the blog post on my Instagram channel. I think this product would be a great addition to my makeup bag and a product my audience would love to know about.
If possible, I would also love to get a quote from the founder to give my post that personal touch. If this is something you would be interested in, I’d be more than happy to send you my press kit or my one-sheet. If you’d like more information about me you can check out my blog, YouTube, and Instagram.
Thank you so much for your time,
Influencer
What a great note, and not just because I wrote it, but because it covers all th
e bases:
1. You’ve introduced yourself, told them how you found them, and why you like their product. By the way, it’s important to not use this technique to load up on free stuff that you don’t actually like. Publicists hate that, and your audience will hate that. You’ve read Part 1 of this book so you should know better, but I just HAD to state it here to make sure I am covering my bases.
2. You’ve let them know your stats and what you’re offering. This shows them you understand partnerships are a two-way street and you’re bringing something to the table. You’re also showing them that you’re honest, but hopeful, and are asking for a quote that will personalize the post so that it really resonates with your audience.
3. You’ve pointed them to your work and opened the door for a follow-up. By letting them know you’re happy to follow up with more information, you’re putting the ball in their court and allowing them to check you out before responding.
If you don’t hear from them in a week, you can send a follow-up note. If you still don’t hear back, it’s their loss, and you can move on to someone who would love to work with you!
Influencer Page 7