The PR Net Digital Event Recap: How to Run a Successful Creator Partnership

The social media landscape is constantly shifting, underscoring the importance of having strong relationships with content creators that are aligned with your brand. That starts with setting the right goals, knowing your audience and having a deep understanding of how to best work with creators. We heard from Deanna​ Ritter, Managing Director of Social at YMU, on common influencer marketing mistakes and how to course correct, plus what a successful campaign looks like from a creator’s perspective. 

The takeaways: 

• The creator is the talent and the creative director of the story you’ve asked them to tell
• Common influencer marketing mistakes:
  • Unclear objectives/goals
  • Only targeting creators with high followings, ignoring the power of micro and mid-tier creators
  • Not understanding the audience, whether it's your brand’s or the creator’s)
  • Under-briefing or over-briefing
  • Oversaturated messaging (too many hashtags or links/info)
  • No long-term strategy
• Common creator goals: creative freedom in how they express the key points provided by the brand, long-term partners, fair pay
• Commom brand goals: conversions, ROI, awareness, content, long-term partners (like an ambassador)
• Key pillars to creating a successful partnership:
  • Identify your partnership goals (both parties must understand each others’ goals, strengths and needs)
  • Research and discover (pinpoint the right creator(s) to align with your goals through their audience, content, etc.)
  • Educate - starting the relationship with an understanding of who they are, what their strengths are, etc.
• Effective communication throughout the entirety of the partnership is key
  • If your goal is sales, they know how/what to create for that, or perhaps prefer not to push ‘salesy’ content. If your goal is brand awareness, they may create something different
• A good brief can include examples of what that creator has done in the past that you like
• Delicate balance between great guidelines and information versus being too prescriptive – hone in on your story, the dos/don’ts, key messaging
• A call/meeting can be helpful in developing a good, organic relationship and aligning on the brief, timeline, direction for posting (i.e. a creator’s best time to post may be 9am Sunday, but a brand might prefer not to post on weekend – good to chat through)
• Provide constructive feedback to creators after posts have gone live and you have the metrics to help them improve / develop their careers
• Partners know when to ask for help and offer support when needed. Provide autonomy while also sharing specific feedback
• Amplify your partner’s voice by showing that the partnership is official, establishing reposting opportunities
  • Let the creator know how brand plans to share the content so they aren’t surprised later
• Invest in a paid media strategy. It's a great way to reach audiences outside of the campaign alone, like brands putting paid behind a TikTok post. It’s a win-win for brands and creator as both get more awareness/traction
• Gauging KPIs when working with creators
  • Understand what the brand KPIs are (sales, new categories, etc.)
  • Discuss your goals with the creators and have them share whether or not they can help you reach these KPIs, and/or how they made content to reach similar KPIs for other brands in the past
• Top social trend: using the collaboration tool on Instagram. IG is focused on this right now, and if you’re utilizing a tool they are prioritizing, you could see some success from that
• Having a contract (especially for a paid campaign) in place is important, it protects everyone and cuts clear guidelines of expectations
• Contracts aren’t necessary when in organic partnerships where you’re simply sending out products to influencers and there’s no deliverables agreement
• Gifted creator partnerships: there are some brands that creators are happy to receive products from (vs. be paid for) because they are already spending their own money on them. That said, be sure not to take advantage (after a certain extent, consider who you can put budget into)
  • When you’re gifting/organic, you can’t ask creator for as specific deliverables as if you were paying them
• Influencer versus UGC: if you’re just looking for beautiful content, using a UGC creator might be perfect. If you’re looking to show a personal touchpoint with a creator/you want them to speak to their audience about your brand, hiring an influencer may work better. You can also strike a balance between these two
• Results of a successful creator partnership: brand awareness, converted audience and consumers, a long-term partner