HOW TO GET YOUR FIRST BRAND DEAL AS AN INFLUENCER

Becoming an influencer and working with brands sounds like the ideal job because if you're going to post on social media anyway you might as well get paid for it, right?

Do you personally:
- Struggle with trying to pitch yourself to brands?
- Want to be able to build your following so you can stand out when it comes to your competition?
- Feel like you have a good amount of subscribers or followers and you want to be able to collaborate with brands starting now?

Lets clear up a few myths:
1. You do not need to have 100k or even 10k followers or subscribers to be able to get high paying clients.
2. You do not have to have this super professional content with a videographer or a professional photographer in order to stand out.
3. You don't need to harass brands in order to get noticed

There are four main things that brands are going to be looking for when it comes to building partnerships or collaborating with influencers:

1. Great conversation with your audience
This is what a lot of you guys are missing. If you take a look at my Instagram captions I try my best to open up that dialogue. I recommend asking questions, telling a story, sharing your opinion or giving a recap of what's going on in the photo/video.

2. Story telling
The whole point of social media is to tell a story, so if you're good at storytelling you may want to start doing that in your captions. This allows people to start to know you and get attached to your dreams. Don't forget, if they trust you they will pay you it goes hand in hand.

3. Engagement
For every picture that you post how many likes do you get? For every like that you get how many people actually comment? For every comment, how many people actually share? This is what I mean by engagement. The best way to increase your engagement is by responding back to comments, asking people to drop an emoji below, or sharing something that triggers people to give their opinion.

4. Consistency
Now I know this could be the hardest part but when it comes to being an Influencer don't forget that the algorithm is insane right now! I want you guys to remain in your audience's faces. I understand that everybody's schedule is different but remember that the more you're in their faces the more you'll be able to appear in their feed. If a company is going to pay you to promote their products they want to make sure when it comes to the algorithm you're actually showing up. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, challenge yourself to get on live once a week, take 2 photos a week for your feed and try to post on your instastory every single day.

Q&A:

Q. Do you need an agent to land campaigns from big companies?
A. Absolutely not, a lot of influencers work for themselves! All you need to do is make sure that you are constantly available through email. Larger companies will never dm you, tweet you or comment under your photos. They're going to start that conversation in your email, but if your email is hard to find forget about it. Make sure you always have your contact information either in your bio, in your youtube description box or website.

Q. Is it difficult to get a brand deal with under 1k subscribers?
A. Absolutely not, so in order for you to land a brand deal with under 1k you need to have a very high engagement rate. This is what I mean by making sure people are commenting, sharing, liking and responding back to you. Brands don't care much about how big your audience is, all they're worried about is if your audience trusts you and if they'll be able to buy from you.

Q. How can a content creator with a smaller audience secure brand deals specifically on youtube?
A. When it comes to Youtube there's two things that majority of brands will be looking for. The first thing is consistency and then the second thing is the amount of comments that you receive under a video.

Q. How do I come up with what to charge brands if I'm a micro influencer?
A. For years influencers were charging a hundred dollars per thousand followers. I recommend looking at what the brand is expecting from you and asking yourself how much time and effort goes into this particular campaign. Consider the amount of platforms, how many posts and how long it's going to take you to execute.

Q. What is the best way to get a manager for one's youtube channel?
A. In order to get a manager you need something to manage. So a manager is not going to do the work for you. All they're going to do is pitch you for work and in order for them to pitch you, you need to be doing the work. That means you need to be consistent, creating valuable, engaging content. Keep in mind, you may actually need a video editor or a virtual assistant to respond to comments, or a graphic designer to do your thumbnails.