6 Influencer Talent Management Tips

Working with influencers is effective, but like any relationship, it takes time to cultivate. Brands spend a fair amount of time finding the right influencers to work with and continue to invest resources to maintain that relationship. If your brand has committed to influencer marketing and wants to build meaningful relationships with creators, here are a few influencer talent management tips:

Create a collaborative work environment from the start

When you work with influencers, treat it as a partnership. The best influencer campaigns stem from collaboration, so invite creators to share their thoughts and experiences. Offer guidance but give influencers space to be authentic.

Provide a content brief but let influencers have creative control

To succeed, an influencer needs a content brief, which includes pertinent information like:

Product name and details
Background and goals
Brand guidelines
Deliverables and platform
Usage
Content size/aspect ratio
Deadlines
Number of revisions
@mentions and #hashtags to include
Dos and don’ts, such as avoiding logos and using licensed music without permission

The brief offers direction but doesn’t tell an influencer to take an Instagram photo holding your product with a pre-writing message whipped up by your marketing team.

Influencer marketing is effective because it authentically promotes products. The content should feel organic to an influencer’s audience, not salesy or forced. Trust the creator to produce content that resonates with their audience.

Set up an approval process

As a brand, you won’t dictate what an influencer does, but you can approve it before it’s published. As part of your social media influencer management plan, an approval process should be spelled out in an influencer contract so everyone understands expectations.

As a brand, you’ll review the content and ask these questions:

Is the content on brand?
Does the content fit the brief provided?
Is the message cohesive and properly spelled?
Does the message include required @mentions and #hashtags?
Is the quality what you expect?
Does it follow FTC guidelines?
Does it meet compliance guidelines, depending on the subject?

Have an influencer contract that spells out content ownership

Every influencer should sign a contract before any content exchanges hands. A contract covers several important topics, including:

Scope of work
Brand guidelines
Content production timeline
Approval process
Compensation
Content ownership and usage

One of the more important contract pieces explains who owns the content once it’s published. While an influencer is paid to create content for your company, the influencer shares it on their social channels with their audience.

Usually, influencers retain the rights to the content but give brands the right to use the content for a period of time, like six to 12 months.

Aren’t sure how to work up a contract? IZEA Flex, an influencer marketing platform, gives brands access to sample contracts crafted by influencer marketing legal experts and gives you the ability to collect e-signatures. And when you team up with our Managed Services experts to run your campaign, details such as contracts and negotiations are handled for you.

Consider a long-term partnership

Influencer marketing works best as a long-term outreach strategy. Can you have success with a one-off campaign? Sure, but the best results stem from consistent campaigns created by a team of regular influencers. When you approach an influencer, keep this in mind.

When you start working with an influencer, you’ll ask him or her to work on a singular campaign to see if they’re a good fit, but if all goes well, that relationship could last well into the future. It’s a win-win for brands and influencers. Brands get consistent promotion, and influencers get steady work. Longer-term collaborations also boost the authenticity factor for consumers.

If you approach an influencer with a long-term partnership in mind, it changes your communication. You’ll likely be more invested in the relationship and include the creator in more conversations, like planning meetings or post-campaign recaps to review metrics.

Get help when you need it

Influencer management takes time and resources. There are a lot of pieces to this type of marketing, from planning the campaign and coordinating deliverables to reviewing content and monitoring metrics.

In addition to a lack of time or resources, you might also face other barriers, like:

Lack of experience with influencer marketing campaigns
Not understanding certain social channels
Lack of legal prowess and influencer contracts
Language barriers when working with international influencers

If your marketing team experiences any of these influencer relationship management issues, it’s time to call in some help. Leading brands and ad agencies use IZEA Managed Services to guide their influencer content strategy, ideation, project management, optimization, and reporting. There are no hourly fees and no retainers. We become your extended influencer team and will craft strategies, identify influencers, and execute campaigns to engage your target audiences.

Want to learn more? Look at IZEA Managed Services to explore our services, review campaign examples, and reach out for a quote.