Influencer

• Personal Information. This includes your name, phone number, mailing address, and email address. Make sure all of this information is correct, as it will be how they contact you during the campaign and how they will pay you. Now is the time to disclose if the name you’ve been using on Instagram isn’t your legal name or if your bank account is actually in your maiden/married name. You don’t want your payment delayed because of this mix-up.

• Campaign Details. This will lay out who is hiring you (it might be an agency, a publisher, or the advertiser directly), who you are creating content for (usually the advertiser), and what brand the content should be about (this is where you’ll find the name of the product or service). This section might also include the campaign brief, but that deserves its own section, so we’ll tackle it after the contract basics.

• Shooting Schedule. Pretty self-explanatory, the shooting schedule will have the details of the photo or video shoot. You’ll look for things like date(s), city location, and shoot duration. The duration is how long you’ll be on set. It could be short, like 3 hours, or much longer, like 10 hours. Keep in mind this doesn’t include travel to or from the shoot (portal-to-portal) so always get a good night’s sleep before a shoot and plan for a long day.

The contract may not always have your call time or the location of the shoot because sometimes the production team is still figuring all of that out. A few days before the shoot you’ll receive a call sheet, and it will have all the details, sometimes even times for breakfast and lunch. Every shoot I’ve ever been on has always had great food and lots of snacks and beverages. If you have any allergies or special requests (you’re vegan or gluten-free), let them know. You’ll want to make sure there are lots of options for you to eat.

DON’T BE THAT GIRL

Now, I shouldn’t have to say this, but when you’ve been booked for a campaign, you’re working, so you should keep personal activities to a minimum. Can you call your mom during the break? Sure. Can you text a friend how excited you are in-between looks? Why not? Can you post behind-the-scenes photos from your shoot on Instagram? Yes please, unless it’s confidential. But you probably shouldn’t take the car I sent and go to a doctor’s appointment for two hours while we’re waiting for you on set. There is no such thing as a quick doctor’s appointment. Next time, for every minute you waste, we’re going to send you a bill.

• Deliverables. This section is devoted to what you are contractually obligated to deliver for the campaign. It could be something simple, like the caption for your Instagram post, or something more complex, like providing five full-length looks using the advertiser’s products and five variations of each look.

The assets listed in this section are what the people hiring you will expect to receive before they pay you. I try to make this section as detailed as possible so there is no confusion, but you also need to read it multiple times and make sure you’ve delivered what I ask. One bag spill, one flat lay, and two street-style shots does not mean two bag spills and two flat lays. And it should go without saying, but your photos should be shot in a professional manner and should be edited with the same vigor you would use if it was an organic post. And they should be hi-res and shot at 300 dpi. If you don’t know what that means, research it and learn it before you shoot anything. Actually, your photos should be even more spectacular than what’s on your feed because you had a budget to create the content. Remember the production tips I gave you in Chapter 4? Better yet, take part of your fee and hire a professional photographer. It will show in your work and will make everyone’s lives easier.

DON’T BE THAT GIRL

This story still makes my blood boil because the level of unprofessionalism was astounding.

I sent an influencer the product that she was supposed to self-shoot and then send back along with the photos. After confirming she had received the product, we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Her agent kept insisting we would have the photos by the deadline. On the day the photos were due, the agent said I would have them that night. I finally got them, and they were legit the worst photos I had ever seen. I could have given my toddler a flip phone and the photos would have been better. Some of them were on a poorly lit subway car, others were on her fire escape with the product surrounded by dead plants. I almost had a meltdown in my apartment.

Cue me calling the agent and flipping out. She promised to get me better photos from the influencer. So, I waited. And then the influencer took the product out of the country because she wanted to shoot the photos in a cool location. Sigh. What if customs confiscated it? What if it was stolen? What if the airline lost it? So many bad things could have happened, and she obviously wasn’t thinking about any of them. But now I can’t even get the product back, so I wait. And wait some more.

Her agent wrote me and asked for an extension. When I asked why, she said it was because the influencer was sick. Ugh. We don’t want the influencer looking a haute mess in the content, so we can’t really say no. Fine, she can have an extension. Days go by, and then I’m told the friends the influencer traveled with left the country and now she doesn’t have anyone to shoot the photos. Why this is my problem? I don’t know, but she needs another extension. I told her to go find someone with a camera, or buy one and hire someone to shoot the photos immediately. I had built a buffer into when the photos were due to the client, but now she was making me cut it close.

More days go by and I tell the agent I will ban every single person on their roster if I don’t have these photos by the new deadline. Magically they arrive “on time.” Our brand loves them, the client loves them, and everyone is happy. Everyone but me. I am fuming. I taped those terrible photos to my walls and told everyone who came into my office the story. It all worked out in the end, but that influencer? She’s banned for life.

• Term Summary and Flight Dates. Some contracts will include one or both of these terms, but in a nutshell, the term summary is the length of the agreement. It usually starts the day you sign the contract and ends when the campaign is over. The flight dates are when content is live. You’ll usually have a set date you need to publish your photos and you can’t delete them, or archive them, until the flight is over.

• Exclusivity. Pay special attention to this section, because it will dictate who you cannot work with and for how long. Sometimes it will be an advertiser’s top three or five competitors and they will tell you who is included. Other times it will be category exclusivity, in which case you cannot work with anyone in that category (lipstick, beer, paint, sunglasses, department stores, etc.).

When discussing length of exclusivity, it could be one week, one month, three months, or longer. The most important thing to remember is once you agree to exclusivity, it is set in stone. It doesn’t matter if you sign a deal with a perfume company for $2,500 for three months and two months in one of their competitors offers you $100,000 for a one-year deal. You cannot work with them until your exclusivity is up, and if that causes you to miss out on $100,000, that’s the way it will need to be. Unless of course you or your agent ask the advertiser for permission and it is granted. This is why in Chapter 5, I kept telling you to request more details or a contract before you formally accept because the devil is in the details.

Extended exclusivity should definitely cause you to increase your price. I’m a firm believer that one-month exclusivity inclusive of an advertiser’s top three competitors is fair. Anything over that should make the price go up. Exclusivity during holidays (like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day) and specialty seasons should also increase your price because advertisers throw around money like candy during these periods and you’ll have to decline more deals than normal. The high seasons vary depending on your niche, but the top five are:

Holiday: Thanksgiving–New Year’s Day

Back-to-School: August–September (Big for mom influencers)

Fashion Week: Fall + Spring (Big for fashion and beauty)

Prom (Big for influencers with a teen audience)

January (Big for fitness and health/wellness influencers)

You’ll be able to decide how much to increase your price by how much interest you’ve been receiving. If you’re just starting out, you can be much more flexible than if brands are blowing up your inbox day and night. What should you do if you have a few offers lingering from competitors, but no firm contracts? The same thing you would do if you had more than one job offer. Write everyone and let them know you have another offer that would keep you from working with them and see if they want to make you a better one. If not, you can sign with confidence and not piss off anyone in the process.

• Usage. Usage is another one of those things that people always make harder than it should be. Usage dictates what the advertisers are allowed to do with your photos/videos. Whether you took them yourself, or the brand/advertiser took them of you, your image is worth something, and you have to protect it. Standard usage covers the advertiser posting the photos/videos on their owned and operated (O&O) digital channels. This means their website, blog, and social media channels. You should make sure they’re giving you credit or mentioning your name/handle wherever they share it.

Other types of usage include:

Paid Social. Where they will turn your content into ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

Pre-Roll. The mini-commercials before a video, usually seen on YouTube

In-book. An advertisement in a print magazine

In-store. Signage in a store

POS. Point of sale/at a checkout station

Third-Party. Ads run through a company like Nativo. You know when you see ads in the middle of a page or links to other articles at the end of a post? Those are third-party ads.

As with exclusivity, additional usage should cause your price to go up, because it increases the chance competitors will see your content, associate you with that brand, and not hire you for an upcoming campaign. But as with all requests from a brand, keep in mind your current opportunities and what you stand to gain from the one in front of you. You wouldn’t want to price yourself out because of exclusivity or usage when it could be the beginning of a great relationship with XYZ brand or agency. If you’re affordable and do a great job, they will keep coming back to you, and you’ll make more money. I’ve used@colormecourtney at least three times because she is lovely, professional, and always works with me on budget. That’s not to say she is cheap, because she’s definitely not, but she’s pleasant and always worth her fee.

• Payment. This may be the most important section of any contract because this is where the money is discussed. For the most part, you’ll see the following elements regarding payment:

Fee. How much they are paying you. This may or may not have changed from the number in the soft offer depending on what the final terms were.

Payment Terms. This will say something like “net 30” or “net 60.” This is how long they have to pay you after you submit your invoice. When negotiating your fee, if their proposed fee is lower than you’d like and they can’t budge on money, there may be some wiggle room around the payment terms. Maybe you can be paid a percentage up front and a percentage after the campaign is over. Maybe the payment terms can be changed to net 30 when they originally proposed net 45. It’s quite possible that the final offer is the best they can do, but it never hurts to ask. I want this to be a rewarding experience for both of us so, as long as an influencer is polite when she asks, I will try my best to accommodate whatever requests I can.

Paperwork. you’ll usually have to send an invoice (make sure it has your name, address, and campaign details on it), your W9, and some sort of payment form. Some companies still pay influencers by check, but most pay by direct deposit, so you’ll need an ACH form like the one you would give your employer and a voided check. There may be a few companies that pay by PayPal or Venmo, but they’re usually small and scrappy companies that aren’t paying thousands of different people.

• Travel and Expenses. If the campaign requires travel, this section outlines how the influencer will get to the shoot and who is responsible for booking and paying for travel. In most cases, all travel arrangements are taken care of by the casting agent. To be honest, it’s the least favorite part of my job. Booking travel for influencers is always a beast. Not just because booking travel is annoying in general, but because there are quite a few influencers who think they are entitled to better accommodations than they actually are.

Unless you have 500,000 followers on Instagram or 500,000 subscribers on YouTube, do not even think about asking to fly business class. Yes, I know about JetBlue Mint, and no, I do not care that it’s sometimes only a little more expensive than economy. We book through our corporate travel agent and when I need to book a business-class ticket, very important people have to sign off on it, so the influencer better be worth it. But unless you fall into the category of celebrity or high-end model, under no circumstances are you allowed to ask to be flown first class.

I would even encourage top-tier influencers to agree to fly economy and then upgrade themselves. They travel so much, they probably have points they can use to upgrade. In the end, they would wind up ahead. They would probably get larger fees, because we would need a smaller budget for their travel. And they’d get booked more because they are so easy to work with. Certainly, not all influencers are divas, but some of them really let the numbers go to their head. There’s this one influencer who needed to stay at a particular hotel, in a specific room with a certain tub, and wanted an allowance for juice and midnight snacks. I am sorry, I wasn’t aware I booked a kindergartener for this campaign . . .

INFLUENCER ICON

ALEXANDRA PEREIRA

@lovelypepa + lovelypepa.com

Alexandra was on a path to become a lawyer when she decided to switch gears and launch her blog in 2009. The legal world’s loss was our gain, because she has one of the best Instagrams most English and Spanish speakers have the pleasure of following. She is tiny, but has a huge personality and joie de vivre, and it’s no surprise that her motto is “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” When she’s not in an airport or packing luggage, she’s working on her clothing line, the Lovely Pepa Collection, which is inspired by landscapes, evolving style, and wanderlust.

ON BECOMING A BLOGGER . . .

Becoming a blogger started out as a hobby. I was inspired and fascinated by other people blogging and logged onto several blogs every day. I was hooked and quite taken by the idea of it. So one night, while hanging out at home, I thought to myself: Why shouldn’t I start one of my own? And this is how I embarked on this whole adventure. Little did I know how this moment would later define the course of my life.

When it comes to what I wanted to share with the world, it was pretty clear to me that it had to be fashion. It was the topic I was most passionate about, and I felt I had something to share with others. I started posting my everyday looks alongside bits and pieces of my life and people loved it!

Pepa is my French bulldog. She’s the one who inspired the name of the blog. I thought that the name would sound nicer if I added an English component to it. I thought the mix of both English and Spanish had a nice sound to it.

ON LEANING MORE INTO YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL . . .

Although my YouTube account is several years old, I only began to consistently post on my channel in August 2017. I felt like it was an important step for me, as it allowed my followers to have a different type of interaction with me, one that would allow them to know me better.

My first videos were junk and I discarded them; I didn’t think the quality was good enough, and I only like to release works that I feel have been done properly. YouTube is a world that is totally different from Instagram. It is much more real, and I would say that in some cases, much more useful. The YouTube crowd is typically more engaged. They almost always leave longer comments than I would see on Instagram or other social media platforms.

ON SPEAKING TWO LANGUAGES ON YOUR PLATFORMS . . .

Spanish and English are two of the most widespread languages in the world, and this represents an opportunity to connect with a huge amount of people. Creating content in various languages should be motivated by exactly that: connecting with more people so that you increase the chances of people appreciating your content.

However, that does come with an extra load of work, and it is easy to burn yourself out. My recommendation to aspiring multilingual influencers would be to study this kind of move carefully before investing themselves in it. Once it is done, it will be hard to go back on it. For example, my Spanish-speaking followers know me in Spanish and love me for that. If I ever stopped communicating in that language, I would alienate a lot of them and I would risk losing their interest.

ON PRODUCING HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT . . .

In my opinion, the key to maintaining a steady stream of high-quality content is to prepare it some days before it gets published. My team and I brainstorm about content production on a daily basis. We’ll think about how to coordinate travel, locations, and outfits so that they come together in the most inspiring, engaging, and aesthetic way. Everything has to come together in the right place at the right time. I guess, one key to our success is maintaining the right balance between all these elements. However, it is important to know that no matter how prepared you are, a more spontaneous and genuine approach also works. Some of our most popular posts have been ones we hadn’t planned for.

As far as sponsored content is concerned, it does not differ from content we would create organically. I am very careful to maintain a genuine and consistent identity throughout my feed, and creative freedom is a nonnegotiable condition that I require before starting a relationship with a brand.

ON TRAVELING SO OFTEN . . .

It is quite complicated to live like I do, but I find it enjoyable, and I’ve adapted quite well to this lifestyle. When I stop traveling, I feel like something is not right. I’ve become addicted to discovering new places and still get as excited about it as when I went on my first trip (which was to Disneyland when I was five).

Maintaining a steady stream of content requires preparing content in advance. I typically leave four to five days of margin before publishing. Sometimes, I have to be flexible about it, especially if I have a contractual obligation to publish something that is time sensitive. However, the general rule is that we spend at least four days editing the material, and those who work with us usually comply with our modus operandi. They even encourage it, as they would prefer that the content they sponsor be of high quality and benefit from a better response from our followers.

ON SWITCHING CAREERS FROM LAW TO DESIGN AND CONTENT . . .

I think I knew law wasn’t for me a few weeks after I started the program. Still, I kept at it as I thought it was the safest bet for my future. But the best thing I ever did was to switch careers.

I highly encourage people to overcome any fears they have and pursue something they are truly passionate about, something that gives purpose to their life. Closing a door opens new opportunities, and when it comes down to it, every problem has a solution. It is all about defining the problem and thinking on the solution.

I do not regret not becoming a lawyer. I do believe that if I stuck to my original plan, I would’ve been a mediocre lawyer and led an unexciting life. Therefore, starting my blog was the best thing I ever did.

ON WORKING WITH YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER . . .

Working with my partner, like anything else, has its benefits and challenges. We decided to work together because I believed he had skills that strongly complemented mine. He has a strong business background and organizational skills while I am more of a creative sort. He has overhauled our whole activity into a real business, while I get to focus on delivering more content through more platforms and in higher quality.

When it comes to working with a life partner, I believe there are no clear rules that can determine whether such a relationship can be successful or not. I believe the most important thing is to draw a clear separation between work and home so as to not let one take over the other. It is my belief that it is this balance that is the foundation of a successful and healthy work relationship with a significant other.

ON TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL AND DESIGNING YOUR OWN LINE . . .

Sometimes I have to pinch myself and remind myself that I’m actually doing this. It is truly a dream come true! I had thought about launching my own line for a long time and I wanted it to be the next step I took in my career. Therefore, when all the right conditions presented themselves, I didn’t think about it twice and immediately went for the opportunity. Obviously, this would have not been possible without the success of Lovely Pepa. Pooled together, my blog and social media reach millions, and leveraging that power of influence is at the core of our business model.

ON WOMEN DOMINATING INFLUENCER MARKETING . . .

I am quite encouraged by this achievement, as the professional world usually works against women. It is proof that sex does not determine your ability to be successful at a job, and it is high time that we started being valued for our ability to get a job done rather than other considerations.

The Insta-ready lifestyle should not create unrealistic expectations for women out there. Sometimes, I believe that by aiming to inspire others, we can also end up relaying a misleading message: that something is wrong with who you are. In that sense, I believe that we bear the responsibility to keep our public aware of the reality and imperfections behind this picture-perfect world that we have built.

My advice to young content creators is to make an educated decision about pursuing this kind of lifestyle. This path is complicated and not perfect. We have our bad days just like everyone else. Also, we work every day of the week; I do not know what a weekend means.

ON HINDSIGHT BEING 20/20 . . .

I would have loved to have a mentor when I first started—someone from this industry to talk to about the issues I faced and that would actually understand and guide me in my choices and on how to maintain the right lifework balance. Social interaction is also very important, and our lifestyle can also come at the cost of our relationships.

As far as aspiring influencers are concerned, I would say that most importantly, you should believe in yourself. If you do it right, you can achieve success. This will come with hard work and by making sacrifices along the way. But nothing good ever comes for free. Most importantly, I recommend you embrace what makes you different, for it is what will eventually make your brand.