Through documenting, strategically sharing my travels, and creating passive income streams over the years, I’ve gained first hand experience about the business side of content creation. It is through my own journey that I have been able to create a roadmap to help ask the right questions, grow my brand and business, and continuously create value for my audience. This focus has helped me leverage my platform, thereby attracting brand collaborations and sponsorships I never in my wildest dreams would have expected. So after receiving countless messages and emails from others who want to do the same, I’ve decided to start sharing more strategic resources for you: an aspiring content creator at the beginning level of your journey, who is ready to take a leap of faith and build a business that is rooted in passion and purpose.
First up in this series: are all the terms you need to know as a content creator!
Activation - An activation is an offline PR or marketing initiative to drive consumers to action through interactions and experiences, such as an event. A media or influencer event or activation is a key influencer marketing strategy that many brands use to engage, leverage and connect with influencers.
Agency - In the context of influencer marketing, an agency can be one of two things—it’s either a marketing, media, advertising or public relations agency acting on behalf of a brand, or it could be a talent management agency that represents influencers. Either way, agencies work on behalf of a client to develop, execute or contribute to influencer campaigns and/or secure opportunities for the client.
Agency Service Fee - An agency service fee is an additional fee applied to influencer quotes when a third party represents or manages the influencer and their commercial opportunities. Agency service fees typically range from 5% to 20% of the influencer’s fee and are added on top of the influencer’s fee to cover the cost of the talent manager’s time in organizing the collaboration and logistics.
Ambassador - An ambassador is someone who represents a brand and is typically the face of a marketing campaign for a period of time. Engaging influencers to be a brand ambassador is a key influencer marketing strategy and can have a big impact on your brand if the influencer is an authentic fit for the campaign.
Brief - A brief is used in influencer marketing to provide clear context, deliverables and requirements to influencers that a brand is collaborating with. Brands will send influencers a brief when working with them as a way to manage expectations and ensure that content is delivered on brand.
Budget - The corporate term for money and how much of it they have to pay you.
Contract - An agreement between an advertiser/agency/brand and you that includes the campaign information and the deliverables.
Content Approval - When brands are working with influencers, they may ask that the content is approved by their team before it is published by the influencer. This is common practice to ensure that the content is on brand and does not contain anything that might be damaging to the brand (such as a legal consideration or a conflict of interest).
Copy - Written content.
Deliverables - The items that you are expected to produce, as confirmed in the outreach and negotiation phase. The deliverables might be an Instagram post, 10 images of the product or coverage at an event, depending on the campaign.
Disclosure - The action of making it known to consumers whether a brand has engaged you to produce content as an advertisement or marketing initiative.
Exclusivity - Refers to the amount of time you are prohibited from working with competitors.
Media Kit - A digital document used by influencers when reaching out to brands for collaboration opportunities. A media kit is the CV or resume of influencers and contains information about their skills, experience, distribution channels, followers, contact details and other relevant statistics.
Niche - A small segment of the population that has unique and very specific characteristics. Businesses often appeal to a niche audience via their products or service offering.
Payment Terms (Net 30/60) - The amount of time it will take for you to get paid after the agency/brand receives your invoice. Net 30 means you’ll be paid within 30 days of receipt of invoice and net 60 means 60 days after. What this means is that you have to pay close attention to your payment terms in your contract.
Scope of Work - Detailed outline of the work you and the brand have agreed upon.
Rate Card/Sheet - A rate sheet (or price list) is different than a media kit as its focus is pricing. Typically you send this after your media kit. It’s important to have both because you never want to jump the gun and discuss money too early. Like a media kit, your rate sheet should be a short PDF document with your most recent rates.
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