What is up guys?
Hello, hello, and welcome back to my channel.
My name is Ortal Levitan, aka the workout unicorn on all social media platforms.
In today's video we are going to cover brand collaboration.
I've been getting a lot of messages from people asking, whether they should collaborate with
this brand, whether this deal is legit, should this brand be offering them money, should
they not, how can you decide what good collaboration is?
I will cover all of that in today's video.
But before we get started, if you could do me a huge favor, and make sure to hit that
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Okay, so let's dive in.
First thing I want to cover with you guys is whether, or not you as influencer, as a
page on social media should work with a brand?
Now there are a bunch of different ways that you can collaborate with brands, and work
with them.
But I'm going to cover the basics on, which is a paid collaboration, or a gifted program.
Essentially what that means, a paid collaboration is they will send you product, or they just
pay you for a post on your page.
It could be a permanent post, it could be one for 24 hours, it could include a instastory
feature, or not.
It could include a link in bio, or not.
That totally depends on what you, and the brand agree upon.
So that's a paid collaboration, where they pay you in order to feature their products,
or a specific post, or a message on your page.
And like I said, it could be on a post, in stories, multiple aspects of your page.
The second one is what we call, the gifted program.
Now by we, I just mean influencers.
It's just called gifting.
And what they'll do, is they will send you free product, in exchange for a post, or for
a mention, or for a tag on your story, or whatever.
Again, these are all things that you can agree upon with the brand.
Now there is a third option, which is essentially what you're probably going to come across
the most, if you're growing, or if the brand is just starting to grow.
And this is where they will reach out to you, and they'll say, hey we'll give you 30% off
a purchase for a product, if you feature us on your page.
We'll give you a discount code where your followers can make purchases by using your
code, and you'll make a certain commission, any affiliate ranking like that.
Personally, I'm not going to cover those, because I hate those.
I don't think they're good for the influencer.
I think it's a very one sided relationship for the brand.
And I'll have a different video talking about this more in depth.
But basically unless you're absolutely obsessed with this brand, and you know that you're
going to be able to really market it well to your audience, I would not do affiliate
program.
They're not beneficial for you, and potentially turning your page into a free promo page for
that specific brand.
They have nothing to lose, they're making sales anyway, and you're basically not making
anything unless you manage to get your followers to buy something.
So we're not going to cover affiliates, we're only going to cover paid collaborations, or
gifted.
So I explained what a gifted is, and what a paid collaboration is.
Now let's talk about you as an influencer, should you be working with this brand, regardless
of what kind of collaboration it is?
You have to keep in mind several things.
First of all, like I always say, you need to maintain a brand persona.
So your personal brand, your image is really, really important.
And you have to make sure that whatever you're promoting makes sense to your followers, and
your page.
If you are a fitness page, and let's say you're a personal trainer, and you're promoting a
detox teas, or weight loss teas.
That is really, really going to mess with your credibility, because it basically goes
against the health that your page is supposed to promote.
So if you're promoting a healthy lifestyle, and you're promoting being active, and healthy,
and then you're promoting these detox teas.
That's a terrible collaboration.
You're going to lose your audience in loyalty, and that is something you never, ever want
to do.
So the first thing you want to keep in mind, is to make sure that obviously the product,
or service you're promoting is on point with your brand, your personal brand, and your
page.
The second thing you want to keep in mind, is the reputation of this company.
So the second you start promoting something, especially if you're a larger page, or a smaller
page, whatever, your audience is going to associate that brand with you.
So let's say there is a really shady supplement brand.
Not going to name any names, but in the fitness industry there are some supplement brands
which are known to be really, really shady.
And if you are a fitness influencer, or you are a personal trainer, and this brand reaches
out to you, and they're like, hey we want to bring you on as a sponsor, or we want to
pay you $1000 for a post, with an instastory to feature our product on your page.
Even if it's just a temporary post, for 30 days, or 24 hours, or a week, or whatever.
Just know the second this thing shows up on your page, your audience is going to automatically
associate you with this brand.
Now if you like us, are a fitness influencer, and you are promoting a supplement which is
not really good.
It has products which are not ideal, there's some fillers, there's controversy around the
company, the messaging behind the company does match your brand.
You're going to be promoting this, and your audience is going to be associating you with
this brand, and that is something that you don't want to do.
In addition to making sure that the product is on point with your personal brand, or your
niche, you have to make sure that the company that you're working with is legit, and that
their messaging resembles your messaging, and your personal brand.
There's nothing really shady going on there.
You never, ever want to tie your name to something that could possibly tarnish you in the future,
because guys the internet is forever.
And if you're an influencer, especially if you're thinking of making this a full time
thing, or this is really something you're invested in, you don't ever want to tie your
name to something that is not 100% on brand with you.
So that's covering it from the brand's perspective.
Now let's say come across a brand, you don't know very much about them.
Essentially there's no negative reviews, they haven't been around for that long.
And they reach out to you, and they want to collaborate with you.
They are willing to pay you, or they're willing to gift you a product, and the product looks
really, really awesome.
And you've looked at the brand messaging, and you've looked at the product, there's
no controversy.
And you're like, okay I want to move forward.
Now in your mind, whenever you collaborate with a brand, you should also think about
the possibility of re sharing.
And essentially for them to re share your content.
So if you're going to be creating high quality content, ideally you want them to re share
it on their page.
And you want to make sure that you're going to get access to their audience, because you're
already tying your name to this brand through this post.
You want to make sure that you can kind of get some of their audience members to become
followers on your page.
Now one thing that I've noticed, and again I'm not going to be naming any names.
So sorry guys, I'm not spilling tea, but I will say that there is a tea company out there,
which is pretty well known.
So this tea brand has a lot of followers.
It has around 900K, and there's another supplement brand, which again I'm not going to name.
They have over 1,000,000 followers, but when you look at their posts, their likes, they
get maybe 1000 likes, 800 likes, and 20 comments.
So you can honestly tell that either their following is huge, and authentic, but totally
not engaged with their content, or and this is more likely, their following is fake.
They're buying followers in order to establish credibility.
So that's not to say that you should collaborate with them, if you genuinely love their product.
And you're like, I really want to tie my name to this company.
I love their products, I know my audience is going to love their products.
Go ahead collaborate with them, it's not a problem.
But keep in mind that if their following is fake, even if they re share your content,
you're probably not going to be getting any followers from them.
And so don't have that be one of the factors that influences whether you decide to collaborate
with them.
Another thing that you want keep in mind is, if a brand talks you into collaborating with
them, and they decide not to pay you, but they promise you a re feature on their page,
or they'll show their story, or they promise you some kind of visibility from their page.
Go and check their page out.
Don't just take their word for it.
Go and check their followings, scroll through it, see if the followers look legit, look
at their engagement formula.
And I made a post about this on my Instagram, which you can check out.
I linked it in the description.
You can check whether, or not their engagement formula has some good percentages, because
if it doesn't that means they're following is not engaged, or it's inauthentic, which
are both terrible.
So if they have 1,000,000 followers, but they're only getting 1000 likes per photo, and 20
comments, something here doesn't add up.
Again, this should not influence whether you decide to work with them, or not.
Because you should base that off of product, their messaging, and your niche, and your
personal brand.
But if they're promising you some sort of influence, or some sort of kick back from
their followers, or people following you from their page.
Don't take that as a form of payment, because you never really know until you've worked
with the brand, or you've seen them grow.
And then can kind of say, okay well I do know that their following's authentic, or they're
engagement rate is really good.
One of those things.
So I hope that helps, and I hope this video made sense.
It kind of helped you decide who to collaborate with.
If you have anymore questions, make sure to leave them in the comments below, or you can
just sent me a DM at workout underscore unicorn.
I answer all my DMs, and I love hearing from you guys.
And if you ever have any videos that you want me to make, make sure to send me a message.
Let me know, I love creating content for you guys.
And the last thing, if you haven't already, make sure you subscribe to my channel, and
hit that thumbs up button.
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Thanks for tuning in guys, and I will see you all next week.