Influencer Marketing Tips: How to Get Hired Again

Influencers, Want to Be More Hirable? Take These Tips to Heart

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One thing I’ve kept off this blog for the past few years is that while we run a creative agency, I still work for many magazines and I also focus heavily on the content creation end of the “influencer” world (I hate that term, for what it’s worth), I’ve also project managed a number of influencer campaigns for large brands and destinations. And people, let’s just say this: I’ve worked with plenty who make me embarrassed to be an influencer myself. On the flip side, I’ve met some truly lovely bloggers who I would go above-and-beyond to hire again. There’s always two sides to the coin.

Recently, I’ve been asked to speak more and more to destinations to tell them what exactly makes a quality influencer since the field is so muddied (thanks, Instagram) and ROI is tricky to measure. But I think it’s just as important to educate influencers, many of whom lack the core business skills, persistence and drive to make this a viable, long-term profession. And as I prepare for my next talk at a travel conference in two weeks, I thought I’d do just that.

Influencer Marketing Tips: How to Get Hired Again

So, influencers, listen up; here are ways you can ensure you’ll get hired again—and ways you most definitely will not.

Clean up your media kit. It’s immediately obvious to me when a blogger’s work is populated by all press trips and product exchanges. Why am I as a brand going to pay you money to do something you’re doing for others for free? It only takes me minutes to skim someone’s media kit and get a feel for who they are. Omit any mention of accepting press trips and make sure your media kit is a professional reflection of who you are and the work you do.

Along those lines, stop asking for free stuff. Hotels and properties are inundated with these requests, particularly due to the rise of Instagram “models.” Brands and PR people pay attention to those who are asking for free accommodations, et al—you’re diluting the market for everybody else (and yourself), then if you’re ever in a position to get paid for it, why would they pay you now? Just. Stop. Doing. It.

Stop embedding affiliate links in your posts for a brand partnership. I’ve had several influencers I was hiring to create sponsored content then go and add a dozen affiliate links to the same post my client was paying good money to be featured in. This just looks juvenile—if you worked in the print advertising world, would you create an ad for Coke that features a Pepsi bottle in the picture? No way, Jose. Save your affiliate links for posts that you aren’t already monetizing.

Lay off the ads embedded in your post; they’re cluttering your content. Be selective on what you put up there. MediaVine ads have run me off from some of my favorite blogs. Look, I get it, bloggers need to make money. And while personally we are an ad-free website by choice, I’m not judging you for having ads; I’m judging the way you’re going about embedding them into your content (31 embedded banners in one post? girl, you’re doing it all wrong). You may be getting clicks, but brands look at the overall vibe and aesthetic of potential partners, so keep it clean and don’t pimp any old brand who comes your way (e.g. if you’re a travel blogger and you have ads for Disney, cheese and tampons all in one post, I’m definitely not hiring you for my travel campaign). If all you’re doing is serving up ads for MediaVine, you’re not going to get many long-term partnerships—you look like everybody else in an oversaturated blogosphere. If that’s your revenue model, then cool; focus on that and leave the content campaigns to others.

Answer emails! And as fast as humanly possible, too. This seems obvious, but you’d be shocked by the number of bloggers I’ve reached out to with well-paying gigs who either take a week to get back to me or, worse, don’t get back to me at all. I’m genuinely confused—I thought you wanted to make a profession out of this? If I don’t respond to a viable lead the day it’s sent to me, you better believe my house is on fire and I’m going down with it. Set a precedent for a reasonable amount of time in which you’ll respond to emails—I recommend 24 or 48 hours—and if you’re not going to be able to make that deadline, still respond something. Suggested: “I’m traveling at the moment, but your email is important to me and I promise I’ll get back to you in more detail by the end of the week!” A little professional courtesy goes a long way.

Make your deadlines—or at least give your client a heads-up if you can’t. Of the 100 bloggers I hired over the past two years, the majority met their deadline with no problem, but the few who didn’t missed the mark by a long shot. Like, months later without so much as a “hey, this is going to be a few days late” note.

I get it: Things come up, you’re busy, you took on too much work, you’re overwhelmed. I FEEL THIS ALL THE TIME. But when your deadline was two weeks ago, your content isn’t live and I haven’t heard a peep from you? I’m going to assume you are dead. Agency publicists/marketers/managers are people, too, and understand that life happens. So why not shoot a note and say, “hey, I took on way more than I could handle. Would it burden you too much if my content went live by X date?”—and do so with more than a day’s notice at that. Trust me, most deadlines are flexible, in both the print and digital worlds (unless it’s to promote a certain event or time-sensitive marketing initiatives), and most people would prefer you do your best work instead of a rush job. This goes back to the key tenet in working in communications and that’s this: COMMUNICATE. Most communications professionals are, ironically, the worst communicators I know. Let’s change that narrative.

I recently edited a project that involved six influencers—only one of them made the deadline, and even though I followed up the day of the deadline, only two responded to that, one of whom said “I’m sorry, I can’t possibly make that work,” as if I were being the difficult one (I had given him six days to give me the requested information, for which he was contracted). And then one went as far as to say, “I don’t remember this being a part of the deal” and then took months to finally provide me the information requested. All of these influencers just went on my black list; and yes, just like PR people have them, so do influencer managers who run such programs.

Don’t try to make your retirement off every project. Sure, you want to value your time, audience and experience, but don’t take advantage of your client’s budget just for the sake of squeezing every penny you can out of it; you want your prices to be competitive but fair. $15,000 to attend a two-hour event? $3,000 for a single Instagram Story? Sorry, but that’s just insane; I don’t care what your “numbers” are (and yes, these are very real numbers I’ve been quoted by “influencers”). Which brings me to this….

Realize that professional product is far more important than numbers. When I’m in a position to hire, the first thing I look at is the actual product. We all know that numbers can (and are) easily gamed, particularly on Instagram, and I don’t care if you have 150,000 followers generated by MassPlanner. If your photos are shite, they’re shite. If you’re going to attempt to charge for your “influence” (i.e. the number of followers you’ve amassed), you better have the product to back it up.

Follow up at a later date with a report including some basic analytics. We recently hired a blogger whose post was not only gorgeous, thorough and polished, but a month after it went live, she emailed us with a detailed report of all her content and metrics, which was going above and beyond what was asked of her. Marketers love working with those who are completely honest and transparent, and I would hire her again for this diligence alone.

Fact-check! Spell-check! Do all the checking! Sounds simple, but guys, I can’t tell you how many blogs I read that are riddled with both spelling and factual errors. Those kinds of things are what separate the rookies from the professionals (or those who actually obtained degrees in communications-related fields).

Make sure your “agent” isn’t being a thorn in your client’s side. I worked with one influencer who I had zero communication with as everything was funneled through her agent/manager/assistant. The day of the event, a Saturday, I get a message from her asking if a) her photographer can join the blogger and her husband and b) her photographer can bring a plus one; “it would be really weird if she was a third wheel on my date night LOL,” the blogger wrote me hours before the event. First of all, I’ve hired you to complete an assignment; this is not “a date.” Secondly, for this particular project, the blogger had a month’s notice—and I asked her “agent” multiple times, “does she need a ticket for her photographer, as well?” Crickets. I’m fine with a manager negotiating for you, but I need to have direct communication with the influencer for the actual project, otherwise it runs the risk of running afoul.

Here’s How You Can Improve

Be communicative. If you know without a shadow of a doubt that you won’t be able to make a deadline, give your manager or contact a decent notice (at least a couple days’ notice) and ask permission, not forgiveness.

Be professional. It seems like a no-brainer, but damn, you’d be shocked by how many influencers (and those in other professions) have zero business skills. I have a theory on why that is and that’s that many of them never had a “real” job (as in, went into this profession straight out of college and never worked in an environment where they had to report to someone or risk getting fired), but really, it’s not all that hard. Treat every project as if you were in the corporate world; that means, be professional in all your email and phone correspondence and do everything in your power to ensure the client has the best experience possible, giving them no choice but to hire you the next time they have the chance.

Watch what you put online. I’m in all the Binders groups on Facebook. I’m in various secret media groups. And I’m in many “strategy” groups where I see influencers sharing their (often-shady) tactics, including but not limited to pods, “like” groups, bots. Be wary that anything you post online can be seen by anyone. I always think before writing, even in a “secret” group: Would I be ashamed if someone who had hiring power were to read this? If the answer is “yes,” then I delete before posting.

For those of you in similar fields, anything I missed? What irks you about working with influencers?

Influencer Marketing Tips: How to Get Hired Again

I’ll be speaking about influencer marketing and ambassador programs at TravelCon in a few weeks. Even if you didn’t nab a ticket for Austin, you can buy a virtual pass here and watch remotely from your computer (technology, right?!).


 

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Tips to Being Hired as an Influencer
Tips to Being Hired as an Influencer
Tips to Being Hired as an Influencer
COMMENTS
  • September 7, 2018

    AMEN

    • September 7, 2018

      Girl, you know. You’ve been in this crazy world as long as I have! Remember the simpler days of blogging (circa 2007)? I miss those often.

  • September 7, 2018

    First of all, I love your style of writing and the tone. Very clear cut and straightforward. As a new blogger who hasn’t put both my feet in the water yet, I think this is information I have to consider keenly so that I am in the right side of the book and yours too in case of anything hahah! I will stay here longer with my notebook and pen as you post. Thank you so much 🙂

  • September 7, 2018

    First of all, I love your style of writing and the tone. Very straightforward. As a new blogger who hasn’t put both my feet in the water yet, I think this is information I have to consider keenly so that I am in the right side of the book and yours too in case of anything hahah! I will stay here longer with my notebook and pen as you post. Thank you so much 🙂

  • September 7, 2018

    GREAT post Kristin! Thanks for sharing!

    • September 7, 2018

      No problem, Rick! Thanks for reading!

  • September 7, 2018

    Oh, my. This is invaluable. As much as I appreciate helpful content (or been in awe of numbers), when I go to a site that seems less than stellar, I’m scratching my head as to how they get those numbers, a large income, and keep readers coming back. I just have to turn away. I’m so new to all of this that I’m still learning in baby steps, but I just want to provide a meaningful experience that is helpful to all. Thanks so much for laying this out. XO

  • September 7, 2018
    Ris

    As a grantwriter, I just cannot imagine missing a deadline and doing/saying nothing. Does not compute.

    • September 7, 2018

      As a journalist, I can’t either. In the VERY extreme case (when a source goes AWOL or the deadline is tight and I can’t track down all the components in time), I will keep my editor apprised daily and sometimes there’s wiggle room in turning it in a day or two late. But again, I’m keeping the editor informed of progress daily! We give our subcontractors a very generous 30 days to complete a piece about an experience they’ve already had, so there’s not a whole lot of excuse for tardiness…

  • September 7, 2018

    As always, this is food for thought!!

  • September 7, 2018

    I actually have a 3/4 written post on this same topic! All good points and I’ve run into them both on both sides of the fence!

    • September 7, 2018

      Yay! I can’t wait to read it. We’re always on the same wavelength, you and me. 🙂

  • September 7, 2018

    Thanks for this, Kristin! I see what I’m doing well and what I need to be a little better at (mostly email follow-up time). I love following your blog & social media because you are real and tell it like it is! 🙂

    • September 7, 2018

      Being quick and reliable at email communication will definitely serve your professional life well, Leah, no matter if it’s blogging or another career entirely! And thank you!

  • September 7, 2018
    LaTria

    Wow, this was VERY informative. Thanks for always shooting it straight from the hip with your knowledge. I found quite a few gems to keep in mind.

  • September 7, 2018
    Jana

    So, some valid points for sure, but where’s your affiliate link disclosure for that TravelCon ticket link?

  • September 8, 2018

    Great post again Kristin with lots of solid insights and points. The professionalism part is super important. I’m always surprised when partners comment on our professionalism like it’s rare. You mean everyone doesn’t do this. To me it seems pretty simple – communicate and deliver. We have ads on our site but have a policy to turn them off all sponsored content for 12 months as with affiliate links unless we’ve arranged otherwise. Sometimes, if a partner has a lower budget, and we believe the content we can create is super useful for our community and has the ability to rank well and bring in long term traffic and income, we’ll arrange a deal that gives us permission to include our ads and affiliate links. The couple of DMO’s/ brands we’ve done this with were very happy with the arrangement. Again, coming back to that communication. It’s key.

    • September 8, 2018

      You guys are a shining example of how you can do both things: run ads and publish sponsored content. I think that’s a great way to approach it. While we opted out of MediaVine due to aesthetics, my beef with it is more as someone from a hiring standpoint: It’s embarrassing to send over a blogger’s sponsored content to a client that contain a dozen affiliate links and just as many banner ads because then the client thinks, “what, are we not paying them enough that they feel they have to also make money off of this?” or is annoyed they have to share advertising space. I like the idea of going back and turning the ads on after it becomes more evergreen content and is no longer new on your site.

      Thanks for the insight!

  • September 9, 2018

    ALL. OF. THIS! Sharing it with the collective of Nordic travel bloggers I run right now.

    • September 10, 2018

      Thanks, Lola! I know you’ve run into every bit of this before being in the same boat I am (manager/content creator/journalist who can’t fathom the pack of professionalism out there, ha) 🙂

  • September 9, 2018

    This is what’s needed. Even though I’m sort of a newbie, this has gathered me together. Thanks Kristin.

    • September 10, 2018

      Thanks, Kelley! Best of luck to you in your blogging journey!

  • September 10, 2018
    Sarah

    Great post. Most of this applies to anyone, in any industry. Love your writing. Good luck at the conference – they’re going to be lucky to have you presenting!

    • September 10, 2018

      I agree! Substitute “influencers” for “humans,” and it works in most cases 😉

      Thank you, Sarah! Always appreciate you chiming in.

  • September 10, 2018

    Another great article!! Such great, yet simple tips in it for travel influencers and bloggers. I hope that I do these things and make you proud 🙂 Also some great ideas that will help me improve my own work. Thank you Kristen!

  • September 10, 2018

    Thank you so much for this post, it’s incredibly helpful. I’ve been blogging for almost a year now and I’m still learning what to do/not to do.

    • September 11, 2018

      You’re welcome, Melina! Best of luck to you!

  • September 11, 2018

    Have you read Influencer by Brittany Hennessy? I just picked it up at an airport last month and it parallels all this info. It was a really good read and quite astonishing that there’s so much unprofessionalism in this industry! 😲

    • September 11, 2018

      I have not, but I know Brittany from the magazine world and knew she was publishing a book. I’ll have to pick me up a copy soon!

  • September 15, 2018

    Invaluable information. Working in a deadline-oriented job I’ve never understood how people see deadlines as suggestions. Insane!
    Also, very much looking forward to hearing you speak at TravelCon. Hope we get a chance to catch up!

    • September 17, 2018

      I look forward to seeing you, too! And the lack of attention to deadlines in this industry is truly baffling. If I’m going to be even an hour late on a print piece (because I couldn’t track down a source, more than likely), I let my editor know *days* in advance, so for a deadline to pass weeks, sometimes months, and not a word? It’s completely mind-boggling to me!

  • September 17, 2018

    I am by no means an influencer but I do love travel blogging and I think a lot of people who are in some FB groups I’m part of could do with reading this post through a few times and heeding your advice! It’s a shame that you even need to write a post like this; your tips are just basic ways that anyone should behave! Alas, I’m not surprised that you would have seen so much appalling behaviour. PS. looking forward to your presentation at TravelCon – it’s my first travel blogging conference!

    • September 17, 2018

      Right? I shouldn’t have to tell people such basic tips like “answer email” or “don’t be a jerk” … and yet, here we are. Those Facebook groups are eye-opening, and I stay in many of them just to lurk and to know who not to work with on a future project!

      Definitely come say hi at TravelCon. I look forward to meeting you!

  • September 17, 2018

    I agree with you 1000%!

  • October 11, 2018
    Grace B

    Longtime reader and while I’m not a blogger myself, these comments have me exploring a lot of new blogs! Great tips, Kristin.

  • October 23, 2018

    Amazing tips Kristin. I want to venture into the blogging industry and your tips have given me great insights.

  • March 6, 2019

    Thanks – I hire bloggers by day and am one at night. I blew up at my group for the last campaign I did – every post had spelling and grammar errors and most didn’t follow the notes about how to refer to the brand in the brief they were given. I also hate when people give me a draft the day it’s supposed to go live like I have nothing else to do today but wait for you so I can proofread your post like I’m your 10th grade English teacher. And recently I had one complain about a late pay – which admittedly was our fault – but she lied about the facts – blasted us on her social media and her blogger fb groups (not realizing I was a member too) and said we’d been “radio silent” for 90 days when I had a folder of emails from her! Don’t even get me started on late excuses! (The Presidents tweets really got to me today! SWEAR TO GOD) If we want to be treated like professionals – act like one. If I did half this crap at my job I would have been fired long ago.

    • March 6, 2019

      Exactly, Heather. I find so few bloggers have actually had corporate or 9-to-5 jobs and just lack the most basic of business skills that most professionals have.

  • March 21, 2019

    Thanks for publishing this Kristin. I know I’ve made some of these mistakes in the past because I don’t come from a business background and as someone who is much more creatively minded than business minded, it’s been tough for me to be self employed even though that’s the best thing for me from a health standpoint. It’s so good to have a primer that helps me think about what I can improve upon and change for the future. <3

  • July 9, 2019

    Hi Kristin, thanks for the article. I am happy to say that after reading it I feel good about my site. I DO need to clean up my media kit but aside from that I scored 9/10. Lol.
    Please add me to your list of bloggers you’d consider hiring!
    Hope to meet you in the road somewhere.
    Cheers!

    • July 10, 2019

      Great to hear. Well done, Penny!

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