How aspiring influencers can attract more brand deals
Becoming attractive to brands isn’t just about having a polished bio or a fancy media pack. Sure, they help (a little), but there are much deeper things to consider as an aspiring influencer looking to get more brand partnerships.
In a working dynamic where personality and authenticity are the drivers of value, you need to consider more fundamental, deep-set factors than those required when filling out a ‘normal’ job application.
Here are the three top tips to help aspiring influencers attract more brand deals:
CLEARLY DEFINE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND AND VALUES
Your brand is more than your content niche. Whether you're a fashion vlogger on YouTube, a food influencer on Instagram, or a gaming streamer getting to grips with how Twitch works, your personal brand tells more of a story than the topic you are covering and how pretty your feed is.
Beyond your overall aesthetic, you need to think about the audience you want to speak to, how you communicate with them and what your own values are as a human being and as a creator. And then you need to live and breathe them!
Having the right mindset, clear values, and a distinguishable voice are the foundations of a strong personal identity that will make you attractive to the brands that you want to work with. Remember: It’s not just what you like and what you talk about that defines who you are. It’s how your relate to it, and how you represent your relationship to it.
TALK ABOUT THE BRANDS YOU LOVE (WITHOUT BEING PAID)
Credibility and authenticity are qualities that audiences and brands alike look for. Audiences are drawn to creators who they believe they will get value from, and whose opinions and recommendations they can trust. And that trust right there is also the wellspring that drives your value to brands.
It is important, therefore, that creators lead with integrity, and talk about brands, culture, products, and communities they truly love. By discussing things you truly believe in and engage with using your own cold hard cash, you will set a level of trust with your audience, and strengthen your valuable credibility when it comes to brand partnerships and ads.
Likewise, when brands are selecting talent for an influencer marketing campaign, they will look at your previous brand endorsements (paid and unpaid), in combination with your personal values, to determine how well you align with them, how responsive your audience are to your endorsements, and how authentically you can communicate brand partnerships.
Somebody who achieved this equation very successfully is The Spiffing Brit. Spiff spent years declaring his genuine love for Yorkshire Tea over countless YouTube videos. Thus, when he finally partnered with them for his 1 million subscriber video, it was a natural fit and a cause for honest, authentic celebration by his audience.
CONSIDER ALL OF YOUR MOVES
One of my biggest pieces of advice for aspiring influencers is to consider everything you do. Not just the brands you work with, but the content you share, the other creators you collaborate with, the comments you leave, the social posts you make, and the conversations that you have.
As your followers or subscribers grow, and your engagement gets better, opportunities will arise that could be great in the short-term but harmful in the long term. It’s easy to get distracted from the values and the guidelines that you started with when a shiny thing is dangled in front of you for the first time, but it’s important to stay clearly defined in what you’re about.
You can’t compartmentalise what you see as ‘the real you’ vs. ‘the other stuff that doesn’t matter’. If you work in a public sphere, everything anyone can see will determine who they decide you are. You don’t get to pick and choose, so you’ll have to keep everything on-point. How you communicate and interact has a huge impact on how you will be perceived. Audiences and brands aren’t just judging you on your content and opinions, but also with how you engage with other influencers, followers, and everything else in between.
This all comes back to authenticity. Be yourself, be guided by your own values, and don’t allow your growing popularity dilute your credibility. But crucially, keep it consistent across the board. It takes a long time to build a personal brand, but all it takes is one crack or contradiction to make people doubt it. And that goes for both your audience and the brands who might want to work with you to reach that audience.
