How To Secure The Brand Deals
I used to take brand deals for free products in exchange for free marketing…
Maybe you don’t have 1 Million Instagram or Tik Tok followers or even 100k, but maybe you are one of the most influential people in your town!
I used to post photos on Instagram just for fun… I have transitioned from that to receiving free products, to then having a month booked worth of brand deals in posts and stories.
So how I turned into making money on social media was a funny story… Because I was not looking at it as a business and I was just having fun! It is never about a popularity contest, if you focus on making money and growing your numbers as your main priority, you’re going to fail!
You have to enjoy what you are doing first, post genuine content and most of all have a good engagement!
I understand if you have 100k followers but 1k likes! This is not the same amount of revenue as 20k followers and 1k likes… The Industry is shifting, brands are starting to notice it is not about the number of people that follow you but more about the amount of those people that stay true to you and supports you and buys because of you!
I have noticed these minor changes with great brands like Forever 21 with the New York City event in which each influencer there that I know of had less than 20k followers… Once again they all had great engagement!
When I began to “make money” or get free things! I started to like it and want more of it, I started to broaden my surroundings and wanted to grow my numbers and be the A list influencer… But at these A list events, these people would extremely look happy on story posts and just sit on a corner on their phone but never network!
I had to learn the difference between the hype and what I was genuinely passionate about… I thought posting bikini photos was fun but when I started to truly get into it I began posting microblog captions that actually were helping people, this is when I built a real niche.
I always receive DMs from girls who have been through similar experiences and that’s what keeps me going! I had to sit down and consult the universe to switch out everything and give away a change and when I did that is when I started to build trust with my community. I enjoyed writing so much that it lead me to do my podcast itself and writing blogs with it too because I know there are different types of people, some love to multitask and listen and there are others who like to sit down and read a blog.
In order to get brand deals, after building your personal brand and niche, you need to be real, be a human, ask for their budget, don’t be afraid to define where you shine, and put a number on it!
When you send out an email to reach out to a brand only write a couple of sentences about yourself, the brand does not care about how the collaboration is going to help you, they want to see a turnout on the money they are spending on you based off how it will help them! If your intention is to sit at home on your phone and take a pic in your backyard is different than actually making a connection with somebody.
I’d say as my takeaway is to make an email draft. When you do so there are many steps to take in order to land the brand deals:
1. Introduce yourself (name, handle, followers, blog, YouTube, and any other platform).
2. Tell them your REAL analytics and engagement.
3. Explain why you are different than the 1,000 emails they received today (e.g. mine is usually my curly hair & the type of extra content I can create with ideas).
4. Give them options of what you can do the help them gain sales (stories, videos, IGTV, blog, Tik Tok).
5. Tell them an average of your price and ask for their budget. (most of them understand you have bills to pay!)
6. Say thank you and tell them you will be reaching out again in a week!
Once you have this down and breakthrough that wall the main thing is communication. Don’t be that person sitting on their phone in a corner of a networking event!