how i make money as an influencer (pt 2 - brand deals)

hiiii friend,

today we’re getting into part 2 of this series i’m doing about how i actually make money as an influencer, content creator, whatever you want to call it.

last week, i talked about this newsletter and how it fits into my overall monetisation strategy.

—> catch up here if you missed it

today we’re talking about brand deals, which have so many misconceptions surrounding them.

if you have any aspirations relating to making money from brand deals, i hope this is really helpful and practical for you.

if you are a content creator, getting brand deals is probably like the ultimate goal when you think of monetising your audience.

working with a brand, especially one you’ve actually heard of, is super aspirational and in a lot of ways probably is this thing that you feel like signals that you have ‘made it’ as a creator.

especially when you first start getting approached by brands, it’s easy to get caught up because it makes you feel important and like you are on the right track in terms of the content you’re making.

but there is a lot of nuance when it comes to working with brands which is what i really want to talk about today…….

from my perspective, it’s pretty straightforward.

pros: you get money

cons: they are a client you have to do work for lol

i think there are levels to this shit, and these days tiny creators can work with brands.

but there are some bare minimum things you need to be doing if you want to get brand deals, and the first thing is you need to be posting regularly. in other words, if you want to be treated as a creator then you need to act like a creator:

ugc - a good place to start

if you don’t have much of a following but you have an interest and a skill in content creation, ugc content is a great way to build a portfolio of paid work.

there are ugc agencies out there who can add you to their rosters and help give you work so you don’t have to go out and find it yourself.

micro-creators

to be honest, i don’t know what qualifies someone as a micro-creator, but depending on where you are based in the world you can make decent money without a huge following.

i would say creators at this level that have seen monetary success understand product marketing. they are also likely doing 10x more outreach to get 10x the opportunities of someone who is not doing much.

so if you fall into this category and really want to work with brands, my advice is to go headhunting for brands to work with.

macro-creators

fuck i don’t even know what makes you a ‘regular’ creator, but i would say over like 15k followers or so. similar to micro-creators, i think how much money you can make is dependant on how savvy you are at creating business for yourself.

at this point you could think about reaching out to an influencer agency if they are not already reaching out to you.

(+ how i actually think about working with brands)