Identifying the right influencer partners to work with your brand is vital. Something that we argue is even more important? Being prepared with a clear influencer brief that will establish the start of a great working relationship and campaign.
By having a brief with all the vital information needed for a successful campaign, we're able to keep collaborations organized and prevent any potential misunderstandings. A great brief helps our partners understand our campaign goals and how they can help!
Keep reading for a look at what we include in our briefs and how you can update yours.
image via @itsdougthepug
What is an influencer brief?
If you're new to PR, an influencer marketing brief is a document sent to influencers you're hoping to work with on a project. The brief usually highlights objectives or goals, timelines, expectations, deliverables, guidelines and KPIs but aren't limited to also including content usage rights and disclosure clauses.
As communicators, we know briefs are integral to a successful campaign since we're communicating all asks upfront and it helps influencers understand the goals we're trying to reach. A clear overview of goals will help influencers create content that yields better results!
So, what do you need for a successful brief?
Brand + Campaign Overview
Before you dive into campaign details, it's important to share about the brand you're representing and hoping to have the influencer partner with. This ensures the campaign is a fit and that the influencer has knowledge of the brand and overall campaign creative before diving into details.
Campaign Goals
We include this section to clearly share our goals for the campaign and brand. It's an essential portion that we recommend including in your brief! This section allows the influencer to
understand if they can help us achieve these goals and can even spark some creative ideas on how they can utilize their platform to help.
Creative Steer + Inspiration
The creative steer is the content ask and overall direction that we would like all content to follow. We like to provide creative direction, but don't limit our creators too much so that their creativity and authenticity shine through! We also create a visual deck of our brief to use as image inspiration and help give visuals to the campaign.
Content Overview + Requirements
The specifics! This includes a quick look at the overall content asks that we are looking for including everything from the number of Instagram posts and story frames all the way to Pinterest pins - it just depends on the campaign initiative. We clearly lay out all asks here so the influencer knows what to expect for deliverables.
We also include specifics here like which hashtags to utilize, brand tags, disclosure guidelines and even dos + donts to get as clear as possible and supply the influencer with all the details they need.
Key Messaging
Since most of our campaigns are product-focused, there is usually information to include about the product and brand an influencer might not know about. This section is meant for supplying all of that info so that they have ALL the information about a product and/or brand they might need in relation to the campaign. This is essential since it helps them write captions and even answer questions from their audiences.
Timeline + Key Deadlines
Lastly, a timeline with key dates. By far one of the most important things to include! We like to break our timelines down by week and share key deadlines so that the influencer has complete visibility on when they're expected to share their content with us and with their audience.
Do you have any more questions about what to include in a brief or did we miss any key components? Let us know in the comments below or on Instagram at @sodapoppr.