Following Hashtags & Growing Your Instagram Audience

Do you follow any Instagram hashtags? If not, you are seriously missing out, not only on discovering amazing new accounts that aren't selected by Instagram to be on the Explore page but also on reaching a much wider and more relevant audience.  I'm so excited to share this as discovering this feature has been one of the things that brought me round to LOVING Instagram again and actually seeing a benefit from using it to promote my blog and other online ventures. It's easy to feel stuck in a rut, that your images are only getting seen by the same few people - break out of the mold and start using these hacks (are they hacks? I feel like hacks might be one of the most overused words on the internet) to set yourself apart from the masses!

 I've spent the last few weeks looking for information about this relatively new option and for once, the Blogosphere has come up wanting. I'd love to know about any other articles written on this subject from a similar perspective.

Here is how you do it, really simple. Just type the hashtag you want to follow and then click 'Follow' on the search results screen.

Easy right? The results will show up between content from users you have chosen to follow along with the username of the creator and the relevant tag.

I've always struggled with hashtags and which ones are the best to use. It's all very well that there are over 2 million posts under #nomnomnom but is anyone actually SEARCHING for that hashtag? It doesn't seem likely to me. I believe that there is a big difference between hashtags that are top searches and hashtags that are used on the regular. It's pretty hard to find this information online as it changes so often. One of the things you can use the follow hashtag feature for is to follow hashtags that you have been using on your own content, see how your content fits in and what other users are tagging their similar content with - #ukbloggers is a great one to start you off.

It's not the simplest thing to find out how many people follow individual hashtags, I have yet to find this information in a useful list form that I can link to. Occasionally, slid into my regular feed I'll see a little section like this which is another great place to find relevant hashtags to put in my caption:

Since I started using this trick, I've have a major jump in my Story views. As you can see above, following a hashtag means that all Stories marked with that hashtag will show up in their own little circle on your Explore page.

I've followed my hometown hashtag and I find that people tend to tag their Stories when they are going to the gym or eating out, it's given me a great insight into where is best for Sunday roasts in my town, as well as helped me to discover lots of local content creators who I like to follow and support. I now make sure to add a hastag and a location tag to every single one of my Stories and no word of a lie, it's improved my Stories views by hundreds. I used to get around 100 views on most of my Stories and since I've been tagging as much as is relevant, I've jumped up to getting an average of 400-500 views each and quite a few of those viewers turn into followers. The tags don't need to be super-obvious, you can actually make them small enough to blend in pretty well with your image if you don't want them spoiling your aesthetic.

Some of the biggest success I've had from this has come from locations and event tags. I've already mentioned above how using a tag relevant to my home town (literally just the name with a hashtag before it) has made a significant impact on my Instagram Story views, but I've also found that some of the best way to get views from new potential followers is to use relevant event and location tags on your images and Stories wherever possible because people are following these high-traffic hashtags.

When the #trippinwithtarte event happened, I did an experiment to see if this hashtag was getting a huge number of views on Stories. I used some actual Tarte make-up so my post wasn't a total sore thumb (keeping things relevant is key to turning all this extra reach into a growing audience) and I actually hit nearly 900 views on the Story.

I tag a location into all my content now, both my pictures on my main feed and my Stories and although I've been trying quite a few new things to grow my Insta, I'm convinced this has had a significant impact.

I also followed the #trippinwithtarte and several other major beauty launch hashtags and will continue to do so. This means I get some great beauty content and I'm coming across new make-up artists and beauty bloggers on my feed that I would never have found through the explore page. I try to engage with as much of this content as possible too, which also generates new followers and engagement on my own account. Now, I look out for hashtags that are relevant to the UK blogging community and I follow them to, I've really found some amazing Instagram profiles this way that have inspired me to become a better creator myself.

Once you have spent a few days adding these tags to your Stories and posts and finding new bloggers and creators through hashtags that you are following, you'll be able to start using this information to improve your reach and impressions. If you have found a tag getting you a significant increase in Stories, chances are it will have the same impact on the main content that you are pushing out, as it often means there are a lot of followers of this particular hashtag. I have found that many of the hashtags that I use regular don't have anywhere near the impact that I thought they would when I include them on Stories, so I've dropped them out of my regular copy & paste hashtag job and I'm switching in tags that seem to attract a much higher number of views.

The only way that a new follower will come across your Story is if they are actually searching for the specific hashtag that you included, so experiment with lots of different locations, events and individual tags to try and build a unique set of hashtags that will contribute towards getting your content in front of a wider audience.



Every individual will have a different set of hashtags that work for them and will be following a completely different set of hashtags themselves. You can see which hashtags a user is following by clicking the 'following' number on their profile and then selecting 'hashtags' on the page that their following list is shown. This is super interesting as it's a great way to find new hashtags to tag and test out, but it's also one of the things that promoted me to write this post. So few of my favourite social media agencies, influencers and content creators are following any hashtags at all! It's such a useful and interesting feature that I've made it my personal mission to try and get more people following hashtags in this way. Many of the bigger influencers that I follow have created their own hashtags for their fashion, travel or lifestyle content and this is another fun way to utilise this feature - you won't miss any of their content.

You could follow the tag for your favourite photo editing app, your favourite brands, influencers or charities to see their content more regularly. What about following the hashtag for a festival you are attending or your favorite resturant or holiday destination for serious lifestyle inspiration. Which hashtags are you following? I'd love to hear them in the comments below,

Katy x

Why Do Brands Take Influencers On Expensive PR Trips?

What a week for new beauty releases! I've seen the most insane PR packages and trips. I honestly love how fast-paced the beauty industry is moving at the moment. I spotted 4 separate 'blogger' or launch events happening yesterday across my social media feeds and they each looked their own kind of incredible.

When launching a new product or store, introducing a new face or having a rebranding, the current preference for glitzy, no-holds-barred events is a part of a trend called Experiential Marketing. It's been predicted as being 'big' for several years on digital and tech blogs but it's taken some time for brands to get used to spending their budgets in this way and so we are just starting to see something really awesome happening in the sphere of Influencers. Brands are beginning to understand that not every aspect of marketing can be measured in a quantifiable way. Experiential Marketing is about giving consumers an experience that will increase their propensity to purchase, even become an advocate for, the brand. In turn a wider audience is then exposed to positive feelings about the product. This snowball effect is extremely valuable!

At the Benefit Cosmetics #raiseabrow event last year

I was inspired to write this post after I saw quite a bit of moaning on Twitter. Two nights in a country hotel for a new cleanser?  The Maldives? For a MASCARA?  How can this possibly be beneficial for the brand and why are they splashing out thousands on a very small minority and then charging a high price for the product when us mortals have to purchase them?

Brace yourself, sensitive snowflakes.

If you are going to work in social media, expect brands to pay you for your content and ideas and promote yourself as an expert in the subject, you need to know your shit.

I'm really surprised by some of the people I've seen negatively commenting on bloggers attending events, especially when the general mood of the blogosphere finally seems to be turning in a 'support each other' kind of direction.  So I've written below some of the ways that these launches can benefit the brand in a much wider way than just promoting the individual product and how it benefits you too.

Brands have had to completely change the way that their marketing budget is allocated in the last three years. From point blank refusing to pay bloggers to signing up content creators on £100,000 contracts, things have gone from zero to hero for those of us that love to write about and photograph our lives. When I first started working in Influencer marketing, I was convincing decision-makers of the three ways that working with Influencers could help to grow their business.

• Increasing the number of followers their brand accounts had
• Raising general awareness of the brands existence
• Direct sales (became a lot more relevant with the advent of Instagram Stories 'swipe-up' function)

All three of these are measurable to some extent. You can watch a brand's follower count go up when you see an influencer posting about them. Brand awareness can be measured in tags and mentions and direct sales are counted by total sales, of course. A combination of this data should help a brand target the Influencers to keep working with, the type of content that works for them and so on. This ability to use the data to hone future campaigns is a secondary benefit which works infinitely better online than it can do in print as you can test different content and users easily with A/B testing. This is where you trial something on a selection of your potential audience, and something else on another group.

At the launch for Deciem x ASOS

Each of these desired results has certain ways it can be achieved - for example, if you want to increase your follower count then running a contest that involves following that account would be an ideal way to achieve it.

So, we have all these ways of creating campaigns, mixing and matching your desired results with A/B testing of audiences and content. Brands usually have to select what they want from a campaign.

Experiential marketing does all of this and more.

But what brands really want these days is for their fans and users to be creating content for them, independently. This is the holy grail of online marketing in the current climate. Imagine you are launching a product and you've given it a kooky hashtag. If you check that hashtag daily, you want to see people tagging your product in their images. In the case of beauty brands, this is so valuable because of the possibility of using so many different products in one images. You could easily feature 15 or so brands in one picture of your made-up face and tagging with the brands individual hashtags is the first step towards getting that brand to notice you. If they notice you and your image is of a high quality, you might get shared on their page. Boom, 4 million people are looking at your photo, This can have an earth-shattering impact on your own follower count.

 If a brand seems to be sharing a lot of Influencer's content to their audience, sending out amazing PR packages and taking bloggers on holidays that most people can only dream of, it becomes aspirational to be noticed and featured by these brands. This in turn makes their products more desirable, as you aren't going to be featured on Kylie Cosmetics page wearing a knock-off dupe liquid lip. For those bloggers that don't actually take pictures of their face but create elaborate flatlays and studio set-ups - the same goes. They need to buy the product to create the content. Then their followers see them buying and recommending the product and go out and buy it too - this is where micro-influencers fit in and play their part in the campaign. Essentially, creating content on a brand's behalf in exchange for a potential feature.

This is the crux of Experiential Marketing - for the cost of hiring an aquarium for the day and giving away some of your product in mermaid packaging, you can create an experience that gets shared millions of times, something that isn't always possible to get when paying individuals to create content - although that's obviously incredibly valuable too!

One of the negatives I've seen so far is that EM is more difficult to measure. I don't know how brands are going to be analysing whether the thousands and thousands they spend on events with spaceships coming from the roof, covetable merchandise (who else wanted a Too Faced sunhat last summer?) and masterclasses added to their sales. This will be really interesting to watch and research. I'll be keeping an eye on new launch hashtags and how long it takes content to start getting created by aspiring make-up artists and micro-influencers.

The Boohoo Spring/Summer Press Day 2017

I LOVE the movement towards this type of promotion and PR. It means brands have the opportunity to really infuse their personality and their ethos into launches, making it an exciting time to work in the beauty (and fashion and lifestyle and fitness...) industries. Once the longer term effects on sales and brand awareness can be measured I believe there will develop a whole secondary industry dedicated to putting on these type of events with the most success. In the meantime, the only way anyone gets to be involved, whether it's an all-expenses paid trip to Bali or a pool party in central London, is to create amazing content - moaning about it on Twitter won't get you anywhere at all.

I hope this has given some background as to why brands are creating these experiences, I would love your comments below on amazing events you have been to and how they made you feel about a product or brand - please do leave a comment.

I'm currently available for consultation and digital content projects. You can email me on katycloudsofficial[at]gmail.com or tweet on [at]katy_clouds

How Do I Get A Blogging / Influencer Agent and Do I Need One?

In my day job, I'm an Influencer agent at a major talent agency. I manage the calendars and collaborations of people with significant Instagram, blog or Facebook followings and I work on pitching them to clients to fulfil briefs that require influencers.

In a typical day, I might receive requests for:

• Beauty Influencers with a high UK audience
• Fitness Influencers that are currently not sponsored by protein brands
• Mummy influencers with children under 5
• Gaming Youtubers who want to trial new game apps
• Travel Influencers who want to go on paid adventures

My job is first and foremost to fulfil the briefs that come in and to make sure that our department is reaching out to companies to let them know that we are here and we have the influencers that they need to fulfil their digital content needs. I spend a lot of my day talking about the three major benefits of Influencer marketing, raising Brand Awareness, gaining Follow Acquisitions for client's social accounts and generating immediate direct sales driven from an influencer posting content created around a particular brand.

Obviously, to do all of this, I have to have a roster of Influencers, bloggers and content creators that I can call on. These individuals need to span the complete spectrum, from very small, up and coming beauty bloggers who might consider creating a post in exchange for gifted product and a mention on a big beauty brands instagram page, to major Youtube stars that can gain millions of views and downloads for a new app.

I find these influencers in lots of different ways, including going to blogger events, networking with other agents and beauty PR's, scouring Instagram and...incoming applications.

The point to this post today, was to give some information about what an agent does and why you might need one. I speak to a lot of up and coming influencers and bloggers who feel that getting an agent is the next logical step to take them to the upper echelons of the blogosphere. To put it bluntly, it's not.

My job is not to develop you, not to grow you into a major influencer. That's your job. The content that you create, the organic content, is what will make you stand out among a see of want-to-be influencers and social media stars. I get approached by people with 10K followers in Instagram saying they are ready for an agent - you aren't. The brutal truth of the matter is that an agent is only going to be interested if there is decent money to be made and at that level - there isn't.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still interested in hearing from you. I often get invites, emails about gifting (or 'seeding' collaborations and other opportunities that our higher-level beauty influencers simply won't consider and it makes the agency looks significantly better if we are always able to fulfil a brief, plus I'm obviously interested in watching your Instagram and blog grow in popularity until such a time that you do perhaps require an agent.

So how do you know if you really need an agent? Here's a little checklist.

• You are getting approached by brands and being offered paid collaborations
• You don't know how much to charge these brands, but you know that your platforms are definitely worth money
• You need help with invoicing and the admin side of Influencer work
• You want to turn previous collaborations that have been on a gifting basis into a longer term paid collaboration with a brand
• You are getting people pretend to be you on social media
• You think it's time you were verified
• You have more than 100K followers or subscribers on at least one channel.

If more than two of these sound like you, it's time. Get contacting agencies in the space you want too work.

Influencer platforms are springing up everywhere. I get several emails a day about them. From Influenster  to River and millions more, these platform promise that they affiliated with all the top brands and will bring the work to your inbox without you having to lift a finger and in some cases, they do work. I would recommend them if you aren't quite answering 'yes' to two or three of the above questions but you are ready to dip your two into paid collaboration.

An agency manages your Influencer career. You'll be assigned an agent who will be your go-to. You'll speak to them several times a day sometimes about opportunities, working with them to get the best rates and the best collaborations. They will reach out on your behalf to brands that you have always dreamed of working with and they will make sure all of the invoicing and admin stuff is done for you so you can sit back and do what you are good at - content creating.

Don't get me wrong, there's a place for Influencer marketing platforms and I don't see them as my competitor, but they fulfil different roles and it's likely you'll need one before the other.

Now you have established that you are ready for an agent and you aren't looking for someone to help you develop yourself as an influencer, but someone who can pitch you to global brands and start getting you those big-money deals - it's time to put yourself out there. I'd strongly suggest going for a well-known, reputable agency that has a good roster of influencers. Here are some other things to check out:

• Does the agency have an office premises? You don't want some fly-by-night managing the career that you've worked this hard on

• What's their reputation? Talk to some brands about the agency - you probably have PR contacts already and most of them will know the big agencies and the right contacts there - they might even recommend a particular agent to you

• Do they have people that you admire on their roster? If they only have one or two minor reality TV stars from 2006 they might not be best for your 400K beauty platform

• Do the people that they represent seem to be working quite a bit? A reputable agency will always be happy to share who else they represent - check out their Instagram feeds and blogs and establish if they seem to be getting good opportunities. 5 teeth whitening companies in a month would be a no, an amazing-looking trip to the Bahamas with a cosmetic brand would probably be more of a yes!

• Are you able to speak to someone on the phone and if so, do you like them on first impressions? I won't take anyone on that won't speak to me on the phone.

• Do you they ask you to share your Instagram insights and other stats and seem interested in verifying how you have grown yourself, or do they seem over keen and not interested in your history? This is a red flag for sure, you don't want to work with an agency that takes on people who they don't properly verifying - brands will pick up on that super quick!

Finally, do your research. The right agency won't pressure you into signing a contract or true and promise you all the best jobs. Working with an agent is about selecting and pitching for the right opportunities that will resonate with your audience and keep your following trusting you. No agent should ever promise anything - they probably won't be able to deliver and you'll be in too deep to know what to do. 

I'm happy to give advice on this subject, and even consider adding you to our roster if you have the potential and I believe that our clients will be interested in you. You can find my work email over on my Instagram, @katyclouds

Hope this has helped! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments section and I will reply with haste x

How Do I Get Instagram Insights & How Do I Work Out My Engagement Rate?

Recently Instagram made it possible to access, for free, the kind of information about your following and engagement that had previously only been available by paying a third-party application. Do you have access to Instagram Insights? This guide will tell you how to get it and I'll also be publishing a guide to exactly how you can use the information that it provides to grow your Instagram following. I hope you find it helpful, if so, please do leave a comment.

I'll answer any questions in the comments too, don't be shy!

To access the special icon that takes you to your Insights, you need to have set up a Facebook Page. I don't mean, you need to have an account, you actually have to be the administrator of a Facebook Page. Go here for a description of the difference between a Page and a Group.

You can click the menu option along the navigation bar on Facebook to find out what pages you have created and are an admin of. If you haven't created a Page yet, you'll need to. You can set up a Page about anything, but if you are serious about promoting yourself as a blogger or Influencer, it won't hurt to have one dedicated to you. You can invite your real life friends to like the Page and drive more traffic to where you want it, Instagram or your blog or wherever. Facebook Pages can be a little slow to grow - but you don't need to have any followers to access Instagram Insights.

Once you've got the Page set up, head back over to Instagram and connect your Facebook and Instagram accounts. Click the three little dots on the top right of your profile page and scroll down to Account - the option to hook up Facebook to Instagram, turn your account into a 'Business' account and access Insights should be there.

You'll now have a little icon available to you that wasn't there before...

I have no idea why I am a 'Government Official', that clearly needs to change! The other thing that you'll notice is you will now have a little 'Contact' button under your public stats, this is connected to your email and allows brands and fans to get in touch with you on the email you signed up to Instagram with. It's worth making sure it's your current address.

Here are some extra facts about Insights that might help you get started:

• Insights are only available for images that you post after switching your account over to a business one, you won't be able to access stats from posts prior to that
• Each section has more information, swipe right to view more on each stat.
• Insights are also available for individual posts and you'll see a little 'Insights' link under your newly posted photos. What is the difference between Reach and Impressions? It's pretty simple - Reach is how many individuals your image has been seen by, impressions is how many times the image has been seen.

I'll leave you with a little formula you can use to work out your engagement rate. You can use this to work out whether you engagement is going up or down, whether you get more engagement on certain types of posts and you can also use it to pitch yourself to brands, who will be looking for the highest percentage possible!

Engagement (divided by) Reach = %

Here's an example from one of my posts this month -

66 (divided by) 343 = 0.192

0.192 x 100 = 19.2

This shows that 19.2% of the people that saw my post chose to interact with it.

These are really valuable statistics when it comes to brand endorsements. Brands will be looking for you to have an engagement rate of at least 20% to consider you for paid collaborations. Test the water by posting a few images tagging some of your favourite brands and seeing what your engagement rate is like. You'll need to leave the post up a day or so to get a balanced picture.

Pop back sometime, because I've got a post that delves much deeper into using your Insights to grow and develop your following lined up later this week - follow me on Twitter to stay updated :)

Katy x

2017 Aspirations & How To Be In The Moment

Welcome to 2017.

This is the year that I want to start fulfilling my dreams. I've spent quite a few years floating along, now, the time has come for me to create a life that I love. Whilst using that phrases jars with me just slightly since Zoella started using a similar one - it's still something I can aspire to. Also, I don't hate Zoella.

This year I want to blog better, work harder and earn more. I want to be a better mother, a better girlfriend and a better friend. I want to love my life, my career and myself harder and I want to strive to live a more positive existence but there's one goal, one aspiration in particular that has been the focus of my thoughts for the past few weeks. Like many people, I fail at resolutions. I can go back over old diaries, paper and digital, and tell you a hundred resolutions that I have made throughout my life that I never kept,and probably quite a lot that I ended up doing the exact opposite of.

A lot of people scoff at setting goals and aspirations at New Year. Oh, "it's just another day" and "what's the point I've never kept them". But I see the New Year, despite definitely being 'just another day' where things go wrong, as a chance to look at what I am not achieving that I definitely want to - and there aren't a huge number of other days in the year that I bother to sit down and mull over that.

I spend a lot of time rushing from one thing to another. Rush to get my son to school before the only bus that won't make me late for work sails past. Rush from the bus stop to the train station because there is only a few minutes connection time. Rush from the station to work because there's only just enough tim to run there and not be late. I rush through the morning trying to get everything down and I rush around at lunchtime because I have a 20 mins period to do things like, eat, go to the bank, take a top back, go to the post office. I rush through the afternoon willing the day to end so I can go home and then I rush to the school to pick Ramsey up before the 6pm deadline. We then rush to the shops and home before I collapse and I make dinner as quickly as I can because bedtime is approaching then we rush through a bath...

You get the idea.Life is a rush. All through these days (eat sleep repeat), I'm willing the time to hurry up so I'm one day closer to the weekend and at the weekend, I rush from eating to meeting to cleaning always thinking of the next thing I need to get done.

I found myself saying a few times after the holidays ended this week - it just rushed past. One minute I was drinking Prosecco at work and the next minute I was back at work opening my brand new desk diary you know? There didn't seem to have been a moment of time that took the duration that it should have. I freaked myself out a bit, is time speeding up? Am I going to wake up tomorrow and I'll be 78 and my life will have gone in a flash? I still think the answer to that question is yes, but now, I have a plan.

I am going to recognise each moment that happens.

It's a big one, I know. It's also impossible because who could do that? Every second? No-one. Maybe some mindfulness supremo that lives every second with intent or whatever, that isn't me. But if I set the goal to try and be in the moment as much as possible, perhaps the terrifying rush of life will at least seem to be going just a little slower and I can try and revel in the existence that I have.

When I was younger time seemed to pass incredibly slowly. I would lay awake at night sometimes and not be able to sleep and the time would seem to be taking eons to slip past. I've sat in bad jobs before and looked at the clock, only to look four hours later and see that just five minutes have passed. That doesn't happen anymore. Maybe because I really love my current job and there isn't enough hours in the day to do everything that I want to achieve with it, maybe because I'm older.

I've rambled a little here, but I don't really mind and I hope you don't either. I really love looking at at my New Year posts and seeing whether or not I have fulfilled my goals for the year - back in 2012 I wrote a list of goals that I wanted to achieve and it's been a real benchmark in how I feel my adult life is going, even though they are all pretty silly. You can read the full post linked here. I hope I can look back at this in the same way towards the end of year and have some input into whether I was able to put more of a focus on appreciating the moments of my life.

Blogwise, I want to ramp things up. I'll be posting more regular content giving insights into how Influences are making money and developing a whole industry under the umbrella of marketing, I'll be sharing behind-the-scenes look at some of the marketing projects that I'm working on with some major e-commerce and high street beauty and fashion brands, and I'll be looking to share plenty of gig and festival reviews and info. Happy 2017!!

5 Things To Check Before You Collaborate With A Brand on Instagram or Anywhere

Instagram is a major source of income for a lot of people right now, I'm loving the innovative ways that people are marketing products and services through all these social platforms, but there's a danger that with individuals managing their own collaborations, things can turn sour if neither party are experienced enough to make sure all bases are covered - this isn't meant to scare you off from collaborating with brands and beginning to earn an income (or maybe even just some free make-up!) from your carefully-curated Instagram feed, just a checklist of things to make sure you know before you agree to anything.

If you get approached by a brand looking to send you a product, or do a paid collaboration, you need to be sure you are going about it the right way and asking the right questions. Both of yourself, and of the brand. I’m going to share some tips that should be useful when you reach this stage, please feel free to share your own tips and experiences in the comments below, I’d love to hear them!

1.       Are they legit?

Key point. I’m constantly getting requests for the Influencers that we represent to endorse products or web-based services that turn out to be something they are not. If you have to sign up to a platform and enter your bank details – do your research. Some platforms are very legit and they offer a streamlined way for Influencers to pick up exciting jobs with major brands, who quite often only use this method of reaching bloggers – but some are not, or actually have an underlying ulterior motive. This isn’t meant to put you off, or cause too much worry, but there are companies less than legitimate that go around offering paid collaborations just to get you to sign up to a platform, and then you have to wait for a brand to select you – there was never any paid collaboration, the agent just wants to get people signed up to make their platform more appealing to brands and agencies that have their pick of 100 identical ones. I personally don’t recommend signing up to anything – if a brand wants to work with you, do it directly or through an agency that represents you (more on that later) Don’t be fooled into signing up for multiple platforms that aren’t going to do anything at all – they are using you to attract brands and you’ll very likely not receive a penny. If this happens to you, feel free to send me an email with the name of the platform, I will be naming and shaming companies that do this in future blog posts.

2.       Do you think your audience will be interested in the product?

Something seriously devaluing Influencer marketing is people will do anything for cash. I’ve seen legitimately incredible content creators go down this road more than once. They get a few big jobs, then nothing happens for a while, then they are approached by a company that doesn’t fit in with their aesthetic but they do it because they’ve quit their day job now and need the money. As soon as your audience call you out for promoting a product that doesn’t fit with who you are, you have totally devalued yourself and you’ve immediately reduced your earning potential – the whole appeal of Influencer marketing is that more than X amount of people trust your feed to be authentic, that’s why they are following you. Do everything you can not to lose their trust and if this means turning down collaborations that aren’t quite right, don’t be afraid to do it - it will add value to you as a brand overall.

3.       What exactly does the brand want from you?

If they want to send you a product, are you obligated to review it in a positive way? This is different to a company sending you a product for you to try with no obligation for you to create content around it. You need to be very careful with what you agree to when you are writing emails or communicating via DM’s.  I would suggest steering clear of companies that specifically request a positive review – this is a very grey area when it comes to native advertising and with the laws on disclosure for paid collaborations (and in this context, ‘paid’ means either a financial or product reward) set to change before the end of the year, you could be causing yourself serious issues in the future. There have been some very high profile cases of people being paid to do positive reviews and not disclosing that the opinion being shared wasn’t necessarily their own. Keep yourself legit and be sure you are being honest with yourself and your audience.

Be sure to check the brands disclosure policy. Agency advice would be that you disclose everything that you are paid in any way to create or post with the hashtag #ad and I don’t think there’s any reason why you shouldn’t do this. Be honest with your followers and they will become a more loyal community.

4.       Will the brand be using your photos on their own social media feed?

This is a very important question and one you should ask early on. If you create content for a brand, and they pay you, this does NOT automatically mean that they have the right to use your images featuring their product. This is a concept called ‘Usage’ and they should be paying more if they want to use your content in this way. When you first start communicating with the company, ask them this right away. You should expect to get paid more for campaigns in which the company will be sharing content created by you on their own accounts. Another grey area here, because some apps allow ‘regramming’ or resharing of Instagram content, but make sure you know exactly where your content is going to be used and if you are going to be credited for it. It maybe that the opportunity is a great one and you are happy to be featured on their feed - but there’s nothing stopping the company sharing your content and not crediting you. This is obviously more worrying if your face isn’t in the images, but even if it is, it’s good practice to know where your content is being used and for how long.

5. What expectations does the brand have, 

How will they deem your involvement a success?

Influencer marketing, like most forms of advertising, is a numbers game. It starts with how many followers you have, what your engagement percentage is (I'll be doing a post on working out your engagement rates this week - don't forget to follow me on Bloglovin' so you get updates!) and moves quickly on to how many likes and comments you get on individual promotional posts. It's worth finding out from the brand offering you products or cash - how many sales/engagements/downloads do you need to generate for them to be satisfied with the collaboration? 

Something to bear in mind when you are talking about this. The benefits of Influencer marketing extend behind the initial 45 minute flurry of activity on an Instagram post. Building brand awareness is a key factor and it's something that is much less measurable with traditional metrics. If you want to build ongoing relationships with brands, think about working on a number of posts featuring their products over a period of time. For a six month collaboration, you can expect significantly more money and there's a defined period for your involvement to have an impact - plus it will be much easier to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign overall. Upsell yourself by suggesting this route to your interested collaborators - especially if a single post campaign seems to have gone better than their expectations, it's an ideal time to pitch yourself as a great ongoing investment for them.

Don’t feel worried about asking brands these questions. Legitimate brands who want to build successful relationships with Influencers will be happy to discuss these things - they need to ensure they are getting as much bang for their buck as possible. 

But, if you are worried, think about hooking up with an agent. Legitimate Influencer agencies are the best way of ensuring you are valuing yourself correctly, they'll do all of this work for you leaving you to do what you started this venture for in the first place - creating amazing content about things that you (hopefully) love. I'll be posting more about this in the coming months, but if you are getting approached once a fortnight or more, it's probably time to get someone involved who can manage interested parties - they'll take a fee, but you'll get significantly higher overall payments  and exposure to brands that never would have found you otherwise. 

As I said, I'd very interested in your opinions and what questions you have found important when starting a relationship with a brand. There's a lot of secrecy and misinformation surrounding Influencer marketing and I'm hoping that I can use my blog as a platform to change that - you thoughts on any aspect of this would mean a lot to me :)

The Road To Success

When I was younger, this poster was hung in my house. It got taken down and probably thrown away when my parents moved, I spent a number of years trying to recall exactly what it said...

It's pretty intense, so many ways to end up in Failure River, only a few tiny stick figures reaching success. 

The poster was originally printed in 1913 for the National Cash Register company, one of the first examples of a 'motivational poster'. I definitely prefer this to a generic picture of some balancing rocks, a sunset or a snow-capped mountain - I hope you like it too.

Calling Graphic Designers & Photographers

I know it's been a few weeks since I updated. But things have been so exciting in life these last few weeks that I have barely had space to breathe :)

I've been allocated a grant to start a small business by my local authority. The scheme aims to help local people at the very start of their business dreams. I'll be sharing a lot more of the process as I follow along the journey, but I'd like to share my idea with you first.

I'll be purchasing screen printing equipment, fabric and t shirts. I'll be selling unique screen printed designs to the public at our local market and also online. I'd like to run this venture as a design collaborative. My initial plan is to bring on board three other designers or photographers whose work would be suitable and would look fantastic printed onto clothes, fabric and smaller gift items like notebooks and jewellery.

I'm looking for either photography or graphic art. Ideally, your designs will be bold and will work in two or three colours.

As a design collaborative, your designs will still belong to you, they will be reproduced with your input and approval at every stage. You'll receive a share of the profits from sales of your designs, terms to be discussed and documented.

If you think you would like to get involved, please email a sample of your work to katyclouds@outlook.com. I will aim to get back to you as soon as possible and start the process off. I really can't wait to see your designs!

I'm on a SUPER-TIGHT schedule. The business needs to launch on September 1st. So I'm going to be a crazy whirlwind of activity over the next few weeks, printing designs and creating stock. I'm so unbelievable lucky to have this opportunity that I don't even want to complain a little bit about how much time I've spent staring at spreadsheets and tracking down wholesalers. What an amazing season in my life  ♥♥