how to leverage influencer content for your brand

hola! happy friday! if you’ve been in nyc, you know the weather is quite literally perfect so i’m writing this on my balcony in an oversized hoodie and i truly could not be more content.

if you’re reading this, i hope you have had a great week so far! new episodes of love is blink UK dropped and the love island reunion was on so great week for brain-numbing tv and rotting time on my end. if you watched, i need to hear your thoughts.

anywho, a few weeks ago, i wrote a newsletter all about the art of making an easy and seamless creative brief for influencers and creators that you may be working with for your brand. in the past, i’ve also spoken about how i like to structure influencer deals when it comes to the platform whether it’s paying for:

• An ad integration on Youtube like this (once again, an UNDERRATED PLATFORM!!!!)

• A revenue generating/capturing partnership on Instagram and/or Tiktok (aka creating content to integrate and ideally convert) like this

• A brand awareness partnership where the goal can be more brand dependent whether it’s potentially gaining more followers, reach/impressions, or trying to leverage creators to enter into a new community like this

this week, we’re tackling the question i’ve been getting a quite a lot from new brands who are playing around in the paid influencer space, which is: “if i’m investing in this content and partnership, what the heck do i do after it’s uploaded? does the partnership just fully end upon upload? how do i know many sales i made or what i walked away with?”

so today’s topic? we’re talking about 3 main ways to leverage your influencer content after it’s been uploaded. for some of you, you might already know this, but hey, sometimes it’s a nice refresher, ok?

BEFORE WE GET INTO IT…

This week’s edition brought to you by the amazing squad over at SUPERFILIATE aka the homies! If you're new here, you're about to learn about my love for this platform that has helped me save HOURS of my life to scale and manage 6-figure influencer affilaite programs. 

If you're currently asking yourself “how do I track my sales and efforts from influencers I am working with easily?”

Let me break this down for you reeeeeal quick. If you’re a brand looking to:

• have a trusty platform that allows you to run end-to-end affiliate, influencer and referral programs

• increase your conversion rate and work more deeply with the creators on your roster to track your ROI on paid initiatives

• handle product seeding, promotions, payout management for commissions, and more

Superfiliate could be (and probably is) your solution.They recently just launched their INFLUENCER HUB! HUBBA HUBBA!

This hub is quite literally “everything you need and nothing you don’t” built out for your Influencer, Affiliate, and Ambassador Marketing.

Their new Influencer Marketing Hub enables you to do:

• Discovery and Recruiting: See what content creators are tagging you in stories, reels or posts on Instagram and TikTok, DM them, and recruit them to your program

• Creator Communications: Use templates to build personalized emails and DMs (Integrates with Klayvio!!)

• Custom Creator Landing Pages (the reason I originally joined Superfiliate for Graza): Drive higher conversion rates + every page can be automatically customized with the creator's content, favorite products and a personalized review!

• Product Seeding: Mass email creators with a one-click link to access their gift that’s automatically ordered!

• Analytics + Reporting: Track and double down on top performing creators with insights on AOV, revenue, traffic source, earned media value and more!

• Management & Payments: Offer commission or flat rate payouts via ACH, Venmo, PayPal to your ambassadors

With their help, I’ve been able to manage over 600+ ambassadors effectively whether it’s getting product to them, paying out their commissions easily, see the content that they are creating, and more.

It also takes less than a month to get this all up and running where they will literally build it all out FOR you from the cobranded landing pages to having a slack channel with you for easy communication and reviewing your strategy.

To celebrate making your life easier, Superfiliate is giving ya a FREE MONTH to try out their platform if you click right HERE. If you’re planning for influencer marketing and affiliate marketing to be an insane driver for your Q4 and holiday plans, then you’re going to need some cool folks in your corner to make sure you’re getting what you need so get to it, y’all!

“THE INFLUENCER I PAID POSTED, BUT NOW WHAT?”

Well, depending on the deal you worked out with an influencer and their manager, you either walked away with mainly two to three ways that your brand wishes to leverage the likeness and image of this influencer.

1. Organic Usage - Organic usage refers to being able to upload the influencer’s content on your owned social media accounts with credit to them and without the help of any money behind it. You can see a recent example of a client reposting and repurposing content right here (the original post from the influencer is here).

   undertakes on social media platforms to engage with their audience. This includes posting content like images, videos, stories, and updates, as well as interacting with followers through comments, likes, shares, and direct messages.

2. Paid Usage (Whitelisting/Boosting, etc.) - involves spending money to promote content or ads on social media platforms to reach a broader or more targeted audience like this example with Made In and creator, Arnie Tex. 

We’ll break down whitelisting, but i have the biggest urge to create a dictionary for all of these terms since I see so many team get confused therefore causing disarray across a brands these days, but Made In is truly one of the brands who crushes it across all fronts of leveraging creators for UGC for paid ads, whitelisting through their creators, and yes, I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with their team on and off the last 8 months.

The third is more on a case by case basis of why you need the content whether it’s to feature in e-mail, on or in a publication, for TV, your website, etc.

ORGANIC USAGE: THE EASIEST FIRST STEP

If you’re a brand working with influencers, please make sure to build organic usage or inquire about it because you cannot assume that you have the ability to just use it willy nilly across your instagram, tiktok, youtube shorts, or whatever other platform you may favor.

I personally haven’t run into any financial increases as a result of asking for this except when it comes to the top dogs in their space so don’t hesitate. I personally ask for 30 days of organic usage if it’s a piece of content that is supplementing a campaign going live in tandem, but if it’s a more evergreen piece of content that I am briefing them then I like to ask for 90 days.

Another important part is of this that the content you’re briefing lets you know early on if you’ll even be using this for your own channels. If a campaign is more about revenue generation and the creator is mentioning their code and all that, I would not want to be reposting that on my own brand account in-feed as it can mess with attribution of sales and because it is more natively made to appeal to their audience, which may be new to your brand.

PAID USAGE: THERE ARE LEVELS TO IT

Before I write this section, I just want to remind everyone that I am not a media buyer at all and am forever a student in the paid media space thanks to the clients I work with. This year, it’s been a huge focus of mine to get more into the nitty gritty details and numbers with teams so obviously I will share my learnings as I see fit.

However, I have always stood on #business when it comes to making sure you’re making your content work for you after upload, whether you own it or someone else does and that will never change.

Although both of these terms involve collaborating with the influencers you’re working with to promote your brand in some way, shape, or form, the outcomes are a biiiiit different. A third option that can also pop into these is the concept though of using the influencer’s content through your own ad account so keep that in mind as well.

Boosting: A Way to Amplify Existing Content
Boosting is a simple form of paid social media promotion where you pay to increase the reach of an existing organic post posted by the influencer you worked with. Imagine this post getting an imaginary booster shot of extra eyeballs, potentially leading to reaching a larger audience (aka increases new potential customer acquisition) and getting increased engagement.

Like everything, there are limitations like limited control over the promoted content since it is amplified as-is. You also are restricted in how you are able to target so if you’re looking to shoot it to highly specific audience segments, this isn’t going to be your answer.

Whitelisting: Maximum Impact and Collaboration
Whitelisting involves an influencer or creator granting a brand access to their social media account for the purpose of running paid ads through their handle. That is why you might see “sponsored” under a creator’s name when scrolling through Instagram and them promoting a product. It comes across way more natively and organically and often helps brands acquire customers easier than through their own ad account.

TL;DR: The ads appear as if they are coming directly from the influencer's account, rather than the brand’s. You can create and run custom ads featuring your product through their handle and have more creative control. See an example below of @luciebfink x Quip:

Also, one note: I have yet to work with any Youtubers in licensing their content from their videos (which is usually a % of the fee you paid them in total for a year) so once I do that at some point this year, I will share more insights around how that content can work and get redistributed across your other outlets.

“WHICH APPROACH SHOULD I TAKE?!”

So, when should you choose boosting vs. whitelisting?

I think there’s a world where brands are definitely doing both and knowing when to push go on each, but obviously budgets vary brand to brand.

Boosting: Being that this amplifies existing, high-performing influencer content to a wider audience it can be a bit more suitable for smaller budgets or when you just want to help get a word out for visibility without a heavy financial investment.

Whitelisting: This is always ideal for me, personally, when it comes to the revenue-generating or campaigns where the influencer is pushing their audience to a specific DTC site to purchase. You can see examples of OG content I have whitelisted before here for Graza and here for Calirosa Tequila. It’s good if you want to get more complex with specific targeting, seek in-depth performance data, etc.

The investment side of this looks like an increase of the influencer’s cost + your investment into pressing “go” on the content and supporting it financially. When it comes to boosting and whitelisting/paid usage (to send through their account or through your own brand handle), I like asking for 30 days to start and then extending from there if we see good performance. This would usually look like paying a monthly fee to the creator to keep promoting their content.

If you need a rundown again on how to potentially break down a deal for an influencer, you can use this as a resource to structure your program and thought process.

BRAND OF THE WEEK: CLIIK HOME

If you’re new here, BOTW is when I pick a brand because I like it or what they are doing online. This week it is CLIIK HOME. With me moving into a new apartment, organization and having cool things for organization is important to me. I bought my first set of cliick before I moved and then kept purchasing because they look dope (i have the red!), help my stay clutter-free, just make something boring fun.

You can also stack them in all directions since they have magnets on the inside. You can see them on my counter here incase you want some inspo.

Adulting really is getting excited over things like home organization. Well, if you have any other items you love that have changed your life, share ‘em or anything you have been enjoying lately!

LOGGING OFF

Alright, it’s coffee time right now so time to go make myself a nice little iced latte. Are you someone who always has iced coffee year round? I think I am starting to go that route, which is kind of crazy.

I hope you have a greeeeat weekend and enjoy these warm temps while we have them.

If you need anything at all or want to see a specific newsletter about a topic, please hit the “reply” button and tell me!

Finally, if you have anyone that you think would enjoy this newsletter, it would mean the world if you could share it as we’re trying to hit 3,000 subs by EOY!

You can easily share this link with them: https://kendalldickieson.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Y’all are the best. Thank you for giving me a platform to be myself and geek out and for letting me show-up in your inbox.

I’ll see you next week!

Peace, love, and KPIS

-KD

Also, if you saw typos, no you did not 🙂 

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