How to Partner with Brands on Instagram
While partnering with brands isn’t the only way you can monetize as a creator, it’s often one that most creators lean on to make their full-time income.
But if you’ve attempted parenting with brands on Instagram, you know that it can be a struggle.
Pitching and never hearing back, having to find brands to work with, fighting for fair rates - it’s not as easy as you’d think it is.
Today, we’re giving you our top tips on how to collaborate with your favorite companies as a creator.
Let’s dive into it.
Don’t forget that we interviewed Isabella Lampson, the Social Partnerships Lead at Contra, on our podcast Soulcial Scoop, and it’s available now for you to binge everywhere you listen to your podcasts. You’ll learn everything you need to know about landing more gigs as a freelance creator.
Why the Anti-Pitch Method?
What I’m going to teach you today is what we at Soulcialmate like to call the “Anti-Pitch Method”.
In recent months, I’ve noticed that pitches are starting to be ignored more and more by brands. Previously, there was almost a formula of what a brand wanted to see in a pitch such as stats, previous partnerships, an intro to you and your audience, but now the tables have turned.
More and more brands are getting sick of seeing the same pitch come into the inbox raving about their love for the brand and telling them about their audience would absolutely love learning about their product. Frankly, it’s overplayed at this point in such a saturated market.
Before we dive into it, I’ve gotta say one thing: You are still more than welcome to send your typical pitches. For some brands, they still work. But feel free to incorporate the Anti-Pitch Method into your routine where you see fit.
What is the Anti-Pitch Method?
The Anti-Pitch Method is a strategy that we created and is used by influencers and content creators to create genuine relationships with their dream brands in order to get their foot in the door for possible brand collaborations.
Finding Brands to Work With
In order to secure long-term relationships with your dream brands, you need to first nail down who those businesses are. At the end of the day, sure, you can send a pitch to any brand you please, but the more it makes sense for you audience and the content you already share, the more success you’ll have in nailing down that partnership and in how it performs.
When searching for brands, there are a few places you can look.
First, look at the advertisements that are already getting targeted to YOU. What brands are you seeing in your IG Story ads, IG feed ads, TikTok ads, Pinterest ads? Who are the brands that are already trying to reach people like you? Your audience is probably interested in so many of the same things you are, so if brands are targeting you, they’d probably also love access to your audience.
Next, look at the brands that are making waves in your industry. Who are the brands that you’re starting to see people talk about more and more? You can always head to a press release website like PR Newswire to see what brands are doing big things so that you can have a topic to chat with them about in your initial outreach.
Lastly, what are the brands you’re already using every day? Of those brands, you should put a bigger focus on the ones that maybe aren’t utilizing social media as much as they should. It sounds backwards, right? Wouldn’t we want to talk to the brands that are already super active on social media? Maybe. But what if you could be the person who helps that brand START to kill it on social media and really become a part of their journey? That’s key for long-term partnerships.
How to Warm-Up the Brand
Of course, you could absolutely send your typical pitch email to the brands that are on your dream list, but do you know how many other creators are doing the same thing? What are the things that we can do to set you apart? Being a big fan of the brand or really wanting to try their product isn’t going to cut it anymore.
The idea behind a successful anti-pitch method execution is that we want to “warm up the brand” so that when they hear our name pop up one-on-one, they might just recognize it or take a second glance at what we’ve said because they know they’ve heard that name someone before.
The top three ways that I suggest “warming up the brand” are:
Interacting with the brands on socials. This should always include following the brand first of all, but to go more in-depth, you can tag the brand in organic content that mentions them. I usually suggest small mentions vs. an entire dedicated post to that brand as that’s typically what you’ll want to do when you’re actually being paid.
Search other platforms to find the people who work at the company. Instead of just connecting with the brand, connect with the people at the brand. I suggest using LinkedIn or Twitter to connect with the people who are choosing the influencers to work with at the brands you want to work with.
Introduce yourself. Once you’re able to spend a week or two interacting with the people at the brands, you can start to slowly introduce yourself to those people. I like to show that I’ve been paying attention to what they’re doing at the brand and tell them that I’m interested in learning more vs. pitching myself or my ideas. It’s all about serving them.
How the Anti-Pitch Method Can Land You Deals
Some may find the Anti-Pitch Method to be frustrating because there’s typically not instant gratification, but that’s just the reality of our industry. Most pitches you send out aren’t instantly going to land you a brand deal. You need to be in it for the long run.
The whole idea of the Anti-Pitch Method if for you to create these genuine connections with your favorite brands so that they know you exist so that you can be top of mind when they have a partnership that you’d be a great fit for.
It’s better to do this vs. pitching because typically when sending a cold pitch, you need to be the right creator at the right time with the right brand, and it’s almost impossible to line all of those things up.
Overall, there are people who make up all of the brands that you want to work with. They want to be respected, seen, and connected with just like you do for your followers. There’s no reason that they should be treated any different.
Don’t forget that we interviewed Isabella Lampson, the Social Partnerships Lead at Contra, on our podcast Soulcial Scoop, and it’s available now for you to binge everywhere you listen to your podcasts. You’ll learn everything you need to know about landing more gigs as a freelance creator.
