At this point in my blogging career, I’ve been to a variety of influencer events aiming to help us bloggers navigate the industry but many fall short of actually doing so. The majority of these events share vague blogging tips such as be consistent, work hard, network, but very few actually have workshops that share actionable steps that can take your blog to the next level. Unlike the majority  Chloe Digital’s CD World: US Tour that took place late last month was extremely refreshing to attend. Chloe Digital, a tech and strategic planning membership company that helps influencers take their blogging business to the next level, hosted three jammed packed business workshop events in L.A., Dallas, and NYC that delved deep into tools and strategies to help empower online publishers. At the event, I actually learned new information about the influencer industry as well as personal steps that I can take to leverage my blogging career and I want to share a few of the gems I gathered with you guys. If you’re a fellow blogger, content creator, or own an online business these thorough blogging tips will certainly give you guidance on how to navigate the ever-changing space we operate in and hopefully inspire you to keep going towards your dreams! It’s a lengthy read but most definitely a worthy one. Saddle up!

Blazer – Missguided (Similar – Missguided) / T-shirt – Zara (Similar – Target) / Shorts – Primark (Similiar – Target) / Shoes – Zara (Similar – Asos)

Digital Profiling: Responsibility, Representation, and Inclusivity

The event was broken down into two paths, the VIP path for beginner bloggers looking to grow their community and work strategically to reach new milestones, while the luxe track was for more established businesses looking to further grow their community through strategic methods. Since the VIP track was sold out I attended the luxe workshops and it was just as informative as the VIP path. In the luxe track, one of the workshops exclusive to this group was the digital profiling lesson. This workshop was geared toward providing guidance on how bloggers, once they’ve built a following, can navigate the influencer industry with integrity and the common mistakes to avoid. Let’s get into it!

Four Types of Responsibility: Industry

There are four types of online responsibilities as a blogger, which are industry, financial, socio-political, and own responsibilities. Industry responsibility refers to learning the influencer industry and how it operates. It’s about knowing who are the players, as well as issues within your industry. Some ways to practice industry responsibility is by networking with brand representative outside of your niche. For example, if a brand is at an event, don’t just speak to the influencer coordinator. Strike up a conversation with the sales/marketing person or anyone outside of what would usually be relevant to blogging. Another example is giving credit to the fellow bloggers/content creators you may have been inspired by. If you create similar content or use their content credit them so your audience can know where the source is. These activities build comradery within the industry and expand your knowledge of the overall space. Having the mindset of expanding your education into your industry will only benefit your brand so it’s highly encouraged to do so.

Financial responsibility

Many still view blogging or content creation as a hobby as opposed to a business. People outside of the influencer industry don’t understand how it works and therefore deems it as frivolous or easy. The truth is, being an influencer is far from any of those things. As someone within the industry, it’s our job to educate those who may not know that having an online business is just that, an online business. It far from opening free PR packages and going on trips. Just like any other entrepreneurial work, blogging requires business plans, strategies, cost money, and take large amounts of time to create content. You can practice financial responsibility by opening up to your audience on how you earn a living blogging. It’s disclaiming how you chose the brands to partner with and stating when content is sponsored. Everlane does a great job at financial responsibility as they publish how much it cost to make each of their products which build trust between them and their customers. Blogger can build that same trust by being transparent about how much it costs and the time it takes to create content. This will also make your audience more appreciative of the work produced.

Sociopolitical

Sociopolitical responsibility is about navigating the sociopolitical space as a blogger. In today’s world, unfortunately, there a range of current events that take place frequently. When these sociopolitical events happen such as the political discord, racism, and natural disasters, it is important to know when to talk and when not to. If you wish to join the conversation on these topics make sure that you are informed. If you don’t speak about these issues on your platform, it’s important to let the people who know what they are talking about lead the conversation online. It’s also important not to post frivolous things during this time until some time has passed. Don’t post about your shoes when a sensitive issue is taking place. It reflects poorly on your and the brand your are sharing. If you are working on a brand partnership and an issue ensues, be sure to email the brand to ask if you can push back your posting date. You don’t want to appear insensitive to important issues. More likely than not brands will be accommodating of this request and will be thankful that you were mindful not to post in such a time. 

Lastly, if you want to speak about such events think of ways it would get people’s attention by bridging your industry with the cause. Think of Dior’s “We Should All Be Feminist” t-shirts. However, don’t use series events as a marketing opportunity just to make money. Make sure that the merging of the two worlds is genuine and it’s cause you actually care about. If it’s not genuine people can tell and will lose trust in your brand. Your identity is all you have online so protect it. Opportunity’s like these can give your brand longevity because it gives something substantial to hold on to from your brand. However, this is not the only way to go about speaking up about issues. Sometimes the best way is just sharing your thought the topic with your audience.

Own

Own responsibility is when you share causes that are important to you. This can be anything from animal rights, diversity, or even your own personal life journey. However, if you choose to share these parts of your identity it’s important to keep this in mind. Don’t randomly share a long post about a cause you are about then suddenly stop. Instead, take a long content trail approach where you share content on the topic over time. This will ensure you don’t leave all those people that resonated with your content hanging. Sharing one-off content about a cause that’s important to you will leave people to believe you’re seeking attention or even worse, throwing a pity party. Nobody wants to be perceived that way so please ensure you are being sincere when sharing and also be willing to talk about it over time.

Another form of this type of responsibility is moderating the conversations happening on your own platforms. For example, if people are being negative towards you or others in your comments don’t be afraid to shut it down. You are in control of what happens in your comment sections and you should ensure that everyone feels safe and welcome on your platforms. If a brand shares your content on their page and people are being negative in the comments, reach out to the brand to have them moderate the conversation.

Identity

Because your identity is all you have when you own a brand its imperative that such identity represents who you are accurately. Writing a manifesto can help you create a strong online presence to make it clear who you are on and offline. A manifesto is made up of three parts, your mission, vision, and values. Your mission is the why or your business’s reason for being; it’s purpose. The vision is the what or a future-oriented statement of your aspirations. Lastly, your values are the how or the principles that support your mission and shape your vision. Answering these three questions, why do you blog? what are you aiming towards? and which values are fundamental to the development of your blogging business? will help you draft up a manifesto which should be three to six sentences. You can share it on your blog or tell a friend to remind you of it when running your blogging business gets challenging or feels purposeless. Having a manifesto will help you stay true to who you are on your blogging journey as well as help you when deciding on brands to partner with.

Pinterest Workshop: Elevating Your Pinterest Strategy for Business Growth (Presented by Pinterest)

Another workshop that was really hands on was the Pinterest strategy lesson that was presented by strategists that actually work at Pinterest. It was exciting to hear these strategies from the horse’s mouth because it ensured that the information being shared is one hundred percent accurate. No guesswork involved. Here’s what they had to stay.

Pinterest is more of a search engine than it is social compared to other social platforms. Because of its nature it the perfect platform to use to grow your blog’s traffic because it optimizes brands for discovery. The lifespan of each pin is 100 days which is way longer than the lifespan of any Facebook or Instagram post. It gives the pin plenty of time to be discovered and shared resulting in more traffic to your site. To get started on Pinterest here are the fundamentals you need to put in place.

Create a Pinterest business account and claim your site so that your website is verified on the platform. Enabling these two features will allow you to gain analytics on your account such monthly viewers/ monthly engaged users, and on your pins so you’ll be able to track how man impressions, saves, and click-throughs to your site each pin receive. Pinterest also suggests pinning from your site so when viewers click on your pins they are directed to your site to increase traffic. To optimize this strategy, pining daily (25 – 30 pins) or weekly if you can’t do daily is suggested in order to increase traffic. You can use Tailwind to schedule these so you’re not spending all your time on Pinterest.

Other strategies for success are ensuring that you enable Rich pins that are sized 600 x 900 and are actionable meaning they encourage users to click on them. Make actionable pins by adding 1- 2 lines of descriptions that incorporate relevant keywords and hashtags. Don’t use more than 10 hashtags.  Create 15 – 20 uniformed board that will optimize discovery as well that give the impression that your account is active and useful. Lastly, in an attempt to stay ahead of the curve think like a pinner. This means users start planning for a new season or event at least 45 days before the actual event. Creating content ahead of time will ensure that your pins are seen first and gain the most traffic. You can track all your Pinterest analytics on Analytics.Pinterest.com and further strengthen your Pinterest strategy with the information provided there.

Personally, I can vouch for the Pinterest strategy because it really works. I’ve created a Pinterest business account for my blog and started using strategy for about a month now and I’ve already seen great results. My website traffic has increased and I have 15.8k monthly viewers on my account already and I did not even announce it to my audience yet. I guess I just did! (Follow me!) My point is, it works and I’d get on it if I were you and has any type of online business.

Industry Keynote: Brittany Hennessy, Carbon/ Hearst | Brittany Hennessy Talks Making Money As An Influencer 

Author of INFLUENCER, Building Your Brand in the Age of Social Media, the first ever Senior Director of Influencer Strategy & Talent Partnerships for Hearst Magazines Digital Media, and co-founder of Carbon blessed us with some gems on the one thing that’s on all of our minds, money. During her talk, she broke down the “journey of the offer” from the brand to your inbox and best practices when working with brands. There a variety of sources from which a brand offer can come from. These consists of publishers such as magazines (Hearst), PR agencies, media agencies, brands, and influencer platforms such as Fohr or Activate. Each type of company acquires different budgets and offers different rates. That’s why payment differs depending on which type of company contacts you. Ex. if a well-established brand reaches out to you with a low fee it’s probably because their PR company or media company that is reaching out on behalf of them doesn’t have a huge budget. Hennesy advises not to be offended by low offers as many brands’ influencer budgets are not large, to begin with. However, this shouldn’t cause you to lose hope because there is always the power of negotiating with brands.

If you feel that your work is deserving of more money, she advises asking the brand if there is more money in the budget for a higher offer. Hennesy also stated that being able to explain why your fees are the price that it is, increases your chances of being paid more. Brands are more inclined to pay you more if you can explain your rates.

Fees/ Rates

According to Hennesy, all content creator should have two rates, one for content creation that factors in the time and research it takes to create your work as well as other factors such as shopping, editing, and styling. And the other rate should be a distribution rate, which is the rate it costs to post on your platforms.

Another way to increase your offer is by making your audience more niche or specific. Bloggers with more niche audiences are paid more because their audience is more engaged and likely to buy the brand’s product(s). Creating branded content that is always better than your regular content is also another way of getting higher paying partnerships.

Understanding the Contract

Many influencers run into trouble working with brands when it comes to understanding the contract. Brands often use complicated jargon that can be confusing. Always read your contracts thoroughly and always ask for clarification on anything you may not understand before signing any contracts. This way you’ll lessen the risk of breaching your contract, losing money or opportunities of working with brands.

Contract Terms

Two major sections to pay attention to in any contract are the Usage and Exclusivity clauses. The usage states how the brand is going to use an influencer’s content once they submit it to them. This is important because if a brand is going to use your image for advertising and you are blasted across their social media platforms, website, and even packaging you will become associated with that brand. Their competitors would not approach you to work together because you will be known as the influencer for that specific brand.

Exclusivity refers to the amount of time you can work with that brand only. Some exclusivity period lasts longer than others and is important to pay close attention to because it excludes you from working with other brands for a specific amount of time. If you breach your exclusivity by working with another brand your not allowed to work with due to your exclusivity you will not be paid and the hamper your brand relationship. Be sure to document your exclusivity time periods so that you know when they begin and end and can prevent breaching your contract. Be sure to turn down offers that overlap with your other partnerships exclusivity or find a way to work around it with the brand. Ex., if a brand that you are semi-interested in approaches you during Christmas time when there are a lot of partnerships being offered, but you want to work with another brand, it would be best to turn down that offer. Because if you take the offer, you will be under that brand’s exclusivity and wouldn’t be able to work with the brand you’re dreaming to work with. It’s best to turn down brands you’re less interested in and wait on the brands you’re really excited about to approach you or pitch them. That way you’ll be free to work with who you actually want to work with. 

You can buy Hennesy’s book, INFLUENCER, Building Your Brand in the Age of Social Media, for more goods on these topics!

Closing Remarks

CD World: US Tour left me feeling super inspired and excited to implement the lessons I’ve learned on a jam-packed day. It was one of the most productive full days (10 am – 8 pm) I’d had in a while and it was absolutely worth it. I know this content was a little different from what I usually share but I was super excited to share it with you guys because I know it will help you on your journies. If you’ve made it this far I’m very appreciative that you took the time to read my mini-recap and I hope you’ve learned a thing or two. Comment below which were your favorite tips and what you can wait to implement in your blogging/online business! Looking forward to hearing your responses.

For more blogging tips similar to these shared at the conference you can check out Chloe Digital’s blog or my past post on blogging lessons.

P.S. who’s ready for CD World: US Tour 2019?! I already know it’s going to be so good! Till next time – Kamara