Most creator campaigns go wrong before anyone films anything. The list is built from follower counts, the brief reads like a script, and the posts land in a feed full of people who were never going to buy.
Creators are not a media buy with faces. They're independent publishers with audiences that trust them for a reason. Here's how we think about working with them so that trust survives the partnership.
Pick for fit, not follower count
Start with the audience you need, not the size of the account. A creator with 20,000 followers who reviews mechanical keyboards every week can matter more to a keyboard launch than a lifestyle account with two million.
Fit is harder to judge than reach. Where the audience actually lives matters: a UK launch needs UK viewers. So does whether the comments show a real audience asking real questions, and how the creator's past brand work landed compared with their normal posts.
Outreach is a relationship, not a blast
The same restraint that wins journalists (see The Art of Earned Media) wins creators: approach them personally, only when it's genuinely for them, and through whoever actually handles their partnerships.
Brief the story, not the script
A good brief makes sure the facts, claims, timing and disclosure are right, then gets out of the way. Format, tone and jokes belong to the creator. A creator reading your talking points to camera is the fastest way to make a partnership look like an ad.
Gifting, paid or affiliate
Gifting suits products people need to try: hardware, games, gear. No obligation to post, no guarantee they will. Gifts still create a relationship that has to be disclosed if they do post.
Paid partnerships buy a commitment, and creators should be paid fairly and on time.
Affiliate deals pay on results. They suit creators whose audiences already buy on their recommendations. Affiliate links are advertising too, and need labelling.
The deal, in writing
Put the deal in writing before anything ships. The terms people forget to price are the expensive ones: usage rights (whether and how you can reuse their content) and exclusivity (whether they can work with a competitor). Both should be priced, not assumed. We're not lawyers and this isn't legal advice: have your own counsel draft or review every creator agreement.
Disclose every time
Disclosure protects the creator, the brand and the audience. The FTC's Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers says a free product creates a relationship to disclose even if the creator wasn't asked to mention it. In a video, the disclosure should be in the video itself, not just the description, and in a live stream it should be repeated. It also says creators can't talk about a product they haven't tried. In the UK, the ASA and CMA's Influencers' guide to making clear that ads are ads covers when content counts as an ad, including affiliate marketing, with visual examples.
Getting it right in the brief is half the job. The other half is checking posts as they go live and fixing misses fast.
Line up creators with PR timing
Creators should never break your news by accident. If press are holding an embargo, creators hold it too. Who goes first, the exclusive, the press or the creators, is a decision to make early and put on one calendar. More on launch-day sequencing is in One Launch, Two Teams. Creators often need product before journalists do: filming, editing and approvals take weeks, not days.
Measure more than views
Views tell you how many people saw something. They don't tell you whether anyone cared. The more telling signals are what people said in the comments, whether they acted where you can track it, whether the creator's angle got picked up by press or communities, and whether the audience matched the market you needed.
Build partnerships that last
One sponsored post is a mention. A creator who uses the product for a year, gives you honest feedback and talks about it unprompted is a partner. Long-term relationships give creators reasons to stay and give their audience reasons to believe them.
Telling the difference between a creator who fits and one who just looks right on a spreadsheet is a judgment that comes from experience.
Want creators who actually fit? Request a briefing.