An influencer brief is a document that helps brands specify the requirements and objectives of an upcoming marketing campaign. In other words, it’s the way businesses have to communicate with influencers about what they are looking for and help the influencer determine if they are a good fit for the project.
Even though briefs have been around for decades, this type of document came into being when social media (and therefore, influencers) appeared. Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok influencers are a great way to reach consumers in a non-intrusive manner without the need of paying millions to famous movie stars or sportsmen.
Yes, influencer marketing is very powerful but it’s also a double edge sword. There are hundreds - and even thousands - of possible content creators that could work for your brand, so how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? The answer is by building a brief.
An influencer brief is the best way to determine which influencer is the best fit for your upcoming campaign for two reasons:
So, don’t make the mistake of skipping this step. Although it may sound inconsequential, writing a briefing document is paramount for the success of your marketing campaign.
Every influencer brief will be different depending on the brand’s situation and requirements, but we noticed that good ones share certain traits that make them effective. So, if you want to write one from scratch, make sure that your document possesses all of the following characteristics:
A good influencer briefing document is clear for both the influencer and the brand. With a glance, the content creator should be able to find out if they are the right person for the job or should go on. Effective briefs don’t go over unnecessary details - every question and section serves a purpose, moving the project forward.
If the influencer needs to create a Google account to access your brief that is stored on your password-protected Drive folder, that’s bad practice. Your brief - and their responses - should be easily accessible by the content creator as well as anyone in the agency or company that is involved in the project.
If a brief doesn’t give the project a creative and aesthetic direction, it’s not a brief. Effective ones explicitly mention how the video or image should look like, style, type of content, and so on.
As we said before, the brief will change depending on the marketing campaign requirements. An insurance company will need a different brief from a new e-commerce start, but there are some sections that neither of them can lack.
In HolaBrief we have a customizable influencer brief template that you can use for free. Delete and add elements based on your needs and build the perfect brief for your next influencer marketing campaign.
Every creative brief for influencers should begin with a quick introduction to the brand and an overview of the project. In this way, the influencer easily familiarizes themself with the company and will make his/her work more effective.
Although this section might feel unimportant, it is a necessary step for building an effective brief. Without it, the influencer will rely on internet research, or a short email from the marketing manager, which tends to be insufficient.
Every influencer marketing campaign should have a goal in mind, an objective the company is trying to accomplish. Doing so will provide a benchmark to compare future results and know if, at the end of the day, the campaign worked.
If possible, make your goals measurable. In other words, add a metric that tells the people involved if you are on the right track or need to reconsider everything. Some examples:
Building a customer persona - also known as target audience - is key if you want to develop an effective influencer marketing campaign. In this section, a detailed description of the brand’s consumers should be included:
In HolaBrief we know how important this information is for your influencer briefs. That’s why we’ve developed an interactive exercise you can add to your brief and share with anyone! Click here and build your customer persona for free.
In this section, the agency or brand should determine which type of creator they are looking for. Do you need an informative or entertainment creator? How many followers should they have? How much engagement are you looking for? In which platform/s?
Be as specific as possible, the influencer should know if they are a good fit just by reading this part!
We're going to get a little more technical in this part. This is your chance to describe the requirements of the creative you are looking to produce:
These questions will assist you in determining precisely what the influencer needs to film to meet your requirements. Avoid making the error of omitting them and paying your influencer twice!
After reading this article, you are ready to write an influencer creative brief from the ground up, all by yourself. You are familiar with the characteristics of good briefs, and which are the section that you cannot miss. But even after knowing all this, it can still get a bit intimidating.
That’s why we developed HolaBrief, a briefing platform that enables you are your team to create professionally-looking briefs and make brand-influencer collaboration easier than ever.
The only thing you need to do is create a free account, choose our Influencer Brief template, and modify it to fit your needs. With a few clicks, you should have a shareable brief for your next marketing campaign! We’ll see you inside.
Build your own creative brief fast and collect your clients' responses with HolaBrief!
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