You have the blog, the carefully curated images, the followers and maybe some unpaid campaigns under your belt, so why aren’t you getting the paid collaboration you know you can do?

I hate to break it to some of y’all, but not all influencers/bloggers are created equal and not all are good at “influencing” or worth the payment they ask for.

Before y’all go messaging me, hear me out.

What I mean is, an influencer is someone who has the power to influence and persuade the masses to buy a certain product/service and not just anyone can do it. There is so much more to influence that goes beyond a pretty Instagram picture and a high follower count.

To help you understand why you may not be landing those paid collaborations you want, I’ve outlined a few factors to take into consideration when applying for your next campaign.

A little about me

By day I’m an Influencer coordinator. I help find influencers for roughly 12 brands that are in the skincare and lifestyle sector.

Trust me when I say I look at a lot of Instagram accounts in a day, I mean A LOT. By now I can easily tell who’s worth payment and who isn’t.

To give you some insight an account with 5K followers and 55 likes and low comments is not an account I’m going to pay. Not only is the follower count clearly inflated but that small number of likes and comments clearly shows me their lack of influence within their niche.

Before I take you down the list of reasons why you’re not getting those paid collaborations, I want to bring attention to two types of accounts I encounter almost daily that ask for compensation yet clearly shouldn’t get one.

“Fakefluencers”

To be honest, there are many influencers out there giving the industry a bad name faking their engagement and lying about sponsored content in order to land a paid campaign, “fakefluencers” as we call them in the industry.

Fakefluencers inflate their likes, comments, follower count, etc. Typically a fakefluencer has thousands of followers with very little engagement and very little reach making their request for payment, well, a joke.

By faking engagement via engagement pods and/or buying likes/comments, etc you’re not only hurting your brand and reputation, but you are hurting the industry making it nearly impossible for up-and-comers to grow or receive payment when it’s their time.

Small Accounts

Speaking of up and comers, which is what I deal with the majority of the time, while some do deserve payment, the truth is a lot don’t. Not because their work isn’t good, but because the follower count to engagement ratio well, sucks, especially when you are just starting out.

You gotta crawl before you walk babes and just because someone you know got paid on their small or fakefluence account doesn’t mean you will too.

You have to understand that when someone uses #ad, #sp or #sponsored, the company decided to invest their marketing money expecting a return on their investment. Let’s face it a small account with low engagement is less likely to convert sales than a let’s say 10-15k account with the same engagement rate.

To top it off Instagram is known to only show content to roughly 7% of your followers, so who do you think marketers will choose when it comes to a paid campaign?

At the end of the day, it’s all about the brand’s return on their investment…. aka you.

So what’s keeping you from landing paid collaborations?  Here are some common factors that may affect how brands determine if your campaign will be paid or unpaid.

1. You aren’t asking for payment

First thing first, if you aren’t landing paid collaborations, you have to reflect and ask yourself why. Are you asking for payment? If not, what’s holding you back?

If you’re doing everything legitimately, you should definitely ask for payment. There have been plenty of unpaid campaigns that I start, but ended up paying influencers who prove themselves to deserve one.

The worst that could happen is you get a no and that’s totally ok.

2. Your contact info is not readily or easily accessible

This happens a lot when scouting for influencers on Instagram. I find a great account but they don’t have their email on their bio or somewhere on their blog, chances are I will not reach out.

Yes, I can easily DM a potential influencer but I primarily work from a desktop and if you as an influencer don’t care to provide your contact info, I don’t care as a brand to work with you. Plain and simple.

Don’t miss out on opportunities and add your contact info to your site and Instagram if you haven’t yet.

3. Your follower vs following count sucks

For the brands I work with, this is crucial. It’s always disappointing to see a great account with say 8K followers but then they follow 5K.

What this tells me is that this influencer decided to participate in either follow-for-follow or other number-inflating activities. When I come across accounts like these or when they reach out to me for a collab, I tend to only offer unpaid partnerships. Yes, I have less control over the content that is given to me, but at that point it’s up to the influencer to show me that their content is worth my payment.

Simply said, accounts like these always seem inauthentic, especially when they have such low engagement for their “high” following count.

4. Your engagement rate is low

Yes, there are tools that are used in the industry to look at your engagement rate.

You can fake the funk to your followers but when it comes to getting paid collaborations, it can be hard to fake engagement to brands.

As a marketer, I use multiple sites to tell me an account’s engagement rate, number of authentic followers, post worth, etc.

Sites like Social Blade, FOHR, Social Bluebook, Phlanx and Hypeauditor let me know what percent of influencers following is authentic and what percent is coming from mass followings, engagement groups and other number-inflating things. These sites also allow me to see how much an average static post is worth.

All in all, If your engagement rate is low and/or coming from unauthentic sources, chances are I won’t sign you on for a paid campaign.

The way I (and most other marketers) see it, you are not influencing anyone.

5. Your engagement is clearly coming from engagement groups

To be honest I have a love/hate relationship with this one.

Not only is participating in engagement groups obvious, but it’s not helping you or your brand grow.

As a brand, I don’t want to see all your likes and comments coming from other influencer accounts. That tells me that not only do you not have influential power within your niche, but you are clearly inflating your engagement.

While I support women helping women, I can’t stand behind an influencer whose content is solely liked and commented on by other influencer accounts. It’s just not authentic and will not get me the results I need, which is usually something along the lines of increased sales and brand awareness.

*Bonus* Your content isn’t what the brand needs

I contemplated adding this one in because it can either land you a campaign or it can make you look, well, incompetent.

What I mean is, you may not be landing a paid collaboration because your content doesn’t align with the brand’s needs.

This happens to me way more often than not. I put out a campaign for a beauty product and I get irrelevant accounts applying for it in hopes of being chosen.

While it may seem like an innocent mistake, the truth is, it’s a pain to deal with and it makes your brand look bad.

Let me give you an example if you have an Instagram account dedicated to recipes and food but you apply for a hair tool campaign, not only are you taking up email space, but you come across as someone who doesn’t read directions and that’s not someone I’d want to work with.

Not all campaigns are the same so please be sure you read everything a brand is asking for before applying.

Who knows, you may be lucky and if pitched correctly,  you can easily persuade a hair tool brand to sign on your food account.

Hope this helps answer some questions regarding brands and why you may not be getting paid collaborations.

As always, let me know in the comments if you have any questions or if I missed something. Also, don’t be afraid to shoot me a message, love to help you land your next paid collaboration!