Nothing makes your heart beat faster than when you start getting approached by brands and PRs to collaborate or feature their products. As a new blogger or content creator, this can be a scary and exciting time. You’re flattered that someone has found you and that they want to work with you. In some ways, that alone seems like payment enough. But it isn’t and shouldn’t be. I’d like to explain why new bloggers should charge fees for collaborations and link building and why we need greater transparency around money in this sector.
What's in this post
Why brands and PRs have contacted you
Link building – Sometimes marketing and PR companies will contact you to write about them on your blog or social channels. This can be so they can build a stronger domain score for their client’s site or so they report back to their client and say their site is now linked to x number of websites or social channels. These companies have been paid to do this for their clients. So it’s perfectly acceptable to expect payment for them to link to your blog / website/ social channel.
To reach your audience – A brand or third party working with a brand may value the audience you have painstakingly built up around your own personal brand. Regardless of whether you have 2,000 followers or 200,000 this is still of value. For one, it’s more than just numbers. Having 2,000 followers of which all 2,000 are highly engaged and aligned with you is valuable. Just as valuable as an account with 200,000 who only have 2,000 engaged followers.
Also, you may feel that your audience is small. We’re all led to believe that the magic doesn’t happen until you have the magical 10k followers on Instagram for example, but just imagine if you filled the brand who contacted you has a physical store and you filled it with your 2000 followers, or 500 for that matter. Not so small fry now are you? There is value in our audience and what you do, don’t forget this!
Your style complements their brand – Perhaps you are all about eco-conscious fashion and the brand has started a line of clothing made out of recycled fabric. You are a brilliant, organic ally in their bid to be more eco-conscious. It makes sense that they would like to collaborate with you. You help bolster their brand and vice-versa. Your views are valuable.
How to ask about fees
It’s not always obvious in the initial contact from a brand or PR whether or not there is a budget for a campaign. So ask! Don’t be afraid. It’s not a time to be humble and hope they mention. The chances are there is a budget but if you don’t ask, it’s not always offered. It’s fair to say that some less scrupulous organisations are hoping you are too new to the game to understand your worth. New bloggers should charge fees but becuase of the lack of understanding around fees many don’t.
Something as simple as “this sounds like a fantastic project, I’d love to hear more. Could you provide information about the budget?” Can be enough to get the ball rolling.
If you have set fees, now is a perfect time to attach them to the email/ DM and including a line in your email along the lines of “amazing, this sounds like a really interesting project, I’ve attached my fee card, let me know what the next steps are”.
Do I have to have a certain number of followers before I charge?
Nope. Seriously. There is no magic number you need to reach in order to justify expecting to be paid for your time. If this were any other situation you wouldn’t question it. Imagine going to a supermarket and saying that you want to buy their food, but because they’ve only been open for 2 years and other supermarkets have been around much longer, you will only pay by exposure. You’ll mention the supermarket to your neighbours in return for the trolley full of top shelf rum and Haagan Das.
Imagine going to a supermarket and saying that you want to buy their food, but because they’ve only been open for 2 years and other supermarkets have been around much longer, you will only pay by exposure. You’ll mention the supermarket to your neighbours in return for the trolley full of top shelf rum and Haagan Das.
Tinuke Bernard, tinukebernard.com
Yes, many brands and PRs are only willing to pay influencers with a certain number of followers. The same is true for the influencer apps you can sign up to. There are just as many though, who value ‘micro’ influencers and understand that the audience and skillset these bloggers, creatives and influencers bring should be paid for.
If you have taken time to write, take and edit photographs, use your skills and expertise, it’s fine to expect to be paid for this.
How much should I charge as a new blogger?
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a super easy calculator or sliding scale you can follow? Unfortunately there are major disparities between sectors when it comes to fees. A good place to start when looking for suitable fees is Influencer Pay Gap on Instagram. People provide anonymous information as to their follower size, industry and the amount paid to them. This can help you to find similar accounts to your own in order to work out how much you should charge. There are also Facebook Blogger groups where you may find open and honest conversations around fees. I find most groups are still quite sensitive about discussing money; which unfortunately leads into the current problem of bloggers not knowing what to charge.
Should I expect a fee from a charity or new business?
Now, personally, I would say yes. That being said, I often share charity campaigns for free, because it’s my soft spot. Charities, depending on their size, will most likely have a marketing budget too, so it’s fair to ask, and I guess it depends on the complexity of the campaign. The same goes for new businesses. They should have factored marketing into their budgets so should be able to pay you for your time and access to your audience and skills.
Got any questions? Leave them below and I’ll do my best to answer them!
Some great points here Tin and I totally agree new bloggers and influencers should get paid a fee. I think, however, that so many bloggers are happy to work for ‘free stuff’, that it dumbs down the message that bloggers small or otherwise should be paid. It’s no wonder alot of bloggers are seen a ‘blaggers’. Bloggers know how long it takes to build an audience/create the blog post/take the photos but I think some PR’s would just move on to the next blogger who’ll do it for free. So I think the PR/Brands need to allocate a larger budget. I lost count of the times a big brand came back saying there was no budget…,I mean seriously their marketing budget as a whole must be HUGE but as long as nothing is allocated to bloggers things won’t change. I think this is why pro bloggers tend to work with the same brands over and over as they obviously understand more of the value a blogger brings to the table and pays accordingly.