If you would have told me five years ago that I would get paid to become a blogger, I would have said you were crazy. I knew there was money to be made but I never thought it could turn into a full time job, yet a full time income. It’s truly been such a blessing for my family and I’m here to spill my secrets on how I’ve been able to grow this little blog of ours.
I have a background in PR/marketing and after I graduated with my master’s I needed a new side hobby. At this time, I had already been working full time at a PR agency but I wanted to gain more experience with digital marketing and branding. I was interviewed for a few teaching jobs at the university I attended in LA but with two kids under two, moving to a new city was not an option. I started to take photos of the girls and thought maybe I could have some fun just sharing the girls’ outfits online- and that’s where it all started.
Discovering my niche
In 2016 I started “cleaning up” my Instagram. I removed photos that didn’t go with my “IG mommy” appearance and started posting photos of Arianna dressed in cute outfits and bows. Natalia was born in March 2017 and I continued to share the girls in twinning outfits and started to offer really mommy advice. I wrote my first blog post on co-sleeping just a couple of weeks after she was born and it really took off from there.
Of course a lot has changed from then and my blog/brand grew with us as I developed into my space. This is natural in any business but finding a niche and focusing on something you are passionate about is so important here. While I still consider myself a family lifestyle blogger- now I share all things travel, adventure, family life and of course, blog tips.
Landing brand deals
Growing on Instagram was easier back then as moms would really gather up support by following each other. I remember when I had right under 10,000 followers, a brand reached out to me for my first paid brand deal. It was $100 for a pregnancy subscription box and I was SO excited. Not too long after that, a stroller company and a baby bottle both reached out for a 3 month partnership, which paid $1,800. That’s when I realized it’s not about the number of followers necessarily, it’s about the quality of content you are putting out.
How to make money as a micro-influencer
Micro-influencers are not over-looked in the influencer space. A lot of brands personally prefer to work with influencers with a smaller following for a few reasons:
- they are more connected to their audience
- they have higher engagement rates
- they are more likely to interact with comments/messages about the brand partnership.
I had about 10,000 followers when I started landing paid partnerships and once I realized brands were accepting me into campaigns, I started to reach out to my dream brands directly- and you should too.
How to find paid partnerships
When I first started landing brand partnerships, most of my campaigns came from influencer networks. These networks essential post paid gigs for influencers to apply for, and if you are accepted, you get an agreed upon rate for your content- sometimes this rate is set by the company, and sometimes you can determine what you’d like to get paid.
Influencer networks are great for starting out with brand partnerships since there’s less contracts, typically no negotiation, and usually a pretty straight-forward campaign. You can find a list of influencer platforms to get started with here.
Now, most of my partnerships come from developed relationships directly via e-mail, as well as new proposals. The biggest advice I could give to someone who is trying to land brand partnerships with dream brands- you need to put yourself out there.
Pitch brands you are interested in working with and sell yourself (find my free pitch template here). Explain why you want to work with them and tell them what you would imagine a partnership looking like. You have to ask yourself- why should they want to work with and pay you?
I pitched a lot of brands in the beginning days and was able to land some really amazing partnerships with brand like Disney, Pottery Barn, and Google who I still work with to this day.
How much should you charge?
Typically, they say you should charge $100 for every 10,000 followers you have if you are looking to get paid for an Instagram campaign. However, there are so many other things you need to take into consideration when trying to decide what your rates are
- How much time is this going to take you?
- Do you need to purchase any props or products and how much will that cost you?
- Will you be sharing on additional channels?
A few ways I’ve helped negotiate pricing and contracts with brands have been:
- Offering a discount if they’d like multiple posts
- Offering a blog campaign to ensure exposure on all of your social media channels and broaden their reach
Focus on quality content
While you are exploring brand partnerships, it is so important to focus on putting out top notch content in order to attract those high quality brand deals. Like I said, it’s not necessarily about your follower number. How engaging are you in your comments? How much effort are you putting into your photos? All of these things are taken into consideration when brands look to work with influencers on projects.
Make sure everything you produce is something that you are proud of, learn from your mistakes and try new things to discover what works best for you and your brand.
