The day I decided to stop working with influencers "agencies"
I might not make new friends writing this post. But in a way, I do not care, because I already have the right friends. But I really wanted to write about this topic because it's been several months that I've been thinking about it and something happened the other day that made me realize "yeah I need to do this".
I have been blogging for years, building a wonderful community on social media and working for some agencies. And in a few years, I have seen this market evolve, change and even literally transform itself for most agencies.
I joined my first agency of influencers, Hello Society, a few years ago, and I'm still part of it. I have been as a Pinterest influencer (I have + 260K followers on my account). Moreover, I think it will be the only agency I will be part of in the future, simply because there is a real work of collaboration between influencers and brands.
I worked on content creation campaigns with Dreamworks, Microsoft, Nokia, and so on. There was real exchange, mad brainstorming and hard work. And paid work.
Today, most influencer agencies offer you "free" products that, in fact, are not even FREE. Well yes: once you've received your mascara for "free" (woohoo!), you'll have to take a picture, edit it, think about the perfect caption (one that generates engagement, of course because otherwise the agency and the brand are not happy), all for the modest paid out of ... hmmm ... nothing ?! Oh yes! A free mascara!
So I ask you this: do you think it's normal to spend time and effort into an Instagram post, for example, for a mascara, a candle or a voucher of €15? What about your values? What about your real thoughts?
Well, me? I'm done with this.
Not long ago, I had a "reminder" from an agency that I had joined, because my post was not engaging enough and I was not positive enough about the product . Uh ?! Sorry? So basically, you get a product for less than 20 bucks, you spend at least 2 hours working on the perfect post, and you're told that you've done shit ?! GRRRR.
It drove me crazy.
And then, I had one of those "ah-ah" moment. I looked back on some collaborations I had on my Instagram, and I realized that it was useless. No human exchange, no particular return, no "fight" that makes you defend your product.
So, in a second, I decided it was time to stop giving credit to agencies and brands that take advantage of a system where people want to grab a $20 product in exchange of an Instagram post.
Bye bye Octoly, Hivency, Bloggers Agency and so on.
I will "sell" more products that I really love, that make me feel good, that I use regularly and above all, I will continue to be honest and straightforward about the quality of it.
No collaborations in sight? Do not care. I'll talk about what I like, whenever I want. And if there is collaboration, it will have to be 50/50 contract. And then, I will prioritize collaborations between bloggers, so if you're interested, send me a mail!