Influencer

by Brittany Hennessy

  Advertiser—the brand calling all the shots. They have the money and they make the rules.

  Agency—a group working on behalf of the advertiser. They can be a media agency, a creative agency, or a public relations agency. Sometimes they have the money, so they can make some of the rules, but they still have to answer to the Advertiser.

  Agent—someone who represents an influencer. Her job is to make sure the influencer makes money. She only gets paid if the influencer gets paid, so her motto is ABC—always be closing.

  Ambassador—an influencer who is working with a brand on a long-term contract. An ambassador is essentially the “face” of a brand during her ambassadorship. An influencer can be an ambassador for a certain period of time (2018, Fall 2018), an event season (Fashion Week, back-to-school), or for a particular product (mascara, denim line, anti-frizz shampoo).

  Approvals—a period of time where everyone and their mom needs to look over the content and give it the green light. This is also known as the CYA (cover your ass) period.

  Article—a piece of content that usually has a lot of text and pictures to break them up. This is usually a profile of an influencer.

  BCE—stands for branded content editor. This person works at a publisher and is in charge of coming up with the details of the branded content. She also looks at all the influencers to make sure they are “on brand.”

  Bio—the two to three lines on your Instagram profile where you squeeze in as much information about yourself as possible. Also, the page on your website where you give the reader more details on your story and the type of content you’d like to create.

  Bluehost—a web host. It holds all the files for your website. Bluehost is my favorite because it’s easy to navigate around its site, it’s inexpensive, and its customer service is really good for when you accidentally break your code or delete your site.

  Brand—oftentimes used interchangeably with “advertiser,” but at Hearst it means one of our in-house titles like Cosmopolitan or Seventeen.

  Brand Affinity—a fancy word to show compatibility between an influencer and an advertiser/brand. If you’re an influencer and 50 percent of your followers follow a certain beauty brand, that is a very high affinity. The bigger this number is, the better.

  Brief—the document you receive from the advertiser, agency, or brand that provides guidelines on creating content. It will tell you what hashtags to use, what handles to mention, the tone of the content, and other valuable pieces of information.

  Budget—how much money someone has to pay you. People think a very popular brand will always have a large budget, but that’s not true. Budgets vary, so always keep an open mind.

  Call Sheet—a document you’ll receive ahead of a photo or video shoot. It will include where the shoot will be held, who will be on set, the schedule of the day, and other important details.

  Call Time—the time you will be expected on set. It is included in the call sheet.

  Campaign—the project you are a part of. It will have a specific start and end time.

  Casting Call—when looking for talent, also known as casting, a casting director may set up a date and time and try to see as many influencers as possible during that window.

  Category Exclusivity—if an advertiser asks for this it means you cannot work with any competitors in the same category. Popular categories include beauty products (mascara, lipstick, foundation) alcohol/spirits (vodka, tequila, rum), and accessories (watches, handbags, sunglasses).

  Celebrity—an influencer whose fame is attributed to her offline career. For the most part, people are following her on social media because they are a fan of her movies, music, TV shows, or sports team.

  Circle Back—a complicated way of saying, “I’ll get back to you.” I absolutely HATE IT when people say this, but I say it all the time. When in Rome . . .

  Client—the person who is giving you money. You have to make this person happy or she will take your money away.

  COB—stands for close of business. If someone needs something by COB, it usually means by 6 P.M. Keep in mind that may be EST if she’s in New York or PST if she’s in Los Angeles.

  Competitor—a company that the advertiser is up against when consumers are choosing which product to buy. Some advertisers are very realistic about their competitors. Others, not so much.

  Connect Offline—conference call speak that means “We’ll talk about this when the call is over.”

  Content—photos, videos, and text being created for a social media platform.

  Content Creator—someone who makes photos, videos, and text for social media platforms.

  Contract—an agreement between the advertiser /agency/brand and the influencer that includes the campaign information and the deliverables.

  CPC—stands for cost per click. If an advertiser pays you to drive traffic to their website, the amount they’ve paid you divided by the number of clicks is the CPC.

  CPV—stands for cost per view. When doing video campaigns there is a price per view if an advertiser is running an ad on social media. Advertisers like to compare traditional CPVs to an influencer’s CPV so they will divide how much they paid you by how many views your video received to determine that number.

  Deck—a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation that marketers HATE creating, but have to for advertisers. It usually has campaign ideas, influencer pitches, and pricing.

  Deliverables—what you are responsible for producing (photos/video/text) and publishing (blog posts, videos, photos).

  Disclaimer—a note to give people important information that they would like to know. You usually will see one of these on a blog that says, “Some of the links you see are affiliate links and we will receive monetary compensation if you click and buy.”

  DocuSign—an app that lets you electronically sign documents, because the days of printing, signing, and scanning are over.

  Engagement—the number of likes, comments, retweets, shares, and repins your content receives.

  Engagement Rate—the number of followers divided by the number of engagements you have on one post or the last ten to twelve posts.

  EOD—stands for end of day. This is usually 12 A.M. in the time zone of the person who is sending it. But it really means “have it in my inbox by the time I look at it tomorrow.”

  EOW—stands for end of week. It usually means the person asking you for something would like it on Friday so that it will be in her inbox when she comes into work on Monday morning. This is also usually assuming the person won’t be working on the weekend.

  Exclusivity—a term referring to the amount of time you are prohibited from working with competitors.

  Facebook Live—a video that is recorded and streams in real time on Facebook.

  Filter—an overlay on a photo/video that changes how it looks.

  Flat Lay—when you lay items flat and take a photo of them. This can be an outfit or things you’re packing in a suitcase, gym bag, or diaper bag. A “bag spill” can be considered a type of flat lay.

  Flight—the length of a campaign or the length of time content has to be live/ remain visible on your site.

  FTC—stands for Federal Trade Commission. Their job is to make sure consumers are not deceived. They’re pretty much the #ad police.

  Gallery—one piece of content that you can scroll through for multiple images/videos. Can be used on a blog, Instagram, or Facebook post.

  Glam Squad—people who provide hair, makeup, and styling for a photo shoot.

  Go-see—a term frequently used in modeling and increasingly in influencer marketing where an individual goes to see a casting director so the director can see how the individual looks in real life.

  Hashtag—the “#” sign used on social media. When attached to a word the term created strings together every status update that uses it so you can follow the conversations. You cannot put punctuation or spaces in a hashtagged term. You’d think some people would have learned this lesson by now, but alas, many h
ave not.

  Haul/Anti-Haul—a type of YouTube video where you go to a store and show your audience all the things you bought. An anti-haul is relatively new in comparison and is when an influencer states all the things she will never buy.

  Influencer—someone who has influence. For the purposes of social media, that influence must be online.

  KPI—stands for key performance indicators. This refers to the metrics that will show you if a campaign is successful. Common KPIs include impressions, engagements, video views, clicks, time on site, purchases, downloads, etc.

  Lifecaster—someone who broadcasts her life on Instagram but doesn’t create content the way a content creator does. She’s pretty much living her life and being fabulous, and documenting the process, and her audience is loving up.

  Listicle—content displayed in a list form: “Five Ways to Wear This Dress” or “Nine Things to Pack for a Trip to Europe.”

  Manager—someone who provides career direction for an influencer. She can also pitch and book an influencer for campaigns if the influencer doesn’t have an agent.

  Mention—calling out the name of an advertiser or brand on social media by using the “@” symbol.

  Mood Board—a visual representation of a shoot to be approved by a brand. The mood board could include inspiration of the location, clothing, makeup, hair, poses, and style. Think of it as a giant Pinterest board.

  O&O—stands for owned and operated. This is usually seen on a contract in the usage section and means the content can be used on any site the advertiser/brand owns and operates like a website, blog, or social channels.

  Publicist—a person in charge of your public relations. Her job pretty much entails dealing with the press and making sure you have a positive image. She also handles damage control if you make a big mistake.

  Redline—used by lawyers when they edit a contract. Contracts are usually written in Microsoft Word and when you make edits to it, redlines are created to show where changes were made.

  Retail—a physical location. Usually refers to a store when an advertiser is describing usage. If it includes retail, that means they can put your photos up in the store as a general poster or highlighting the product you were promoting.

  ROI—stands for return on investment. When an advertiser spends $1 and gets $1 back, the ROI is 1:1. Influencer marketing tends to have a higher ROI than traditional advertising, unless the wrong influencer is cast. Then you can have what I call negative ROI.

  Rolling Lunch—when you’re on set sometimes there is an official lunch break, but other times they bring out lunch and you eat when you have a break. The latter is a rolling lunch.

  Roster—a list of clients a talent agency represents. Also the list of influencers pitched to an advertiser for a campaign.

  Sentiment—how someone feels after reading your content. Are they happy, sad, angry, etc.?

  SOW—this stands for scope of work. It lays out what you’re hired to do.

  Tag—when you’re creating organic content and you want the brand to take note, but you don’t want to mention them.

  Takeover—When you post three Instagram posts in a row, essentially letting the advertiser “take over” the top row of your feed.

  Tutorial—a YouTube video where you teach your audience how to do something.

  Usage—how the content created for a campaign will be used/where it will appear.

  Vertical—a category like style, beauty, fitness, travel, home decor, DIY, etc.

  Wordpress—a platform used by most bloggers.

  Acknowledgments

  Wow. Dreams really do come true. I am a published author! This is so exciting. It’s also very dangerous, because anytime someone questions my authority on influencer marketing, my new retort will be “Fine, don’t listen to me. It’s not like I wrote a book about it or anything.” But seriously, there are so many people to thank.

  First and foremost, my husband. Thank you, Alexander, for telling me to write this book. And pushing me to write the proposal. And bothering me until I sent it out. And taking our son out on mini-trips so that I could complete the manuscript under the insane deadline I placed upon myself. And making sure the book lived up to my expectations. And being incredibly supportive of my career. And being the kind of husband and father only found in unrealistic movies. My life completely changed the day I met you, and you are my everything.

  I could not continue without thanking Barbara Baez-Meister, my right-hand woman. This book would not have been completed without you holding down the fort at Hearst while I took off many days to write it. You’ve been with me for six years through multiple jobs and countless side-hustles and you’re more than just a colleague, you’re family. Started from the bottom, now we’re here!

  I also need to thank: Jade Sherman for introducing me to my agent, Steve Ross, providing quotes for this book, and hooking me up with the amazing Teni Panosian. Steve Ross at Abrams Artists Agency, for working diligently to find the right publisher for this book, because so many people just did not get the influencer marketing phenomenon. Denise Silvestro, for being a fantastic editor who really understood the vibe I was going for and held my hand this entire time. Michelle Addo, Vida Engstrand, Claire Hill, and the entire Kensington family, for believing in this book and making sure people know to buy it.

  Jacqueline Deval, for telling me that my proposal was special. You publish Queen Oprah’s books, so this was the best compliment I could hope to receive! Alexandra Carlin, for always being so interested and invested in my success at Hearst. Allison Keane and Liv Ren, for helping me with all PR and media-related things. Lee Sosin, Laura Kalehoff, and Keri Hansen, for helping me grow as a professional. Sam Gladis, for being my number-one fan and always letting me rant (and occasionally rave) in her office.

  Alexandra Pereira, Alyssa Bossio, Cara Santana, Heidi Nazarudin, Joy Cho, Sazan Hendrix, Sona Gasparian, and Teni Panosian, for taking time out of their insanely busy schedules to provide wisdom and inspiration to my readers. Brittany Xavier, Cynthia Andrew, Iskra Lawrence, Jeanne Grey, Jenny Tsang, Jessamyn Stanley, Jessica Franklin, Krystal Bick, Olya Hill, Renee Hahnel, and Tania Sarin, for providing insights that only come from playing this game and playing it well. Beca Alexander, Chloe Watts, Hannah Kluckhohn, India-Jewel Jackson, Jada Wong, Jane Lim, Jennifer Tzeses, Jessy Grossman, Maximilian Ulanoff, and Rana Zand, for dropping gems from the business side and providing access to your fabulous clients.

  My mom, for keeping the first book I ever wrote, in the first grade, about a dancing baby who moved her crib around the room. Mike Mathewson and Carolyn Landis, for being my best friends, reading my proposal, and buying my book even though I would have given them a free copy. Zlata Faerman, for being a constant source of positive energy.

  Everyone who has ever attended a CreatorsCollective event, all of my friends/followers on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, for asking questions that would guide this book, and every single person who read this far, because that is dedication!

  Finally, I don’t show it enough, but I am thankful to God for waking me up every morning and putting all these wonderful people and opportunities in my life, and giving me the gift of communication. I can’t wait to see what else you have in store for me.