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“Influencer marketing is a game of chess, and you'd be wrong to think you could play without your chessboard – the influencer brief,” says Pavel Beinia, CEO & Founder of Famesters the influencer marketing agency part of BuzzGuru influencer marketing platform. Yet before sharing this little piece of paperwork, Beinia identifies the top 10 blunders that marketers often commit while working with influencers. It is only then, he says, that an influencer brief would make sense.

First of all, if you want your influencer marketing campaign to be fated to failure from the very start, you have to abandon briefs. Who cares about how to write an influencer brief? You don’t need one to become the worst advertiser and waste money. 

Influencer marketing is a game of chess, and you'd be wrong to think you could play without your chessboard – the influencer brief. This little piece of paperwork is your golden ticket to effective communication, expectation management, and ultimately, a successful campaign. So how about we throw that out of the window?

Sure, influencer marketing might seem like it's about building relationships with individuals who can give your brand a shoutout to their fanbase. Some might argue that the key to successful, long-lasting relationships is having clear expectations right from the start. But where's the fun in that?

An influencer marketing brief might seem like a great tool to eliminate unnecessary back-and-forth, letting both marketers and influencers excel in their roles. But why would we want to make things easy?

What is an influencer brief?

An influencer brief can be defined as a document that meticulously outlines your campaign's goals, guidelines, expectations, and deliverables. It supposedly helps ensure your influencer marketing campaign is a resounding success. Your influencers are the primary audience for the brief, but internal team members might also find it useful for direct communication with influencers, tracking content, and measuring outcomes. So, naturally, we suggest you don't create one.

We understand if you're swamped and feel like writing an influencer brief doesn't fit into your hectic schedule. You're in luck. We suggest you continue with that mindset, even if you're planning to run multiple campaigns and have a long-term influencer marketing strategy. Here are some things you might achieve if you were to write a brief – but why bother, right?

• Crystalize your influencer marketing goals, objectives, strategy, and KPIs. It'd help you communicate your plan and results more effectively
• Enhance and streamline your influencer marketing efforts. Having a standard document for influencer relationships and campaigns would save you time and energy.
• Attract and foster better relationships with appropriate influencers. A reusable document would make setting and managing expectations easier.
• Peace of mind from knowing influencer-generated content aligns with your brand vision and goals.

But remember, we're showing you how to utterly fail at influencer marketing, so why would we want to achieve better long-term results?

What to include in an influencer brief?

If you are still determined to come up with a brief, we are diving headfirst into the deep, dark abyss of influencer marketing failure. Prepare yourself for a crash course on how to spectacularly waste your ad budget, lose potential customers, and irk influencers all in one fell swoop! 

Here, the Famesters influencer marketing agency is showcasing the top 10 blunders that marketers often commit while working with influencers. Read on if you're curious about what not to do in your marketing campaign and in the end come up with the right things of what to include in an influencer brief.

So, here are 10 bad tips for marketers who work with influencers. Follow the advice below to completely fail at influencer marketing and spend your whole ad budget in vain! Also, read to the end to get an influencer brief template and a sample that will show you how to write an influencer brief correctly (for real this time, no jokes here) and help you avoid all the mistakes.

1. Don’t tell the influencer what the goal of your advertisement is. Do you want to attract new users to your application? Or maybe get more orders for your product? Or get recognition and love for your brand in a new region? Who knows. Definitely not the influencer you’re going to work with. Don’t give them any information on what you really want to get in the end.

2. Don’t specify how long your ad integration has to be and when it has to start. It doesn’t matter, advertisements of any length cost the same, right? And any length will be alright to cover your product the way you want. Also, when working with YouTubers, never ask them to place the ad at a specific time – for example, no further than two minutes from the beginning of the video. It doesn’t matter, too, as all the viewers watch videos from start to end, never skipping anything. If the metrics from YouTube Analytics state otherwise, it’s a lie.

3. Never set deadlines. Whenever it’s done – it’s done. If not? Oh, well, it happens. The influencer doesn’t need to know when you need your advertisement launched. You don’t need a schedule, so don’t include any dates in your brief – neither for the final launch nor for the draft video.

4. Oh, and about the drafts. You don’t need them. Don’t ask to show you the script beforehand, don’t ask for a draft video to approve. Who needs your approval, anyway? Go with the flow, never check the drafts as you definitely won’t need to make any corrections or give the influencer any feedback.

5. Your advertisement doesn’t need to be structured. And even if you want to see some structure, don’t tell the influencer about it. Creative introduction, key points? No such things should be stated in your brief. 

6. Don’t ask for a call to action. CTA is such an unimportant thing, really, it never works. The influencer’s audience doesn’t even need to learn what you’re expecting of them, what you want them to do. Your ad campaign is launched to get new players for your game? Don’t tell people they need to download it and start playing; the influencer doesn’t have to state that clearly.

7. Don’t give the influencer any information on your product. No specifications, no links. A simple “Well, it’s an app/game” will do perfectly. You have to work with a person who knows nothing about your product, it helps them to be creative and gives freedom. There should be no info on what features the influencer has to cover in their video.

8. Don’t tell the influencer about dos and don’ts. They have to be a telepath to learn what names they have to be silent about, what words you don’t want them to use, who your competitors are (not to praise them in the videos, for example), etc. Also, the influencer has to guess specific words and phrases they have to use in the video for it to meet your expectations, especially this concerns the CTA. Oh, wait, you don’t need it, see point number 6.

9. No resume is needed. You don’t need to briefly describe the goals and objectives, give general information about the project, product, and goals of the advertising campaign. The influencer will figure everything out by themselves without any help.

10. Don’t give any contacts. And even better for your cooperation with the influencer – don’t communicate with them at all. There should be no person in touch to solve sudden issues – actually, there’s a guarantee you won’t face any issues at all. And you definitely don’t want to build a long-term profitable partnership with the influencer, so don’t talk to them. Your brand’s reputation will get ruined, the influencer will tell their colleagues not to work with you in the future – hurrah, that’s the result you need!

Now you know how to write an influencer brief to fail at influencer marketing in general and make your campaign one of the worst out there.

Do you want the reverse result? Famesters has prepared a real influencer brief sample for you. Download it for free. You’re welcome!