Purpose
What is an Influencer Agreement?
An influencer agreement is a contract that outlines the relationship between a business and an influencer it retains to help promote its brand. These agreements are design for one-time campaign or for ongoing relationships, where the influencer promotes the business' brand over time.
Influencers have quickly become some of the most coveted representatives for businesses to promote their products through ecommerce and social media channels. The need to have an influencer agreement in place has come as a result of the increasing importance of an influencer on a company's brand and reputation.
Having a startup lawyer draft your influencer agreement can help ensure that commonly used terms are included in yours. Any business that uses the help of influencers for their sales over ecommerce and social media should strongly consider using a proper influencer agreement. Influencer agreements establish the responsibilities an influencer agrees to in promoting the business' product over social media.
Why Are Influencer Agreements Important?
Due to influencers' creative nature, it is important to set out in influencer agreements how the business wants the influencer to help them. This can include determining the creative freedom the influencer is provided, how active an influencer is required to be and how the content they create should be crafted. For example, it's common for an influencer to only casually mention a brand's name in a YouTube video at its start or somewhere in the middle. This contrasts with TikTok where influencers will prominently discuss their brands prominently and, in many cases, walk their audiences through using the brands' product.
Influencer agreements also assist with limited the opportunity for unwanted actions by an influencer occurring. Businesses that use influencer agreements can set deadlines and require content approval before it is publicly shared. This is a commonly used tool and necessary to filter out influencer content that can hurt a business' brand.
Using confidentially and non-disparagement provisions in influencer agreements can help prevent influencers from disclosing negative information about the brand after the engagement has ended. Startup lawyers in their practices commonly draft these provisions.
Negotiating Influencer Agreements
As influencer agreements have become more complex over time, the amount of time required to negotiate them has also increased. Some commonly negotiated terms include:
1. The social media platforms the influencer agreement will cover
2. The number of posts, videos, photos that are required
3. Ownership of the content created by the influencer during the agreement
4. Information regarding the tags, hashtags and mentions
5. How the influencer will be paid
6. KPIs and other performance measures
A startup lawyer can help you determine how reasonable your position is on each of these points and more.