Hi Oddies,

Jen Glantz here. Last week I blabbered on and on about jobs that pay you to lie. But I left one very important gig off the list.

One that I personally have experience with.

Being an influencer.

They are not always lying to you, but sometimes they are.

Sometimes it’s easy to know, and sometimes, if you have influencer insider experience, it’s funny how obvious it is (more on that below).

I’ve been an influencer for about four years. The biggest brand deal I was ever offered was for $18,000. It was to promote Botox (and get it for free as part of the deal).

I declined.

I’m not anti-Botox, but it just wasn’t something I wanted to get at the moment and I didn’t feel comfortable promoting it to my audience.

Could I have used the money? YES, DUH. I’m not rolling in cash over here by any means. I’m a solopreneur. The $18k would have been a game changer to have.

But I just could not stomach promoting something that I didn’t want to do or tell my audience to do something that I wasn’t whole-heartedly into. (Again, nothing wrong with Botox. It’s just not part of my life at the moment.)

The other brand deal I declined was for $5,000 to promote a supplement brand. I’m picky about the types of things I put in my body and could not sleep at night promoting a brand I didn’t use. What if people bought it because of me and got sick or something? Nope, no.

Again, $5k is big money to me. But I just couldn’t do it. Some of these influencers are. getting offered $100k to promote something to you (Hello, Alix Earle). When the money is THAT BIG, I imagine it’s nearly impossible to turn it down.

They work hard to pretend they adore the vitamin brand of the week and tell you how much it’s helped their skin, energy, sleep, and blah blah blah.

Has it?

Maybe.

But more likely than not, no.

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I have taken money to promote a shampoo brand before. After filming the video and posting it on TikTok, I went to clean my bathroom and it stained my tub purple. I couldn’t get the shampoo off the tub for weeks. I emailed the brand and was like: heyyyy, ummm, your shampooo stained my tub. They responded that it was my tubs fault and as per our contract the video had to stay live on my TikTok for 1-year or else I owed them back the $1,000 they paid me for the video. At the 1-year mark, I deleted the video. My tub still sparkled purple.

BUT I have also taken money to promote brands I have used for years and love so much. Poshmark paid me $1,000 for a TikTok video a few years ago and I genuinely love the platform. I make good money using it every month selling stuff. So when they reached out, I was thrilled.

Instances like that are more rare in the influencing world.

I’ll explain why.

Ps. everything I’m about to tell you is based on my experience. Maybe other influencers beg to differ. But here’s what I know.

So let me break it all down, ready?

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Are influencers liars?

Sort of.

It can go a few different ways:

1. They hit the jackpot because a brand they love reaches out to them. Sometimes this happens because they have talked about the brand on social media often and caught their attention. I have done sponsored content for a few baby brands and software programs that I genuinely love. These brands emailed me because they saw I was talking about them and I was talking about them because I truly loved them. This is when being an influencer feels awesome. This is when it’s not a lie.

2. A brand reaches out and asks to do a deal with you. You have never used the brand’s products before but agree to the deal. You get the products, try them, and love them a lot. That happened to me recently with a crib brand. They sent me a free crib in exchange for a social post. I honestly love the crib (the only downside is it is heavy, big, and doesn’t have wheels) but the mesh helped my baby sleep better because she wasn’t getting stuck in the crib bars. ANYWAY, I was surprised how much I liked the brand’s product. This was a win. I wasn’t lying about how much I loved the crib.

3. The most common situation is a brand reaches out and offers you a deal. You haven’t used the products before (or you have and don’t looove them) but the deal is so good that you take the money. Then you get the product, barely have time to use it, but have to meet the deliverables in your contract: 15 Instagram stories in 3-months, two IG Reels, and IG live, etc. The influencer has so much content to make and not a lot of time to make it. Rarely do they even use the product - or at least use it in the capacity that they say they do. I see people promoting a vitamin brand right now - at least 15 Influencers I follow are promoting this brand. The results they are claiming to get would take a person at least a year to see but a lot of these gals got the brand deal three months ago and are all posting about the brand on the same day (brands do this purposefully to hit sales goals). They are all claiming the same things (brands give influencers guidelines and sample copy to use. They also usually pre-approve the post before it goes live. Even IG stories). The are lying and by lying I mean they are saying and doing what they need to for the partnership. They are not necessarily pushing these vitamins because they lo00o00o0o0ve them.

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Who can get brand deals?

Anyone. You need to have:

• An audience. It doesn’t always matter how big. It matters more how engaged they are and the demographics. That’s the stuff brands care about. Some influencers have 100,000 followers but nobody cares about their content. Their engagement isn’t good. Brands won’t work with them or pay them as much as an influencer who has 10,000 followers and a lot of engagement.

• Content. Brands look for consistency. Are you posting regularly or once in a blue moon? Is your content professional? Entertaining? Interesting? You don’t have to be the best content creator in the world but you need to use tools that help you look like you are. My favorite tool is free and it’s called Canva.

• A niche. What are the topics you post about? Pick a couple. Post about those things.

Once you have these things, you can create a media kit. I made one for free using Canva. Brands will ask you for this. They might ask you for screenshots of your social media analytics - so don’t lie on your media kit :)

Where can you find brand deals?

A big reason why I know a lot of influencers are getting paid to lie to you is because there are influencer platforms where you can access current brand deals and apply to them. So I’ll see a brand advertise that they are offering $$$ to promote their new line of liquid vitamins and then for the next 2-4 weeks I’ll see a ton of influencers talking about those vitamins. If you access these sites, you will never look at influencers the same ever again.

When I became a picky little influencer I decided to stop using those platforms and start reaching out to brands I love. I worked with a partnership manager named Sean and the first thing he asked me to do was write down a list of brands I would love to work with. He then pitched them directly. I landed a few deals with those brands - woohoo and it felt good to be an influencer again.

You can do this on your own too. Go to LinkedIn. Search a brand’s name and “partnership manager” and you will find the person who runs the brand deals. Drop their info into this free email finding tool. You have what you need to reach out. Sean also tells me to DM brands on Instagram too. That’s worked too.

Want templates for how to pitch brands on Instagram, TikTok, and via email?

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How much can you get paid?

It’s weird how much and little brands pay. I’ve had big-name brands reach out and say: we can only pay you $200. I’ve had small little brands offer to pay me $2,000 for the same type of campaign. I’ve had other brands offer to pay nothing and send a free lip liner in exchange for a TikTik video and IG reel. Pricing is random.

You can read tons of articles about pricing but it’s so random. I like to ask for a lot and then negotiate. I have declined offers that are too low because making the content takes a lot of time. One TikTok video can take 5+ hours and the brand is allowed to make revisions - time, time, time!

How to know if an influencer is telling the truth?

It’s hard to know. I always assume they are not. Before I entertain a post, I scroll to see if they hashtaged it as a #ad or #sponsored post. If a lot of influencers are all promoting the same thing, at the same time, I usually assume the product isn’t a fav of theirs and instead they are getting paid to say a lot of the same things.

Sometimes they are all pushing a product that seems good. I read reviews on other sites (which can also be fake and paid for) or search Reddit to see what people have to say there. Or, I’ll give in and try it out myself. Usually I don’t like it though.

What else can I tell you? Answer for you? Ask me anything:

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