Who are you? That’s the first question brands will ask when thinking about working with you. Think about it, you’re new in the content-creating business. You reach out to brands who just don’t know what you do because they don’t know who you are. It’s a fair question for them to ponder but you can solve this problem by building your portfolio. We’ll teach you what that means and a few ways to do it in this article.
Take a photographer for an example, when wanting to work with people what do they show them? The pictures they take. And not just any pictures but the ones that are relevant to that brand, so you get a better chance of getting hired with them. When building your portfolio pay attention to what type of content you create. You want to make sure it aligns with the type of brands you plan on working with. As a content creator, your Instagram and TikTok profiles are your portfolio.
If you want to work with fashion or makeup brands, your content should reflect that. You can and should post other things outside of your main content still because it shows diversity in you and your content. But when presenting yourself to certain brands, you want to show consistency in what you do.
When you first start building your portfolio, you should start by reaching out to smaller brands. Create connections with as many people as you can so you can get “example content.” When you reach out to smaller brands and hopefully work with them, bigger brands will see that, and it will look good on you. It’s like a job you’re trying to get hired for looking at your resume to see if you qualify for the position. They want to know who they’re working with. Your content and past collaborations will help with that.
When you start out as a creator, you won’t always have the opportunity to get gifted products to create content around. Share about the products you already own and love. This is called User-Generated Content and is exactly what will help you start getting paid collaborations.
As you grow your content and work with more brands using UGC, you can then land more and bigger deals. So, when thinking about what brands you want to work with also think about how it’ll make your portfolio look. And that starts with accepting gifted partnerships or creating UGC content that make sense for your brand and how you want brands to perceive you.
One of the best ways to showcase yourself as a content creator starts with using your media kit. A media kit basically tells brands everything they need to know about you. It’s the easiest way to show them how many followers you have currently, what type of media you produce, and it shows them all the details in how much audience and customer engagement you receive. Also, with a media kit you can show other brands you collaborated with in the past so future brands can get a feel of your work. If a brand likes what you show in your media kit, it gives you an advantage of getting hired.
You might also want to include “example” content in your media kit. Or you can send it attached on an email. They want to make sure you fit their brand like you think you do. Your content is the best way for brands to know if working with you is in yours and their best interest. You should put your example content within your media kit to keep everything within the same place so it’s easy to find or look back on. If a media kit doesn’t really work for you, put all this information in a google drive. Essentially it’s the same thing and it’s just as easy to share with brands when pitching yourself to them. Showing your content and statistics will be the best way to get hired.
You can start working with smaller brands easily with websites like Octoly. It not only allows you to connect with smaller brands, but you will also receive certain products from those brands. Then you get to create content, connections, and eventually money once you’ve built your portfolio. You can then use our Klaia afterward to keep all your brand deals, deadlines, money, etc. all in one organized place.
Other websites like Mavrck and Social Native will allow you to build your portfolio, showcase brands you’ve worked with, and help you receive something called Gifted Partnerships. Gifted Partnerships entail a brand offering you some of their products to you in exchange for a post or a sponsored ad you create and put in your video. This is a great start to have when first working with brands. You will get nice products and can use these things as “example” content for your portfolio. It’s a double win on your behalf and the brand also wins because they get someone willing to create UGC.
Getting started can be hard, but don’t be discouraged, you’ll be soon monetizing your social media and working with your dream brands.
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