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It’s an ‘end-of-the-month’ type of Friday, and a group of friends is gathered at an apartment somewhere in Nairobi taking stock of their weeks. There’s a feeling of exhaustion and a need to unwind in the air. This said gathering is in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Nairobi, where streets are orderly and immaculate; where the strays aren’t called ‘Osama’ or ‘Sonko’; a neighborhood where there is a canopy of trees lined up and down the sidewalk, throughout, from the moment you enter the street all the way to the exit. It’s evening by the way, so there are bright fluorescent street lights too around every corner, amber luminous light cast on the unmarked bitumen, exposing the few people trotting that last distance back to their homes.
One of the individuals – let’s call him the room reader of the group poses – “You guys look like you need a beer or two, you know? Just to take the edge off the week we’ve all had. Any ideas of a place? I’ve been thinking about Hollys”.
At that prompt, everyone immediately starts thinking aloud about where they possibly could to get drinks, which spots have the best deals, and how long it would take to go from point A to B… … All kinds of considerations.
At certain points in time, we’ve all had ideas of products we would like to try. It could be something you have been thinking about getting for some reason.
There could be a number of explanations for this.
One reason is that you simply may have seen an advertisement on a billboard somewhere, or on YouTube or any other social media application. The possibilities are endless with all these distractions we have today.
Sometimes, it could just be that you saw your favorite personality on social media chatting about some good deals. It could have either have been about food or other products. It now paces up and down the corridors of your mind, like the manner in which your favorite song would. It could be the case that you trust your favorite personality’s judgment on a particular trend or other matter. So, when that personality promotes that product to you, it is all the convincing you need to leave your house and go get it. Even if it is a simple act of support for that personality and you don’t really need to buy it.
This collective of individuals is commonly referred to as influencers. They have special skills in their niche areas of profession or know-how of specific markets. In addition to their large followings, they are like magnets to brands looking to capitalize on the relationships they have with their faithful following. Brands would approach an influencer to talk about their product to their audience in exchange for a fee. You don’t need to have millions of followers or hundreds of thousands to be an influencer. As long as your following trusts and adores you, you can influence their decisions. You are probably reading this right now not realizing you are an influencer yourself in some form or another.
The between the lines that we should read
Thus far, we have already established that you could be an influencer in one way or another, right?
So let’s assume that you have been approached by a brand, either directly or through an agent, depending on how big your name is in these Instagram streets… or is it the meta-verse nowadays?
The deal is that you are to promote the products of the brand to your audience. This is to be done on different platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and related platforms. These posts you make, however you make them, must attain a certain number of engagements. As an influencer, of course you care about your followers. You would therefore not promote products that are in some way or the other not beneficial to them.
But what happens when a significant breach of that contract was to happen? For example, what if you do the work and don’t get paid? What will happen is you will pick up the phone and frantically call your cousin’s bestie who just finished law or that uncle you only see during graduations for the ‘wakili, a quick one!’ conversation.
A quick one
To avert these disagreements here are some of the considerations that you should discuss with the brand before even thinking about starting the work:
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- Have a clear scope of work i.e. what the brand expects of you. What type of influencing relationship they would like? Here’s where we sing about honesty to self. Be honest with yourself on whether you’re actually able to deliver what the brand is asking of you.
- Payment and frequency. Are you asking for a deposit? You should p.s. Also – are your payments based on milestones or not? Have this conversation at the very beginning.
- Have a clear indication of key performance indicators (KPIs) in terms of what the brand expects you to accomplish. i.e. The number of views or likes or comments each post should receive, the frequency of such a post and/or promotion et cetera. Some of these aren’t as clear as day and night so breaking it down in your contract would be better to prevent disputes later on.
- Determining who owns your content. This information is normally found in an ‘intellectual property’ clause within the contract. It should detail what share of content belongs to you and what share belongs to the brand; or if the content will be purely owned by you or the brand
- Conflict of interest considerations. When you decide to work with this brand, do you have the freedom to also work with other similar brands competing in the same market? If you are not, for how long? And what other parameters are you expected to uphold?
- The brand’s code of conduct. Are you expected to carry yourself in a particular way during your contract? How do they expect you to behave? Will they provide you with such guidelines immediately your contract begins? Or at some point in the near future?
When you do enter into contracts with brands, make sure you read between the lines and have the above-mentioned considerations in mind. Read the contract but keep in mind – the devil really is in the details. That one line could set off a series of unfortunate events.
See you next time!
