Why I'm No Longer Accepting "One Off" Collaborations + My New Collab Structure

This is my story, and any suggestions or critiques I make are not meant to be taken as the only way to make money on the internet. Each person finds what works best for them. I do hope though, that this piece makes it clear that working for free isn’t acceptable, not even in the “influencer world”.

The world of working online is a free for all. A chaotic banter of noise where we are forced to sort through the voices you want to hear and which ones you’ll “mute” for your own sanity. You can find your people, you can market yourself to the right audience, but ultimately, like any industry that is highly saturated, highly creative, and highly subjective, you have to fight to be seen and heard.

I’ve been putting my words on the internet since 2012. I found my “niche” in sustainability and ethical fashion a few years later, and once I realized I could make money from writing about things I was passionate about, I was hooked. I worked “for free” for a few years. Hardly believing that I could receive coveted wardrobe pieces in exchange for a photo or two and my positive review. A year or two passed, my connections grew, and I noticed that people were taking this work seriously.

People were doing this work as a job. It made sense — you can only accept so many free dresses or t-shirts before you realize you’re pouring your time into something that won’t sustain you or your family.

So I created a Media Kit. (For anyone unfamiliar, a media kit or rate sheet essentially details your collaboration options and rates. It’s something handy to pass on to interested brands instead of negotiating back and forth endlessly). I started out small, so small. Afraid to offend anyone by asking more than I thought I was worth. $30 for an Instagram post, $50 for a blog review….and as my audience and portfolio grew, so did my rates as I learned that my peers were charging sometimes 3-4 times what I was.

At least 4 years later, I’ve learned so much about what my work (and the work of my fellow online creators/influencers/whatever you want to call us) is worth. We are the new marketing firms, the new billboards, the new commercials. Our voice has an insane amount of value and the problem is, most of us don’t realize how much it is worth. We accept a dress in exchange for our vote of confidence and, in so doing, degrade our work to being worth nothing of lasting value. Dresses are great, but they don’t put food on the table.

And so, we’re asked to work in exchange for product over and over again, because it’s the norm.

Those of us who demand to be taken seriously are oftentimes dismissed because the company “doesn’t have a budget for collaborations” or “can’t pay for promotions” or “is only gifting for this campaign but will add you to their list for one day when they can pay”.

But would you put up a billboard in exchange for a free t-shirt and a discount code? Would you ask your photographer or accountant or your designer to work for “free exposure”?

Here’s the thing, influencer friends, by working for free, you’re giving a client exponentially more value than they’re giving you in return. You’re giving away imagery of you with their product, you’re promoting that product to hundreds or thousands of people who trust your opinion, and you’re driving exposure/clicks/follows/sales to their website without so much as a nod your way. Sure, exposure is great. Sure, reposting is nice. But do you know what is better? Being paid for the value you’re offering.

And I don’t mean being paid a 10% commission…but more on that later.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of my own collab structure and my qualms with the ways I’ve done it in the past, this caveat needs to be stated: I understand the struggles of running a startup. I understand that many small business owners, especially ones who produce ethically and sustainably, are truly bootstrapping their businesses. This post isn’t aimed at them. This post is aimed at the brands who have been in business for a few years. Brands who claim they’re still a small business with a limited marketing strategy, but can pay for targeted Facebook ads, photoshoots, and a host of other marketing gimmicks. It’s aimed at the brands who are stocked in stores around the world but somehow can’t pay $100 for an Instagram shoutout. It’s for the brands who knowingly take advantage of creators, creating affiliate programs or other “perks” designed to make the creator think they’re getting the good end of the deal, when really, they’re giving away their creativity, work, and imagery/review for a product and maybe a few dollars of commission. It’s unsustainable at the core and I’ve been around the loop far too many times to be duped into thinking free = payment anymore.

Another very important point: if it’s not easy for a straight, white, female writer to get paid fairly in this niche, imagine how much more inequity exists for BIPOC women. Brands, pay all of your content creators, but make an added effort to pay black, indigenous and people of color creators MORE than what they ask for. White influencers, pass on opportunities to your BIPOC peers, and readers, share their work and support them!

Why I don’t love affiliate programs

I’ve joined countless affiliate networks…each promising the same thing: payment for promoting a brand’s product. Here’s how it works:

• Brand sends product and sets you up with a code/link specific to your account

• You share about product with said link/code

• A small percentage of your followers click/shop/engage with that link

• You get paid generally 10%-15% of their total sale using your link (if they shop without using your link, oops, no credit goes to you).

• Depending on the price point of the item, a sale can be worth literal pennies or, if you’re lucky, a few hundred dollars a month. It takes an insane amount of engagement/website traffic to earn a significant amount on affiliate links alone.

To put it plainly, affiliate marketing is very much designed to benefit the brand more than it does the content creator. Most brands have dozens if not hundreds of affiliates, some earning thousands of dollars each month in commissions and you can only imagine what that revenue looks like on the brand’s end. In exchange for 10% of a sale that the creator drove, the brand gets a new customer, increased exposure, increased followers, and repeat purchases from people who trust the opinion of the referrer, and 90% of the sale.

Edit: I don’t think all affiliate networks are “bad”, but I do think that, unless you have a website with very a very high conversion rate or excellent engagement on social media, you’re not going to make much of a sustainable income from affiliate marketing alone, unless it’s paired with another, larger strategy.

My current plan: I join the affiliate networks of brands who I have worked with on a long term basis only OR the networks of brands who are truly too small to afford paying me (this is a very small portion of brands). For example, my friend Hanna from Sotela was only able to pay herself a salary recently…I don’t expect her to pay full price yet. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Like most things in life, there is grey area, and lots and lots of subjective analysis. I’m currently in less than 5 affiliate programs and I probably earn from only 2-3 of them. (side note: shop the links that your favorite bloggers throw out….it will make their day, and help feed their families).

Why I’m only working with brands on a longterm basis:

Although I’m proud of myself for sticking to my rates for so many years and offering flexible collaboration options to hundreds of brands, I’ve given up on the traditional “one-off” method of blogging/promoting once and for all.

Here’s why: much like with affiliate or gifted marketing, you’re typically only required to post once, and then you’re done. One blog post, one Instagram feed post quickly buried by other content…and the brand is never mentioned again. Affiliate marketing has the advantage with repeat exposure, but one-off content (meaning, a one-time collaboration where the creator is paid, ideally with money and product, and then the two parties go their own way and never work together again), is, in my opinion, a lose/lose/lose for everyone involved.

Firstly, brands spend their valuable marketing budget only to be blasted to a person’s account or website once (with a quick, short lived burst of engagement), never to be seen again. This doesn’t usually yield long-lasting conversion rates.

Then, influencers spend hours or days (truly…) creating a single post, only to have it fizzle out after whichever algorithm they cater to decides to bury their content. It’s a lot of work for little return, even when we’re being paid fairly. Not to mention, conscious influencers are continually attempting to master the (ironic) balancing act continual consumption while reminding their readers to shop less and buy better. It’s a dichotomy that none of us do perfectly, but I can’t pretend to promote anymore. Your favorite bloggers are continually bombarded with new products, whether ethically made or not.

Finally, readers and consumers are only given a snippet, an #ad-charged blast of each brand without really getting a feel for whether or not a person genuinely loves the brand or product or whether they’re just saying so because there’s a paycheck or commission at the end of it all. There’s an overall lack of transparency and, subsequently, trust issues between reader and writer.

Longterm partnerships, I believe, is the best attempt at mending what’s broken in the influencer/brand/audience relationship.

For influencers, there is predictability and stability, knowing that your work will be supported for a few months at a time. There is also freedom in knowing you don’t have to toss around links or discount codes or promote inauthentically because the brands you’re working with are in it for the long run, not just for a quick blast.

For brands, the benefit is huge. They’re getting repeat exposure, to a committed audience who values the writer’s opinions. It’s marketing 101: it usually takes a few interactions between brand/customer to drive a sale. Influencers are the “middle man” here, and seeing the same brand over and over during a few months to a year is far more beneficial than a one-time post or tag.

For the audience, trust is naturally developed as you see the writer using the brand’s product over and over, in their real life. Not just in a single styled photoshoot or selfie designed to give you FOMO. You’re able to get to know the brand AND the content creator even more and therefore, make your purchases even more mindfully.

A more transparent future

If slow fashion is to gain any kind of real momentum, it has to be with the help of the content creators that our world is pushing forward. And if slow fashion is to have any kind of legitimacy, it has to pay their workers fairly, all along the supply chain, and this includes once the product is made and ready to be promoted. Just because it’s the norm for creative content writers to work for free, doesn’t make it ethical or sustainable. We know this…so why do we keep perpetuating it?

Food for thought, my friends. This is my reasoning and my line in the sand if there is to be any future in this work for me. I would love to hear your thoughts and help answer any questions you might have!