A lot of you have expressed interest over on instagram about how to get started with beauty and fashion blogging.
I always tell people to get started where they’re at and just blog about topics that they are passionate about, because that is what will come easiest for you.
But let’s be real, sometimes it’s nice working with brands.
It can give you a direction to write about, give you something new to explore, help you generate buzz for your own platform and its free stuff that you actually like.
Any people feel like collaborations are out of their reach as small and micro content creators, but that is simply not the case.
I got my first collaboration with just over 100 subbies on Youtube and my first instagram collab with only 1,000 followers.
And I got my first 4 figure paid collaboration with around 5,000 followers on instagram.
The truth is, marketing is expensive for companies and micro-influencers and content creators offer a unique opportunity for them to reach potential clients in a more intimate manner.
As a content creator, you can take advantage of this market and get collaborations on your platform with as few as 1,000 followers.
And in today’s blog, I’m going to share with you exactly how to do that.
We will quickly go over how to set up your Instagram profile to help attract brands, and then dive into some of the content creator marketplaces that are great for those just getting started.
This blog contains affiliate links. They are placed for your convenience. If you click on them, I earn a small commission that I use to support this blog. Thanks
Table Of Content
Set Your Profile Up For Success
How you set up your profile is more important than people realize.
I’m a smaller content creator with about 10,000 followers on Instagram, but even with a smaller audience than that, I consistently got brand deals in my inbox.
The secret is actually not that secret.
Your bio is important
The key to start unlocking brand deals even as a small content creator is to set up your profile in a way where marketers know you’re willing to create content.
And the first step to doing that is making sure that your bio clearly showcases what it is you have to offer to brands.
A bio that just has your username with some great facts about you is not enough to signal to a marketer that you’re willing to create user generated content (UGC)
A good bio should clearly state that you’re a content creator, what your niche is, and that you are open to doing collaborations.
This last part is important because it signals to marketeers that you’re currently accepting work.
It is also a good idea to have an email listed in your bio. While Instagram has a fairly robust messaging system, a lot of brands prefer to use official channels to communicate and send over contracts.
Having your general location is also probably a good idea. While having a global brand is nice, it can be easier to leverage your brand with a local focus.
You don’t have to put exactly where you are located in you bio, but the general area is useful for marketers who may be looking for collaborations in your location.
Having your email listed directly in the bio makes it that much easier for them to contact you.
I do understand that a lot of people don’t like the idea of having their personal information be so public–and I 100% agree with this.
I have personally dealt with this by having a public facing email that I only use for socail media and the Love, MonniiBee brand.
While my email is associated with my domain, you can set up a public facing email for free that you use only for socail media work
Business Accounts
The second thing that you’re going to want to do is make sure that your account is set up as a Business Account.
There are many reasons for this, but at the moment, several brands are only willing to work with content creators who have their business accounts set up, as Instagram makes it easier to collaborate.
Setting up a business account on Instagram is a fairly easy process as well.
To set up a business account:
- 1-Go to your profile and tap
in the upper right corner.
- 2-Tap Account type and tools.
- 3-Tap Switch to professional account.
- 4-Tap Continue.
- 5-Select a Category for your business and tap Done.
- 6-Select Business and tap Next.
- 7- follow the prompts to complete the business account set up
Your username can benefit you too
This isn’t something that I do on Instagram, but I know many who do and it works great for them.
Instagram allows its users to change the names that appear on your profile a few times a year.
Some content creators use this as a space to further signal information about themselves that is both useful for brands and followers.
For example, instead of Lovemonniibee, I could put “Lovemonniibee| PNW Mom fashion & UGC creator”
This long name allows brands at a glance to see what my page is about and may encourage some to click on my profile to see if we’re a good fit.
As stated above, I personally don’t do this, but it does work for some.
Instagram Brand Marketplace
Now that you have you profile set up to attract brands, you should start to notice a few more brands in your inbox, especially if you’re engaging with people and using good SEO and hashtaging in your post.
Passively, I get about 3-6 legitimate brand collaborations in my inbox every week which is a good start. And honestly some of the best collaborations that I have chosen have come to me passively, all thanks to setting up my profile in the right way.
But I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t tech you how to be more proactive in seeking out brand collaborations too.
Perhaps the easiest way to seek out brand collaborations on instagram now is through the brand deals that Instagram offers those with business accounts.
To find these, simply head to your profile, click on your professional dashboard, scroll down to and click on “Branded Content” and then click on “Discover Projects”.
This will pull up a list of all the brands that your account currently qualifies to work with.
The neat thing about using this services with instagram is that all your communication, drafts to the company contracts etc, can take place on Instagram making it super convenient for both parties.
I have done several through Instagram including JJ’s House and Millie’s Sipping Broths and it’s been a lot of fun.
Amazon Marketers
Amazon is one of the easiest ways for content creators to make money online and work with brands.
Especially for creators who have affiliate profiles with Amazon, you can easily create affiliate links of the products that you love to share with your audience.
However, there are a ton of Amazon marketers out there who are specifically looking for reviewers and are willing to send you their products and pay you in exchange for a review and UGC.
This can be a wonderful opportunity for anyone starting out, but I do have some words of caution for you.
Advice for dealing with Amazon marketers on Instagram
TBH, if you set your profile up how I showed you, you’ll have no shortage of amazon marketers in your inbox–for better or worse.
Amazon marketers have a great knack for finding exactly the of UGC creators that are going to be a good fit for them, and I will say that the vast majority of them are honest.
But there are scammers and marketers out there who do try and take advantage of new UGC creators who may not know any better and you have to watch out.
Here are some good rules to follow:
- 1) Always ask for more information so that you know what you’re getting into
- 2) Ask what the scope of the work will be and what is being offered in return. Do this so expectations on both sides are clear
- 3) If you are to be buying the product from Amazon, ask for a reimbursement upfront. While many sellers will say they can’t do this, in my experiences, every legitimate company I have worked with on Amazon has always been willing to cover the expensive up front.
- 4) If they are not willing to cover the expenses up front but you want to proceed, make sure the product offers free returns. If they don’t or rather you purchase from a different site, this is a pretty clear indication of a scam.
I do want to say that I don’t always require payment and reimbursement up front. However that is only in the case in which I have worked with this marketer or brand before and have established trust. I would strongly caution against working with a brand that makes you pay to review their items.
Stack Influence market place
While Amazon collaborations can offer a lot of opportunity, it can feel overwhelming trying to sort out which collabs are legitimate and a good fir for you.
Stack Influence removes some of this hassle for you by showing you which products available on Amazon need reviewing.
Simply select the campaign that you want to be apart of, read through and agree to the requirements, submit your PayPal information and make the amazon purchase.
I got my reimbursement from Stack in within seconds.
It’s important to note that you can only do one Stack campaign at a time, so choose the products you want to review wisely.
While Stack doesn’t have the best selection of Amazon products to review, they do offer a section of beauty and apparel, so it’s a place to start for sure for fashion and beauty content creators.
Click here to sign up for Stack
Temu Influencer Program
As I have mentioned in my PJ’s blog post, I’m really new to the world of Temu, but I can tell you that they have a robust content creation program that is prefect for those just getting started.
Temu offers content and UGC creators the opportunity to receive free products to review and cash in a few different ways.
Temu Seeding Program
Temu offers ‘seeding cash’ to any content creator who joins their program.
While this cash can only be used for Temu influencer campaigns, they offer a wide range of campaigns to choose from.
Of course I chose a fashion campaigns and I was pleasantly surprised with the wide range of products I could choose to review.
The amount of items you can get to review is limited by your “seeding balance” and your starting seeding balance is dictated by how large your socail reach is.
For reference, with about 9.2K followers at the time, I received $45 dollars in seeding cash to spend on a campaign.
With that cash, I was able to pick out two outfits and some accesses to try out (which is coming soon to the blog).
You can earn addition seeding cash by completing campaigns and making additional content.
It’s important to know that you can only do one product campaign at a time, so pick which one you want to do wisely.
Click this link to sign up today
Temu Affliate
I just wanted to mention this very quickly because I have seen some people get confused.
Temu has an affiliate program that is separate from their seeding program. As a content creator you can join in on both– in fact, it’s probably beneficial!
But the programs are separate and not located in the same place.
Social Cat
Lastly, I wanted to talk about Social Cat as it’s another great option for those just getting started.
Social Cat is a content creator market place that allows users to look through and apply to brands for gifted, paid or affiliated collaborations.
What I think is really nice about Social Cat is that there’s a great mix of opportunities and a lot of options particularly for those who are interested in beauty and skin care.
While I find that their fashion collaborations are lacking, they do exist.
Social Cat doesn’t have the best user interface, so it can feel pretty overwhelming to learn how to navigate it at first.
But once you get the hang of it, its pretty simple to browsers through the list of collabs they have available and apply in one click to the campaigns that interest you.
What I really like about Social Cat is that it’s pretty easy to see what your audience requirements are and these are often pretty low. I have never seen a campaign require more than 3,000 follows–and even that number is pretty high for Social Cat.
And unlike the pervious market places we covered in this post, with Social Cat, you can apply for multiple campaigns at once. This is wonderful for content creators who like to batch out content like I do.
Click this link to sign up today!
Final Thoughts
Reviewing content on your platforms is an awesome way to get started as a beauty and fashion content creator, and you don’t necessarily have to come out of your pocket to do so.
Making sure to set up your social media profiles in a way that invites marketers to reach out to you for collaborations is wonderful start that can keep you supplied with a steady flow of opportunities.
Likewise, you can actively search for collaboration opportunities that might be a good fit for you by checking out the programs that I have listed above.
Best of all, these programs all very friendly to content creators who have smaller followings, giving everyone the opportunity to get their leg in the door with fashion content.
Are you interested in starting your fashion or beauty blog? I would love to hear more about it down below. Also don’t forget to come stop by our instagram account and continue the conversation with us over there!