The Influencer Content Approval Process: Do's and Don'ts

Every aspect of the creator relationship is important, but content approvals of influencer campaign content can really make or break the entire experience.

Speedy content approvals reflect not only a creator’s strengths, but your abilities as a brand to source and creatively support your program. If you receive content that just "isn't it"—don't be too quick to point fingers at the creator. First, take a look at your internal processes. Chances are, there’s some inefficiencies that are making it harder to nail approvals in a timely manner!

Slow, inefficient approvals not only strain relationships with creators; they also suck up valuable time that you could be spending on program management, onboarding creators, or sourcing new talent. In this chapter, we'll outline the Do's and Don'ts of content approvals, focusing on what you can reasonably expect and control—and what you can't.

The ‘Dos’ for content approval:

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✅ DO include clear approval processes in contracts and creative briefs

Before your creator starts work on any of their deliverables, they should know exactly what the content approval process involves when working with your brand. This ensures all parties have the right expectations going into a campaign and creators won’t surprised (or fight back against) any requests for revisions or reshoots.

Here are the areas you need to address before a contract is signed:

• If there are edits to the content, how many reasonable creative iterations can you ask for?
• What circumstances constitute a reshoot? Is it a breach of contract, or is it at your brand’s discretion?
• Did you include approved messaging in your contract?
• Did you align on a certain number of days that are required between a creator submitting content and their proposed live date?

Outlining the approval process in both in the contract and the creative brief helps to maintain consistency and quality control across all of your partnerships. It also gives the influencer ample opportunity to ask questions on anything they aren’t sure about.

This brings us to a super common question about content approvals: How many rounds of edits are reasonable for influencer content?

For most campaigns, 1-2 rounds of edits is considered reasonable, so long as the brand has provided an influencer with clear guidelines that weren’t met. As Delaney explains, two rounds of edits allows for necessary improvements while also respecting a creator’s time:

“I like to see two rounds. Round one, you give feedback. Round two is 99% ready to go, or there's like one small tweak that needs to be made. Including that in the contract is super important.”
_{Delaney Henson, Influencer Marketing Leader at Tonal.}

Your approval process will differ depending on the campaign and the type of program you’re running. For example, creators have no obligation to post when they are the recipient of a product seeding campaign - any activity is a bonus for your brand, and what they post at their discretion.

Paid partnerships are a different story. Your brand gets a lot say over creative decisions and how content is produced when paying the creator upfront. Your process may be more in-depth and include multiple rounds of feedback, if that was previously agreed to and understood by all parties:

“With us paying them more, we were able to be more stringent and make sure those deliverables were really, really good for us. Because again, they're charging 10-20% more than they would anybody else.”
_{Ryan Waranauskas, Founder, Advisor, and Investor.}

Whatever your process is, make sure it’s documented. This is going to save you a lot of time and energy!

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✅ DO create a approval checklist for your creators to follow

You want to make as easy as possible for creators to hit all the must-haves for their deliverables. Even if you’re providing an in-depth creative brief for that campaign (we covered how to do this in a dedicated chapter!) it’s a good idea to also include a companion checklist that covers the high-level essentials for any piece of influencer content your brand commissions, as Lauren outlines here:

“When I am looking at content, I am looking at: Did they touch on features? Did they touch on the benefits? Do they have a very verbal and easy CTA? Do they have their link and do they have their code? Are they excited about the product?”
_{Lauren Maxwell, Director of Influencer Marketing at Dreamland Baby.}

It’s worth noting that the creators you’re working with will have varying levels of experience with brand partnerships. So, your checklist should cover everything from basic requirements e.g. proper lighting, to more in-depth directives about the proper positioning of links and codes.

Having a checklist also makes it easier for influencer marketers to point to specific things a creator missed in a brief that need to be included in a reshoot, which helps minimize revisions.

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✅ DO pre-approve content before filming

You should get as much information from the creator as possible about how they plan to create content for your campaign. This should cover not just execution, but the creative concept behind the content and why this is going to resonate with your audience.

Think of this as a kind ‘pre-approval’ process before a formal review of the content. So, why is pre-approving content important in influencer campaigns?

A pre-approval process allows you to green-light deliverables in advance of production, so you can identify any potential issues with an influencer’s thought process ahead of time. As Amber explains, this is the best way to avoid costly and time-consuming reshoots that risk straining the relationship between you and the creator:

“My favorite thing to do for the approval process is have the creator do a write -up. How are you going to integrate the talking points? Can I see where you're going to be shooting the video? Can I make sure that it looks the way that we need it to look?”
_{Amber Kai, Head of Creator and Brand Partnerships at Sequincial.}

✅ DO Consolidate feedback

As marketers, we know firsthand how frustrating can be when multiple people are providing feedback. More often that not, it requires us to make adjustments to content numerous times instead of in one session. So, how can you streamline feedback for influencer content?

If an influencer’s content needs to be reviewed by multiple people, feedback should be consolidated to speed up the review process as much as possible. Google Docs is a great way to organize your feedback on deliverables in one place, so influencers can see exactly what needs changing and implement this in one go:

“If I go back, I want to make sure that I touch on everything that I would like for them to reshoot so that there is only one time that the creator has to reshoot it and only one time I have to ask for a reshoot.”
_{Lauren Maxwell, Director of Influencer Marketing at Dreamland Baby.}

For example, you can group your feedback into sections that cover all the key components of the deliverable (video, caption, cover photo, etc.) to ensure nothing is missed and creators can see step by step where they need to make adjustments.

Remember: There IS such a thing as "too many cooks in the kitchen." Too much feedback from too many people will inhibit scale and weaken creator relationships. It shouldn’t be necessary for a representative of each of your teams to review an influencer’s content (at least not beyond first month of testing). Your influencer marketing team should ALWAYS be trusted execute the program properly.

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The Don’ts of content approvals:

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❌ DON’T assume creators know everything

When you know your brand requirements inside and out, it’s easy to forget that creators don’t have the same grounding. But content requirements that seem obvious to you will not be so clear to an influencer!

“I find that a lot of times, the biggest challenge of do's and don'ts and approval is that the brand hasn't been specific enough in what they're asking for.”
_{Amber Kai}

If something is essential for content approval, make sure it’s documented and that the creator understands the reason behind the requirement.

For example, if there’s a hyper-specific way that a product needs to be showcased, make sure the creator knows and consider hopping on a quick zoom call with them to clarify these details. If you deliberately avoid using certain keywords to describe your product to avoid comparison with competitors, explain this as concisely as possible.

Brand and product name pronunciations is another important area to clarify well in advance of starting on deliverables - this will save a LOT of false starts in the content creation process!

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❌ DON’T be controlling

Brand guidelines and consistency are important. But remember that influencers know what content resonates with their audience—that’s the entire reason you chose to partner with them, right?

“I’ve always been someone who believes that an influencer knows their audience more than a brand. I do not think that it is a brand's job to tell an influencer what to say, what to do, how long their content should be, etc.”
_{Liv Soibelman, Head of Ecommerce at Blueprint.}

With this mind, it’s important to give creators some discretion to approach content deliverables as they see fit. If they color a little outside the lines, chances are they will end up creating stronger, more authentic content than if they had followed your brief to the letter.

Obviously, no creator should break any of your essential brand ‘don’ts’. But keep an open mind and give your creators some flexibility to experiment!

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❌ DON’T forget to get everyone on the same page

When there are multiple parties involved—the brand, the creator, an agency, talent agents—content approvals can wind up being very drawn out. This happens most often when parties are not in consistent communication.

As an influencer marketer, managing these situations can be a delicate balancing act. You need absolute clarity from a creator’s agent (if they are handling communications) and your internal team to make sure the right feedback is being provided and the creator is producing deliverables as specified by your brand.

While it may slow down getting deliverables completed, it’s a good idea to regroup with all parties if there’s confusion over the next step of the content approval process, or someone is pushing back against revisions. This will avoid any incorrect steps and make sure everyone is on the same page before proceeding.

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❌ DON’T nitpick

We get it: We all want content to be perfect, but there’s also a law of diminishing returns at work. Insisting on endless reshoots for tiny adjustments that won’t be noticed by your audience is only going to cost valuable time AND affect on your relationships with creators.

As an influencer marketer, you’ll need to develop an intuitive sense of what battles are worth your brand’s time—in the majority of cases, your creative brief should cover anything that’s really fundamental to the outcome of a campaign.

Content approvals are often an uncomfortable area for influencer marketers; after all, no one enjoys telling a creator that their content is unsuitable and needs to be reshot! The best way to avoid awkward reshoot scenarios is provide a thorough brief and clearly outline the approvals process, so that influencers understand your expectations and how edit requests are doing to be handled. Always be respectful, and make sure that your requests are reasonable and proportional to impact of those changes. This will keep your creator relationships intact, and ensure you get the best content possible for your campaign or program.

So, you now know how to get the best quality content deliverables for your campaigns. But how do you accurately track and measure whether or not that content (and the creator) is achieving your goals? This is where links and codes come into the picture—AND having the right system to manage them.