The Truth About Sponsorships
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In this episode I'm talking about sponsorships. What are they? How does someone get sponsored and how does it work? I'm also going to talk about how I feel about them, annoyances with them and my plans with any sponsorships going forward.
Welcome to This Week, I'm Sarah and if you've been a listener to this podcast over the past year you may have noticed, I've been MIA. This was completely unintentional and I'm glad to be back after a break. This summer, my husband and I traveled quite a bit, or, much more than we're used to and I think with my work schedule and traveling, this podcast got lost in the midst of it all. We went to New York and I'm currently editing my travel vlog which will go live over the next week on my YT channel. When we got back, we had a month of time before traveling to MO. And, in that month period, the only content I could focus on creating was sponsorships... what this entire episode is about. There's only so much time one can spend on various projects and with sponsorships being a big part of my livelihood, any other project I wanted to take on or intended to work on... was suspended. I'm going to obviously dive more into this... because I find it frustrating but for now I'm glad to be back and I'm excited to share my new plan and schedule going forwards with this project, videos, any sponsorships and more.
With all that being said, let's get into This Week.
So what are sponsorships?
A person, firm organization, etc., that finances and buys the time to broadcast a radio or television program so as to advertise a product, etc.
In this case, I'm talking about sponsorships you might see on social media. There's quite a few on Instagram whether you're scrolling through photos or watching Instagram Stories and they're either ads running or are paid posts from influencers. The sponsorships content creators agree to do as far as working with a brand, they themselves pitched to or were reached out to from a brand. There's of course also ads on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat – any social media really.
There's sponsorships on blogs you read, podcasts you might listen to, YT videos you watch before the video starts, as the video is playing and even after the video ends.
As consumers, or just humans who like to check our phones and scroll and scroll... we're constantly bombarded with ads. They're everywhere. This might be only a part of why they're annoying.
I think the only person I've heard deliver an ad I find amusing and outright hilarious is the comedian Bill Burr on his Monday Morning Podcast. Before he starts talking about an ad, he's already making fun of it, or saying flat out, quote, “I don't use this crap” or “apparently, this is my favorite, gee I wish the brand would have sent this thing to me” I think he's the only one who can or has gotten away with this.
With podcasts, it's as if people don't seem as irritated listening to ads. You probably heard an ad at the top of this podcast and just hit forward 15 seconds to get to this part of audio. I tend to do that. Just keep hitting that forward button or simply drag your finger to about 5, 7 or 10 minutes in. Ah, that's it, the episode is starting. You finally found it through the thick jungle of ad vines and and the gorilla monster at the end, good ole' Zip Recruiter!
For someone like me, a smaller content creator, sponsorships are a bigger part of my livelihood, until I can figure a way around it. No, I'm not promoting anything I don't like or things I don't like or use myself, but I am aware that does happen in the digital space. And that's unfortunate.
How does one get sponsored? Speaking from personal experience, I get emails from brands who would like to work with me. Some of them just want to send products and ask that I post something for them in exchange for the product. That's something I used to agree to until my hobby online became my job.
This is also something that's very hard for creators. I doubt brands reach out to photographers or production companies this way, saying they'll pay them by giving them free products... at least not any professional brands.
If you're a content creator and you're frustrated with these types of emails, I suggest checking out Julie Solomon's online training program called Pitch It Perfect. There's also several resources online where you can learn how to talk with brands who send you these types of offers. Julie gives advice on how to talk with brands when not only this happens but also how to pitch to brands you want to work with, how to make sure you make your rates fair and you're not undercutting your work, and much more. I've only just started with her tips and am already seeing a better turn around for my work.
I know of websites where you can find work with brands, again by pitching yourself to them. Some I've used are Famebit, which, in my opinion is the best platform for doing this. Also, Grapevine, Social Native, TapInfluence, Revfluence, gen.video, Collectively, HireInfluence, SocialFly, CollectiveBias and there's many more creeping up I've noticed as these platforms seem to do well.
I've also just discovered, you can reach out to brands not only through email, but also through social media which I thought was unprofessional so I never did it, until recently. You can DM them and pitch yourself. Again, this is something I learned from Julie, so check out her course if you're interested. I think her Instagram handle is julssolomon.
How do you feel about sponsorships? Do you mind them? Or find them irritating?
When you go to watch a YT video and find out it's sponsored, do you go to watch something else? Or continue watching? I've noticed my sponsored videos get the lowest views... ever. I think my audience knows the difference when I've created content that's sponsored vs. content that's not, by how the video flows.
They can tell when I'm required to talk about a particular product much longer than any of the other products in my video. There's also FTC guidelines that have to go into sponsorships which you might see above the fold of the description of the video. Some sponsorships are better than others. When a brand allows you the freedom to create whatever it is you want to create and keep your own style to it, those are the sponsorships I love doing. I feel like those brands really get it.
On the other hand, sometimes this isn't the case. Sometimes, a brand will give over a script and it just doesn't sound like me at all. You're probably used to hearing this type of scripted content in podcasts you listen to. Which, is understandable, if a brand wants specific information out there for the public to know about. For example, if it's a skincare brand, you might want to know what ingredients are in the product. Or if it's a food delivery subscription service, you would want to know what meal plans they have for how many servings you're getting, if they have vegan options or paleo or anything that might be more towards what you need.
Going forward with any sponsorships I might create for my YT channel, I've decided I'm only going to upload one a week, if even that. I'm planning to post a new podcast episode each Tuesday and create a video for it on my channel to upload then. Any sponsorship video will go up on Thursdays... and on Saturdays, those days I'll upload whatever the hell I want. I think this'll help with balancing out my content, especially since I like to create a range of content that covers quite a few topics. Also, if you're someone who doesn't like seeing sponsored videos on my channel, you can just skip Thursday's upload. I'm silently laughing at this but I've just noticed such a drop in my videos that are sponsored lately and it is hard to not take it personally. In the future,
I'd love to get more support on Patreon to lean off of sponsorships. I'm excited to dive back into talking about topics I really care about and that kind of content will be here on my podcast and in Tuesday's video uploads. I think for the “whatever I want to upload days” and sponsorships, this will range from anything health related whether its fitness, recipes, to just fun videos like beauty, fashion, social media tips, I've been getting into playing music again and would love to post a cover maybe once a month. I think this'll be a good change and I'm excited about this new schedule.
Again, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic. You can write to me at sarahrocksdale@gmail.com or tweet me, @sarahrocksdale.
I'm thrilled to be back. I also should mention these podcasts will be in on my blog as well in text form so anything I've mentioned you might want to check out will be there with clickable links to get to anything I've brought up.
Ok, I have a mass list of topics I'd like to cover in upcoming episodes. You can vote on next week's episode over on Twitter. The two topics I've picked are either, feminism or... why I don't pray.
Until next Tuesday, take care.
-Sarah
