Have you ever seen a post from a creator you follow maybe in Instagram Stories or in your feed and you notice it’s marked as sponsored?
The majority of the time, this is not the creator running their own ad. Instead, it’s something called Whitelisting. And it’s pretty common for brands to want to do. And yes, you should 100% be charging for this. Let’s get into what is whitelisting and how to charge for it as a content creator.
What Is Whitelisting? And How To Charge For It
We’re seeing a new trend in blog and social partnerships and what’s being included in these contracts. And that’s granting rights to Whitelisting. Whitelisting means you the influencer, give access to a brand partner to access your social media accounts to run ads on your behalf.
A whitelisted post will look like it’s coming from your blog social media account, but the copy, the image, the link, will be written by the brand who was given access.
What Is Whitelisting?
In a nutshell, whitelisting is a great opportunity for brands to gain traction with ads, utilize your look-alike audience and really maximize their influencer marketing strategy. Which may be beneficial to you.
The brand will use the access you grant them to your social platform (this is safe to do through the Facebook Business backend). Then the brand will run ads as if they are posting as you.
This feels more authentic than them, the brand, making more ads on Facebook or Instagram. Proof that influencers are trusted and should be charging for their work!
There are some caveats with Whitelisting and risks. So it’s important to understand what whitelisting really means and to be mindful of who you’re giving this access to.
Is Whitelisting Different Than UGC?
Yes and no. UGC, user generated content that is created for brands to use in ads, is technically a version of whitelisting. UGC creators will typically provide the files to the brand to use and may not ever need to post on their own account. This is more like image licensing.
However, whitelisting is really the act of a a brand getting ad partner access to your Facebook profile so they can run their ads through your account. This is a totally safe way to work with brands you trust.
But this type of ad access allows brands to utilize whatever creative images or videos they want. Obviously, they will always use your images or it wouldn’t make much sense. But
Benefits of Whitelisting
One of the main benefits of whitelisting, especially if the brand is utilizing your blog URL or affiliate link in the post, is that it can drive incredible traffic and conversions. Brands are able to put quite a bit of money behind the ads and also usually know how to run more successful campaigns than we can.
This can improve your page views, drive new readers to your site and build a larger fanbase. It may also mean more engagement on your Facebook post or Instagram post and in turn generate new followers.
Risks of Whitelisting
When you allow a brand to run ads on your behalf as a content creator and influencer, you do not have full creative control. You also can not see what they’re creating.
The visibility on the influencer’s end is minimal. This is why offering whitelisting to brands you trust and support is important.
Don’t just offer it to anyone who may create harmful ads, inappropriate ads, and so on. Plus, brands may just utilize your likeness and pretty images to drive clicks to their own site and not yours.
How to Price Whitelisting
Since whitelisting seems to be similar to granting usage rights to images, considering they’ll be running ads, we find that pricing this like you would do with image licensing is best.
This can range anywhere from $250 to $5,000. It really just depends on the situation, the brand, the number of images, the length of offering to whitelist, etc.
Ask Questions!
Don’t be afraid to speak up! If you’re not okay with whitelisting, just ask if it’s something that can be removed from the contract. Or come up with the ads together if that’s something you’d prefer to have control over.
It’s important to ask questions at all times. A few things to ask about include…
- How long will the ad be running for – this will determine the total price
- Can you review the ad – this is rare, but always worth an ask
- See if they’ll utilize your affiliate link in the ad so you can generate revenue for it. This is a good negotiation tactic if they are not giving you a fair rate.
Brands are sneaking this in and it’s important to be reviewing your contracts and speaking up when you have questions!
P.S. If you don’t have a contract with a brand, check out our sample sponsored post contract in the member dashboard! Not yet a member? Become a part of The Blog Societies today for as little as $17/month. Join here!
