A successful blog is an essential part of keeping your brand alive. Social media platforms have come and gone (RIP Vine), however, blogs have withstood the test of time. Blogs will likely exist long after TikTok, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the app while waiting out its demise.

TikTok’s average user in the U.S. now spends about 29 hours a month on the platform while Facebook users are clocking in at 16 hours, and Instagram is only capturing 8 hours of attention.

In fact, Bloomberg reports that TikTok is on track to generate nearly $12B in revenue this year, after raking in nearly $4B in 2021.

Why is TikTok so popular? 

For starters, TikTok has positioned itself as fun, casual and authentic, attracting all age groups. Add to this the fact that younger generations have been using TikTok as a search engine more and more versus the more traditional Google Search, and you have a massive amount of activity centered just in the platform alone. 

Additionally, not only does TikTok have a low barrier to entry by encouraging more amateur — or “real” — videos versus stylized productions, but it also allows users to edit videos directly in the app. The app is designed to be easy and intuitive, allowing anyone to create content that will impress audiences.

The platform has also nailed personalization. The app creates an individualized feed for each user called a “For You Page” (FYP) that pulls content from the app that it thinks you will like based on posts you’ve engaged with.

Customizing your FYP is as easy as tapping the white heart button on a video you like. Or long-pressing on a video you didn’t care for and choosing “Not interested.” TikTok will use these signals to show you content that’s more aligned with what you prefer.

How can creating content for TikTok help my blog?

TikTok is a powerful tool with a massive audience. Harnessing even just a little of its power can expose your blog to new audiences that you probably are not reaching on other social media platforms.

If you have a business account with more than 1,000 followers, TikTok allows you to add a link to your website in your profile so that you can cross-promote your site across channels.

TikToks can also be shared across social platforms. In fact, many creators repurpose their TikTok videos on Instagram Reels, Facebook Stories and Pinterest (note that you’ll likely want to remove the TikTok watermark before posting).

Can TikTok get me more sponsored work?

Yes! Brands know that short-form video is one of the most lucrative ways to generate brand awareness and are actively seeking out bloggers who can write SEO-optimized content in addition to creating TikToks and Reels. Sixty-six percent of companies who have dedicated Influencer spending are already working with creators who regularly post on TikTok and rank it #5 in ROI according to Hubspot.

Our Influencer Partnerships team has seen an increase in interest in short-form video content and have been including it in nearly all the proposals we have created for campaigns this year.

We especially love the results we see from TikTok. Not only do TikTok videos receive great impressions and engagement, but they also drive audiences who are looking for more information back to blog posts. 

In the time it has taken you to read this blog post, nearly half of TikTok’s 700 million daily users have more than likely logged on to the app to start their scroll. Your content could be the first thing they see on their FYP. So, now that you’re in the know about the benefits of TikTok and why it should be an essential part of promoting your blog, go create an account and get posting!

The post Is It Time for You to Embrace TikTok? appeared first on Mediavine.

Before I joined Mediavine, I worked for the headquarters of Panhellenic Sorority, running their social media and their email marketing campaigns in addition to writing for their magazine. While in this role, I got to interact with former sisters-turned-Bachelor-contestants-turned-influencers who had discovered how to market themselves and charge for it. 

Recently, I heard chatter that the minimum you should charge for sponsored work is 4% of your total following and, to me, that seems incredibly low. 

With the rise of Tiktok, a shift to ecommerce on Instagram and an increased emphasis on audio and video content, the demand for sponsored content creation from micro influencers is at an all-time high. 

As the demand and value of this content increases almost exponentially, it’s time to reconsider what you are charging to create sponsored content — I can almost guarantee you are charging far too little. 

My professional life has always led back to Influencer Partnerships. My first internship had me reaching out to what 2015 would consider an influencer to book them for bougie spa outings, trading thousands of dollars worth of medical spa treatments for instagram posts. 

At the time, I thought the prices they were charging were astronomical, but now, on the other side of it all, I realize they were charging too little. You know what they say about hindsight being 20/20.

Content created by influential voices now goes beyond its intrinsic value of brand awareness. Today, influencers provides so much added value: hard conversion to sales and sign ups, cost savings of hiring professional photographers, user generated content and more. 

The amount of money and time you are saving a brand while making them money and increasing brand awareness to your trusted audience should be reflected in your pricing. 

In my role as part of Mediavine’s Influencer Partnerships department, far too often, when putting together proposals for brand partnerships, I find myself bumping up rates from our publishers for blog posts and especially for video creation. 

You read that right — we often bump your rates higher because you deserve more for the work you’re doing.

I think it’s easy to get caught up in “industry rules” and undervalue yourself and the time that it takes for you to create quality content that engages your audience.

“Industry Rules” to ignore:

• 4% of your following
• $100 for every 1,000 followers
• Charging one flat fee for your services and not accounting for the amount of deliverables, equipment needed and delivery date

The industry rules ignore the relationship you have cultivated with your social media community. They also fail to take into account the creative process and time that goes into content creation. 

So, how do you know how much you should be charging?

The best way to determine how much you should be charging is by estimating how much time you will need to complete the project from conception to content going live.

How many hours of planning do you need?

How long will it take for you to brainstorm ideas and map out how to best promote the brand to your audience? 

How long will it take for you to shoot content? 

Do you have to hire a photographer? Are you filming a video? Some campaigns require more effort than others therefore requiring more of your time, and potentially your money. 

How long will it take you to write copy for social media and/or an entire blog post?

Naturally, a 1500 word blog post is going to take longer than social media copy. Be sure to account for how many hours it will take you to write and edit a blog post and copy optimized for each social media channel

You should also take into consideration what the brand is requesting from you beyond content. 

Does the brand want to license your content?

Oftentimes, a brand will want the right to reuse content created by influencers for their own marketing campaigns. Be sure to clarify whether or not the brand wants to use your content as their own and for how long. Most brands license content for six months but others will sometimes want to reuse content for years. You should charge more to license your work and base the amount on how much time they want to license it for.

We recommend at least 10% of the entire content price for six months of licensing. If you don’t know where to start, Getty Images has a handy calculator to give you a better idea of how to structure licensing fees.

Does the brand want exclusivity?

If the brand wants you to promote their products exclusively for a certain amount of time, meaning they’re the only brand in that product category you can create sponsored posts for, you should price your content accordingly. 

The general rule of thumb is to charge the base rate for each month they request exclusivity. If you charge $1200 for a blog post and social shares of a certain makeup brand and they want you to work with no other makeup brands for three months, you should charge them $1200×3.

Remember that you are potentially missing out on collaborations with other brands when you agree to exclusivity and you should price your posts to reflect that.

Does the brand want to whitelist your content?

If the brand wants to whitelist your content, they get control over how it is shared and advertised. This makes the brand seem more organic instead of running advertisements from their own social accounts. Most creators charge a fee similar to their licensing fee for whitelisted content. 

Once you have calculated how many hours this project will take you, you can then assign an hourly rate to your time. After you have found an appropriate hourly fee, you can tack on your fees for content requests.

To find an accurate hourly rate, look up the going rate for freelance content creators with a similar level of experience to you on websites like Glassdoor, Zippia and Comparably. 

To get more insight on how you should charge for licensing, whitelisting and other brand stipulations, check out Social Blue Book. 

When you present your rates to brands, present them as one flat fee with your estimated hourly rate bundled with your usage fee prices.

Once you decide on how much your content is worth, re-evaluate your rate often; as your follower count grows, so does your experience and so does your value.

The post How Much Should You Charge For Sponsored Content? appeared first on Mediavine.

How do I know what brands to pitch?

(more…)

The post How to Find Brands to Pitch for Sponsored Work appeared first on Mediavine.

You can create it manually or use a paid service (like Hashtracking or InfluenceKit) to help pull together and calculate your numbers.

(more…)

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On one hand, hooray! They are willing to pay you real cash monies!

On the other, well… fiddlesticks. Now you have to come up with a rate.

It’s a double-edged sword, especially if the brand is asking for work you’ve never done as part of a paid campaign before.

How do you price yourself?

Spoiler alert: Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to that question. There really aren’t any set standards or guidelines with regards to pricing sponsored work.

Some folks will recommend charging a certain amount of money per 1,000 or 10,000 followers, but that method has its limits.

It will often set too low of a rate for anyone with a smaller but really dedicated following, and on the other end can easily price larger influencers out of many campaigns.

There are, however, a number of factors that we recommend you consider when determining a rate for sponsored work.

Let’s review them, shall we?

THE ONE BIG EXCEPTION

I have one big exception to the “no standards or guidelines” rule, and that is the Getty Image Calculator.

I absolutely love the Getty Image Calculator for pricing usage rights on campaigns.

Simply go to the calculator, plug in the usage parameters a brand is looking for, and it will tell you what a common rate is for the requested rights.

For example, if a brand wants to use a food image in display advertising for up to 6 months, the calculator tells us that a common rate for these rights would be around $1,200.

It is up to you if you feel comfortable with the rates provided by the calculator, but at the very least it can provide a starting point when a brand asks to include usage rights as part of a campaign.

So now that we’ve covered my beloved Getty Image Calculator, let’s go ahead and dive into some of the factors you should take into account when setting your rates.

SIZE ISN’T EVERYTHING

I have already alluded to this, but size isn’t everything when it comes to pricing your work!

Just because you don’t have 1 million followers doesn’t mean you aren’t worth a working wage.

This is not to say that the size of your audience shouldn’t be considered; it should only be one of a number of elements you think about.

ENGAGEMENT

Reader engagement is a huge factor with regards to rates, and can be the biggest counterpoint to a smaller following.

Niche bloggers often encounter the phenomenon of a small following being far more engaged than a massive following.

Often, this is due to the readers desperately needing solid product recommendations.

Let’s say you blog about traveling with your pet. You might have a smaller readership than other more broad travel bloggers, but your readers are so hungry for tips on which hotels are pet-friendly that they will hang onto your every recommendation.

This is wildly valuable to a brand and are the kinds of call-outs to make in a media kit and as you are communicating your value to a brand rep.

QUALITY OF CONTENT

The quality of your content is important to consider as well, especially as compared to the specific asks a brand is making in their scope of work.

Do you take the time to SEO optimize your sponsored work? Factor it in.

Are they asking for image rights and you happen to take spectacular photos? Factor it in.

Do they want a lot of video content and video happens to be your specialty? Factor it in.

Are you getting the idea?

TIME REQUIRED

Considering the time required to complete a project is always something we recommend.

If a project is going to be very time consuming or takes you away from your family for an extended period of time, that’s something for which you need to account for!

OTHER MISCELLANEOUS ASKS

Make sure you have a solid understanding of the full scope of work before sharing a rate.

You will want to take into consideration any variety of miscellaneous asks from a brand beyond the work itself and requested rights.

Examples include turnaround time, number of requested draft reviews, reporting requirements, or any other asks that make things harder or more inconvenient for you.

An ask that we are seeing more and more frequently from brands is the request to turn off ads for their sponsored post. It goes without saying that most brands want to be the only one editorially featured in a post that they’re paying for, but that ask is now extending to ads, which we all know is a totally separate revenue stream.

If a brand is making this request, we suggest at least attempting to kindly explain the nature of programmatic ads and the unlikelihood that a direct competitor’s ads would run in their post. If they still won’t budge? This ask definitely means more $$$ from them to balance the loss of revenue on the ads.

And make sure the ask has an expiration date! We recommend writing into the contract that ads may be turned back on after 30 days.

Similarly, consider your history with a brand. Have you worked with them before? Did they pay on time or did you have to chase them for payment? Do they have a history of last-minute changes?

If they are infamous for being hard to work with, charge them an “inconvenience tax.”

Yes, I am serious! Consider what rate you would have to get to not regret taking on another contract with them and stick to it.

No, don’t tell them this is why your rates have increased since you last worked with them.

But do make sure that you are charging enough to cover the time, energy, and general anxiety you are likely to experience throughout the campaign.

(Oh, and this should go without saying, but never, ever take on a contract with a brand who asks that you not disclose properly or asks you not to use nofollow links!)

HAVE A CLEAR CONTRACT

This is a full post in an of itself, but for now I will say: Make sure you have everything your rate covers listed out in a detailed scope of work within your contract.

You should also make sure that your contract specifies that additional requests, delays in approval, or changes outside of the listed scope may result in additional fees. You always want to make sure you are covered!

At the end of the day, only you can know if you are charging the right amount of money for your work. If you feel 100% comfortable with the amount you are being paid and the amount of contracts you are receiving, that is all you need.

(However, if you find that brands are repeatedly saying yes when you quote your price without any hesitation or attempt to negotiate you down? YOU ARE UNDERPRICED!)

The post Pricing Yourself For Sponsored Work appeared first on Mediavine.

Anyone who has been hit hard by changes to social media algorithms can attest that having diversity among your traffic sources is as important as having a diversified revenue stream.

While search performance is never 100% within our control (thanks, Google), changes to search algorithms are often easier to manage than social media algorithm changes.

But how often do we use our SEO skills as a selling point to brands when negotiating sponsored work?

I’d be willing to bet that the answer is “not nearly enough” when the answer should be “100% of the time!”

So today, let’s talk about why brands should care about your content being optimized for search.

LONG CONTENT IS KING

We talk all the time about lengthening your content here at Mediavine. It’s a big part of increasing your RPM and making more of that sweet, sweet money.

But why should brands care?

First off, many of our long-content recommendations, such as increasing font size and line height, make content easier to read across devices. We know that people click away from hard-to-read content – that goes for brands, too!

Writing long, useful content also demonstrates an ability to engage your readers.

Something I often recommend is to share your average time on page as part of your media kit. A long average time on page shows that readers are really taking in your content, and thus a brand’s messaging.

ANSWER READER QUESTIONS

Google loves content that is useful to readers. One way to make your content more useful is by answering commonly asked questions within the body of your post.

Brands should also love content that is useful to readers. They want to be associated in a reader’s mind with high-quality content.

Additionally, keeping readers on your post and answering their questions keeps a reader from potentially finding the answer from your sponsor’s competitor.

Let’s say you work with Paint Company A. They hire you to create a post on repainting your bedroom.

Scenario 1:

Your post talks about how great Paint Company A is, but doesn’t include any bedroom-painting FAQs. Your reader still has questions after reading the post, so they search and find the answers on Paint Company B’s website.

Now Paint Company B is top-of-mind for them when they head to the store.

Scenario 2:

Your post goes on to answer questions on what brushes or rollers work best when painting the corners of a room, how long you need to wait between coats of paint, and how to clean your walls in future so as not to ruin your paint job.

Now your reader has not only learned about Paint Company A, they have had all of their questions answered, and Paint Company A is top-of-mind as they prepare to repaint their own bedroom.

In which scenario do you think Paint Company A is going to find more value? (Hint: it’s 2!)

KEEP YOUR READERS READIN’

Increasing a reader’s duration on your site by linking to yourself within your posts is obviously extremely beneficial to you, but is it beneficial to your sponsors?

Yes! It absolutely can be!

We always recommend making sure that the content you’re creating for a brand is evergreen and worth promoting and linking to long after the initial campaign period has ended.

If a brand sees that you frequently link to your old content, they will know there is a good chance that you could link to their evergreen content in the future as well.

Long term eyeballs on a brand’s content = long term ROI for them.

SITE SPEED IS YOUR FRIEND

We’re a little obsessed with site speed around here. That’s certainly a well-known fact.

We’re obsessed because Google is obsessed, and Google is obsessed because readers are impatient and want to see content RIGHT NOW.

Well, brand reps are readers, too! And just like easy-to-read content, they want to see fast content and are likely to click away from slow-to-load pages.

HOW DOES YOUR CONTENT RANK?

At the end of the day, all of these little things can add up to big changes in your search rankings.

Remember how we must always, always use nofollow links within sponsored content?

The nofollow attribute changes how Google views a link to the brand. Your link to them may not be boosting their search results directly, but demonstrating that your content often ranks on your target keywords can show them that their branded content could still be found in search.

Are all brand reps thinking in this way with the big picture in mind? Sadly, no.

But you have the ability to help change their ways of thinking!

Part of creating authentic sponsored content is communicating with the brand.

During your negotiations, share some of these points with them. Include some of these facts and figures in your pitches and media kit.

Is it your job to educate every brand rep out there? Certainly not.

But as you develop relationships with the brands you work with, be mindful of opportunities to expand how they think about the ways in which SEO relates to sponsored work.

After all, a rising tide raises all ships.

Learn more from Stephie in her chat on Teal Talk earlier this year! 

The post Why SEO Matters for Sponsored Content appeared first on Mediavine.

These aren’t just buzzwords or the latest trends in the business world. It’s simply a reflection of a very real flaw in our society that demands to be addressed.

According to the US Census Bureau, America is becoming increasingly diverse with all racial and ethnic minorities growing at a faster rate than whites from 2015 to 2016. In fact, it’s projected that people of colour will make up the majority of America’s population by 2043 – that’s just a little over two decades from today! 

And that’s just diversity in terms of race and ethnicity. That doesn’t even address the growing diversity in other intersections of identity that run the gamut from religion to gender, from ability to class, from body shape and size to sexuality – all of which reflect the reality of our world. 

Yet the images we see in mainstream media still remain largely homogenous while positions of power across all industries still remain in the hands of the same elite – that is to say white, cis and straight men. 

At Wanderful, we’ve been working to combat this very problem in our area of expertise – the travel industry. As a global community and lifestyle brand that specializes in helping all women travel the world, we’ve been using our platform to exemplify diversity and inclusion in our practices. 

But more than that, we’ve also been at the forefront of pushing influencers and creators in the space to do the same through our Women in Travel Summit (the premier event for travel’s top marketing talent) and our Creator Collective (a community of travel innovators, influencers, business owners and industry marketers).

As influencer marketing grows, especially in the travel industry, we recognize the power of creators to make seismic shifts in the travel industry. We have an opportunity (and a responsibility!) to promote and embody inclusivity by reflecting accurately who is traveling the world, representing our host communities with dignity and respect, bridging cultures, and creating the potential for empathy.

Seems like a lot to take on? Well, no one said this work was easy!

What can you do as a creator to catalyze this kind of change? Here are five specific actions you can take right now to promote and embody inclusivity as a creator and influencer!

Be impeccable with your words

Language is significant. Language affects not just how we perceive the world but how we move through it. What we say, and more specifically, the words we use matter. And it matters significantly when we are trying to create change.

“I believe that if we want to be inclusive, you have to be explicit,” says Natalia Oberti Noguera, CEO of Pipeline Angels, an angel investing firm for women and non-binary femme social entrepreneurs. “I introduce myself by saying: I’m cis, I’m queer, I’m Latinx, and my pronouns are “she/her.”

The language we use is very important, and it helps create inclusive spaces by signaling to others that they belong…it’s so important to intentionally invite diverse people to the table.”

Being explicit with our words means opening the way for deep and meaningful connections with our audience and ultimately creating community.

But more than just being explicit, the words we choose should also be precise. All too often, travel writers can fall into vague, cliché, and frankly, lazy tropes that diminish the richness of the people and places we visit turning them instead into flat stereotypes.

Before hitting publish on that next blog or Instagram post, be sure you’re not falling into these common traps that actively work to silence voices or even erase experiences:

• Generalizing an entire place and disregarding the multitude of cultures, ethnicities and experiences that may exist in that city, country or even continent. 
• Waxing nostalgic for a “lost time” or ancient traditions, or worse, romanticizing the colonial past that violently oppressed/oppresses groups of people.
• Using words like “unexplored” or “undiscovered” or “untouched” erasing the rich histories of these places that are home to many.
• Projecting your interpretation of another culture.
• Using patronizing words and phrases like “quaint”, “primitive”, “exotic” or “they’re so happy despite having so little”.

Our audience relies on us for information and knowledge of faraway peoples and places that they may not have the luxury of visiting. What will we share and how will we share it?

As the great Toni Morrison once said, “Oppressive language…does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.”

Will we expand our readers’ knowledge or limit it?

Share the mic…or give it to someone else entirely!

As travel influencers, we have powerful platforms and a significant opportunity to amplify the voices that often go unheard and the stories that often go untold all around the world. What stories will you choose to tell? Whose voices will you work to amplify?

When writing that next blog post or Instagram post about your latest destination, ask yourself the following questions:

• Whose stories are you choosing to tell?
• Who gets to tell the story?
• Are you the best person to tell this story?
• Who can you share the mic with…or better yet, can you give it to someone else entirely?

As Chimamanda Ngzoie Adichie famously said, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.” These questions are critical for us to consider if we truly want to move beyond stereotypes and instead tell richer, more nuanced stories. 

Need concrete examples of what I’m talking about? Just take a look at these exceptional examples of creators and influencers who moved beyond the single story.

• Think Twice Before Saying You Want to See Cuba “Before It Changes.” Change Is Exactly What Cuban People Want by Jennilee Austria.
  • Jennilee shares the mic with her Cuban friend and his family to give a different perspective from the common refrain we are all too used to hearing in the media (and may have even uttered ourselves!)

• Transgender travel tips: A guide to flying while trans by Bani Amor
  • Cheapflights passed the mic on to queer travel writer Bani Amor to provide this guide to navigating air travel across different trans identities as someone with lived experience as expertise.

• Adventurous Kate’s Viewpoints: Traveling with a Disability
  • Adventurous Kate featured Justine and Dilara of the Pickle Sandwich and interviewed them on their experiences traveling with a disability. Justine is legally blind while Dilara is profoundly deaf.

All of these creators brought unique perspectives that are often ignored in mainstream media. Not only did they share diverse perspectives, but they also passed the mic entirely to someone who was better able to speak to the topic at hand.

Looking for untold stories and amplifying unheard voices ultimately make for more compelling tales. Beyond that, it can also broaden your reach to new and important communities. 

We can’t say this enough – publish, feature, promote, amplify and collaborate with diverse voices!

Dismantle traditional power dynamics in your photography

Just as we need to be intentional and impeccable with our words, so too should we be with the images we share. When sharing photos from our travels, we must be careful not to perpetuate narrow caricatures of the peoples and places that we encounter.

To create a more inclusive world, we need to tell more nuanced stories and critically examine the images we take and choose to share. We can start by asking these key questions:

• Which subjects/who are you choosing to photograph? What are they doing and how does that fit into our pre-existing conceptions of these people or this place?
• What story are you choosing to tell?
• Who is at the center of the photo?
• Who is leading the action?
• What story does body language and positioning tell?
• What are you choosing to include in the photo? What are you cropping out? And why?
• Would you want a photo like this to be taken of you? In short, does it uphold and protect your subject’s dignity?

Remember that people are not objects to be used. They are not monuments or buildings or statues or mountains. People are human, just like you, and they are entitled to respect and dignity.

As travel influencers, we can promote and embody inclusivity by shifting the story of who holds power in our photos. Instead of highlighting exclusively the poverty of a developing country, why not show all of the incredible local activists, educators and artists who are sparking change in their local communities? 

As travel influencers, we can promote and embody inclusivity by shifting the story of who travels. Instead of exclusively centering ourselves in our photos, why not feature other creators from across different intersections of identities who are exploring the world and doing great work?   

As travel influencers, we can promote and embody inclusivity by complicating the narrative.

After all, as the photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams once said, “you don’t take a photo, you make it.”

Make Your Content Accessible

Now that we’ve covered content, let’s talk delivery!

Is your content accessible? That is to say, is your content inclusive for people of varying abilities? Are your website, email newsletters and social media channels providing a good user experience for anyone and everyone who might stumble upon it?

According to a 2018 report from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, 61 million U.S. adults, or 1 in 4 Americans, have a disability that impacts a major part of their life. That’s 25% of your audience!

Is your content designed in a way that’s inclusive of this crucial part of the population? It should be!

Just think about it this way: choosing not to provide a good experience for 25% of your audience is like denying every fourth guest from entering your home or shared space. Is that something you’re prepared to lose out on?

Going even further, a recent survey of Facebook users in 50 countries found that more than 30% of people report difficulty with at least one of the following: seeing, hearing, speaking, organizing thoughts, walking or grasping with their hands. 

Disabilities can affect the way someone moves through the physical world, but it can also affect the way someone navigates the digital world. For instance, someone who doesn’t have full use of their hands may not be able to use a mouse and may use a keyboard or voice input instead.

Someone with a visual impairment may not see text or images as it appears on their computer screen. They may need a screen reader to read the words out loud.

If we want to create digital spaces that are truly inclusive, accessibility must be at the heart of how we develop our platforms and create our content. This includes quick and easy actions as well as more involved and strategic decisions and planning – from providing descriptive captions on our images to choosing thoughtful color contrasts in our texts and designs, and from including transcripts for our videos to developing our websites to adhere to accessibility standards. 

It might seem like a lot to take on, but the good news is that most of the major platforms we use today (think Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WordPress, etc.) are building with accessibility front of mind. There are also tons of resources now available to guide us through this process of accessibility. Here are some favorites:

• Hootsuite’s Guide for Inclusive Design for Social Media 
• Siteimprove’s “How to be More Accessible on Social Media” with a breakdown of actions for each social media platform
• Mailchimp’s Guide for Accessibility in Email Marketing
• Readability test tool for websites – a quick and easy way to test the readability of your work.
• Accessibility test tool for your email

At the end of the day, making your content as accessible as possible just means being an effective communicator and a successful influencer as you are able to reach a wider, more inclusive audience! 

Demand inclusivity from your brand partners

Finally – and this is the big one! – demand inclusivity from your brand partners. Brands are set to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022. We not only have the power to influence our own audiences, but we also have the power to do the same for brands who want to partner with us – and all for the better!

How do you do that?

First and foremost, be thoughtful and intentional when choosing to partner with DMOs, tourism boards or other brand partners. Do your research by looking not just at the value of their products and services, but also digging into their social media accounts and past campaigns.

Are they, like you, telling untold stories, amplifying diverse voices, and building accessibility into their delivery of content, product and services? If not, are they willing to learn and take action towards doing so? 

Do a thorough analysis of their networks to understand their commitment to inclusivity and/or at what stage they are at in their journey towards inclusivity. Who have they worked with in the past? Do they work with diverse influencers or work to amplify traditionally marginalized communities? Are they planning to?

It is critical to understand who makes up their network in this work towards inclusivity. Are there key voices and influencers from diverse backgrounds that they should be working with but aren’t yet? Can you connect them and are they interested in being connected? 

And of course, meet with your potential brand partners to understand their core values and share your own. In the influencer industry, we talk a lot about how “authenticity” is integral to success. And really, what’s more authentic than aligning yourself with brands that share your own values, mission and vision?

Don’t shy away from asking these critical questions to understand who your potential brand partners are and what they stand for. It’s ultimately a reflection of your own brand too. 

If this potential brand partner isn’t yet implementing inclusivity into their campaigns and aren’t even planning to, demand it. Use your influence as leverage to advocate for more diverse voices and faces on press trips they’re organizing, on ads they’re creating, on panels they’re hosting, on all the content they’re sharing. Seize this opportunity to educate them on the importance of inclusivity in reaching a broader and more diverse market. 

As influencers, we have the power to signal the shifts we want to see in our industry and in the world. This is where our true potential for creating change really lies and it’s time we make it happen. 

Now the only question that remains is this – what shifts will you catalyze through your platform? 

For the first time ever Mediavine is offering a scholarship for someone to attend the Women in Travel Summit next year in Kansas City, MO, which would would be such a great way for travel creators to access more practical tools like this. Please get your application in by December 8th to be considered for this incredible opportunity.

About the Author Justine Abigail Yu

Justine Abigail Yu is the PR & Communications Manager at Wanderful, a global lifestyle brand that leverages the powers of sisterhood and community to help women travel the world. Her expertise lies in growing enterprises from the ground up through strategic digital marketing, compelling storytelling and genuine community engagement.

Justine is also a fierce advocate for diversity, representation and ethics in marketing. She also recently launched Living Hyphen, an emerging magazine that explores the experiences of hyphenated Canadians and examines what it means to be part of a diaspora.

Justine Abigail’s mission is to stir the conscience and spur social change.
Social Links: www.justineabigail.com / www.sheswanderful.com
IG + TW: @justineabigail + @sheswanderful

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