Brand safety is always a concern for any business. When partnering with an influencer outside your company to promote your brand, it’s even more important to ensure it goes smoothly.

Influencers are an amazing way to connect with viewers authentically, but they also have the potential to produce content that may not reflect positively on your brand. That’s why brand safety strategies are critical for ensuring that your company is protected from any reputational risk associated with the influencers you engage with.

Let’s look at five important safeguards to guarantee brand safety for your influencer campaign.

1. Do your research

You shouldn’t enter into an influencer marketing engagement lightly. Choosing the right influencer for your brand takes time and extensive research to ensure they are trustworthy and aligned with your brand values.

Choosing an influencer that aligns with your values is vital for ensuring brand safety. For example, an eco-friendly cosmetic company should align itself with influencers that are environmentally conscious in order to maintain consistent messaging.

It’s also important to review each influencer’s audience data to ensure they have a real, engaged fanbase. Keep your eye out for new accounts with large followings, as well as influencers with a high follower count but low engagement rate. You’re unlikely to see real value from these kinds of influencers.

Luckily, influencer marketing solutions can provide much more in-depth information about influencers than what might be readily available for the general public. For example, an influencer marketing solution can analyze the influencer’s followers, content, engagement activity, and historical performance. These key data points can inform your view of how brand safe the influencer’s content is.

2. Create a detailed contract

Before working with an influencer, you should always document your partnership details in a contract to protect both parties. This prevents misunderstandings with the partnership, and creates a baseline for what’s expected from both sides of the agreement.

Here are a few elements that your contract should include:

  • List your content expectations
  • Define your ownership agreement
  • Agree on project deliverables and payments
  • Provide deadlines

Another important aspect of the contract is a non-compete provision. Most influencer marketing contracts will stipulate that an influencer can’t work with a competing brand during the contract period, and up to six months afterward, to avoid sending mixed messages to their audience.

3. Check all content before it’s published

The degree of creative freedom you offer influencers is up to you. Some companies allow influencers to do whatever they want, whereas others would rather have complete control by writing a script.

If you choose the latter, be aware that your message will lose a level of authenticity. Scripted content often sounds like a formal sales pitch and won’t match the influencer’s style. Your audience can pick up on the difference, and won’t be as receptive to the message.

There is a middle ground that gives you control without sacrificing the influencer’s creative freedom. Most companies ask to approve content before the influencer publishes it. You can preview sponsored posts and provide feedback within your influencer management software to make the process quick and easy while also ensuring brand safety.

4. Understand your platforms

Social media platforms have policies and precautions in place to protect brands from inappropriate content. For example, YouTube and Facebook are cracking down on the types of content they allow to ensure ads aren’t shown next to hateful, offensive, or derogatory material.

If you are paying for your ad to run on influencer videos, you now have more freedom to choose where your ad will play to ensure it aligns with your brand safety guidelines.

5. Stay in the know

Your relationship with influencers won’t last forever. You should proactively manage your influencer relationships to stay informed. Keep on top of the latest news on your influencer, so you can properly protect your brand.

For example, if an influencer you work with says or does something that doesn’t reflect your brand values, you can react accordingly – before it negatively impacts your brand. It’s not unusual for influencers to find themselves in some form of controversy. By monitoring your relationships, you can respond to scandals quickly.

By monitoring proactively, you’ll also be able to react positively when an influencer does something which reflects your brand values. For example, if an influencer finds themself going viral with a piece of content, you can hop on this trend while it’s hot.

Get help managing your influencers

Influencer management software can help you keep track of your influencers and react quickly when you see potentially damaging content.

Schedule a demo to see how Influencer can help ensure brand safety for your influencer marketing campaigns.