Maximizing Brand Partnerships

If you’re a blogger, influencer, or creator this episode is one you must listen to. Find Your Influence is a refined search engine that allows creators to opt in to be discovered by brands. Not only does this platform allow creators to become more accessible to brands, but the platform also collects analytics.

Tami Nealy, the SVP of communications and talent relations for Find Your Influence, is here to sit down to talk about the influencer program. In 2013, two women found the need for a technology solution to be able to scale influencers’ business side (allowing them to review content and make payments). Since this kind of platform didn’t exist, they decided to build Find Your Influence.

Find Your Influence was launched in 2013 and opened up new doors for both influencers and brands. Find Your Influence allows brands to pay them to access their platform. From there, brands can send collaboration offers to influencers, and influencers can either accept, reject, or negotiate the offer.

Episode 090: Maximizing Brand Partnerships



About Tami Nealy

At a young age, Tami Nealy remembers her mother telling her that she talked too much. All of that talking has paid dividends today with more than two decades of experience working in corporate communications.

Tami began her communications career working in professional sports (WNBA, Arena Football League, NASCAR) before transitioning to LifeLock as the organization’s 30th hire. During her nearly seven years leading the corporate communications team at LifeLock, she executed hundreds of interviews as a corporate spokesperson, led a team that secured interviews in all 50 states in a single year, launched a partnership with the FBI’s Law Enforcement Education Development Association and helped lead the company to IPO. Following LifeLock, she pivoted to supporting education technology organizations, telling the story of how SaaS platforms could create efficiencies for learners around the globe.

In her role at Find Your Influence, Tami helps tell the story of the industry’s first all-in-one influencer marketing solution. She also leads FYI Talent Management, a boutique talent management agency operating as a division of Find Your Influence.

Tami graduated from Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan earning a Bachelor of Arts in Advertising/Public Relations. Outside of the office Tami is an avid reader and enjoys new adventures with her husband and their teenage son.

Website: Find Your Influence
Instagram: @taminealy
Facebook: Find Your Influence

Find Your Influence

  • Contracts are created through the Find Your Influence program.
  • The creator will post the content to the Find Your Influence platform, then the brand will review the content and let them know if there is anything that they need to add or if there are special hashtags they want them to be using.
  • Once the content is approved, the creator will post and the Find Your Influence system will pull in the analytics as soon as the content is live.
  • The system will track the specific hashtags of the campaign and then the brand can go in to see how the campaign is doing. The brand can also see which creators are doing well and which posts aren’t performing well.
  • Find Your Influence is giving the brands and agencies data to see how their content is performing.
  • They have a division called FYI Talent Management. Today, they manage five influencers. Anytime an opportunity hits one of their influencer’s inbox, management will do the negotiations.
  • Tami starts by asking each influencer what their time is worth? What is your hourly rate? How much time does creating content take you?
  • Christina uses a spreadsheet to calculate how much time she spends on a sponsorship. Brands can see how much goes into creating the content that they want. It’s taken stress off of her from finding a number to give brands.

“You need to understand what the brand’s goals are.” – Tami Nealy

Tami’s Social Media Tips

  • Tami encourages everyone to have a blog. It’s important to post content on a platform you own because you never know when Instagram or other social media networks will become irrelevant.
  • What are brands looking for? What details will make you more findable on the Find Your Influence Platform? Tami says to check as many boxes in your profile that are reasonable and authentic to who you are and what you’re posting.
  • The more verticals that you can touch that won’t seem too far off or unauthentic to your audience, the better.
  • Go back into your profile twice a year to see if everything is up to date. Maybe there’s something that you do now that you didn’t do before so now you can check that box in your profile.
  • Brands are most often asking for Instagram content, particularly Reels.
  • If you’re just now starting on TikTok you can repurpose content that you’ve posted on another platform. For example, repurposing a Reel to TikTok.
  • Even if you’re not on TikTok, Tami suggests claiming your handle.
  • Brands are also asking for Instagram stories because of link stickers. Through link stickers, brands can track how many people are visiting that site.
  • For in-feed promotions brands will suggest putting a link in your bio. TikTok is more of an awareness play for brands because there are no links.
  • If you are putting a link in your bio, you can do it for 24 hours and then tell the brand that you charge extra for anything over that.
  • Tami suggests signing an NDA with the brand so you can see how the campaign performed. When you’re pitching yourself to another brand you can use these metrics without being brand specific.

“Speaking their language. Data is the song everyone sings.” – Tami Nealy

Brand Partnerships

  • Tami suggests looking at your followers and your engagement. Once you get your engagement up that’s when you can get your hourly rate up.
  • Engagement is how many people interact with the content, likes or comments.
  • To find your engagement, add up the likes and comments per post and divide that by your total number of followers.
  • To find out your overall engagement, add up the interactions of your second and third rows of Instagram and then divide that number by six, then divide that by your total number of followers. You’re aiming for a four percent engagement rate.
  • You can also find out your Instagram stories’ engagement rate by choosing some stories and adding those likes and views, divided by your number of followers.
  • Going to brands and telling them your engagement rate is how you explain your costly rate with data backing it up.
  • You want your social media growth to be consistent, you want your followers and your engagement rate to both be going up. The numbers can fluctuate every now and then, but for the most part your numbers should be consistent.
  • Exclusivity is when you give the brand at least five days before posting a similar product from a different brand.
  • Some brands may want months of exclusivity. Tami says that if a brand is asking for that to incorporate that into your rate.
  • Corinne gets her engagement from her blog and newsletter. If this is the case for you as well, Tami suggests telling brands how you can help them.
  • The subscribers that get Corinne’s newsletter every week should be important to the brand because they are more inclined to take action after seeing a product in her newsletter.
  • Brands are paying for impressions and conversions, they’re paying for advertisement and results.

“Brands don’t know what they want, until you tell them what they want.” – Tami Nealy

What’s Next

Make sure you grab your FREE download >> Find Your Influence Demo

You can connect with Tami Nealy on Instagram or email [email protected].

Review & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

If you liked this episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. As always, we’d love to know what you learned in today’s show – send us a DM on Instagram to let us know.


Links Mentioned in This Episode


More Smart Influencer Podcast Episodes You Might Like

Add A Comment