Your collaboration journey with a social media influencer starts over social media DMs, emails, and phone/video calls. But it shouldn’t end there.
Every brand and influencer agreement should be formalized into a legally binding social media influencer contract. These contracts transform your informal conversations into official business partnerships with clear terms.
However, many marketers enter into partnerships with influencers without a thorough understanding of the legal considerations involved.
Without a contract in place, you risk disputes over compensation, intellectual property violations, and other complex issues down the line.
In this blog, we will shed light on the legal side of influencer marketing and help you create a social media influencer contract to set clear expectations and avoid any legal headaches.
If all the legal jargon becomes too much for you, you can use our customizable influencer contract template to finalize your influencer deal faster.
What is a Social Media Influencer Contract?
A social media influencer contract or an influencer agreement is a legal document that outlines the terms and conditions of a partnership between a brand and an influencer.
The document clearly states details like:
- What each party is responsible for
- How much does the influencer get paid
- What is the duration and scope of the work
- Who owns the content after posting and other important details
- What happens if either party doesn’t abide by the contract
Having everything written down in a formal contract prevents the brand and influencer from misunderstanding expectations later on. It also gives them a way to resolve disagreements since they agreed to the contract upfront.
Overall, these contracts protect both the company and the influencer. They make sure all parties follow guidelines that were mutually established before starting the partnership. This avoids bad surprises or arguments down the road!
Why Do You Need a Social Media Influencer Contract?
Running influencer marketing means making considerable investments of time, money, effort, and trust in a person operating externally from your company.
Now, in such cases, relying solely on verbal agreements is not the safest thing to do. Contracts safeguard your investments by ensuring everyone understands and holds their end of the bargain.
Let’s break down the two most important benefits of making a social media influencer contract.
Legal Protection for Both Parties
Every time money is involved in the collaboration, the need for a contract arises.
Lawful contracts let brands and talent smoothly work together without worrying about the disruption of rights or money flows.
Everybody knows that violating regulations leads to lawsuits – which no one wants.
If problems happen later on, the contract says what can be done to fix them. This may include settling disputes through mediation, paying fees as penalties, or going to arbitration with the courts.
Essentially, solid paperwork gives brands and influencers security. Creators are ensured proper pay, while companies can enforce commitments. Overall, accountability promotes cooperation.
Clarification of Expectations
Even if everyone gets along, misunderstandings can still happen over assumptions without contracts. What if the influencer never shares performance data? Or if nobody discussed who owns branded content after posting?
Agreements prevent confusion by clearly defining elements like:
- Content expectations
- Reporting needs
- Compensation structures
- Deadlines
- Ownership/usage rights
By now, you might have gotten a simple glimpse of what goes into a social media influencer contract. But since the matter is legal, half-baked information is harmful.
Let’s find out every section of an influencer contract.
8 Important Things to Include In Your Social Media Influencer Contract
We understand the eagerness to make your campaign live after finding the right influencer.
However, before giving your selected influencers a green flag to start working on the content ideas, it’s crucial to note down every aspect of your collaboration on a legally binding contract.
It’s going to be a long document that will cover the following information.
1. Introduction of the Parties
The very first section at the start of any influencer agreement should clearly identify the two central parties entering into the legally binding partnership through the contract.
This section is typically titled the “Parties” and comprises short descriptive paragraphs that name the company/brand and influencer along with key details on each.
The parties section also provides helpful context around the location and core business for the brand, as well as key details on the influencer’s residence and content specialty. This aids in interpreting and applying contract guidelines based on local laws and the nature of the relationship.
2. Details About the Deliverables:
The Deliverables section describes the overall content expectation the influencer will fulfill. It details the post types, product features, platforms, publishing timelines, and quality standards expected in the final branded asset deliverables.
In this section, you also mention the process for content review and approval, including deadlines for submitting drafts and how feedback will be communicated.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of the things you may include in this section:
- The number of posts, their content type, and any creative strategic considerations.
- Platforms and influencer accounts where content must be published
- Visual branding integrations and style guide alignment
- Specific date and time when the posts should go live and the number of times they will be reposted
- Particular conditions or standards, such as prohibitions on specific hashtags, language, or off-brand imagery
- Number of revision rounds and the overall approval process
However, sometimes, you will be dealing with long-term influencer partnerships that involve a lot of projects over time. Cramming details about everything will make the contract long and lengthy.
In such cases, you may have to break out the multi-month details into a separate spreadsheet worksheet and provide a link to it in the contract.
3. Compensation and Payment Terms
Compensation terms are the most crucial part of any influencer agreement. In this section, you outline the agreed financial arrangement with the influencer. This is where you provide clear details on how and when the influencer will be compensated for their services.
You need to specify how you are compensating the influencer for their services. Will they receive a fixed payment, earn commissions based on performance metrics, or be compensated with products? Also, mention your mode of payment.
Then, you move on to describe the timing of payments. Will you pay them half upfront and half after completion, monthly, or after each deliverable is submitted?
Additionally, you can include details on whether the influencer will be reimbursed for campaign-related expenses and if there are bonuses for surpassing goals.
4. Ownership of Content
You need to clarify who will get the ownership of the content created by the influencer. Establishing the intellectual property rights and licensing terms upfront avoids disputes later.
It clarifies what each party can and can’t do with the content after the influencer finishes making it based on agreements about rights, credits, edits, reselling, and more.
5. Confidentiality
Influencer marketing is all about making the world know about your collaboration with the influencer. However, there are a few things about the collaboration that you might not want to reveal to the world.
Such things are mentioned in the confidentiality section. It is designed to protect sensitive information shared between the influencer and the brand during their collaboration.
Things like campaign budgets, contract terms, audience stats, and product launch plans may need to remain fully confidential.
So, while a lot goes public, the confidentiality rules ensure key data stays fully private based on mutual consent. It prevents problems before happening.
6. Compliance With Regulations
While working in tandem with influencers, there are a few legal and regulatory rules that both parties must adhere to throughout the duration of their partnership.
All those rules and regulations get their mention as a separate section in the influencer contract. This section is critical for ensuring that all content created and shared complies with applicable laws and guidelines like FTC and GDPR to mitigate any potential legal and reputational risks.
7. Termination and Breach
Every contract has a termination and breach clauses section that highlights the scenarios when you or the influencer can call off the partnership prematurely.
This section describes what types of situations allow canceling the partnership before the end date originally agreed upon in writing.
Reasons could include things like:
- If the influencer fails to post the number of videos promised
- If the quality of deliverables is not good even after agreed-upon revision rounds
- If the brand doesn’t pay on time
- If the influencer violates the exclusivity clause
- If either party breaks important rules several times
The section also mentions the clause for notifying the other party that there is an issue. It states how much time is allowed to fix the problem before the contract gets terminated forever.
If nothing works, there are rules about the consequences of termination, such as settling any outstanding payments or refunds, removing the influencer’s content, and continuing to protect confidential information.
So, the clause in this section manages how the working relationship dissolves respectfully and fairly if major conflicts occur that can’t be resolved positively. Spelling out terms now softens any future fallout.
8. Dispute Resolution
During your collaboration with the influencer, some disputes may occur. So, in your contract’s “Dispute Resolution” section, you point out how you’ll handle any issues with the influencer. The clauses generally mention holding direct talks, then possibly using a mediator, or going to arbitration.
This section is crucial for providing a clear and structured process for both parties to solve disputes calmly and quickly, protecting your working relationship, and avoiding expensive legal fights.
9. Exclusivity and Non-Compete
How misleading would it be for your audience to see an influencer promoting you and your competitor’s brand simultaneously?
Now, signing a contract with an “Exclusivity” clause restricts them from engaging in similar partnerships or promotional activities with competing brands or within the same industry for a specified period.
The Non-compete clauses go a step further by restricting the influencer from engaging in any business activities that directly compete with the brand, not just promotional activities. This can include working for a competitor, starting a similar business, or promoting competing products or services.
Download a Free Social Media Influencer Contract Template
We have created a comprehensive social media influencer contract example to help you understand how the above-mentioned information gets written in a legally binding agreement.
This is available as a downloadable template, enabling you to see firsthand the structure and content of an effective influencer agreement.
Wrapping it Up!
Creating an influencer agreement is vital to devising a foolproof influencer marketing strategy.
The whole purpose of a social media influencer contract is to safeguard the rights and interests of both the brand and the influencer.
Putting an official influencer contract in place is key for all brand partnerships to go smoothly. These legal agreements prevent future fights by spelling things out front.
And you need to keep the whole process very transparent.
Schedule a one-on-one walkthrough of the document line by line before signing. This allows the brand and influencer to discuss any questions in the agreement upfront in plain language.
Since the matter is legal, it’s always better to consult with a legal counsel before finalizing and signing the agreement.
Remember, a well-structured influencer contract, underscored by clear communication and legal prudence, lays the groundwork for effective and impactful influencer collaborations.
