Creators, contracts and what actually moves the number

It depends on whether you need trust or reach. Nano creators under 10k followers have the highest engagement and the most believable recommendations, and often work for product plus a small fee. Micro creators up to about 100k are the reliable middle. Macro creators buy reach, not belief.

For most D2C brands the answer is a tier of micro creators with one macro name on top, not the other way around.

Instagram for discovery and proof — short, repeatable, and the format people already scroll. YouTube for consideration, where someone will give you eight minutes and come out actually understanding the product.

If the product needs explaining, YouTube earns its cost. If it sells on looking good, Instagram does.

Fewer than most brands assume, posting more often than most brands ask for. Three creators posting three times each beats nine creators posting once — people need to see a recommendation more than once before it registers as a recommendation rather than an ad.

One-post deals also give you no data. By the third post you know whether that creator's audience actually converts.

Only if usage rights were agreed before the shoot, and this is the single most expensive thing brands get wrong. The post performs, you want to put budget behind it, and you cannot — because nobody wrote it into the contract.

Asked before the work, creators almost always say yes. Asked after, they almost always charge. We agree usage up front on every campaign.

Tracked links per creator, so you get cost per click and cost per acquisition by name rather than one blended number for the campaign. Then a plain list of who to run again and who to drop.

Views and likes are reported because you will be asked for them, but they are not what decides the next campaign.

Three things, in order. A brief so tight the creator sounds like a press release — their audience follows their voice, not yours. A creator picked on follower count instead of audience overlap. And no usage rights, so a post that worked cannot be scaled.