Who is an influencer?
An influencer is a person who has a large following, particularly on social media, and can influence these followers to buy a product or service from a business, a brand, or a company.
If you are a marketing executive, a brand ambassador, a social media marketing guru, a mini-influencer, or even a WhatsApp TV owner, then you can also relate well to this article.
Why Do You Need To Protect Yourself As An Influencer?
As an influencer or you offer any of the above-described services, then your duty to your client is to promote their products and services and inspire potential clients to buy these products. Now before you can do this for them, there would have been some sort of payment or transaction between you and the company. This transaction is the business. This is why you need legal protection.
As a brand influencer, you are running a business and you need to protect this business legally. If you do not do this, your client could cheat you in the following ways.
As an influencer who intends to make money and be successful in the business, you would not want to be caught with this kind of issue. You know that issues like this can affect your business and you would most likely regret it at the end.
So many things can happen to you when you find yourself in this situation. One prominent one is that you lose money doing the transaction for the client. You might lose referrals or business with that client and be dragged on social media.
How Can You Protect Your Business As An Influencer?
There are three steps to protect your business as an influencer.
- Research about the company or brand: As an influencer, you need to do your research very thoroughly about the brand or the company that reached out to you for promotion of their products or services. You need to be sure that the brand or company is not a scam or an illegal company. You also need to be sure that the products or services you are contacted to influence or promote works and would work for your audience and are not illegal. This is to protect your reputation as an influencer.
- Proper business transaction meeting: After your research, it is important that you do a proper business transaction meeting where you discuss the business transaction in details and before you start fulfilling your own part of the agreement. Although the online space has made it easier as you can have virtual meetings with your potential clients before you make the move to sign a contract or an agreement to seal up the deal. If you would be having such meetings, make sure you have these meetings with a legal practitioner.
In this meeting, make sure you discuss everything you would be doing for this client in details. You should discuss things like the effective date of commencement of the promotion, whether the campaign is a one off one or an ongoing business relationship, what the campaign would be for, whether you would need to make trips, who would fund the trips etc.
- Review or drafting of agreement: After the meeting, the next is to request for an agreement which would be reviewed by your legal practitioner. If you decide to draft the agreement, then make sure it is the appropriate agreement for the transaction. For this, it is highly recommended that you contact a legal practitioner to do this for you.
What Are The Laws Guiding The Influencer Business In Nigeria?
It is important to note that there are no specific laws that regulates social media marketing or promotion under which the business of influencing can be categorized. However, the Advertising and Practitioners (Regulations) Act No 55 of 1988, Cap A7, Laws of the Federation 2004 provides a statutory framework to regulate advertisers in Nigeria. However, the general rules of Contract must be strictly adhered to when drafting an influencer agreement.
Also, since influencing is broadcasting a client’s products, the rules in the NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMMISSION ACT also REGULATES IT. This act is responsible for regulates the broadcasting industry in Nigeria.
What Is An Influencer Agreement?
This is a contract executed between a party contacted to market or promote a product or service of a particular brand through social media and the brand or company who contacted the brand. This agreement should be executed to protect both parties in the transaction especially the influencer. It covers all the necessary information of the campaign between the influencer and the brand or company.
It is advised that this agreement should be drafted and reviewed by the influencer’s legal practitioner because there are certain clauses that must be inserted in the agreement that the influencer may not have understanding about. This is to prevent disagreement and misunderstanding after the influencer might have started promoting the brand’s product or services.
As an influencer, you want your business transaction with the company to go smoothly and if possible, continue doing business with the company as an influencer. To achieve this, you have to do the right thing with your agreements.
Information Needed To Draft/Review An Influencer Agreement
In order for your legal practitioner to draft or review an influencer agreement for you, you would need to provide the following information.
- Your name and the name of the company or brand.
- Your address and the address of the brand.
- The effective date of commencement of the promotion.
- Whether the campaign is a one-off engagement or a continuous process.
- The purpose of the campaign.
- What you want to influence. Product or services.
- Whether you would need to also sell the products.
- Whether you would need to make trips for the campaign.
- Who would fund the trip?
- The specific trips that you are required to take.
- Whether you would be able to promote other people’s products.
- The amount you are expected to be paid for promoting their products and how the money would be paid.
- Whether you would be receiving free products from the company and the type of free products.
- The expected deliverables you need to make during the promotion and the number of times.
- The platforms you are expected to promote the products.
- Do you have to seek approval from the brand before you make a post for the products?
- The specific details of the tasks, functions, and duties you are expected to do.
- The date the agreement would expire. The day you stop influencing for them.
- Length of notice if the brand decides to terminate the agreement before the expiration date.
- Method of resolving a dispute.
When you provide all this information, it would be easier for your lawyer to do a quick job of drafting or reviewing the agreements. It would also aid your lawyer to advise you on specific information in the agreement.
The expected duration of drafting and reviewing is between 2-5 working days where all information is provided and you are available to communicate with your lawyer effectively and real-time.
You Can Also Contact Me On 07030446925 Or Send A Mail To lylegalpractice@gmail.com To Draft An Influencer Agreement For You.