#gifted: Why Influencer Gifting Doesn’t Work

Firstly, it’s important to understand the difference between optional #gifted and gifted collaborations with posting obligations when it comes to influencer gifting.

If your brand are sending PR products to influencers and content creators without any posting obligations in the hope of building a good relationship with that creator then great. If the creator is happy to accept that influencer gifting and potentially create some content around the products labelled as #gifted if they love them, then that’s a win-win for everyone. Your results are going to be limited but no harm is being done.

However, if you as a brand are contacting creators and asking them to create content just in return for those gifted products only, then we highly recommend that is something you move away from as soon as possible.

Does influencer gifting work in general?

In short and in our opinion, the answer is no, influencer gifting does not work. As we’ve gone over, if you’re happy to send creators gifted products for free in the hope they like the products and create content on them then that is great. Most brands do this.

But, if influencer gifting is the entire basis of your content creator strategy and you’re hoping to see huge results and content returns, then unfortunately that just isn’t going to happen.

Influencer gifting can “work” in an extremely limited capacity, but it still needs to be carried out in addition to a paid strategy like UGC. If your brand has just worked on gifted collaborations before, seen little to no results and has therefore been turned away from creator collaborations, we suggest giving paid UGC collaborations a try.

The benefit of influencer gifting collaborations without posting obligations

The only benefit to influencer gifting collaborations without posting obligations is that you may get some low-impact organic content every once in a while. That’s it. It can actually be fairly time-consuming if you do it in-house and costly if you partner with a dedicated gifting agency.

Ultimately if you’ve worked with a creator for a long period of time, only providing them with gifted products every so often, you aren’t building much of a mutually respectful working relationship there at all.

That kind of partnership isn’t really beneficial to anyone. Creators need to see some form of trust and respect from you in order to want to create content for your brand.

In our opinion, sending them products every so often in the hope they create some content essentially for free, isn’t the right way to build that level of respect.

What is wrong with gifted collaborations with posting obligations?

A few brands unfortunately still expect creators to create content in return for products. This is an extremely exploitative practice.

Here, brands are effectively getting smaller creators to spend their time producing content for free in the hope the brand may pay them for future work. Often brands will even suggest there is the potential for paid work in the future after an initial influencer gifting campaign, when in actual fact all they are looking for is some cheap and quick gifted content.

Paying a contractor a fee for their services should be a given across the board.

This is no different if you are contracting a content creator. Their service is creating content so pay them for it. Not only is it the right thing to do but also the quality of content will be vastly improved and you will see far better results.

If gifted-only collaborations with posting obligations are something your brand has done previously and is a part of your upcoming digital strategy, then we would suggest leaving that firmly in the past.

UGC; The cost-effective way of working with creators

As you may have guessed, we strongly advise your brand prioritise UGC over influencer gifting and #gifted collaborations as a whole. With UGC creator collaborations, unlike with influencer gifting, you are guaranteeing content in return, which is ultimately what you as a brand are looking for in order to grow your reach, brand awareness or sales.

It’s also much more cost-effective and impactful than organic content creator posting. UGC can be done on a strict budget meaning it’s available to all brands of all shapes and sizes, and paid boosting of UGC is going to yield far better results than simply organic gifted uploads on a creator’s page.

So, let’s agree to leave influencer gifting and especially gifted only collaborations in the past. Let’s look to start paying creators fairly for their time and talents for not only their benefit, but for your brand’s benefit as well.