If you’re an influencer or a talent manager, today’s commentary might make you a little uncomfortable. I’m just going to throw that out there as a warning. But bear with me … I’m going to dish some harsh realities to our brand and agency side friends, too.  

We’ve been talking a lot lately about when to pay influencers. Last week’s commentary answered a listener question about when to transition from paying with only product, to adding cash to the mix. 

But we haven’t really dug into WHY we pay influencers. And depending on your perspective, the answer to that question is different. 

Influencers think we pay them for their talent. Brands think we pay them for their audiences. Talent managers think we pay them for a magical list of exhaustive qualities few of us pay attention to. And agencies think we pay influencers because they’ve duped the world into thinking they’re effective. 

Sarcasm aside, the first thought of why we pay influencers has long been, to get our message in front of their audience. But that WHY is all wrong. 

The problem is there are multiple WHYs in the equation. And those WHYs need to be considered by influencers and talent managers in how they price brand engagements. They also need to be understood by brands and agencies so what they pay is fair.

But what is fair pay for influencer and content creator engagement? We’ll look at the various WHYs and I’ll share what I think is a direction towards fair, in today’s commentary.

This episode is sponsored by Tagger, the complete influencer marketing solution. It has recently released a new product feature called Signals, which provides creator listening for its customers. Tagger president and founder Pete Kennedy joins Jason Falls to explain more about Signals.

To see it for yourself and get a demo of Tagger, visit jason.online/tagger today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices