SLA Fundamentals when working with Influencers

Once you’ve secured a suitable partner to run a collaborative content strategy with, as well as the piece of creative that you will be creating together — brace yourself, for the next step is the least sexy, but probably the most important.

Setting an SLA.

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is an agreed upon standard which both parties would adhere to. In the context of collaborative strategies, a sound SLA may include:

• A review of the benefits and goals of each party
• Social media accounts that will publish the news
• Specifying the exact date and time of launch
• Specifying what each party will bring to the table (naturally, the smaller one may carry more weight in the creation process to offset the audience that the bigger brand will provide)
• The points of contact from each brand that will be responsible for leading and aligning on the campaign
• Terms for collecting and sharing leads (where applicable, observing GDPR consent)
• Terms for sharing learnings and analytics (where applicable)

The last thing you want is to have your piece of content launched with no guaranteed distribution.

For that reason, having an SLA in place helps to ensure that each party pulls their weight. This also sets the tone and expectation for future collaborations with this partner given your standard of doing business together.