When to put money behind a creator video

A brand that sells a shampoo bar — solid, no bottle, one bar instead of the jug in the shower — has two creator posts up. Both went out last week, both on the creators' own accounts, both about the bar.

One of them put up a count the brand has never seen. Somebody pulls it up in a meeting and says: let's put money behind this one.

That's not a reason you can take with you. The count is the only thing anyone in the room has looked at, and it's the one thing that stays behind. Delivery — how the post gets in front of people — is the part you're replacing, and how far it got is what the delivery produced. Paying buys a delivery you specify. Not the one that produced what you saw.

Where did that result come from?

Two things, and only one of them comes with you.

A creator post that's up is doing two jobs at once. It's saying something, which is the video. And it's being carried to people, which is the delivery. What you see when you open the post is both of them together, already mixed, with no line down the middle.

The mixing is why the meeting goes the way it does. The count is the biggest thing on the screen and the easiest thing to read, and the delivery is part of what put it there. Part of it may sit on the video's side. But you can't get that part back out of the number, because the number doesn't keep the two sides apart.

For the shampoo bar: two posts, two creators, two sets of comments, and two counts that aren't close. Nobody has separated anything yet.

What does paying change?

Only the delivery.

Organic content is content that got its delivery without you paying for it. Paid media is you buying the delivery. When you run a creator video as paid media the video doesn't change. Same cut, same opening, same words. What changes is the delivery: you specify the one you're paying for, instead of keeping the one the post already had.

So the delivery that produced what you're looking at isn't the one you're about to buy.

This guide draws the line there. An observation is a reason to spend only if everything it recorded comes with you when the delivery changes. What the video did to somebody who watched comes with you. How far it got doesn't.

That gives the should-we question one input: what did the video itself do. Anything you answer it with has to meet that condition, and it has to be something you wrote down before the post went up. Whether you're allowed to spend at all is a separate gate, and it was settled, or wasn't, before the shoot.

How do you tell the two apart?

Not in the number. In the notes you wrote before any of this happened.

The first move is a record you already have, or don't. Before either post went up you wrote a note saying what the video had to land, and under it a list of the signs that would show it had — whether a video worked is answered out of your own notes, and those notes are the input here too. Signs on the list count. Things that aren't on it don't, and yes, that throws away the odd real signal nobody thought to write down. That's the trade you made when you wrote it early.

The second move runs once, over the whole list, before you open either post:

Swap the delivery out. Does this come with you?

If the sign names something about how far the post travelled, it doesn't. That came out of the delivery you're replacing, and so does a sign naming who the post got to rather than what somebody did after watching. If it names something a person did after watching, it does.

And if a sign names somebody passing the post on, keep the passing on and drop where it went from there: that somebody passed it on is a thing a person did, and how far the passing on then carried the post is the delivery again. You aren't keeping the sign as written. You're keeping the half of it that's a thing a person did, and that half stands on its own. The delivery had to put the video in front of them either way — but what that person then did is evidence of what the video did to somebody who watched.

That move earns its place because lists have how-far-it-got signs on them. People write down "it gets in front of more people than anything we've posted" next to "people ask what it lathers like", and the two look alike on the page.

For the shampoo bar: the note said a viewer should come away knowing the bar is shampoo and not soap, and that one replaces a bottle. Four signs were on the list under it. People asking what it lathers like. People asking how long one lasts. People repeating the creator's line about no bottle in the shower. And it getting in front of more people than anything the brand had posted.

Run the question over them. The one about getting in front of more people names how far the post travelled, so it goes. Three left.

You have two posts. Which one?

Run both against those three. The test runs on each post alone, so it makes a video eligible rather than chosen. If both clear it, you're choosing between two eligible videos, and this guide doesn't hand you that choice. Both clearing it isn't the case here.

Under the first post, all three are there, and every one of them needed somebody to watch and come away with something. The note said a viewer should come away knowing that one bar replaces a bottle, and how long one lasts was on the list under it.

Under the second, one thing is there, and it's the one about getting in front of more people, the one the question already threw out. The comments are about the creator's bathroom and the song. Nothing else from the list is there.

So the first gives you three things to spend behind and the second gives you none. The count isn't a tiebreaker between them. It answers a different question.

For the shampoo bar: if money goes behind either of these videos, it's the first. It's the only one with anything from the list under it to spend behind.

Which permission does running it need?

This part isn't decided today. Open the agreement and read it.

Two permissions cover it. Running the video as paid media from your own account is a usage rights question — whether you're allowed to reuse it that way at all. Running it from the creator's handle is whitelisting, which is its own permission, because reusing somebody's video and advertising as them aren't the same thing.

Both should have been settled before the shoot. What's left today is reading which one you're holding, and finding out you're holding neither is also an answer.

What do you look for once the money is in?

The same three signs you sorted out before you spent.

You picked this video because people watched it and came away asking what it lathers like. So that's what you go looking for again: the lathering question, the how-long-it-lasts question, and the creator's no-bottle line coming back. Those were the evidence going in and they're the check coming out.

If they come back, you're watching the same video do the same work under a delivery you specified. If they don't, you change one thing on the delivery side and hold everything else — same video, same permission, same list. The reason is the usual one: when something moves you want to know what moved it. Change three things at once and the next result is another mixed number, which is the problem you started with.

The video isn't the thing you change. Change what's inside it and you're not running the video the evidence was about any more, so the list stops being a check and goes back to being something you write for a new one.

When the answer is no

Sometimes nothing from the list is there and the only thing under a post is how far it got. This is the decision, not a harder version of it, and the answer is that you don't spend.

Partial is a different case. What's there is what you'd be spending behind; what isn't stays off the check you run afterwards.

And having something from the list under a post isn't an instruction to spend — it only tells you what the spend would be for, which is the thing nobody knew when the meeting started.

What the second post left on your list was a how-far-it-got sign. The next thing is the next video.

For the shampoo bar: the second one doesn't get money behind it, and nothing already under it is going to change that.

Frequently asked questions

The creator disclosed the brand relationship on their post. Does anything change when we run it as paid media?

The connection between the creator and the brand is what gets disclosed, and paying for delivery doesn't remove it. The FTC's guidance for influencers is that a material connection between a creator and a brand should be disclosed clearly.

• Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers

Read it yourself, and if the stakes are real, ask a lawyer rather than us.

We didn't write anything down before it posted. Is there a way to do this now?

There isn't, for this one, and the way back isn't a harder look at the post. Write the notes for the next one before you go looking at anything else.

See what this looks like for your brand

Got a post up, and something you wrote down before it went up? We'll go through it with you. Nothing written down, and we'll start with the next one.

Our team not only finds the right match but runs them through full operations, and constantly checks metrics so you know which ones to boost.

Or email us: business@popow.ai