The short answer: Keep it to one page with eight parts: the product, the single message, the format, the hook, what to avoid, the disclosure requirement, the usage rights, and the deadline. Brief the message and the constraints, never the shot list, because over-specifying the format is what produces content that performs worse than the creator's normal posts. On a Turmeric Co. programme, Augmentum Media generated 4,500+ content pieces from 2,700+ seeded creators, and the VIP briefs delivered 15+ creatives a month at under £90 average cost per video.
What is an influencer brief?
An influencer brief is the document that tells a creator what you need from a piece of content and, just as importantly, what you are leaving to them.
That second half is what separates a brief from a script. A brief sets the boundaries of the sandbox. A script tells the creator where to stand. Briefs produce content that sounds like the creator. Scripts produce content that sounds like an advert, which the audience learned to scroll past years ago and which the platforms increasingly rank accordingly.
As of August 2026, the ranking pages for this question are almost entirely downloadable templates. A template is a useful starting shape and it cannot make the decision that actually matters, which is how much freedom to give away.
What should an influencer brief include?
Eight parts. If a section does not change what the creator does, it does not belong in the document.
# | Section | What goes in it | Common failure |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | The product | What it is, who it is for, how it is used, in three sentences | Pasting the About page |
2 | The one message | The single thing a viewer should take away | Listing five messages, which means none |
3 | Format and length | Platform, format, rough duration, whether audio matters | Prescribing shots and angles |
4 | The hook | What the first three seconds need to achieve, not the words to say | Writing the script |
5 | What to avoid | Claims you cannot make, competitor mentions, anything regulated | Leaving this blank and finding out later |
6 | Disclosure | The exact label required and where it must appear | Assuming the creator knows the rules |
7 | Usage rights | Whether you may repost, run it as ads, for how long, on what platforms | Vague wording that costs you the ad or the goodwill |
8 | Deadline and delivery | The date, the file format, where it goes | A deadline with no delivery mechanism |
Everything else, including your brand history, your competitor analysis and your tone-of-voice deck, belongs in an appendix that nobody reads or nowhere at all.
How long should an influencer brief be?
One page for gifted and seeding work. Two for paid, at most.
The length correlates inversely with the quality of what comes back, and the reason is practical rather than aesthetic. A creator working with a dozen brands reads the first half of a brief carefully and skims the rest. Everything critical must therefore be in the first half, and if the document is six pages the critical parts are structurally guaranteed to be somewhere the creator did not read.
Augmentum Media briefs even high-volume creative programmes on a single page, which is part of how a Turmeric Co. programme sustained 15+ VIP creatives per month at under £90 average cost per video and cut creative testing costs by 55%.
How do you brief a creator without killing the content?
Constrain the message. Release the format.
The creator knows what their audience watches, when they drop off, what hooks work on their account and what reads as inauthentic to people who follow them daily. That knowledge is the entire reason you approached them, and a shot-by-shot brief throws it away and substitutes the judgement of somebody who has never made content for that audience.
The practical test for any line in a brief:
Does it protect a commercial or legal requirement? Keep it. Claims, disclosure, rights, deadline.
Does it protect the message? Keep it, expressed as an outcome rather than as words.
Does it express a preference about how the content looks? Cut it, unless a real constraint makes it necessary.
The line to write is "the first three seconds need to show the product in use", not "open on a close-up of the bottle on a marble worktop, then cut to". The first gives the creator a target. The second gives them a task, and tasks produce compliance rather than performance.
What is the difference between a seeding brief and a paid brief?
They carry different obligations, so they should look different on the page.
Seeding brief | Paid brief | |
|---|---|---|
Posting obligation | None. Say so explicitly | Contractual, with named deliverables |
Length | A short note, sometimes a card in the box | One page, with the rights section spelled out |
Message control | Light. Suggest, do not require | Firm on the message, loose on the format |
Rights | Repost permission at most | Explicit window, platforms and markets |
Approvals | None | One round, or none, agreed up front |
Revisions | Not applicable | State the number, usually one |
The seeding version is the one brands most often get wrong by making it too heavy. A gifted send with a two-page brief attached is no longer a gift, and the creator reads the mismatch immediately. If you are requiring things, pay for them.
How do you brief for content you intend to run as ads?
Say so in the brief, before the content is made, and price it there too.
Retrofitting ad rights after a creator has posted is where most brands lose either the ad or the relationship. The rights section needs to name the window, the platforms and the markets, and the brief needs to tell the creator that ad usage is intended, because it changes how they make it. Content built knowing it will run as an ad tends to lead harder on the hook and land the product earlier.
The commercial side of that conversation, including how to price the rights uplift against your own media maths, is in what to pay for whitelisting rights, and the format decision between Spark Ads and partnership ads is covered in Spark Ads vs partnership ads.
Volume matters here more than perfection on any single asset. A Fussy programme generated 11,000+ creatives for the ad account, and a NOOMA programme produced 1,000+ ad-ready creatives in nine months. Neither of those outcomes comes from briefing harder. They come from briefing lightly, at scale, and letting the ad account decide what worked.
What should you never put in an influencer brief?
Six things, each of which reliably makes the content worse.
A word-for-word script. It produces a stilted read and, on platforms that reward native content, it is penalised twice: by the audience and by the ranking.
A list of mandatory hashtags longer than two. Hashtag stuffing signals advertising and adds nothing on any current platform.
A required posting time. Creators know their own audience patterns better than your social calendar does.
Health or efficacy claims you cannot substantiate. For health and wellness brands this is the line that carries real regulatory risk, and putting a claim in a brief makes you the source of it.
A demand for approval before posting, on gifted work. It converts a gift into unpaid labour with a review process attached.
Anything about your funding, your team or your founding story, unless the story is the message.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an influencer brief and a contract?
The brief tells the creator what to make. The contract sets the legal terms: fee, deliverables, usage rights, exclusivity, disclosure, and what happens if either side does not perform. Rights and disclosure should appear in both, because the brief is the document the creator actually reads while making the content.
Should an influencer brief include a script?
No. Include the message, the hook objective and the claims to avoid, and let the creator write the words. Scripted reads underperform because they sound unlike everything else on that creator's account, which is the exact thing the audience follows them for.
How much detail should you give on hashtags?
One brand hashtag and one disclosure tag is usually the whole requirement. Long mandatory hashtag lists do not improve reach on current platforms and they visibly mark the post as an advert.
What disclosure wording should a brief require?
In the UK the ASA and CMA expect a clear, prominent label such as "ad" placed where it is seen before engagement, and they treat gifted product, affiliate links and discount codes as advertising. Tags like "collab" or "sp" are not sufficient. Specify the exact label and its placement in the brief rather than leaving it to the creator's judgement.
Should you ask to approve content before it goes live?
On paid work, one approval round is reasonable if you agree it up front and turn it around fast. On gifted work, no. Approval rights on unpaid content are the fastest way to end a seeding relationship.
How do you brief nano and micro creators differently?
More briefly, and with more warmth. A creator with a few thousand followers is often working with a brand for the first time, so state plainly that there is no obligation, that imperfect content is welcome, and what to do if they have questions. Formality reads as pressure at that tier.
How do you brief for TikTok versus Instagram?
The message and the constraints stay identical, the hook objective changes. TikTok rewards a hook that creates a reason to keep watching, Instagram Reels rewards a clear early payoff and saves. Specify the objective for each platform rather than writing two different briefs.
How many revisions should a paid brief allow?
One, stated in the brief. Unlimited revisions are how a fixed fee becomes an open-ended engagement, and creators price accordingly on the next campaign.
Can you reuse the same brief across a whole campaign?
Yes, and you should. The product, message, constraints, disclosure and rights sections are constant across the campaign. Only the deadline and any creator-specific note change, which is what makes briefing at volume possible in the first place.
Should the brief state the fee?
For paid work, state the fee, the deliverables and the payment terms together so there is no ambiguity about what the fee covers. For gifted work, state explicitly that there is no fee and no obligation, which prevents the creator assuming a payment conversation is coming.
What file format should you ask creators to deliver in?
Original quality, unwatermarked, and delivered somewhere durable rather than through a disappearing message. If you intend to run the content as ads, ask for the raw file at the point of delivery, not weeks later when it has been deleted from their camera roll.
How far ahead should you send a brief?
Enough time for the product to arrive, be used, and be filmed, which for most health and wellness products means at least two weeks and sometimes considerably longer for anything with a consumption period. Briefing a supplement campaign with a five-day deadline produces content from creators who have not actually tried the product.
Sources
Advertising Standards Authority, Influencers' guide to making clear that ads are ads
Competition and Markets Authority, Social media endorsements: being transparent with your followers
If any of this is useful, the fastest way to apply it is to have someone look at your programme with you. Let's talk.