Creator & Influencer Marketing Glossary
Clear, plain-English definitions of the terms creators and brands use every day, from UGC and link in bio to whitelisting and engagement rate.
Creator marketing
Creator marketing
Creator marketing is the practice of partnering with content creators to promote a brand, where creators make authentic content for their own audiences or for the brand to use in its channels.
Brand ambassador
A brand ambassador is a creator or customer who represents a brand over time, regularly promoting it in exchange for pay, free products, commissions, or perks.
Creator economy
The creator economy is the ecosystem of people who earn a living by making online content, plus the platforms, tools, and brands that pay and support them.
Brand deal
A brand deal is a paid agreement between a creator and a brand where the creator produces and publishes content featuring the brand's product or service in exchange for money, product, or both.
Influencer rate
An influencer rate is the fee a creator charges a brand for a specific piece of sponsored content, typically based on follower count, engagement rate, platform, content format, and usage rights.
Niche
A niche is the specific topic, industry, or audience segment a creator focuses on, which determines the brands they attract, the campaigns they qualify for, and their ability to command premium rates.
Lead magnet
A lead magnet is a free resource or offer a creator provides to their audience in exchange for contact information, typically an email address, used to build a direct-owned audience off social platforms.
DM automation
DM automation is the use of tools to automatically send direct messages to followers who interact with a post in a specific way, such as commenting a keyword, to deliver a link, resource, or offer without manual effort.
Comment-to-DM
Comment-to-DM is a growth tactic where a creator asks their audience to comment a specific keyword on a post, triggering an automated direct message that delivers a link, freebie, or offer to the commenter.
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing where brands pay social media influencers to promote products to their followers, using the influencer’s trust and reach to drive awareness and sales.
Whitelisting (creator whitelisting)
Whitelisting is when a creator grants a brand permission to run paid ads from the creator’s own social media handle, so the ad appears to come from the creator rather than the brand.
Creator outreach
Creator outreach is the process of finding, contacting, and partnering with content creators for a campaign, usually via personalised messages or email to propose a collaboration.
Micro influencer
A micro influencer is a creator with roughly 10,000 to 100,000 followers, valued by brands for high engagement and a trusted, niche audience at affordable rates.
Nano influencer
A nano influencer is a creator with roughly 1,000 to 10,000 followers, known for very high engagement and a close, trusting relationship with a small local or niche audience.
Macro-influencer
A macro-influencer is a social media creator with between 100,000 and 1 million followers, sitting between mega-influencers and mid-tier creators in reach and brand deal pricing.
Mega-influencer
A mega-influencer is a creator or celebrity with over 1 million social media followers, typically commanding the highest brand deal rates and broadest campaign reach.
Gifting
Gifting is the practice of sending free products to creators with no guaranteed payment, in exchange for organic content or review posts at the creator's discretion.
Product seeding
Product seeding is a brand strategy of sending free products to a large volume of creators or potential customers to generate organic social buzz, reviews, and word-of-mouth at scale.
Sponsored post
A sponsored post is a piece of content a creator publishes in exchange for payment from a brand, which must be disclosed as advertising under FTC and platform guidelines.
Paid partnership
Paid partnership is the official label used on Instagram and Facebook to disclose that a creator was compensated by a brand for a piece of content, powered by Meta's branded content tool.
FTC disclosure
FTC disclosure is the legal requirement in the United States that creators clearly and conspicuously disclose any material connection to a brand, including payment, gifting, or free products, when publishing content about that brand.
Deliverables
Deliverables are the specific content assets a creator is contractually required to produce and publish as part of a brand deal, including format, quantity, platform, and timeline.
Influencer marketing platform
An influencer marketing platform is software that connects brands and creators for campaign discovery, outreach, contracting, content approval, and payment, replacing manual spreadsheet-based influencer management.
Ambassador program
An ambassador program is a long-term brand partnership arrangement where selected creators represent the brand consistently over months or years, typically receiving recurring compensation, product, and exclusive benefits.
Content
UGC (user generated content)
UGC, or user generated content, is photo and video content created by everyday creators or customers that a brand uses in its own marketing, such as ads, social posts, and product pages.
UGC creator
A UGC creator is a person paid by brands to produce authentic photo and video content for the brand to use in its own ads and social channels, rather than to post to a large personal following.
Content creator
A content creator is someone who produces and shares photo, video, audio, or written content online, often building an audience and earning income through brand deals, UGC, and monetisation features.
Content rights
Content rights define who owns and can use a piece of creator-made content after it is published, including whether the brand can repurpose, run as ads, or redistribute the content beyond the original post.
Organic vs paid content
Organic content is published naturally without paid promotion, while paid content involves a brand sponsoring or boosting a post with a budget to extend its reach beyond the creator's existing audience.
Call to action (CTA)
A call to action is a direct instruction within a piece of content that prompts the audience to take a specific next step, such as clicking a link, using a discount code, or leaving a comment.
Collab post
A collab post is an Instagram feature that lets two accounts co-author a single post, which appears on both profiles simultaneously and shares likes, comments, and reach across both audiences.
Story link sticker
A story link sticker is an interactive sticker in Instagram and TikTok Stories that links directly to an external URL, replacing the legacy swipe-up feature and available to all accounts regardless of follower count.
Monetisation
Link in bio
A link in bio is a single landing page linked from a social media profile that holds multiple links, used because platforms like Instagram and TikTok allow only one clickable link in the bio.
Barter collaboration
A barter collaboration is a deal where a brand gives a creator free products or services instead of cash, in exchange for agreed content such as a post, reel, or stories.
Media kit
A media kit is a creator’s one-page summary for brands, showing their audience size, demographics, engagement, past partnerships, content examples, and rates.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a performance model where creators earn a commission for each sale or action driven through their unique link or discount code.
Usage rights
Usage rights define how, where, and for how long a brand can use a creator’s content, such as on organic social only, in paid ads, or across all channels, and are priced separately from content creation.
Rate card
A rate card is a creator’s published price list for deliverables, such as a reel, a set of stories, a UGC video, or usage rights, that brands use to budget partnerships.
Affiliate link
An affiliate link is a unique tracked URL given to a creator so that any purchase or sign-up made through that link is attributed to that creator, who earns a commission on resulting sales.
Social commerce
Social commerce is the practice of selling products directly through social media platforms, enabling users to discover, evaluate, and complete purchases without leaving the app.
Creator fund
A creator fund is a pool of money distributed by a social media platform to creators based on video views or content performance, designed to incentivise content creation on the platform.
Metrics
Engagement rate
Engagement rate is the percentage of a creator’s audience that interacts with their content, calculated as total engagements (likes, comments, shares, saves) divided by followers or reach, times 100.
CPM (cost per mille)
CPM, or cost per mille, is the cost a brand pays per 1,000 impressions or views of a piece of content, used to compare the efficiency of creator and ad placements.
Reach
Reach is the total number of unique accounts that saw a piece of content during a given period, distinct from impressions which count every view including repeats.
Impressions
Impressions are the total number of times a piece of content was displayed, counting every view including multiple views by the same user.
Conversion rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of people who took a desired action (purchase, sign-up, click) out of the total who saw or clicked a piece of content or ad.
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
ROAS is the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising or influencer marketing, calculated by dividing total revenue attributed to the campaign by total spend.
Cost per engagement (CPE)
Cost per engagement is the total campaign spend divided by the number of engagements (likes, comments, shares, saves) generated, used to measure how efficiently a campaign drives audience interaction.