• That's a great question and a lot of agencies, not Fohr Card, but a lot of agencies try and silo influencers away from the brand because they want the brand to feel they need to go through that agency to be able to work with that influencer.

    It's not the way we do things. If you ever work on a campaign with us and you want an introduction to the brand, we are more than happy to pass that along and a lot of ways we want to remove ourselves from that relationship so that you and the brand can work together so that's why we're awesome, but if you're not working with Fohr Card, I think you can always ask. It might put them in a weird position of trying to skate around it and why they don't want to give you that contact.

    But one thing that you could say is, "I like to send a thank you note, could I get an email address to the person who’s the brand rep?" It would be hard for them to say, "No you can't send a thank you." Maybe structure it that way. Don't push too hard. Understand that the agency is there for a reason and the brand has hired the agency for a reason so once the brand if you get that email and you send the thank you, don't push them too hard to try and work with them.

    If you have an idea for collaboration, I would start by going to the agency, if that agency generally represents that brand because you don't want to be seen to be jumping around the agency because the agency might then be less willing to work with you in the future thinking, "You're trying to like go around us and cut us out of this relationship." Most people are totally reasonable.

    They'll give you that contact, send the brand the email, tell them thank you, check in every six months or something. Let them know you're still alive, send them some content. If you did a post for them organically, send it to the agency, but maybe also CC the brand person. You don't have to do much to let people know that you exist and I wouldn't try and steal the relationship, but if you email the brand and they want to go to lunch with you and they want to hang out or they want a relationship with you then you're totally fine.

    You should definitely pursue that. It is possible. You shouldn't get too much pushback, but I find that wrapping it in a, "Hey I want to say thank you," makes it harder for people to say no because then they're big assholes if they don't want people to give a thank you note. That's the show. If you haven't bought tickets, what are you doing? You should definitely do that.
    Episode #71
    - Instagram Ads, Setting Expectations, Maintaining Relationships