This past week, numerous YouTubers have been called out in the news for different issues, which led me to this about brand reputation and influencer marketing.

The most notorious of the recent scandals involves James Charles. He's worked with some major brands in the beauty space over the last few years, but this weekend he lost over three million subscribers to his YouTube channel due to a publicized fued that's begun between him and a fellow YouTuber.

My question here is, if you're going to align yourself with the reputation of a third party, which is in fact what influencer marketing is, you're aligning for better or for worse. Yet we see that many influencer contracts only have things like: Here's what I need you to do, here's by when, and here's your compensation. These contracts need to be modified to include brand controls for your own protection.

What happens when they misbehave? What happens when they take activities that will not reflect properly on your brand? What content can be pulled down? When do you have to pay and not pay? When can you sever the relationship? It's very important to figure all of this out upfront and to have a strong contract in place with your influencers. 

If you want to see our guide for developing a solid influencer contract, here's the article. You can also contact us using the form below to get the conversation started on how we can help protect your brand.