In the final session of our TalentTrack virtual conference, Content That Clicks, Influencers That Convert: Your Social Media Marketing Playbook, we sat down with two trailblazers in the influencer marketing space: Sarah Gaines, also known as the Six Figure Travel Nurse, and Tracey Parsons, CEO and co-founder of Flockity.
Together, they unpacked what it really takes to build meaningful influencer relationships that drive results in the travel healthcare staffing world. Whether you’re just dipping your toes into influencer marketing or looking to elevate your current strategy, this session was packed with unfiltered insights, practical tips, and straight talk about what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to collaborating with content creators.
Tune in to the video below or dive into the full transcript to catch up on everything you might’ve missed. Trust us—this is a playbook you’ll want to keep handy.
TalentTrack Session 5 Transcript
Carly Miller
Hi, everybody, or welcome back if you’re just now tuning in. We’re so glad you’re here. We just wrapped up session four, which was an amazing conversation with Oliver and Youssef about what they wish agencies knew. And now somehow we’re already at our last session of the day. I’m really stoked to dive into this one. It’s called Content That Clicks, Influencers That Convert, Your Social Media Marketing Playbook. For this session, we’re joined by two incredible experts in influencer marketing, Sarah Gaines and Tracey Parsons. Sarah and Tracey, I’ll turn it over to you to introduce yourselves and give a little bit of background on who you are before we jump right into the questions.
Sarah Gaines
Hi everybody. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Sarah Gaines, also known as the Six Figure Travel Nurse. I’ve been in the industry for about 15 years, and I traveled for 10 of those years. During that time, I built a digital community of about 100,000 healthcare professionals across platforms as well as my private community. So, I’m really, really excited to share my perspective, not only as a travel nurse, but also as an influencer and an entrepreneur who’s been on both sides of the influencer collaboration. Excited to get into the tea.
Carly Miller
Yes, Sarah, thank you! Tracey, you want to introduce yourself next?
Tracey Parsons
Absolutely, my name is Tracey Parsons, and I’m the CEO and co-founder of Flockity. Flockity is essentially influencer marketing for jobs. I’ve been doing recruitment marketing and employer brand work since the late 1900s. And I’ve got to watch all of this grow up and change and evolve. And Sarah and I have had some amazing conversations in preparation for this conversation. I am a huge fan. So I may fangirl a little bit on you, Sarah.
Carly Miller
I love it. Well, I’m going to fangirl for both of you. I’m so pumped for this session. I think that you both bring such unique experience to the table, and I’m excited to hear how both of you will approach these questions. So without further ado, we’ll dive right in here. We’re going to be talking a lot about influencers and influencer marketing in this session, which is going to be really valuable to agencies who haven’t explored these avenues yet. But even for those that have, you’re going to get a unique perspective on the world of influencing, how to do it right, and the power that a great influencer strategy can have on your agency. We also have some nurses who signed up for TalentTrack. I’m not sure if they’re tuning in live, but I think Sarah, your perspective from being a travel nurse and kind of converting into an influencer role will be really helpful for those people to hear as well. So, with that being said, some agencies are all in on influencer marketing and have really embraced it, while others are still maybe on the fence. So, I’d love to hear your thoughts on why you think agencies might be hesitant to work with influencers and how can this sort of trust gap be addressed?
Sarah Gaines
I would say from my experience, most agencies are terrified to work with influencers because there’s no guarantee on the return on investment. There’s just no guarantee on the ROI. And if you’re not familiar with social media, it could feel very random and sporadic. You can’t predict the metrics. You can know what metrics you want to look at, but there’s just no guarantee. So a lot of their fear is based on what if I spend all of this money on an influencer? And I get no conversion, no views, whatever their goal may be.
Tracey Parsons
Yeah, and I mean, I think it always goes back to control. Whenever there’s anything new in our space, and again, please keep in mind, I was the jerk that was telling everybody in the universe to stop advertising in newspapers and start putting it on the internet. Like this is, when I say like the late 1900s, I was the one that was calling, hey, I saw that you had like a $6,000 line out in the newspaper. Do you know you could put that on the internet for $200? And they would be like, wait, what? And so like, I’ve watched the evolution of all of this from the front row. And I will tell you that it always boils down to control. And exactly what you were saying, Sarah, like, people are like, well, well, I need to control the message and I need to control their followers and I need to control this. Girl, you control nothing. You don’t even control if you wake up tomorrow. Like, none of this is within our control. And I think that the control issues that we have around where our jobs show up, what if somebody says something mean about our agency? What if somebody, like you guys, if you take anything away from the words that come out of my face in this webinar is that you don’t control anything ever. So like, I’m going to ask everybody to start channeling their inner Elsa from Frozen and just let it go. It’s beyond our control. And to Sarah’s point, you don’t know what it’s going to produce in terms of results. That’s why I’ve been in my work in influencer marketing as a business. Like that’s what we do. We connect creators with job opportunities, and they distribute jobs on our customers’ behalf. And we get that same question, like, well, what if somebody doesn’t like it? What if they don’t like it? That’s the thing. You don’t control. It is new. We are all learning this as we go along. So don’t put all your eggs in the influencer basket. All of your budget should be 10% experimental anyway, so carve out some of that 10% and experiment.
Sarah Gaines
I agree. And speaking of control, to answer like the second half of the question about the fear and how to fill the gap. When it comes to control, I would say from an influencer perspective, the biggest turnoff that makes me not want to work with an agency is an agency that’s trying to control your creativity. That’s why we create content. You have to be very strategic about the type of influencer that you pick. And once you pick them, it’s really important to trust them from there and trust their expertise. They obviously grew their community to where it is because of the skill that they have, and you’re attracted to them for that reason. So be strategic in who you pick to work with, and be very collaborative and less controlling. And that will help a lot with the partnership as far as like filling that gap.
Tracey Parsons
Yeah, I completely agree. And that trust gap, that’s where it comes across. Sarah, you bring things to the table as a creator, right? And I’m purposely and intentionally moving away from the influencer word because it makes people so prickly. The reality is, Sarah, you create engaging content for travel nurses. They follow you because it’s real and it’s authentic and it’s you and it’s a day in the life through your lens. And when you are selecting creators, you want to make sure that that is aligned with your brand. And in addition, you did not build a six to seven figure following being an idiot. You’re drawing in the audience that these companies need, and they need to respect that. Like this is a symbiosis. It’s not a control thing.
Sarah Gaines
I really like the point you just made. For me, I think there’s a huge difference between an influencer and a creator. I see myself as a creator. This is much deeper than me. For me, I think when people think of influencer, it’s more cringy now because unfortunately, many people have been burned by it. And also, there’s a difference between someone who has gone viral by luck and just happens to have a bunch of followers. And then now they’re just taking brand deals versus a true content creator who’s been doing this, who has replicated their results on multiple platforms. That to me is the biggest difference between influencer versus content creator.
Tracey Parsons
Well, and I get the question all the time, like, is Mr. Beast gonna share my job? No, Mr. Beast is not gonna share your job. Why would he do that? Why would you want him to do that? Like, what are you talking about? Right? This is, we’re not talking Kardashians. We are talking about people who are very dedicated to sharing information about their profession.
Carly Miller
Yeah, so that leads into our next question about what you guys are saying, the importance of finding the right influencer or content creator for your brand. So, what key things should agencies look for in that sort of selection process to ensure that the influencer they pick is aligning with their brand and their goals?
Tracey Parsons
Yeah, I’ll start Sarah, and then chime in. Flockity, we work with hundreds of influencers in a variety of categories. And we have a vetting model. Like, you can’t just sign up and be a Flockity influencer, like there is vetting. We are looking at your follower count. Not just your follower count. That’s great. You’re adorable. To Sarah’s point, like maybe you went viral once and you got 200,000 followers because you went viral once, because your baby was swearing or what have you. Swearing babies get me every time. But it’s, again, it’s not the follower count. It’s the engagement. Sarah, you’re building a community. Do you have the attention? Are you engaging? Like, are you engaging with that following? So are you just pumping out content, or are you really having a conversation with a person, building community? We’re looking at the frequency and the recency. Like, are they creating consistent content? Is this consistent content that’s about their job? And lastly, we look and see if they’re brand-friendly. Like, are they popping off on things that the average TA person would not be comfortable with? Then no, that is not an influencer for Flockity.
Sarah Gaines
I love that. I agree with everything that you said. I think what’s really important when brands are looking for creators is to make sure you are aligned and look at their previous content and what they choose to talk about all on their own. That will make the collaboration and the partnership so much more natural and so easy. I have brands reach out to me all the time and want me to talk about something I’ve never even posted on my page. And they’re just like, well, yeah, you have a lot of followers and we’re kinda in the niche and that’s cool. No, find an influencer or find a creator that is aligned with your brand. And like you mentioned, Tracey, there’s some creators that are a little bit more spicy, which can be good or bad depending on what tone your brand is. And also, I would like to add, before you even start looking for a creator, get aligned on your own brand and your own messaging, and what the message you want to give out. It’ll make the partnership much more cohesive. As a creator, if I’m able to look at the brand and the tone versus I’m working with a brand who’s very unclear on even what their message is or what their goal is, it makes the campaign much harder. And also speaking of goals, every post should have a purpose. So when you are picking different creators, if the purpose of the campaign is just brand awareness, cool. Go with a nurse influencer who gets a ton of views, who has hundreds of thousands of followers, and millions of views. If that is your goal, simply brand awareness. But if your goal is to get conversions, that is going to be a completely different approach that’s going to require much more strategy.
Carly Miller
I like the point you brought up Sarah. I think it’s important to remember that while agencies are also trying to find if an influencer is the right fit for them, the influencer or the creator is also trying to determine if that brand is the right fit for them and their audience. Because as a creator, you want to be authentic to the audience you’ve built. You don’t want to just accept every brand deal you could get, because then nobody will trust you anymore. So I love that piece.
Tracey Parsons
Very symbiotic. It is collaboration at its truest core.
Sarah Gaines
Yes.
Carly Miller
Yes, I love that. Next, I want to talk about budget because that’s obviously a concern that a lot of agencies might have when it comes to influencer marketing, especially agencies and marketing teams who struggle with limited budgets. So, how can smaller agencies or agencies with limited budgets leverage micro-influencers or brand ambassadors to achieve big results?
Tracey Parsons
Sarah, do you wanna start or do you want me to go?
Sarah Gaines
Go ahead and start. I like piggybacking.
Tracey Parsons
So for me, budget is budget. What can you afford? And you talk to your creators about that. Micro-influencers that we work with, they’ll charge $2,000 for a reel. So it should not break your bank. But then there are creators who are charging $50,000 for a reel. Go get rate cards, go shop around. Micro-influencers are anywhere between 1,000 and 10,000 typically followers. So they’ve got 1,000 to 10,000 followers. That’s, yeah, 50,000 for real, honest to God. I questioned all of my life choices after that. I’m like, I have clearly literally done this wrong. Like, oh my God. So yes, true story. But that’s not everybody. That’s people who have a couple million followers. But then there are creators who are part of collaboratives like Flockity who post on a cost-per-click basis. Like, it really depends on what you’re going for. And if again, if it’s a cost-per-click basis, no, you’re not going to collaborate on a script. You’re going to be paying for a reel cause that’s more driving that awareness. But to Sarah’s earlier statement, influencer marketing is an awareness play. Everybody, you guys got to know that. Like you are stopping the scroll. Like legitimately, somebody is on Instagram shopping reels, they’re swiping TikTok, they’re looking at funny animals and cute babies, and then they’ll see something about a job. It kind of is a pattern disruption moment. So it’s like that, but find the right influencers. There’s no like, yes, there are small budgets, but you have to test it. And I’m a big believer of 10% of your budget should be experimental anyway when it comes to job advertising. So, what is 10% of your budget?
Sarah Gaines
And speaking of budget, I would say also setting realistic expectations. So I like that Tracey, you just put the numbers out there.
Tracey Parsons
I just say it.
Sarah Gaines
It’s setting those expectations with the results. I’ve spoken with some companies that are hesitant or scared to work with creators because they’re like, well, I worked with this one creator and we just got no return. I’m like, well, you offered them $5. So they gave you $5. You’re going to get what you invest in. Also, when it comes to, if you have a smaller budget and you want to work with a micro-influencer, being strategic about the type of influencer that you choose, making sure that they’re aligned with your brand and your image and your goals, and whatever vision you have for your brand. But also what works really well is focusing on long-term partnerships versus just like one-off collaborations. And that actually is a win-win for everyone involved. A true content creator, especially if they’re doing it full-time, I stopped taking one-off collaborations. I was like, nope, unless we’re working, unless we’re building the brand together and we’re working together for at least six months, it doesn’t really make sense for me to put in all of my time and energy. So I think approaching these micro-influencers who, maybe they’re still travel nursing and they’re doing it on the side, and it’s something they want to transition into full time. That is a really great opportunity for you as a company to come in and say, hey, we would love to partner with you, not just one time. Like we could do this for three, six months, even a year. And I know it can be scary as far as return on investment. You don’t have to commit to a year from the start. You can just commit to a project. Hey, we’re going to do this pilot post. We’re going to work together for a month, we’re going to see what the results are, we’re going to have a debriefing, and then we’ll create an entire strategy and campaign for the quarter, or for the next six months, or for the year. So, just working in small steps so that way you’re getting the results and that boosts your confidence as far as investing your money in that influencer. It’ll also weed out influencers, too because when companies come to me and they’re like, well, we want to work with you long-term, but can you do one post, and let’s see the results? I’m like, yes, because I know you’re going to want more when y’all see these results. Some influencers are like, oh, I don’t know. I’m a little nervous. So it’s a really great process to test out the waters, like Tracey mentioned, experiment, and see how it goes.
Tracey Parsons
And one other thing to consider, the future of work is income stacking. Okay, this is the future of work. There will be people with a full-time job, but they’re income stacking with these side hustles, for lack of a better term. You’ll find a lot of micro-influencers, creators who are consistent. They’ve grown a nice following. It’s very, very collaborative. It’s very community. And they don’t want to charge, they don’t charge a ton of money, but that’s really big money for them because it’s extra money. Like now they’re paying their rent with a video.
Sarah Gaines
Yes. And also, if you agree to do something more long-term versus one-off, that in itself has value. And so if you have a smaller budget, that may work in your favor. Because for me, I don’t know, $10,000 for one post versus $50,000 for the next, you know, four months, like whatever, the longevity and consistency is more important than a bunch of money upfront.
Carly Miller
That leads perfectly into our next question, which is about building those long-term relationships instead of those one-off sponsorships, because also, as your audience sees a one-off sponsorship, it doesn’t feel as believable. It feels a little more salesy, and relationships have been a big theme today, and for good reason. Building strong, genuine connections is essential, especially in this industry, and one hesitation surrounding those influencer campaigns is that they can sometimes feel too sponsored. And obviously, sponsorship is definitely a part of it. People have to get paid for the work that they’re doing for you. There is a lot of value in developing long-term collaborative relationships with influencers who truly align with your brand. It’s more believable. It’s more authentic. So I’m curious from your perspectives, what strategies can agencies use to create those authentic and lasting partnerships rather than those one-off kind of salesy brand deals?
Sarah Gaines
I think focusing. It’s all about choosing the right creator that has a very strong community, strong connection with their community already, and a creator that already posts that natural content that doesn’t feel sponsored. And the long-term approach makes such a huge difference. For me, as a content creator, there’s a difference between doing a one-off sponsorship versus knowing, there’s companies I’ve worked with for six years. And when I have this long-term relationship with this company, it’s easy for me to be like, let me just post this on my stories and talk. This popped up in my head. You just naturally start posting actually more content than what you’re paid for, because you have this long-term relationship with them, and then your community starts to connect with them, and they see you grow with the company. So I think the long-term partnerships, long-term commitment is a really good approach.
Tracey Parsons
Yeah, just, yes. Like, my answer is yes. That’s the way to go. And to Sarah’s point and to Carly’s question, there’s an inherent feeling when something is over-scripted, right? And you can tell that it feels wrong coming out of their mouths because these creators are our friends in our minds. The people that I love, like Gus with the cat on TikTok, I know that guy now. Every time he comes on, with lockjaw, I lose it, right? So like, I feel like I know him. And he does these great paid, Chewy sponsorships. He does unboxings. But if he has something that feels very scripted and very off-brand, off the Gus brand, I’m swiping. Again, it goes back to that first question. Trust your creator. They have built this audience. They know what the audience is looking for and allow them to infuse their voice into your brand to build more credibility and more trust. That’s it.
Sarah Gaines
Also another thing I would add, in-person events make such a huge difference. And one of the travel nursing agencies that I worked with, when they reached out to me, our brands were already very aligned because I love luxury, I love vacation, I love being by the beach, and their agency happens to be in California on the beach. So, it was just the perfect collaboration. And we did lots of in-person events as well. Especially if you have a smaller budget, spending your money on an in-person event, it does not have to be super expensive at all. I think that’s a really great way to get quality leads. It also doesn’t have to be a huge event. There was another agency that I worked with, this was like in 2017. I did an event, and it was only 30 people, but in order to qualify for the event, oh my gosh. I can’t remember what it was. In order to qualify, you had to have the experience, like you had to have two years of experience, et cetera, et cetera. And you had to actually fill out an application with the agency, and they charged a hundred-dollar fee, but the fees returned to you if you showed up to the event. And at the event, I talked about travel nurse contracts, how to land your first contract. And then there was recruiters there to help them get started. 100% show-up rate, and 29 of the 30 nurses ended up doing a contract and completing it. So it’s all about quality leads. That event was not a lot of money. They rented an event center. I think we had some mimosas and some like, charcuterie boards. And I talked about travel nursing for a few hours. Like that was literally it. So there’s definitely creative ways to go about it.
Carly Miller
Yeah, that’s super cool. I think seeing somebody who you normally just see behind a screen, actually in front of you, reminds you that they’re human and that they’re a person just like you.
Tracey Parsons
They’re real people!
Carly Miller
Yes, you’re real! I do want to touch on something that we talked about earlier, which was control. And you guys have already hit on this a lot, but I’m wondering your perspectives on how agencies can balance creative control while allowing the influencers that they pick to maintain their authentic voice. What kind of strategies are there?
Tracey Parsons
Don’t over-script. They know their audience. I know that it sounds like what I’m saying is so flippant. Like, how do we do that? So what we do, and we hire creators to promote Flockity to other creators. Like that’s what we do sometimes. Nobody likes starting from a blank piece of paper. So we give them some ideas, and then they tear it to shreds, and they get it back to me with what they would say. And I’m like, great, we got it in spirit. It’s just, you gotta let go. And that won’t sound like an ad. Go Sarah.
Sarah Gaines
Yes, I agree. Script versus guideline. As a content creator, I will tell the company I’m not working with a script because I’m not going to sound like me. However, give a guideline, give key points. What are things that you really want to focus on? What’s the overall message that you want to give? And then from there, trust my creativity as a content creator and say, what do you think that we could do from here? This is the result that we want, how can we get to the outcome? That’s literally what you’re hiring them for, not just for the influence, but for the creativity. So let them thrive in their creativity, and they’ll probably produce something that was beyond what you could have imagined.
Tracey Parsons
The audience follows them, not you. I’m just saying.
Carly Miller
That’s true. I mean, yeah, exactly. I have another question to throw in here. What trends do you think are coming in influencer marketing in the coming year? What should we watch out for? What have you seen already?
Sarah Gaines
I would say for me, as far as trends, nurses are looking for connection. I think the pandemic obviously had a huge effect on it. So I think we’re going to start seeing a lot of the content creators that are folks very focused on community, not going viral, not building followers and views. The creators that have strong, tight-knit communities are going to be the ones that have the most influence. And if you are a company that is able to partner with that creator for a longer period of time, not just one-off sponsorships, and do in-person events with them to deepen that connection, I think that’s where it’s at.
Tracey Parsons
Yes, it’s and community, just like Nora put in the chat. It is relationships and community. That is the trend. And when we’re talking about nurses specifically, Sarah, you know this better than I do. This is a cohort of people who are pretty burned out. And the sad thing is that there, according to me, there is a hierarchy of work. There are jobs. People have jobs. There are careers, I have one of those. And there are callings. Sarah has one of those, right? So nurses are really in that calling area. The trend that I see, the creators that are building the strongest community are really, I’m not going to say telling it like it is, but they’re telling it like it is, right? Like they’re being honest about what it’s like to work as a nurse right now. Like it’s not easy. Patients are difficult. There is team dynamics. The whole healthcare space is very messy. And the more they talk about that can make it scary for brands to partner. Like, so then you’re like, ooh, but they’re talking about that it’s hard. I’m here to tell you everybody knows it’s hard. It’s not a secret. It’s hard. It’s hard being a nurse. It’s hard finding nurses. Work is hard. Jobs are hard. That’s why they pay us to come.
Sarah Gaines
So glad you brought that up because I know a lot of companies are afraid of the person they’re working with saying anything negative, but the best content is the most honest and transparent content. I can tell you this from experience. You can get on social media and be like, oh my God, travel nursing is so perfect. And it’s amazing. I love my assignment, and I travel and no. No one’s falling for that anymore. Like, it’s okay to be real and say, yeah, um, I’m on this assignment right now and it’s a struggle, but shout out to my recruiter because they really empowered me and they were an advocate for me and I didn’t know what I was going to do, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That is going to resonate so much deeper, and it’s so much more realistic than the perfect positive script. Because perfection…people just aren’t falling for that anymore. Let’s be real.
Tracey Parsons
Your thumb can’t move fast enough for that garbage content. The world we live in right now is not adorable. So, let’s stop pretending that it is.
Sarah Gaines
Also, I would like to talk about, I call them the invisible insights because when companies reach out to me and they want to look at my insights, they’re always focused on the wrong things. They’re usually focused on typically views, but some of my invisible insights that I think you guys should really look for is, first of all, when you ask a content creator to view their insights, don’t look at the overall average of their content because not all the content is going to be about the topic that you want. If you have an influencer that’s very diverse and they talk about makeup one day, and travel nursing another day, and their dog another day, and the video of their dog went viral, then their insights are going to be skewed. Ask for insights on the top three posts that are most similar to the type of content that you’re looking for. Also, the invisible insights that people don’t pay attention to, that are more important than views, are shares and saves. If people are sharing and saving the content, that means that they are connected to the content. And another really great insight that no one pays attention to is story views. That’s the tea. If you have a content creator that has a very high, high amount of people viewing their stories, from my experience, that has gotten the highest conversions. Because people will check your stories, they will watch it, and they will click whatever you tell them to click. And those are typically very warm leads. And if you have formed a partnership with this content creator, that gives them time to warm up their audience in their stories for a few weeks or for a few months before they tell them to click whatever the link is to get them to convert.
Tracey Parsons
Yeah, shares and saves are a big indicator for us as well. One of the other things that we’ve noticed in all of the data that we send, because we send traffic to jobs, right? We send traffic to our customers’ jobs. And what we have found is that when we send traffic, first of all, 98% of the traffic that we drive has never been to your site before. So this is in a very untapped market. So you collaborate with Sarah, you collaborate with Flockity, you are getting brand new people to your brand. So that’s why we talk about it as an awareness channel. The other thing is how many jobs they look at when they’re at your site. So, we find that they are shopping significantly, visiting anywhere between five and 10 different jobs before choosing the one they would like to apply for. So they may have landed on one job, but now they’re starting to shop. And that’s why shares and saves are so important because that save means that that’s in there. They have intention. The share button is intention, right? If they save that, if it’s a save, they’ve saved it, they’re going back to it. They mean to go back to it. And that’s the gold.
Carly Miller
Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of those invisible insights. So, thank you for sharing those, Sarah.
Tracey Parsons
Oh, I’m stealing that. I’ll totally credit you. I will totally clock you for it every time. Like, so this really smart woman, yeah, the invisible insights is gold.
Carly Miller
That’s so good. I’m going to ask one last question here before we turn to a couple of questions in the chat. But influencer marketing can feel like a whole new world when you’re just getting started. There’s so many platforms, creators, and strategies to kind of pick and choose from. In your experience, what’s the best way to dive in? Or in other words, what advice would you give to agencies just starting to explore influencer marketing, and where should they start?
Sarah Gaines
For me, the biggest mistake companies make when they reach out to me is they don’t understand the purpose of their content. And they’re lucky I’m nice. Because I’d be like, I’m not the influencer you should work with. You should work with this other person. I could be more mean. I could just take your money because there’s some times where I’m like, no, we’re actually not aligned. When I sit on the phone and I talk to you, and I realize what your actual goal is for some companies, their goal is we just want awareness and we want visibility and we want millions of people to view, okay, that’s not me. I’m more on the strategic side. I’m more of connecting and getting high conversions versus high views. So getting crystal clear on the purpose of your campaign. What is the campaign and what is the purpose? Is it brand visibility? Is it connection? Is it engagement? Is it conversions? And I know y’all are all probably thinking, okay, we want it all. I get it. But if you’re trying to chase everything, you’re going to be mediocre at all of it and not just really great at one thing. So I would just focus on one thing. Maybe it is just building your page at first and getting that brand awareness. Then go look for a creator that does that. Maybe you have a pretty good following with your social media, but you’re looking for engagement and connection. That’s going to be a different type of creator. Maybe your biggest thing is like, I don’t even care about followers. I want these people to convert. Find a micro-influencer that talks specifically about your topic, and they will get people to convert. It may not be hundreds and thousands of views, but what if it was 100 nurses that convert? That’s a big deal.
Tracey Parsons
Yeah. And I would just piggyback on that. You have to start somewhere, and where you have to start is exactly what Sarah is saying. You have to know what you want to accomplish. So, how does this fit into your broader strategy? If it’s something that you want to test the waters in, go deeper than that. Like, we’re just exploring. Well, what are you exploring? Where does this fit into your funnel? Where does this fit into your bio? What is the need? What is the thing you want it to do? And then go from there. And I’m just gonna say this, y’all are recruiters and sorcerers usually. That’s your whole job. Just now, recruit and source an influencer.
Carly Miller
Thank you both. I love that. Sarah, we have a couple of questions directed mainly to you in the chat. I think a lot of people are really interested in learning more about your background as a travel nurse and on the flip side, a content creator. So Jordan asked, what was your most successful brand partnership?
Sarah Gaines
That’s a good question. I would say my most successful brand partnership was actually a win-win for both parties. I’m so glad you asked this question, because I feel like me and the brand came up with a very collaborative way to work together that was extremely profitable for both parties. But the brand deal didn’t require the brand to pay me a bunch of money upfront because they were unsure, and I was unsure. But at the time, I was building my community, Six Figure Travel Nurse, and I had a couple thousand followers on Instagram. I don’t remember how many, but I want to say it was like around like 15,000. And that company was just starting their page, and they were like, okay, what can we do to work with you to work together? We don’t have very much money. I’m like, well, you don’t have very much money. What am I supposed to do? But I actually responded to them. I’m like, okay. Well, you guys want to grow your audience on Instagram, and I want to grow my email list. So, how can we find a way to do an even exchange? So basically, what we decided to do was I did a live webinar, and that’s actually how they found out about me because I was doing webinars about travel nursing. So I did a live webinar that was specifically about travel nursing. And of course, included them and had one of their recruiters on as a guest during the webinar, so of course, that got them a ton of leads and a ton of exposure. And I did the live webinar, instead of doing it on my Instagram, I did it on their Instagram. So I told everyone, if you want to watch it, you got to follow them and go over on their Instagram. And then to promote the live webinar, we agreed for them to send all of my Instagram info to their email list. So, what ended up happening was we did this several times. They grew. I think they have more followers than me. They floated. It was a great partnership. And then for me on my business, my email list grew a ton. And so even though I didn’t get a ton of money from them upfront, I ended up making hundreds of thousands of dollars on the backend from my email list that they helped grow. So it was win-win. So that was definitely one of my best partnerships.
Tracey Parsons
You’ve got to be creative with creators.
Sarah Gaines
Yes, gotta be creative. That was really great. And I would say another, I’ve done a couple of really great partnerships. For me, I think this is another like win-win situation for the company as well as the creator. I really do. I really love doing commission-based partnerships with a flat rate upfront, because as a creator, you always want to be paid for the content that you create. But if you are the company that has a smaller budget, you can always offer the flat rate upfront and then say, depending on how many people convert, we’ll give you X amount of money. Or I know Tracey, you do clicks and stuff like that. There’s different ways that you can leverage the commission-based or affiliate link type things. You do have to be a little bit more creative. But for me, that’s been really, really lucrative. And I feel like it takes a lot of the risk away because you’re only giving money to the creator based off of the results that they get. So it’s a win-win.
Carly Miller
Thank you for sharing. Love that. And then we have a fellow travel nurse in the chat. She said she’s a follower of you. She’s been watching you for a long time. So, do you have a preference on working with bigger agencies or smaller agencies, bigger brands, smaller brands, or what do you think?
Sarah Gaines
I don’t have a preference because I believe you should always work with multiple, and you should always have a mixture of both. A mixture of a couple of larger companies that you work with because the pros of the larger companies is they typically have a larger amount of job opportunities to choose from, but sometimes the recruiter isn’t as available. You may not have as much support. The benefits of these smaller companies is they may have less jobs, but they have their unfair advantage typically in a specific region that they’re focusing on. So when I was travel nursing, I loved California. That was my place to go. And I loved Texas. That was my place to go. So there are a lot of small companies that I work with because they only do Texas.
And they have so many job opportunities in like Houston and Dallas. And then even like the larger companies that I work with, they won’t even have the job opportunities that the smaller companies have. So the answer to that question is to build a team of recruiters that’s a mixture of both and then compare your opportunities from there.
Carly Miller
Thank you. We are running a little bit out of time here. So, I just wanted to thank both of you for coming and talking about all of this today. I really loved this session. I feel like I learned a lot, and I’m sure the audience learned a lot as well. So, thank you both for being here. If there’s anyone who’s tuning in who wants to start working with influencers or up their strategy a little bit, I highly encourage you to talk to both of these women. Clearly, they know a lot of what they’re talking about. So I encourage you to get in touch with them.
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