Merchant Guide

What is a local content creator?

A local content creator is someone who produces and shares content on social media (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube…) focusing on their city, region, or a specific geographic area. Unlike major web celebrities, local creators have a targeted and engaged audience, often made up of people who live or work in the same area as your business.

• Nano-influencers (1K – 10K followers): Highly engaged audience, strong sense of closeness, accessible rates or collaboration in exchange for products/services.
• Micro-influencers (10K – 50K followers): Good balance between reach and engagement, established credibility in their niche.
• Mid-tier (50K – 500K followers): Wide reach, more professional profile, higher rates.
• Macro and mega-influencers (500K+): National/international reach, less relevant for local businesses except in specific cases.

For most local businesses, nano and micro-influencers offer the best return on investment. Their audience trusts them like a friend, which makes their recommendations particularly powerful.

Why does it work for local businesses?

Local influencer marketing is based on a simple principle: people trust recommendations from people they follow and respect far more than traditional advertising. Here's why it's particularly effective for your business:

1. Local social proof: When someone that your potential customers follow recommends your restaurant, salon, or boutique, it's like a recommendation from a friend.
2. The discovery effect: Local creators help their audience discover great spots in their neighborhood, a role that business cards and flyers can no longer fill.
3. Lasting content: An Instagram Reel or TikTok video can continue to generate views and visits for weeks, even months after publication.

Different types of collaboration

Gifting (or barter): You offer a meal, a treatment, a product or a service in exchange for a post. This is the most common model for small businesses as it doesn't require a cash budget.

Sponsored collaboration: You pay the creator in cash to create specific content according to your brief. More structured, with clearly defined expectations and deliverables.

At Kontnu, we primarily facilitate gifting collaborations and small sponsored collaborations, tailored to the budget and needs of local businesses.

The essential elements of a good brief

A brief is the document that explains to the creator what you expect from the collaboration. A good brief avoids misunderstandings and significantly increases the quality of the content produced. Here are the essential elements:

• Your business in a few words: Who are you? What makes you unique? What's your story?
• The goal of the collaboration: Brand awareness? In-store traffic? Promoting a new product/service? Bookings?
• What you offer: Clearly describe the service, product, or voucher included in the collaboration.
• Expected content: Content type (Reel, Story, TikTok, post), number of publications, publication deadline.
• Required mentions: Your account to be tagged, desired hashtags, legal disclosures (#ad, #sponsored) for commercial collaborations.
• Any constraints: What you don't want to see, the tone or angle to avoid.

What a brief should NOT contain

Avoid: Dictating word for word what the creator should say, imposing a rigid script, requesting content that looks too much like traditional advertising. Audiences immediately spot inauthentic content and engagement drops.

What works: Give an angle ("show your experience at our restaurant", "talk about what surprised you"), let the creator express themselves in their own style, trust their knowledge of their audience.

The golden rule: If you read your brief and it sounds like an advertising script, you've gone too far. Reframe it in terms of experience and feeling.

Examples of successful briefs by sector

Mistakes to avoid when writing the brief

• Being too vague: "Talk about us" without providing any indication of the angle or content type
• Being too restrictive: Imposing an exact text, a precise script, or forbidding any creativity
• Forgetting practical details: Not specifying whether the mention should be in the Story, in the caption, or both
• Not clarifying deliverables: How many posts? By what deadline? On which platform(s)?
• Underestimating the value of the offer: Proposing compensation that's too low relative to the work requested

Important selection criteria

Not all creators are suitable for all businesses. Here are the criteria to analyse to make the right choice:

1. Engagement rate:
   Formula: (Likes + Comments) / Followers × 100
   • Excellent: > 5%
   • Good: 2% – 5%
   • Average: 1% – 2%
   • Low: < 1% (caution if followers are high)
2. Audience location:
   A creator may live in your city but have a national audience. Ask for audience statistics ("insights") to verify that the majority of their followers are in your geographic area.
3. Thematic consistency:
   Does the creator's content match your world? A gourmet restaurant and a food lifestyle creator are consistent. A restaurant and a gaming creator, much less so.
4. Visual quality:
   Look at the last 12 publications. Does the quality of the photos and videos match the image you want for your business?
5. Authenticity:
   Are the comments real and engaged? Be wary of accounts with many followers but generic comments ("Great!", "Nice 👌") which may indicate fake followers.

How to evaluate a creator's profile

Before accepting an application or contacting a creator, do this quick "check":

• Look at the last 6 to 12 posts: is there consistency in style and quality?
• Read 5 to 10 comments: are they authentic, varied, relevant to the content?
• Check the bio: does it mention their city or region?
• See if they've done similar collaborations before: how did they handle them?
• Calculate the engagement rate manually on 2-3 recent posts to confirm the figures

What compensation to offer?

For a first collaboration, gifting (product or service in exchange for content) is the ideal formula. This allows you to test the creator's quality without significant financial risk.

Once you've established a relationship of trust with one or more creators, you can consider more formal collaborations with monetary compensation in addition to the product/service.

As a general rule: nano-influencers (gifting or €50–200), micro-influencers (€200–500 + gifting), mid-tier (€500–€2000 + gifting). These ranges vary depending on the number of deliverables, platforms, and the creator's reputation.

Welcoming the creator as a professional

How you welcome the creator directly impacts the quality of the content they will produce. Here are best practices:

To do:

• Reserve a quiet moment for the visit (avoid peak hours)
• Brief your team in advance so everyone knows a creator is coming
• Prepare a photogenic space if possible (lighting, staging)
• Welcome the creator like a VIP customer, with kindness and availability
• Answer their questions about your business, your story, your specialties

To avoid:

• Making them wait without explanation
• Imposing a minute-by-minute schedule
• Supervising or directing every shot
• Talking about them to your other customers without their consent

Communication during the collaboration

Good communication is the key to a successful collaboration. Here's how to manage exchanges well:

What not to do: Send follow-up messages every 24 hours, ask for previews before publication, question the creator's creative choices midway.

What works: Confirm the date and time by message the day before, send a thank-you message after the visit, wait for the publication deadline agreed in the brief before following up.

Managing content rights

This is an often overlooked point that can create conflicts. By default, the creator remains the owner of their content. To use the content for other purposes (website, paid ads, print materials), you must obtain their explicit consent.

1. In the brief: Specify whether you wish to obtain usage rights for the content.
2. What you can do without specific consent: Reshare (repost) the content on your own social media while mentioning the creator.
3. What requires consent: Using the content in paid ads, on your website, in email campaigns, or on printed materials.
4. Compensation: The use of rights must be compensated separately from the initial collaboration.

On Kontnu, our terms and conditions clarify these rights for all collaborations made through the platform.

Which metrics to track?

Local influencer marketing can seem difficult to measure, but there are several ways to track its impact:

• Reach and impressions: How many people saw the content? (Ask the creator for statistics)
• Engagement rate: Likes, comments, shares, saves
• Mentions of your account: How many new mentions or tags after publication?
• New followers: How many new followers on your account the day and week after publication?
• In-store traffic: Did you notice an increase in footfall? (Method: ask new customers how they found you)
• Use of a promo code: If you created a specific code for the collaboration, track its usage
• Reservations or orders: Notable increase in the days following publication?

How to interpret results

The results of an influencer collaboration are not always immediate or directly quantifiable. Here's how to analyse them:

1. Views and reach:
   These are brand awareness indicators. 10,000 views on a local TikTok video is excellent for a neighbourhood business.
2. Engagement:
   Positive comments and shares indicate the content resonated. A comment-to-view ratio above 0.5% is very good.
3. New followers:
   If your account gains significant followers after the collaboration, it's a clear sign the content generated interest.
4. In-store traffic:
   Difficult to measure precisely, but you can train your team to systematically ask new customers how they discovered you.
5. Long-term ROI:
   A customer who comes through a creator can become loyal and recommend your business in turn. The real impact often goes beyond the first visit.

Calculating return on investment

To calculate the ROI of a collaboration, here's a simple formula:

Basic formula:

Concrete example:

• Collaboration cost: Meal offered (value €80) + 1 hour of your time
• Result: +15 new bookings in the following 2 weeks
• Value generated: 15 × €45 (average basket) = €675
• ROI = (675 – 80) / 80 × 100 = 744%

Even if this calculation is approximate, it illustrates the potential of local influencer marketing when well executed.

Optimise and build loyalty

The key to long-term success is consistency. A one-off collaboration can generate a traffic spike, but it's regularity (1 to 2 collaborations per month) that builds lasting brand awareness.

Signs that a collaboration is working particularly well:

• The creator regularly generates comments like "I need to go try this!"
• You notice an increase in visits or bookings within 72 hours of each publication
• The creator themselves becomes a regular customer and talks about you spontaneously

Once you've identified 2 or 3 creators who work well for your business, propose a long-term partnership. A local "ambassador" who regularly talks about you has a far greater impact than a series of one-off collaborations with different creators.