This mini-guide will walk you through the minimum requirements to be accepted as a micro-influencer (creator) on Social Cat.
Our goal is to have an engaged and authentic community of micro-influencers focused on providing brand value. At the same time, we aim for creators to learn how to create content and drive value that will later land them significant collaboration opportunities.
We are looking at the following:
- Overall account aesthetics
- The number of followers
- The number following
- The number of posts
- Content Posted
- Engagement
Below, we are going to dive into each one of them.
Overall account aesthetics
Although this is not a critical rule, the first impression is important, especially because this is what brands will see the first time they land on your profile; when we check your profile, first of all, we look at the overall aesthetics of your account.
What's important:
- a personalized bio with information about yourself is a plus
- structure or arrangement of your Feed, if there is one
- highlights, another vital plus
- how often do you talk in front of the camera
- how much Feed content do you post versus Reels
- do you use captions and hashtags
We mentioned above that this is not a critical rule necessarily but more related to the way you present yourself and what is the first impression we get about your account. It is essential because this is what brands see the first time when they discover your profile on Social Cat.
Having pleasing aesthetics in place will increase your chances of getting noticed and working with brands for gifted, affiliate, and paid collaborations.
The number of followers
The minimum number of followers to be accepted on Social Cat is 3000.
From our perspective, this number shows you are committed to creating content and working with small brands. In some cases, we make exceptions to this rule.
Examples of exceptions:
- a high number of posts combined with above-the-average content
- high and authentic engagement from real followers mixed with good post captions and hashtags
- above-the-average content mixed with authentic engagement and up to five brand collaborations already in place
The number following
The Social Cat team looks for a ratio of three to one on followers versus following.
The main goal of this rule is to spot and reject the micro-influencers that are a part of follow-per-follow loops. From our perspective, being part of a follow-per-follow loop leads to a lower audience quality, which does not bring any value to brands.
The number of posts
To get approved on Social Cat, you must have at least 100 posts on Instagram, Feed, or Reels. In some cases, we make exceptions to this rule.
Examples of exceptions:
- accounts for excellent-quality content and an awesome overall aesthetic, with between 50 and 100 posts on Instagram, Feed, or reels.
Content Posted
The quality of the content you post on your profile is important.
The micro-influencers with good quality content on Social Cat tend to have three times more collaborations from brands working with us.
What we are looking for:
- a feed that is aesthetically pleasing with content that portrays your interests and passions
- feed content with products you reviewed before, where we can see a certain level of interest and involvement in the brand you worked with
- a short bio that tells your followers who you are and what you are passionate about
- reels or recent stories where we can see products you reviewed before
We want to see that you are passionate about your craft and genuine, and you don't do Influencer Marketing because you want to get free products from brands.
We're not necessarily looking for:
- highly-edited photos, requiring a set of technical skills
- top video editing skills
- sophisticated decor, which requires significant time and resources
The following accounts will get rejected when applying:
- accounts that have only products in their Feed, without any appearance from the person behind the account.
Example:If an account with 3000 followers signs up, it must follow less than 1000 accounts back to get approved, ideally less than 500. This is one of the most important rules to get accepted on our platform, and we rarely make exceptions to it. - accounts with low-quality content
Engagement
Engagement is the most critical requirement when we decide whether to accept or not micro-influencers on Social Cat.
To get approved:
- Use descriptions for your feed content; there is no minimum no. of words here
- Use relevant hashtags (read this guide to understand hashtags)
- Engage in conversations with your followers
The following accounts will get rejected when applying:
- accounts suspicious of engagement bots, loops, or any other type of action or software that artificially inflates your metrics
- accounts with spammy engagement (predominantly emojis or short and unengaging sentences)
The team at Social Cat manually checks various posts on your profile to determine if the engagement is authentic. We do not look for a specific engagement rate in general but more for authentic engagement.
