Sponsorships are great, they are part of a lot of streamers and creators lives. Whether they be a tech company, food or drink products and whatever else. Finding the right sponsorship for you and one that you enjoy or use regularly is insanely challenging at times. Not to mention you have to have some type of community for a company to even begin to be interested in sponsoring you! If you have a few friends and not a whole lot of people behind you than it can be tricky to even get looked at. However if you have a great presence over social medias it may be a bit easier since you will have a much larger reach!

Looking for a sponsorship can be a headache if you aren’t sure what you should be looking for. I think the biggest difficulty that someone can have is finding a) the right company for YOU and b) making sure you have enough reach in order to make this sponsorship successful! I myself have an alright reach on Twitter however it really is hit or miss. I don’t want to go for a sponsorship if I am unsure if I am able to really pull my own weight so to speak with a product. I want to make sure that I can be a good fit for the company and they are able to have new customers through me.

I think this almost goes without saying but I will say it anyways. If you are NOT using a product DO NOT GET A SPONSORSHIP. Nothing is more strange then seeing someone promote a product or company that they are obviously making money with and they are not even using the product. This pop, I love Coca-cola. I would even prefer it over Pepsi. However, for example, Pepsi offers me a sponsorship and for whatever reason I take it. Whether it is good money, free things, etc. But I continue to drink Coca-cola the rival of the company that I am sponsored with (Which most times is in a contract that you NOT do) and then I screw myself over and the company by not really enjoying the product. Not to mention, From a viewer standpoint it looks extremely strange if they see and know I am a Coke fan if all of sudden I am now pushing Pepsi at them. Not to mention if you have said some not so nice things about the opposite company it looks equally suspicious. Within streaming people joke about being a “Sell out”, You know playing games you normally wouldn’t for a buck or what not. This is like the ULTIMATE sell out when you are sponsored by a product that you have trash talked and not liked.

Making money or something out of is always something you want to ask yourself. Is it worth it? We all know if you remotely use twitter and are in the streaming world the particular “Grip” for controllers that seem to sponsor everyone and their dog. What are the people promoting the product REALLY getting out of this? Not a whole lot. I checked out their stats and it couldn’t be much lower. If you are going to get a sponsor and promote their product make sure it is worth your time and energy as well as your reach. For example: We all see Elgato out there with sending their people products. You can tell when they have the #Ad (More on that later) in their tweets or social posts. Whether it be a new larger stream deck or even a new light. Do they get paid by this? Maybe if they have an affiliate link that they are able to direct their viewers to when purchasing the products. But they do receive the free products. Which I am also sure there is a certain amount of posts every so often in a contract that they promote such product!

And finally #Ad. We all have seen this in promotion tweets and if you do happen to get a sponsor or something YOU MUST DO THIS. Besides all the ethical things happening you want to be as transparent ass possible with your community and audience that this is a paid/etc promotion and you are not simply doing this out of the goodness in your own heart. You probably have even seen a few people with paid sponsorships get in trouble with their communities by NOT putting the #Ad in their posts as well too. It is extremely important to be transparent with this to your viewers or it can again, Come off a bit scummy. Not to mention, If you are getting paid to promote something and you are making it look like you are just enjoying the product it can take away from your credibility as an influencer and could even effect your future with companies! Which is never a good thing to have happen.

So as you can see, Having a sponsorship is great! Just make sure you are actually getting something out of it and you aren’t doing it for the “sake of doing it”. Don’t promote something that you have no intention of using yourself. And if at all possible, Before you get a sponsorship especially for food and drink, TRY IT OUT! If the company is not willing to send you samples of this for you to test out before you sign up, chances are they are not confident in their product and you may want to think again before taking this opportunity. It would look pretty silly if GFuel gave sponsorships to people without being willing to send samples along the way right? Look at the people who post the new flavors to try out with their #Ad! This is not only a way for them to get a bit of a perk but a great way to make the general public aware of their latest product! As for me, I will be waiting for a Tim Horton’s or a Candy sponsorship to arrive!

-StaySeeJ08