Ian Sells is no stranger to building online communities. As the founder of Million Dollar Sellers, he heads up the world’s largest collective of high-revenue Amazon merchants representing over 8 billion in annual revenue. Now, he’s brought that knack for harnessing niche networks to his latest co-founded venture – Join Brands.

Launched just two years ago, Join Brands serves as a bridge between brands hungry for authentic user-generated content (UGC) and creators eager to produce it. “Our goal is to empower the entire creative community,” says Sells. “Anybody with a phone can make money and make content for brands.”

Join Brands: Aligning Brands And Micro/Nano-Influencers For UGC At Scale

On the platform, brands can easily tap into targeted pools of nano and micro-influencers relevant to their industry with just a quick job posting. Arrangements are mutually beneficial, compensating creators for their work while fueling brands’ digital marketing campaigns.

It’s a model that appears to be clicking. To date, Join Brands has paid out over $3 million to members and coordinated more than 62,000 UGC and influencer jobs. For creators, it promises income without the usual headaches. “We get great messages all the time from the community about how valuable this has been for building their personal portfolios,” notes Sells, adding that top performers can pocket upwards of $10,000 monthly.

Meanwhile, brands bank quality visual assets at a fraction of typical production costs. “Previously that would have cost ten times more, going direct or through other platforms,” says Sells.

Initially envisioned as a marketplace for user-generated content for ecommerce companies, Join Brands’ scope has rapidly expanded. Today, creators supply not only UGC content but also influence across social media spheres – from TikTok to Instagram and beyond. “We are really like the Kayak of content creator influencer marketing platforms,” says Sells, likening the consolidating effect to the travel search engine.

The key advantage for brands? Easily coordinating and managing influencer partnerships that span multiple platforms. “We are a place where the creators can service the brands with multiple different types of influence and content,” explains Sells. In turn, achieving wider campaign distribution through aligned creator networks.

With a bustling, built-in marketplace of now over 100,000 UGC Creators in the US , the platform streamlines the historically cumbersome process of identifying and collaborating with the right influencers. “We’re able to really allow brands to quickly and efficiently create campaigns and interact directly with creators and influencers,” tells Sells.

What makes for effective brand collaborations on Join Brands’ burgeoning UGC marketplace? Sells spotlights standout creators who approach partnerships professionally. “They take it seriously and they see it asa potential full time job,” he says. Top influencers focus on honing their craft – from shooting techniques to product demonstrations. They also emphasize clear communication with brand clients to ensure content aligns with expectations.

Over time, these habits compound to build authority and trust. “They really take it seriously, learn how to use their camera better, edit better [and] really do take off on our platform,” tells Sells.

Strong performers assemble robust portfolios demonstrating their capabilities. “They can show off to brands and say, this is why I’m worth working with and this is the type of content I can do,” notes Sells. Some now garner between $5,000 to $10,000 monthly through Join Brands partnerships. “It’s completely up to them how much they can make,” says Sells.

To further empower top creators, Join Brands is rolling out a new Recurring Creators feature. Similar to a retainer model, it will allow brands to contract influencers for ongoing campaigns spanning set durations. “Whether it’s one post a day for 30 days or two posts aday for 30 days, on a contract,” explains Sells.

The regular work and creative freedom stands to significantly increase creator earnings. Sells foresees prolific influencers juggling several such arrangements simultaneously. “Imagine a creator has 3 or 4 clients paying $2,000 dollars a month, that’s $6000 to $8000 a month just from working for a couple of brands,” he illustrates.

Meanwhile, brands multiply touchpoints with loyal nano-influencer advocates. “On a more regular basis, which generally leads to more success because sometimes you don’t get it right the first time,” says Sells.

Longer-term, Join Brands aims to provide definitive ROI tracking. “Every brand wants to know [if] a creator posts a video that it drives some ROI in terms of revenue for them, right?” says Sells. Presently, platforms like TikTok restrict affiliate-style outbound linking. However, Sells is hopeful eventual attribution capabilities will convince brands to invest further in nano-influencer collaborations.

For now, Join Brands is laser-focused on strengthening bonds between brands and creator communities. “We built our platform so that agencies can white label and use our platform internally to work with their clients,” tells Sells. In doing so, they look to make mass grassroots influencer marketing and UGC sourcing as frictionless as possible…