How to Ask a Brand for Collaboration on Instagram

Landing your first brand collaboration on Instagram can feel like a game-changer, but pitching to a brand you love is often intimidating. This guide breaks down the whole process, from prepping your account to crafting a pitch that gets noticed and knowing exactly what to do after you hit send. We’ll offer a practical, step-by-step approach to help you turn those dream partnerships into reality.

First Things First: Prepare Your Profile for Partnerships

Before you even think about sliding into a brand's DMs, you need to make sure your own house is in order. A strong, professional profile is your resume, portfolio, and first impression all rolled into one. Brands are looking for creators who are not just popular, but also professional, reliable, and aligned with their own values.

Define Your Niche and Brand Identity

You can't be everything to everyone. The most successful creators have a clearly defined niche. Are you the go-to person for gluten-free baking, sustainable fashion for minimalists, or POV travel vlogs for solo female travelers? Knowing your niche helps you attract a dedicated audience and makes it easier for brands to see if you’re a good fit for their product.

Your brand identity is the vibe of your content - your visual style, your writing voice, and the values you communicate. Is your feed bright, colorful, and energetic? Or is it muted, cinematic, and thoughtful? Consistency here is important, as it helps build recognition and trust with both your audience and potential brand partners.

Focus on Community, Not Just Followers

Follower count is just one small piece of the puzzle. Brands are increasingly focused on engagement rate and the quality of your community interaction. A creator with 5,000 highly engaged followers who trust their recommendations is often more valuable than one with 50,000 passive followers who never interact.

Show brands you have an active community by:

• Replying to comments on your posts.
• Answering DMs.
• Using interactive stickers in your Stories (polls, Q&,As, quizzes).
• Fostering conversations in your comment section.

Create Consistently High-Quality Content

Your Instagram grid is your portfolio. Every post should reflect the quality of work you’d deliver for a paid collaboration. This doesn’t mean you need a professional photographer, but it does mean your content should be:

• Clear and well-lit: Good lighting is non-negotiable. Use natural light whenever possible.
• High-resolution: Upload crisp photos and videos, not blurry or pixelated ones.
• Well-composed: Pay attention to framing and composition to make your content visually appealing.
• Thoughtfully edited: Develop a consistent editing style that aligns with your brand identity.
• Posted regularly: A consistent posting schedule shows you’re active and serious about your platform.

Build Your Media Kit

A media kit is a creator's one-page resume. It's a document (usually a PDF) that professionalizes your pitch and gives brands all the essential information they need at a glance. It saves them from having to dig through your profile for stats. Don't skip this step! It immediately shows you mean business.

Your media kit should include:

• Your Bio: A short paragraph introducing yourself, your niche, and what makes your content special.
• Key Statistics: Follower count is fine, but prioritize more meaningful metrics like monthly reach, average Story views, Reels engagement, and most importantly, your engagement rate. You can find this data in your Instagram Insights.
• Audience Demographics: Brands need to know if your audience is their target customer. Include key demographics like age range, gender split, and top locations (cities/countries) of your followers.
• Past Collaborations (if any): Feature logos of brands you've worked with and a few screenshots of your favorite partnership content. If you're just starting, you can skip this or create some spec work showcasing how you'd feature a product.
• Services &, Rates: List the kinds of collaborations you offer (e.g., dedicated Reel, story series with link clicks, static post) and your starting prices. Even if it says "rates available upon request," listing your services is helpful.
• Contact Information: Your email, Instagram handle, and a link to your blog or TikTok if you have them.

You can easily create a professional-looking media kit for free using a tool like Canva.

How to Find the Right Brands to Pitch

Not every brand is the right brand for you. An authentic partnership is a natural fit. Pitching strategically to aligned brands will yield far better results than a "spray and pray" approach.

Identify Brands That Genuinely Align With You

Make a list of 20-30 brands you genuinely love and use. Partnerships feel most authentic (and perform best) when they are for products you would recommend anyway. Think about the products and services that appear in your daily life. Do you use a specific type of coffee, skincare product, or organizational app every day? Start there.

Prioritize smaller or local businesses as well. Huge international brands get thousands of pitches a day. Smaller, emerging brands are often more accessible and eager to collaborate with micro-influencers to grow their presence.

Warm Them Up: Engage Before You Pitch

Don't let your pitch email be the first time a brand has ever heard from you. You need to get on their radar first. Think of this as laying the groundwork for a relationship.

Spend one or two weeks before your pitch engaging with their content organically:

• Follow them on Instagram.
• Like and save their recent posts.
• Leave genuine, thoughtful comments on their posts (not just "Love this! 🔥"). Mention what you specifically like about a product or their content.
• Share their content to your Stories and tag them.

This simple act puts your name and face in their notifications, so when your pitch lands in their inbox, it's from a familiar "face" rather than a total stranger.

Find the Right Contact Information

Sending your pitch to the generic `info@brand.com` email address is a recipe for getting lost in the shuffle. Your goal is to find the email of the person who actually manages influencer marketing or PR.

• Check their website: Look for a "Press," "Media," or "Contact Us" page. Sometimes, PR contacts are listed there.
• Search on LinkedIn: This is the most effective method. Search for people with titles like "Influencer Marketing Manager," "Social Media Manager," "PR Coordinator," or "Brand Partnerships Manager" at that company.
• Look at their Instagram bio: Some brands list a specific email for collaborations right in their bio.
• Send a polite DM: If all else fails, you can send a brief, professional DM asking for the best email for collaboration inquiries.

Crafting the Perfect Collaboration Pitch

Your pitch, whether it's an email or a direct message, is your chance to sell yourself and your idea. A generic, copy-pasted message will be deleted immediately. Personalization, professionalism, and a clear value proposition are non-negotiable. For more details on how to send a collaboration request on Instagram, refer to our comprehensive guide.

The Subject Line: Make It Unmissable

The subject line determines whether your email even gets opened. Be clear, concise, and professional. Mentioning your username helps them quickly check your profile.

Good examples:

• Instagram Collaboration Idea: [@YourHandle] x [Brand Name]
• Partnership Opportunity with [Your Niche] Creator, @YourHandle
• Love for [Brand Name] from @YourHandle (Collaboration Idea)

The Opening: Personalization Is Everything

Start by addressing the contact person by their name. Then, open with a sentence or two proving you're a genuine fan of their brand. Mention a specific product you love, a recent campaign you admired, or how your values align with their recent charity initiative.

Example: "Hi Sarah, my name is Alex and I'm a huge fan of West Coast Coffee. Your new Sunrise Blend has become my morning ritual, and I was so impressed by your recent sustainable sourcing campaign."

The Introduction: Who Are You and What’s Your Value?

Briefly introduce yourself and what you do. State your niche and who your audience is. This is where you connect your audience with their target customer.

Example: "I run the Instagram account @AlexAtHome, where I share home office productivity tips with my community of over 10,000 remote workers and creative entrepreneurs."

The Idea: Propose a Tangible Collaboration

This is the most important part of your pitch. Don’t just ask for a collaboration, propose a specific idea. This shows you've put thought into how you can provide value. Instead of saying, "I'd love to collaborate," try something much more specific.

Example Idea: "I'd love to create a 3-part Instagram Reel series demonstrating how I use the Sunrise Blend to anchor my productive morning routine. The series would highlight the tasting notes, the bean sourcing, and a slow-motion pour shot, all things I know my audience of coffee-loving professionals would appreciate."

The Proof: Back It Up With Data

Reference key stats to show you can deliver results. You don't need to list them all in the email, that's what your media kit is for. But a single, compelling data point can't hurt.

Example: "My Reels currently average 25,000 views, with an engagement rate of 5%. I've attached my full media kit with more details on my audience demographics and past campaign results."

The Closing: A Clear Call to Action

End your pitch by stating exactly what you want to happen next. Be confident and clear.

Example: "Would you be open to an introductory chat next week to discuss this idea further? Please let me know what day and time works best for you and your team."

Finish with a professional closing like "Best regards" or "Thank you for your time," and include your name and links to your social profiles in your signature.

You Hit 'Send' - Now What?

Sending the pitch is just step one. Your follow-up strategy - or lack thereof - can play a huge part in whether you get a response in this digital landscape.

The Follow-Up Strategy

Brand managers are busy people. Emails get buried. If you don't hear back within one to two weeks, it’s absolutely fine to send a brief and polite follow-up.

Simply reply to your original email with a gentle nudge:

Example: "Hi Sarah, I just wanted to follow up on my email below and see if this was something you and your team would be interested in discussing. Please let me know if a quick call sometime this week would work."

Handling Rejection Gracefully

If you get a "not right now" or no response at all, don't let it discourage you. Thank them for their time and move on gracefully. Collaboration needs to be the right fit for both sides, and not every pitch will be the right opportunity at the right time. Stay persistent and focus on the next pitch.

Final Thoughts

Pitching brands for collaborations on Instagram is a skill that requires preparation, personalization, and persistence. By strengthening your profile, engaging with brands authentically, and sending tailored pitches, you dramatically increase your chances of landing a partnership.

Maintaining a strong feed and an active posting schedule are the first things brands look for in a new partner, but juggling everything on your own can lead to burnout. We know how hectic managing a content schedule can be, which is why we created Postbase. Our visual calendar and scheduling tools help you stay organized and consistent, freeing you up to focus on creating great content without the stress.