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Inviting creators and asking for quotes

Approaching one creator directly, asking for a price on a rate that publishes none, and why an invitation marked "sent" was not sent anywhere.

Updated

An invitation is how you approach one creator directly, rather than waiting for somebody to apply to a campaign. A quote request is for a rate a creator prices per brief rather than publishing.

Read this before you conclude that nobody is answering you. An invitation's status is "sent", and that word is not what it looks like: this build has no messaging provider for creator outreach, so nothing was emailed, messaged or notified to anybody. An invitation is a record the creator sees when they open the marketplace. The screen repeats that on every row for exactly this reason.

BEFORE YOU START

  • A creator in the directory, which means somebody who has published a profile and consented to be found by businesses.
  • Access to the workspace: both are recorded against one.
  • For a quote request, a brief. A quote with no brief is a question nobody can answer, so it is required.

STEPS

  1. Open Find creators and choose "View rates" on the creator you want.
  2. Pick the workspace to record it in.
  3. Write your message, or the brief if you are asking for a quote.
  4. Choose "Invite this creator" or "Ask for a quote".
  5. Open Invitations and quotes for that workspace to see what has been recorded and what has been answered.

WHAT YOU SHOULD SEE

The invitation or quote request in its table, with its status and — for an invitation — the sentence explaining that nothing was delivered anywhere.

WHAT THIS WILL NOT DO

  • It will not contact anybody. There is no messaging provider for creator outreach in this build, and the product says so on every invitation rather than letting "sent" be read as sent.
  • It will not estimate a quote. An unanswered quote request reads "Not quoted yet", never a figure and never a zero. The whole point of asking is that the number is not published.
  • It will not un-invite anybody. Withdrawing records that you changed your mind; it does not remove the creator's record of having been approached.
  • It will not let you invite a creator whose listing is not published. That listing is not visible to you at all.

IF IT DOES NOT WORK

  • A refusal about the listing means it is not published to you. It is reported as not found rather than as forbidden, because confirming it exists would tell you something the creator did not publish.
  • "Nobody has been approached yet" is an emptiness with a reason, not a failure.
  • A message saying the request did not complete means it may or may not have been recorded. Reload and check before trying again — repeating it could record the same approach twice.

COMMON QUESTIONS

An invitation says "sent". Was anything actually sent to the creator?

Not outside Social Studio. "Sent" means the invitation is recorded and waiting for them inside the product; no email or platform message leaves this system. A creator who has not signed in has not been reached, and nothing here will reach them for you.

When should I ask for a quote instead of making an offer?

When the rate you want carries no published figure. A creator who prices that work per brief has deliberately not set a number, so there is nothing to assemble an offer against until they give you one.

Why does a listing I cannot see report "not found" rather than "not allowed"?

Because confirming it exists would tell you something the creator chose not to publish to you. The two refusals are deliberately indistinguishable from the outside, and that is a decision about their privacy rather than an evasion.

Can I invite the same creator twice?

You can approach them again, but if a request did not visibly complete, reload and check before repeating it — a second attempt can record a second approach, and a creator seeing the same request twice reads it as pressure rather than as a retry.

  • Finding creators in the marketplace

    Browsing the creators who have consented to be found by businesses, reading the rates they publish to you, and why a blank audience figure stays blank.

  • Preparing and sending an offer

    Assembling terms against a creator's published rate, what happens when they change that rate while you are drafting, and why sending an offer is not an agreement.

  • Running a creator campaign

    Drafting a brief creators can apply to, opening it, deciding who applied, and why a fee on a campaign is not an agreement with anybody.