At People First our process for sourcing content from real people begins and ends with brand safety. Since we began producing peer-to-peer microinfluencer content over four years ago, we’ve vetted and collaborated with over 20,000 creators without a single negative creator incident, because of this commitment.
We’ve successfully partnered with brands in highly-regulated verticals including financial services and healthcare. On the advocacy and political side of our business, we’ve successfully partnered on high-stakes campaigns including multiple presidential campaigns. In all these instances, we were able to successfully publish microinfluencer content without risk to brand safety in compliance with internal legal and governance practices within a diverse client set.
This blog outlines the internal auditing measures People First Marketing takes to ensure content aligns with client values.
Creator Vetting & Brand Safety Guidelines
1. Creator Identification
How We Discover and Select Influencers
Proprietary Database
We maintain a proprietary database of over 20,000 creators. Each profile includes insights into their profile analytics, audience demographics, engagement metrics, and campaign history with People First.
Community Organizing
Beyond our database, our field team actively identifies emerging voices through grassroots digital organizing. This includes:
- Monitoring online conversations and existing communities
- Identifying leaders that are deemed trustworthy and influential by their peers
We prioritize campaign outreach to those who share lived experiences and relatable storytelling—voices that resonate well with most others and drive impact in their communities.
2. Creator Onboarding
How We Collect Information on our Community
Once a creator expresses interest in a campaign, they are directed to make an account on our Creator Portal, where they must:
- Agree to Terms of Service
- Provide full name, contact info, and demographic information (age, race, gender, region)
- Share interests, issue focus, and relevant passions
- Provide SSN for identity and payment verification (ensuring compliance and fraud protection).
This data collection allows People First to identify creators within our database that meet the campaign criteria and tailor our outreach accordingly.
3. Campaign Application
Ensuring Eligibility and Fit for Each Campaign
Our Campaign Associates manually screen each application to ensure that they match the campaign’s theme or objective:
- Does the creator meet the campaign’s demographic or geographic requirements?
- Does their background or lived experience align with campaign goals?
- Do they have a demonstrated history or interest in the campaign’s issue area?
This stage ensures cultural competence and issue fluency.
4. System Checks
Verification of Authenticity and Platform Behavior
We run system-level checks to validate:
- Follower legitimacy
- Engagement-to-follower ratio
- Past growth spikes that indicate suspicious patterns
- Cross-platform consistency
Creators with suspicious engagement or inflated metrics are either flagged or rejected.
5. Brand Safety Review
Protecting Our Clients and the Integrity of Their Message
Those who pass the first two checks move onto the final step:
- Scanning for discriminatory, hateful, or extremist content
- Reviewing history of violent, graphic, or sexually explicit posts
- Screening for crude humor, offensive memes, or social deviance
- Evaluating for politically extreme or brand-risky views
Custom Vetting Options
Clients are encouraged to provide additional vetting material; indicate if there’s any other exclusion material People First should consider
- Any values, previous partnerships, or actions that undermine the brand’s values
- Competitors of the brand
- Conflict-of-interest screening