Sign in with Google On YouTube, a savvy combination of creative freedom and clear messaging is driving outcomes for beauty brands. It’s this approach that influencer marketing agency Influential took when they paired their client with YouTube creator Sydney Morgan. In addition to her toy unboxing and review videos, Morgan is known for revealing the funny, imperfect, and altogether human side of beauty vlogging on her channel.
According to Zoe Bar-Tal, senior strategic partnerships executive at Influential, community engagement and trust were just as important as reach in choosing a creator, if not more so. “Young makeup enthusiasts respond best to bright, fresh looks that are easy to recreate without heavy filters or editing,” she said. “Sydney consistently produces vibrant, natural content that resonates with this audience.”
For marketing leaders, the challenge isn’t just finding influencers; it’s finding creators who can land your message in a way that resonates with the highest number of people, without compromising brand fit. We sat down with Morgan to deconstruct how the constraints of a brief can fuel higher engagement and better creative outcomes in brand collaborations and creator partnerships.
Do you remember what made you want to start a channel?
I grew up watching the beauty community on YouTube. As an artist, drawing and painting, I would always make videos for my parents or close friends. One day, I started posting those videos online, and they got attention very quickly. Around the same time, I was diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis and spent a few years in the hospital. Makeup artistry was a big creative outlet for me.
Morgan grew her fan base with a steady drumbeat of relatable, down-to-earth makeup content, from YouTube Shorts to highly produced, full-size videos.
What makes an ideal brand partner?
It’s a balance between coming into the process with a clear brief, while still allowing me the creative freedom and flexibility to work with them in a way that I know will resonate with my audience. You’re looking for a collaborative process, which you don’t get with every brand. You want them to come with their plan, goals for the campaign, some clear creative ideas, but also allow you to give some feedback and push back and say, “Hey, what if we did this to make sure everything is in line with my authentic creator voice?” Then, my audience still sees it as just a piece of my content instead of an ad.
That’s the content that viewers are craving now more than ever. They want that connection, and they want to be part of a community.
I honestly enjoy the constraints that we get through the brief. They force you to kind of think outside the box and find those natural areas of overlap between what your audience enjoys and what the brand’s looking for in their content. It’s made me think more creatively, and it often leads to the best content, stuff that I wouldn’t have thought of myself.
In your videos, how do you accentuate that keeping-it-real aspect?
A lot of it comes down to my setup. I’ve tried upgrading to super high-quality cameras and that clean, polished backdrop, but that felt like it wasn’t really me. So, I brought it back to filming on my bedroom floor, just me and my phone, almost like my audience and I are on a video call. I think that’s the content that viewers are craving now more than ever. They want that connection, and they want to be part of a community.
One of your recent brand collaborations yielded two videos, the first being about festival style, the second about astrology. What made these a fit for your community?
My audience knows that I’m a festival girlie; I look forward to Coachella every year. This was an organic integration on my page, because I’m always going to festivals, getting really into festival culture. What is trending this year? What are we going to see? A lot of people come to my page to get the tea on what’s trending at festivals. So, this was content that I would have been making anyways.
I’m also an astrology girlie. I do a lot of zodiac sign content, because I feel like viewers want to feel that you’re talking to them directly. If I’m able to highlight one sign in particular, that also incentivizes a lot of shares. If it’s something like, “This zodiac sign is going to have the most fun at a festival — boom, Pisces!” You see that, and think, “Oh my god, I have to send this to all my friends that are Pisces.” It’s a great way to create a shareable moment around the content and get people excited.
Morgan posts challenges, tutorials, and product reviews to her channel. Here, she creates a new look using products purchased from a dollar store.
Was there a moment during these collaborations that you were particularly proud of?
If I had to pick one moment, it’d be seeing how well the content did, reading through the comments and seeing people get super excited and saying, “Oh, I’m running to buy this product. Can’t wait to use this. Thank you for reviewing!” My viewers always come to me commenting about new lines or products they’ve heard about, and they refuse to buy them until I use them and let them know how they are.
One of my proudest brand moments so far was the Gui Gui pop-up I did recently. I love getting to work with brands in a way that lets me connect with my audience in real life, and seeing how far people drove just to come was really special.
Tell us about a time you learned something new about your community through a brand partnership. Has it shaped your work since?
I’ve learned pretty quickly that my audience can tell when something feels forced. The more scripted or sales-y a partnership is, the faster they scroll. What actually works is starting with a strong, relatable hook and letting the product live naturally inside the story. They connect way more with real reactions and creative freedom. My audience tends to buy in-store, and they really look to me as a trusted filter, someone who helps them decide what’s actually worth spending their money on.
What’s your advice for brands learning how to navigate creator collaborations?
As a brand, you want to come with a clear plan to your creator. What deliverables are you looking for? What’s your budget? What are the goals of the campaign? Then, give enough creative freedom and flexibility to your creator partner for them to put their own spin on it. Because at the end of the day, I know my audience better than anybody else. I know what drives them, what will hook them in the first three seconds, and what will get them to watch the video until the end.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
