Influencer Collaboration Strategy That Built Unsplash Collections

An influencer collaboration strategy is usually expensive and complicated. Unsplash built a billion-download empire by doing the exact opposite.

In 2015, Unsplash was just a scrappy side project. They had a cult following, but they weren't a household name.

By the end of 2016, they were a tech giant. The numbers are absurd. In a single year, their total downloads exploded from 47 million to 144 million.

They tripled their size in 12 months.

Most people think this growth was a result of them being famous. They are wrong. This strategy is how they got famous.

They didn't buy ads. They didn't beg for shoutouts.

Instead, they executed a psychological masterstroke. They realized that if you frame "manual labor" correctly, you can get the most famous people in tech to work for you for free.

Here is how they engineered the perfect viral loop.

How to make influencers work for free

Unsplash had a problem. They had thousands of photos submitted by amateurs, professionals, and even organizations like NASA.

Sorting them was a nightmare. It was manual labor. This was 10-years before what AI of today can do.

Instead of hiring interns, they invented a role: The Guest Curator.

They approached micro-influencers with a simple proposition. Pick your ten favorite photos. We will feature them on our homepage. We will blast them to our newsletter.

It sounds like work. It is work. You are filtering content for a platform that isn't yours.

But the influencers didn't see it that way.

They saw it as an award.

When you ask someone to curate, you aren't asking for labor. You are validating their taste. You are telling them that their eye for design is so superior that it deserves a dedicated page on your website.

The influencers did the work. Then they thanked Unsplash for the privilege.

The perfect example of ego bait marketing

The strategy works best when you find the perfect partner.

Enter Tobias van Schneider. He is an award-winning designer and the former Art Director at Spotify. He has a massive, devoted following in the design community. He is exactly the kind of "micro-influencer" Unsplash needed.

Unsplash asked him to curate. He accepted.

He selected his favorite shots. Unsplash packaged them as the "Tobias van Schneider Collection."

Tobias didn't just post a link. He treated it like a portfolio piece. He shared it with his followers. He drove traffic back to Unsplash which helped with SEO too.

The partnership worked so well it evolved. It went from a digital collection to a physical product. They collaborated on a limited edition crew neck.

You can see the depth of this partnership in his blog post, Introducing Unsplash x Van Schneider.

The ego-bait worked. It worked so well it became a merchandise line.

Using famous names to build instant trust

It wasn't just designers. Unsplash aimed higher.

They needed to prove they were a legitimate tool for Silicon Valley, not just a Tumblr blog for wallpapers.

They went after the "super-influencers."

They got Guy Kawasaki. The Apple evangelist. The marketing guru.

Guy didn't just use the site. He had an official curated profile. By having a name like Kawasaki attached to the platform, Unsplash sent a signal to every marketer in the industry.

This is where the pros hang out.

Then there was Khoi Vinh.

Khoi is a former Design Director at The New York Times. On February 9, 2016, he published a post on his blog, Subtraction.com, titled Unsplash, Curated by Yours Truly.

He wrote:

"My Unsplash collection is just a faint echo of that one but it does have the very nice benefit of being yours to do whatever you like with."

He linked directly to his collection. He drove his audience of high-level designers right to Unsplash's front door.

Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, did the same. Chris Messina, the inventor of the hashtag, joined in.

These aren't people you can easily buy. But you can give them a platform to show off their taste.

The secret engine of status vs labor

You might wonder why no one complained. Why are there no blog posts titled "Unsplash tricked me into working for free"?

It basically comes down to the re-frame.

Unsplash never asked for help sorting photos. They offered a title.

They converted "labor" (sorting) into "status" (curator).

It provided real utility, too. Influencers like Khoi and Tobias have audiences (designers) that need stock photos. By curating a list, they provided a valuable resource to their followers while reinforcing their own brand as tastemakers.

It is a simple 3-step viral loop:

1. Unsplash gets free labor and distribution.

2. The influencer gets status and a resource for their fans.

3. The fans discover Unsplash and sign up.

Flattery is the cheapest customer acquisition cost in history. If you can make sharing your product feel like a flex for the user, you don't need to ask them to share. They'll do it to feed their own ego. After all, people share things that make them look smart.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

Love this. Specifically: "Do too much. To normal people execution looks like you're overreaching."

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A tree only grows when you prune the bad branches.

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