Eligibility Guidelines for Creators

CTCollab is a curated platform designed to connect businesses, organizations, and communities with trusted digital content creators. To maintain the quality and relevance of the directory, all applicants must meet the eligibility requirements outlined below.

CTCollab is open to individual digital content creators who meet the following criteria:

• Actively create and publish digital content, including but not limited to:
  • Social media content
  • Podcasts or digitally distributed series
  • Vlogs
  • Blogs or newsletters
• Maintain an active and engaged audience on at least one digital platform
• Publish content consistently, or demonstrate a clear intent to do so
• Are open to creating original content for external partners, not solely for personal or self-promotional use
• Are interested in paid collaborations and partnerships with:
  • Brands
  • Small businesses
  • Municipalities
  • Nonprofits and other organizations
• Are willing to participate in collaborative campaigns, with content shared on:
  • The creator’s own digital channels
  • Partner channels
  • Or both

Photographers and videographers are eligible provided they:

• Actively publish their work on digital platforms
• Have established audience reach and content distribution
• Create content intended for digital storytelling or audience-facing campaigns

The following entities and individuals are not eligible for inclusion on CTCollab:

• Marketing, public relations, advertising, or creative agencies
• Firms, consultants, or intermediaries that manage, represent, or broker creators
• Brands or businesses using digital channels solely to promote their own products or services
• Organizations with large followings that do not engage in creator partnerships
• Production-only vendors who:
  • Deliver private client work exclusively
  • Do not publish content regularly on their own channels
  • Do not maintain an engaged digital audience

To help brands identify experienced creators, CTCollab offers a “Verified Creator” designation for applicants who meet established platform standards. Verification is intended for creators with demonstrated experience producing professional brand partnership content and maintaining an engaged audience.

To be considered for verification, creators must meet all of the following requirements:

• Have a minimum of 15,000 followers on at least one primary social media platform
• Provide examples of previous paid or gifted brand collaborations during the application process
• Demonstrate consistent audience engagement through authentic interactions, including comments, shares, saves, and likes
• Maintain a public, active account with consistent content posting

Please note:

• Verification decisions are made at the discretion of the CTCollab team based on overall account quality, professionalism, brand collaboration experience, and audience engagement patterns
• Artificially inflated followers or engagement (including purchased followers, engagement pods, or bot activity) may result in denial or removal of verification
• Meeting the minimum requirements does not guarantee verification approval

Engagement & Account Quality Review

As part of the review process, the CTCollab team may evaluate factors including:

• Overall engagement rate relative to audience size
• Consistency and quality of content
• Professionalism of previous branded collaborations
• Audience authenticity and interaction quality
• Alignment with platform standards and community guidelines

Existing Creators

If you joined CTCollab.com prior to the launch of the Verified Creator program, please email branded content samples and collaboration examples to:

c4support@ct.gov

Please include links to your social platforms and at least 3 examples of previous branded content partnerships for review.