How to run a Seeding Brief

This guide walks through building and running a Seeding brief. New to seeding? Start with What is a Seeding brief?

1. Start your brief

Create a new brief and choose the Seeding brief type. 

2. Build the brief

The Seeding wizard is intentionally short:

• Product — name your product, add it (manually, purchased, or via your Shopify integration), and explain how creators should use it.
• Deliverables — set your goal (required) and, optionally, a hashtag, mentions, and caption. Add a style guide and 1–5 AI Asset Analysis requirements.
• Deadlines — set an apply-by date and a post window (a start and end date for when creators should post).
• Targeting — enter the number of creators you want to accept, then describe who you’re looking for in plain language (for example, “pet owners” or “fitness enthusiasts”), along with the standard targeting options. Creators never see this description — Finn uses it to check fit against what Cohley already knows about each creator, and only where an answer isn’t known does it ask that creator a quick yes/no question before they can view the brief.
• Agree to payment - Each completed Creator is $35. You will be billed in arrears, up to the max amount of Creators to work with x $35, for every Creator moved to Completed at the end of each month. This fee is in addition to your Cohley license.

Heads up: once you launch, the Product, Deliverables, and Targeting pages are locked. You can still adjust dates.

3. After you launch: your stages

Finn manages the brief from here. Your creators move through four stages:

1. Accepted — After your apply-by date, Finn accepts matching creators (up to your creator count). This view is built for shipping: ship via Shopify or export creator contact info, and update product selection if needed.
2. AI Asset Analysis — Creators who’ve uploaded content appear here with their pass/flag results. You can view flags; no action is needed.
3. Pending Post — Creators whose content passed and who are cleared to post, but haven’t posted yet.
4. Completed — Creators who’ve linked at least one post. View posts by platform, see accepted assets, rate creators, and reimburse product costs where needed (per creator, through Finn’s reimbursement flow).

A few things to remember:

• There is no chat function with creators in a Seeding brief — Cohley sends the automated messages.
• You don’t approve content or send change requests; passing AI Asset Analysis clears creators to post.
• Post performance appears in Social Performance for Instagram and TikTok. YouTube posts are supported, but aren’t measured in reporting yet.
• If you need help with running a seeding brief or run into any issues that require communiction to creators (e.g. shipping delays or cancellations) please reach out to help@cohley.com for support.

View the video walkthrough here.