More than 50 million people worldwide consider themselves to be creators. Social media and the emergence of creator-friendly platforms has enabled anyone to become a creator.
The creator economy is an economy that allows creators to earn revenue from their creations. The creator economy has sparked a movement of new entrepreneurs, creative, business savvy people who use organic and paid social media posts to build communities, sell products, and grow businesses. Creators divulge the social media platforms that actually earn them money, creating a war among social media platforms. Influencer Marketing Hub estimates the total size of the creator economy to be over $104 billion dollars!
The Rise
With the rise of social media, brands saw the potential for reach and engagement! Creators, people with lots of followers, were asked to promote brands on their profiles in return for free products and shortly after, in return for a hefty paycheck. Creators suddenly realized they could build out their own personal brands! Creators are becoming their own businesses.
That’s brought us to the creator economy that we are in currently. This is an economy where content created by fans, customers, employees, and professional creators about brands is constantly shown across our feeds. It’s normalized advertising in a way that has never been seen before about their favorite products. Creators are constantly feeding their audiences with content, paid and unpaid.
Through influencer marketing, creators get paid to promote products across their social channels, such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Youtube. This is great for brand awareness. But, what about the rest of your funnel? The second way marketers are utilizing the creator economy is through user-generated content. User-generated content (UGC) is original, brand-specific content created by customers and published on social media or other channels.
So, what has contributed to the rise of the creator economy?
The Battle for Consumer Attention
There is a war taking place among all of the social networks for consumer attention. Consumers want to see their favorite influencers and content creators on the platforms they use. So, social media influencers and content creators are a huge part of helping social media platforms garner that attention. Content creators are becoming the backbone and main attraction of many social media platforms! If you get the influencers, you will get the engagement and reach, which means you get the advertisers and their dollars!
Given that all social platforms are guided by ad revenue, the net result is that they are doing whatever it takes to get influencers to create content on their platforms! An example of this is the creator funds. Yes, platforms are giving money to creators just for creating content on the platform.
Personalization
Whatever your niche is as a brand, there is a creator with an already established fan base waiting to partner with you! And they will do a better job of creating authentic, long-term customer relationships than any brand account could ever hope to. That is the power and influence that these creators have.
Brands are dedicating ever-increasing budgets and company resources toward creator marketing campaigns. A brand needs to first define their target audience and find out which social media platform that they are on. After deciding that, browse creator marketplace and find a content creator that fits perfectly in your niche. Brands need to be ready to pay these creators a pretty penny, but this type of marketing is so effective and personalized.
While influencer marketing was once dominated by major celebrities and corporations, “micro-influencers” have taken social media by storm. Unlike traditional influencers, micro-influencers share their expertise with a smaller audience. Through more personalized content they are able to have better relationships with their followers. Since micro-influencers are far less expensive to partner with, small businesses can now hire influencers to market their products to a niche audience!
Creator Funds
Social platforms introduced creator funds in 2020 as a measure to appease (and in some cases lure) creators onto platforms. Let's dive deep into the TikTok creator fund as an example. The TikTok Creator Fund is a monetary fund for creators. It is away for TikTok to share income with creators who are killing it on the platform, encouraging them to keep creating. TikTok calculates their payouts based on factors like views, video engagement and even region-specific performance. Many social media platforms witnessed the successful of TikTok's creator fund and adapted their strategy!
In Conclusion
With social networks investing billions behind creators and marketers spending so much working with those creators, it’s no surprise that the creator economy is growing at such an incredible speed. With this fight for consumer's attention, we will be seeing many social media platforms adjusting to accommodate content creators and influencers.
Comments