In the modern online world, everyone with an internet connection can be a creator. With so many social platforms, forums, and online hubs, (as well as millions of websites where creators can promote themselves, their business, products, or simply their work), it should come as no surprise that the creator economy is booming all over the world.
But what does this mean for businesses and is there an opportunity here for business leaders to leverage the creator economy to achieve their marketing, sales, and branding goals? The answer is a resounding yes. However, it can often be difficult to identify the strategies and tactics you should employ to make the most of the creator economy for your business.
So, today we are taking a look at the best practices you can start using right now to make the creator economy work for you and help you take your brand forward in 2023 and the years to come.
Identifying the Ideal Creators in Your Space
There’s a whole world of new, experienced, and veteran content creators out there, as well as those who are entering the playing field every minute. Without a doubt, there are many creators in many different online spaces that you can reach out to or people you can influence to start creating content about your brand, products, or services.
But where do you begin and how do you make sure that the people you engage or the influencers you start working with are the right fit for your brand’s identity, values, and vision? First things first, you need to research your audience and potential creators thoroughly.
Researching your audience is essential for all marketing activities and when you’re working with programmatic advertising companies to automate various advertising activities, but it’s also important when you’re engaging content creators for word-of-mouth campaigns, shout-outs, and more. With that in mind, you should make sure to:
- Identify your target audience and build detailed avatars
- Identify the platforms they use
- Identify the top influencers in that space
- Continue researching micro-influencers and creators
- Compare their personal brands with your own brand
- Ensure brand compatibility along with values, drivers, and messaging
Building More Authentic Partnerships
Nowadays, everyone can be an influencer, and while that opens many new opportunities for businesses and individuals, it also comes with certain challenges and potential drawbacks. Namely, with so many influencers and content creators out there, it can be difficult to build a lasting relationship with your audience and inspire them to stick around for the long haul.
New and equally entertaining content creators are popping up at every corner, and people are discovering fresh, exciting content every day. This is why it’s important that the people you work with not only have a loyal following but that they’re staying on top of the latest social media trends in their field in order to keep their audience engaged.
In order to build more authentic, long-lasting partnerships with your content creators, you also need to ensure the perfect brand fit. This is how their audience will become your brand’s audience and eventually your loyal customers because after all, if the creator shares your brand’s values and key traits, then everything they put out will be more honest and authentic – and people will respect them for it.
Types of Content for Your Creators
In digital marketing, there are many types of content that businesses can use to spark engagement and stay relevant in the fast-paced online world. While content marketing is often associated with written content only, the reality is that written content is just one piece of the content puzzle.
In fact, the more you diversify your content, the better you’ll be at engaging audiences across digital platforms. For example, a blogger influencer can create an informative article on their website promoting your brand, but that won’t do you much good for your social media video strategy for those platforms that are strictly visual in nature. That’s why content diversification is important so that you can cover all the platforms and their preferred content types.
When choosing your creators, you should be mindful of the platforms they use and the types of content they create. Make sure to diversify between:
- Reel creators
- Visual artists for unique imagery and infographics
- Podcast creators
- Bloggers
- Vloggers
Leveraging Employees as Creators
While other businesses are competing with who can partner up with the most external influencers, you might want to look internally for your creator superstars. Not many businesses think to leverage their employees for content creation, and when they do, they often do it in such a way that it makes it seem forced rather than organic.
If you’re going to tap into the potential of your employee collective, you can’t demand that they create content, you need to inspire and incentivize it. This comes from:
- Being an excellent employer and having an engaging employer brand
- Acknowledging and appreciating your employees
- Having a positive workplace culture
- Investing in employee advancement and training
- Providing excellent working conditions and perks
When you have this basis, you can confidently ask your employees to share and create content to promote your business. They write engaging posts talking about your brand or a specific solution and complement them with various visuals from Depositphotos.com and similar royalty-free repositories where they can find fresh visuals for every new post.
Combining visuals with written content will be the best way to create engaging posts for their social media pages, but also for forums and online groups, and professional platforms like Glassdoor and LinkedIn.
Utilizing Social Media for Brand Reach and Sales
The majority of content creators can be found on social media networks, and more importantly, social media is where the majority of your audience will spend their time online. While online forums, groups, and even blogging sites should be a part of your strategy, social media content creation should be your primary concern if you want to increase sales and brand reach.
When creating social media content, you can also download the content to be used for other marketing purposes and channels, as well. For example, if your employees are creating reels, they can then download Instagram reels with audio to repurpose parts of the content (audio or video only, or both) for other platforms, the company’s content page, or even your landing pages.
The possibilities are numerous, and you need to optimize the content you and your creators are posting for every specific platform.
Keep in mind that while TikTok strictly thrives on short video content that’s dynamic and fast-paced, Instagram is also good for reels that are very educational and have a slightly slower pace. On LinkedIn, on the other hand, you and your creators have a chance to create long-form educational content and bring a lot of value to your audience.
With all of that in mind, always remember to optimize the content for the unique preferences of every social platform.
Taking Action and Landing on Your Website
Most of the effort you put into your content and your creators will be to incentivize potential customers to head over to your website and buy something with a unique code, or to take advantage of a limited-time offer. In fact, the possibilities here are endless, as you can also inspire them to come over and participate in a quiz, download some free materials, or grab a personalized bundle offer on signup.
What all of these incentives have in common is that they are located on your landing pages, meaning the pages people land on after following a link your influencers published or clicking on a CTA in their posts or video description. Needless to say, this can be a powerful way to promote a product launch as well.
Your landing page strategies need to include everything from testimonials and product tours, to social proof and special incentives in order to generate the desired results. They also need to complement the content created by your influencers in order to ensure messaging continuity from social media over to your landing page.
Once you have optimized your landing pages, then all the content that your creators publish will have a much higher chance of generating tangible results.
Over to You
The creator economy is booming around the world and now’s the time for business leaders to take action and implement the best practices that will help them leverage these creators to boost their marketing, sales, and branding across the board. With these tips and tactics in mind, go ahead and include the creator economy into your 2023 strategy, and invest in this lucrative opportunity to take your business forward in the competitive online world.
