Creator Marketing as a Competitive Advantage

Content creators, as the name suggests, make some kind of product, like books, music, art, etc. More often than not, the term content creator is used interchangeably with the word influencer. While it might be correct at first glance, the difference here is in the intention behind the actors. Both creator and influencer can influence and create at the same time, however their main focus is different. The former wants to make a product, while the latter desires to affect other people’s purchasing wishes.

Definition of creator marketing

A strategy to promote brand, product, or service awareness via social media influence of the content creators is called creator marketing. It’s a win-win situation for both parties involved: because the creator gets rewarded for integrating the commercials, while the marketer can profit on a highly engaged audience. This in turn can help you to improve your reach and interact with the new communities non-invasively.

Creators can achieve one important thing with the ads that no brand can — authenticity. Besides being authentic, the creator should possess some other qualities like:

• Having experience with the product
• Making high-quality and visually appealing content
• Boasting large followers count
• Sharing the same demographics with the audience

Creators are highly specialized, because they have to know all the nooks and crannies of their hobby in order to stand fast against the competition. Depending on your marketing strategy, you can either collaborate with a few large-reaching content creators or a bunch of content makers with smaller audiences.

Content creators are different

The strong follower base on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube is what makes creators perfect as a medium for brands. In comparison to traditional advertising campaigns, content creators enjoy much more freedom in concept development, tools used, and production. This helps to make truly authentic ads with highly shareable branded creatives and vast virality potential. It contributes positively towards brand recognition and customer engagement.

While creators differ based on the audience reach and the niche they work in. The type of content they produce can include, but is not limited to:

• Audio content
• Written books
• Images
• Videos

However, the formats above are not exhaustive, far from it in fact; because the creators’ content can serve different purposes: educational or entertaining. The purpose dictates the marketing goals that can be achieved: brand recognition, sales boost, product promotion, etc.

Launching a successful marketing campaign

Creator marketing campaign’s success resides on multiple factors, yet some of the most important ones are:

• Partnering with the creators, who are aligned with your product or brand
• Working with a couple of creators, instead of just one
• Settling for long-term partnership with a fewer pool of content creators, who have been bringing in more consistent results
• Get to know the automation tools (e.g., Instagram automation)

Last, but not the least, you have to mind your budget. The size of the audience is directly related to the cost you will incur. Another factor to consider is the platform used to promote one’s brand. For instance:

• Instagram creators with less than 10,000 followers will charge you around $25-$250 per post
• Instagram creators with less than 500,000 followers will cost you between $500-$5,000 per post
• Twitter creators with the audience of 1,000,000+ followers will ask for about $2,000

According to Linqia you should allocate 25% of your total digital marketing budget on the creator marketing. And in order to plan your campaigns efficiently, you can use the Excel chart, prepared by Demand Metric. This way, you will always have a bigger picture at hand and know what’s going on with your campaigns.

Contacting creators

Once you have established your goals, message, strategy, budget, and the desirable kind of creators, it is time to contact one of the bunch. Creators with less than 10,000 fan base can be contacted with a direct message on the platform they are using. Creators with a greater number of followers receive more collaboration offerings. Consequently, emailing one of them directly might be your best bet — usually their social profiles have all the necessary contact info.

There are multiple social platforms creators use to stay in touch with their audiences. Besides the mainstream YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook; you can also find the creators on some more specialized websites: 

1. Heepsy 
2. BrandAmbassador
3. SparkToro
4. Group High
5. AspirelQ
6. Influencers.Club
7. Klear
8. Traackr
9. Upfluence
10. Buzzsumo

The whole point of contacting the creators is to leverage their unique personality and character. Therefore, try to impose as few as possible restrictions on their creativity in order not to damage the precious authenticity. Here are two foundational rules:

1. Avoid asking creators to mimic your brand voice
2. Avoid asking them to post too many times, because people usually unfollow those, who post sponsored content a few times a week

Conclusion

Generally, follower count and engagement are great metrics to measure the potential impact of your creator marketing campaign’s impact. However, getting the ad shown up to the right audience is far more crucial than showing it to everyone just for the sake of it.

Still, Glewee has provided some metrics to use, while planning your budget and campaign. Please, have a look:

Remember that all the numbers in the chart are a rough approximation because some creators can boast truly die-hard supporters. Depending on the type of brand’s product, other platforms can perform exceptionally well too. Finally, external factors, like holidays or even days of the week can pan out in your favor (or not).

Stay innovative and creative to be different from other brands, partnering with the content creators; and keep in mind that this kind of partnership is beneficial to both parties involved. Therefore, don’t be discouraged if you do not succeed at first. Keep practicing, and you will learn how to leverage creator marketing.