The way we consume news, information, and entertainment has changed within the past decade. Back in the day, we relied on Television for entertainment and new information, whereas now we tune to social media to listen to our peers. It’s a revolution that has completely transformed the way we think and interact with each other. It’s the creator economy that is ruling social media right now.
Instagram alone has over 50 million users who rely on creator-sponsored content to make their buying decisions. Creator economy helps to direct their attention to brands across the world – Businesses they would never come across generally. The emergence of the creator economy has changed every business and created new opportunities to make money for creators.
Content creators of various niches curate content with a valid audience listening. As creators on social media are prominent authorities within a specific niche, they have a powerful influence on what their followers decide to buy or get informed with.
People worldwide use social media to curate their lifestyle to benefit their communities, and in the process, they develop authoritative content which helps them to identify new partner brands.
Communities offer opportunities for creators to translate human connectivity to new ways of revenue generation. For brands that want to reach a highly particular demographic or audience with specific interests, the creator economy provides support to access the niche target audience. It also comes with the additional benefit of creating relevant and meaningful content that meets the broad promotion requirements of brands.
Most creators who belong to the creator economy are professionally trained or self-taught photographers, creators, videographers and skilled editors who can help brands express their own voices.
With the growth creator economy experiences, the type of quality advertising generated replaces the traditional marketing style content leveraged by agencies. Indeed, most social media giants seek the creative potential of creators to find new users. Experts predict that we are heading to a future where the creator will have multiple and powerful ways to monetize their audience.
Here are four proven ways for brands to thrive in the creator economy.
Community development
As a business looking to promote your brand, you need to focus on community development. If you are not working on building your own community, you are missing out on a fundamental aspect of business growth. Integrate activities that engage audiences like polls, Q & A sessions, live streaming, meet and greet to entertain and retain your audience.
Cross platforming
Every content creator is expanding in different areas of the content building like licensing, selling products, or marketing to see what their fans are interested in. There are a lot of opportunities and platforms for content creators to offer their services to the audience. When it all started, YouTube was the only place for content creators to grow outside their website or on social media.
But now, creators are growing “bigger than YouTube” and are leveraging opportunities to take their videos and content to other channels. No one platform is going to cater to every users’ interests and needs. The creator economy has entered into licensing as well. For instance, you can create a product and distribute it.
Sustainable monetization opportunities
Earlier free platforms or community platforms thrived using the advertisement model and the transactional model where it takes a share from the creator’s income. Making a shift from advertising to other business models is a win-win for creators who want to sign up for a membership or buy merchandise. These days’ creators can make a good amount of money by allowing their fans to buy a 5-minute FaceTime, which is made possible by the popularity of the creator economy.
The creator economy has brought several innovative business models that help convert creators’ lives into sustainable careers.
Let’s look at some of the common and popular business models.
Platform revenue sharing model
As said in the above section, this is the most popular model for businesses and creators as well. While it is difficult to be profitable with this business model, it can be great if you combine it with other models. This model is preferred by creators or brands who already have a significant following and want to broaden their money generation strategies.
Affiliate marketing
This is a commission-based business model where creators are paid a commission for each client they refer to their partnering brand.
Creators monetize using their influence, but also with their quality content and their authority in the field. Influencers also get special coupon codes from brands that they can share with their audience.
Product placement model
Another popular brand partnership model is this – Creators are paid to use products from brands. Brands also pay creators a fee in return for the mentions offered or for link places on their website.
Subscription-based model
Most popular community platforms of creator economy work based on subscriptions. For example, popular platforms like Twitch, OnlyFans and Patreon allow viewers to subscribe to their favorite creators’ channels for a fee. Fans can get access to exclusive content, live streams and videos that are not accessible on other platforms.
If you want to leverage this business model and run a sustainable business, best bet is to use an OnlyFans clone script like Fanso to build your own membership website. Fanso is a ready-made software solution that comes with essential features and functionalities similar to platforms like OnlyFans that allows you to monetize your content in creative ways.
Creator economy thrives based on online users’ attention, in the past when it existed on material-based business models. Creator economy will be one of the profitable markets in the years to come, with the market evolving to accommodate the following.
● Creators will create community websites and apps to improve their monetization.
● Content creators will evolve to be founders and start building their teams.
● Digital marketing companies will offer creators more solutions to handle content creation.
● Tech brands will roll out more revenue generation tools to keep creators and their fan base engaged.
Brands are already on the path of creating and promoting creators’ content instead of simply marketing their own content. Creator-led campaigns see more responsive rates than traditional marketing activities, which help brands to take their business to new levels. The creator economy is going to rule the social media landscape in the coming years; don’t miss out on the opportunity if you haven’t already leveraged it.