An Introduction to Creator Marketing
You already know that creating engaging content and a well-thought-out marketing strategy helps you grow your business. But one idea that might be new to you is creator marketing, a concept that is shifting how marketers collaborate and create content. When introducing a product or promoting your business, one post with a creator simply no longer suffices. Instead, a larger strategy needs to be set in place.
This article will introduce the concept of the creator economy and creator marketing. You’ll also learn more about the difference between working with a content creator and an influencer.
What is the Creator Economy?
Before we get into creator marketing, let’s look at the background on this topic. The countless social media platforms and content creators active today make up a new landscape on the Internet, which is called the creator economy.
According to the marketing software company HubSpot, the creator economy is the online economy made up of content creators, which includes social media influencers, videographers, bloggers, and other digital creatives. Tools and software that help these creators grow profit from the content are also part of the creator economy.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people were at home and had more time to spend time online, the number of active content creators increased. Many soon discovered this content could also generate money. It was estimated there were over 50 million content creators just two years ago. It’s likely this number is even higher today.
Creators use social platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Twitch, just to name a few. If you’re not yet using TikTok to promote your brand, take a look at our blog article Using TikTok for Your Business.
What is Creator Marketing?
Sprout Social defines creator marketing as “when brands partner with content creators to drive awareness and engagement for specific campaigns or initiatives.” By incorporating creator marketing into your strategy, you can greatly improve your audience engagement and reach.
Choosing to work with a content creator can help you strengthen your community or reach new followers, but not all creators are the same:
- Content Creators: produce entertaining or educational content for digital distribution, including audio content (podcasts), written content (blogs), photos/images, and videos (YouTube videos). Content creators know how important it is to build a relationship with their audience, which is important to note when you are looking for someone to collaborate with a creator.
- Social Media Content Creators: similar to content creators, this creator subcategory prioritizes building a relationship with audience members across all social platforms. If you are interested in marketing on various social platforms, it may be beneficial to work with a social media content creator.
One popular content creator is Yoga with Adriene. She creates yoga-workout videos and has brought yoga to many peoples’ homes, especially during the pandemic. She connects well with her following and it is apparent that she has built a strong community behind her brand.
What is the difference between a content creator and an influencer?
It’s important to note that content creators create content, blogs, photos, etc. to make money, while influencers “inspire” followers to buy or to do something. The big difference is the intention behind the content being posted.
Content creators produce high-quality content to engage with their audience through photos and videos, which can include tutorials, how-to guides, etc. Influencers share their lives and promote products, which, if purchased by their following, often bring them a percentage of sales.
Here are some example marketing goals that can help you decide if you should work with a content creator or an influencer.
- Working with a content creator: you want high-quality content and/or want to create a unique project. You’d like to use the creator’s style to present your brand. Digital content creators are usually paid per project and they often offer you a quote based on your request. They can help you create engaging content for marketing purposes or for sale strategies.
- Working with an influencer: you want to reach new audiences and increase brand awareness. You’d also like to promote a new product or service to a special niche group that the influencer targets. Influencers often create packages based on the promotion that you want and the reach that they have.
It’s important to note that choosing to work with a content creator vs. an influencer is not necessarily an either-or situation. It really depends on your marketing strategy and your overall goals.
As always, make sure to stay on top of trends and learn about content creators in your industry. You can find content creators or influencers that interest you by using social listening. Want to learn how? Read our How You Can Use Social Listening to Improve Your Business blog to find out.
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How to Use Social Media Scheduling Tools to Save Time and Work Smarter
You’ve created your buyer personas, decided on content pillars, and planned your calendar of social media posts. But how do you make use of social media scheduling to share your content with the world?
Sure, you can share each post in your social media calendar manually. For some posts this makes sense.
But often there’s a better way. We recommend saving time and working smarter by scheduling some–not all–of your posts ahead of time. Here’s what you need to know about social media scheduling tools, and how to strike a balance that works for you.
Pros and Cons of Social Media Scheduling
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to social media scheduling. If your budget for social media is large and you have a dedicated social team, it might make sense to post manually most of the time. This gives you the flexibility to make last minute changes and reserve space for reposting trending topics of the day.
If you’re a one-person team and social media is a small part of your job, schedule away!
Regardless of the size of your team, if you’re collaborating with an influencer who is scheduling their posts, you might want to balance these with more spontaneous content.
But these are just rough guidelines, not the whole story. Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of scheduling your posts.
Pros
1. Time Management: Social Media Managers are busy. Scheduling posts ahead of time can help you make the most of the work you’ve already put in, while freeing up time for other tasks. This is especially true for managers who wear multiple hats. If you need to carve out time for other work, scheduling can free up your mental space as well.
2. Posting at the Right Time: Maybe you’ve noticed your followers engage most with posts on Thursday afternoons, but you have regular meetings during that time and posting manually is a challenge. Or maybe you’re preparing a post for an audience in a different time zone, who are most active when you’re asleep. Whatever the reason, scheduling can give you better control over timing.
3. More Relevant Live Posting: If you pre-schedule posts of evergreen content, you can create more time to engage on social media in real time. Depending on your industry, this might look like sharing breaking news, live-streaming an event, or joining a trending discussion.
Cons
1. Robotic Voice: Remember that the power of social media lies in connecting people. Your customers want to feel like a real person is behind your social media, not a machine. Scheduling too many of your posts can create so much consistency that your posts feel lifeless. When you get stuck in a rut, you can lose the spontaneity and variability that give color to your content.
2. Outdated Information and Errors: The world is always changing, and sometimes changes that happen between scheduling and posting make a difference. We’ve all seen posts from brands that come out after a major news event and suddenly seem insensitive. And sometimes the start time for an event changes, or a speaker drops out.Similarly, your social content will contain errors from time to time. Maybe there’s a typo you didn’t catch or a problem with the way Facebook generates your link. Scheduling makes it more likely that errors will stay live longer before you can fix them.
3. Temptation to Overpost: With social media, more is not always better. Remember that you’re trying to connect with your buyer personas, not with as many people as possible. Take a look at your buyer personas and consider the scope of your business, as well as the time you can dedicate to social media. You don’t have to be present on every social media platform, and you don’t want to overwhelm your audience with too many posts.
How to Choose Which Scheduling Tool to Use
So you’ve decided to schedule some of your posts, but how do you choose which scheduling tool to use?
Let’s start with the in-app options. Some social platforms offer an option to schedule directly in the app. If you have a limited budget and a presence on only a small number of platforms, we recommend starting here. If your business is on Facebook and Instagram, for example, you can schedule posts for both in the Meta Business Suite. Schedule a few posts to see how it works for you, and monitor the results to make sure you’re meeting your goals.
If you have a larger budget and social media is a significant part of your marketing strategy, a third-party app will likely serve you better. Scheduling tools like HootSuite and Sprout Social offer a streamlined interface for managing content on social platforms. Importantly, they also offer analytics tools to help you make sure you’re meeting your KPIs and getting the ROI you want.
Many third-party scheduling tools offer a free version and an upgraded version for those who pay. If you pay, you can expect fewer limitations on things like the number of posts, and greater access to tools for analytics and reporting.
Finally, if you work at a larger company that uses a CRM such as HubSpot or Zoho, you may have the option for social media scheduling in the CRM. This is a great way to cut back on the number of apps you use and work more efficiently. Keep in mind, some CRM’s offer social tools only at the highest subscription level, so check your account to make sure scheduling is available for you.
Remember there are no hard and fast rules for scheduling social media posts. Consider your goals, the size of your team, and the tools available to you. Then test, evaluate, and adjust as needed.
Do you need help with your social media strategy? GoViral Digital has more than ten years’ experience in inbound marketing. Request a proposal to take your business to the next level.
Keeping Up with Instagram Updates in 2021
Instagram never stops surprising us. While the world is trying to stay positive through these challenging times, it is exciting to see how Instagram rapidly develops new features and functionalities to tackle main business issues and help users support their favourite brands.
And now, more than ever, keeping up with what’s new on Instagram can be quite a challenge. There are new Instagram features almost every week. We know it is essential to stay up to date with the latest changes on Instagram, so we put together a list of important updates announced by Instagram in 2021 so far.
More Security for Users Under 18
The world of the internet can sometimes be overwhelming for young users. Providing them with protection online is the real need of the hour.
Here are some latest safety features for young users by Instagram:
Private account by default for everyone under 16
Instagram’s main priority is to stop strangers from making unwanted contact with young users. Private accounts for users under 16 is the best way to deal with it. It lets you control who can see and comment on their content, and it won’t be possible for unwanted users to see their content on Explore or Hashtags.
No unwanted contact
Having a private account is the first step to avoid unwanted contact. But that’s not all! Instagram goes above and beyond to ensure young users aren’t exposed to unwanted contact from adults they don’t want to hear from.
Instagram has developed a new technology to keep “potentially suspicious behaviour” away from users under 16. Accounts belonging to adults that may have recently been blocked or reported by a young user is defined as potentially suspicious behaviour.
With this technology, these accounts won’t be able to see any young users’ accounts or content in Explore, Reels or ‘Accounts Suggested for You’. They won’t be able to follow them even if they find these accounts by searching their usernames. So much so that they won’t be able to see comments from young users and won’t be able to leave comments on their posts.
We think this is one of the best features Instagram has introduced so far!
Advertising limitations for targeting young people
Another game-changing feature that Instagram introduced is how advertisers can target young users with ads. The platform now allows targeting ads based only on their age, gender and location, which means that advertisers no longer have the options to target based on their interests or activities.
When these users turn 18, Instagram will inform them about the advertising policy change and the tools to control their ad experience.
No Place for Hate Speech
Protecting its users from abusive comments and DMs has been of the biggest concerns for Instagram for a long time. It seems like Instagram is working hard to deal with the situation, and the company rolled out an excellent feature called Limits.
With this feature, you can now limit or hide comments and messages from users that are not on your followers’ list or have recently started following you. The purpose of Limits is to help protect public figures from offensive comments and DMs.
It is no ‘Breaking News’ that Instagram creators and influencers often receive hateful comments from random profiles. Since the pandemic, it only seems to have gotten worse. A step in the right direction, we say!
A New Tab - Audio
Instagram is looking to lean into video-form after seeing the success of competitors like TikTok and YouTube. The company announced that it is no longer a photo-sharing app and promotes users to use reels and short-video form posts.
Recently, a new audio tab has appeared in the app. This tool gives users the ability to search for reels by song. Like any other music app, Instagram will provide a list of songs when users swipe and search.
Users will then be able to see 30-second reels with the song. Users can save any music they like for later, or there is also an option “use audio” to create a reel if they wish.
Translation Features
The company announced that a new accessibility feature would be added on Instagram – Translation. This feature supports 90 languages right now, and however, it is only possible to translate written text.
This new update will translate the text in Instagram Stories. Instagram will give you a “See Translation” option to translate the overlayed text in Stories. When the users click on it, they will be presented with a translation panel.
Brands in global markets will love this new update as users globally don’t have to miss stories from their favourite international brands. A similar option is also available for feed, comments and profiles.
Exciting News for Businesses
Data Tracking is made easy with the latest update. Instagram expanded the data tracking period for insights from 30 days to 90 days. Companies can quickly analyse their quarterly insights on the platform to create a better strategy. Something to look forward to for small businesses!
Additionally, the company announced testing a new feature that provides businesses options to display ads in the shopping tab. The ads can vary from a single image to a carousel.
Marketers can even use Reels as ads that look no different than any usual Reel, with a difference of ‘sponsored’ tab on it.
Research shows that users on Instagram are looking for more video, messaging and shopping content rather than images. There is no doubt that the platform will be making many changes to entertain its users more.
As the world of digital marketing continues to change and evolve rapidly, make sure to stay current with the latest trends and keep your marketing strategy fresh. Sign up for our newsletter below to stay in-the-know.