How To Cultivate Relationships With Content Creators

According to a recent study from influencer marketplace Tomoson, businesses or brands choose influencers as a channel for sales and promotion because they help yield significant returns. The top 13% of the surveyed businesses earned as much as $20 for each dollar spent, while about 70% of their respondents earned at least $2 or more. It then followed that influencer marketing is the fastest-growing online marketing channel, outpacing popular methods such as affiliate marketing, paid searches, and traditional display advertising.

There are many reasons behind this, one being that media distribution on large platforms is a science within itself. With backend analytics and a constantly evolving algorithm, reaching niches is easier than ever. Influencers are able make good use of these tools by creating content geared towards specific audiences, and attracting the occasional high-profile client. Another reason why businesses are turning to online content producers is because more and more individuals are buying products based on what they see on their feeds. E-commerce capabilities have progressed far beyond what it was just a few years prior, and thus a lot of products are much more accessible regardless of where you are in the world.

Online influencers have essentially changed the relationship between consumers and the content they consume. Brands now acknowledge that consumers are not just engaging with what’s put in front of them, but also tend to interact with the creators themselves. Many customers are transacting online, which means that brands can no longer rely on footfall alone. To get their products in front of people, they’ve turned to creators with an existing audience to do so. This is not only ideal from a cost standpoint, but it allows brands to gain unique consumer insights to help improve their branding and refine or reinforce their other marketing channels such as digital advertisements or email funnels.

Working with influencers is a package, meaning that the expenses associated with collaborative campaigns are oftentimes inclusive of content production and distribution. Some brands prefer to utilize ex-deals, which means that the influencers will receive a number of benefits such as free products in exchange for promotions. Others will opt to go with paid sponsorships to run campaigns until a certain metric is fulfilled such as clicks, checkouts on purchases, or views.

What’s important to note is that influencers are just a subcategory of an industry known as the Creator Economy, of which brands can tap into to unlock value. Typically, when we think of creators, it’s usually vloggers, artists, or musicians. In reality, a creator is a brand or individual with a vision in mind and a community to rally around it. They have the potential to revolutionize the way we think about collaboration, and it’s been proven to be an effective means to reach goals faster.

Examples of brand collaborations with Creators

Vat19 and Liquid Plumr

Vat19 is well known for their unique content and style of presentation. One of their most popular videos called “Will It Blend? World’s Largest Gummy Bear” has garnered over 47 million views to date. In 2018, Liquid Plumr reached out for a collaboration which showcased the capabilities of their product. The Vat19 team saw this as an opportunity to hit two birds in one stone through their partnership and the potential to earn ad revenue. The result came in the form of a “Will it Clog?” video which earned them 7 million views. The method employed here was the use of affiliate links. Vat19 would earn a commission each time a product is purchased using the link they provided.

The collaboration was a success because it felt authentic and in line with the creator’s brand and naturally, their audience as well.

Miette Dierckx and Coca Cola

Miette Dierckx is a travel and food blogger who serves as an ambassador for Coca Cola. While she doesn’t necessarily have millions of followers, the brand chose to work with her because of her ability to strike a chord with her audiences. She often posts happy snippets of her life while holding or sipping a refreshing can of Coke in her hand. This has been effective, because it shows that she had a very dedicated and engaged 38,000 followers despite its lower size, which Coca Cola uses to their advantage to expand their reach over time.

Dunkin Donuts

Dunkin Donuts relied on promoting their coffee and beverage products to millennials by working with Nano-influencers (1,000–10,000 followers) on Instagram in 2018. They would have influencers post photos of their daily routine while holding a drink from the brand. It managed to raise awareness with a 5% engagement rate and was a massive contributor to a record $300 million in coffee sales that year for them.

How Brands Can Identify the Right Creators

Brands have to choose which creators they want to work with. If creators aren’t aligned with the goals of the business, having more followers or engagements won’t result in conversions. This is why it’s crucial to look at what audience they are able to reach and whether they resonate with the business’s target customers. No matter how good their content is, a collaboration will not succeed without this in mind. With analytics and discovery tools, you can identify which creators are ideal for your campaign’s needs.

Brands must also look at how engaged a creator’s community is. It’s a key metric because it shows the likelihood of generating interactions ranging from clicks, views, purchases, and more. While vanity metrics such as likes and followers are mostly obscure today, there are more useful ones such as saves, shares, and dwell time which can serve as better indicators of intent.

Lastly, running through an exercise to analyze the type of content the creator produces will help align goals and create the best way for you to work together on presenting a product. Businesses would ideally target creators who would be good ambassadors and could be as authentic as possible to represent the brand. A good sign is if they are able to organically insert product placements into their content without making viewers feel that it is being sold to them. The key to these collaborations is generating genuine interest through powerful messaging conveyed through entertaining means, which people will gravitate towards and eventually match the creator’s preferences to theirs.

BitFans — Forging Relationships with Content Creators

A new way to engage with content creators comes in the form of Social Tokens, also known as Community Tokens. These are cryptocurrencies that are created and launched by creators of all sizes and issued to their audiences to provide various benefits such as access to content, exclusive chat groups, voting rights for creative decisions, and more. For businesses, they can gain access to a Creator’s audience by acquiring their community tokens. Not only does this create a mutually beneficial partnership that lasts beyond single campaigns, but it also provides everyone in the ecosystem with exposure to the upside of the creator. This incentivizes everyone in the community to help drive growth and exposure for the creator and their associated brands.

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