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How to make use of Content Creators successfully for your Brand
By Riaan Jordaan
President of Skål International Garden Route.
Owner of Riaan Jordaan Marketing.
We recently hosted a webinar on Content Creators to introduce people to the possibilities of using Content Creators' services to get a ‘fresh’ look for your Brand.
Let's unpack some of the points raised during the webinar:
But first, let us look at the definitions/descriptions of an Influencer and a Content Creator:
Influencer:
"A person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media".
Source: Lexico.com
Content Creator:
"A content creator is someone who creates appealing and awe-inspiring content for the viewers. The content they create can be educational or catchy enough to entertain and grab the attention of any visitor or passer-by who wasn't previously interested in your Brand. But after looking at the content, they developed a certain interest and visited your webpage or your social media handles".
Source: DigitalMarketing.org
For a more detailed description, follow this link.
While there are numerous arguments for using Influencers vs. Content Creators and vice versa, we, as an agency that specializes in tourism, prefer to work with Content Creators for the following reasons and use the following checklist to find the perfect match for our brands:
Followers
Firstly, it is not all about the followers. Instead, we will work with Content Creators with a smaller audience than just blindly staring at the follower number.
Engagement
For any campaign we launch, we must get people's engagement online – hence we will much rather work with a Content Creator that has, for example, 1000 followers. Still, their posts' engagement rate is higher than to invest money in an Influencer where they may have a 100k following but a low engagement rate.
Relevance
Another reason not to blindly stare at the followers. We often get requests from our clients that "influencer x asked for a free stay-over in exchange for a post, is this a good idea?"... and most of the time, the only reason the client is considering this request is because of follower numbers.
However, if you look at the influencer's content, your first question should be, is this relevant? They may be fashion influencers, for example. Trust me, if you do give away a ‘free night’ in exchange for a post – that is precisely what you will get – a free night for a post with little to no marketing value. People follow this specific influencer for fashion news – and now, suddenly they are standing in the bush with an elephant in the background – in my eyes, that is a total disconnect from their audience.
Remuneration
There is no such thing as free marketing – someone always loses if that is what the goal is – from both an influencer and a client-side.
While the perception is that remuneration is determined mainly by the number of followers instead look at remuneration is linked to what the Content Creators provides – a unique angle for your business, a new approach to storytelling about your product, unique photographs from their point of view – that may be used in future marketing, etc. and then only do you look at the following.
What should your thought process be when considering using a Content Creator for your Brand?
What message do you want to bring across?
Is your Brand relevant to what the content creators are talking about?
Is there engagement on the Content Creator's posts, blogs, etc.?
Write a short brief of what you expect (photos, a story, a blog).
Ask for a media pack and pricing structure from the candidates.
And only once you have done all these steps look at the price quoted vs. the following vs. the potential of reaching a new engaged market, and you will be pleasantly surprised how Content Creators can provide you with relevant, engaging marketing content that you can use for your Brand at much less than you expected!
Article by Riaan Jordaan, 2021 President of Skål International Garden Route and owner of Riaan Jordaan Marketing that specializes in social media management for tourism related business.
