Branded Content: Why Influencer Marketing Is More Than Just the Influencer

In the past, cre­ators have been used for their abil­i­ty to build com­mu­ni­ties and to reach and engage large yet tar­get­ed audi­ences. While this is still very much hap­pen­ing, cre­ators are more than ever, also being rec­og­nized for the high qual­i­ty of the con­tent that they create.

Often, cre­ators are able to gen­er­ate con­tent that is on par with that which a brand could cre­ate, and in the cur­rent cli­mate, at a time when stu­dios and offices are shut and brands are unable to cre­ate con­tent in the ways they pre­vi­ous­ly would, influ­ence-led brand­ed con­tent is becom­ing more and more preva­lent. As brands real­ize that cre­ators can be used for so much more than their fol­low­er count and influ­ence, brand­ed con­tent is the new craze in the realm of influ­encer marketing.

Here, we’re tak­ing a look at why so many brands are choos­ing to work with cre­ators to gen­er­ate brand­ed con­tent on a more long term basis, espe­cial­ly in the cur­rent climate.

Many creators can work, even when you can’t

Dur­ing the cur­rent glob­al coro­n­avirus cri­sis, stu­dios and teams can­not work togeth­er as they ordi­nar­i­ly would. This makes it extreme­ly dif­fi­cult for brands to cre­ate qual­i­ty con­tent that is required for mar­ket­ing cam­paigns. With­out find­ing an alter­na­tive to pro­duce brand­ed con­tent, brands will strug­gle to main­tain the qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of con­tent that they need to keep their social pres­ence alive. It goes with­out say­ing that this is essen­tial for all brands dur­ing this tur­bu­lent and crazy time, as peo­ple are look­ing for con­tent to engage with more than ever.

Con­tent cre­ators are spe­cial­ists in gen­er­at­ing con­tent that res­onates with the peo­ple that brands are try­ing to reach, and they have the capa­bil­i­ty and capac­i­ty to cre­ate this brand­ed con­tent in times when the brand may not be able to. Addi­tion­al­ly, many cre­ators are accus­tomed to cre­at­ing con­tent from their own homes. Some have stu­dios in their hous­es, while oth­ers spe­cial­ize in pro­duc­ing con­tent using dig­i­tal appli­ca­tions or even stock imagery.

The sit­u­a­tion we cur­rent­ly find our­selves in, there­fore, may not be unusu­al for many cre­ators; in fact, it may be very typ­i­cal. While every­thing is up in the air, we would encour­age brands to seek out those whose work­ing lives may have been slight­ly less top­pled — con­tent creators.

Creators are masters of content creation

Many con­tent cre­ators these days have a cre­ative tal­ent that could see them work for big agen­cies or in-house in cre­ative roles. Many of them have cho­sen to become cre­ators for the free­dom and lifestyle that it affords them. In this sense, cre­ators can often be the most tal­ent­ed indi­vid­u­als to gen­er­ate con­tent for your brand. Brands should start view­ing cre­ators beyond the usu­al stereotypes.

Many cre­ators are estab­lished artists, pho­tog­ra­phers, graph­ic design­ers, etc who have cho­sen to show­case their tal­ents via dig­i­tal medi­ums instead of, or as well as, pur­su­ing paths that are con­sid­ered to be more tra­di­tion­al. For this rea­son, work­ing with cre­ators to gen­er­ate brand­ed con­tent often means that your brand ben­e­fits from the best con­tent on the mar­ket, cre­at­ed by top talent.

Creators know what a brand’s target audience wants

Con­tent cre­ators are experts at under­stand­ing their audi­ence; they have built strong com­mu­ni­ties who are ful­ly engaged with their con­tent, and they know exact­ly what that audi­ence wants to see. This knowl­edge comes from years of inter­act­ing with their fol­low­ers, as well as exper­i­ment­ing with dif­fer­ent kinds of con­tent as their fol­low­ing has grown, and as a result, they know exact­ly what works and what doesn’t. Inter­est­ing­ly, 80% of respon­dents in a recent sur­vey said that influ­encer-gen­er­at­ed assets per­formed the same or bet­ter than brand-cre­at­ed assets.

Cre­at­ing brand­ed con­tent assets with a cre­ator on board means that brands also get their exper­tise and input regard­ing the kind of con­tent that the brand’s tar­get audi­ence wants to see. This is a unique per­spec­tive that many brands will strug­gle to ascer­tain. Thus, for brands, work­ing with con­tent cre­ators as part of their wider mar­ket­ing mix, or even with­in their cre­ative team, can add a huge amount of value.

You’ll be able to repurpose the content

Engag­ing con­tent cre­ators to pro­duce brand­ed con­tent for your brand can save a lot of time and mon­ey. Brands are able to repost or repur­pose cre­ator con­tent for their own mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives. This may be on social media; on their own social chan­nels or in social ads, for oth­er dig­i­tal chan­nels; for instance, for use on their own web­site or on ban­ner ads, or for use out­side of dig­i­tal — for instance, on bill­boards, in mag­a­zines, or on a TV ad (although these medi­ums may be less rel­e­vant currently).

This abil­i­ty to repur­pose pre­mi­um con­tent often means that mar­keters can save bud­get by cre­at­ing brand­ed con­tent with a cre­ator. Accord­ing to a recent study, 41% of mar­keters said they have saved the bud­get on con­tent cre­ation by engag­ing cre­ators. On top of that, repur­pos­ing the con­tent allows you to use the feed­back that you’ve already received from the audi­ence to tai­lor the cam­paign to spe­cif­ic seg­ments of your audience.

This kind of tri­al and error tac­tic works well when repur­pos­ing con­tent and can give a brand more detailed infor­ma­tion on their audi­ence. It should be not­ed that usage rights must be agreed with the cre­ator, before the cam­paign, as part of the cam­paign con­tract. How do I work with influ­encers to cre­ate brand­ed con­tent? Work­ing with con­tent cre­ators to cre­ate brand­ed con­tent needn’t be hard.

We’re cur­rent­ly work­ing with some of the biggest glob­al brands to cre­ate amaz­ing con­tent at a time when their teams are unable to cre­ate the con­tent them­selves. With our ver­i­fied and trust­ed com­mu­ni­ty of cre­ators, we’ll be able to pair you with the tal­ent that can gen­er­ate brand­ed con­tent and assets for your chan­nels. Get in touch today to learn more about work­ing with Influ­encer to cre­ate brand­ed con­tent that res­onates with your tar­get audience.

SOURCE: The Drum