How to Build Lasting Content Creator Relationships

“93% of marketing professionals use influencer marketing to increase brand awareness, build trust, reach their target audience, drive conversions, and connect to a wider market” (Influencer Marketing Hub). We know we work with content creators every day as well as influencers. Brands using real people to get their name out there to the right audience are really on to something. We may be biased since we know the power of UGC ad campaigns firsthand, but we want to chat a little about the importance of creating a relationship with creators that will last a long time. Successful creator-brand relationships are no different from any other and must be nurtured. They’re very valuable for both parties involved. The brand gets to spread awareness while the content creator also gets cross-promotion to increase their brand awareness as well. It’s important to keep the collaboration positive. Here are some tips to create and foster a great brand-creator relationship.

1.     Check-in: check in with them often and show your appreciation for them. Communication is vital!

2.     Communicate clearly: make sure that you provide them with concise and detailed briefs on what you need from them. This will lower any mistakes from confusion and streamline the work process.

3.     Don’t micromanage: you have to trust them. Treat them as if you understand that they’ve worked hard to build their content brand and know what they’re doing. There is a reason that you chose them to collaborate with. Don’t lose sight of that.

4.     Compensation: be on time with payments and make sure that you’re paying them accordingly. You show them that you value their work and will build greater trust between you both.

When both sides are happy the relationship will continue to be productive and reciprocal. This collaboration has become a large part of marketing strategies for most brands. With happy creators, the content they create will be meaningful. You will see in the content’s quality that they are fully invested in the brand.

Supporting Content Creators

“44% of content creators say their creator business is their family’s primary source of income,” according to The Tilt, but only “12% of those full-time creators make more than $50K in annual income” (Linktree). If you do the math here that’s not a whole lot of rich and famous for these people. Well, maybe a little bit of famous, minus the rich. Depending on where you live, $50,000 isn’t a whole lot for one person to make annually, especially if they have families to support. We’ve been working with content creators for almost a decade now and we truly love supporting them. They’re the best kind of client we work with. Usually they’re just normal people with no frills attached. They easy to communicate with and grateful to license their content to us for our campaigns. Thus far, we’ve paid out over $1,500,000 to content creators since Locomotive Contents formation. Here are some ways that you can support some of your favorite content creators or even friends who may be part of the creator economy.

1.     Amplify their voices: share their social media posts. Talk about them to friends who might be interested in what they offer. This one is the most important. It’s more important to share content from creators who are closer to us than those that we don’t even know. Help them expand their brand through engagement.

2.     Buy their stuff: this can be through using their discount codes for certain brands they are affiliated with or just buying something they sell through their website. If they have merch, buy that. if they sell a service, try it out.

3.     Write them a review: word of mouth is great, but we all know that people really do read reviews. If they write blogs shoot them a comment of feedback.

These creators put a lot of time and hard work into their craft, whatever that niche may be. It’s important to support them and help them grow their brands just like any other business. For many, this is a full-time gig. They’re very different from influencers in more ways than we can count. Join us in supporting the creator economy around the world!

Content Creator Stats 2023

We were recently doing some content creator research and discovered some interesting statistics on content creation and the creator economy in general. Since this is what we deal with in our business, we thought it would be useful to list some of the eye opening ones that are important and relate to what we do.

1. There are over ~200M content creators in the world (Link Tree)

   1. 139M of those creators have between 1K-10K followers

2. 51% of full-time content creators earn enough to support at least one person (The Tilt)

3. Engagement and clicks are the most important metrics for brands and marketers looking to work with influencers (Influencer Marketing Hub)

4. 64% of creators are women (Convert Kit)

   1. However, women make 1.88x less money than men creators (Influencer Marketing Hub)

5. 70% of creators spend 10 hours or less per week creating content (Link Tree)

The creator economy is on the rise and if you ask an American kid nowadays what they want to be when they grow up,  chances are that they will reply with, an influencer. Actually, it’s 1 in every 4 kids to be exact. The popularity and growth of the creator economy has almost romanticized becoming an influencer. Interestingly enough though, only 11% make between 50K-100K. These numbers can easily be considered a typically “living” in the U.S. for an individual depending on where they’re located. It seems that the shine that comes along with becoming an influencer isn’t related to money and more to do with popularity. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame. Seems that some things never change with us humans. This is one reason we love sourcing and licensing content. Most people are more than happy to have their content featured in big brand commercials. We love finding those perfect pieces that fit within our client’s brief. Those clips that they just gotta have! Seeing clips fill our partners creative need are the moments we love the most.

The Side Hustle: Creator Economy

“Side-hustle ideas” jumped 326% since September 2022, according to Momentum Worldwide Trends. I mean, honestly, who doesn’t have a side hustle in today’s economy? Especially now that hybrid work has become something we’re all very familiar with since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It has enabled a lot of people to pursue other forms of income other than their main stream. Platforms such as TikTok and Instagram are now offering ways to make money as a brand through promotion or as a creator through reels and partnership collaborations. We are certain that this uptick in the side hustle will inevitably lead to an increased content creator economy. Good news for us and good news for those working with us! More content creators = more options for content for your projects. There’s already an infinite amount of content uploaded everyday but with this trend that will increase the amount that we will discover. Bad news is, the more content out there, the more difficult it can be to find those perfect pieces that you’re looking for in your brief. It will pose to be even more difficult for brands that try to do in house found content projects. It’s good that you have a professional like us to do all of the daunting work for you. We can’t tell you the number of times we’ve been told that an agency tried to discover and curate the content themselves only to be left with major headaches. This is sometimes what leads them to us. Sometimes things are easier said than done but this is where we come in. Skip the headache. If you haven’t reached out about your found content projects yet, what are you waiting for? Looking forward to working with you soon :)

When Hiring Content Creators

We all know by now that content marketing has become the top way to generate more leads, keep reader’s attention, improve loyalty and trust. The list goes on and on. Actually, a stat by demand metric research shows that 86% of businesses use B2C content marketing. As they should, it costs 62% less and the benefits are great (as mentioned above). This being said, there are a lot of content creators out there now so how do you know which one(s) to choose for your brand and its campaigns? There are a lot of things that you should look out for but we’ll list those that we feel are the most important.

1.     Drive. Hiring a content creator is no different than hiring anyone else on your team. You want someone with good work ethic. You want someone who’s excited about creating content. They will be good storytellers to create emotional content.

2.     Expertise. Are they experts in their field? If so, they can help your brand by creating the content that is best to engage your consumers.  

3.     Alignment. This one is very important. You want a content creator who aligns with your brand mission. You want their personality, values, and ethics to be similar to that of your brand. This will ensure a smooth collaboration.

4.     Good communication skills. This one goes without saying really. You definitely want a creator you can easily communicate with. Are they personable? Do they have a positive mindset? If they’re not friendly and easy to talk to it’s probably not going to work out. You want someone that you can easily communicate your ideas with and are comfortable speaking with.

5.     Metrics. What do their metrics look like? What’s their engagement? How consistent are they posting?

6.     Unique & authentic style. A unique creator style will always attract audiences. You want someone who’s going to demand attention with their uniqueness. That being said, they must be an authentic personality. People will see right through it if they’re not. You want someone who will be able to bridge that gap of trust with your consumers. Their more likely to trust the recommendations of someone who is a “regular Joe” if their an personality is genuine.

We hope that this list of traits will help you find the best content creators for your brand. We’ve worked with so many different types of creators over the years. Some were fantastic and others, well, let’s just say we probably won’t work with them anytime soon. All the amazing creators we’ve worked with have had every single one of these characteristics listed above. It’s crucial in order to have a successful and fruitful relationship that will excel your brand’s success as a team. We can find the perfect creators to help you craft your brands message. Ask us how!

Friday Feature

This week our feature is an entrepreneur of Hazel Coffee Co., Hailey Polidori. Her coffee shop is an all mobile coffee bar in Austin, TX. Their mission is to bring creatives and community together. They serve locally roasted beans and offer bookings for events. You can request a quote by clicking the link on their website. Not only does she own this cutting-edge coffee shop, she is a content creator, a photographer and YouTuber. We’ve had the pleasure of working with Hailey and hope to do it again in the future.

Friday Feature

This week we turn to one of our furry friends. Our feature this week is of Max the dog from Vancouver, Canada. This fun-loving pup goes on all types of adventures and is absolutely adorable. We previously worked with his owners to license a piece of content during the COVID pandemic where his owner used him for leg presses while the gyms were closed. Captioned with “Only got to do 2 reps of my 40lb leg presses before my makeshift weight gave up.” What a fun way to get creative with your workouts! Big shout out to them for helping make one of our campaigns fun and exciting!

Friday Feature 10/7/22

We’re taking you to the sunny beaches of your living room. Wait what? That’s right! You heard us. This surf video went viral back in March of 2020 of Sailah Nicol and her brother surfing on the rug in their living room. Their father is pro surfer, Yadin Nicol who is also featured in this video pulling the rug up into a wave. This video is probably up there with one our favorites that we’ve licensed over our years here at Locomotive. Head over to Instagram and show the families page some love and support with a follow.

Friday Feature

This week we turn to a producer and director, Christin Baker. She is co-founder of tellofilms.com and proud creator of lesbian content. We worked with her on a Rapinoe spot many moons ago now. It’s our pleasure to showcase her talent. She was great to work with. To read more on the amazing work she produces, visit her IMDb page.

Friday Feature

This week’s content feature goes out to talented movie character, Nick Darnell. We loved working with him to license his dancing video of the #sugechallenge. Not only can he act, he can definitely dance too! As we are watching this video shot in front of a Circle K gas station with the caption, “They kept tryna gas us up all weekend,” you see the gas prices on the sign behind them. WOW! This may give you an idea of how long ago we sourced this video. Give him a follow for fun content.

Friday Feature

This week our spotlight goes out to a fitness trainer, Kari who specializes in women’s weight lifting. Also known as @thedonuttrainer, this Canadian woman is a certified personal trainer and gym owner in Sarnia, ON. It was a pleasure working with this creator on one of our previous campaigns. Her social media account focuses on fitness, nutrition and weight lifting. She posts often about nutrition information, workouts and fitness tips. Give her a follow for healthy lifestyle info and proper workout techniques.

Friday Feature

This is our first Friday content creator feature. We thought it about time to switch it up a bit from our Friday fun favorite campaigns. If you loved it, don’t worry. It’s not gone. Just taking a break for a while. This week’s creator shout out goes to Vibe Salon in Atlanta. We recently worked with them on one of our campaigns helping source content for an Oreo spot. If you live in the Atlanta area you should check them out! It was a pleasure working with them and it seems they do amazing things with hair! Have a great weekend all!

Content Creation

We’re a content agency. We love good, quality content. This is a given. We’ve written about content creation in the past but directed it toward the creators. This article will focus on why quality content is important for brands. First, if the content is helpful and insightful, customers will trust you and begin to view you as an expert in your field, according to Forbes. Second, ROI is very high for quality content. 88% of marketers are happy with their return on investment of content. Third, SEO will increase with the right key words to promote your brands website. Lastly, it helps your brand get new leads, especially if the content has a CTA placement. We could go on with a million reasons why good content marketing helps your business grow but we know you get the point by now. Let’s look at how your brand can go about having a good content marketing strategy.

All the same rules for creators apply for brands, except now you have a specific audience to keep in mind. This is where creating a buyer persona comes in handy. A buyer persona is created through research to make a clear picture of the person you want to market to. Think of them as a created character for a story that represents your whole group of target market audience. Here’s a handy tool to help you get started from HubSpot if you’re unsure of where to start with this. Second, your strategy should include goal setting. Use the SMART method to determine them. Now, you have to keep the buyer’s journey in mind. Where are they in their buying process? Is it awareness of the problem? Are they considering a solution (the consideration stage)? Or… are they in the decision-making stage where they’re aware of the solution and ready to solve? You want to make sure that you have content for each stage of your buyer’s journey. The format of the content must also be considered. Is it easy for your audience to view, read, etc.? This brings us to the last topic: the different types of content.

There are many different types of content to consider when creating. There’s content just like the one you are reading: a blog. There are social media posts and stories. Infographics with short bursts of information or GIF’s. Video content is king in today’s world but podcasts are also on the rise. Lastly, there are webinars/seminars for your viewers as well. Which type of content you choose will be brand specific. While all brands will benefit from social media posts and stories, it may not make sense for them to conduct webinars. The type of content that your brand chooses will also determine the style. Blogs and podcasts tend to be conversational whereas webinars and seminars are in more formal setting.

Whatever way you shake it, a quality content creation marketing strategy is key for your brand. Honestly, creating content is super fun, so with the right creative minds behind the work you cannot fail. Collaboration within your company when creating content will ensure its success. Having multiple sets of creative eyes and minds on each piece will make sure that what your team comes up with will be the absolute best through great communication and teamwork.

Content Creators vs Influencers

Influencer marketing is coming in the lead this year for marketing and advertising strategy. But what is the difference between an influencer and a content creator? They are not necessarily the same thing. Let’s look at content creators first. This group of creators know how to create high-quality and authentic content that resonates with the audience. They consider this to be their career. An influencer is someone who actually has influence over a particular audience, hence the name. They’re usually experts in a particular field that regularly post tips, information and tutorials on their craft that influence others. Influencers have different tiers:

1.     Mega: over 1million

2.     Macro: 500K-1million

3.     Mid-tier: 50K-500K

4.     Micro: 10K-50K

5.     Nano: 1K-10K

There are some differences when working with content creators versus influencers. Working with content creators will get people engaged whereas influencers, as the name implies, influence. They have big followings so this is a way to increase brand awareness.  Working with content creators can enable a brand to experiment with different types of content, publish more frequently, save money and work with experts in certain fields. Working with an influencer can expand your reach and help you reach your target audience. Influencers have sway over their audience’s purchasing decisions. There is no way to say whether a content creator or an influencer would be better for your brand. It really depends on what your goals are. Are you trying to reach your target audience more effectively or are you trying to increase engagement? Both content creators and influencer have great things to offer your brand. We’ve worked with both at Locomotive and we understand the importance as well as differences of both. Understanding each is the first step to knowing which to use for your campaign.