This is a Trend Insights Key Report on what is happening across the world, each month we focus on a trending area of growth and bring our team of researchers together to compile a report that gives examples, context and what is means to the global economy.
Stewart Townsend
Bruce Lee
CHAPTER 1
What is the creator economy
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Creator economy is a word which in itself could be considered as quite explanatory. Its meaning isn’t too far fetched. It is an economic system through which online creators, individual creators, actors, artists and even everyday people are able to monetize their craft especially in an economy that benefits them. Creator economy through creator platforms has actually helped over 50 million content creators gain quality financial incentives in exchange for the contents that they put out there.
In past times, content creation wasn’t as easy to chunk out as it is now especially considering how content creation was placed on a sort of high pedestal as the tools needed for quality content creation were not relatively available. Only a select few were able to get the necessary exposure because as we may know by now, quality content is not the only thing to consider when producing quality content. An ability to reach a huge audience is almost as important for content creators as well.
How have things changed? Well for one, over 2 million blog posts are currently released on a daily basis but blog posts are only a little segment of content creation but this number shows that exposure has certainly been on the rise. A major change that has resulted in more exposure is a change in title for one. The idea of giving a broad name – content creators sort of remove the restrictions and gives everyone a huge umbrella under which their crafts are conveniently covered.
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A certain contributor to exposure for content creators has been social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram and twitter which have removed restrictions that bother content creators by giving the name – content creators and to provide even more versatility, platforms are also being created that provide even more flexibility to the contents that can be put out. One thing about a space that provides flexibility like this is that the bar gets constantly raised regarding the flexibility of contents that can be put out there and how easy it is to ensure monetization from the curated contents. An example of this is seen in YouTube where popular creators who provide digital content with a significant amount of following are able to get the best out of the platform but on a platform like OnlyFans, users only need a few followers and they can begin making money with only a handful of followers turned subscribers through the exclusive content that they provide.
In this report, we explore the concept of the creator economy by understanding how it works and how it is constantly improving with several ways platforms are constantly out doing themselves to ensure that they remain relevant in the changing dynamics of content creation. We also explore how blockchain platform is actively paving a way for content creators to even take further control of their own finances in content creation through tokenization and revenue sharing. Sounds like fun? Lets hop right in!
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To gain a full understanding of what the creator economy is, it is much better to split the words into two. The first aspect, creator refers to content creators who chunk out loads of content from videos to pictures, blog posts and more. Economy in its most basic definition refers to the supply of money.
Bringing these two definitions together, we come to understand that the creator economy is composed of a long list of content creators ranging from video game players, funny videos, tech videos, blog writers, artists and so much more who are able to monetize their crafts due to attractive pull they are able to gain from those contents.
The creator economy is one whose constant improvement is innovation-based as due to constant improvements, better ways and better options for monetization are constantly being provided. The creator economy is composed of; individual creators, fan bases/subscribers and monetization.
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Social media platforms and other outing platforms have made for much more flexibility for the contents that can be provided and this has resulted in a surge of creators as there are over 50 million content creators out there spread across several aspects of content creation.Out of this 50 million+ figure, there are two broad divisions to be understood. The first aspect are those who do not take content creation as a full time job and this makes up a large aspect of this figure (about 46 million) while the second aspect are those who take content creation as a full time gig. A expected, this figure would be significantly lower and it sits at 2 million+.
The monetization aspect of the creator economy is also recording significant growth as over 2 million You Tubers currently earn six figures from the content they put out and there are currently 31 million YouTube channels with over 1 million of them having 10K+ subscribers.
The size of the creator economy is about $104 billion spread across several social platforms and this is considered to increase even further as long as social platforms keep the windows open and as they have done so far, continue to extend flexibility for content creators. There is also the case of the blockchain technology having profound influence on helping creators earn even more financial incentives.
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There has been so much fuss about the entire decentralized space as it erases the need for third party individuals in decision making especially as it regards finances. A popular saying is that we never know what we’re missing until it is gone and the same goes for decentralized creator economy.
The creator economy as it is provides a platform for content creators to be able to craft engaging contents which they can monetize over time. Most of these content creators do the bulk of their work on social media platforms which regulate their earnings amongst several affairs as it relates to content monetization. These platforms have effects on how some of these creators function and the effect of these third-party personnel can never be overlooked. From regulating how much can be earned to taking cut from their earnings, the need for creators to function independently and this is where decentralization comes in.
Decentralized creator economy removes the need for third party influences on what content creators can or cannot do for example, YouTube has a say on how much You Tubers get to earn per views on uploaded videos as it sits in sort of a creator middle but with the introduction of decentralized creator economy, that is not the case.
Decentralized creator economy offers a removal of this third party barrier which may interfere with creators enjoying full monetization as well as being able to develop a much deeper connection with their fans and followers. Decentralized creator economy is built with the blockchain technology as it main support system and this helps to automate and authenticate most processes.
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Some perks of decentralized creator economy include; handing of even more financial power to content creators, removing limits to how much creators could make placed by third parties as well as allowing just about anybody have a seamless migration into the content creation space. In decentralized creator economy, the determinants of how much content creators earn is the open market and how much individuals are willing to pay for the content they provide.
Professional creators are individuals who provide contents full time and are able to monetize these contents while being successful at it as well. These creators are also properly equipped with professional tools to ensure content creation and there are 2 million+ of them all spread across multiple social media platforms.
Just like so many careers and professions, digital content creators are skilled at providing contents for digital platforms like Instagram. Digital content creators utilize different tools and methods which could either be automated or not to discover the most prominent topics and then provide contents on them to gain traction.
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Creators in the creator economy are individuals who are capable of providing a range of contents from written to audio or even video. They are also capable of constantly delivering contents that keep users engaged over extended time frames.
The influencer economy depends on the ability of influencers to make certain products marketable to their wide audience range. Influencers range from models, athlete, actors and more. In 2018, the influencer economy was said to be worth $1 billion but as at 2021, it is worth $10 billion. Influencers in their various capacities are able to get value for their services based on how much traction they currently garner which could result in effective marketing.Some influencers could also act as a gig worker by entering a contractual agreement with brands.
There are several channels through which creators can monetize the contents they provide and some of these include paid subscriptions on social media platforms, linking platforms to their personal websites, brand sponsorships and even paid advertisements as well.
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In the world of constant innovation in which we constantly find ourselves, people prefer to grow together as opposed to just gaining a piece of single content, idea or update. No one really wants to be a lone ranger in this space.
Creating a community is not dependent of providing quality content alone but it quite understandably affords individuals an opportunity to grow together, share ideas, become friends and even find potential investment partners.
As much as creating paid communities could be a way to go in the creator economy, it could prove to be a tricky route for example, if you choose to just hop in and try enrolling a large number of individuals at once, it could end up being a ghost community.
That being said, here are some tips that could certainly help tilt this delicate balance the creators’ way and some of these tips include;
Starting in small forums like seed groups: seed groups are a way to proof your platform or setup against potential malfunctions. Seed groups are test groups which are enrolled into the platforms to test all processes on the platform and make sure they are in optimum state. Participants who are willing to join seed groups could join either for free or for a reduced subscription fee.
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Target and conquer: as a creative startup, it is advisable to target a specific niche and go all in for it as opposed to trying to handle several niches at once.This practice enhances a quick growth in popularity and also improves authenticity of content amongst subscribers.
Integrate your community into your content: when you start to gain a relative amount of followers and you decide to go the paid community way, it is advisable to make some contents being attached to being members of the paid community. Some of these could include topic discussion, advise on how to better run operations and more.
Get users involved – it is also advisable to include features that enable some extent of user freedom on the platforms like being able to comment, tag others and even create personal profiles. This goes a long way in handing your users some level of freedom.
Use emailing to get the very best out of them – if your community is just starting up, you’re not guaranteed a large number of daily visitors so you may have to go extra miles in constantly reaching out to them and sending them emails of updates and the most important stuff is an excellent way of doing just that.
If done properly, huge successes could be recorded as could be seen with Monica Lent who make $5K within a week of launching a paid community rounding up news on blogs for developers.
Apart from paid communities, there are also freelance writers who are able to charge fees based on their relevance in the space and the quality of their jobs. An example of this is seen with Nicolas Cole who initially charged $100 per a ghostwritten article but his popularity and job quality has grown so much that he charges $3,000 per article.
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Newsletters have turned out to be a gold mine for starting out creative writers in recent times with a writer’s email list hitting 20,000 in the space of one year.
Newsletters are aimed at providing insights on specific topics to members of email lists, employees or subscribers. Easy right? Here comes the tricky part, getting people on the email list.
While starting out especially with no money to fund ads and the likes, it is important to leverage the open world which social platforms give and this includes sharing the long form articles on Twitter, Reddit and Indie Hackers, sharing links on Facebook groups associated with your specific niche. While posting all these on social media platforms, it is also imperative to constantly reply questions users may have on the topics as well as being ready to interact with them.
Another way to make this a handy addition is to make your readers a part of your sharing team by placing options for them to share your contents on other platforms. This ensures that other people get to read your contents and potentially subscribe to them as well.
Yaro Bagriy, a motivated developer and engineer created a Newsletter crew with a 6-figure income in about one year.
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Creator funds are monetary rewards handed to content creators based on the quality of their videos and how well these videos perform on platforms like TiKToK. A brand currently providing these investment choice is Podfund which provides funding between $25,000 to $150,000 for podcast creators depending on certain factors like visible traction of the videos, revenue the video brings in and intended use of the funds. To gain access to these funds, creators simply have to tender applications to the platforms with proof of these factors.
Provision of paid courses on specific subjects for paid sub subscribers could also be a handy way of getting a piece of the creator economy. There are thousands of courses to choose from, all of which having varying duration and topics and with as a provided video, users can begin working.
It is already quite common knowledge as to how NFTs helps creators wrestle control of their finances from being controlled by third parties but that is definitely not the only reason why NFTs are important. They are important in Fashion. You heard me right, yes fashion!
Recently, an NFT jacket sold for for $26,000. It is not really that surprising knowing how much pull NFTs have had in recent times but isn’t $26,000 quite high for a piece of clothing? The answer is it depends…
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These jackets contains a QR code feature which can be scanned as a link to an NFT artwork. So, in buying one jacket, you get two items. One is a hooded jacket while the other is the NFT artwork. A large chunk of this jacket’s price is solely based on the exclusivity the NFT provides while for the material jacket itself is a handy way of covering a special piece.While considering an item like this, a full understanding of NFT’s value is quite important in estimating its value.
If you’re looking to have an exclusive artwork incorporated in clothing, you may want to look out for more collaborations between fashion and digitalized artwork.
Another way through which creators may be able to diversify in the creator economy space is in coaching where creators can become paid coaches for several clients. Exploring this space especially considering the impact of the social media pandemic is quite important as people are coming to terms with personalized learning.
Infographics aim to provide more insightful information for clients especially in relation to providing targeted campaigns for use by brands. It involves providing graphical representation of information from clients. Creating a list of subscribers for these infographics also provides a handy way of income for creators.
CHAPTER 2
What are the creator economy platforms
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Paid communities are quickly becoming a norm especially considering how effective they are in helping creators engage with their customers on a much more personal level while allowing creators to gain better royalties from their clients. With the inclusion of communities, creations are able to facilitate discussions, memberships and content circulation with an aim to get closer to clients and making the rules guiding content creation as well as having complete control over the monetary aspect of it all.
Platforms currently facilitating the introduction of communities include; circle with help creators give individuals an opportunity to be part of a community that brings people together for discussion, ensure membership and also facilitate discussions as well all of which are controlled by the creator.
Communities do not always involve creators being in control. They can also involve a space where individuals can share ideas and most importantly develop connection with important people and this is exactly what clubhouse does. It allows users to discover millions of rooms filled with different topics and enthusiasts as well.
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Another importance of communities especially for brands is their ability to help brands connect on a personal level with their customers to further improve their services and maximize their service delivery.
Newsletters are printed documents that allow creative writers focus on a single niche and send out updates on these topics to members, customers, employees already registered on a company’s list.
Platforms that facilitate newsletter production include letterdrop which is completely free to use and is a newsletter platform that allows writers to produce quality content and make money from this content through paid subscriptions, sponsorships, freelancing and partnership with businesses.
Another newsletter facilitating platform is substack which allows free publication of written content from writers of all backgrounds. In addition to allowing free writing and publications, substack also gives writers establish paid subscriptions with no limits to how much can be made.
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Creator funds are funds made available to help creators gain better monetary investments from the contents they put out. Platforms currently investing in this space include next10ventures which is a venture group focused on the global creator economy with an aim to help startups covering tools and services for creators.
Still on brands that support creators, we have podfund which provides podcasters with monetary benefits based on the traction and impact of their podcasts.It allows startups to grow capital, resources and expertise all at once.
NFTs is short for Nonfungible tokens and its power and validity lies in the fact that it is exclusive and one of its kind. Being nonfungible means it cannot be exchanged for cash hence when an individual posses a token, he can be sure that there is only a single type of that token around. A specially impressive part of NFTs in the creator economy is that it is supported by blockchain technology which is a huge part of the decentralized creator economy. It allows creators to tokenize parts of their content that they deem fit thereby making it exclusive while placing values on the exclusivity of these tokens.
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Despite NFTs being an integral part of the creator economy, marketplaces where these items can be sold are also quite important. Examples of these marketplaces are; NBA Top Shot with allows the sale and purchase of minted NBA highlights between individuals hence ensuing the exchange of rights on those items, OpenSea which allows the sale and purchase of NFTs, rare digital items and collectibles.
These platforms ensure that creators gain access to a system that allows them to properly monetize their crafts without third party restrictions.
Apart from minting artworks or created content through the technology NFTs provide, another excellent way for creators to still maintain their independence in the creator economy is through the creation of Creator Coins. You may consider creator coins as tickets but that would just give a shallow understanding of what creator coins truly are.
Creator coins are tickets to economic independence in the creator economy for creators. They are specialized coins created for and by a single creator and is accepted as a means of payment for the creator’s services. These coins are supported by the ethereum blockchain.
We may picture creator coins as the currencies of different countries which are only usable in those countries and a main advantage of creator coins as with most creator oriented setups is to bring the creators closer to their clients and even more so, to their money.
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Some brands are already providing services tailored at giving creators a chance to create their own specialized coins and one of these is Rally which is an open network that allows creators to launch independent economies all of which is powered by the ethereum blockchain.
In a similar way to Rally but with a quite different perspective, Roll is a network with an aim to provide branded digital tokens that makes artist’s creation exclusive while maintaining its presence across different platforms. Roll is also powered by the ethereum blockchain.
As the craving for independence amongst content creators continue to grow, it is imperative that they begin to cut the amount of control these platforms have on creators to create their own rules.
A method through which creators can find their way around these brands third party say could be to create apps that help them make the rules concerning the content that they provide.
Not every creator is an app developer but apps are still quite integral to how these creators try to make their own rules and with a platform like bubble, creators are able to build applications that suit their contents from the scratch without having to write a single code.
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Buildbox is also a non programmable platform which allows users to create games on their own through the use of open tools. There are several templates, smart assets™ to choose from. This application provides so much flexibility for its users and even allows users check out how the games run in real time. Creators can then make personalized rules and changes to how these games could be played and how money could be made as well.
CHAPTER 3
What are the creator tools
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Technology and organization has been highly effective in how creators operate even prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and the inception of the pandemic led to an increased rate of content production. This raise has not just been in the number of contents produced alone but also in the quality of contents.
In a world where creators are looking to be independent and cut as much corners as possible especially towards having the ability to create their own rules. A perfect helper in this aspect are creator tools whose main job is to ensure that communication, administration and collaboration is never an issue for most content creators.
A tool that helps effectively in this aspect is Stir which is a financial studio that allows for collaboration between creators, keeps revenue split contracts in place as well ensure proper money management and metrics.
Still like an extension, Stir also participates in OnlyTweets which allows creators to connect with their customers more effectively or fans as we may choose to call it. It involves creation of a private space where content creators can share news, trends and changes made to their services with their supporters all to be contained within 280 characters. On OnlyTweets, a space containing a “support for a certain amount monthly” is also seen as well as the creator’s proposition of the services to be provided.
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A common challenge for most creators is getting subscribers to assist them with support and help them grow even when they are just starting up. Presubscribe is an excellent tool that assists creators in crossing the barrier of getting relevant subscribers to support them independently through presubscribing to their newsletter, podcast, email lists and more. This in turn helps creators thrive in this space.
Creator economy has been a quite effective means for content creators to monetize their craft especially due to coverage it affords content creators. Social media platforms for one have been quite effective due to its addictive pull to ensure that content creators gain as broad of an audience as possible to give them a chance in this competitive space.
The audience social media platforms give quite effectively to individuals may seem like a decent move in helping individuals earn but that is just a part of the full picture. A particularly important segment is the third party interference this platforms have on the ability of creators to earn. YouTube for example pays creators particular amounts for particular amount of views and users need to attain a certain degree of relevance in the space to even begin monetization of their contents.
In platforms like Instagram, creators can begin to earn when they have links to products they sell and then influence their product sale based on that but even that requires a sort of financial institution to make this possible.
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As with most innovative ideas and solutions do in addressing gaps in developing ideas and this gap in third party interference is what blockchain technology and its surrounding innovation addresses efficiently.
NFTs are not a strange term again especially considering how much of a bloom it has enjoyed in recent times. NFTs is short for Non-fungible tokens and the idea behind its creation is creating a unique token whose value appreciates based on its usage. The term non-fungible is quite important in understanding what NFTs are as it means that these tokens cannot be exchanged for money as their value lie in them being one of a kind.
How do NFTs solve the issue of third party influence on creators?
It is simple. NFTs help creators by ensuring exclusivity of contents. To make a content exclusive is sort of like putting your trademark on it. since there are so much contents being pumped out on daily basis, there is the need to ensure that the contents produced are truly exclusive because exclusivity is what makes certain things valuable. The exclusivity NFTs produce could also prove quite important as they help creators control how much they earn because they could make their works tokenized and then sell it based on how much value they place on it.
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With NFTs, these tokenized contents could also be sold in part to various individuals and financial leverage could be given to those who own parts of those tokens. A permanent revenue split could also made on these tokens and this is made possible due to blockchain technology. Blockchain technology is like a ledger on which transactions are recorded as well as information of assets. This means that once an item is made an NFT, a permanent record of it is made on blockchain and with blockchains, information are built one upon the other which makes any sort of copy easily detectable.
Finally, NFTs can be traded anywhere and at any time and is not platform dependent. Most importantly, NFTs do not require third party inputs to be utilized. All that is needed is the creators and individuals who purchase rights to these tokens. The value of an item truly lies in its scarcity take gold for example, it is highly valuable because it is a rare item that cannot readily be seen everywhere and that is where its value lies.
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)
Still keeping with an ability to operate efficiently without third party interference, we have DAOs. It is quite difficult for creators to build a wall against third party interference but what happens when the creators are responsible for all aspects of the setup from production to finance delivery? An independent setup is the answer and that is what DAOs addresses.
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DAOs stand for decentralized autonomous organizations and they provide a platform for creators to have complete access to the audience and even those who intend contributing financially to his/her craft. Decentralized autonomous organizations builds its own form of creator economy around a variety of stakeholders.
In DAOs, all participants invest in the community via purchase of tokens which gives them certain rights to how the contents may be used. The tokens are created by the content creators and then auctioned for sale at amount that seems satisfactory to them. The revenue gotten from these sales are then pulled into a central account which every one openly knows about and this efficiently removes financial constraints on creators earning.
Putting two plus two together…
Blockchain technology is a particularly important part of our technological innovation and in numerous aspects too especially due to a perk it offers. This perk is decentralization which revolves around being independent in handling particular parts of our lives.
Decentralization comes at a time where people are getting more conscious about how much information and control third party companies have over most of our products and services and since the blockchain technology provides this sort of leeway, it is certainly being embraced.
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For content creators, the introduction of NFTs and DAOs, a part of a broader blockchain setup into the creator economy removes over dependence on social media platforms for an entire source of revenue. Although social media is a hugely important part of this setup especially in how it helps creators gain an audience, it does not completely control how these platforms control finances.
CHAPTER 4
What is happening across the old school content sites.
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Pinterest is a social media platform that allows users to share and view images, videos and even interesting gifs all combined into various slides and pins.
Pinterest has its own perks apart from the obvious delivery of unique interesting contents it provides. Contents uploaded on Pinterest remain there as long as the creators allow them to stay there. Links to blogs and stores could be placed there.
Although Pinterest is an interesting platform and has millions of users, it still isn’t as popular as a platforms like TikTok whose boom has been quite meteoric. A reason why TikTok has been quite attractive to most creators and in turn to users is its ability to help creators earn based on their relevance on the platform but on Pinterest, the dynamic is quite different, the main users of Pinterest are particularly inclined to purchase physical. This approach isn’t certainly as appealing to creators as what TikTok for example offers especially as it regards enjoying lucrative deals which is why Pinterest are trying to make some creator-friendly changes which include;
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Trying to link brand to creators and make them like influencers to help improve the chances of creators at getting paid for their crafts. This would also help Pinterest become more creator-friendly in the long run and appeal to more creators and even more users.
Still keeping with offering a helping hand to creators, Pinterest is trying to give idea pins a prominent place on the app so that creators can gain more audience by attracting followers and viewers. Idea pins are aimed at improving interaction of users as they appear on Pinterest’s home feed and when clicked on gives short information on life hack’s or suggests a creator’s method of doing a particular thing.
Introducing idea pins in combination with the longevity Pinterest posts enjoy is definitely an attractive offer for content creators.
The current explosion of social media has left everyone clutching their phones tight and always making use of their mobile devices. A major attachment to people of most ages to mobile devices is the social media and amongst the prominent ones is Instagram.
Individuals of diverse age groups are able to hop onto the bandwagon and begin consuming contents of various types and design as long as they seem attractive.
A particular disadvantage of a platform like this is that in its bid to keep privacy and allow enjoyment of contents, they are unable to screen the videos users consume. This may lead to consumption of overage content and even more could expose underage teens and individuals to adult predators.
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To curb this level of exposure ant to also ensure protection, Facebook is currently trying to develop a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13.
For protection of older teens, they are trying to automatically turn the profile of these users private upon account opening hence giving them the opportunity to screen their followers and those who can watch and comment on their posts due to how open the platform is to individuals of different classes and orientation.
In addition to this, they are providing extra restrictions for adults who have been reported by prior teens on their ability to follow individuals of the same age or who may fit into that sort of class.
In a bid to attract more writers to their platform, substack are offering a free crash core to educate writers on how to get their first $1,000 through writing subscriptions. This comes as a move to get more users affiliated with their brand and patronize their services as well.
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A recent feature on YouTube known as shorts a stream of short videos some of which are TikTok branded has worked it’s way up to 15 billion viewers daily. This figure is helped by the large number of daily users as well as the fact that some of these videos already enjoyed some traction from TikTok. It is expected that partnership between social media platforms continue to grow and content creators who work on particular social media platforms could even get more opportunities to get membership from platforms that partner together.
Every content creator views brand sponsorship as the absolute best they can get by being creators and to good effect too, they literally cover numerous costs at once due to how lucrative most of them are.
Despite how great brand sponsorships are, not every content creator would get brand sponsorship as they are dependent on how influential the content you constantly put out. Asides that, not every creator has the same sort of exposure on social media platforms.
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An alternative to brand sponsorship which is almost as good is fan membership and for good reasons too seeing how successful OnlyFans are in utilizing this method. OnlyFans is able to attract both creators and consumers alike as they provide fans access to premium contents via paid membership as requested for by the content creators. It is left to the content creators to provide truly captivating content that would make fans want to pay for their premium content.
Seeing how OnlyFans is able to satisfy both creators and audience at the same time. This begs the question about how successful this approach to the creator economy could be.
The answer to this burning question is that it depends. It depends on how many social media platforms are willing to accept this sort of setting (YouTube for one already utilizes paid membership for some channels). Another factor is on how platforms would be able to market this feature and integrate it into their space while still giving their brand its own authenticity for example, Fanbase who does a similar thing with OnlyFans, collects 10% off of the creator’s earning.
Should more platforms decide to embrace this setup, there is certainly growth to be expected. Fanbase for example has been able to raise $3.5 million in funding from charging $3.99 per exclusive content released by each creator.
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The coronavirus pandemic despite the terrible disruption it’s caused in the way we do things in the world has provided a trigger for social media platforms to improve their service delivery as they were literally the only way individuals could keep in touch with one another while maintaining sanity in a hugely irregular setup.
This challenge brought out the innovative aspect of these companies and made for rapid improvement in their services. One thing to somewhat note about innovation is that when such an idea is successful, it is adopted by other companies in the same category and an example of this is seen in the automobile industry. This is a particularly good thing in the Social media space as brands are still able to retain their own personal design while subtly adding these innovative ideas in for better service delivery.
This idea is what has particularly seen the rise of the mobile phone space as innovative ideas developed by some companies are adopted by others and constantly developing over time while still maintaining the brand’s identity. A main reason is the fierce competition amongst these companies. No one really wants to be left Behind. It would create a space quite difficult to breach.
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A common example various social media platforms share in common is stories which was introduced by Snapchat but has been adopted by most social media platforms apart from Twitter while TikTok is still trying to work their way around the idea. Other common features these platforms are beginning to have in common include; short form video which has been adopted by most platforms except LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter and live streaming which is yet to be included in Pinterest and Snapchat. Shopping is not on LinkedIn at the moment but it has been adopted by a host of platforms but is still being tried out by others.
The thing about introducing these changes is that inasmuch as they try to introduce the most attractive changes, they still need to tally into the ideas behind the creation of the platforms. For example, LinkedIn may not really be able to include the shopping feature, because it was created to be a platform for connecting professionals rather than where numerous random people look for the very best products. There must be a sort of filtration between what the idea is and the extent of flexibility platforms are willing to adopt because this is what makes them stand out effectively.Not minding the perspective we view this through, it is definitely a sign of combined growth and a willingness to make some compromises.
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Khabane Lame, a Senegalese who formally worked as an Italian factory worker has certainly blown up on the social media platform with up to 100 million followers which makes him the second most followed on the platform. He carved a niche to himself by sarcastically pointing out people who over complicate simple activities. This just goes to show the perks on making oneself stand out in the social media space as well as how effectively these platforms could propel creators in short periods of time.
As at the second part of 2021, data shows that twitter has over 200 million users whose decision making can be inclined towards purchasing or subscribing to certain products through subscription fees. To harness these prospects into monetizable users, it is quite important to understand some standing rules that’ll help in better brand exposure and who better to give such insights than the platform itself.
Twitter is delivering rules for guiding the production of marketable tweets by brands on the platforms. Two main tips highlighted include; not packing too much words into a single tweet as it reduces the clarity of the message the tweet is trying to pass across (tweets should be 50-100 characters long and should not contain too many hash tags) and spreading promotional tweets across various delivery styles like texts, FAQs, videos, motivational tips, main content and so much more.
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Spreading promotional tweets across varying delivery styles ensures that followers and potential customers are left craving for new content and gives a much clearer understanding of the products or services provided by brands.
Leveraging a platform like twitter which isn’t too popular amongst brands for advertisement purposes may also give smaller brands some leeway over the traditional big boys.
Seeing how the creator economy is like a by product of social media platforms, most of which tend to provide a space for creators to thrive at their own benefit and this results in limitations in a way to the extent to which content creators thrive.
To enter such a competitive space like the creator economy, startups are taking a new approach which is serving the creators in a much more efficient manner that helps them leverage the broad business space the creator economy affords.
Startups like this include; Paetron and Substack which are the more popular ones as well as Splice and Kajabi who are sort of new in this space. These companies are focused on serving creators by creating more efficient ways for them to connect with fans.
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Some brands even take this a step further by leveraging blockchain technology to enhance how creators make money. A more common platform that provides this is OpenSea as well as five others all related to the blockchain technology.
Being niche focused has also been found to be a common feature for most of these brands. Startups like Maven and Breakr are focused on niches like online teaching and music.
The strategies these brands have attempted entering the market through is certainly working a treat so far as reports from the first month of 2021 show that these startups have raised at least $2 billion.
Amongst this list of growing startups, Kajabi which allows content creators to make money from selling courses and following their favorite creators through memberships recently raised $550 million funding to push it’s operations forward.
Other aspects of the creator economy especially those involving the blockchain technology have also recieved a decent amount of attention with about six of the startups receiving funding in 2021 being those who provide a decentralized creator economy with nonfungible tokens.
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In recent times, the need for people to have to pay maximum attention at movies and try to rack their brains around creating an ideology on the movies, games, TV shows and even sporting events. They’d rather listen to someone tell them all about it and what’s more, they’d rather listen to someone quite influential tell them all about it.
Twitch is already handling something like this in this gaming space as it allows popular influencers and personnel interact with fans across various regions in the world via live streaming. This helps these celebrities and creators get closer to their fans while also enticing people to utilize the services that this platform provides.
In the movie space, there is also Sidestream which will be introduced sometime this fall with an aim to connect celebrities with followers via co-viewing. Sidestream also provides a huge lists of films to choose from while giving creators the chance to schedule events for up to 10,000 fans which is much larger than what services like Netflix or Amazon brings to the table. This gives creators access to creator fund via subscription fee paid by participants.
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TiKToK’s growing popularity slowly affecting how brands market products and services.
Social media has been around for quite a while and it has been an effective tool for reaching out to individuals and maintaining connections.
In the 2000s, with the breakout of Facebook, a much more firm relevance has been placed upon the impact of social media and from general familiar chats to advertisements, the social media space has surely undergone a series of evolutionary changes.
A particular reason why social media platforms have quite impressively developed is their ability to adopt a piece from their counterpart’s playbook while still maintaining originality.
Despite this inherent ability of these platforms take ideas from their counterpart’s playbook, they still cannot just copy every idea but in an environment where the creator economy is gaining more ground, some ideas are certainly worth copying.
One of these platforms is TikTok whose evolution has been quite meteoric and there are certainly tips brands can take from TikTok with its efficiency amongst its 689 million daily active users to aid their effects in the creator economy.
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Some interesting stats to take note of in relation to TiKToK and other social media platforms include;
The ability to fuse top sounding and trending songs into videos has been a typical feature of TiKToK and an effective one too. 80% of the top videos on TiKToK have involved the use of high sounding music. This correlates with the seeming popularity of high sounding music amongst the Gen Z age group (below 22 years) and a large part of TIKToK is based on dance videos.
Although a large number of brands that are already embracing TiKToK as a superb marketing space, not every brand is doing this yet and even if these brands are actively embracing the TiKToK space, there is still so much audience to go round. This provides entrepreneur and startup companies opportunities to ideally market themselves.
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What should the perfect TiKToK video look like to improve audience gain?
There is no perfect way in producing a widely approved TiKToK video but there are certainly some markers to follow from the already viral ones.
Some of these markers are highlighted below;
1. Videos involving dance and dance tutorial videos covered 15% and 14% of content on TiKToK. This means incorporating upbeat music and dance may be a way to go in giving your product some outreach.
2. Videos including call to action on TikToK were quite few and in between accounting for only 3.7% of the videos produced. Considering how quite substantial views on TiKToK could get, this space could be a quite handy one to look into because by adding a call to action to videos with a large number of views, a healthy percentage of viewers are expected to follow through depending on how exciting the advert is.
A subtle way to produce an effective call to action on TiKToK could include producing tutorial videos that teach how to use products in an exciting way.
Still not convinced about how effective call to action may be on TiKToK? Well of the top 10 videos in the world, 5 of these videos were from TiKToK. Each of them had over 100 million views and they were all promotional videos for products or services.
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3. Use of influencers to create a challenge sort of for users to replicate while promoting their product. This approach helps viewers enjoy a more personalized approach to advertisement and the best way to do this is to involve people in the entire process. Creating challenges by popular influencers on the product being marketed could increase purchase and even improve its relevance amongst the wider audience.
4. If your company is actively staffed, be sure to include them in to give your brand more identity and originality. Apart from this, this setup has pretty much been seen as a recipe of success as well a videos with staff included in them accrued over 9 million views. Influencers are not the be all of advertisement on TiKToK so it seems.
Starbucks recently used this method to great effect with the video claiming over 11 million views. In making use of employees for marketing, it is also advisable to place these employees in their natural environments.
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Quora is a social platform with over 300 million users and it is aimed connecting individuals who have questions to those who can provide answers to those questions through its algorithm. Quora formerly was ad dependent on generating its revenue but considering such a wide audience of over 300 million users, more can certainly be done to monetize this space as virtually everyone has knowledge but putting it in a creative and understandable manner is what creators are there for.
To answer the question of how they intend monetizing, Quora has introduced two new extensions namely Quora+ and Quora space. Quora space allows content creators to create spaces from niches that they choose and make them spaces that need to subscribed to for access to them and Quora takes a 5% cut from subscription earning
Quora+ is quite different from Quora space as it provides an opportunity for content creators to make their content part of a Quora+ subscription bundle and at the end of the month, a share of revenue is handed out to content creators. Revenue handed out to creators depends on how many individuals visit the content creator’s space.
This setup is one that could potentially attract more content creators to Quora as well as improve on its $1.8 billion valuation.
CHAPTER 5
What is happening now summarised
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Considering how influential the creator economy has grown over time, it may seem that social media platforms are providing enough support but decentralized creator economy says otherwise. The argument decentralized economy makes against social media platforms is that these platforms have too much third party influence on how content creators operate.
Blockchain technology provides a really decent platform for decentralization and through tokenization and decentralized autonomous organizations, content creators are able to connect more with fans while enjoying more leverage to what they could do.
In other news, Pinterest is aiming to attract more creators while still building on its strength. It aims to provide links for brands to creators so they get to enjoy more lucrative deals hence attracting more creators and users to the space.
Instagram is also aiming to provide more protection for minors by ensuring that they are shielded from the world and predators by making the account of those above 13 private upon opening. For those who have reported prior accounts, those accounts are restricted from following other accounts.
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Substack is also aiming to attract more creators by providing free courses to educate writers while YouTube shorts are still growing in popularity feeding off of the influence from TikTok.
Fan memberships are essential aspects of connecting creators with their fans and it is a way for clients to further improve their earnings. OnlyFans is an active display of how effective fan membership could turn out to be and it is only left for us to see how many platforms are willing to embrace this set up.
In a bid to grow together and not feel left behind, platforms are aiming to continually introduce innovative aspects of each other and blending them to still help them retain their authenticity. Khabane Lame is a wonderful example of how the social is a space open enough for virtually everyone to make headway in content creation with uniqueness being a major catch.
Twitter also aims to attract more brands to advertise in its space by sharing methods top brands are currently using to ensure that their products gain traction. Commentary-as-a-Service is certainly a nice niche in the creator economy who is currently extending its reach towards the movie space and it also provides a way for creators to reach out to fans in a more personal way.
Quora is also trying its hands at monetizing some aspects of it through Quora+ and Quora space extensions.
Generally, the creator economy is a wonderful space considering how much of an audience is there to be reached. As several sectors in the world today are trying their hands at decentralization, the creator economy is not being left out and for content creators, there are certainly exciting times ahead.