How Should Brands be Engaging With Digital Creators?

Today customers expect to receive high-quality and insightful content from their favourite brands. Creating content build trust, develop relationship, and generate leads. It will always be difficult when you first started out but eventually after you establish a certain audience base, it will get easier.

For small businesses or start-ups, writing content on your own might not the easiest path. That’s why some people choose to outsource their content marketing to digital content creators. As content creating are becoming more popular and more professional, people are also becoming increasingly engaged with digital content creators. If you are planning to reach out to a creator, let’s have a quick look at how to maximise collaborative efficiencies.

Influencers vs Digital Creators.

First, you must not confuse between influencers and digital creators. While in mass media their meanings are used synonymously, their roles and contributions to your marketing campaigns are quite different.

Influencers are social media ‘personas’, also known as ‘micro-celebrities’. They tend to have a vast number of followers and a lot of engagement within their network. Influencers also create contents, but usually with separated intentions. Their contents are usually about their personal lives, their lifestyles and habits, with paid partnership or promotion goes along side. Influencers “influence” their audience to purchase a product and earn commissions on how effective the piece of content is. Influencers are often rated by their following count and their reach.

Digital creators, or content creators, literally “create” contents. However, these contents are not restricted to promotional activities, but could be any form of creative content stemmed from pure interests. Digital creators also have their own loyal following and will still “influence” their followers in significant ways. The key difference is that they focus more on the piece of content instead of themselves. They are evaluated through the quality of their content.

The Benefits of collaborating with Digital Creators. 

1. They are experts in the field.

Digital Creators know what they are doing. They often share valuable information or resources or create high-quality entertaining contents. With thorough field knowledge, they naturally earn a vast following from people who is interested in that particular area. Digital creators know how to make your brand and offerings stand out with their superior knowledge and technical skills. Working with an industry expert and being associated with them will also boost your brand credibility.

2. To interact with your target customers.

Generally, it is difficult for a brand to communicate directly to their customers. Similarly, users are also not very fond of talking straight to a brand. However, your customers are very likely to engage with their favourite creators. This is an amazing opportunity to make a presence, raise awareness and creating new leads for your business.

3. Build brand trust.

The number one reason why audience trust digital creators is because they are not trying to sell them anything, therefore the relationships are regarded as more genuine and more reliable. Similarly, when you work with these creators, their audience might perceive your business with more meanings and values compared to watching ‘pure’ advertisements.

How to engage with Digital Creators.

You should not aim to ‘hire’ a content creator, instead, you should aim to sponsor them or collaborate with them. The main idea is to create contents that align with the creator as well as being relevant to their audience.

1. Choose your creators wisely.

Digital Creators delivers value for their audience. If your brand’s offerings are in a completely different field, the creators might refuse the project because it does not serve their audience. Therefore, the first step is to choose a digital creator that belongs to your area. Secondly, you must study and analyse their audience. While their contents and your products might align, their audience might not be the right fit for your products and services.

2. Establish mutual goals.

A team is only effective if the members are working towards the same goals. Lay out a set of objectives you aim to achieve and discuss regularly to see if it works with them. Another problem with collaboration is misalignments of values. Sure, your brand and the creator have agreed on the same goal, but what are the steps required to achieve those goals, and are there any discrepancy on the procedure?

3. Allow creative freedom, but with guidelines.

Digital creators are creative directors of their own works. Being restrained from creating creative content can be their worst nightmare. At the same time, it is crucial that they don’t misunderstand or misrepresent your business. Be patient and try not to rush them during the process, because creating a piece an original content with external influences is an extremely difficult task. While letting them freely making contents, works with them closely and set up regularly meeting to make sure all steps of the process are aligned and flows well with each other.

4. Track and evaluate your performance

It is always crucial to monitor the campaign and see if your strategies are working out well. If the collaboration between your business and the creators are successful, ‘congratulations, it’s a match!’. Not to get hype up too quickly, watch out to see if it might be just a ‘one-hit wonder’.  Continue to track your progress and overall performance even after the campaign to see if you can gain any valuable insights, both about your business and the creators themselves.

5. Keep in-contact with them (& their network)

Instead of a one-time deal, it is more optimal to think of them as business partners, regardless of the project’s performance. After all, content creating should circle around delivering values and building meaningful relationships. Digital creators are likely to know other experts in the same field. If the values, styles, or methods of the chosen creator are not suitable for your brand, learn from the mistakes and reach out to other creators in their network.

If you are struggling to come up with your own piece of original content, collaborating with a content creator is one of the best ways to obtain high-quality resources for your overall digital marketing campaign. Even though it can be a little bit tricky at first, once you find a creator that believe in the vision and values of your brand, they will do wonders with their expertise and imagination. Are you willing to take a chance?

Image: Unsplash Deniz Demir