How Creator Content Is Used in Marketing

​The creator industry is a 250-billion-dollar industry encompassing a diverse range of individuals, including influencers, content creators, celebrities, chefs, and others who create and share online content on digital platforms. In marketing, brands have used creator content in a few ways.

These creators create text, images, audio, and video, sometimes working independently of a brand. When collaborating with a brand, creators create content featuring a product or service, collaborate on campaigns, showcase their content on brand channels, and receive commissions when followers convert to customers. Creator is authentic because it comes from people within a community or who share a specific interest with their followers. The medium enables creators to be creative in integrating personal storytelling while using various formats to engage followers.

Creators integrate content into social campaigns through standard, whitelisted, and brand partnership ads. As part of a standard ad, the brand will include creator content under the brand’s social account, which brings brand presence and awareness. This approach, in turn, makes paid media messages effective, with 60 percent of consumers stating they prefer to purchase from a brand they recall.  

Whitelisted ads can provide brands with authenticity because the brand integrates creator content into the brand’s social media message, with the company paying for media ads. In this scenario, brands control where ads go, and they benefit from the word-of-mouth advertising that characterizes social media. This strategy is for a brand that wants to market to consumers indirectly. It is more effective because word-of-mouth advertising engenders trust with consumers.

Brand partnership ads involve official collaborations between the brand and the creator. This type of social campaign is more effective than the others when the creator is a public figure or an influencer.

Brands use creator content as part of social media. Today, social media has become a primary communication tool for not only relating socially but also getting information on just about any topic of interest. Creators and marketing teams have capitalized on that by placing content on the major social media platforms. Typically, the creator’s content and social media persona align with the brand’s values and messages. On these platforms, authenticity is critical in connecting with new, organic audiences. Brands benefit from exposure and from any new content the creator creates. Of course, these creator-brand partnerships run simultaneously with other social campaigns. The only caveat is that the message loses its authenticity and grassroots appeal.

Creators have also been assets in helping marketing teams reduce costs for their brands in creating web content. A prime example is when a brand seeks to showcase its product to consumers, such as a cosmetics company marketing a line of makeup products. In the past, the brand might have hired a whole team of experts, including people to shoot the video and models. Today, brands can connect with a creator who uses the product to create a video that demonstrates how they should apply cosmetic products for far less than orchestrating a video shoot. Again, creator-created web content is more authentic than polished ads a marketing team might create, providing the brand with a way to connect to its audience.

Finally, creator content is used in email and text marketing. These modes of communicating with consumers are suitable for testimonials and tutorials. Brands can create landing pages on their online website featuring creator content that aligns with the messages sent to consumers via email and text, including the website in the message.
 
The creator content ecosystem is ever-changing, with brands finding ways to maximize product exposure through creators. Some of the most successful partnerships have been long-term, where brands are not simply hiring a creator to market their product. Instead, the two entities function as collaborators, connecting commerce with culture to promote business growth.

Chris Carlson

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