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Valentine’s Day Content Ideas for Influencers

Moe Sid — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 02:42:15 +0000

Valentine’s Day can be a great opportunity for influencers interested in connecting with their followers and increasing reach. A global event, it is celebrated all around the world and generates great buzz online. Hence, it doesn’t come as a surprise that many people look for Valentine’s Day content ideas for influencers.

The buzz starts in January and reaches a high on February 14, Valentine’s Day, with some people talking about it even after the day. So, what can you do to cash on this great opportunity? Here are some great Valentine’s Day content ideas for influencers.

Valentine’s Day Content Ideas for Influencers: Things to Do This Year

Here are some great Valentine’s Day content ideas for influencers to try. We have covered a mix of ideas, so there’s something for everyone.

Many of us have a (romantic) story to tell, so why not share it with your followers this Valentine’s Day?

You can do it in a lot of ways. The key lies in making your post exciting and something worth knowing or watching.

Here are some ideas:

Talk about your romantic journey such as how you met your partner and how you proposed to each other. Get your partner on board to make things more exciting.
Post your wedding photos (if you are married) and share something personal with your followers. Those who aren’t married can talk about other romantic milestones, such as your first Valentine’s Day or date.
Create a photo collage or a carousel of pictures showcasing memorable moments. Add captions that highlight the significance of each photo. Also, add relevant hashtags to boost your reach.
Share a playlist of songs that remind you of your loved one or that hold sentimental value for both of you. Add a personal touch by explaining why each song is special. Such posts can turn out to be highly engaging. And if you’ve got talent, then consider being a singer and sharing these songs in your voice with your followers.

Those who do not want to try these ‘done to death’ ideas can get a little creative. For example, write a love letter to your partner and post it on your social media for the world to cherish.

You can do this alone or get your partner to join you. In some cases, it might be a good idea to build things up and generate curiosity. It will get people talking and keep people engaged. But, if you do it then make sure that you deliver. The payout needs to be special and worth looking forward to.

Also, the story can be shared in a variety of ways. You can make a fun reel or write a heart-touching caption. Those who do not want to put in so much effort can simply come up with a story that disappears in 24 hours.

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Start My Love Journey

While you are posting your story, why not use this as an opportunity to encourage your followers to share theirs? People want to get heard so some content ideas can include encouraging them to comment under your post and share what they think about Valentine’s Day or love.

You can make it more exciting by sharing the best comments on your story. It will not only help you get more engagement but also encourage people to come up with creative and entertaining replies. Furthermore, this approach can help build a community and allow you to form a stronger bond with your followers.

Here are some ideas:

Launch a hashtag challenge where followers can share their love stories in the form of photos, videos, or written captions. Encourage them to use a specific hashtag, such as #MyLoveStory, and promise to feature some of the most heartwarming or creative stories on your account.
Use Instagram or other social media platforms to create interactive polls or quizzes related to love and relationships. Ask questions like “How did you meet your partner?” or “What’s your favorite date night activity?” This not only engages followers but also provides insights into the diverse stories within your community.
Host a live Q&A session where followers can submit questions about relationships, dating advice, or even share snippets of their own love stories. Respond to their queries in real time and encourage a lively discussion among your followers.
Invite followers to DM you with their love stories, and select a few to feature on your Stories or feed. Share a brief overview of their story, expressing the uniqueness and beauty of each relationship. This not only highlights your followers but also strengthens the sense of community within your audience.
Position yourself as an “advice guru” for Valentine’s Day. Ask your followers to submit relationship questions or seek advice on romantic matters. Respond to their queries in a dedicated post or story, offering words of wisdom and support.
Collaborate with your followers to create a Valentine’s Day playlist. Ask them to suggest their favorite romantic songs or tracks that hold special meaning in their relationships. Compile the suggestions into a playlist and share it with your audience.

Remember to use engaging visuals, interactive features, and a mix of media types to make your content dynamic and shareable.

#3 Give Birth to a Romantic Hashtag

Branded hashtags can help you create a brand and reach more people. This Valentine’s Day, think of some unique content ideas and get your followers to spread the word.

Typical hashtags like #ValentinesDay and #LoveDay are effective but they don’t do a very good job of building a brand or identifying your content. For this purpose, we suggest you come up with something unique and related to who you are or what you do.

For example, you can use a hashtag that includes your name or your handle, i.e.: #yournameinlove when you talk about your love story. Similarly, you can encourage your followers to use this hashtag when making a post so that the hashtag gets spread and you easily get to see all relevant posts.

#4 Partner with Relevant Brands

Collaborating with brands that align with the spirit of Valentine’s Day can be a great way to come up with high-quality content and offer something interesting to your followers.

So, this Valentine’s Day look for brands that can help you stand out. There are several collaboration opportunities available on Afluencer. Sign up today for a free account and get access to hundreds of brands looking to partner with influencers.

Here are some great Valentine’s Day content ideas for Influencers and examples of how you can best utilize such partnerships:

Gift Guide Extravaganza

Collaborate with brands that offer Valentine’s Day gifts. Create a comprehensive gift guide showcasing a variety of products, from romantic experiences to thoughtful presents. Include a mix of budget-friendly and luxury items to cater to a diverse audience.

You can post reviews, overviews, or generic content to highlight posts. A large number of people go online to look for Valentine’s Day gift ideas, thus such content is usually in demand during Valentine’s Day. So, don’t miss this opportunity.

Love-Inspired Giveaways

Partner with brands for Valentine’s Day giveaways that resonate with your audience. Whether it’s a couples’ spa day, customized gifts, or a romantic getaway, giveaways can generate excitement and increase engagement.

In case you cannot manage a giveaway, we suggest that you look for discount codes that help your followers get Valentine’s Day-related products at a reduced price. US consumers spent a total of $25.9 billion on celebrating Valentine’s Day this year and the figure is expected to increase in 2024. Give people a reason to join you and benefit from this great opportunity.

Recipe for Romance

Collaborate with food and beverage brands to create a special Valentine’s Day recipe or menu. Feature their products in your cooking or dining content, and encourage your followers to try out the romantic recipes at home.

Remember that in the previous year, about 63% of consumers planned to order from a restaurant on Valentine’s Day, and a similar number of people are expected to order food this year. This means that people will be keeping an eye out for food recommendations.

You can partner with several other types of brands as well. Almost all types of gifts are in demand during the Valentine’s Day season with candy being the most popular option followed by greeting cards and flowers.

People also spend money on home decor items, clothes, and tech gadgets. Furthermore, it is a good time for wellness brands since wellness and self-love products sell like hotcakes during the season.

#5 Give a New Look to Your Profile

This might sound like a drastic step but it could be a great way to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Updating your profile aesthetics not only adds a festive flair but also signals to your audience that you’re embracing the season of love.

Here are a few things you can do:

Design or commission custom graphics for your profile picture and cover photo that incorporate Valentine’s Day elements. Use romantic colors, symbols, or even personalized illustrations that resonate with who you are.
Create a “Valentine’s Day” highlight on your social media profile and showcase your best love-themed content.
Utilize Valentine’s Day-themed stickers and filters in your stories. Platforms like Instagram often release special stickers for holidays. Similarly, Snapchat is known for releasing incredible filters to celebrate Valentine’s Day, so consider experimenting with these to add a playful and festive touch to your daily updates.
Create a countdown series in your stories or posts leading up to Valentine’s Day. Use engaging visuals, gifs, or short video clips to build anticipation and excitement among your followers. But, you should deliver if you use a countdown. Since Valentine’s Day is celebrated on the 14th, a 14-day timer can be a good idea.
Use only pink and red for a week or so to show your support for love. This will give a new look to your profile and help it stand out.

#6 Hold a Contest

Harness the power of social media competitions and giveaways to ignite excitement among your followers, especially during the Valentine’s Day season.

Encourage them to express their love by liking, commenting, and sharing your content. As engagement soars, not only will you elevate your channel’s visibility and reach, but you’ll also provide your followers with a tantalizing glimpse of the offerings in store.

It is common for brands to use this strategy to create a buzz but influencers can also utilize it.

Here are some great Valentine’s Day competition content ideas:

Love Caption Contest

Share a romantic or heartwarming photo and ask followers to come up with the most creative and touching captions. The entry with the best caption wins. You can even go live and recite some hand-picked captions.

Valentine’s Day Selfie Challenge

Encourage followers to share their best Valentine’s Day selfies. Whether they’re solo, with a partner, or even a pet, ask them to use a specific hashtag. The most creative or heartwarming selfie could win a special Valentine’s Day treat. Also, to encourage them, consider posting a selfie first.

All about Love Letters

Ask followers to write short love letters or messages to someone special in their lives. It could be a partner, friend, family member, or even a pet. Encourage them to share these letters with a dedicated hashtag. The most touching letter could win a heartfelt prize. Those who do not have someone special can even write to an imaginary friend or fictional character.

Valentine’s Day Haiku Challenge

Challenge your followers to express their love in the form of haikus. Haikus are short poems with a 5-7-5 syllable structure. Ask them to use a specific hashtag, and the most beautifully crafted haiku wins. We think this strategy works best for influencers who are into poems or literature.

Valentine’s Day Trivia Quiz

Test your followers’ knowledge of Valentine’s Day with a fun trivia quiz. Create a series of questions related to love, romance, and Valentine’s Day history. The follower with the highest score could win a Valentine’s Day-themed gift. But, make sure to keep your quiz interesting and entertaining, otherwise your followers may not show much interest in it.

Virtual Love Scavenger Hunt

Organize a virtual scavenger hunt by posting clues related to love and Valentine’s Day on your social media platforms. Ask followers to solve the clues and submit their answers. This idea can be very effective but it requires creativity and hard work, get ready to burn the midnight oil.

DIY Valentine’s Day Card Contest

Encourage creativity by hosting a DIY Valentine’s Day card contest. Followers can design and share their homemade cards, expressing their creativity and love. Feature the most artistic or heartfelt card and reward the creator.

You will have to offer something in return to get people to take part in your giveaways or contests. This can come from your collection or a collaboration with a brand.

#7 Talk to Others about Love and Relationship

This Valentine’s Day, talk to others about what they think of love and relationships. Your followers get to hear your thoughts all the time, so do something different this year.

Here are some ideas:

Love Polls and Surveys

Create engaging polls and surveys on your social media platforms to gather insights from your followers about love and relationships. Ask questions such as their ideal date night, the most romantic gesture they’ve received, or their thoughts on long-distance relationships. Share the results and start a conversation based on the poll findings.

You can even take a page out of Mr. Beast’s book and give your followers a chance to live the best life by giving what they want, i.e. a nice holiday. You will have to spend money or find suitable partners to make this possible. This Valentine’s Day content idea for Influencers is very effective but it requires proper planning, so start today.

Guest Interviews

Collaborate with other influencers, relationship coaches, or even real couples for guest interviews. Explore different perspectives on love and relationships, share personal experiences, and provide advice.

Make this interesting by talking about issues or topics your followers are interested in. Many influencers are looking for collaborations, so look out for people that others want to know more about and get them onboard.

You can do a podcast or a video interview to reach more people.

Love Language Discussion

Explore the concept of love languages and encourage your followers to discover their own. Share information about the different love languages and how they impact relationships.

Create engaging content that prompts followers to identify their love languages and discuss how this knowledge has influenced their relationships.

A great way to create unique content can be to visit different college campuses, markets, or places and talk to real people. Think of a topic related to love and make fun reels and videos to share with your followers.

A large number of influencers do this on YouTube and Instagram and while this technique requires investment (time and money) it can be quite effective as you might be able to get interesting comments that can help you gain more followers. Many influencers are already using this Valentine’s Day content idea, so waste no time and start working on your next video today.

Anonymous Love Confessions

Create a safe space for your followers to submit anonymous love confessions. Share these confessions in your stories or a dedicated post, allowing your audience to express their feelings without revealing their identities. It adds an element of intrigue and vulnerability to the conversation.

#8 Go Live and Celebrate It With Your Followers

A great way to celebrate Valentine’s Day and come up with unique content ideas can be to go live. Almost all major platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, give users the option to stream live and save these streams for later viewing.

Here are a few Valentine’s Day livestream ideas:

Organize a virtual panel discussion featuring individuals from diverse backgrounds and experiences. Explore topics like dating, relationship dynamics, and societal expectations. The panel can offer varied perspectives, sparking meaningful conversations among your followers.
Host a live Q&A session with relationship experts or psychologists. Your followers can submit questions in advance or during the live session. Discuss topics like communication in relationships, maintaining intimacy, or navigating challenges. This provides valuable insights and also allows your followers to participate actively in the discussion.
Highlight your Valentine’s Day covering what you did throughout the day. In the end, you can turn your video into a nicely edited vlog for more people to see.

Make your live session exciting by offering something different throughout the day. Don’t just sit silently, you have to offer interesting content to keep people interested. Here are a few things you can do:

Keep content interactive and talk to your followers. Instagram, for example, even gives influencers the option to include followers in the conversation and stream together. You can use this feature to get people interested.
Do not forget the importance of post-session engagement. Don’t just disappear after the session. Stay active and take part in post-session discussions. Furthermore, encourage your followers to share their thoughts and takeaways after the session.
Going live randomly might not be the best option. We suggest that you spend some time building anticipation by promoting your live session in advance. Share teasers and highlights to generate interest.

What if I am Single for Valentine’s Day?

Valentine’s Day might sound like a day for ‘lovers’ or ‘couples’ but do not worry because single men and women can also utilize this day to generate excitement on social media.

Users don’t care what your relationship status is, they only care about your content. If your content is good, you will be able to attract users and keep brands happy.

We have got some exciting Valentine’s Day content ideas for Influencers that are single:

Make a fun vlog sharing tips on how to enjoy being single on Valentine’s Day. About 46.4% of adults in the US are single. Reach these people by sharing relationship-free posts. Create content that resonates with your audience and form true connections. Talk about the pros and cons of being single, or even why you choose to be single.
You don’t need to be in a relationship to post reviews. Partner with companies and talk about their products. Your posts may be valuable to people looking to buy Valentine’s Day gifts. For example, you can review chocolates or even hotels. People spend heavily on gifts and experiences on Valentine’s Day, thus your content can prove to be highly sought after.
Demonstrate how Valentine’s Day is celebrated in your town. Visit different locations like bars and malls. Create content revolving around the different celebrations.
Not interested in talking about your personal life? Then create informative Valentine’s Day content talking about its history and facts. Many people have no idea why this day is celebrated or what it means.
Change the meaning of Valentine’s Day and show a different form of love. Talk about your pets and dedicate this special day to them. Post pictures with your pets and go do fun activities with them. Similarly, you can even dedicate the day to other loved ones, including your friends.
Be a love guru and give relationship advice. This might sound intense but a lot of ‘love gurus’ on the internet are single. However, most have experience of being in love.
Get creative this year with Valentine’s Day skits, highlighting the ‘single’ life. Such posts are a rage on TikTok and can do well on other platforms too. Come up with an interesting script and unleash the magic.

Important Thing to Remember: Stay True to Yourself

These were some Valentine’s Day content ideas but don’t just blindly follow these. You must pick an idea that works for you. Here are a few things to remember:

Your Niche

This is the most important factor because you have to keep your niche in mind even if you are making a post about a different topic. Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to be a love or relationship influencer to cash in on this day. You can be in any niche and still make a post about Valentine’s Day.

Here are some Valentine’s Day content ideas for influencers with examples:

What if I am a Makeup Artist: You can post interesting makeup looks. It can be anything from the popular Barbie look to the Kardashian look. Go all out and give your followers the option to try a unique look for Valentine’s.
What if I am a Finance Influencer: There is a huge connection between money and Valentine’s Day. People spend thousands on this day, so why not dedicate a post to the financial impacts and why one needs to be careful with spending on this big day? Share money-saving tips and suggest clever ways to celebrate the day of love.
What if I am a Travel Influencer: You can talk about the most romantic places to visit. Similarly, you can talk about traveling on a budget and highlight any great deals out there.
What if I am a Food Influencer: Food is the first love for most people. You can share some easy-to-try recipes to impress loved ones or even post food reviews showcasing the best restaurants to try on Valentine’s Day.
What if I am a Tech Influencer: Highlight some of the best tech gifts or talk about how technology is helping people stay connected. You can review dating apps like Bumble and Tinder, talk about the power of video calls, or simply give people suggestions on how to celebrate Valentine’s Day when they are in a long-distance relationship.

There are several Valentine’s Day content ideas for Influencers to try. Find brands that are looking for partners in these and many other niches by joining Afluencer today. Signing up takes a few minutes and is FREE. You will get immediate access to available collaboration opportunities.

Your Audience

The next thing to remember is your audience. It doesn’t matter how interesting your content is, it will not work well if it doesn’t add value to your readers.

For example, if you are mainly followed by businesspersons then you should come up with a topic that they’d be interested in. A good example can be a post about finding work-life balance on Valentine’s Day. Similarly, you can include relevant gifts in a gift-related post, such as stocks.

Also, make sure to draw the line and do not post very seductive or suggestive content if your audience isn’t used to it or if it doesn’t align with what you typically offer. It could upset people and cause them to cancel you.

Bonus Tip: Promote Anti-Valentine’s Day

We couldn’t end the blog without giving this Valentine’s Day content idea to influencers.

We understand that not everyone likes Valentine’s Day. The good thing is that you do not have to pretend to like it. Be real this year and talk your heart out.

You do not believe in it? Share why. This report highlighted how 86 percent of people do not believe in Valentine’s Day. You can target these individuals by talking about why you do not celebrate this day. Just make sure to be honest and instead of attacking or dissing people who celebrate this day, you only talk about why you do not celebrate it.

Here are some great Valentine’s Day content ideas for influencers who do not believe in Valentine’s Day:

Share amusing or unusual love stories that don’t conform to typical romantic narratives. This could include stories about unlikely friendships, unique partnerships, or humorous encounters. You can even list ‘movies’ that promote your anti-Valentine’s Day agenda.
Encourage followers to celebrate self-love and self-care rather than focusing on traditional romantic relationships. Share your favorite self-care routines, pampering ideas, or solo adventures. Furthermore, you can post a fun and interesting gift guide for people who do not believe in love.
Create a playlist featuring songs that mock traditional love songs or celebrate independence. Share it with your followers and encourage them to add their favorite rebellious tunes. If you’re creative, go ahead and create your song.
Create funny skits or parodies that poke fun at common Valentine’s Day clichés or the pressure surrounding the holiday. Humor can be a great way to connect with an audience that shares a similar perspective.
Engage your audience by hosting a caption contest for a funny or sarcastic anti-Valentine’s Day image. Encourage followers to share their witty captions, and reward the best ones. You can post popular photos, such as Jack and Rose on Titanic, and ask people to give a twist to it.
Host a Q&A session where followers can ask questions about your views on Valentine’s Day. Respond with humor and share anecdotes or personal experiences that reflect your perspective.

Don’t hate on this special day just for the sake of it. Do it only if you truly do not believe it, otherwise your content will end up looking fake. Also, do not shy away from being controversial as such posts often go viral. But, know where to draw the line.

So, spend some time coming up with a good topic and be prepared to rule the world.

Valentine’s Day Content Ideas for Influencers: Conclusion

These were some of the best Valentine’s Day content ideas for Influencers. Remember that more than 52% of consumers plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year with the average consumer planning to spend about $192.80, up from $175.41 last year. There is a huge opportunity for both brands and influencers. Pull up your socks and don’t miss it.

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Top Influencer Marketing Conferences in 2024

Kaleigh Moore — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 05:30:11 +0000

The global influencer marketing platform market was valued at almost $13.79 billion in 2023. It is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32% to reach $167.68 billion by 2032. As we approach 2024, the influencer marketing landscape continues to evolve.

In 2023, people around the world spent an average of 2.52 hours per day on social media platforms. This number is up from an average of 147 minutes over the previous year. As social media continues to dominate our lives, influencer marketing has become vital for businesses to reach and engage consumers effectively.

Short-lived campaigns are giving way to enduring partnerships between brands and influencers. Micro-influencers are gaining popularity and younger audiences are choosing new platforms like TikTok and Twitch. In light of these ever-changing preferences, marketers have to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and tactics.

Enter influencer marketing conferences.

The top influencer marketing conferences to look out for in 2024 bring together industry experts, renowned influencers, and marketing professionals from around the globe. They are a melting pot of ideas where attendees can network, learn, and gain valuable insights into the ever-changing influencer marketing landscape.

Whether you’re an established marketer or a budding entrepreneur, these events are opportunities to unlock the potential of influencer marketing for your business. Here’s what you need to know.

What to Look for in an Influencer Marketing Conference

When choosing an influencer marketing conference to attend, be sure it aligns with your organizational goals before you buy a ticket (as many of these events do come with a hefty price tag). As you search for the right fit, consider how impactful the following factors are for you or your marketing partners:

Relevance of topics: Ensure the influencer marketing conference covers areas of interest that align with your current needs or areas you want to explore.
Speaker lineup: Research the backgrounds of keynote speakers and session leaders. It’s always helpful to hear from people with first-hand experience and success in the areas they’re discussing.
Networking potential: Connecting with industry leaders, service providers, and peers may be as valuable as the sessions.
Hands-on workshops: Interactive workshops offer practical skills you can apply to your business.
Cost and location: Registration, travel, and accommodation expenses must be considered. Some conferences offer the option to attend virtually, which can be budget-friendly. Alternatively, you can find local or regional events to attend.
Reviews and word-of-mouth: Check past attendees’ reviews. Testimonials, recommendations from trusted peers, and past attendee feedback can give you an indication of how valuable the event is.

Additionally, consider the conference’s location and amenities to ensure a comfortable and convenient stay.

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Opportunities for Brands at an Influencer Marketing Conference

Influencer marketing events bring together influential content creators, industry experts, and thought leaders. They create the perfect platform for brands to showcase their products or services to a highly engaged audience. Here are some key opportunities and revenue-generating benefits for brands:

Brand exposure: Sponsoring or exhibiting at influencer marketing exhibitions and conferences can significantly increase brand visibility and exposure to a targeted audience, resulting in heightened brand recognition and awareness.
Networking and partnerships: Partnering with influential content creators can lead to impactful collaborations, brand advocacy, and mutually beneficial business relationships.
Thought leadership: Participating in panel discussions or giving presentations at conferences can position your brand as a thought leader in the industry, enhancing its credibility among both content creators and attendees.
Content creation: By engaging with content creators at conferences, brands can generate user-generated content, such as testimonials, reviews, or content featuring their products or services. It’s certainly a great way to expand your brand’s reach and online presence.
Market research: Brands can gain valuable insights into the preferences and trends within the content creator community. Attending these conferences can help your company stay ahead of the curve and adapt marketing strategies accordingly.
Lead generation: Engaging with event participants through product demonstrations, interactive activities, or giveaway contests can help collect valuable contact information for follow-up marketing activities.

Lastly, remember to engage on social media before, during, and after the conference to maximize your impact and connections.

How to Get the Most Out of an Influencer Marketing Conference in 2024

If you’re like most social media managers, you’re likely juggling managing a brand account between sessions at the influencer marketing expo you’re attending.

“Chat to anyone you happen to be next to, as you never know where it will lead”, said Julia Bramble, Ph.D. “Do the event how it best suits you: you don’t have to go to every associated pre-event, dinner, party, etc. Save your energy for the parts you want to be at”.

Here are a few more ways to maximize your investment of time and money into an influencer marketing conference.

Plan Ahead

Examine the event’s agenda and prioritize the sessions that are most relevant to you to avoid rush or overlaps at the last minute. You may come across a speaker or session while at the event, so stay flexible and willing to adjust your schedule to get the most out of the event.

Actively Network

Use networking sessions and breaks to meet new people. Introduce yourself confidently and don’t be shy to ask questions. You’ll soon learn that your peers – and even people you may assume are ahead of you in their careers – are dealing with many of the same issues. So, connect, relate, and generously share knowledge with others.

Take Notes

Whether you prefer old-school pen and paper or digital tools, note down insights, ideas, and contacts. Brand examples and case studies can prove useful later when tackling your own brand’s social challenges. Even if you don’t have time, you can always take photos of anything you want to record for future reference.

Continue the conversation beyond the event by sharing your insights, experiences, and key takeaways on your social platforms in real-time. Don’t forget to use the conference’s official hashtag, respond, and react to fellow attendees’ posts.

Attend Workshops

Participate actively in practical sessions which can offer hands-on skills. You may need to push yourself out of your comfort zone to learn and try things on your personal accounts that you aren’t typically used to doing.

Consider organizing a team meeting to share your findings and observations, that is if you attended the conference on behalf of your company. Then use your learnings and inspiration to help your entire organization.

Veteran conference attendees like Amanda Natividad have additional advice on this, too. “It’s best to go into the event knowing what you want from it,” she said. “Plan at least two meetings in advance and have a goal for what you want to get out of each meeting.”

For people who don’t feel comfortable in conference environments, Paul Singh has a tip as well: “Avoid the actual talks/panels. In my experience, much of the real work happens in the hallways and coffee shops nearby, so plan accordingly.”

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Find the Right Influencer Marketing Conference for 2024

Choosing the right influencer marketing events and content creator shows depends on your specific needs, niche, and areas of interest. While the above list offers a good starting point, always keep an eye out for other events.

Determine your goals and budget for attending a conference. Then choose a conference that fits your specific requirements and aligns with your industry or niche. Research upcoming conferences and choose ones that offer relevant sessions, workshops, and networking opportunities.

By taking the time to carefully select the right influencer marketing shows, you can certainly gain valuable insights, learn from the industry’s best voices, and potentially discover new opportunities for your business.

Looking for a way to connect with the best influencers online? Then check out Afluencer, the influencer marketing platform where top influencers and brands meet. Install the Afluencer app for Shopify here.

The post Top Influencer Marketing Conferences in 2024 appeared first on AFLUENCER.

Is Being an Influencer A Good Career Choice?

Kaleigh Moore — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 11:24:08 +0000

With one in five people who fall in the Gen Z demographic now saying he or she would quit college to become a social media influencer, it’s no surprise Google searches for “how to become a full-time influencer” are on the rise. The reality is that becoming an influencer is a career path many people dream of pursuing.

An influencer is, by definition, someone who “inspires or guides the action of others”. Popular influencers on social media today make this career look like a frenzy of free products, paid travel, and a life of luxury. Brands are rushing to increase their budgets for influencer marketing year-over-year. Sounds too good to be true, right?

We know what you’re thinking—there’s more to becoming an influencer than what you see online. This article will go over some of the things you need to consider before becoming an influencer, share some tips on how to launch your career and provide some pros and cons to help you make an informed decision about whether or not being an influencer is the right career path for you.

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6 Factors To Consider Before Becoming An Influencer

Being an influencer can seem like the perfect easygoing career choice, but like any other career, it comes with its own set of challenges and considerations. Many aspects impact whether or not this career is a good choice for you.

If you’re on the fence about starting down this path, here are six factors to consider:

1. Niche expertise

Every influencer has a particular niche they’re passionate about, distinguishing them from the competition. If you have the education, experience, or strong interest in a topic, you can create content around it that the audience enjoys, and build a career through your niche expertise.

2. Audience and engagement

Your audience is the only factor that allows your career as an influencer to flourish. It takes a lot of time to build an engaged follower base. You need to understand their expectations of your content and deliver consistently. If you are relatable, entertaining, and trustworthy, you not only create a bond with your audience but also bring monetization opportunities.

3. Monetization opportunities

There are a number of income streams available for influencers today, as long as they have a substantial follower count and established credibility in their niche. Brand collaborations, sponsored content, affiliate marketing, and merchandise sales are all ways that you can potentially earn a living as an influencer.

4. Long-term sustainability

Social media influencers have to create content online every day in order to establish themselves as a trustworthy voice within the industry. With ever-changing algorithms and unpredictable income, your career’s sustainability depends on your ability to adapt, evolve, and diversify your brand.

5. Work-life balance

Your career as an influencer is based on your passion and creativity as an individual. While this means you have to share parts of your personal life, it’s important to set boundaries so you can protect your privacy even as your career progresses. Many influencers struggle with this. So it is a worthwhile factor to consider before you start working on your online presence.

6. Emotional resilience

Dealing with criticism may be a part and parcel of every career, but exposing yourself to millions of users on social media can amplify the effect of it. Negative comments, online trolling, and public fault-finding can all impact your mental health. Learning to maintain a positive mindset and preserve your mental health, therefore, becomes important if you choose to become an influencer.

While this is not a one-and-done list to decide when a career as an influencer is suitable for you, these factors can help you make a well-rounded decision for yourself.

Social media is an evolving landscape, and there are plenty of successful influencers that you can take inspiration from. When you know that you want to begin your journey, knowing the first steps can make all the difference.

How To Launch Your Career As An Influencer

While it may look like an overnight success, becoming a successful influencer takes months if not years of dedicated hard work.

Every influencer’s journey is unique, even within the same niche or industry. Your specific topics of interest, goals, and target audience all make your path different from others. But there are some helpful guidelines that can help you get started. If you’re looking to learn how to launch your career as an influencer, we’ve broken it down into nine steps:

1. Define your niche

Every influencer is known as a figure of authority in a specific field, so choosing the niche is the first step. Explore what topics interest you, what your expertise is, and what can set you apart from others. Once you have a clear idea of your niche, you can begin to attract an audience that’s interested in the same thing.

According to the State of Influencer Marketing Report, the most popular niches for influencers are lifestyle, music, and beauty. You can choose any niche and be successful at it, from cooking and fashion designing to motorcycles and traveling (as long as you’re willing to put in the work and have an interest in the area, as you’ll spend a lot of time learning and posting about that subject matter).

As a budding influencer, finding your footing can also be easier through an influencer marketing platform like Afluencer where you can define your niche and connect with brands looking for influencers with audiences like yours.

Take, for example, Marques Brownlee. He made his YouTube debut 14 years ago by uploading videos on software tutorials. Today, he has over 17 million subscribers and gets millions of views for testing and reviewing the latest consumer electronics.

Image Source: Marques Brownlee’s Instagram

His reviews are simple, detailed, and unbiased. And his unique style of editing his content makes his audience trust and support him. Unsurprisingly, he is the most subscribed-to tech reviewer in the world today.

The bottom line: jump on the subject matter that truly interests you, as you’ll be spending a lot of time thinking, talking, and creating about it. If you don’t love the niche you’ve chosen, it’ll be difficult to remain consistent on days when you don’t feel like creating.

2. Choose a primary social media platform

With so many options to choose from, choose one social media platform that most aligns with your content and lean into that arena first.

Work to build your presence on one platform exclusively, be it Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, or others. Think about what kind of content you want to create—is it blog posts, short-form videos, photos, or in-depth tutorials? Each platform is uniquely suited to one content type, with Instagram supporting visual imagery, YouTube promoting longer video content, and TikTok famous for its quick, short-form videos.

Once you know what you want to publish, you’ll know where you’d be best suited to do it. This way, you concentrate your efforts and establish yourself before expanding into other platforms.

For example, Liza Koshy started posting short-form comedy videos on Vine and amassed seven million followers before starting her YouTube channel and opening an Instagram account.

Image Source: Liza Koshy’s Instagram

Today, she has snowballed her influence to 17 million subscribers on YouTube and 20 million followers on Instagram. She has gone on to create comedy shows, act in Hollywood movies, and start her own beauty products brand.

You don’t have to scratch your head creating content on multiple platforms. Start with one and take it from there.

3. Consistently create high-quality content

Social media algorithms tend to favor content that strikes up conversations, follows current trends, or mirrors popular formats. That means you’ll need to follow those trends and always be “on”.

It’s not an easy job. Consistently creating high-quality content means addressing your audience’s questions, making it entertaining for them to follow and engage with you, and ensuring top production practices to make it visually appealing. This can be tough since as an influencer, you’re often working as your own cameraman, model, editor, and producer. Having a schedule for the days when you can shoot content, edit it, and publish, can help you incorporate this into your daily routine.

Image Source: ManyChat’s Instagram Calendar

Whether your focus is photos or videos, the goal is to stay consistent in uploading new content and strive for originality to leave an impact on the viewers. Here’s the posting frequency Hootsuite recommends on different social platforms to maximize your content performance:

Instagram: 3-5 times per week
TikTok: 3-5 times per week
Facebook: 1-2 times per day
LinkedIn: 1-2 times per day
Twitter: 2-3 times a day
Pinterest: At least once a week

There are a ton of creators you can take inspiration from, and there’s always room for experimentation with new and creative content styles.

4. Build and engage your audience

Content that’s valuable and engaging will resonate with your target audience. So you’ll need to invest some time into understanding what your followers want to see from you. Analyze which of your content performs best and replicate that in future content.

The comments sections, DMs, stories, and mentions are also great ways to build authentic connections with your followers. Influencer and entrepreneur Ali Abdaal does this well. Across Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter, he has over five million followers. And he still makes it a point to engage with his audience regularly.

Every week, he asks questions, replies to comments, and creates content based on his audience’s suggestions. It’s his attention to detail and commitment to his followers’ opinions that have led to his success as a productivity influencer online.

Image Source: Ali Abdaal’s Twitter

5. Collaborate with other influencers

When trying to build your network and reach a wider audience, collaborating with other creators is a great way to increase exposure. It allows you to work together to create content that helps both of you attract new followers.

Content opportunities like guest appearances, shout-outs, and group collaborations can all work to expand your network quickly. Makeup and beauty creator James Charles, for example, recently collaborated with dancer and influencer Jojo Siwa to create a YouTube video that has already crossed 1.4 million views. While the two creators specialize in different niches, their collaborative content helps each of them tap into the other’s audience bases.

Image Source: James Charles’ YouTube

6. Monetize your influence

Brands are working with smaller-scale micro and nano-influencers more than ever today. So you don’t have to wait until you have a large following to start working with them. Whether it’s brand partnerships, merchandise sales, digital products, or affiliate marketing, brands are open to negotiations so you should select opportunities based on your audience’s interests, no matter the size of your audience.

However, even if you’re an influencer with a large following, it’s not ideal to rely on one or two sources to monetize your business, especially if it’s reliant on brands. You may want to explore opening something of your own to leverage your influence and make your business more profitable.

For example, influencer Emma Chamberlain’s collaboration with photography company Canon was well-received by her audience since she has advocated for the brand’s cameras on her YouTube channel for years. Both influencer and brand benefit from such paid partnerships, with visible boosts in reach, branded search, and revenue generated.

Image Source: Emma Chamberlain’s Instagram

7. Network by attending industry events

With the rise of social media careers, influencer events are commonplace today. Many are hosted by brands, like this recent week-long yoga retreat by fitness brand Alo Yoga. These networking and branding events set the stage for influencers to promote the brand’s products on their personal social media accounts in exchange for this exclusive access, free products, and a fun experience. When you attend an influencer event like this, you get to showcase your expertise and establish yourself as a prominent influencer in your niche (while networking with fellow influencers, too).

Image Source: Alo’s Website

While some events may be invite-only, you can always keep an eye out for such opportunities. By actively interacting with fellow influencers both online and offline, and networking with brands and event organizers, you can stay in the loop regarding all potential events. There are also more mass-scale events for influencers to network, like upcoming events including Podcast Movement in August, Indie Pod Con 8 in September, and AdWorld in March 2024.

Meanwhile, keep working to improve your key metrics, including your follower count, impressions, and engagement rate. Brands are more likely to invite you if they are confident that you can turn your content into awareness and sales for their products and services.

8. Diversify your income streams

One of the unspoken risks of a career as an influencer is the unpredictability of income. Relying only on brand deals might not be enough, especially in the beginning. Consider diversifying where your money comes from by adding other revenue streams depending on the social media platform you’re active on.

UGC, or user-generated content, is another source of income with big potential. This differs from the usual content you create because this content is directly used on the brand’s social media channels. And so the content ownership is transferred to them so they benefit from the authenticity you bring, while you get more reach and monetary compensation. Brands and their consumers both value authentic content on social media today. So UGC allows you to leverage your creativity while brands collect social proof and influence purchase decisions.

Mindy Thomas, a content creator, and creative strategist, explains it well:
“Creating short-form videos for brands gives me the fulfillment of being a creator and executing brand partnerships without having to rely heavily on building a personal brand or sharing too much of my personal life with the public. I create for the brand and their channels only.”

According to her, creating user-generated content helps take pressure from having to keep personal engagement rates high enough for brands to see her value. Since it also helps add another source of income to help with revenue fluctuations, it’s a win-win situation.

9. Keep learning and adapting

The best way to keep growing as a creator and influencer is to stay updated with the latest trends and changes in social media platforms. It can be easy to slip into your comfort zone and create content that feels familiar. But remember, audiences are always looking for new and exciting experiences.

That’s why the last step to starting your career as an influencer is to be open to learning new skills, strategies, and technologies in order to stay relevant. Being an influencer, the best way to learn is by observing what industry leaders are doing, what creator companies and agencies are suggesting, and investing in your learning through communities and masterclasses like on AdWorld Pro, Foundr, and Later. You can also use the new skills and knowledge you acquire to give your content creation a facelift and demonstrate authority when speaking to brands for collaborations.

So whether you want to kickstart your career as a fashion influencer or become the next big makeup mogul, these guidelines will help you get the ball rolling. Given this is a relatively newer career path, the only way to learn is by trial and error.

Unsurprisingly, this career path also comes with its fair share of pros and cons.

The Pros and Cons Of Being An Influencer

Social media’s depiction of an influencer’s life makes everything look like rainbows and unicorns. And while there are benefits to being an influencer, it also comes with potential dangers, struggles, and setbacks.

“The reality is, as an influencer, there’s constant anxiety to keep the business running and being subjected to algorithms while trying to be creative. It’s hard, but no one wants to hear that it’s hard.” – Amy Landino

Knowing all this information before you dive into the profession can help prepare you in advance, so you know what to be excited about and what to avoid.

“Creator is such a better path than me than full-time work. The downsides of financial uncertainty, need to create, etc. are prices I’m happy to pay.” – Paul Millerd

Pros:

Rare opportunities to share your creativity, expert knowledge, and passion with people from all over the world.
Autonomy and flexibility to build a schedule that works best for your lifestyle, making sure you prioritize what matters most to you.
Connect with a positive community of like-minded people, both followers and fellow influencers, through your work.
Earn a comfortable livelihood through branded opportunities with the potential to make a lot of money.
Spread awareness through positive influence to a huge group of people, making an impact in society for the better.

Vice President of Marketing at Sparktoro, Amanda Natvidad, also says influencer marketing comes with great pros like creating opportunities for yourself, becoming a magnet for cool ideas, and meeting intellectual peers.

Cons:

Can take years of consistent efforts to create a significant online presence today. Especially with rising competition on major social media platforms.
Challenging to take on the role of your own boss as an influencer when trying to stick to a fixed working schedule.
Difficult to manage your personal life without sacrificing your career when you work by yourself.
Demanding to build an online persona without compromising your and your loved ones’ privacy.
Can put pressure on you to earn a stable income when dealing with unpredictable monetizable opportunities.

Aside from this, female creators like Amanda Goetz share another downside to a career on social media: “I’ve been thinking about choosing not to show my face as much. When I show my face – the gross DMs and hate increases. I also want people to hear what I’m saying for the words, not how I look delivering them.”

Blogger-turned-Instagram influencer Hitha Palepu shares that the upside of influencer marketing for her included writing and publishing two books, ramping up her speaking career, and building a solid lifestyle business she truly enjoys. But the downsides have been being the subject of snark threads on Reddit, and a lack of privacy for family members, which is why she says, “I still have a full-time job and plan to always have a non-creator career.”

Starting Small: Building An Influencer-Adjacent Career

A recent study showed that one in 10 creators are just in this profession as hobbyists. 43% of creators also have another full or part-time job. Whether this means keeping the stability of their full-time jobs or helping other influencers with their brands, influencer-adjacent careers are becoming popular too.

It can be undeniably scary to lead the life of an influencer, and many people prefer to keep working their full-time jobs while only being an influencer as a side hustle. Being an influencer today is about being authentic to your content and your audience, so everybody with a smartphone and internet access has an equal chance at succeeding.

Whether you choose to become a part-time influencer first or you’re ready to begin your journey as a full-time influencer, having the right support system can make a huge difference. To launch your career and start meeting brands today, download the Afluencer app for Shopify here.

The post Is Being an Influencer A Good Career Choice? appeared first on AFLUENCER.

The Influencer’s Guide to Threads

Kaleigh Moore — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 02:29:44 +0000

Instagram’s newly launched text-based conversation app Threads is the hottest new thing on the social media radar. It’s being seen as a direct competitor (and potential threat) to Twitter.

The Threads app has already racked up over 100 million users, amassing 30 million of those users in the first 16 hours following its launch on July 6; a testament to its popularity and instant appeal. Celebrities, influencers, and brands have jumped on the bandwagon as well, including the likes of Jennifer Lopez and legendary talk show icon Oprah Winfrey, brands like Netflix, Spotify, and Coca-Cola, and mega influencers like Mr. Beast.

If you dream of shooting to fame as an influencer, Threads could be just what you need to expand your digital footprint, build a loyal follower base and have meaningful conversations with a captive audience. By leveraging this new app effectively, you can enhance your social media presence, increase engagement, and create a more personalized and authentic experience for your audience.

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Let’s dive into everything you need to know about Threads.

What Is Threads?

According to the description in the App Store, “Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow”.

Threads is a text-based conversation app from Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram), focused primarily on long-form written content. Unlike Twitter’s 280-character limit, however, this new app lets users create 500-character-long threads. But what is a thread? In simple terms, a thread refers to a string of linked messages that tell a longer-form story. A thread begins with an initial message followed by a series of replies or comments.

At a glance, the Threads app experience is very similar to that of Twitter. Both offer a primarily text-based feed of posts allowing users to track what’s happening in the world in real-time, start conversations, and engage with the community.

How Does Threads Work?

Threads is simple to use, and setting up an account is easier than ever thanks to its integration with Instagram. Here’s a quick guide to help you get started.

Logging in: Log in to Threads with your Instagram account. Threads is linked to your existing Instagram account, so unlike other apps, you don’t need to sign up from scratch. Just click on your username at the bottom of the welcome screen. Your Instagram username and verification will carry over to Threads, and you can customize your profile. For users under 16 (or under 18 in certain countries), profiles will default to private when they join Threads.
Posting: You can post updates up to 500 characters long (significantly higher than the 280 characters offered by Twitter). Threads offers the option to include links, photos, and videos up to five minutes long. Easily share Threads posts to your Instagram story or as a link on other social platforms.
Interactions: You can reply, repost, or quote posts from other people, just the same as rival social apps.
Moderation: The app has several moderation tools, including controls on who can mention or reply to you within the app.
Privacy: You can choose between Public and Private profiles while setting up the app. A public profile means that anyone can see, share and interact with your content. And that’s regardless of whether they are on the Threads app. A private profile restricts your content to only your approved followers.

How Influencers Can Leverage Threads

Threads offers a more intimate and exclusive environment for influencers to connect with their core audiences and increase their exposure. The app allows you to create a dedicated thread for close followers, providing a space for more personalized interactions, making it a great platform on which you can share exclusive content, behind-the-scenes footage, and sneak peeks, fostering a sense of exclusivity and building stronger relationships with followers.

“I think it’s a great time to get on [Threads] and connect with people on a very casual level. As a platform matures and people’s habits and connections get established, it becomes harder to get their attention.”
– Lia Haberman, Social and Influencer Marketing at UCLAx

Let’s look at a few other ways influencers can put Threads to good use:

Real-time updates

Threads’ status feature enables influencers to share real-time updates, such as their location, activities, or upcoming events. This creates a sense of immediacy and authenticity, allowing followers to feel more connected to the influencer’s daily life.

As an influencer, you can leverage this feature to provide exclusive access to events, product launches, or collaborations. Thus making your followers feel like they are part of an inner circle.

Thought leadership

Threads app provides influencers with a powerful platform to establish thought leadership and engage with their audiences in a more intimate and focused way. Influencers can create dedicated threads around specific topics related to their niche, thus deepening their subject matter specialization.

If you’re a finance influencer, for instance, by consistently sharing valuable insights, tips, and expertise on finance-related topics, you can position yourself as an authority in the space and attract an engaged audience seeking your expertise.

Storytelling

Threads’ auto status feature provides real-time updates on an influencer’s activity or location. This can be useful for influencers to share in-the-moment experiences and create a sense of immediacy and authenticity in their storytelling.

Attending a wedding and want to show off your outfit as a fashion influencer? How about as a travel influencer – want to give your followers an airport tour while you wait for your flight? Want to give your audience a sneak peek at a secret project you’re working on? By telling stories in real-time on Threads, you can make your audience feel more connected to your everyday life.

Collaborations

Threads can be used to collaborate with other influencers who resonate with the brand or influencer’s values and aesthetic. This can help increase exposure and drive traffic to the main Instagram profile.

Threads also allows influencers to co-host live videos with other influencers. This feature enables users to engage in real-time conversations, conduct joint interviews, or create collaborative content that showcases their expertise and unique perspectives.

When influencers collaborate on projects or create content together, they can tag and mention each other in their Threads posts. This not only acknowledges their partnership but also encourages their followers to discover and engage with the other influencer’s content.

Community-building

Influencers can initiate and moderate group conversations within Threads. Allowing them to facilitate meaningful interactions among their followers and positioning themselves as facilitators of insightful discussions.

Another great way to cultivate a sense of community and foster a deeper connection is by providing your followers with exclusive access to premium content, such as Q&A sessions, live tutorials, or behind-the-scenes footage.

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Threads allows influencers to create exclusive groups specifically for their most dedicated followers. By curating a community of highly engaged individuals, you can share long-form content with a more receptive audience. This exclusivity fosters a sense of loyalty and intimacy, enabling you to delve into more detailed narratives, personal anecdotes, or educational content without being constrained by the broader public’s expectations or short-form character limits.

Threads provides influencers with a seamless and interactive platform for sharing rich media content as well. Influencers can use Threads to post long-form written content with multiple images, videos, or links, enhancing the overall storytelling experience. Using the app’s intuitive interface, you can present your content in a way that’s aesthetically pleasing and engaging to capture your audience’s attention and keep them invested in the narrative.

Images & context

Images can be a great conversation starter. As an influencer, you can share photos that evoke emotions or prompt discussions among your audience. Threads also allows you to provide additional context or a description for an image, by adding a caption. Simply tap on the text input field below the image and type in your desired caption.

Amplifying engagement

Influencers can leverage Threads’ features such as stories, photos, and video messages to enhance engagement. By creating compelling and interactive content, they can captivate their audience, encourage participation, and strengthen their position as thought leaders.

Instagram has a large, active user base, with over one billion monthly active users. This massive reach, combined with the integration of Threads within the Instagram ecosystem, can potentially allow influencers to tap into their existing Instagram followers and drive higher engagement levels compared to starting from scratch on a new platform.

Gathering audience insights

Threads offers features like Quick Reactions and Auto Status, which allow followers to share their thoughts and feelings quickly. This gives influencers instant feedback and helps them better understand their audience’s preferences and interests. By leveraging this data, influencers can tailor their content strategy and deliver more relevant and engaging content to their followers.

Influencers Seeing Success With Threads

Threads has taken the influencer world by storm. Providing a fresh and exciting way for influencers to connect with their audience on a more intimate level. Here’s a quick glimpse at how influencers are utilizing the Threads app to establish themselves as industry leaders.

Amanda Goetz (@goetzam)

Amanda Goetz is a three-time founder & CEO, brand-builder, creator, and single mom of three. She is currently working on Life’s a Game, an anti-hustle newsletter, and formerly founded the CBD brand House of Wise. Like many app users, Goetz is curious to watch how Threads evolves and who its power users will be.

With Musk’s recent moves to push users toward the paid version of Twitter and the overhaul of Twitter usage policies leaving many users dissatisfied with the app experience, Threads seems to have picked up on the opportunity to oust its rival and win over disgruntled Twitter users.

Goetz’ shared her initial observations about Threads in a recent tweet, where she said “I logged into threads this morning, and the first four posts were Paris Hilton saying hi, two people I know posting their night out last night, a meme account, a thread about building wealth. Meta’s social graph + Twitter features = FB status updates?”

On Threads, Goetz uses this platform to talk about topics adjacent to her newsletter content. She advocates for slowing down, urging parents to be kind to themselves. And has been using the platform to share her thoughts on self-improvement and personal development.

Bobby Kim (@bobbyhundreds)

Bobby Kim is the co-founder of the streetwear brand The Hundreds, the NFT project Adam Bomb Squad, as well as the bestselling author of, This Is Not a T-shirt. He’s one of the early adopters of the social media app and has already built a following of 27,000+ on Threads.

Does the popularity of Threads signal the beginning of the end for Twitter? Influencers like Bobby Kim seem to feel so, taking a dig at Musk’s social platform in a recent Threads post:

“Whenever I drop by Twitter, feels like visiting a school I graduated from.”

In his substack newsletter, Kim also expressed what he likes about Threads:

“Anecdotally, I find myself reaching for Threads above any other social app. Although I have the least amount of followers there (1/6 of Twitter and 1/15 of IG), I’m much happier with my connection. My engagement isn’t necessarily higher on Threads, but I’m enjoying a healthier rapport with followers, old and new. It’s also nice to resume a dialogue with names I haven’t seen in some time due to algorithmic walls and social noise.”

So far, Kim is focusing on Threads, using it to promote his work, such as his new Peso Pluma merch design and the upcoming food and fashion festival, as well as reposting fan love.

KSI – @ksi

The YouTuber and boxer is the Founder of the hydration drink Prime and CEO of Misfits Boxing. He posted his first Thread, claiming to feel like he’s “cheating on Twitter” and has already amassed over 70,000+ followers on the platform. If his Twitter record is anything to go by, he should bring a lot of comic relief to the timeline and will be an excellent source of information for upcoming boxing events.

5 Things Influencers Will Love About Threads

1. Migrate your followers easily

The Threads badge (displayed below), which appears at the top of your Instagram profile, is a convenient way of letting your Instagram followers know that you’re on Threads. Most followers choose to follow their favorite influencers and celebrities across social platforms, so they’ll likely want to hop on over to Threads and follow you there. The experience of transitioning your followers from one social app to the other is seamless, a unique advantage made possible by its link to Instagram.

If at any point you want to remove the Threads badge from your Instagram profile, navigate to your profile, click the badge, then select Hide badge.

2. Follow the same accounts as Instagram

Threads allows you to automatically follow the same accounts you currently follow on Instagram, taking away the hassle of finding people you want to follow on another social media app and finding and adding new accounts to follow from within the Threads app. Your feed is a mix of posts from people you follow and recommended content.

3. Compatible with Interoperable Networks

Instagram has plans to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards powering the modern web. This would make Threads interoperable with other apps supporting the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress – allowing new connections that are impossible on most social apps today. Other platforms, including Tumblr, have shared plans to support the ActivityPub protocol in the future.

4. Less volatile than Twitter

Twitter has recently instituted restrictions and paywalls to access highly sought-after features. The relatively lower volatility on Threads could nudge brands and influencers towards Threads as an alternative to Twitter.

5. Security

Threads has privacy settings to control who can interact with you and the option to filter out certain words from your replies. Any accounts you’ve blocked on Instagram are automatically blocked on Threads too, and you can unfollow, restrict, or block accounts from directly within Threads.

Since the app is integrated with Instagram, Threads enforces Instagram’s Community Guidelines on content and interactions. This can help brands and creators feel safer and more confident in their online presence and reduce harassment.

Unraveling The Power Of Threads

The Threads app by Instagram holds remarkable power within its simple interface. For influencers, the app can play a significant role in enhancing their personal brand and connecting with their audience on a deeper level. It empowers influencers to connect and share their lives with a select circle of close followers.

With intuitive features like Auto Status, you can effortlessly update your availability and activities, fostering a sense of real-time connection. Features like seamless photo and video sharing allow you to share intimate moments instantly, while its interactive camera allows you to capture and embellish content creatively (a pro for any content creator).

Are you an influencer looking for the ideal collaborations for your niche? On Afluencer, you can join thousands of influencers in showing off your influence to brands. You can also search for collaborations by interests, requirements, channels, and more.

The post The Influencer’s Guide to Threads appeared first on AFLUENCER.

Cracking the YouTube Code: Insider Secrets for Creators to Build a Thriving Channel

Kaleigh Moore — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 03:47:30 +0000

Jake Fellman was an average guy until he started creating content on YouTube in 2020. From September 2020 to this day, his YouTube creator account has been one of the fastest-growing channels on the platform, with over 15 million subscribers (and counting).

The secret behind Jake’s success? Producing short-form videos for YouTube Shorts. In his own words:

“Short-form video is 99% content, 1% everything else.”

As of 2022, there are at least 51 million creators on YouTube, but only a small percent succeed in making an impact like Jake.

If you want to be one of them, this start-to-finish YouTube guide for creators will help you start and scale your channel with proven tips on starting a channel from scratch and maximizing its ROI.

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Why Create Content on YouTube?

First things first: Let’s talk about why creators and influencers should focus on YouTube as a distribution channel.

While TikTok’s popularity has soared in recent years, YouTube continues to be a reliable channel for distribution. It promises visibility and organic growth to creators repurposing content from different platforms.

What’s more: creating content on YouTube has many benefits, such as…

Multi-language Audio to Widen Reach

Multi-language audio is one of YouTube’s latest features to let creators add audio tracks in different languages. On top of auto-translated captions, this feature allows you to reach a global audience and deliver content in their native language. The result? Higher reach and increased watch time. Look at this feature in action on MrBeast’s YouTube channel:

Means to Build & Engage a Community of Followers

Unlike other social media platforms, YouTube has always placed more emphasis on community-building. With memberships, creators can monetize their community and engage better with their subscribers. Many creators are also posting original content to give members exclusive privileges. For example, Swagg’s membership offers subscribers a chance to play with the gamer:

Greater Visibility via YouTube SEO

Another great advantage of creating content on YouTube is the share of traffic you can win by optimizing your channel and videos. Having a YouTube SEO strategy can boost rankings in search results, which means more views and long-term traffic. By capturing traffic for several strategic keywords, you can gradually level up your performance with higher watch time, more subscribers, and greater engagement.

Increased Revenue as a Casual Creator with Shorts

Creators can replicate Jake Fellman’s success on YouTube by posting Shorts, which are a section dedicated to short-form video content on the app. This is an opportunity to distribute content from Instagram and TikTok to get more views and boost engagement. In fact, the number of channels uploaded to Shorts daily on YouTube grew by over 80% in 2022. Muaaz, a YouTube creator and strategist, predicts the potential of Shorts for creators:

Enjoy More Monetization Options to Maximize Earnings

YouTube has expanded its monetization capabilities for creators in many ways. Your earning potential goes beyond ads with additional avenues like subscriptions, shopping, and digital goods. Jin Yong-jin, a South Korean creator, multiplied his revenue by adding over 30,000 members to his channel in seven months.

One thing is clear: YouTube can help you level up your creator business by building a deeper connection with your audience and increasing your earning potential. Wondering how to get started on the platform? Next, we’ll share a fail-proof framework.

How to Start Your YouTube Channel: A Quick and Actionable Guide

There’s no shortage of advice on how to start a YouTube channel. But with so many varying tips and best practices for starting your channel, it can get overwhelming when you’re trying to filter the right advice and create your action plan.

We did the legwork for you to create this short and actionable guide on starting a YouTube channel with only the most essential steps. Let’s dive in.

1. Determine your niche and build a foundational strategy

The first piece of the puzzle is finding topics you’re passionate about and creating a strategy around them.

To succeed as a YouTube creator, you need to consistently publish niche content with unique insights and appeal. So, if you pick a niche randomly—or worse—don’t pick one at all, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

“When it comes to being a creator, the quality of your content is just as important as the quantity. Far too many people advise just to post six times a day, but that doesn’t mean anything if the quality of what you are doing isn’t up to par. Quality matters in terms of storytelling, editing choices, and even the length of a video.”
Chris Lawrence, YouTube Creator

Picking a niche requires research and self-analysis. You need to know the competition and visibility for any niche you choose. Here are five questions to consider when finalizing your niche:

How much do you already know about [your niche]?
What other creators are already producing content in [your niche]?
How will you position yourself to differentiate your channel from others?
Will you enjoy creating unique content and sourcing insights for [your niche]?
What’s the traffic volume for some of the most and least popular keywords in [your niche]?

With this prep work, you can decide the best option for your channel. Try experimenting with multiple inter-related niches and then picking the best-performing one.

Once you’ve narrowed down your niche, focus on setting the groundwork for your channel. This means performing market and audience research to guide your content strategy in the next steps. This initial research will prepare you to create high-quality content targeted at your ideal viewers.

2. Outline goals and benchmarks for your channel

Creating a YouTube channel is a lot like going on a road trip. Without an itinerary of where you’re headed, you might get lost in the middle of the journey.

For YouTube creators, an itinerary includes a set of goals, milestones, and metrics that will help evaluate success. This roadmap helps creators plan content to help achieve those goals and prevents them from going off track and delaying their growth targets.

“My first 30 days, I posted a video every single day on YouTube. This was back in 2020, before Shorts. Each video was around two to eight minutes long. It was a ton of work, but ‘putting in the reps’ was wildly helpful to learn what worked. For YouTube particularly, I think if you base your topics on SEO keyword research, it’s a no-brainer to help you start ranking. Quality will come. Perfection is what kills 99% of new channels, in my opinion.”
Dara Denney, YouTube expert

Here are a few best practices to determine the goals, milestones, and metrics for your YouTube channel:

Look at your direct competitors and map their growth to set basic benchmarks for yourself.
Create a big-picture vision for your channel to define where you want your channel to be in a few years.
Break down this big picture into realistic and time-bound goals—these can be a set of quarterly or yearly goals.
Go deeper to establish smaller milestones and timelines for every goal to ensure you have a clear game plan for achieving these goals.
Do a risk analysis and survey fellow creators to identify potential challenges you might face and create a mitigation plan.
Select relevant metrics for every goal and set a review workflow to monitor your progress.

Remember: goal-setting isn’t a one-and-done process. You have to revisit your goals and milestones as you move forward and modify them to push harder instead of becoming comfortable.

3. Design an airtight content strategy and start creating

When you know your target audience and core topics, chalk out an in-depth content strategy to create meaningful content.

Listing your preferred topics for an entire week or month at once and batch-creating content can help you maintain a steady momentum and stick to your publishing schedule without breaking a sweat. That’s the mantra Matt Gray follows for publishing content across platforms, including YouTube.

Follow these actionable tips on creating your YouTube content strategy:

Define your core content pillars and list the main goals for each video—educate, inspire, and entertain.

Outline the guiding principles for your content based on what you want to achieve with your channel—build awareness, create a community, maximize revenue, and more.

Decide and divide your topics into these categories:

Hero: massive events or announcements you post about once or twice a year. These are headliners and capture attention on a massive scale.
Hub: the episodic content you post regularly. This aligns with your audience’s main interests and keeps them engaged.
Help: these are helpful videos with high search volumes. They aim to attract more traffic by delivering value.

Create a distribution plan to maximize visibility for your content by sharing it on different channels in other formats.

Put simply, a content strategy prevents you from shooting in the dark. It encourages consistency and streamlines your content creation and distribution workflows.

“I try to leverage other platforms like my blog, email, and Instagram to share my new YouTube videos. I use my Community tab (although not consistently) to tease a new video and spark conversations. It’s also wise to try to answer each reply, as it helps build community.”
Elna Cain, YouTube Creator

4. Create, verify, and optimize your YouTube account

Now that you’ve created a fail-proof roadmap for your YouTube channel, it’s time to create an account and get the ball rolling.

Sign up on the platform or log into an existing account. Go to the menu on the right and hit the Create channel option. Follow the prompts to set up your account and then customize the layout. Add your branding to the channel with a profile photo, banner, about section, and more. You can also customize your channel’s URL when you collect 100+ subscribers.

Once these basic details are in order, focus on verifying your account. Note that account verification isn’t the same as the verification badge you receive on crossing 100k followers.

Verify your YouTube channel to prove the validity of your contact information to upload custom thumbnails, long videos, live streams, and more.

The final step is about optimizing your YouTube account for a search-friendly presence. While we’ll discuss the nuances of YouTube SEO in detail shortly, you can start with these tips:

Create a channel trailer to give new visitors quick context about your content.
Create custom thumbnails with overlay text and your branding to attract more viewers.

Wono, a YouTube strategist, stresses the importance of custom thumbnails and titles…

Design topic-based playlists to club together videos on the same themes for a longer watch time.
Choose the most popular keywords in your niche and add them to your channel description.

With that, you’ve finally started your journey as a YouTube content creator. But it’s not over yet.

5. Monitor performance to see what resonates with your audience

The final step in starting your YouTube channel is tracking your progress. Winning new subscribers and watching the numbers on your analytics dashboard grow feels great. But if you want to sustain and scale this growth, you have to consistently track performance and see what’s working and what’s not.

“Compelling video thumbnails oftenresult in more views. Create ones that are compelling (not clickbaity) but enough to catch someone’s eye while they’re scrolling and. I use Canva, so I also make sure that any words or font contrast well with the thumbnail to make it pop.”
Josh, Host of of The Wild West Extravaganza

As a best practice, choose metrics relevant to your goals and monitor this data to analyze your progress. Besides checking the numbers on the Youtube Creator Studio Analytics, you can:

Add trackable links to your video descriptions.
Split-test different video thumbnails to see what format performs best.
Ask customers if they heard about you via YouTube.
Keep an eye on referral traffic sources from other platforms.
Use social listening tools to see who’s mentioning your YouTube channel.

Use this five-step framework to set up your brand-new YouTube channel and diversify your presence as a creator. If you’re already posting content on the platform but struggling to increase visibility, the next sections are for you.

How to Increase YouTube Views: 4 Best Practices

Ask any YouTube creator why they stopped creating content on the app, and you’ll likely get the same answer: not getting enough views on their videos.

Creators can easily feel discouraged when they don’t attract enough viewers to their content. Imagine hours of hard work and creative effort resulting in hardly 500 views. So, we curated these hands-on tips to help you increase YouTube views and watch your channel thrive.

1. Optimize your content for YouTube SEO

SEO isn’t the silver bullet, but for YouTube, it’s the closest thing to one. Optimizing your content and channel for search can win you higher rankings in relevant searches and increase your visibility.

Here are a few tips to make your content more SEO-focused:

Perform keyword research using tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to identify high-volume keywords with a good reach.
Decide topics and content formats for your shortlisted keywords and incorporate each keyword in the video title, description, tags, file name, and thumbnail.
Add transcriptions and captions to your video to help the algorithms understand your content easily.
Create timestamps for the ease of watching your videos and engaging your viewers.
Selectively add CTAs to encourage viewers to perform the next steps and maximize engagement.

Tap into the power of the world’s second-largest search engine to drive more traffic to your channel and add more subscribers.

2. Implement audience engagement tactics

Your engagement rate can make or break your YouTube channel’s success. It tells the algorithm whether subscribers enjoy your content or not.

Here’s our best advice to ensure you’re engaging your audience effectively and giving them content worth consuming:

Hop on the viral trends bandwagon and put your personal spin on it to attract more viewers.

Design catchy and appealing thumbnails supported by intriguing copy to get more eyeballs.

Create short-form videos and repurpose original content into Shorts to maximize engagement.

Regularly interact with your audience through live streams and incentivize engagement through giveaways.

Use techniques like pattern interrupt—a change in the visual style and tone in a video to refocus viewers’ attention—in your content to avoid boring your viewers.

Remember: the more seamless the viewing experience, the higher engagement levels you can achieve.

3. Maximize watch time with topic-wise playlists

Watch time is a crucial ranking metric on YouTube. It measures the total time users spend on your channel. Rather than calculating the watch time for individual videos, it counts the collective time spent watching multiple videos from your channel.

If people stick around for a long time, it’s a positive indicator of high engagement levels on your channel. As a result, this can bump up your rankings and increase views.

Grouping videos on similar topics or themes is a surefire way to maximize watch time. This allows visitors to consume content and watch multiple videos seamlessly. For example, a finance content creator, Eric Andrews, has designed these topic-wise playlists to educate his audience on different subjects.

4. Create a distribution strategy to promote videos

One area where most YouTube creators drop the ball is distributing their videos properly. A solid distribution strategy can spread your content across multiple sites and reach diverse audiences, leading to even more views.

Design a steady pipeline to promote every new video on your channel. You can repurpose it into a carousel for Instagram and LinkedIn, a Twitter thread, an email, a blog, and so much more. Choose the most feasible options and then create different spokes to distribute your original video.

Here’s a great example from freelance writer and creator, Colleen Welsch. She runs a YouTube channel named The Freelance Writer’s Guide and promotes every video on her newsletter and also her Instagram feed.

How to Win More Subscribers for Your YouTube Channel

You’re getting great views on every video, the watch time is increasing steadily, and the engagement rate shows promise. Now, the bigger question is: how to scale these numbers and grow your channel?

The short answer: adding more subscribers

Getting more views is easy if you optimize your content and promote it well. But getting more subscribers is a long-term process to build enough credibility for yourself and win viewers’ interest. Here are four solid ways to do this for your channel:

Make your channel appealing to new visitors

What happens when a user lands on your channel for the first time? They’ll either get confused/bored and leave the page or explore different sections and watch your content. If you want the latter (duh!), then you have to design your channel to appeal to these first-time visitors.

One way to do this is by cleaning and organizing your channel. Do regular housekeeping to delete fluff content, re-write descriptions, and create more intriguing thumbnails.

Your channel trailer also plays a critical role here. It has to be compelling enough to hook your viewers and hold their attention till the end. Besides, it should give them convincing reasons to watch more videos and hit the subscribe button.

Invest time and money to improve content quality

Let’s face it, you might be losing your viewers to your competitors because their videos are of better quality. Improving quality doesn’t necessarily mean buying expensive equipment for your video setup. You can level up your content quality by:

Sourcing unique and fresh ideas to educate/entertain your audience.

Editing your videos for a more professional look and feel with tools like VEED and Filmora.

Creating timestamps to break down the content into skippable sections.

Talking to your target viewers about their preferred content and adjusting your video creation process to match these preferences.

Create irresistible calls-to-action (CTAs) to increase subscriptions

Adding CTAs is a fairly common tactic to add more subscribers. But not every creator uses this tactic properly. You can overwhelm viewers with too many CTAs, confuse them with unclear phrasing, or create zero impact with generic lines.

To hit the right spot with your CTAs, create multiple variations and run A/B tests. This will tell you the overall performance of each CTA and rank all the versions based on their impact.

For example, Max Müller adds a simple CTA in the description of his videos for viewers who want to learn more about the topic.

Promote your channel among relevant audiences

Distributing your content can increase views on individual videos. But promoting your channel is a great way to get more visitors to your account and convert them into subscribers.

Reach the right audience by promoting your channel in niche communities. You can also partner with fellow creators to tap into their network for promotion. Besides, don’t forget to use your own network to share glimpses from your YouTube channel.

Here’s how Kaleena Stroud, a copywriter, and creator, promoted her YouTube in a community of content marketers on Slack.

Measure & Scale your YouTube Channel with 7 Metrics

We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again: tracking your progress is non-negotiable for success on any platform. But when it comes to YouTube, you might get confused by too many KPIs—which ones to track and how to analyze the numbers?

To eliminate this confusion, we created this list of seven essential YouTube metrics to measure your performance:

Watch time: The total time people spend on your channel watching multiple videos. The YouTube algorithm prioritizes channels with higher watch time in the search results. The Watch Time metric will show you the time for individual videos and also a ranking of all videos based on this value.
Engagement: Includes multiple metrics such as views, likes, comments, shares, subscribers, and more. It measures viewers’ interactions with each video and determines the content’s ranking accordingly. It also includes the average view duration to indicate whether viewers like the content.
Traffic Sources: Records the traffic coming from external channels. It tells you where users found your channel or video. This metric is crucial to shaping your content distribution strategy to double down on channels driving a large chunk of the total traffic.
Subscriber Growth: This metric tracks the increase or decrease in your subscribers. It also gives you more insight into your subscribers, covering parameters like location, age, gender, and more.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): Calculates the percentage of people clicking on your video. It’s a good metric to test the effectiveness of your thumbnails and titles. A higher CTR means more people resonated with the thumbnail/title and wanted to watch the video.
Audience Retention: Indicates how many people watch your video or drop off. The rate is available for every second of the video so that you can get granular insights into the retention and drop-off rates.
Playlist Engagement: Engagement rate for individual playlists. You can learn which topics or themes resonate more with your audience and differentiate the top-performing playlists from the rest. If your engagement rate for playlists is poor, change your approach to increase retention.

Get Ready to Build Your YouTube Empire

Done right, YouTube can unlock the gateway to a stronger community and more revenue for creators. But while most creators start on a strong note, they lose momentum, and their YouTube channel takes a backseat.

So, we created this start-to-finish guide to help creators like you launch their YouTube channel and sustain its growth in the long haul. Remember to be patient and put in consistent effort to see your channel thrive!

Once you’ve built an impressive channel, set up your Afluencer profile to secure brand partnerships and earn more.

The post Cracking the YouTube Code: Insider Secrets for Creators to Build a Thriving Channel appeared first on AFLUENCER.

How to Apply to Collabs as an Influencer

Cassie Hepler — Sat, 11 Mar 2023 19:54:59 +0000

Whether you are a seasoned pro or a newbie influencer just starting out, you’ve probably gotten an email or two with offers to apply to Collabs. It usually reads something like:

We would like you to apply to our sponsored post with X brand.
We will pay you in product (good for beginners) and/or a certain amount for a static post, reel, TikTok, or other social media/blog post.
Click this link to apply and agree to our terms.

Then it will take you through a website affiliate (Mavrck seems to be the most popular lately). Make sure before you enter any credentials for apps that login to your social media that you research them first! This is a surefire way to lose your account to scammers and hackers. True story of a friend in Arizona with over 100K, gone in a minute which is terrifying. On that note, add security layers like text and email to your social media accounts to keep them secure.

Once you agree to the terms and submit, it’s a waiting game. Sometimes they will ask you to name your price as well which is usually market value. A good guide is equating dollars per follower, something like this (based on influencer rates from real influencers):

Nano influencers (1000 – 10,000 followers): $10 – $100 per post
Micro-influencers (10,000 – 50,000 followers): $100 – $500 per post
Mid-tier influencers (50,000 – 500,000 followers): $500 – $5,000 per post
Macro influencers (500,000 – 1,000,000 followers): $5000 – $10,000 per post

Top Brands Are Looking to Collab

Did you know that Afluencer is home to over 2.9K Brands? These Brands are always looking for Influencers and Creators to help promote their products and services.

FIND OUT MORE

There are also apps that are available like Afluencer that does the brand scouting for you. With this concept, you fill out your profile information and link your social media accounts inside the portal. Then brands can see your demographics and if you are a good fit. With a free account, you can apply to one brand Collab a day. However, if you get a subscription, you can apply all day long! Brands will either accept you or deny you. Afluencer works with brands all over the world which I like a lot. Also, there seems to be a better quality (no Shein here folks) that I also enjoy.

Related Guide: How To Get Started With Afluencer

Whatever you end up doing, make sure it slaps. No one wants to be sold like your mom’s infomercials (unless it’s done ironically)!

What to do When You’re Accepted to a Brand Collab

So you applied to a Collab with a brand you love and they accepted you – congratulations! You are one step closer to having a lucrative side hustle. We’re assuming it’s legit and not someone trying to send you “pick 3 gifts” in your DMs where you end up paying for cheap crap from China with overpriced shipping… ya’ll know exactly what I’m talking about! But now you are nervous because you actually have to put yourself out there… don’t be. The brand chose you because they like your vibe, just be yourself.

However mind you this is still work, so always be professional. Here are some tips:

Email and or message back the brand (or in the case of Afluencer, go to your inbox and message them there once they accept you for the Collab) and let them know you are excited to work with them.
Usually, at this point, they will ask for or have your address and should be sending you the product if it’s a brand Collab. Always get tracking info so you can keep an eye on it en route to help plan your schedule to create as well.
Get a scope of exactly what they want down to the seconds of the video and/or the angle of the photo or video. Do they want horizontal or vertical? Are you just creating UGC or user-generated content for them to post at a later date? Sometimes you can talk them into doing both of your posts which will make you more money in the long run.
Do you have creative freedom? Some brands like to tell you what to do with a script and others just want you to take the reins. For me, I work best with artistic expression freedom but can follow a script. Sometimes I’ll do both and usually they like my idea best as it’s not so stiff… play around and make it fun!
Ask for their handle on social media (even if you already see it, always verify) and any hashtags they wish you to use as well as caption info.
Schedule the post and let them know when you plan to submit it for approval and/or post. Don’t be afraid to tell them if you get sick. Just make sure to communicate what is happening so they don’t think you’ve ghosted them. At the end of the day, we are all human and not perfect.

Now it’s time for the fun part (for me at least), creating content! Read on about how to ensure you are killing it each and every time.

How to Ensure a Successful Collab

So you’ve applied to a Collab and dig the vibes of the brand that has accepted you and would love to get the word out about them. And the brand also can’t wait to start working with you. Congrats! This is exactly the feeling you want to have when working with a brand.

If you don’t have that fun feeling, don’t work with the brand. You don’t want to Collab with everyone in the world, you cheapen your value that way and your feed ends up looking like an ad that turns people off immediately.

For this scenario, we are going to pretend we are working with a product that was mailed to your house. Let’s say you found a sweet (paid) Collab through Afluencer. So when a box arrives at my house (Collab or not), I do a quick unboxing video and tag the brand that sent it. My followers enjoy the strange things I get to try out and it only takes like 15 seconds of my day. In life and in business, if you go the extra mile, people remember that.

I then set it out on my “processing” counter where I look at it each time I’m getting coffee, etc., and usually, an idea will pop into my head somewhere along the way. Then I will message or email the brand and let them know my plan, ask my medley of questions to ensure we’re on the same page (see What to do When You’re Accepted to a Collab), and plan creation time.

For me, I like to do batch content i.e. pick a day preferably when I have my makeup and hair done, am full of energy and the sun is shining (I am solar powered apparently), and create all my content during the daytime.

Here are some more helpful tips to create content:

Always use a well-lit space. No one likes a blurry, dark photo or video especially when iPhones and Androids compete with DSLRs nowadays. Literally, just open the curtains or blinds. If you can work without a flash, great!
If you must film at night or in a dark space, invest in a ring light tripod that holds your phone and/or camera. If you’re going for say a food influencer status, you will need many professional photography lights for your kitchen to give it that pro feeling.
Over-deliver! In a world where everyone wants to do the minimal amount of work, this will make you stand out immediately. For instance, I applied for a paid Collab through Afluencer recently and I’ll start creating content for the brand soon. They only want a video for Facebook. But because I have my Instagram automatically linked to share to my Facebook biz page, I will post to both. This gives us both more reach, and value and doesn’t take much extra time for me. It’s a win-win as both demographics will find this product amusing and much needed!

Once the video/photo or the like is posted, send the link to the brand and request payment in whatever way they specified. They usually get it to you straight away in less than 24 hours. I have only had a couple of brands not pay me and when that happens, I usually keep the video up but post it in the comments so others don’t get scammed too.

How to Create Successful Talking Points

So you’re finally ready to film, hurray! Usually, the build-up to doing the actual work is all stress and strife until you actually do it then you ask yourself why was I stressing out so much?!? That was easy. Ah… the life of a creative!

We’re going to assume you already did the steps involved in How to Ensure a Successful Collab and have all that natural light flooding through the windows and/or some selfie lights glowing. You’re ready to hit record and then you freeze because you have no clue what to say… I’ve got you!

Let’s go over some easy, peasy ideas of how to get the words from your brain onto paper and out of your mouth. Here are some helpful tips:

Create an intro idea and topic. You don’t have to write it down but if it helps to remember it, do it! You want an opening catch that can draw people in but not be too used-car salesman vibes. If you do write things down, simply tape them on your filming tripod to prompt you as you go. Think of television and reporters reading from teleprompters, it’s the same idea but on a much smaller scale. Eventually, it becomes second nature unless there are a lot of fancy words involved, keep the taped paper.
Talk naturally. Whether you are reading your intro idea from a piece of paper or you memorized it, just go with the flow. If you stumble and say ummm or oops, just go with it. Don’t make 20 videos trying to perfect it. I think if TikTok taught us all anything, it is people like seeing the raw, imperfect person behind the screen. It’s more relatable than Malibu Ken and Barbie to almost everyone. For me, I’m glad to see this shift happening as it was getting very gag me with a spoon cringe-worthy all the fakeness happening everywhere… like honey, your head is in a toilet seat not on an airplane!
Make sure to include the “meat” of the story aka the most important facts about the place or product you are talking about after the intro. You don’t have to jam it all into one paragraph either. It’s better to sprinkle the facts throughout the video to hold people’s attention. We do live in what I like to call the ADHD era where people’s attention spans are like gnats so grab ‘em from the get-go and keep ‘em hooked!
Tell a relatable story! This is literally a formula trending on TikTok right now. Tell a funny, shocking, or sweet story while you are washing your face, applying makeup, doing your hair, unboxing, etc. It’s more interesting to watch someone do something than talk “at” you. Bonus if it’s a memorable true story, the viewer will then share with friends and family!
Wrap it up with something fun! I just finished a video for YouTube through Afluencer with Genie Bidet and finished it by putting my head behind the toilet seat and snapping it shut as the video ended. I was literally laughing while I did it because it’s ridiculous – but memorable. If you can make someone smile, they will remember that feeling more than a cold sales pitch.

Overall, the key point of this story is to be yourself! Stop comparing yourself to all these “influencers” who have mostly fake followers, comments, views, and likes… ya’ll know we can see that, right? Also, stay in your lane. Who cares what others are doing? They are not you. Be authentic with what truly lights you up on the inside and the right brands will be more than happy to accept you on board when you apply to their Collab. Happy creating!

Influencers: We Want You!

Are you a talented Influencer or Content Creator? Register with Afluencer today to start collaborating with Brands you love!

The post How to Apply to Collabs as an Influencer appeared first on AFLUENCER.

Everything You Need to Know About Instagram Subscriptions (And More)

Kaleigh Moore — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 14:32:55 +0000

Picture this: you’ve been creating content on Instagram for months—maybe years—raking up thousands of followers. But you’ve seen no monetary ROI for all your backbreaking effort into creating content consistently. Sounds unfair, right? Not anymore.

Gone are the days when you could only use Instagram to create content. The new and evolving Instagram allows creators to monetize their content and build a thriving community of followers with Subscriptions.

Instagram launched Subscriptions to incentivize creators to build their audience on the platform and get rewarded. Let’s break down this exciting feature and see if it’s right for your creator business. We’ll also give you seven creative ideas to get the best out of Subscriptions and three ways brands can leverage this feature.

Create Content And Get Paid

Find a Collab on Afluencer and start working with top Brands today!

FIND COLLABS

What are Instagram Subscriptions?

Instagram Subscriptions allow creators to create exclusive IG content they can share with their paid subscribers. This feature combines the idea of building a subscriber list and enables creators to monetize their content through a community of people willing to pay for exclusive content.

To launch a subscription…

Creators can set a monthly subscription price for their followers (more on this shortly). Anyone landing on their page can see the Subscribe button next to Follow.

But what exactly do Instagram Subscriptions include for creators and subscribers? Here are five main features that are included:

Subscriber chats: Creators can have direct conversations with their paid subscribers (up to 30 people) and connect with them on a more personal level. While Instagram has mostly focused on leveling up its content creation tools for creators, the option to chat directly with followers can maximize audience engagement.

Image Source: Meta

Exclusive content: Access to exclusive content is one of the biggest selling points for IG subscriptions. People want to learn from you, know the behind-the-scenes activities, or see more content from you. Create unique reels and feed posts exclusively for your subscribers and build a community that values your ideas.

Subscriber stories: Think of stories you share only with close friends but from a creator’s perspective. These stories are only visible to your subscribers. So, you can share sneak peeks from your day, take a poll, or run an AMA round—it’s all exclusive.

Subscription live: Besides sharing unique content, you can host special live sessions exclusively for your subscribers. These can be more close-knit sessions where you interact with your biggest fans and engage with them closely. You can also use these live sessions to conduct tutorials or community events.

Exclusive tab: All content created for your subscribers is instantly accessible on your profile in a separate tab. New and old subscribers can revisit all your exclusive content with a single click.

You can also recognize your subscribers easily with a badge. Every subscriber will have a purple icon next to their username, indicating that they’ve subscribed to your page.

📣 Creator Week Announcements 📣

Today, we’re announcing new and improved ways for creators to make a living on Instagram:

– Expanding Subscriptions
– Stars ⭐️ & Gifts 🎁
– Buy & Sell Digital Collectibles pic.twitter.com/XaE9XYLf9t
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) November 4, 2022

How much does an Instagram subscription cost?

You can launch an Instagram subscription for anywhere between $0.99 to $99.99. More specifically, a subscription is available for $0.99, $1.99, $2.99, $4.99, $9.99, $19.99, $49.99, or $99.99.

When choosing the price point, be mindful of the amount your followers would be willing to invest monthly to get exclusive content from you. Do the research and chat with your followers to identify the best pricing they’d willingly spend. Remember to shape your content strategy as per your earning potential from a subscription.

How to activate your Instagram subscription

So, you’ve decided to start a subscription but don’t know how to get things rolling. Here’s a quick breakdown of how to activate your IG subscription:

Navigate to the professional dashboard on your account.
Click on Set up subscriptions and hit Next.
Choose the monthly price for your subscription and hit Next.
Click on Publish, and you’re all set to create exclusive content.

Image Source: Techbloat

Now that you know what you can do with IG Subscriptions and how to get started, let’s address the bigger question: do you need an Instagram subscription?

Is it right for you?

Instagram Subscriptions are designed to empower creators with a stable source of earning and more meaningful follower relationships. But this feature isn’t suited for every creator out there. Wondering why?

An IG subscription is entirely about creating exclusive content, which means you’ll spend extra time and effort on content ideation and creation. However, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get enough earnings to pay for this additional effort.

If you’re wondering whether or not you should start a subscription offering on Instagram, here’s a handy checklist to help decide if it’s right for you:

Past results of followers paying for your products or resources.
Highly engaged audience interested in consuming more content.
A good attendance rate in your live sessions and high reach on your posts.
A content strategy to deliver value through exclusive content, like Q&A sessions or private lessons.

You need a solid plan to launch a subscription and achieve sustainable success from your subscriber base. Next, let’s look at seven unique ideas you can use to offer unmatched value to your IG subscribers.

7 ways to create high-value content for your Subscribers

Offering subscriptions is a new way to build a community-centric brand and organically win your followers’ trust. In an ideal scenario, it’s a win-win for creators and subscribers because creators get steady monthly earnings, and followers get unseen content available only to them.

But the onus is on creators to make a subscription worth the subscribers’ money. If you’re figuring out the best ways to do that, here are seven ideas to help you create a stellar content strategy for subscriptions:

1. Special discounts or merch

Ideal for: affiliate influencers and creators selling digital products

This is a no-brainer: give your subscribers special discounts and exclusive coupons to shop from anywhere. These discounts can be for brands you’re affiliated with or from your own store.

Exclusive discounts can help followers win back a part of the money they spend on your subscription fee. So, there’s direct ROI for them in this case. More importantly, research concludes that exclusive discounts positively impact buying decisions—bringing more sales for you.

What’s more, if you’re a successful creator selling merchandise or digital products, these special coupons can drive sales for your products. Give your subscribers early access to these products with an extra few bucks off as special pricing for them, and watch your sales skyrocket.

2. Private lessons or tutorials

Ideal for: education creators from niches like gaming, fashion, makeup, marketing, and more

One of the best ways to give subscribers immediate value is by hosting private lessons via Instagram Live. These lessons can be anything you like:

A tutorial with new makeup products.
A lesson about the latest recipe you’ve learned.
A session on mastering your moves in a video game.
An open discussion on a niche topic that your followers are interested in.

Put simply, a subscriber livestream is an opportunity to give your followers exclusive value that you don’t give away for free.

3. Latest announcements

Ideal for: influencers and creators with a big audience

Your followers are always eager to hear more about your new projects, tips, personal stories, and such. You can share all the latest updates about your work and life with a base of subscribers, making them the first ones to know about any major events in your life.

Create buzz around such announcements by telling all your followers that something exciting is coming up. You can also mention how the subscribers will be the first to learn about this announcement. This would incentivize more followers to subscribe. You can retain these new subscribers by delivering more value with your content.

This is best suited if you have a vast audience size because you can convince more people to subscribe and give priority information to existing subscribers.

4. In-progress projects

Ideal for: all types of influencers and creators

Suppose you’re a lifestyle influencer or work in app design and have a decent audience of followers interested in your tips and best practices. You can encourage these followers to subscribe to your IG channel to get more in-depth insights into all your latest projects.

So, as a home decor influencer, share your decor ideas for Halloween. Or, as a designer, share your approach to designing a new website. Give your subscribers a no-filter look into your work and ideas to inspire them.

5. Community events

Ideal for: all types of influencers and creators

Your personal brand is only as good as the community you’ve built around it. But building a community isn’t enough. You have to constantly engage with these people to enhance your rapport and win their trust in the long run.

To do that, host community-based events with your subscribers. Start a live chat to stay in touch with your top fans or host IG live to bring your community of followers together and keep them entertained.

6. Behind the scenes

Ideal for: micro-influencers looking to build credibility and A-list influencers

Sharing behind-the-scenes activities of your work shows your followers the effort you put into your content/work. This creates trust because people know what you do and how.

For example, Flamiere & Co is a small-time creator who shares all the BTS moments of her soap-making process, like in this reel. While this is great to show anyone how much thought and time she puts into making her soaps, she can reserve some of her best secrets only for paying subscribers.

Besides micro-influencers, celebrities can also benefit massively by sharing their behind-the-scenes moments with subscribers. These are all the personal tidbits that their followers are eager to know. So, they’d likely pay the subscription fee always to be aware of what’s happening with their favorite influencer.

7. Q&A sessions

Ideal for: all types of influencers and creators

Let’s face it; there’s no better way to engage with your followers than a good old round of Q&A. A Q&A session allows followers to get quick and direct answers about anything specific they want.

With subscriptions, you can host such a session via chat, inviting up to 30 subscribers. Or you can host a live session and answer each question subscribers send your way. Besides, you can also create stories with the AMA tag to feed your subscribers’ curiosity and answer specific questions.

How brands can tap into Instagram Subscriptions

Now that you know how creators can benefit from Instagram Subscriptions, let’s flip the discussion to focus on what’s in it for e-commerce business owners.

Subscriptions give brands a new way to collaborate with IG creators and reach their target audience. They have a higher chance of conversions too since only the most invested followers would subscribe to a creator’s channel and believe all their recommendations.

Let’s cover three primary benefits that brands can enjoy with Instagram Subscriptions:

Build more meaningful, less transactional partnerships

The first and most significant impact of IG Subscriptions is the way it’ll change brands’ approach to creator marketing.

Creators would be wary of sharing things they don’t believe in with their subscribers. So, for brands to earn a space in a creator’s content strategy for subscriptions, they have to nurture more meaningful relationships over a long period and earn their trust.

Instead of a transactional partnership where a creator holds no value after the campaign, focus on establishing a healthy, ongoing collaboration with them. Involve them more in your campaign brainstorming and give them the creative freedom to decide the approach for their content. Prioritize value over transactions, and you’ll find yourself in a creator’s exclusive content.

Double down on exclusivity to sell more organically

One of the biggest benefits of subscriptions on Instagram is the factor of exclusivity. Giving a few followers a degree of exclusivity from the entire audience can be a powerful motivator for buying decisions. This favors brands because creators can influence their subscribers more effectively and maximize conversions.

Besides, exclusive discount codes can be another big driving force for sales. Interested customers find greater motivation to buy when they get a special deal or discount meant only for them.

Launch community-driven campaigns for subscribers

A subscription is like a creator’s inner circle—only their biggest fans are a part of it. Subscribers share a much stronger relationship with the concerned creators than other followers. They’re paying to see more of a creator they deeply admire.

All this indicates that they’re more likely to take the creator’s advice or recommendations to buy a product/service.

By tapping into this close-knit community of fans, you can lift your brand consideration and win more sales without sounding too promotional or sales-y.

Is Instagram Subscription worth it?

Subscriptions are one of the many features Instagram has rolled out to empower creators and help them monetize their content. Launching a subscription can create a source of recurring monthly revenue, bringing more stability to your creator business.

More importantly, creators have a better chance of engaging with their subscribers at a personal level and building a community of fans.

But focusing all your efforts on a single platform can be risky. You’re restricting your audience and tying your entire business to that platform. Instead, diversify your content across multiple platforms and tap into IG Subscriptions only when you’ve built a hyper-engaged group of followers with the potential to earn directly from them.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Instagram Subscriptions (And More) appeared first on AFLUENCER.

Creator Economy: The Only Guide You Need to Know What, Why, How

Kaleigh Moore — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 01:06:16 +0000

At a time when users are bombarded with ads wherever they go, buyers are more likely to shop from brands with personalized marketing campaigns, and 75% of shoppers agree.

So, how exactly can brands personalize their marketing efforts and establish a bond with their target audience? The short answer: by working with creators.

Creators have become one of the most effective means to help brands reach their buyers, communicate their value propositions, and drive conversions. But how do creators achieve all this, and how do brands work with such content creators?

In this start-to-finish guide, we’ll walk you through the concept of the creator economy and explain the role of creators in the modern marketing mix.

What is the creator economy?

The creator economy is the mix of social, economic, and technological infrastructure that enables Creators to monetize their content using digital tools like Twitter, Substack, Podia, and more. It’s the intersection of creative talent, technology, and economic growth.

As of 2022, the creator economy market size was estimated at $104 billion, with over 300 million creators building their thriving businesses worldwide.

Creators produce content in different formats, build an audience on one or more channels, and monetize their efforts using technology. The creator economy is rooted in digital platforms that empower these creators to create, refine, publish, and monetize content. It’s a new wave of economic growth with creative talent and activity at its core.

Image Source: Gumroad

How has the creator economy evolved?

The creator economy is rooted in using creative talent to build a business and make a living. It’s a byproduct of technological growth in our times. With easy access to the internet, advanced gadgets, and powerful tools, anyone can become a content creator with the right mindset and skills.

But how did we come here? And what led to the rise of creatorship? Let’s trace back our steps to understanding the evolution of the creator economy.

With the increasing use of social media platforms, people started building their digital identities and online communities. These platforms created new communication channels for users to interact with each other, affecting people’s social behaviors and preferences.

Origin of the role of influencers

As social media grew, the concept of “influencers” started taking shape. Anyone with a large following could influence their audience into taking certain actions or performing specific tasks. Influencers could monetize their influence to partner with brands looking to reach their target audience.

The idea of monetizing your identity on social media became a big hit with the newer generations, leading to an increase in macro and micro-influencers.

Rise of creators and creator-owned businesses

While not everyone could make it as an influencer, people continued to create content for different motivations, like expressing themselves, exploring their passions, having a side hustle, and several other ideas.

Image Source: Adobe’s Global Study

This growing number of content creators also won the support of social media companies. Almost every platform now has its creator program to fund and encourage Creators to produce great content (more on this later). This growth of creator-owned businesses has now become the concept of the creator economy.

Who are the creators?

Creators produce content in different formats, niches, and styles for a specific audience, distributed through various channels. A creator makes original content to educate, entertain, or intrigue their audience.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri defines a creator as someone whose personality is their brand and who uses platforms like Instagram to turn their passion into a living. They generate new ideas, push boundaries, and drive culture.

But with the rapidly growing number of creator economy startups, creators have become business owners. Their identity is a brand, and their content is the primary offering. They can also use this brand to sell their own products, Collab with other brands, and monetize it in many different ways.

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How are creators different from influencers?

People often blur the line between creators and influencers, using these terms interchangeably. While their roles have several similarities, creators and influencers are starkly different. Let’s break down these differences here:

Purpose: Influencers post content to maintain a social profile, keep their audience engaged, and nudge people to perform different actions (like buying from a brand). On the other hand, creators publish content to build a stronger rapport with their audience and share their expertise. Their goal isn’t always to influence buying decisions.

Content focus: Influencers aim to publish high-quality, picture-perfect content to share glimpses of their lives. Creators, however, post content that might not always be of the highest quality. Their focus is primarily on showing their talents and engaging their audiences.

Partnerships: The biggest benefit of working with influencers is the massive reach brands can achieve through their followers. On the flip side, creators promise more organic brand consideration by reaching a hyper-engaged audience. Their followers trust their recommendations and would willingly buy from promoted brands.

All things considered, creators and influencers are two mutually exclusive roles with a few overlaps in their work.

How does the creator economy work?

The creator economy involves many players, like creators, platforms, audiences, technical support, brands, and more. Let’s break down every component of the creator ecosystem to understand how this economy functions.

Creators: These are the people who create content and build a personal brand with a decent following across one or more channels.

Creator managers: These are the people who connect creators with the right brands and companies for different monetary opportunities. They help creators build their networks and manage their commitments with different partners.

Technical support: Producing content involves many technical nuances. To create and publish quality content, creators need technical help—like video editing tools, photography equipment, and editing guidance.

Brands and partners: Once they’ve built a solid audience, Creators rely on Brand Collaborations to monetize this audience. These brands partner with creators to reach an engaged audience, generate buzz about their brand, and drive conversions.

Digital platforms: Every creator has their tech stack to produce and publish content seamlessly. This stack includes multiple tools they use in their content ideation and creation process. It also includes all the media channels where creators build their brand identity.

Here’s what the creator economy market map looks like. This map covers all the tools and platforms creators can use for different needs.

Image Source: CB Insights

How do creators make money?

Creators have various avenues to monetize their brands and create revenue streams. Once they’ve honed their craft and established a strong presence on a chosen platform, they can double down on their content creation efforts and make money in many ways.

Here are the five most popular ways creators make money online:

1. Brand sponsorship

Many companies want to tap into a creator’s authentic bond with their audience for promotional marketing. That explains why brand deals made up more than 77% of the surveyed creators’ earnings in 2021 alone.

These brand sponsorships can take many forms—like a paid promotional post on social media, a sponsored video, a paid newsletter edition, or a sponsored live stream. Creators are paid to talk about these brands and positively nudge their audience toward a purchase.

“Allow the creator to have the freedom to pitch in his or her own way. It’s more authentic and will convert better.” –Matt Ragland, Creator Advisor

For example, Plan Canada International sponsored an Instagram reel by Shania, a Canada-based content creator, to promote the brand organically. The reel covers the theme of 10 things Shania would tell her younger self for a campaign around Plan Canada’s 10th anniversary.

2. Affiliate marketing

Creators can also work as affiliates and earn money through commissions. This works for any business—SaaS-based, e-commerce, brick-and-mortar, service-based, or any other brand type.

Besides directly signing up with these brands’ affiliate programs, creators can join popular affiliate networks like Amazon Associates, ClickBank, and ShareASale.

“Negotiate a payment plan that is mutually beneficial where everyone wins, and that fosters an ongoing and positive long-term relationship.” –Ashley Cummings, Freelance Writer

Creators can easily break into affiliate marketing—here’s a great example. Cely De Rosas, a fashion content creator on Instagram, is affiliated with Lane 201. She can drive more sales for the brand using a personalized coupon code. She’s also used relevant brand hashtags to maximize the reach and get more conversions through her coupon.

3. Direct sales

Selling your products and monetizing fan engagement are two of the most effective methods to earn big bucks as a creator. Here’s how creators use these means to make money:

Fan interaction: Creators can earn well by interacting with their fans through 1:1 calls, recorded videos, Q&A sessions, or other types of engagement. For example, Twitch users can pay streamers to request anything, and YouTube users can join creators’ paid channel memberships to access exclusive content.

Here’s what YouTube’s paid membership option looks like for standard users. Creators can create several tiers within this membership to offer different benefits to their community members.

Digital products: Since creators already have a decent audience who trust their expertise, they can create and sell their products. Platforms like Podia, Thinkific, Gumroad, and others simplify the process of selling a digital product.

For example, Charles Miller, a writer, and creator, sells his course on Gumroad in two different formats: one with just the course and another with the course and community access.

Image Source: Writing to Riches on Gumroad

The bottom line: Creators can monetize their audience and skills to make direct sales and earn more revenue over time.

4. Subscriptions and memberships

Selling subscriptions takes the idea of selling fan interaction to the next level. It’s when creators charge their audience for some exclusive content that’s not available for free on their social profiles. The element of exclusivity encourages loyal fans to pay for this content or membership.

While platforms like Substack, Twitch, and YouTube already had the option to sell subscriptions, Instagram and Twitter allow creators to sell paid memberships now.

According to creator economy statistics, the largest share of the revenue for Patreon members came from subscriptions on the website. This shows how powerful paid memberships can be for creators to scale their earnings.

5. Direct platform funding

Every media platform wants to retain marquee talent by directly funding the top creators. Most of these channels have a dedicated Creator Fund to invest in quality content creators and maximize user engagement. For example, Meta’s Creator Fund is spending $1 billion based on different parameters on Instagram and Facebook.

This platform funding has become another major source of earnings for many successful creators. Now, they can diversify their content and build a strong audience across platforms to multiply their earning potential.

The changing media landscape has played a huge role in the growth of the creator economy market size. Social media platforms are fuelling creative talent by introducing creator-friendly features, more nuanced tracking analytics, and funds to monetize their content.

Here’s how different social media platforms have contributed to the rise of the creator economy:

1. YouTube

While YouTube was one of the earliest avenues for creators to express themselves and build an audience, it didn’t have enough monetization options. For the longest time, ads were the only way a YouTube creator could earn through their content.

But with the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), the video-sharing app offers creators varied options for the platform’s resources and monetization opportunities. As a part of the YPP, creators get access to:

Support teams: to help creators get the best out of YouTube, troubleshoot any issues, and get valuable tips.

Copyright match tool: to avoid copyright violations and identify videos violating your copyrighted content.

Monetization features: like super chat, channel memberships, music licenses, super thanks, ad revenue, and more.

Through YPP, YouTube supports its creators to gain more monetary value from the platform and continue building their community.

2. Instagram

Instagram has launched a series of features to help creators produce unique content in different formats and engage with their audience. With the Instagram for Creators program, Meta guides content creators to do more on IG and maximize their creatorship value.

Instagram for Creators offers multiple sources of earning, such as:

Branded content: to have paid partnerships with your chosen brands.

Badges: go live and ask viewers to buy badges to support you.

Shopping: sell merchandise directly on Instagram with a personalized storefront.

Bonuses: hit milestones with your activity and engagement to earn bonuses.

Subscriptions: convert followers into paid subscribers with access to exclusive content.

Besides this program, creators can also use IG for affiliate marketing and direct sales through their audience.

Image Source: Instagram Creators

3. Twitch

Twitch Partner Program is designed specifically for different types of streamers using Twitch to build their creator economy companies and go beyond affiliate sales. The program empowers all kinds of creators—gaming, music, art, and more—to establish a strong audience and monetize it once they meet the eligibility criteria.

Creators in this program can earn money through:

Channel subscriptions

Bit badges and Cheermotes

Ad revenue

The program also allows creators to customize their channels according to their brand features. So, they can create custom emoticons, badges, user badges, and similar design elements.

4. TikTok

TikTok Creator Next program is another fund to support creators on TikTok through multiple rewards and earning opportunities. Qualified creators can earn through their TikTok content through:

The Creator Fund: to support creators in different stages of their journeys.

The Creator Marketplace: to connect creators with brands for paid partnerships.

LIVE gifts: to get gifts from fans during live streams that can be turned into coins.

Tips: to collect direct money from fans through a virtual tip jar.

TikTok’s Creator Program incentivizes content creators at different levels to keep publishing quality content and building their audience.

Image Source: The Teal Mango

5 best practices for brands to leverage the creator economy

Kettle + Fire is an e-commerce brand that sells cooking broths. On their Instagram page, you’ll find many reels and posts created in Collaboration with food creators. These posts cover various themes, like the benefits of bone broths, recipes using bone broths, and product reviews.

By Collaborating with such niche creators, Kettle + Fire expand its reach to a broader audience and get more eyes to its IG content.

But Kettle + Fire is just one example of brands getting great ROI by tapping into the creator economy. If you want to join the list and embrace the benefits of creator marketing for your business, here are five proven practices of working with creators:

1. Define your campaign goals and budget

First things first: establish why you want to launch a campaign with creators. Brainstorm and discuss with your team your main goals for working with creators. Some potential goals can be to:

Boost brand recognition
Establish credibility
Break into a new market
Get more eyes on your business profile
Build hype around a big news

Make sure you’re crystal clear on your goals for any creator marketing campaign and don’t shift gears once the campaign is underway. With enough clarity on where you’re headed, you can communicate your expectations better and decide on the right metrics to evaluate the creators’ performance.

Once you’ve selected the goals for your campaign, spend some extra time to finalize its budget. This will ensure you stay within your financial limits to hire and manage creators.

2. Create a meaningful content strategy

When you have a list of goals, it’s time to lay down a content strategy for achieving those targets. A content strategy ideally defines the channels you want to target, the content formats and themes you want to cover, and the number of posts you want to publish.

Your content strategy will also define the deliverables you get from the creators. For example, if you’ve decided to create five IG reels and five TikTok videos, you can find the right creators from tools like Afluencer and give them a definite set of deliverables to work on.

Do your research to create this content strategy. Look at what your competitors are doing and how different brands have tapped into every platform for creator Collabs.

3. Explore different ways of working with creators

Now that you have your goals, budget, and content strategy, you can focus on outlining unique ways of partnering with creators.

As a part of a Brand Collab, a creator can:

Make a sponsored post promoting your business
Co-host a live stream on any social media platform
Act as an affiliate and offer a discount code
Post educational content or reviews about your brand

Don’t stick to what everyone is doing. Experiment with your chosen creators in every campaign and analyze what drives the best ROI.

4. Partner with multiple creators from your niche

Diversify your campaigns by working with multiple creators with unique styles and varied audiences. Find niche-focused creators from a database tool like Afluencer in a few easy steps. Set filters for different factors to identify your perfect candidates, like channels, location, languages, and more.

Once you confirm their interest in working with your brand, send them a detailed brief with a list of campaign goals, brand values, deliverables, timelines, and payment terms.

After the campaign goes live, track every creator’s performance to see who’s producing great results. Keep the good ones in your roster for future prospects.

5. Work with a creator management agency

Directly working with creators can be a hassle for many brands. The paperwork and micro-management can become too much to handle. An easier alternative to this situation is hiring a creator management agency.

Such an agency would understand your requirements and hire the best-suited creators for the campaign. They’ll be responsible for all communication and management with the creators. With their experience in the industry, these agencies can find you the ideal creators and make your marketing campaigns a breeze.

Let creators do the talking for you

The creator economy is only growing bigger and better. It’s introduced a paradigm shift in how users consume content and brands market themselves.

Businesses can partner with creators to build a more authentic connection with their target buyers. To start working with creators, you first need to identify your best-performing social media channel—where most of your customers hang out. The next step is to find brand-fit creators who can educate or entertain your audience.

When choosing creators for any campaign, pick a diverse mix instead of creating uniform content. Give them the creative freedom to interact with their followers in their style and hit your campaign goals!

The post Creator Economy: The Only Guide You Need to Know What, Why, How appeared first on AFLUENCER.

Shopify & The Creator Economy: What You Need to Know

Kaleigh Moore — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 09:36:30 +0000

A YouTube creator dips a straw in milk, holds it in, then inserts the contraption into the middle of an Oreo cookie. The result? A milky countertop. It was a failure. The contraption was supposed to double the size of the cookie’s center cream. Yet the video “Trying Dumb Life Hacks” has over 30 million views on SSSniperWolf’s YouTube channel.

SSsniperWolf is one of many creators responsible for some $8 billion in sponsored product sales. How do “failures” like these lead to ecommerce success?

Welcome to the upside-down world of the creator economy.

Increasingly, this economy is where brands approach individuals, not the other way around. Want engagement with modern ecommerce shoppers? Then you may have to go through creators and influencers first.

This article will get more specific than the creator economy, however. There is a new trend emerging amongst digital creators: owning your own brand. This shift has the potential to change the landscape of this economy. More and more, creators are turning to Shopify as their medium of choice. Here’s why that will matter.

What is the creator economy?

The creator economy refers to the businesses built by influencers, community-builders, and content creators. If you’re in ecommerce and you have an Internet following, you’re a creator.

The creator economy usually refers to creators’ own communities and brands. But it also refers to the products they move on behalf of larger brands.

The term is older than its popularity suggests. According to The Atlantic, the creator economy was originally a YouTube invention. Back in 2011, people used it as an alternative to phrases like “YouTube star”.

Since then, it’s become an estimated $100 billion industry. (For reference, the entire grocery industry in the U.S. is only about seven times that number).

Why “creator economy” over a phrase like “YouTube star”? A lot of people have earned a living on platforms like YouTube. Why not just call these people stars of their respective platforms?

Simple: creators are everywhere.

After all, the creator economy now hosts about 425,000 full-time equivalent jobs. Of the estimated 50 million creators worldwide, four million already do it full-time.

But there’s a reason YouTube star as a catch-all phrase is out of fashion. The creator economy has no central hub. Instead, it centers around a plethora of platforms

Creator economy platforms:

YouTube: The video-hosting site is resident to billions of users. About one billion hours of videos play on YouTube every day. The sheer numbers make it ideal for creators of any type to find an audience, from home cooks with vegan risotto recipes to makeup tutorials.
Patreon: Home to micro-influencers who build their own communities, Patreon lets mini-celebs exchange Patreon-exclusive content in exchange for subscription fees. Like most platforms, Patreon takes a bit of a cut. In exchange, it provides the digital infrastructure to make hosting a community easy.
Twitch: This video-streaming-and-chatting platform is a favorite for everyone from gaming influencers to “just chatting” creators. Users can buy subscriptions to individual channels, trade “bits,” and more.
Social media: You’ve heard of Meta, TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram. They’re all favorite platforms among influencers and are increasingly shopper-friendly. Oftentimes, creators will use social media as a top-of-funnel strategy to bring in subscriptions to paid channels, like Patreon.
Podcasts and blogging: The spoken and written word haven’t gone anywhere. Blogger influencers, for example, still earn a stellar following—even if the tradition of blogger-as-celebrity might seem outdated in the era of live streaming.

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What is the Shopify creator economy?

Where is the room for Shopify in all this? Shopify fulfills a critical role that can make all the difference to creators: ownership.

How? Simple. With Shopify, you can sell your own products.

After all, creators have seen the campaign numbers. They know how many products they sell. That success naturally leads to another question: what if I sold those products instead?

Enter Shopify, an eCommerce-store-in-a-box. In short, it makes it easier for creators to start their own brands. This is good news for creators, who sometimes rely on brand deals to bring in cash. Yes, creators can make money from ad revenue or community subscriptions.

But check the stats, and you’ll see brands dominating the cash flow. There isn’t even a close second when it comes to where creators get their money.

Source: Influencer Marketing Hub

The leap from “creator economy” to “Shopify creator economy” isn’t exactly a secret, either. Lots of celebrities are already using Shopify. LMFAO’s Party Rock Clothing, for example, or Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics.

But just like the creator economy itself, this platform isn’t limited to mega-influencers.

Take the example of Fragrance One. The story: brothers Jeremy and Kamil Blanc built a perfume review following on YouTube. Their reviews became so popular they eventually found themselves with millions of subscribers.

But rather than continue posting content on YouTube and accepting sponsored details with perfume brands, they had another idea. They’d sell their own perfume. It’s now an eight-figure fragrance company—and better yet, they don’t have to share the profits of their sales with anybody.

Building the Shopify creator economy

This isn’t to say that every creator has to follow the path of Fragrance One. Launching on YouTube, building an audience, and founding a brand? It’s easier said than done.

But the speed at which Fragrance One launched should make you pause. How is it possible?

The Shopify creator economy is how. Shopify’s ecommerce platform is more robust every year.

Just this year, for example, Shopify partnered with YouTube to introduce YouTube Shopping on Shopify. This integrates a Shopify store with YouTube in a few ways:

Using YouTube Live to tag and pin products during a live stream. This also offers picture-in-picture playback, letting customers continue to watch the live stream while checking out. The entire buying process can go through without having to hit pause.
On-demand videos: Shopify merchants and creators can create a curated product list and present them as a “shelf” during their videos.
The “store tab” feature can add to the creator’s channel on YouTube to make it easy to browse through a selection of products on offer.

In essence, the platforms are blurring the lines between creators and sellers. For a creator’s audience, it’s never been more seamless to transition from viewer to buyer.

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Integrating Shopify with TikTok

Another example of this increased integration is what creators can do with TikTok and Shopify. Last year, Shopify became the first shopping platform to offer organic product discovery and shopping tabs to TikTok users.

Source: Shopify

TikTok tasked Shopify with building shopping tabs for TikTok. This put the shops next to essential tabs like TikTok’s “For You” feeds.

It’s also easier than ever to integrate shoppable buttons within TikTok posts, sending interested customers straight to a specific product on a Shopify store. And since that integration with Shopify already works, that means just-as-easy integrations with Instagram and Meta. All of this digital infrastructure adds up to one thing. For creators, it’s never been easier to become a seller.

Shopify creator economy trends to watch

It’s easier than ever for creators to own their own shops. By extension, it’s easier than ever for creators to own their own brands.

But what are creators doing within the Shopify creator economy to stand out, capture their customers, and build up their presence online?

Here are some of the most popular Shopify creator economy trends to watch:

The rise of micro-influencers

When Sperry was gearing up to launch a wet weather campaign—a seasonal offering—they didn’t look for a mega-influencer. Instead, they wanted something short-lived, yet high-engagement.

They turned to micro-influencers—and got themselves nominated for a Shorty Award in the process.

The target wasn’t too big. Sperry wasn’t looking to sell to every person on Earth who needs to buy wet-weather shoes. Instead, Sperry focused on “fashion-savvy female style enthusiasts.”

Yet even by limiting the time and demographics of its campaign, Sperry achieved success: 4.7 million impressions for the campaign and 66% more clickthroughs from Instagram.

Or take a recent micro-influencer success story, when Coca-Cola worked with 300 micro-influencers and achieved a campaign engagement rate of 7.5%.

Why focus on micro-influencers when mega-influencers have more reach? It’s certainly not that Coca-Cola didn’t have the budget to hire celebrities. They did, after all, opt for 300 micro-influencers instead.

What brands seek is that engagement rate. Generally speaking, the smaller the influencer’s audience, the more passionate they’re going to be about engaging:

Nano-influencers drive the most engagement, with the caveat that their audiences can be as little as a twentieth the size of a micro-influencer. But of those influencers with tens of thousands of followers, micro-influencers drive the highest engagement—1.7% in 2020.

Of those with larger audiences, only mega-influencers and celebrities came close.

And for brands like Sperry who wanted only a seasonal, limited, budget-friendly boost to the bottom line, mega-influencers were out of the question.

“With the rise of TikTok and authenticity being valued more than ever, the people who create a genuine connection with an engaged audience will come out on top,” said Julia Bobak, Content Creator at Home Grounds.

For brands with limited budgets, micro-influencers offer the best mix of budget-friendly with high engagement rates.

Ecommerce platforms investing in the creator economy

For ecommerce platforms like Shopify, you might figure that the best opportunity to grow is to engage big-time brands with huge audiences. More buyers, more growth, more revenue.

But that’s not exactly who they’re targeting.

Instead, Shopify is trying to reach both brands and creators. Consider Shopify’s recent acquisition of Dovetale. Dovetale is a platform to help brands engage with creators, potentially bringing both parties to Shopify.

(You’re reading this piece on Afluencer.com, a platform with 13,000+ opt-in micro-influencers and creators. Connect with them via the Afluencer App for Shopify.)

In short, Shopify is adding features that make it more creator-friendly. Take Linkpop, a shoppable Linktree alternative for creators who want to create a single link for their entire online presence.

Source: Linkpop by Shopify

Linkpop easily syncs with platforms like TikTok and Instagram to create shoppable links to a Shopify checkout page. Additionally, creators can sign up for the Shopify starter plan to make their Linkpop shoppable.

The impact of Generation Z

A big shift happened in 1996 and 1997—one you may not remember. It was when new babies stopped being millennials and started belonging to a new demographic: Generation Z.

The distinction may seem small at first. But if millennials were the first generation weaned on the web, Generation Z was the first to grow up with smartphones and social media.

That means a completely different way of looking at the world of ecommerce—which, to Gen Z, might as well be another word for “commerce.” Just under 30% of Gen Z kids grew up wanting to be YouTube stars rather than astronauts.

This is less of a trend than a series of trends. Here are a few of the Gen Z preferences that will likely shape the Shopify creator economy:

Gen Z Prefers Platforms

And, as Forbes notes, Gen Z has some very different ideas for running a business.

“The way Gen Z creators today are building these businesses is fundamentally different,” Jennifer Neundorfer, co-founder of January Ventures, told Forbes.

“These fundamental changes make much of the traditional small and medium-sized business (SMB) software solutions obsolete. In the year ahead, I believe we’ll see the rise of new tooling native to the Gen Z creators.”

Gen Z’s are more accustomed to platforms like Shopify, Etsy, or even Roblox—a game development engine—making it easier to build an online presence. In other words, Gen Z expects software solutions like those they can find in Shopify’s creator economy. They want more speed to market, and they want it now.

Gen Z Prefers Video

When Patreon ran a survey of its creators, what they found wasn’t surprising. Gen Z likes video, and that’s reflected in where creators are shifting their focus:

Source: Patreon

It’s not just the love of video that defines Gen Z’s new habits, either. Over half of Gen Z doesn’t watch any traditional ad-supported TV, for example. And as Patreon found, those creators who primarily publish videos said they found 50% of their audience from YouTube alone.

Some third-party apps on Shopify like Vimotia have already jumped on this trend, turning videos shoppable.

What does this mean for the Shopify creator economy? Especially given Gen Z’s love of single-platform solutions to complicated tech integrations?

More apps like VideoWise unite TikTok, Instagram, and Shopify into a single function.

More power to brands who want to bring creators back

If creators can own their own brands in the Shopify creator economy, it adds competition. The best creators are incentivized to build their own shops. That’s good news for everyone… except maybe the brands.

How can brands win back creators when creators are planting their flags on Shopify?

Like creators, brands can turn to platforms for help. For example, TikTok has made it possible for brands to use organic, “creator”-like content in their advertising campaigns.

Consider TikTok’s Spark Ads, which use native ads so brands can incorporate organic TikTok content from creators. Creators, in turn, have the power to authorize the use of their organic posts.

This gives creators a new way to monetize their organic content beyond making their posts shoppable or adding a link to Linkpop.

In some cases, Spark Ads can work directly with creators on limited, one-time campaigns that benefit both brands and creators.

One digital bank did exactly that with creator @TashInvests—TashInvests supplied the content, the digital bank supplied the funding, and the native ad saw 1.5 million impressions on TikTok.

@tashinvests
Is this the best Australian bank?! #greenscreensticker @upbanking #upyear2020 #ausfinance #upbank #ad
♬ Hello – OMFG

While Spark Ads is ostensibly a tool for brands, it works for both brands and creators, elevating the visibility of each.

Creators boost their profiles thanks to the massive impressions possible through these campaigns. Brands get the engagement of working with a creator with an established audience.

In short…

Platforms like Shopify (through its purchase of Dovetale) and TikTok (through its Spark Ads) bring creators and brands even closer.

But some of the best matches come through platforms like Afluencer. On Afluencer, creators build profiles and brands seek out the best matches on creator voice and social media following.

And recent additions like the Shopify subscriptions and features help ensure that this arrangement works smoothly in the Shopify creator economy.

“It’s a really great app”, said Courtney Williamson of Abilife. “There are so many apps and agencies out there that are total rip-offs ($24,000 a month…no way!) But this app brings high-quality influencers who are friendly, professional, and care deeply about their work and image. I would highly recommend this app”.

Navigating the Shopify creator economy

Power is shifting to creators. But it doesn’t have to mean brands get left out in the lurch.

Given the shifting demographics of Generation Z entering the fold and the rising power of influencer marketing, more and more online shopping will come not through traditional mass media advertising, but through the recommendations of creators people trust.

Brands will need to watch the trends—like the emerging Shopify creator economy—to ensure that they can find influencers who are happy to engage their following. Doing so will require making full use of the available platforms.

For creators, these platforms can mean more control, more ownership, and the ability to be pickier when choosing which brands to work with.

To get started, install the Afluencer app for Shopify here—and find the platform where more and more creators and brands are meeting.

The post Shopify & The Creator Economy: What You Need to Know appeared first on AFLUENCER.

creator guide Archives - AFLUENCER

Valentine’s Day Content Ideas for Influencers

Valentine’s Day Content Ideas for Influencers: Things to Do This Year

#1 Share Your Story

Here are some ideas:

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#2 Encourage Followers to Share Their Story

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#3 Give Birth to a Romantic Hashtag

#4 Partner with Relevant Brands

Gift Guide Extravaganza

Love-Inspired Giveaways

Recipe for Romance

#5 Give a New Look to Your Profile

Here are a few things you can do:

#6 Hold a Contest

Love Caption Contest

Valentine’s Day Selfie Challenge

All about Love Letters

Valentine’s Day Haiku Challenge

Valentine’s Day Trivia Quiz

Virtual Love Scavenger Hunt

DIY Valentine’s Day Card Contest

#7 Talk to Others about Love and Relationship

Love Polls and Surveys

Guest Interviews

Love Language Discussion

Anonymous Love Confessions

#8 Go Live and Celebrate It With Your Followers

What if I am Single for Valentine’s Day?

We have got some exciting Valentine’s Day content ideas for Influencers that are single:

Important Thing to Remember: Stay True to Yourself

Your Niche

Here are some Valentine’s Day content ideas for influencers with examples:

Your Audience

Bonus Tip: Promote Anti-Valentine’s Day

Here are some great Valentine’s Day content ideas for influencers who do not believe in Valentine’s Day:

Valentine’s Day Content Ideas for Influencers: Conclusion

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Is Being an Influencer A Good Career Choice?

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6 Factors To Consider Before Becoming An Influencer

1. Niche expertise

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6. Emotional resilience

How To Launch Your Career As An Influencer

1. Define your niche

2. Choose a primary social media platform