10 reasons why influencers need a premium content destination?
By: Anshul Gupta
Tags: Digital Marketing, Instagram, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing

First ask yourself, are you an influencer or an amateur?

Any person can take 10 good pics, 5 good filtered videos, talk about Fashion, endorse random beauty creams & think they are an influencer.

Well, these type of creators are generally known as amateurs. Having followers doesn’t make you an influencer, it establishes a fact your content is good for sure. But is it worth paying?

There are 3 types of personalities we deal with everyday while we onboard creators:-

Which type of creator are you?

Creators: Anyone with a smartphone today is a creator, probably makes 1 billion of us Amateur: Extremely crowded category who have some follower count & consider themselves experts in multiple categories Influencer: Few from the amateur category ever reach the influencer category, the audience genuinely takes them seriously.

Creator, amateur or influencer?

To be able to monetize their influence, influencers need to up their game, here the top 10 reasons why we think influencers need a premium content destination.

1.Find your Niche:

Be a specialist than a generalist. Don’t be a Fashion|Beauty|Travel|Lifestyle|Blogger. Be a Fashion & Beauty one. Less is more. Select a combination of 2–3 interests not more than that. Audience hates a know-it-all person. This is the biggest trap everyone falls into by endorsing random products, speaking on topics which they have no idea about & thus becoming a jack of all trades.

G etting the objective right is the key thing. Define where you want to be in the next 3 years. Are you here for the long-haul or for some quick money endorsing mobile phones & shoes?

Work on defining your content strategy. A good influencer has a content calendar, a promotions calendar in place & has a mix of VOD(video on demand), live streams & how to’s.

Episodic videos How to videos A consistent LIVE stream at fixed times Photos

Is your content following trends or is it creating trends?

What’s so great about your content that someone will pay 9.99$/month for you as against pay 9.99$ a month for Netflix for approx 13,900 titles?

Good content is

Original & explores new concepts It lives & breathes an experience It’s your unique story for the world

2.Understand the opportunity than following the bandwagon:

Influencers already move inventory worth billions

What do most influencers do? Mindlessly end up creating content & promoting random brands only to find one single day that whatever they have done over the last 3 years has no real value to them except making a few bucks, getting invited to few parties & having vanity metrics.The pressure of randomly putting stories, to keep up with engagement.

What is the lost opportunity here?

An influencer in 90’s had to stand outside studios for hours, being on radio was considered lucky, didn’t have chance to remotely think of deciding the price of his content. To top it all, had no control over production, rights, distribution etc. He was merely a cog in the wheel.

Drive traffic towards your premium content destination

An influencer of 2020 is practically a media house having 4–5 distribution mediums(social accounts) sometimes bigger than the brands/media houses themselves.

Today, A creator is at the centre of the universe☄️

“You are your own media house having end to end control right from production to distribution,It’s your rules, your price, your content.”

Hence, having a destination for your own premium content is the biggest opportunity you can cash in on. Imagine 150 hours of content at the end of 2 years which can be licensed to so many other players including being repurposed for podcasts etc.

3.One destination for premium content:

Find one subscription destination like only-fans, stage, patreon, gumroad etc to host your premium content than hovering between 2–3 platforms. Audience is confused as to where to eventually subscribe for the same content. Be on platforms which enable discovery & open new markets for you which is the biggest challenge for an influencer. Ad based platforms are great as well for enabling discovery but ultimately drive your audience to a subscription based platform you host your premium content with since you have complete control over your subscribers.

So what works as premium content?

Continuity between your content is a great hook to get more subscribers & gauge success of your content. It’s the way Netflix releases The Crown & many series(One episode a week)& decided to extend or terminate a season.

Anything short-format/how to’s between 5–8mins One-on-One live/Live classes 30min-60min depending on the nature of live stream(counselling/yoga etc)& your domain of expertise. Long format video on demand between 20–30mins

Remember, dubbed content in various languages helps you discovered internationally if you are thinking to go big.

4.Understand the power of subscription:

Having 1MN fans is great. We often ask our creators how much they think their 1MN fans will pay for their premium content? Often they are so confident that they think they can mobilise their army by the thousands.

Time for reality check!!!!

The reality is different, quite disappointing & struggling to get even 500 paid subscribers often causing influencers to introspect. Focus on goals which are achievable, would you pay even 2.99$ a month to watch someone advise you on fashion?

Start small. Understand the power of subscription. Getting 1000 paid subscribers from a fanbase of 1MN is achievable.We have creators doing that already on Stage. That’s 10,000$ a month assured predictable revenue every month(subject to cancellations, refunds etc).

5.Pricing:

One more area where we see even the smartest influencers go wrong. A lot of platforms offer subscription(all access) & pay as you go- where you need to have something for everyone & somethings for only few. This will aid in & bring in new customers to sample your content before they eventually subscribe. Between 2.99$–9.99$ is the best price we feel, anything above than this makes a person question that Is this better than disney+ or netflix.

6.The power of LIVE streaming…

LIVE learning is the new normal in these times

Influencers are already moving inventory worth billions for big brands. Social commerce is changing in a big way with merchandise sold directly on a live stream of an influencer & shipped from the warehouse to the consumer. Brand & influencer partnerships will go on a whole new different level. We will see the top 1% of the creators coming out with their own merch labels.

E-Learning LIVE mini classes( face-gym, at-home studios, beauty & make up, counselling)are taking off in a big way.Are you a DIY(do it yourself) creator? Are you a motivator? What is the audience learning/grasping after your video? How do you influence them ultimately?What is the benefit expected after doing a yoga class with you?

7.Invest in professional tools:

There is life beyond filters. A professionally cut video is aesthetic & pleasing to watch. It makes sense to get the lighting right, set up a home studio in times of pandemic, hone your photo & video editing skills professionally & get a very good internet connection. A creator is a self sufficient eco-system & definitely a multi-tasker.

8.Master one social platform than many:

If you think the audience of tik-tok has started to receive you than invest time on it. Keep any of the one platforms as your main destination for social & day to day activities. What works on one, doesn’t work on others.

Who knows the audio of your latest HOW TO video might do wonders as a podcast?

This doesnt mean you stop experimenting. What we mean is that you focus where it matters.

9.Engagement & Interaction:

Going forward what do you really need from your 1MN followers? As it is, your reach is limited to less than 1% & maximum goes upto 5% on a good day on any social platform. Hence it becomes very important to engage & interact with your followers. After-all, all you need is 1000 of them paying you 9.99$ a month consistently or buying the latest merch you just dropped.

Engagement rates are healthy metrics to monitor because they underline how frequently your following interacts with your content, and force you to focus on important data, rather than vanity metrics (like the number of followers you have).

10.Analytics:

In the 90’s television content worked around 20–22mins per episode. This changed with YouTube where-in short-format content started to takeover with maximum length being 8–10mins.Cut to our present times, 15 seconds is considered long format thanks to tiktok 😃. It’s very important to understand, for what type of content(short/long) will your audience subscribe to you.

Also known as Passion economy, generating revenue, a self sufficient community disrupting the eco-system is just getting started to be a 150BN$ industry.

Consistency, Continuity & being an expert on one domain are the key to being a successful influencer.

To sum up everything, an influencer is an individual who generates consistent quality content on niche topics & earns consistently every month by means of subscription & collaborations.

Are you #influencerworthy?

Cheers

By Anshul Gupta

Founder @ RazrCorp

Disclosure: The writer works for Stage(https://stage.inc)- A platform for creators to monetise their content & commerce.

Courtesy:

a16z, signalfire, stratechery