The creator and an Influencer.
By: Alfred Twj
Tags: Business, Influencer Marketing, Social Media, Influencers, Content Marketing

Nothing to see here.. just some super juicy meat burger — photo taken by me

In this day and age, your online presence is king.

Today, anything and everything will revolve heavily around the social media world — gone were the days where a physical store is all that you need.

Let me give you an example.

I have created content for brands that only relied on their physical stores for business transactions. We are talking about companies with 1 or 2 decades of experiences in their field — the best at what they do. Most of these business owners are in their late 40s to early 50s with Facebook and Instagram freshly downloaded into their phones. It is a challenge to convince them to go digital or create an online presence because of their traditional methods of success — a physical store.

Slowly, many of these businesses suffer great losses when other competitors are ahead of them — using the online platform as an advantage to grow their businesses.

Then came the COVID epidemic. Many businesses died and others stayed on… some even double or triple their sales revenue. I have new clients who want to take their businesses online, forcefully. Most of their businesses were on the verge of closure and when it comes to the budget for projects like these, they were way below market rate, funds were tight.

Besides, it takes time… a bag full of time to grow your online presence.

Yes, it is still possible if you have a really big budget — paying influencers, sponsored ads, etc. But, most of them don’t.

The difference between a content creator and an Influencer — who do you need? This article is taken from https://popularpays.com/

Content creators:

- Highly skilled and experienced photographers, video editors, writers, graphic designers, or videographers who develop assets intended to be shared with brands for advertising purposes

- Often evaluated, rather than by the size of their social handles, but by the quality of their deliverables, the creativity invested in their projects as well as their ability to develop unique multimedia assets

Influencers:

- Utilised to leverage their dedicated audience to build brand awareness and trust.

- Creators who have an engaged audience that is invested in their content and advice.

- Mostly evaluated by the size of their following along with their engagement rates. There is a multitude of categories of influencers that can drive impact on your campaign, it truly depends on brand needs and resources.

From the article written by the good people at popularpays,

choosing who and what you need for growing your business is key.

Here are some of my honest opinions:

1. Numbers don’t matter.

Have you ever come across some influencers/creators with a massive amount of followers but the moment take a look at their posts individually, you see really poor engagement numbers? For example, the account has 100k followers but only 100 likes per post, etc. Since the introduction of making a huge amount of money on social media platforms, everyone wants to do that — work from home, travel, life is good. With this in play, more and more “grow your social media numbers fast,” companies are made available, conveniently. I personally paid for one and my Instagram numbers grew within days and I was really happy! However, the engagements on my posts were very poor — the likes, the comments, etc. What I think this company does is to use a “Safe” method to grow your likes — with Instagram being very strict nowadays with fake accounts and spams, hence the “hashtag targeted organic follow and unfollow” method is something commonly used. You follow someone and they follow you back and if they don’t, you unfollow them after a few days in or something like that. (You can read more about this here.)

As you can see, having a huge amount of followers without good engagement is still pointless.

Next, I dive into their followers.

Are they real human beings or bots?

Some of the fake accounts look real. You can tell them apart by noticing some of these elements:

- profile picture

- bio description

- account with a real photo and real posts but they never exceed 10 or more posts. Feels like a discontinued product.

- website links on their bio description

- comments given by others will feel very template-ish. Like how you select an option to answer your friend if you can’t pick up the call.

2. Let their work speak.

Then, there are these other dudes who can produce really good work but their social media presence are ninja-like, missing in action.

Some of these content creators are not out there because of the way they market themselves on these pages. They usually get drown out by accounts with bigger following. Once again, in this day and age, looks sell. If you look god-darn beautiful but your work is crap, BOOM! — you will still get jobs. With this in play, the whole social media system gets jumbled up — these accounts will be the first to pop up on your feed,

which leaves some of the better ones unsearchable.

However, what you can do is:

If you are looking for a content creator, search for the hashtag #contentcreator and be specific. If you are searching for someone to build your cupcake business and you stay in London, search for these: #londoncupcakesdesign #contentcreatorcupcakes #designcupcake #cuptakecontentcreator, etc. Let me tell you why. I personally feel that the bigger accounts have a stronger chance to be on top of that particular hashtag search feed longer than the weaker accounts because of their engagement values — numbers. And believe me, most of them are not the creators you are looking for. You can have a picture of a dog’s poop with the hashtag #contentcreator or a sexy girl eating an ice-cream with the same hashtag. Maybe, just maybe, the real ones are hidden within those smaller hashtags.

If you have chanced upon a creator who has the work style you’re looking for, do check out his/her website links or even drop them a message to ask for them. Most of them should have a website/portfolio by now. Influencers, on the other hand, requires huge numbers which will make them a lot easier to find. I have heard stories of influencers being all diva-like and treating your products like crap or not even advertising them properly but yet they charge super high because of their followings — please be very careful with these issues.

Influencer A might have 3 times more followings than Influencer B but she gives out a weird vibe — something is not right then. Take a look at her posts then. Look at the comments — are the audiences commenting on the product that she is advertising or her cleavage? Yeah, but if she is advertising for some bikini or lingerie line… it’s cool, it’s cool. Now Influencer B, on the other hand, has a weaker following but her posts are really engaging and the comments are directed properly to what she is advertising — she even take the time to reply everyone and go the extra mile of sharing about the company’s stories, other products, etc. (I don’t know if this kinda influencer exists but I know I will do that — end of the day, we must help one another)

So… which is more valuable to you? Numbers don’t sell, their real work does.

3 The Hybrids

People like Peter McKinnon and Casey Neistat are what I call the influential creators. They started out as creators and eventually became influencers through their work, vlogs and videos. People like them are really good to help your businesses online. Not only do they produce really good work, but they also have followings too. Search for these influential creators if you want a one size fits all solution. Today, in a world of “either you get this without that or, that without this,” your choices are plentiful. Most influencers are not creators — they may have a big following but their visual work is below average.

Most creators are not influencers — they produce really good work but their followers are a handful. In fact, you might even help them to gain massive followings or even unlock their true potential if they do work for you. At the end of the day, it is all about comfortability — do you see yourself confidently doing more projects with this person or do you see the potential in this person has but he is new in the industry, etc.

I hope this article helps you with choosing the ideal content creator or influencer for your business.

Thanks for reading!

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