Influencing the Influencer — A Series: The Creator’s Perspective
Welcome to Part 2 of this series where we delve into the POVs in influencer marketing. In Part 1, we looked into the brand’s perspective in effectively getting an influencer to sell your product to their audience. You can check out Part 1 here.
Moving forward, the creative comes from the content creator doing the work he/she is passionate about. They are recognized for their work and have value to provide for both the brand and their audience. It’s a win-win scenario. Let’s see what we can take a look at from their POV.
The Creator’s Perspective
Be Consistent With Your Scheduled Programming
As a content creator, keep your audience going with posting videos consistently. Especially when your audience is aware of when your video launch schedule, they’ll look forward to that day when you feed them with your creativity. This also can be draining when you’re at a point of looking for new ideas to come to life. Videos have to be precise, and editing/post-production can take a lot of time. Rather, having videos that are already set one month from now or even several months from now can alleviate your time in the future and allow for sponsorships to flow more easily by including slots for them to be a part of your awesome content.
When brands see that you are consistent with your content and your audience continues to show up in numbers, that lets the brands know that your audience is still there. Eyeballs become profitable when your brain says to click the link and to purchase that product you (the content creator) support.
It can be telling how devoted a content creator is when they follow through their schedule. That statement can also be incorrect when content creators get busier and create videos with a lot more editing and production than before. Either way, when you promise your audience of how often they’ll see content, you deliver. Using other social media means on YouTube Community, Twitter, and Instagram also helps keep your audience informed of any schedule changes.
Having a consistent creator like GothamChess or Chris Stuckmann can keep your audience happy, and changes based on trends happening beyond the scope of YouTube can bring your channel to new heights. For those creators respectively, it can be the rising popularity of chess via the Netflix show Queen’s Gambit or popular TV shows and movies that can get more people noticing your content and subscribing as part of your growing audience.
Show Enthusiasm and Passion For What You Enjoy Doing
Your audience notices your passion in what you do. That’s why no matter what content it may be, your audience will be there because of you. Brands will also notice if you have had past sponsorships that appreciate that passion that replicate when you do your sponsored promotion. If the results deliver and reach performance goals, then that can lead to a long-term partnership.
When you’re offered the opportunity to be sponsored by a brand, you have the power to make the brand look great. The brand finds that you can be the front-facing person of the brand to the audience they are targeting, so now is your time to shine! If a sponsored promotion does look like it’s scripted with little to no enthusiasm, however, then your audience will notice it, so find this as a win-win scenario to grow your channel while benefiting the brand for something that could grow beyond just one sponsored video.
One great example of showcasing your passion for that brand is when you know that the brand is something that will benefit both themselves and their audience. You can definitely see this here in Skooch’s video (see above) with Opera GX, a browser dedicated to the gaming community, for his League of Legends fans. In this instance, he has since created several more videos with the brand, implying results were meeting the brand’s goals and they enjoy working with him and his content.
Do What’s Right For Your Brand
There comes a time when your email is blasted with a number of sponsorship opportunities, and a manager can be there to help narrow down what works best for your brand. Essentially, there will be brands that you enjoy that you’d be more than happy to include, while other brands may be there that you cannot fit into your content schedule. This is where you decide what flows best with your content and what you’d be delighted to be a part of.
Out of all this, it can also mean the person you’re connecting with from the brand’s side who believes in you, your channel, and your audience. They reached out to you because they see a synergy that can grow to something greater than one promotion. For example, when brands notice a creator’s channel has at least some relation to the brand/product where other brands in the past worked with the creator too, that can be a sign that their audience is engaging and impactful. Looking at The Game Theorist’s sponsored videos, a number of brands worked with the creator as the audience can relate in some way to gaming, theory, or something more. Money can talk, but stories and relationships deliver.
The creator has the greatest control in their content and they know their audience best. They’ll notice that their content has value and people listen and tune in whenever they go live. Now’s the time to make note of possibilities with both your content and beyond (i.e. merchandising, events, partnerships, and more business verticals) to treat it as a business. Stars who’ve expanded their brand include MrBeast, Graham Stephan, JJ Olatunji (also known as KSI), and Dude Perfect, all of whom realized their brand goes beyond social media and onto a larger stage (literally).
As we head onto the next part of the series on the Agency connecting the dots, let me know your thoughts, whether as a content creator or a brand, for what you think will continue to get your audience to both listen and to stay engaged. While content may still be king, distributing that content through other means of media (this could go to TV networks, magazines, or even the metaverse) and immersing the audience in it could lead to spectacular experiences.
