If you want your business to succeed in this digitalized world, you need to constantly come up with unique, authentic, high-quality content that engages your audience and enhances your brand’s social media presence.
Easier said than done, right?
Not to worry — partnering with content creators who do this for a living can save you the headache.
So, let us explain what this marketing strategy is all about, its pros and cons, and how to find the best content creators for your brand.
Let’s begin!
What Are Content Creators?
Content creators are individuals who produce high-quality, engaging content for various digital platforms.
They can create any type of content, including social media posts, YouTube videos, blog posts, and podcasts.
Likewise, they specialize in various fields, like beauty, fashion, technology, and travel.
Content creators usually collaborate with brands to create quality content that enhances the brand’s digital marketing efforts, in exchange for monetary compensation.
Moreover, creators can also produce user-generated content (UGC) promoting a brand and share it on their own social media accounts.
Sounds pretty similar to influencer marketing, doesn’t it?
Here’s the difference.
The Differences Between Content Creators + Influencers
Influencers are social media users with big follower counts who gained popularity through their viral social media content or celebrity.
However, content creators don’t necessarily have big followings and they focus more on quality than virality in their content strategy.
Of course, this doesn’t mean a content creator can’t also be an influencer.
In fact, partnering with an influencer content creator is a great solution if your end goal is to increase brand reach and awareness.
One of the best examples of an Instagram content creator turned influencer is Karen X.
Karen is a video content creator for big brands like Snapchat and Apple, but she became viral when she quit her job at Microsoft through a video.
Her Instagram account, karenxcheng, featuring many tutorials on creating video content, currently has 1.3 million followers, making her a mega-influencer.
But why should you work with a content creator?
Let’s find out.
Top Benefits of Working With Content Creators
The creator economy is growing more and more every year.
According to the 2024 HubSpot State of Marketing Report, 29% of marketers actively use content marketing, and 50% intend to increase their content marketing budget in 2024.
But why invest so much in this marketing strategy?
Because of the benefits, of course!
Here are some of them:
- Build authenticity and credibility. According to a 2019 Stackla report, 90% of consumers decide which brands they like based on their level of authenticity and are 2.4x more likely to say UGC is more authentic than in-house brand-generated content.
Content creators infuse their UGC with personal experiences and opinions, which makes it more genuine and relatable to the audience.
Over time, this authenticity builds consumer trust and loyalty for the brand.
- Attract leads and retain customers. Content creators specialize in their niche and have the necessary skills to create informative, engaging, high-quality content.
That, in turn, grabs user attention and keeps the audience coming back for more.
For instance, a beauty content creator who is also a cosmetician can offer more valuable information to the audience than an ordinary beauty enthusiast.
- Reach and engage new audiences. Even if they don’t have big follower counts, content creators still have a loyal and highly engaged community.
You just need to find content creators in your niche whose audience demographics and interests match those of your target audience.
This means that the moment you start collaborating with them, you’re accessing people who are already interested in what you’re selling.
Therefore, you can boost brand awareness, reach, and conversions in one strike.
- Diversify your social media marketing. By working with various types of content creators, you can source different types of content and diversify your marketing campaigns.
For instance, you can partner with content writers, graphic designers, and video creators to create one-of-a-kind deliverables for various platforms to enhance your social media presence.
Still, there are some potential drawbacks.
Keep reading to find out what they are.
Are There Downsides to Collaborating with Content Creators?
Content marketing is no different than other digital marketing strategies, so it may have some potential disadvantages.
Here are some of the possibilities:
- Limited reach. Since content creators don’t usually have big followings, they can only expose your brand to a limited number of users.
However, if your end goal is to increase brand awareness, you can search for a creator who is also a Meta or TikTok influencer.
- Risk of damaging the brand’s reputation. Unless you collaborate with the right creators, this marketing strategy can do more harm than good.
Specifically, you risk losing consumer trust in your brand if you work with a creator who:
- Doesn’t align with your brand’s image and values
- Generates poor-quality content
- Is rude or unprofessional when interacting with the audience
- Long-term results. Given that creators don’t focus on creating viral content, it takes longer for this marketing strategy to generate the desired results.
Therefore, you should consider diversifying your collaborations, to include influencers as well.
But even so, don’t expect things to change overnight.
You have to play the long game if you want your brand to thrive.
Now that you know the pros and cons of creator collaborations, it’s time to see how you can build them.
Before Searching For Content Creators
Before you start looking for content creators, there are a few important steps you need to take:
- Determine your marketing goals. Without specific marketing goals, you can’t measure and optimize the performance of your content strategy.
For instance, if your objective is to increase conversions, you need to track metrics like clicks, e-commerce website traffic, and impressions.
Likewise, your goals will also influence the type of content and creators you need.
- Know your target audience. Once you know your ideal customer demographics, preferences, and interests, you can look for creators and source content that best resonates with your target audience.
On top of that, you’ll know which social media platforms your audience prefers and allocate more resources to them.
- Decide on the type of content you need. Of course, this mostly depends on the platforms you're using.
For example, you’ll need written content for LinkedIn and video content for TikTok.
But don’t worry, content creators are very versatile and can usually juggle multiple types of content.
Now, on to the most important part: how to find content creators.
How to Find Content Creators
Based on research and our own experience, we’ve curated this list of the best strategies for finding content creators.
Choose the Right Social Media Platform(s)
First of all, if you want to enhance your online marketing efforts, you should use multiple social media platforms.
However, if you’re a small business with a limited budget, you need to choose the one that your target audience prefers.
While according to a 2023 Statista survey, 89% of marketers worldwide use Facebook to promote their brands, this doesn’t necessarily mean you should use it too.
In fact, Social Champ claims that Facebook is losing its popularity among younger users, who are now turning to Instagram and TikTok.
Thus, if you’re targeting Millennials and Gen Z consumers, you should get TikTok and Instagram content creators to collaborate with your brand.
Focus on Your Niche
You’ve got a few options for finding content creators in your niche:
- Do a bit of online research to identify the most popular keywords in your industry, then, simply conduct a Google search using those keywords.
Of course, you’ll have to spend a lot of time sifting through the results to identify high-quality content creators specializing in social media, not just content or copywriting for websites.
- Another good option is to attend various industry events where you can actually meet and talk with content creators in person or get referrals.
- Lastly, you can use freelancing platforms, like Fiverr or Upwork, or content creator Facebook groups to post content creator jobs and wait for creators to contact you.
Use Social Listening Tools
Social listening refers to monitoring and analyzing what social media users are saying about your brand.
While you can use this strategy to determine how well your social media marketing campaigns are performing, you can also use it to find creators.
After all, a user who is already raving about your brand or products can easily create authentic content and can even become a brand ambassador.
The easiest way to do this is to use social listening tools, like Sprout Social or Hootsuite, that track all social media mentions of your brand.
The only problem is that you’ll have to analyze all those mentions and then check the social media accounts of the users who wrote them to identify potential content creators.
Clearly, this is very time-consuming!
Take Advantage of Hashtags
Hashtags can be very useful in finding content creators in your niche.
You can use Google Search or your preferred social media platforms to identify the most popular industry-related hashtags.
However, make sure they are as specific as possible.
For instance, if you’re brand is selling anti-aging face cream, #beauty is too general. Instead, you should go with #antiaging, #antiwrinkle, or #antiagingskincare.
Once you have your hashtags, simply add them to your social media platform’s search bar and you’ll get access to all the users that are using them.
Then comes the hard part: sifting through the results.
Once again, you have no way of telling which of those users are content creators unless you check each of their social media accounts, which takes a lot of time.
Read Social Media Bios
The good news is that many content creators actually specify this job title in their social media bios, making it easier to identify them.
Plus, these bios are searchable, meaning that if you add ‘content creator skincare’ or ‘UGC creator fashion’ to your social media search bar, you’ll find users matching the description.
As for those who don’t label themselves as content creators, you can search for other industry-related job titles, like ‘cosmetician,’ ‘makeup artist,’ or ‘model.’
Look at Your Competitors
You should always keep track of what your competitors are doing to get inspired, find potential gaps that you can fill, or look for things you can do better.
So, research your competitors’ previous creator collaborations to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their content strategy.
Then, you can reach out to those of your competitors’ creators who best align with your brand.
No, that’s not stealing and there’s no conflict of interest as long as they are no longer under contract.
Check in With Your Community
Your community is made up of your employees, customers, and fans.
These people often promote your brand and products on social media willingly and for free, simply because they genuinely like your products.
So, why not extend your creator outreach campaign to them as well?
But before you do that, make sure you check their social media activity to determine if they have the necessary skills to create high-quality content for your brand.
Talk to Your Followers
Your followers likely follow many other brands and influencers in your niche, so they can offer valuable insights.
Therefore, you can simply post a question on your brand’s social media account asking them for creator recommendations or asking them to tag their favorite influencers in the comments.
It’s as simple as that!
Just don’t forget to thank your followers for their help afterward.
Involving your followers in this process can boost engagement and loyalty because it shows you value their opinions.
Use An Influencer Marketing Platform
Using an influencer marketing platform is the least time-consuming and the most precise strategy for finding content creators for your brand.
While there are many content creator platforms out there, Insense offers a wide range of features that will help you take your social media marketing campaign to the next level.
Here are some of them:
- Using the Creator Marketplace, you can search through a database of over 20K vetted creators to find the right collaborator.
Of course, you don’t have to do it manually, as we also provide advanced search filters, including industry, audience and creator demographics, price, and engagement.
- If the first option sounds like too much work, you can use our Creative Brief.
Simply provide details of the type of creators you’re looking for and the campaign you want to run and we’ll match you with the right creators.
- Start communicating with your creators using Direct Chat to negotiate pricing, offer clarifications about deliverables, and give feedback.
So, instead of DMing creators on different social media platforms and missing important messages, you can communicate with all of them simultaneously, in one place.
All these strategies are great, but how do you vet the creators you find?
Let’s find out.
How To Vet Content Creators
If you decide to use Insense, you’ll no longer have to deal with this issue, because all our creators have already been vetted.
However, if you opt for any of the other strategies for finding creators, you need to do your due diligence and properly vet them.
Here’s what you should pay attention to:
Check Their Engagement Rates
While it’s important for your content creators to have high engagement rates, you need to look out for artificially increased engagement.
A big red flag is when a user has a small follower count, but very high engagement.
Carefully assess the quality of the comments left by the user’s followers.
According to Microsoft, if the comments sound spammy, unnatural, or repetitive, they are likely generated by bots.
Consider Their Previous Partnerships
Choosing content creators for your brand is similar to hiring employees.
You should always check a creator’s prior work experience to determine if they have the necessary skills to create quality content.
Moreover, check if they’ve worked with other brands in your niche because having industry knowledge is a big advantage.
Review Their Content
Clearly, this is one of the most important steps you need to take.
Just because someone calls themself a content creator, it doesn’t automatically follow that they produce high-quality UGC.
Plus, you need to make sure that the creator’s content aligns with your brand’s style and values.
Ultimately, think about your audience and whether or not they’d enjoy that type of content.
Look at Their Following
Even if a creator has a small following, you should still look out for fake follower counts.
This is even more important if your end goal is to increase brand reach by partnering with creators who are also influencers.
But don’t worry, there are plenty of free fake follower-checking tools that you can use, including Modash and inBeat.
According to an article published by West Virginia University, the use of avatars or symbols instead of profile photos and posts with no written text, only stock images, also suggests fake social media accounts.
Focus on Authenticity
As we’ve already mentioned in the beginning, consumers value authenticity and so should you.
Of course, it’s very hard to tell if a user’s content is authentic or not, as you have no tool or metric to measure this.
Therefore, you should try to assess the creator’s content as if you were a regular consumer and trust your instincts.
If the content makes you feel a connection with the creator and is believable, then you’re on the right track.
Now, Over To You!
Now that you know the ins and outs of content marketing, you can decide for yourself if this is the right strategy for your brand.
But given the amazing benefits, you should at least give it a try.
If you do, don’t waste precious time searching for and vetting creators.
Instead, use our creator marketing platform that will help you find content creators in just a few minutes.
Book a demo with Insense today and find out how it all works.
