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Whether you are just starting out or you are a seasoned business owner with years of experience, keeping up with marketing and social media trends can often be daunting or forgotten in the day-to-day life of running a business.
Content creators have been around since the good old days of traditional blogging, but how they create evolves constantly. In fact, you may have thought about working with content creators as part of your marketing strategy but don’t know where to start. We’ve enlisted the help of Australian content creator Kevin La, aka Sydney Food Boy, to help.
Kevin has an audience of more than 300,000 engaged viewers and has been sharing his journey on social media since 2019. In his words: “The idea for Sydney Food Boy came about on an overseas trip. Having grown up in Southwest Sydney, I’ve always felt very fortunate to have food from around the world at our doorstep. You could eat Vietnamese food in Cabramatta, Afghan food in Merrylands, Indian food in Harris Park, all within a 10-minute drive of each other, and that’s just scratching the surface! When I travelled overseas for a food trip, I realised how happy it made me to explore and write about new foods, so I wanted to bring that back home to Sydney too!” Over to you, Kevin.
What is a content creator?
Content creators produce digital content to educate or entertain an audience. There are different avenues of content creation and different styles of produced content. Every content creator has a voice of their own that they portray in what they create. That’s what makes each creator unique.
Content can come in the form of:
- Written words for blog websites and social media captions
- Imagery such as graphics or photos
- Video for Instagram Reels, TikTok or YouTube
- Audio for podcasts and interviews
How can content creators help businesses?
Your business can use the content for its own social media channels. Essentially you hit a double whammy by having content created for you and your channels and by gaining awareness (and potential new followers) from the content creator’s audience. If you are looking to take advantage of this, photo content tends to be preferable, as multiple photos can be used over several of your own posts. Ensure that you ask for permission from the content creator as a gesture of respect when you repost, and give credit to the creator’s page upon posting.
How to find the right content creator for your business
1. Look for shared values
If you are looking to work with a content creator to help your business, it is important that you find someone who resonates with the values of your brand. When content creators build audiences, they have a brand of their own. A positive collaboration sees the brand of the business and of the creator align. Learn about the creator’s persona and opinions by following their content. Ask yourself, “Would this be the type of customer I would like to see visiting my business?” If so, you have found the right person.
2. Define roles and responsibilities clearly.
Contra gifting
Each creator has their own way of working. It’s similar to hiring a contractor to do a job for you. Some creators may be happy to work with you on a contra-gifting basis. This is when you provide your product or service to the creator without payment and ask to be featured on their social media channels in return. If you prefer to work with a content creator on a contra-gifting partnership, lay out what you would like to see in return for the gifted product and come to an agreement.
Paid collaborations
Other creators will place a value on the content they create for your brand and charge a fee. This value entails the time they spend visiting your store, capturing the content, editing the photos or videos and, of course, sharing the content with their audience. The hope is that this will translate to greater exposure and more customers for you.
Tip: It is important that you are transparent with how you would like to work together in order to avoid any miscommunications. If you have a budget to use and would like to work with the content creator on a paid partnership, make sure you agree on how many pieces of content they will create and when they will post them for the fee that you are paying.
3. Look for creators with engaged audiences
Your aim is to showcase your product to new audiences and potential new customers. Therefore, finding a content creator that has an engaged audience will benefit you vs a creator with a large — but unengaged — following. The easiest way judge if a creator has an engaged audience is to look at the ‘share’ count on a video, or people tagging their friends in the comments of their posts. If you see shares and tags, and the people getting tagged are from your local city, there’s a good chance that this is the right creator to help your business.
On the flip side, you may find a content crater who’s style matches your business. Even if the creator doesn’t have a huge following, don’t be afraid to reach out. Having once had a low follower count, it really meant a lot for me to have a business see value in my craft and to have the opportunity to come and help out a business. Plus, the positivity will resonate in the content.
4. Remember that success is not always instant
Collaboration should be a two-way street. The creator should bring value to the business, and the business should bring value to the creator. Be mindful that you may not see results for your business immediately. Success with content creators is dependent on the social media platform. Sometimes the photo or video content will reach the right audiences straight away and you will see an influx of customers quickly thereafter. Other times the content begins to gain more viewership after a week or two.
