The creator economy is rapidly becoming synonymous with “the economy” as c are gaining more equity within companies. In the past, they were simply an exciting new form of advertising. Today, influencers might serve as long-term brand ambassadors, stakeholders, marketing consultants, and more. That’s why it’s so imperative that companies make informed decisions based on data that goes deeper than vanity metrics such as likes & views.
Social video has emerged as the place where trends originate and utilizing the platform is no longer a “nice to have” for marketers and brands looking to grow. Engaging with attentive audiences is a key objective for many brands, and social video is a “must-have” channel to achieve this.
To thrive in social in 2023 and beyond, having a proven, data-driven way to quickly sort through shifting trends and easily apply insights to your goals is key.
Over the past year alone, influencer-created content was watched 13.2x times more than media and brand content – combined. And more growth is coming. Based on past two-year growth trends, Tubular anticipates the influencer market to continue to move upward in the coming year.
Going beyond Likes and Views
With so many creators to choose from, having access to metrics that allow you accurately evaluate their worth and alignment with your unique needs is priceless.
Identifying The Influencer That Will Help You Reach Your KPIs:
Focus on quality over quantity: Uncovering quality metrics will save you money on influencers that seem “smaller” but pack a bigger punch when it comes to ROI. Never pay for inactive subscribers again by looking at measurements like watch time, unique reach, and consumer conversion rates.
Zero in on an audience’s consumer behaviors: Consumer Insights helps you identify audiences where potential consumers are hiding (who would have thought sports fans are highly likely to shop for cooking electronics?). With highly accurate consumer measurements, you can cut out the “media math” and project ROI like never before.
Drive growth with influencers from adjacent categories: Just because you’re a beauty brand doesn’t mean you have to partner with a beauty influencer. Check out creators from adjacent categories like fitness or fashion that have audiences highly likely to also watch beauty content. This will help you reach your existing consumers while also exposing your brand name to new consumers.
While some creators are becoming intertwined with existing brands, others are building their own income streams through merch deals and their owned media brands.
MrBeast is perhaps one of the most prolific influencers who has built a brand for himself by creating an authentic channel of content and extending to the consumer items his audience wants to buy. In addition to shoppable merch directly on his Instagram and YouTube pages and website, he’s launched Feastables chocolate bars and hosted a world-record-breaking opening for “MrBeast Burger” restaurant chain, after selling burgers and fries via delivery apps since 2020.
Consumers and marketers agree. eMarketer projects 78.6% of marketers will incorporate influencer marketing into their strategies in 2023 – a nearly 18% growth from 2020 and a forecasted $6B in spend.
The Future of Social Video is Search
Search and news are coming more frequently from social platforms and videos, not search engines, and this is anticipated to grow more in the coming year. Audiences are more frequently finding recipes for banana bread on YouTube and hitting TikTok for makeup tutorials. When audiences are looking for innovative answers to pressing questions, they’re searching social platforms and authentic voices for information.
Tubular analysis of popular keyword searches indicates a relationship between search and the way audiences behave online and offline. Searches like, “recipes” or “how to” are leading directly to higher affinity to relevant site visitation and shopping behaviors.
For example, after people search “how to” in a search engine, they’re 50 times more likely to visit AllRecipes.com. And 36 times more likely to shop for Hershey’s products on Amazon/Walmart.
Recipe searches also stir up interesting connections to site visitation and eCommerce shopping behaviors. After searching “recipes,” audiences are 204 times more likely to seek out Green Giant products on Amazon.
Both examples indicate the heavy influence a search term has against other digital behaviors and identify ways marketers can optimize programs to engage new audiences. A brand like General Mills, for example, could create more “quick cake recipe” videos in 2023 to take advantage of the growing connection between search and social behaviors in their category.
Leveraging “social search” can be a boon for brands and marketers wanting to make an authentic and cohesive connection to the way audiences use social media and engage in online and offline behaviors. Do you have a strong understanding of what social audiences are searching for? Can you create content for your brand that leans into commonly searched terms like “how to” or “DIY”? Are you able to understand the connection between the way consumers engage across social channels, and how that translates to behaviors like site visitation and eCommerce shopping? Access to the tools that answer these questions bridges the gap between a fledgling brand and one poised for progression.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chrissy Werner, VP of Marketing for Tubular Labs
Chrissy Werner is responsible for the Marketing function at Tubular including demand generation, branding, and the sales development team. She has over 10 years of B2B SaaS marketing and corporate development experience spanning the creator economy, fintech, and sports marketing. She most recently helped scale a leading fintech organization, Billtrust, from start-up through a successful NASDAQ debut. Chrissy holds a Bachelor of Arts from Niagara University and Masters of Science from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
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