Since 2019 the global influencer market has more than doubled. Last year it was valued at a whopping $13.8 billion according to Statista. The success of this novel market has astounded researchers with article after article trying to come to terms with the absolute power through which this new economy is taking on the marketing establishment.

The creator economy isn’t just competing with traditional marketing, it is completely revolutionizing the game. This new economy is more democratized and open to the general mass with little to no barriers to entry. All you need is a phone/computer, an internet connection and you are good to go.

The result has been an explosion in not only the number of creators reaping big from this system but also businesses marketing their goods via influencers. More businesses are choosing to use influencers as they are more personalized to their various audiences.

Here are some key factors in the influencer economy.

1. Winning Consumer Attention

When it comes to the internet and especially on social there is an all-out war for consumer attention. With more people turning to social media for more than just friends but also for vital information such as news, social media is today’s golden estate in marketing and influencers hold the keys.

The formula is simple: Get influencers and you will get more eyeballs.

Moreover, the war is not only among advertisers but mainly between platforms that are fighting tooth and nail for creators instead of competing for individual users. TikTok, Facebook and Instagram are currently leading the charge but other networks are also forking billions of ad revenue over to creators. These include Snapchat, Pinterest and YouTube.

2. Solving the Biggest Challenges in Marketing

In the digital age, every marketer is facing two major challenges: keeping pace with ever-changing culture and personalizing content for diverse consumers.

Keeping Pace with Culture

If there is something that is clear today as it has ever been, it is that culture is always in a state of flux. It is always changing, much faster than marketers can track. This presents a challenge for marketers who like to plan things months in advance. It is near impossible to plan ahead like that anymore, change is way too rapid. The result is that marketers have turned to influencers whose job is to connect with current events in real-time and thus become part of the culture.

Personalizing Content

With an ever-expanding market personalizing content has become more difficult. Traditional methods of clustering markets according to geolocation, gender and age do not work anymore. As most companies have found out, people’s tastes are a lot more complex than that. It all comes down to a person’s personality and individual history. Who has the time and energy to map all that down? This is another key reason that marketers are turning to influencers to reach different personas. The diversity of content on these platforms ensures that almost most personas and their individual tastes can be ascertained. Marketers are again using influencers to create a diverse range of content for their equally diverse markets.

The Road Ahead

Like culture, the creator economy is always changing and there are key trends that are going to alter the market.

Here are a few:

• Creators will no longer limit themselves to single platforms but deploy their content on as many as they can. With platforms in stiff competition for creators, most of these artists will leverage these opportunities to make as much as they can from each platform.
• We are going to see an increased level of collaboration between creators and fans so that the content is not just engaging but also participative.
• With the creator economy growing exponentially, regulatory bodies will be paying closer attention to policies and frameworks to provide more safeguards for consumers.
• Lastly, the growing Web 3 ecosystem will attract a lot of creators as they seek more freedom from platform ‘overlords’ like Facebook and Instagram. The decentralized nature of Web3 applications is likely to lure more creators in search of a bigger piece of the ad revenue.

These are just a few of the many moving parts in the creator economy. We are definitely going to see a lot more expansion with greater emphasis being put on giving more power to creators.