在社交媒体混乱中，创作者和品牌如何成功？

刘海明

【案例】

在社交媒体混乱中，创作者和品牌如何成功？

如今，对于品牌、营销人员和创作者来说，这是一个复杂的时代。

在领先TwitterTWTR 0.0%的头几周内，埃隆·马斯克已经裁掉了一半的员工，重新雇佣了数十名员工，看到广告商逃离，警告可能破产，并迅速推出并扼杀了多个考虑不周的计划。据报道，这是“混乱的”，但其他人认为整个社交媒体行业正在“终结”和/或“死亡”。在Meta，在今年损失了近100亿美元建立了一个遥远的metaverse未来之后，该公司宣布裁员11000人，并大幅削减开支。即使是当下的宠儿TikTok也将其收入预测下调了20亿美元，并推迟了IPO。

那么，这将使试图在社交媒体上谋生的创作者和试图与他们合作以接触客户的品牌何去何从？

CreatorIQ刚刚发布的《影响者营销趋势报告》显示，情况并非如此糟糕。该报告为联合利华和百威英博等大品牌开展了端到端的营销活动。调查表明，这实际上是一个很好的时间来进行有影响力的营销。

报告说：“尽管有经济下滑的迹象，以及新冠肺炎疫情的持续影响，但有影响力的营销仍在蓬勃发展。”。它表明，真正的挑战是获得预算和人员来扩大有影响力的营销活动，并保持与创作者的关系。

在这项趋势调查中，CreatorIQ与236位创作者、163家品牌和机构进行了交谈。

三分之二的受访品牌表示，与之前相比，他们在过去一年增加了该行业的支出，五分之三的品牌增加了影响力营销人员。国家广告商协会（Association of National Advertisers）今年提出了长期寻求的行业衡量标准，该标准得到了CreatorIQ及其一些最大客户的大力支持，以解决行业最大的难题之一：持续衡量成功。

CreatorIQ的首席业务开发与合作官Tim Sovay表示：“在过去几年中，在为创作者营销行业开发全漏斗测量标准和解决方案方面取得了一些重大进展。”。“这将推动该行业的下一阶段增长，因为它有助于证明创作者活动的顶部和底部投资回报率（ROI）降至美元，从而证明创作者和整个行业的支出水平增加是合理的。”

调查显示，付费给创作者发帖子是现在的“标准做法”。拥有超过100万粉丝的最有影响力的人，通常在Instagram上发布一条帖子的报酬在1万至5万美元之间。但即使是关注者少于10万的微影响力者，平均每篇帖子的收入也在500美元至2500美元之间。

该行业重要VidCon会议的前总经理、《创造者经济内幕》的编辑兼出版人吉姆·劳德巴克（Jim Louderback）表示，尽管在喧嚣中很容易失去视线，但Facebook、YouTube和Instagram等老牌社交媒体平台在向品牌提供目标受众方面仍然规模巨大，效率极高。

“这些（已建立的）平台哪儿都不会去，”Louderback说，他是我上周在虚拟电视未来会议上主持的一个社交媒体小组的成员。“有一些新的平台正在崛起，它们增加了那些平台所没有的东西。在很多方面，我们会看到这些平台相互复制。我不太担心平台会消亡，因为我担心所有的平台都会变得相同。”

调查显示，明年将是视频的时代，特别是在TikTok和Instagram的短视频平台Reels上。

调查在展望中指出：“2023年，创作者经济将在视频上运行。”。“TikTok目前在观看视频的时间方面领先其他社交平台11倍。此外，该平台是Z世代的主要搜索引擎，并通过#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt等热门举措通知购买决策。”

Sovay表示，CreatorIQ数据显示，品牌和创作者已经在利用这些社交商业趋势来推动销售，标记为#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt的创作者内容量同比增长164%，参与的品牌数量同比增长83%。

但该行业仍有大量内容和消费模式的空间。我的小组成员建议，LinkedIn和播客等平台正在吸引知名受众，品牌也应该接受这些受众。

调查称，由于经济压力加大，品牌面临的挑战将是在预算紧张的时期制定有效的战略。如果每个主要平台都有短形式和长形式，直播、游戏和电子商务，那么整个行业就有可能成为一个越来越拥挤和同质化的地方，品牌可能难以区分机会。

“从品牌角度来看，你想做什么？”Louderback说。“你在寻找知名度吗？TikTok、（YouTube）Shorts和Reels是一个很好的地方。你在寻找深度和转化吗？YouTube仍然是一个转化引擎。但LinkedIn等新平台正在为品牌添加其他方式，以与其他特定受众建立联系。我认为最大的问题是我们每天需要花费多少分钟来消费这些内容？”

TikTok在疫情期间起飞，目前拥有超过10亿用户，展示了一长串病毒式点击和创作者，尤其是音乐家。对于营销人员来说，TikTok的崛起在92%的时间里“非常显著”或“有点显著”地影响了营销人员的营销活动。

但对于三分之二的品牌来说，Instagram仍然是“最不可或缺的”平台，投资回报率最高。超过四分之一的其他品牌因其活动而将TikTok评为第一。根据CreatorIQ的报告，对于许多营销人员来说，TikTok被视为其Instagram第一次营销活动的“一个强大的辅助程序”。

尽管Meta削减了开支，但Roblox和Minecraft等Metaverse友好平台上创作者的更广泛机会正在成倍增加，这为品牌提供了另一种接触特别年轻互联网用户的方式。

口袋频道高级副总裁兼总经理大卫·威廉姆斯表示：“我们看到这些机会越来越大，尤其是在儿童空间，让孩子们在整个创作者经济中引领潮流。”。观看，大型儿童视频节目分销商。

威廉姆斯说：“我认为，任何人都不应该对元宇宙持乐观态度，因为当你看到孩子们和孩子们的创作者时，会有很多行动和交易发生。”Roblox实际上最近宣布了新的货币化。他们发布了新功能，允许您……进行更多品牌体验。因此，这是创意经济中一个增长很快的部门。”

威廉姆斯更广泛地说，品牌和创作者必须“全面”，而不是专注于单一平台，无论哪一个平台是当下最热门的平台。

威廉姆斯说：“（在Pocket Watch），我们建立了这些多平台特许经营权，我们有消费品和手机游戏。”。“我们有一项令人难以置信的业务，我们将收获的内容从YouTube分发到Hulu、Roku、Peacock等（在流媒体平台上运行）平台。从品牌的角度来看，我认为采取全面的观点很重要。当我们试图为另一家公司激活消费产品时，我们有一个完整的内部创意机构（并且）我们在YouTube上制作定制视频，这样我们就可以在这些定制视频周围传播媒体。”

Patreon创作者合作伙伴关系负责人莎拉·彭纳（Sarah Penna）表示，多平台仍然是播客等多种创作者的最佳基本策略。Patreon让粉丝可以通过订阅和其他货币化选项直接支持特定创作者的项目。

彭纳说：“我们看到的成功播客正在利用YouTube和TikTok等最大的搜索引擎和发现平台。”。“当我们观察在TikTok上拥有大量观众的创作者时，我们推荐的是像预告片一样的开胃菜。然后你需要跳到Instagram或YouTube这样的平台上。”

根据这项研究，大约五分之三的创作者是兼职者，五分之四的创作者是单人创作，这表明了一种近乎手工的内容创作方式。四分之一的创作者每月从帖子中获得的收入不到500美元，只有15%的创作者每月收入超过5000美元。大约三分之二的受访者的订阅人数少于50000。

索瓦伊说：“创作者已经成为数字世界的守门人。”。“这些平台都是他们的母语，创作者对每个平台提供的帮助品牌实现目标的工具有着深刻的理解。”

来源：富比士

链接：https://www.forbes.com/sites/dbloom/2022/11/15/amid-social-media-chaos-where-do-creators-and-brands-find-success/?sh=3817856b40d6

编辑：吴漫

原文：

Amid Social-Media Chaos, How Do Creators And Brands Succeed?

It’s a complex time for brands, marketers and creators navigating the messy social-media sector these days.

Within his first weeks leading TwitterTWTR 0.0%, Elon Musk has laid off half the staff, hired back dozens of them, saw advertisers flee, warned of possible bankruptcy and rapidly rolled out and killed multiple ill-considered initiatives. It’s been reported as “chaotic,” but other suggest the entire social media sector is “ending” and/or “dead.” Over at Meta, after losing close to $10 billion this year building a far-off metaverse future, the company announced 11,000 layoffs and major spending cuts. Even darling-of-the-moment TikTok cut its revenue forecast by a whopping $2 billion and postponed its IPO.

So where does that leave creators trying to make a living on social media, and brands trying to work with them to reach customers?

Not so bad off, it turns out, according to the just-released Influencer Marketing Trends Report by CreatorIQ, which runs end-to-end campaigns for big brands such as Unilever and AB InBev. The survey suggests it’s actually been a good time for influencer marketing.

“Despite signs of an economic downturn, and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, influencer marketing is thriving,” the report says. It suggests the real challenges are getting the budgets and personnel to scale influencer-marketing campaigns larger, and retaining relationships with creators.

For the trend survey, CreatorIQ talked with 236 creators and 163 brands and agencies.

Two-thirds of the brands surveyed said they increased spending in the sector over the past year compared to previously, and three in five have increased their influencer-marketing staff. Long-sought industry standards on metrics – strongly backed by CreatorIQ and some of its biggest clients – arrived this year from the Association of National Advertisers to address one of the sector’s biggest headaches: consistently measuring success.

“Over the past few years, there have been some serious strides in developing full-funnel measurement standards and solutions for the creator marketing industry,” CreatorIQ’s Chief Business Development & Partnerships Officer Tim Sovay said. “This is driving the next phase of growth for the industry, as it helps prove both top- and bottom-of-funnel ROI for creator campaigns down to the dollar, justifying the increased levels of spend going to creators and the overall sector.”

Pay to play—paying creators for a post—is “standard practice” now, according to the survey. The biggest influencers, with more than 1 million followers, are typically paid between $10,000 and $50,000 for a single Instagram post. But even micro-influencers with fewer than 100,000 followers receive, on average, between $500 and $2,500 per post.

And though it’s easy to lose sight amid the noise, established social-media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram remain massive and highly efficient at delivering tightly targeted audiences to brands, said Jim Louderback, former general manager of the industry’s essential VidCon conferences and editor & publisher of Inside the Creator Economy.

“These (established) platforms aren't going anywhere,” said Louderback, who was part of a social-media panel I moderated last week at the virtual Future of TV conference. “There are new platforms rising up that add things that those platforms don't have. And in many ways, we'll see those platforms copying each other. I'm less concerned about platforms dying as I am about all the platforms starting to be the same.”

Next year will be all about video, the survey suggests, especially on TikTok and Instagram’s short-form platform Reels.

“In 2023, the creator economy will run on video,” the survey notes in looking forward. “TikTok currently leads other social platforms in terms of time spent watching video by a factor of 11. Additionally, the platform serves as a primary search engine for Gen Z, and informs purchasing decisions through popular initiatives like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt.”

Sovay said the CreatorIQ data shows that brands and creators are already capitalizing on these social commerce trends to drive sales, with 164% YoY growth in the volume of creator content tagged #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, and 83% YoY growth in the number of brands participating.

But the industry continues to have room for lots of kinds of content and consumption patterns. Platforms such as LinkedIn and podcasting are attracting notable audiences that brands should also embrace, members of my panel suggested.

The challenge for brands will be creating effective strategies in what likely will be a period of tight budgets, thanks to stronger economic pressures, the survey said. If every major platform has short form and long form, live streaming and games and e-commerce, as they are, the entire sector is in danger of becoming an increasingly crowded and homogenized place where brands may have difficulty differentiating the opportunities.

“From a brand perspective, what are you trying to do?” Louderback said. “Are you looking for awareness? TikTok, (YouTube) Shorts, and Reels are a great place. Are you looking for depth and conversion? YouTube still remains a conversion engine. But new platforms like LinkedIn and others are adding other ways for brands to connect to certain other audiences. I think the biggest concern is how many minutes in the day do we have to consume this content?”

TikTok took off during the pandemic and now has more than 1 billion users, showcasing a long string of viral hits and creators, especially musicians. For marketers, TikTok’s rise affected marketers’ campaigns “very significantly” or “somewhat significantly” a whopping 92% of the time.

But Instagram remains the “most integral” platform for two-thirds of brands, with the best return on investment. More than a quarter of other brands named TikTok No. 1 for their campaigns. For many marketers, TikTok was seen as “a powerful secondary program” to their Instagram-first campaigns, according to CreatorIQ’s report.

Despite the cuts at Meta, the broader opportunities for creators on Metaverse-friendly platforms such as Roblox and Minecraft are multiplying, providing brands yet another way to reach especially younger Internet users.

“We see those opportunities growing like wild, especially for the kids space, and let kids lead the way they've led the charge in the whole creator economy,” said David Williams, SVP and general manager of Channels for Pocket.Watch, the big children’s video programming distributor.

“I don't think anyone should be any less bullish about the metaverse because when you look at the kids and kid creators, there's a lot of action happening and a lot of deals,” Williams said. ”Roblox actually recently announced new kinds of monetization. They've released new features that allow you to … do more branded experiences. So this is a sector of the creative economy that is only growing fast.”

Williams said more broadly, it’s important for brands and creators to be “holistic,” not focused on a single platform, no matter which is the hot one of the moment.

“(At Pocket.Watch), we build these multi-platform franchises, and we have consumer products and mobile games,” Williams said. “And we have this incredible business where we distribute content harvested, essentially, from YouTube to (run on streaming) platforms like Hulu and Roku, Peacock and the rest. And from a brand perspective, I think it's important to take that holistic view. When we're trying to activate consumer products for another company, we have a whole internal creative agency (and) we do custom videos on YouTube, that we can actually traffic media around those custom videos.”

Multiplatform remains the best basic strategy for creators of many kinds, such as podcasters, said Sarah Penna, the head of creator partnerships for Patreon, which enables fans to directly support a given creator’s projects with subscriptions and other monetization options.

“The successful podcasters that we're seeing are leveraging places like YouTube and TikTok, the biggest search engines and discovery platforms,” Penna said. “When we look at creators who have their significant audience on TikTok, what we recommend is that's like the teaser, that's the appetizer. You then need to jump onto a platform like an Instagram or YouTube.”

According to the study, about three in five of the creators are part-timers and four in five work solo, which suggests an almost artisanal approach to content creation. A quarter of the creators receive less than $500 a month from their posts, and just 15% make more than $5,000 a month. About two-thirds of those surveyed had less than 50,000 subscribers.

“Creators have become the gatekeepers for the digital world,” Sovay said. “These platforms are their native languages, and creators have a deep understanding of the tools each one offers to help brands best reach their goals.”