How businesses can drive discovery and growth-the role of creators

The way people around the world discover products is changing. Successful businesses are keeping up with these changes to help their products find people in more places.

Thanks to advancements in technology, people are experiencing moments of global discovery online through their mobiles without the need to travel. People are discovering more goods of better quality, and businesses have access to larger addressable markets, can achieve economies of scale across the value chain, and can diversify their risks.

These wide-ranging benefits are part of the reason cross-border business keeps growing. In fact, the world could see cross-border transactions grow from $29 trillion in 2019 to around $39 trillion by 2022.

Today, many people don’t just come to social media to shop, they come to be entertained and inspired. They’re on a journey of discovery. When people are on that journey they discover new brands and products out of the blue and creators—as trusted and influential members of our communities—have a role to play, acting as guides on this journey.

Creators aren’t just popular social media personalities with multitudes of loyal fans using their influence to promote a product or a service. They are entrepreneurs themselves who have built loyalty from their niche. Creators are people who build, produce or create a good, service or content.

They produce everything from long- and short-form videos to newsletters, viral dance moves and sponsored posts on Facebook and Instagram. These are some of the most popular people on the internet; they’re not only plugged into social trends, they’re setting the social trends, and are known to facilitate important discussions on social media.

The value of the creator economy has also increased from $1.7bn per year to $9.7bn—in just five years globally. This fact alone is reason enough to explore why creators are important and understand how businesses can work with them.

But why are people drawn to creators in the first place?

The allure of creators

The biggest misconception is that people are attracted to a creator’s fame when it’s actually their creative originality that is key. From dancers to make-up artists, creators have a unique personality or craft that entertains and inspires us, and—most importantly—it offers us an original perspective.

But why is this useful for businesses?.

In Nigeria alone, the e-commerce market is estimated at 13 billion dollars, with a whopping 89% of internet users being potential shoppers. In fact, analysts put 65% out of the 89% as already existing customers and the remaining 24% as those who are most likely to do so in the future. This space is primarily driven by creators because people trust them.

In another survey of the Ghanaian business landscape, 80% of those surveyed that use the Facebook apps report that Instagram was a beneficial platform for raising finances for the business. This is again driven by the vibrant role of creators in the ecosystem.

Businesses and creators can work together

So we understand why people interact with creators, but how can business

authentically tap into this as a useful tool for marketing?

The key to this is storytelling. Content, created by a brand or otherwise, needs to earn its place in a social media feed. It needs to be arresting, engaging and

entertaining. For steady discovery and growth, businesses need to find creators that will effectively harness the power of storytelling for their brand. Most people would try, purchase or recommend a brand when the content is ‘inspiring’. It’s not enough to rely on a creator’s fame, established trust, or highly engaged audience. It’s about how the creator delivers information. This creative content is crucial to brand success. In a recent study of over 160 creator-driven product sales campaigns, we found a correlation between ads in which the creator used some form of ‘demotainment’ to tell the product story in an entertaining way to convert customers.

When businesses work with creators on a piece of paid content, it has a different job to do than organic content. Paid social content can be shared with spend behind it to help it reach a much wider audience beyond the creator’s own network. Because this content is reaching new people, creativity is as important as the creator delivering it. Which is why it’s necessary to focus on the creator’s craft—a great post is 67% more predictive of positive brand sentiment than a likeable creator.

This has a knock-on effect on how businesses work with creators—they need to make space for creators to do what they do well. If a brand tries to make them an extension of their brand campaign, the collaboration will lose its superpower: authenticity. A creator’s power lies in the fact that their voice and their opinion is authentic to them—it’s not a copy of something else.

Businesses can work with creators in this way across the purchase funnel. Creator effectiveness isn’t limited to just one moment in the purchase funnel. When used alongside other marketing methods, creators can help to build brand awareness, favorability, inspire purchase intent, and drive conversions.

How do you find a creator?

Creator marketing is a mix of art and science—but mostly art. So there’s no easy formula for finding the right creator, but there are a few different ways to think about finding the right fit for your business that work across three main categories.

‘Category fit’ is the most common. For example, if you’re a beauty brand, you might want to partner with a beauty creator, or if you’re a gaming brand, you’ll partner with a gaming creator. This kind of partnership works well for products that benefit from the subject matter expertise that creators can provide, as they can show how a product works or talk about it in-depth in order to make a sale.

If you’re happy to experiment a little further from home, think about a ‘lifestyle fit’, starting with your product and the kind of people who might use it. For instance, if you’re a photo-printing service, a creator with expertise in the interior design space could be the ticket. This level of association will still make it relevant to an audience that’s interested in your brand.

Finally there’s the ‘craft fit’. This approach often creates the most unexpected and rewarding creative. Imagine being a beer brand collaborating with a graffiti artist, or a footwear brand partnering with drag queens. Craft-driven collaborations have the ability to move your brand in new directions, which is why they’re often great at building a brand personality—even while driving sales.

The world of creators is ever expanding. In fact, it is predicted to grow by

another $4.1billion this year alone. Be part of this engaging and creative movement and explore the new frontiers of influence. Now is the time to find creators that will shake up your brand and help new audiences discover your products.

By Elizma Nolte

Regional Marketing Manager, SSA at Meta.