Are there too many influencers?
It never once crossed my mind that I should try to become an influencer. Then, I wrote a series of poetry books in 2020 and not a single book agent would consider publishing my work unless I had a massive social media following.
So in 2021, I set out to make content on TikTok about love and relationships — topics that tied into my writing. At the time, I had very modest goals. Reach 10,000 followers and then start querying agents again to sell my books. Now, a year later, I’ve surpassed my follower goals on TikTok, I’m creating videos for Youtube, I’ve landed multiple brand deals, and I’ve made thousands of dollars in just a few short months after taking influencer marketing seriously.
Is the influencer market oversaturated?
And as it turns out, there are a lot of other people becoming influencers and content creators right now too — and their platform of choice is TikTok.
TikTok is the world’s fastest-growing social media app. It has one billion active users and of them, eighty-three percent have posted a video. That’s a lot of video content being uploaded onto the site and subsequently being crossposted on other apps like Instagram, Pinterest, and Youtube. Now, some marketing experts and mega influencers who have been in the business for the past decade are asking whether the influencer market is oversaturated since so many more people are creating content and thus, competing for the same limited attention of audiences.
Youtube star Emma Chamberlain says social media culture is dead
One mega internet star who theorizes the power of influencer marketing is changing is Emma Chamberlain. Chamberlain, who rose to fame through her Youtube videos, amassing more than 14 million subscribers, said on her podcast back in April that the strength of influencers is on the decline. Now that there are more people posting “day in the life” vlogs on social media, the concept of peeking into someone’s life doesn’t have the same novelty as it did just a few years ago, she reasons.
Celebrities who have benefited from audience interest in “day in the life” content are the Kardashians, who are considered the most powerful influencers in the world. The family built their fame through their reality show, which gave audiences backstage access to their daily lives. When the show first premiered in the mid-2000s, it felt like a new, fresh concept to see the ultra-wealthy showcasing their lives in full display for the public.
Despite the Kardashians being on TV for several years now, they are still influential. They’ve solidified their place in modern pop culture not just as reality stars, but also as businesswomen, launching successful products that they sell to their fanbase. And their longevity in the media has been one of the main reasons they’ve been so successful. In the world of marketing, staying top of mind with consumers helps brands build trust, love, and loyalty, which the Kardashians have with their following.
It’s easier to create content for influencer marketing
Nowadays though, you don’t need a TV network to pilot a show about your life or even a DSLR camera to film Youtube videos to make content for social media and build a following. TikTok has changed consumers’ expectations of video content. Low-lift videos created by users, as known as user-generated content (UGC), have become more desirable to watch because it feels authentic to audiences.
I’ve found that my best-performing videos on TikTok aren’t highly produced (and I have a professional background in filming, editing, and show producing). Instead, my highest-watched videos are simply of me speaking into the camera and sharing my life experiences, expertise, and opinions.
Creating low-lift video content like this is easier and more accessible thanks to a number of new mobile apps that have simple video editing suites. I think that’s why there are more people creating videos right now than in the past 10 years — that’s how long I’ve been working in professionally in the social media space. With its lower barrier to entry and the possibility of making a good income through content creation, there are more people attempting to become influencers. In fact, influencer marketing-related services and companies grew by 26 percent in 2021, according to Linkfluence. Additionally, the influencer market grew from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $13.8 billion in 2021, according to Influencer Marketing Hub.
But as more influencers enter the industry, how many of them are actually influencing audiences?
Do influencers really influence?
There is some anecdotal evidence claiming the strength of influencer marketing is diminishing. Back in 2019, an Instagram influencer with more than 2 million followers couldn’t sell more than 36 T-shirts to her followers. And marketing experts say that’s not uncommon, mainly because followers don’t equate to consumers. Additionally, 50 percent of businesses launched by influencers fail more than 50 percent of the time — but that’s pretty similar to small business failures. In fact, only 25 percent of small businesses last more than 15 years.
Does that mean influencer marketing is dead? Not necessarily. In marketing, converting audiences into purchasing customers can be a challenge, especially if you’re an emerging brand. And we can think of influencers as brands who have cultivated a following based on the identity they’ve created online with their content. And even major brands struggle with this, especially at a time when the brand name doesn’t always guarantee sales and market saturation is high for many categories.
Do brands want to work with influencers?
It is the golden age of brand deals. Forbes reports that brands are projected to spend $15 billion on influencer marketing during 2022. However, I’m a bit skeptical of this number as inflation continues to worsen and consumer sentiment grows pessimistic about the economy, which usually means that companies start cutting their marketing budget as a way to save money. And influencer marketing could fall into this cost-cutting bucket should we enter a recession.
Additionally, as social media platforms fill up with sponsored posts and branded content, some audiences are craving authentic connections from creators.
I think the issue isn’t that there are too many influencers competing for the same amount of attention from audiences. Rather, audiences are looking for the next big thing to keep them engaged like a new platform, a new style of storytelling, or a new concept.
As digital consumers, we’ve been trained to expect something greater because social media algorithms are always promoting more extreme versions of opinions and content that we’re watching. And creators constantly have to adapt to make themselves seem appealing to audiences.
For example, when I originally started uploading content to TikTok, it was mainly content based on my writing and poetry, but I wasn’t getting the traction I was looking for, so I started posting about my personal experiences with love and relationships. Those topics resonated with viewers and my audience started to grow. Every few months, I saw that my growth would stall out, so I had to reinvent myself in a different way. For instance, I started sharing my tips and stories about working a corporate job and being a manager. That helped me continue to grow my following. Then I expanded my brand by sharing content about money, finance, and investing. That pivot helped me increase the scope of my brand. For a long time, I resisted posting “day in the life” vlogs because I didn’t want to give away too much of my life.
But as my growth stalled again on social media, my video views dropped, and my brand deals slowed down, I pivoted again. I recently started sharing small glimpses into my life to see if that sort of content resonated with my followers.
@jareenimam Spent the day not focusing on work @jareenimam #AmazonVirtualTryOn #worklifebalancegoals #sundayscariesbegone #corporatetiktokers #womenincorporate #comewithmevlog ♬ Aesthetic Girl - Yusei
The moral of the story is that as a content creator or influencer, you have to be adaptable and constantly change because you’re operating on someone else’s platform and you’re playing by their rules. This causes a lot of influencers to make content that over time feels largely the same, and unoriginal. When audiences feel like everything is a “repost,” that’s when we start reaching levels of market saturation and consumer fatigue.
@jareenimam Thanks @tarityabyankita for the earrings 💕 @jareenimam #PerfectPrideMovement #selfcaredays #worklifebalancing #njfinds #nyeats #comewithmevlog ♬ Aesthetic Girl - Yusei
Is becoming a mega influencer possible?
If your goal is to become a megastar like Emma Chamberlain, Charli d’Amelio, or David Dobrik, it will probably be a lot harder to reach those levels of fame and success now because of market saturation. We all know virality is a big part of helping drive exposure and brand awareness, but as more video content is uploaded on Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube, it can be hard to break through the noise. Unless you’re new to an emerging platform or have amazing luck to have your content consistently go viral, chances are the way to become a successful influencer is to focus on being a consistent content creator.
Audiences want more than a spokesperson to vouch for brands. Nowadays, they want to relate to content and be a part of a community. Instead of striving for 2018 influencer celebrity status, it may be worth focusing more on community building and audience development because ultimately, the most powerful part of an influencer isn’t their aesthetic or brand, it’s their audience.
Cultivating authentic connections with viewers is something companies, brands, and celebrities strive to do all the time. If you’re a content creator looking to grow your brand in a meaningful way with your audience, then here are a few things you can start doing today:
Research the audiences for your niche
Whether you create relationship content or personal finance content, each niche has its own audience. Look to see what other creators are posting about in your niche and don’t just watch their videos, look through their comments. See what their community is asking for and check whether you can help fill in the gaps by providing your own expertise.
Engage with your community
Every comment you get on your videos is an opportunity to make a meaningful connection. If someone says they like your video and you notice they don’t follow you, ask them to give you a follow. Providing a call to action in your comments can help inspire viewers to subscribe to your channel.
Deliver on promises
If you say you’re going to start a series or launch a product, provide a status update to your community. For example, I had to tell my community during the start of my TikTok journey that I was pivoting away from poetry content to relationship-based content, but I was still planning to work on finding an agent to release my book. Even though I haven’t published my books yet, I did keep my audience informed about my plans because some of them followed me because they wanted to keep hearing about my literary work.
Get personal
Posting videos of trends and viral sounds can help get you views, but you need more personal and substantive content to convert a viewer into a follower. Ninety percent of your content will most likely not go viral, but that’s OK. That 90 percent of content is created for your current followers. That content is something they want to watch and that’s why they’ve subscribed to your channel.
Create, reiterate, adapt, and evolve
Being a content creator on a social media platform means your strategy will always be changing because you’re trying to hit a moving target thanks to how often social media algorithms change. One month’s strategy may not work next month. When you see dramatic shifts in your views, don’t panic — experiment. This is an opportunity to assess your content. Have you deviated too far from your niche? What are other creators doing? Should you try something new?
Creating content with new hooks, music, topics, and formats could help your channel feel fresh and help audiences discover your content.
Like what you’re reading? Follow me on TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram to see more stories and tips about love, money, and work.
Should you be filming 10-minute videos on TikTok?
TikTok now has 10-minute videos, but should you start making them?
It seems like every app wants to be like TikTok nowadays with its snappy videos and trending sounds. But TikTok has other plans.
TikTok announced at the end of February 2022 that it was going to offer creators the option to film videos as long as 10 minutes. It’s a big move for a social platform that is known for short videos. There are many TikTokers who believe the move is in an effort to viral YouTube where long-form content is commonplace and in certain niches, expected. Already, users on TikTok are speculating that the app is prioritizing longer videos because many users are experiencing low video views for videos under a minute.
I’ve personally uploaded two different videos to test out whether the rumors are true. I filmed a 1-minute video about the internet’s reaction to Kim Kardashian's “work more” comments in a Variety Magazine interview on a Friday evening. The video only got about a thousand views, which is not a good showing on my channel because I have about 70,000 followers.
So the following day, Saturday midday, I posted a 3-minute video that was a longer version of Kim Kardashian's “work more” controversy. That video also underperformed, with less than a thousand views. Of course, there are other factors to consider when assessing performance metrics, like when the video was posted, but overall, I didn’t see any evidence on my channel that longer videos are being prioritized by TikTok.
I personally don’t think TikTok is introducing 10-minute videos to rival Youtube. I think TikTok wants to be more like Youtube in the sense that it wants to monetize more of the content on its app with advertising. If you go onto Youtube, you’ll find videos that are anywhere from 2 minutes to hours long. For instance, I recently published a 17-minute long tutorial on Youtube about how to turn a hand-drawn work of art into an NFT design using Canva. I would have never posted or made a video like that on any other platform. And the reason I feel like I can make videos that long on YouTube isn’t because I have the space to make them as long as I want. Rather, I feel like I have the opportunity to be compensated for my time through YouToube’s monetization program.
Youtube creators who are successful at monetizing their videos can earn millions of dollars thanks to YouTube’s advertising program. However, TikTok’s creator fund doesn’t work in the same way. That’s led to a lot of frustration for TikTok creators who have gained millions of videos but earned only a few dollars on the platforms. When TikTok pays creators from the creator fund, it is essentially pulling from a limited pool of money that the company gives to creators based on their video views and watch times. And as more creators join the fund, the smaller TikTok’s payouts become, critics have said.
TikTok however, has denied these claims, saying there’s plenty of money to go around. In the summer of 2020, the company said they were expecting to grow the creator fund to over $1 billion in the U.S. in the next 3 years and double that figure globally. Since then, the company that owns TikTok, ByteDance, has ballooned in growth. Increasing its revenue 70 percent year-over-year in 2021 to $58 billion, according to Reuters.
However, that revenue growth hasn’t translated to higher payouts for TikTok creators. It’s caused some creators like author Hank Green, who has more than 6 million followers on TikTok, to flee the platform and join Youtube because he claims that it doesn’t financially make sense for him to be spending so much time on TikTok’s platform if the creator fund doesn’t compensate creators fairly.
"Literally, when TikTok becomes more successful, TikTokers become less successful,” Green said in a video that has gained hundreds of thousands of views.
I, myself, have about 70,000 followers and although I have plenty of videos that have garnered millions of views, I have only made about $40 from the creator fund since I joined in late 2021. (I’ve made more money through Google Ad Sense on this blog.)
Now that TikTok is introducing 10-minute videos, there are many questions about whether TikTok creators will be compensated in the same way as Youtube creators. I suspect not because where exactly is TikTok getting that revenue from? YouTube, which is owned by Google, has a thriving, multi-billion dollar ad revenue business. For instance, it’s common for popular videos to rank on Google’s search engine, thus driving SEO traffic to the creators' videos. Youtube videos are also easy to embed into websites and blogs and are generally much easier to discover. Whereas, TikTok videos are hard to discover on the platform, and their embedding feature isn’t compatible with many websites and platforms. In addition, Youtube advertisers can buy programmatic ads, display ads, banner ads and more to be featured alongside popular Youtube videos. TikTok doesn’t have this infrastructure – yet.
Slowly, I think TikTok will integrate more ways for advertisers to participate on its platform beyond branded content, sponsored posts, and sponsored hashtags. But it will obviously take time.
Even if TikTokers have the option of posting longer videos, there are no clear answers about whether creators will be compensated for their time. But in a world where social media popularity is a form of currency, maybe some creators don’t really mind not getting paid for their time and effort.
Using infographics in your content strategy
Who doesn’t love a good data visualization?
With attention spans growing shorter for digital users, infographics are a great way to convey complex information in an easy-to-read format. More than 65% of brands are using infographics in their content marketing, according to Xerox, and usage is expected to continue rising in 2022.
Not only can it be easier for brands to communicate with their audiences using infographics, but the medium can also help some brands drive engagement from their social media channels to their website, according to digital marketing experts at DemandGen.
Personally, I find infographics awkward. Usually, I find many of them to be sized incorrectly, or they are too long, too cluttered, or filled with too much information. They remind me of the internet in the mid-2000s when everyone was really eager to take a lot of data and distill that information down to digestible graphics so that social media users, especially Twitter users, would share them in their posts.
However, I think there’s an opportunity for a lot of brands, especially media companies, to update how they use infographics. And the good news is, you don’t have to have a big budget to make infographics nowadays. Thanks to websites like Canva, it’s far easier for content creators and small brands to make high-impact infographics with affordable software.
Not only can infographics help you tell visual stories, but they can help you create backlinks, which could increase your website or content rank in Google search. Backlinks, also known as link building, help brands rank high in organic search results when the links come from relevant, high-quality websites that Google thinks have authority. Therefore, creating an infographic strategy that is relevant to your niche or brand is essential.
For instance, in the video above, I detail how you can create an infographic in Canva. But the core message of my infographic is why brands should lean into video storytelling. The theme of that infographic is important because I write about brand building for my blog and that’s the content I also publish on Youtube. Therefore, I’m trying to be an authority in Google’s eyes when it comes to marketing and content development because it relates to my niche.
Below is the infographic gif I made in Canva. It’s the same one I recreate in the Youtube video above:
If making infographics seems like a good strategy for your brand, then here are some great tools that you can use to start designing your own infographics today:
How to make infographics for free
Free to use and easy to make, I can’t recommend Canva enough. To access their infographic tool, all you need to do is sign up for a free account, and start customizing pre-set templates. One thing to keep in mind is to make sure that the sizing of your infographic is appropriate. I see infographics that are often very long, and they don’t fit most blogs or social posts.
Visme is another platform that allows you to make infographics for free. It also uses a template model which allows users to sign up or use their guest option in order to start customizing their templates. It’s easy to use, and they have a good set of templates to choose from that can fit your brand.
Venngage has a free infographic maker. The website makes you sign in first before you can start using it. It has really nice, bold designs that you can customize to fit your needs. It’s similar to Visme, in my opinion, although I think Visme is a bit better and easier to use.
Pickmonkey has a free trial option. It’s by the company Shutterstock so they have a wide inventory of stock images and graphics to choose from as you build your infographic. Personally, I think the other options above are quite powerful, so if you want to save a little money, I suggest using those options first.
What size should my infographic be?
Sizing of your infographic is dependent on what platform you’re posting on. Therefore, if you want to publish on your blog, generally, I recommend a vertical infographic between 600 to 1100 pixels wide. However, for shorter infographics, you can increase the height of the pixels to 2000. If you want to publish infographics onto social media, then you’ll need to build them to fit the platforms you’re aiming to publish on. Typically, long vertical infographics are not suitable for most social media platforms.
The social media analytics dashboard company, Hootsuite, has an informative chart on social media sizes for 2022 that you can use as a guide.
And here’s an example of a customized infographic I made that was social specific so that I could share it on Linkedin:
As you can tell, infographics can still be an effective way to communicate complex information to readers. I think they can be great for presentations, business-to-business (B2B) content and communication strategies, sales meetings, and driving social media and website engagement. Therefore, I encourage you to try making an infographic for your brand, business, or publication, and let me know how it goes. Creating a variety of different types of content for your channels can help you potentially reach and engage current and new audiences because everyone processes information differently.