The Creator Economy - an Economy of Experts
The Creator Economy - an Economy of Experts
Content is the new currency, & content creators are now in high demand. There's a perfectly good reason for that! Content creators have taken the craft of communication & community to the next lvl ...
Content is the new currency, and content creators are now in high demand. There's a perfectly good reason for that! Content creators have taken the craft of communication and community to the next level. They have become experts in many fields.
Not so long ago, there was a point in time where some would probably laugh (internally) at someone telling them, “I upload videos to the internet” when asked about what they do for a living. I remember those days, days in which the safe bet was only to follow the path. Days where playing games all day would make you blind, and where consumers were buying stuff from infomercials on the TV. Fast-forward a few years later, being a content creator has a completely different meaning.
Creators have become the new experts.
Nowadays, everyone can open a YouTube channel, for example, and start sharing with the world whatever subject they are passionate about with just the camera they have in their pocket. I would challenge anyone that thinks differently. Gear does not matter; what actually matters if someone wants to try is to be good at two things. Mastering the craft of telling a good story and building an audience. With only those two things, thousands of creators today are able to make a living by telling their own stories, sharing their experiences and points of view. That’s The Creator Economy.
The reason why they are able to do that is that technology lowered the entry-level to a bare minimum, and creating content enables them to talk about something they are passionate about, something that in most cases they care deeply about, but mostly because they get to share with the world something they have mastered. From video games to fashion, travel, make-up, food, technology. You name it. Content creators are now leading this new revolution.
Recently, I listened to a “No Jumper” podcast episode with Casey Neistat as a guest, where there was a conversation about what Chris Ramsay does on his YouTube channel. The discussion went around how difficult it would be for someone like him 10 years ago to put that content out there. Needless to say, how impossible it would be to go and fetch the idea behind his content to a TV network.
Like many other distribution platforms, YouTube empowers creators like Chris to be able to share with the world their craft. If you are not familiar with Chris's work, he is a great YouTube and magician. He specializes in solving highly complex puzzles. Not the traditional ones, but those amazing boxes you need to solve, like if you were in an Indiana Jones movie. His channel is not only extremely entertaining but also the production quality of his content is out the charts. Highly recommend checking his content out.
And that’s not all of it. The numbers in the space speak for themselves. Brian Tsang, my co-founder at paak.io shared some of those numbers in a post called “The Content Creator Landscape — Visualized.” In that post, you can easily see how much power the creative community holds. And those figures are only representing Instagram. Imagine adding all the other distribution platforms together—the tip of the iceberg.
Creators like Chris Ramsey keep redefining the power of content, and we can see this trend expanding faster than ever. I would bet that no one is buying a cellphone today without checking what the top tech reviewers have to say about it. I’m a huge gamer, but I wouldn't dare to put 80 EUR in a game without going through at least a good hour of games reviews.
The same behavior extends to every aspect of our lives as consumers, where we rely on content creators to help us make better and informed decisions. This was unthinkable a few years back. Content creators are empowering the consumers to better understand and navigate a very complex product ecosystem. That phenomenon is incredibly attractive for brands as well, and it's filing the rise of The Creator Economy.
And let’s remember, for most creators out there, it’s not about selling everything they are offered, not at all. Most creators will work only with brands they use that they believe in and add value to their communities. Otherwise, they will reject the deal, flat and simple. The fact that many creators will reject a good brand deal just because the values of the brand do not align with theirs or because it does not bring any value to their community is sometimes hard for some brands to grasp.
Some weeks ago, if you are interested in the subject, I wrote a post that talked precisely about the value creation has. It’s titled “Creators, Do Not Take Sh** for Free — A short guide to better brand deals.” and talks about how valuable creators are for brands and how to recognize your value as a content creator.
And that’s the beauty and power that lies with content creators. As a content creator myself, I strongly believe that now for the first time in years, we see the beginning of this trend in which content creators, and the communities they have built, hold the power and the key to the content revolution.
So if you are reading this as a content creator in the travel & lifestyle space, and want to get to know a pretty cool brand to work with, be sure to check us out at 👉 paak.io
And if you are a brand or startup looking forward to better work with creators, don’t be a stranger, and reach out!