Alyssa Stevens, Director of Public Relations & Social MediaIn early April, I headed down to the Sunshine State to attend PI LIVE Miami, a conference centered around building profitable partnerships through influencers, creators, affiliates, and more. I spent two days soaking up industry knowledge from top marketers, e-commerce brands, and leading content creators. 

The bottom line is that the consumer journey is no longer linear—in fact, it’s everything but. As marketers, we need to meet and influence consumers at every potential discovery point. What was evident during the conference is that the influencer marketing industry is continuing to grow exponentially. With more than 300 million people worldwide identifying as creators, it’s not surprising that Adobe recently reported that 25% of a brand’s consumers are creators with influence. Could 2023 truly be the year of the creator? 

In order to capitalize on the power of creators beyond their social media presence, you need to be strategic. Integration between cross-functional teams has never been more crucial and marketers need to think outside the box.  

Intrigued to learn more? Here are four key takeaways from PI LIVE Miami this year:

Climb Into the Mindset of Your Consumer

In order to market to your target audience, you have to develop a deep understanding of their mindset. Sounds simple, right? But that consumer discovery should also involve their social media search behavior. How does your consumer look for ideas on social media, find new influencers to follow, and embrace content trends? When marketers look to engage influencers, they should first search for their product/brand/campaign theme on social media to see the type of content and influencers the consumer would naturally find if they were to do this search themselves. From there, they can reverse engineer this process by creating a brief/campaign and choosing influencers that emulate what their target audience would find in the wild. This way, when the content comes to life and is posted on social media, it will resonate with the intended audience. 

Recruit Creators Like You Would Employees

The landscape has never been richer for brands to tap into their existing customer base to find influencers and content creators. But how do brands find them? Take an approach that’s similar to employee recruitment. Existing customers who know and love your brand will always offer the most authentic collaborations. Create a landing page on the brand’s website that invites influencers to apply to work with the brand and be part of their creator partnerships. From there, the brand can evaluate who in their existing customer base has social influence and also wants to support the brand in a more meaningful way on social media. This can cut out the guesswork for the brand while also leveraging authentic partnerships with its most influential customers. 

Use Generative AI to Inspire—but Not Replace—Creators

Chat GPT and its counterparts have taken the world by storm. As we embrace AI technology across various verticals, it’s important to consider how it can aid creators and human workflows instead of replacing them. Generative AI is meant to inspire and provide efficiencies with content generation. Content creators and influencers will still ideate with marketers around campaigns, but as AI evolves, they should also be empowered to bring it into the fold during the concept and content development phases to provide efficiencies. Creators could make one piece of content and then utilize AI to expand that content to multiple platforms, formats, and even languages! The speed at which AI can help create content is unmatched and if done in collaboration with a creator, there is no doubt it will revolutionize marketers’ ability to reach consumers across various content mediums. 

Don’t Be Afraid to Negotiate With Creators

The creator economy is exactly that. An economy. And the delivery of goods and services in exchange for monetary compensation is at the heart of a healthy ecosystem. Just like marketers wouldn’t take a magazine’s rate card at face value, they should also feel empowered to negotiate with creators. Think through the core deliverables that you really want and why, as well as what you can offer the influencer to sweeten the deal. Are you planning to whitelist/amplify their posts and offer them added exposure to new audiences? Will you be highlighting them on your social media or a website with credit to their page? Can you set up a revenue-sharing model based on post performance? All of these additional campaign attributes can help with negotiating influencer rates to ensure that a brand achieves the best deliverables/ROI from a collaboration and that influencers feel that their partnership is valued. 

Alyssa Stevens, Director of PR and Social Media
Paul M. Capobianco, Cultural Anthropologist 

We hear a lot about creating content with the goal of having it go “viral,” but in actuality, that shouldn’t be what we’re working to achieve. 

Yes, in today’s digital age, it’s more important than ever for brands to have a strong presence on social media, but it really comes down to creating content that moves the needle. Content should not only be engaging and entertaining, but also powerful enough to make people want to be part of it and share it. 

When content goes viral, it gets shared exponentially and reaches a massive audience in a short period of time. And while viral content can be highly effective in terms of brand exposure, it’s almost impossible to predict what will go viral—and if it does, it can also be difficult for brands to control.

Instead, at Connelly Partners, we like to encourage our clients to strive for “spreadable” content. 

Spreadable content is shared by multiple users across different platforms and networks but it is remixed with their own personality or experience. It’s often shared because it resonates with a particular audience or because it sparks a conversation or debate. Spreadable content has the potential to reach a large audience, but it doesn’t necessarily have to go viral to be successful. The sheer idea of people wanting to be a part of the content speaks volumes to its effectiveness. 

As marketers, we’re always trying to conceptualize how to create a memorable and spreadable moment on social media for our clients. This often comes with evaluating the risk-reward factor. Risks, albeit calculated, can often make brands feel uncomfortable, especially when those risks are taken on platforms like TikTok, which can garner high impressions and engagements. But the reward? Well, the rewards can be immeasurable when a social campaign is well-received by the public—especially when an audience is inclined to share their own spin on it!

One of my favorite examples of spreadable content is the #ThousandDollarCrocs challenge on TikTok. In collaboration with the popular artist, Post Malone, the brand asked consumers what their own thousand-dollar Crocs would look like. In turn, they received a plethora of people bedazzling their Crocs with paint, stickers, and other personal touches. So many people posted their creations that the campaign ended up resulting in nearly three billion views—and when the $1,000 Post Malone x Crocs shoes launched, they sold out immediately! 

The book, Spreadable Media, by American scholar Henry Jenkins dives into this differentiation by challenging readers’ notions about what goes “viral” and examining the factors such as audience engagement or participation against the concepts of what “sticks” and what “spreads.”

If we go back to the actual definition of a “virus” and how that ties back to social content, it makes even more sense why this shouldn’t be what we’re trying to achieve. People aren’t just acting as passive host cells by copy and pasting viral content – they are taking part in it creatively. Spreadable content is truly a remix and when someone participates in the progression of it, it has something to do with who they are, which is much more profound. We’re able to glean what resonates with people and reverse-engineer those human reasons or guidelines to then create future social content that is spreadable.

So, why should brands be open to taking risks in order to create a spreadable moment on social media? When brands relinquish some control over the creative process and allow their audience to “co-create,” the audience sees the investment on the brand side around this real and relatable content. It welcomes people into the brand’s community and invites them to contribute, thereby lifting the barrier between the brand and consumer. Authenticity is inherently spreadable, and as humans, we want to be part of something authentic.

Marketers and brands can learn far more from spreadable content than viral content because each person that participates in the content tells you something about themselves, as opposed to leaving it ambiguous through a simple “Share” button. When we encourage this shift in thinking among our clients, we’re unlocking fresh ways to express authenticity and brand values. 

At the end of the day, content is the biggest driver of your social media presence, and if you can create content that people want to actively participate in, your potential for success skyrockets. 

How does your social media measure up?