Creator Partnership Options on Social Media You Might Have Overlooked

As the term influencer is slowly replaced with creator, these highly influential individuals are more important for businesses to collaborate with than ever before.

Standing out on social media is challenging given how saturated these channels have become, and fostering a long-term connection with customers is even more difficult.

Creators are beneficial partners as their unique perspectives and engaged communities can help your organization reach the right people, build familiarity and trust, and drive sales.

These partnerships have long been dominated by big brands with big budgets, which isn't going to change even if budgets are slimmer, but now businesses of all sizes have options.

In this first 2023 edition of Social Media Marketing Trends, we'll look at how the increase in micro-influencers gives small businesses more choices, creative ways companies and non-profits can partner with creators, and hiring creators as social media managers.

Micro-influencers come out on top

Micro-influencers are creators that are typically known for their expertise in a certain subject area as opposed to more broad coverage to their social media use. They don’t usually have millions of followers but instead have anywhere from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of people following them. Often this makes them a more affordable partner to work with, especially for small businesses with tighter marketing budgets.

A specific focus and smaller following often means their audience is a lot more engaged, which is an opportunity for brands to partner with these creators and impact their followers. And that’s a key benefit of working with the right micro-influencers as engagement on their content is often higher as their audience is very interested in the topic they’re known for.

To succeed when partnering with micro-influencers, it’s even more important that you’re finding creators that are the right match for the products and services you want to promote. Because their audience is particularly connected to the subject matter they cover, their followers are even more sensitive to misaligned partnerships. One recommendation for finding the right partners to work with is creating a list of the primary use cases of your products or services and the types of customers who use them.

Creators as brand consultants

There’s more value to working with creators than just having them post about your products. Numerous organizations are embracing creators as brand consultants. Creators are well-suited to teach your organization how to develop more effective messaging and better use social media given they have firsthand experience in how to gain attention.

BDG Media (a portfolio company of publications like Bustle, Elite Daily, and Nylon) works with creators in a consulting capacity for advice on how to grow their TikTok accounts, plus this group of 150-200 creators creates content for these brands to publish from their profiles.

To follow in their footsteps, search TikTok, Instagram, or another social network for creators who have built an audience and publish engaging content related to your industry. Look for smaller creators, likely under 10,000 followers, as they're in the sweet spot of having the expertise and interest in social media being their full-time career, and are still open to a range of partnerships at reasonable rates. To unlock the full potential of these partnerships, be open and willing to try something new.

Collaborating with creators as a nonprofit

One area of opportunity for nonprofits on social media is partnering with creators. Unfortunately, collaborating with influencers has been difficult for nonprofits as creators are used to getting generously paid by brands, which isn't easy to duplicate.

Acknowledging the inability to compensate influencers in the same way as the private sector is the first step, as nonprofits need to find alternative ways of making these collaborations work. Artis Stevens, the President, and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America suggests partnering with companies in the private sector to share resources as you enter collaborations with creators, reaping some of the benefits while minimizing the costs.

Hiring creators as social media managers

More brands are hiring creators to be the full-time face of their company on TikTok and manage their account instead of a traditional social media manager. Brands like Care/of Vitamins, Nerf, GoPuff, and Olipop have hired TikTok creators to run their accounts so the same person or group of people are regularly highlighted in their content. This is a win-win for both sides, as your organization is able to hire talent that has first-hand expertise in how to drive results on the platform, and it’s a viable career path for creators. Their audience size matters as larger creators attracting big sponsorship deals aren’t likely to be interested in working with one company.

This is a highlight reel of my LinkedIn Learning course on?Social Media Marketing Trends , which has been taken by over 120,000+ students.