Gone are the days when brands reached out to creators and gave them instructions for sponsored posts. Now, brands are working closely with influencers to brainstorm and produce content for their social channels — and even to define their social strategies. This move towards authentic and natural (rather than obvious) marketing could render highly polished ads outdated and ineffective.
The brand’s gateway to the creator’s audience
The rise of TikTok and the ensuing ubiquity of short-form video content has made creators indispensable to marketers.
- In a recent survey from HubSpot, 33% of marketers reported leveraging short-form video on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts as the backbone of their marketing strategies.
- 90% said they would increase or maintain their investment in short-form video in 2023.
- 20% said they plan to begin creating short-form content for the first time this year.
Really good at speaking “Internet”
Many brands want to emulate the user-generated content style in their short-form videos, even when they’re not hiring creators to produce those videos.
Back in the day, ads would interrupt content, but now ads may just become indistinguishable from the content itself.