Last weekend, our team attended VidCon to learn about the latest platform updates and hear great insights from content creators and influencer marketing professionals alike. The Anaheim conference featured Creator and Industry Track panels featuring talent like Adam Rose, Astro Alexandra, The TikTok Attorney, and more, along with brand representatives from companies like LTK, YouTube, TikTok, and SHEIN, to name a few.
From panel lessons to overheard conversations, here are our 4 biggest takeaways from VidCon that all influencer marketers and content creators should know:
1) Focus on high-quality video content.
Anyone who is posting to social media, whether they be a content creator or brand marketer, should make sure that they are posting high-quality video content. How is this defined? Consider the technical quality (aka the audio and visual quality of your content), the informative value of your content, and the value of the experience as a whole. Are you providing a high-quality experience to your viewers? Think about the content that gets you to watch through to the end or engage with, and make note of the tactics that draw you in, then apply these tactics to your own content.
P.S. For creators, TikTok’s algorithm and the Creator Rewards Program are rewarding creators who share good quality content, provide value, and post consistently, so follow these guidelines for additional benefits and growth.
2) Provide value in all of your content no matter how long or short.
Your audience needs to care about your content and trust in you in order for you to achieve long term success in the influencer space. Ask yourself how you are providing value in your posts. Are you: Educating? Entertaining? Inspiring? Informing? Celebrating? Even if you are using short-form videos to drive your viewers to watch a longer YouTube or tune into a livestream, make sure that that short tease provides a valuable takeaway for the viewer.
3) Community-strengthening is the next stage of the influencer economy.
Now that content creators have established themselves and built out followings on social platforms, the most successful ones are finding ways to hone in on their core followings and build out a space for their core community to engage with exclusive content and with likeminded followers. Many VidCon panels focused on strategies to hone in on community-building.
This can be done through:
- Subscriber-only content that rewards paying subscribers with exclusive content and members-only benefits, for a small monthly fee (Substack, Patreon, In-App Subscriptions)
- Fan communities like Broadcast Channels, a Facebook Group, YouTube Community, etc.
- Livestreams where followers can ask questions and interact
- IRL experiences like a live podcast taping, meet & greet, or concert
- Merchandise and branded materials that they can purchase to show support for their favorite creators
Both social media platforms and creator-focused companies are all trying to find innovative new ways for creators to activate their top fans and potentially monetize that following.
4) Video content is the new entertainment industry.
This year, we are seeing the convergence of influencers and the entertainment industry truly take off. Peacock hosted a panel discussing its new Emerging Artists Series, where they tapped content creators to collaborate on their own original series for the streaming platform. YouTube is building out new ways to promote serialized content on smart TVs as they notice an uptick in users watching YouTube on their televisions. And media brands like Mythical are becoming full-blown media empires with different series and programming under their flagship brand.
