Most businesses these days are facing the challenges of multi-channel engagement. Whether it’s a mobile app, website, social, or other interfaces, today, every business is in the digital content business. However, the new king in town who manages online commerce is a creator.
Content or commerce?
For most brands, the answer is both. Customers these days are bombarded with ads from influencers and celebrities on different platforms. As a result, there is an excellent requirement for sources of truth for product details before hitting the checkout. Most people these days want to educate themselves about what they must buy.
In an environment where every product category has dozens of different options to choose from. Most get influenced by ads or live content by influencers on social channels or other platforms. Social media walkthroughs, SEO-powered product pages, and much more are key to driving revenue, but the new trend in online commerce.
What is Online Commerce?
Online commerce, often called e-commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods or services over the Internet. It involves online transactions between businesses (B2B), businesses and consumers (B2C), or consumers to consumers (C2C). It can include a wide range of activities like:
Retail Sales: Where businesses sell products directly to consumers through websites or apps (e.g., Amazon, eBay).
Digital Goods: Transactions involving intangible items, like software, music, e-books, or digital subscriptions.
Online Services: Services such as online banking, consulting, education, and entertainment (e.g., a streaming app like Netflix, online courses).
Marketplaces: Platforms that allow individuals or businesses to sell to each other (e.g., Etsy, eBay, and Amazon Marketplace).
The process typically involves browsing product listings, making selections, and completing the purchase through online payment systems, followed by delivery (either digital or physical).
What is Influencer-led Commerce?
Also called content-led commerce, it is the latest iteration in the creator economy. Influencer-led commerce is the strategic integration of suitable media and products to deliver a differentiated shopping experience for customers. Creators are the new face of content commerce; it decreases the friction between commerce and content.
Content-led commerce helps to create seamless purchase experiences that benefit brands, customers, and publishers. Content commerce is one operating system application for the B2B trade, and it will become more relevant as publisher creators become eCommerce businesses.
What is Creator Commerce?
Creator commerce is an emerging subset of eCommerce where influencers, celebrities, and creators sell merchandise to fans. It has evolved the terminology for online personas that impact customers’ purchasing decisions through memes, bite-sized videos, blogs, and podcasts. And all this has just happened over the last five to seven years.
The COVID-19 pandemic has given a boost to this. Now creators have become the centerpiece of business. Many start-ups are now basing the whole business model on the presumption that content creators will drive the next wave of eCommerce.
What is Live Commerce for the Creator Economy?
Start-ups like the Trell, Good Glamm group, Sharechat, and InMori are betting on content creators to drive the next wave of eCommerce. However, Facebook-owned Instagram and Spring partnership has set up a creator fund of $1bn while Google’s YouTube announced a $100 mn corpus for creators.
The influencer marketing spending of FMCG brands like Pepsico, Hindustan Unilever, and Kraft already has 10% of the marketing budget and 30% of the digital marketing budget. India’s influencer marketing industry is valued at $900 crore by 2021. The market is forecasted to grow at 25% CAGR by 2025 and reach around Rs 2,200 crore.
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Over the past years, brands have shown great interest in influencer marketing. However, the pandemic’s spread has accelerated the adoption of online commerce, and influencer marketing, more and more brands are making it an internal part of their brand marketing strategy and is a crucial part of media mix recommendations to brands.
Micro-influencers are the hottest category of creators to hire. Macro-influencers and celebrities have 500k to millions of followers. Today, the influencer space contains different categories of creators and people with varying degrees of proficient aspirations. For example, skilled creators can build a business around their personal brand, while few prefer to develop their creator portfolio on the side.
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Since being introduced in 2016 by Taobao, the live commerce market has experienced steady growth. It reached around US$150bn in 2020, reaching 7.5% of the total annual e-commerce turnover. The meteoric increase of live commerce superstars like Ruhnn fashion queen Zhang Dayi and lipstick king Austin Li Jiaqi have become digital norms, rather than black-swan outliers.
A whole eCommerce industry is formed around live commerce sellers, including management companies, academies, brand incubators, eCommerce operators, and many more.
Content Creators Have Changed the Way Brands Advertise: Explore How?
Influencer-led’ live commerce’ is poised to grow exponentially in India. Now more than ever, most brands keenly monitor marketing trends and adjust their business strategies that help them increasingly point toward digital solutions and reach more customers. Working with influencers and content creators on social media with a large or specific group of followers can be swayed into purchases by compelling messaging, which appears particularly effective.
Most people are aware of marketing by a personality, like Kim Kardashian, who can influence the followers to try a particular product. Today the average person is forecasted to encounter between 6,000 to 10,000 ads every single day. The figure is undoubtedly double compared to that which was measured in 2007. Hence it becomes crucial for brands to focus on new ways of marketing, and live commerce is an effective way to increase sales and profit.
There are numerous reasons why content creators are influential. Check a few of them right here:
1. Builds trust
2. Improve brand recognition
3. Creates leads
There are many more benefits that brands can enjoy by getting help from content creators. They provide a way for brands to stand apart. It’s an essential marketing technique for almost all online businesses in today’s modern world. Content creators can help brands educate, entertain, and inspire their targeted customers.
Content creators use high-quality images, videos, memes, podcasts, and blogs to stand out. Few of them even use relevant keywords within the content. Eventually, it helps you build trust with your audience. Above all, having a consistent content creation schedule is crucial in guaranteeing a steady flow of leads.
Platform & Start-ups: Explore Top Creators Are Using and Interested in!
Several platforms have emerged as content creator hubs in recent years, each offering a unique way for brands to leverage the influence of creators:
Good Glamm Group
The Good Glamm Group turned unicorn in November. With D2C brands like The MomsCo, Sirona, and BabyChakra in its fold, the company has acquired a new media network MissMalini, to leverage its reach of around 60 million users every month. Glamm Group has around 150 million users coming to brands through the content assets. The brand has access to 250,000 nano and micro-influencers through the influencer marketing platform, Plixxo.
Trell
Another start-up that has creators at its core is Trell. Owned by Trell Experiences Pvt, Trell, is a lifestyle social commerce solution. The company is based in Bangalore and used by Indian communities to share experiences with like-minded people in the form of 3-minute videos.
Trell is available in 8 Indian languages across 20 Lifestyle categories. The platform launched social commerce in October 2020, allowing users to purchase personal care, wellness, and beauty products from the influencers’ videos. The social commerce platform has 10 million active users and around 18 million creators.
Creators on the social commerce platform earn between ₹25,000 to ₹5lakh each month, depending on the number of brand collaborations they take up. The homegrown influencers include Tanya Manavalan, Mehak Arora, Anuska Hazra, and Karishma Rawat, who earn the highest payouts ₹ 2 to 3 lakh a month.
YouTube bought the Indian social commerce platform SimSim. SimSim was founded in 2019; the social commerce platform enables creators to post video reviews regarding products from local businesses. Viewers can view and purchase the product directly through the social commerce app.
SimSim
The social commerce platform, SimSim, provides video content in three regional languages, including Tamil, Hindi, and Bengali. SimSim is looking to enable retailers of all types and sizes to tap buyers in the language they are more familiar with.
The video-streaming giant, YouTube, has announced a $100 million fund that will pay creators worldwide to adopt its short-video features, even as Meta. Even Amazon CEO Andy Jessy is also showing interest and thinking of ramping up its live-streaming service OTT platform, Prime Videos, and Twitch.
Short-video start-ups like Roposo, Sharechat, and Chingaari have entered the race since the Ban on Chinese Apps. Instagram Reels also dominates the creator’s economy; in India, the platform is asking for 40 to 45% of content. The key pillars of the influencer marketing industry growth in India are how legacy consumer brands react to influencer-led commerce’s growth.
The critical factor for brands’ interest is the bond of authenticity and trust that influencers share with the audiences. Therefore, helping brands associate with creators to leverage the same. Almost two-thirds of the Indian population these days follow an influencer. Thus, brands can interpret that creative storytelling and influencers correlate with brand differentiation, a primary advantage as attention spans get shorter.
Ending Note
Content creators have always been integral to digital D2C brands; the big traditional customer brands realize that it’s not used to getting a few posts by celebrities during a festival season or product launch. However, the way most influencer marketing happens for micro-content is by creating one-off posts on social media.
Celebrities and macro-influencers have anywhere from 5,00,000 to millions of followers on social media platforms; micro-influencers are typical with followerships of 20,000 to 1,00,000. The influencer marketing expenditure of brands like Hindustan Unilever, PepsiCo, and Kraft is around 10% of the marketing budget of the digital ad spend.
Most eCommerce brands hire creators to advertise their products and increase business sales these days. They choose different ways to grab customers’ attention on social commerce and other platforms. If you are looking to develop such a platform that makes it easier for you to go live through video or audio content, Alphanso Technology can help you with it. Get in touch with us at sales@alphansotech.com to know how we can help you with the same.
FAQs
Who is the “Creator” in managing online commerce?
The “Creator” refers to an individual who plays a central role in managing and growing online commerce, often by leveraging their influence, content, and expertise to drive sales and engagement. They could be an entrepreneur, influencer, or content creator with a focus on the digital marketplace.
How does the “Creator” contribute to online commerce management?
The “Creator” manages online commerce by producing engaging content, collaborating with brands, driving social media campaigns, and interacting with audiences to increase product visibility and sales.
Why is the “Creator” the new king in online commerce management?
The “Creator” is considered the new king due to their ability to combine content creation, digital marketing, and customer engagement into a single powerful force.
What skills does the “Creator” need to excel in online commerce?
To succeed, the “Creator” needs a combination of creativity, marketing knowledge, social media expertise, and the ability to analyze data. Understanding trends, building a personal brand, and engaging with an audience are all key components to mastering online commerce.
How does the “Creator” interact with businesses and brands?
The “Creator” often collaborates with brands to create content that resonates with their audience while promoting products. This can involve sponsored posts, product placements, affiliate marketing, and influencer partnerships—all of which contribute to growing the brand’s reach and driving sales.
What role does the “Creator” play in social media marketing?
The “Creator” is a driving force in social media marketing, as they are skilled at generating buzz, curating content, and using their online presence to influence consumer behavior. By creating relatable, engaging, and shareable content, they help brands build loyalty and attract new customers.