It is 2022 and we are living in a digital world. More so after the recent pandemic increased the engagement rate and consumerism on the internet. We are living under the shade of Social media which is an online platform that supports content sharing, collaboration, and interaction.
We use it to stay in touch with our friends and family that are distant from us or just to share memes and a laugh.
This is the social media age where an average person spends at least 2hrs and 29 minutes on the internet on a daily basis. It has been reported that Generation Z spends 4 hours on average on all social media platforms to access news, entertainment, or shop.
It is right to say that the internet has a market of its own and content on social media sells. According to the latest data, there are at least 207 million digital content creators across platforms like TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, Twitch, and more.
By this point, you can guess, where this post is headed. Social media isnโt only meant for entertainment when you can earn money from it, or else why do you think all these influencers spend the majority of their time online?
Without further adieu, letโs look into the topic.
1. What Is a Digital Creator?
A digital creator is a person who engages in content creation like videos, photos, blog posts, reels anything across the digital platforms already mentioned above. Not only this but they also create their own brands and sell products. You must have come across various websites that sell online courses, this is also a part of digital content.
A content creator first finds a specific niche, something they want their content to be about. They decide on a theme symbolic of their channel, of course, there can be diversity in content, however, their niche is what that social media page specializes in.
The content could be educational, entertaining, tutorials, or anything. Once this is set, digital creators start creating content around the same. After that, through youtube analytics or other social media analytics, they get the overview and also the demographics of their audience. It also shows them the time when their content was most viewed.
These stats aid them to increase engagement rate and more views from their target audience. This is called optimization. You follow up with the social media algorithm and tick mark its criteria to get your contentโs rank high.
2. Kinds of Digital Content
There are numerous kinds of engaging content that you can try a go at. Some of them are:
2.1 Video
One of the most popular types of online information is video. They can be music videos, educational videos, entertainment videos, vlogs, tutorials, or anything.
2.2 Photos
Beautiful photography captures attention. They can be either portraits or landscapes.
2.3 Blog Posts
A blog is what you are reading right now. The written content is meant to inspire, inform and spread relevant information to the viewers.
2.4 Podcast
These talk shows are available on the internet for downloading that talk about specific themes and topics. They can also be serialized audio episodes.
2.5 E-books
E-books which stand short for electronic books are books made available online including images and texts. These could either be the digital versions of printed books or stand-alone ones.
Even this blog that you are reading right now is digital content.
3. Content Marketing
Now, where does the demand to produce content comes from? Remember it is a digital world we are living in, in order to increase interaction between companies and clients, it is these corporates that seek content creators to increase their business.
Content marketing is an effective marketing strategy to engage and retain an audience by providing them with various types of content including all the ones we have already mentioned above.
It includes relevant articles that spread brand awareness and keep you updated with all the new ideas and products. They can also talk about a brandโs manufacturing process, customer reviews, new schemes, and more.
3.1 Influencer Marketing
An Influencer is a person who impacts or influences your thoughts and action, on social platforms, an influencer is someone who has got an engaged audience in a niche content. That audience is also somewhat loyal to them.
Influencers can be TikTok dancers, Instagram models, YouTubers, Podcasters, and more. They have generally a bigger audience, at least somewhere between 1k-10k. They are called nano influencers.
Influencer marketing is also one form of content marketing where product mentions and endorsements are given by influencers who acquire a wide audience and are seen as experts in their niche.
They generate potential customers from the brand by driving people to the brandโs website where they are exposed to relevant content that keeps them engaged and aims for a better experience.
Sponsored posts and videos, and brand partnerships with influencers to promote physical products are also examples. Not just this but mega influencers with humongous followings create their own trademark and sell merch.
They not only influence people to buy certain products but also promote contemporary social causes and call people to act for or against them.
If you desire to have more marketing collateral, then without a doubt an influencer is your best contender.
4. Digital Marketing
Digital marketing basically refers to the promotion of your brand products and services to potential customers through digital products like e-books, articles, photographs, and through all other digital platforms.
It may sound similar to Content marketing, however, digital marketing is an umbrella term of which content marketing is a part. Digital marketing includes other components too such as Search engine optimization, Pay per click, Email marketing, Mobile marketing and more.
One must have certain skills for content marketing but not so much for digital marketing. Content marketing focuses on engagement rate and providing helpful content to the customers, digital marketing focuses more on sales.
Featured ads are also an example of it. To grow a business fast and expand its reach quickly, firms use digital material and hire writers, illustrators, and graphic designers to create content for their websites and social media pages.
5. Tips and Tricks to Optimize Your Content
5.1 Youtube
Letโs take youtube for example. Youtube is owned by Google. Using keywords in your videoโs title and meta description helps googleโs algorithm to track your content, using appropriate keywords would not only mark your content high in YouTubeโs search engine but would also optimize your videos for suggested videos.
Suggested videos are one of the most central means to gain more views on youtube. Along with this, using relevant hashtags and a customized thumbnail also increases your reach to a wider audience.
Providing close captions also enhances your channel as it gets easier for YouTube to scan what is being said in your video, hence increasing your chance of showing up in recommended videos.
5.2 Instagram
Instagramโs biggest and direct competitor is TikTok, hence Instagramโs algorithm is set in a way to increase viewer time on their app.
While using relevant hashtags is important to get your post or reel on peopleโs explore page, it is more, important to keep them staying on your content for some time. Post more and within one post, have more attached photos.
The more attached photos, the more people would slide on your post and the more time they stay on your feed. Increase the engagement rate, and that comes from coercing people to comment.
Comment counts for more than likes because they take more time to write than a simple tap on the heart icon. And the most important optimization comes through reels. As I said Instagramโs biggest competitor is TikTok, hence the more reels you make, the more people stay on your feed and the more you interact.
Instagram also values recency. It only suggests recent content which is a downside as content that you posted even as recent as a week ago might not get suggested to your followers anymore.
These were just a few concepts on how to optimize your digital content. It is essential to note however that the algorithm keeps changing, in order to advance and develop your content more, one should remain up to date with the algorithm.
The key to gaining more followers, views, and collaborations on any social media platform is to utilize the algorithm.
6. Skills Needed to Be a Digital Creator
6.1 Editing
Be it a youtube video, an Instagram reel or story, or a TikTok video, good editing skills are a must! Of course, those donโt need to be the god-level skills of a film editor but still decent enough. Reels or videos that have smooth transition grab interest. A lot of times, even if your audience is not sparked up with your content, good editing skills can still hook them up.
6.2 Good Speaking Skills and Posture
When recording a video, the more active you are, the more your audience connects with you. Talking in a way that is brief and concise to get your message across along with it not feeling โlike a lectureโ is the key. If those are reels where you are not really talking, your body posture still counts. It adds to your appeal!
6.3 Hand Gestures and Facial Expressions
When talking about hand gestures, it doesnโt mean you have to flail your hands around now and then. You have to use them only at important parts of your video. They are a means to capture your audienceโs attention more while also not making you look stiff.
The same is with the facial expressions. Your content delivery shouldnโt seem robotic! The more informal and natural it is, the more captivated your audience gets, of course with just the right touch of professionalism.
6.4 Confidence
For someone who creates content, confidence is the โeither make it or break itโ thing. No matter how good your research is on the topic you want to deliver, or how exceptional are your editing skills if you lack the fundamental energy that plays the most vital part in capturing followers.
Looking straight at the camera, with an upright posture and a good flow of speech is the correct flavor! Content creators often practice their speech before recording, if it is a lip-syncing video, they first get accustomed to the dialogue or lyric, practice, and then shoot. Donโt get demotivated if you donโt get it right on the first take because nobody does.
Numerous youtube videos are addressing the same with great tips to overcome the fear of cameras. You can find one here.
6.5 Trademark
What is the โitโ content of your channel, or account? What is the trademark, the niche that you specialize in? What do you want your audience to take from your content, to learn? How do you aspire to add value to their life? What are you trying to get out there? The answers to these questions are very important before you embark on the journey of a content creator.
6.6 Passion
Needless to say, passion is a must! Once you blow up on any digital platform, there comes the responsibility of posting content consistently which gets frustrating. To get through that, one has to be passionate enough, or else it would be a โburn outโ, of course, it doesnโt mean that you are not allowed to take breaks when needed ๐
7. Equipment Needed to be a Content Creator
If your content is more like writing blogs, e-books, or recording podcasts, then your phone and laptop are enough.
However, if itโs beyond that and more video and camera-related, you might need some stuff. The equipment doesnโt need to be expensive, especially if you are a beginner, just something that does the job!
7.1 Ringlight or any other Lighting Equipment
Lighting is more important than one may think. If it is a bright setting, it looks more aesthetic which appeals more to the viewers!
This is the reason why digital creators prefer to shoot videos in the daytime, especially when the sun is still bright. Golden hour is also the most preferable time for influencers to get photos clicked!
7.2 Camera
A good quality camera that ensures good quality videos with no haze is also preferred. Most of the time the phone cameras donโt have good inbuilt quality and they might cause distortion. With a camera you can adjust the lens, hence creating the desired view.
7.3 Microphone
A good quality microphone that captures your voice clearly is also preferred. It is important to record oneself in a quieter environment to avoid background noises. The overall aesthetic of your content matters as much as the content itself!
8. Struggles of a Digital Creator
While creating reels and clicking photos for an earning might seem fun and easy, it certainly isnโt without its own set of problems. The pressure of constantly producing original content with managing other duties isnโt easy.
Sometimes the growth is really slow and you have to be patient! Social media does have spontaneous growth spurts, that is, out of nowhere, your content might suddenly get blown up because of the algorithm, attracting different viewers. However, results arenโt always immediate.
This is less unheard of but sometimes the creators get an identity crisis too. This happens when they blew up for letโs say a specific content they brought or a specific personality that attracted their followers to them.
In this case, there comes an invisible pressure of maintaining that image online or producing similar content which not only limits freedom and creativity but causes burnout.
A job of a digital creator certainly isnโt easy but it isnโt wrong to say that it is a viable career option! Moreover, it has perks too like โwork from home,โ the liberty to organize your own schedule and more.
Final Note
If you are interested in it, then just do it. Donโt compare yourself with all the other content creators that have been on the platform for years! Just do it! Here we are at the end of this post, I hope you got a clear understanding of โwhat is a digital creatorโ.
Hope you had a good time reading and see you another time. If you liked this topic then remember to check out similar topics on IcyTales for more ^^.
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Last Updated on by Sathi
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