December 9, 2022
Living in a world where mobile phones and the internet have almost become an inevitable part of our daily lives, have you wondered how much time on average we spend watching content created by influencers and content creators across the globe?
I am sure that many of us have never thought about it very much. Well, we can surely say that the practice of engaging in digital platforms to spend time on entertainment and other purposes skyrocketed with the introduction of COVID-19 to our lives.
When people were not able to go out and take part in their daily activities, they needed some other things to be engaged in, and most of them chose to spend their time watching contents created by people across the world, which has given rise to the solid and strengthened system of the “creator economy.”
The Concept of Creator Economy
Creative Economy can be defined as an economic system in which creators and influencers can earn revenue by uploading the contents prepared by them in the creator-economy software platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, Spotify, and others.
For example, if you are a content creator on YouTube and you have a channel there, YouTube shall pay you for the content that you prepare based on several terms, conditions, and criteria set by them, which may include the number of views, watch hours, likes, etc. and this is be known as YouTube Creator Economy.
Today, the creator economy market size is considered one of the largest in the world, with a value estimated at $104.2 billion in 2022, more than doubling its value since 2019.
Characteristics of Creator Economy
There are some specific characteristics that are associated with the creative economy that have made it a special and successful economy, and by evaluating these, we can actually understand the structure and concept of the creative economy.
- Decentralized Creator Economy: Up until the introduction of the creative economy, people in our society had only the chance to obtain media content from the “big media,” i.e., the television channels, radios, and newspapers that ruled the entertainment and journalism worlds. These “big media” were controlled by media conglomerates, which could control and decide what needed to be presented before the people as news or content. But the introduction of the creative economy resulted in the decentralization of the media, which has resulted in the formulation of a media environment where the people and content creators also have a role to play.
- Personalized Experience: The big media has only offered a specific set of contents and programs, which did not satisfy or meet a viewer’s interests and tastes completely. But with the establishment of the content economy, content creators and influencers across the globe have got the opportunity to come up with a wide variety of programs, news, and content that a user can access and watch according to their preferences.
- Talent is Treasure: The creator economy has opened up a spectacular earning space for content creators across the world, where they could showcase their talents and skills and make a living out of it. The rise of the “creator economy” has made significant contributions to the creation of a self-earning environment in which those with talent can live independently.
- Plated By the Passionate: One of the primary benefits of content creation for people is that specific content is presented to them by people who are extremely passionate about that particular field. For example, only someone who is interested and passionate about cooking will start a cooking channel on YouTube. This will help the viewers get real, passionate, and good content.
The growth of Creator Economy
Explaining the growth of the creative economy is actually a huge process, and in order understand it with ease, we can divide it into four phases.
- First Phase: The Rise of Content Creation
This is the phase where the idea of a content economy was proposed against the traditional big media establishments, and it was done with the help of the first generation of social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook, which gave people a platform for the mass production and distribution of content.
- Second Phase: Empowering Creators with Community Platforms and Tools
Despite the fact that the first phase of creative enterprise construction provided platforms for content creation, only a small number of people were able to use them due to a lack of proper tools and software support.
In this phase, the people who had no access to proper tools and software to prepare contents and media were given support through social media community platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, etc., which give features like filters, video effects, transitions, etc., to make quality contents with ease.
- Third Phase: Unveiling new routes of monetization
As the first and second phases become successful, people get more interested in the content creation field, and this has laid a solid foundation and built the content economy, which has resulted in the introduction of more and more platforms to help content creators earn additional revenue streams and become more resilient and in control of their finances.
- Fourth Phase: The Business Model of Content Creation
This is the phase in which we are right now, in which content creation has become a proper industry, and rather than seeing it as a hobby or timepass, the fourth phase empowers creators to operate as businesses.
Content creators become more serious in their approach towards their contents and products, and to help them create quality contents, A lot of tools and software are becoming available for content creators to hopefully speed up their process, outsource, and automate a lot of their content development.
The Scope of Creator Economy
With the rapid growth and advancement happening in the field of the creator economy, we could surely expect that it will grow with time and reveal more of its scope and opportunities before us. The future of creator economy may make us witness the following events,
- The rise of Community-centric marketing: The creator economy has already created some online or digital communities in the internet space. We can see specific community groups “community-based platforms” like Twitch, Discord, and Reddit. We can also expect to see the influence of the creator economy in metaverse since digital ecosystems like those are being developed and presented to us. This will open up new opportunities in marketing, branding, communication, and more.
- Creator Economy will become more integral to businesses: As we said earlier, people are now more attracted to the content created by influencers and content creators, which will make them a perfect tool for businesses and brands to promote their products or services. In other words, because of their acceptance and credibility among the general public, influencers and content creators are among the most valuable tools that a business can use to promote its products.
- Centralized Media Will fade away: As the influence of the creator economy roots deeper in our society with time, the traditional big media setups will find it difficult to compete with it, which will create a media ecosystem where there will not be any specific power centers or controlling entities.
We have now briefly discussed the concept of the “creator economy,” and the scope and opportunities provided by this particular industry are very much capable of revolutionizing the concepts of media, marketing, and business systems around us.
