2022 - The Creators Economy

With more than 50 million content creators across the globe and social media using new monetization tools and social commerce features, 2022 will witness an explosion of creative energy and the birth of a new type of online economy.

It has never been a better time to be a content creator: the cost for entry is incredibly low –sometimes totally free.

You just need a device and an internet connection, social media platforms from TikTok to YouTube started creator funds in 2021, including incentives and monthly payments based on performance.

The goal - to encourage creators to continue making content that keeps readers on their platforms and enables them to make a living out of it.

In 2022, as the creator economy booms, social commerce is the next step. In fact, it has already been in use in China for the past 10 years. This year, it will arrive in the U.S. and Europe as platforms and some of the world’s biggest brands are implementing new sophisticated tools to drive more traffic and sales.

One great example of this is Livestream shopping. The concept took off in 2021, combining active real-time communication between the content creator (host) and his/her audience and auction-style urgency that can create a FOMO effect.

The power of influencers and the frictionless one-click purchase flow helped this approach drive more sales in less time and decreased cart abandonment for the brands and companies that used it.

Watch as more companies take this approach in 2022, and develop new similar social commerce models and tools.

Movers & Shakers

Tagger

A few weeks back, Tagger raised $15 Million to tap into the Creator Economy.

Many brands rely on influencers to stay relevant in online discourse, but finding the right public figure can be tricky. That’s where Tagger comes in.

Though it started in 2015 by Peter Kennedy as a music discovery service, the Santa Monica-based startup has evolved into an influencer marketing platform that helps companies search for influencers to promote their services or products. Dave Dickman jumped on board as CEO in 2017.

That shift has apparently paid off. The 65-person company just raised $15 million in Series B funding from Five Elms Capital, a global investor in software businesses. It also counts companies like Bose, Tinder, and HBOMax as its clients.

Tagger offers a suite of other features including an ambassador program, a digital wallet, and an influencer verification process.

Tagger’s pitch is simple - It provides companies with the tools to plan campaigns and measure popularity.

CreatorIQ

Influencer Marketing startup CreatorIQ has raised $40 Million to make Analytics more accurate. The funding will be used to build out its brands and influencer software, deploy AI to determine how engaged social media stars are and with which audiences.

CreatorIQ chief executive Igor Vaks said the funding is a key part of building out an accurate analytics platform that can track an influencer's true impact. It's easy for social media analytics to be inflated by bot accounts or duplicate followers, and Vaks wants CreatorIQ to develop technology that will get as accurate of a read on someone's social footprint as possible.

CreatorIQ competes with a number of firms on the West Coast that are in the influencer marketing data business, including Tagger and Grin, a similar firm based in San Francisco.

Influencer marketing is quickly becoming more popular, and Statista reported that between 2019 and 2021 the market size nearly doubled -- by the end of this year the market share is expected to hit $13.8 billion.

The Culver City-based company has raised $80.8 million since its 2014 launch. CreatorIQ has roughly 300 clients, including big-box brands like Sephora, Salseforce, Disney and Unilever.

Unilever is both a client and a backer of CreatorIQ; it bought in during the startup's March 2019 Series B funding round worth $12 million and also contributed funding to this round. New investor Silver Lake Waterman joined this round, along with existing backers TVC Capital, Affinity Group, and Kayne Partners Fund, a private equity division of Mid-Wilshire-based Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors.

CreatorIQ's platform is currently used in 65 countries and it's compatible with global social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Weibo, Line, and Instagram. The platform uses artificial intelligence to monitor engagement on posts in ad campaigns and keeps detailed data on influencers, including their follower count.

This data is valuable (more than gold): along with other factors, it helps the company's clients decide which spokespeople and audiences to target for marketing campaigns.

Final Thoughts

Social platforms like Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram as well as YouTube and Snapchat are beginning to open up their creator marketplaces to influencers who want to take full advantage of selling in-app.

TikTok is getting in on the hustle too and announced in August it would let marketing companies also integrate with its data beginning this month.

Content creators have been around for a long time, but in 2022, brands and social platforms will finally grasp the importance of their role for both society and business. I

We are just at the stage of fueling the rocket that will blast the creator economy into the stratosphere. It's time to get onto the ship - the ladder is already out there and the access is very easy.

You just need to take the first step.