Indie or managed creators, whose bags are full?

Authored by Aarhan Siddique, Talent Representative, OpraahFx

With more than 50 million people around the world contributing to the content creator ecosystem and 70% of them doing so full-time, the creator economy is certainly growing faster than ever. Initially limited to fashion, food, fun, and travel, content creators and influencers have now truly disrupted the content subjects and genres over the last two years. Genres like FinTech, gaming, education, entrepreneurship, etc took over the limelight post-COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of the creators saw about 5-15X growth in terms of numbers and revenue after the lockdown. Content creation and influencing evolved as a promising and serious career option.

The majority of the creators who emerged during this phase were new to the world of influencer marketing and revenue generation via content. While many chose to sign-up with talent representative firms, few took an independent route. Managed, partially managed, or independent, all creators are equally in demand. Many top content creators in the country haven’t signed up with any firm or agencies, why? Because they have kingmakers – the talent managers working backstage. That being said, there also exists a creators group who are independent and usually manage all things by themselves. But is that a viable option? Can streamline processes via a firm or manager yield better returns?

Let us look at how managed creators have increased productivity and revenue.

Providing a plug-and-play model

With firms or managers taking care of all the back-end work, creators have an opportunity to completely focus on what they are best at – creating content and influencing. From sales to finance to legal to content planning, managed influencers have a full-fledged workforce that enables them to work at ease.

Selling is their art

Talent agencies and representatives come with a natural knack for dealing with people and being street-smart and agile. These key innate abilities provide managed creators an edge over others. Working in the industry of brands and marketing managers, talent representatives generally tend to have better industry contacts and understanding about the cost, revenue, and budgets.

Happy endings

Working closely with multiple brands and influencers, talent firms have a great understanding of brands, their business goals, and campaign objectives. They are the best judge to select-pick-close a perfect brand-creator deal. Moreover, to make things simpler many talent firms have in-house influencer marketing teams for faster turnaround time.

Customised-solutions

Firms very well know that one size never fits all, therefore they provide custom-made solutions and deals to the creators. Being boutique in nature, creators can pick and choose the service they would want the talent representative team to take care of. Be it business development, content planning, social media management, styling, publicity, legal, the firms and agencies provide it with all.