Some call it the Passion Economy, some go with Creator Economy, but what is it really? A very fascinating movement is unfolding in the lives of those who crave flexibility, freedom and creative outlets at work and in their everyday lives. 

Platforms, apps and mediums are being promoted to people with different creative abilities which has led to the rise in the ‘Creator Economy’.

Source: ArmTheCreators.com

In the above image we see that the use of traditional social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are evolving to create more opportunities for creators to monetize their own content with platforms such as Patreon, Kajabi, Teachable, Twitch, etc. it’s evident to see the migration from Web 2.0 to 3.0, this will be the Block Chain / Crypto era.

Manifest this: I’m going to make a living doing and creating what I love and what I’m passionate about.

Source: Pearl Agarwal on Medium

Let’s delve into the Creator Economy movement by taking a brief look at the history of the internet:

1. Web 1.0: The Internet Age (our lives would never be the same…)

Also known as the ‘Information Age’ where computers and the internet were widespread. It was the age with the height of innovation bringing the internet closer and closer to us, and eventually quite literally in our pockets, through the invention of the smart phone.

2. Web 2.0: The Digital Age (social media era; picture or it didn’t happen?)

The mainstream use of the internet created the digital age as we know it. This is when Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube dominated the industry with their ability to allow users to interact online, share content, and explore their creativity. The rise of influencers and influencer marketing was a notable aspect of this era as this was the primary cause to shift from the digital economy to the creator economy. Influencers were being featured in brand endorsements, ads, campaigns, etc. in this era, the social media ‘influencers’ started becoming self-employed people who relied on digital platforms to express, create and earn an income.

3. Web 3.0: The Creator Economy

The influencers / creators in the digital age who relied on brands to earn an income are now building their own brand based on their unique talent, creative skills, never seen before ideas, topics, and / or their passions. This creates the rise of digital platforms that allow these creators and their followers to connect in a space regarding their niche. This is when platforms such as Twitch (gaming and entertainment), Podia (selling knowledge and courses), etc. come in play.

So, what kind of content can creator’s produce in this economy?

The future is for freelancers. If you can do one or more things you’re passionate about and make it your full-time job, while being self-employed and flexibly working, you’re a freelancer.

The possibilities are endless, I’m a bit overwhelmed myself. People are getting incredibly creative, and surprisingly, there’s always an audience ready to feed on what they have to offer.

Here’s a list of things I put together that freelancers can do which would most likely be huge in the creator economy:

• Graphic design
• Photography
• Videography
• Poetry
• Writing
• Culinary
• Motivational speeches, protesting, etc.
• Podcasts
• Art
• DIY’s
• Fashion design
• Dancing
• Singing
• Music
• Illustrations
• Courses (teaching, designing, languages, speaking, anything you can imagine)
• Pottery
• Comics
• Fitness
• Yoga and meditation

There’s truly an endless list of infinite options, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing the immergence of  many more creative jobs of this kind.   

“To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.” – Kevin Kelly

If you’re still a bit confused about it all (which I was too at the start), check out this 5-minute run through video explaining what the creator economy is:

Let’s talk Block chain and the Metaverse…

It’s important to understand that the rise of this economy is a result of creators wanting to essentially own their content and the platform they post it on. When the platform makes money so do they.

In order for a content ownership policy to be designed, voting rights come in to play which is done through block chain consent. Not even a president can dispute the consensus reached on block chain.

Let me put this in simple terms, web 3.0 is basically a decentralized country (the metaverse) on the internet with a large population (of content creators and their audiences) and with a democratic leadership system (block chain).

“Blockchain is going to allow information that shouldn’t be free, not to be free. Remember Napster? You could download music for free and nobody, not even the sooks in the band Metallica, could stop you.” Mike Novogratz, Serial Entrepreneur.

The Next Generation

Abdullah Al Ghafri, known as QQQ by his social media followers, took less than a year to reach 1 million followers on YouTube. In an interview with him he says:

“I started everything on Snap chat- it’s an incredible app, Snap chat is different. Why? Because it’s real. These days we go on Instagram and can see many people have about two million – four million followers. They almost show a fake reality. However, on Snap chat, everything is real. I wanted to be a part of the YouTube community; many people encouraged me to do so a few years ago but I waited. YouTube needs a whole team. And yeah, seven months ago I said, I have to start on YouTube, but in very high quality, you know, like more, maybe more than TV. These days, 80% of the kids I’m sure want to be singers. They want to be football players. They want to be on social media dancing or something.”

Storytelling on social media platforms is no longer Childs play. Content creators don’t just do it to pass time or as a side hustle. In the next generation, the creator is a full-time job and a primary method to earn income. As technology becomes mainstream and social media has become very much integrated into our daily lives, creators are already monetizing off of web 3.0 and the ‘creator economy’. With that being said, this will be a slow and steady growth for most creators since the new web has still not come into full play as of yet.

Who are the Consumers in the Creator Economy?

The consumers in this economy were social media followers in the previous eras. The creators / influencers bring them along with them on their story telling journey and continue to target their niche content to them. These consumers are very willing to buy products / services from these creators as firstly, they’re a loyal fanbase, and secondly, have admired their work and trust them more than other ads they see from companies who they don’t know personally.

Here are my final thoughts…

The Creator Economy is coming, slowly but surely, in many industries such as graphic design, gaming, entertainment and broadcasting. There may be some influencer fatigue in the beginning stages. I can say for sure I’m quite overwhelmed yet excited by all of this myself, but I see a future where we’re operating in the Metaverse and using crypto as money, though this is still in its infancy stages. it will be exciting to watch the new ‘creators’, ‘freelancers’ and ‘influencers’ be creatively liberated by platforms designed for them and for their niche customers. Because, while social media apps such as Tik Tok, Instagram and Facebook have high rates and a large audience, they benefit more from creators than vise versa.

Stay tuned with news about the Creator Economy, subscribe to this podcast. 

References:

https://www.armthecreators.com/mapping-the-creator-economy/

https://bettermarketing.pub/the-creator-economy-will-slowly-then-quickly-migrate-to-web-3-0-3971d5d32f54

https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/

https://medium.com/eximius-ventures/web-3-0-101-c75cda55f0fa 

https://slidemodel.com/creator-economy-quick-guide/

Fireworks, Hamilton, Verstappen, millions of dollars, fast cars and race tracks in different big cities of the world. The world of Formula 1 is about intensity, and pushing the limits of both the athlete and the team, but also the technology that surrounds the sport. In the latter, technology and marketing have been used in an extremely intelligent way, with the result that in recent years Formula 1 is one of the sports with the highest growth in audience and movement on social networks.

With controversy and giving something to talk about both on and off the track, this sport has managed to have new followers of different age ranges. Formerly the target segment was aimed at men around the 70s and older, but today the panorama has changed, having much more diverse followers, which is reflected in the increase in audience and tickets purchased.

How did exactly the marketing help F1 to be so popular today?

The times change

Bernie Ecclestone, former chief executive of the Formula One Group, was focused on offering this show to an older segment and with enough money to pay for the transmission of the race on TV or to pay for the tickets, which is a luxury for some.

If we take the Barcelona race for example, just going on Sunday would cost €90, and for the weekend it varies between €130 and €495.

In 2018 Liberty Media bought Formula One group, bringing several changes and a more modern perspective of how to relate to the client with a longer-term vision than the previous ones. They were open enough to find and charm a new audience and not just older men.

The most symbolic change was the logo, but they also made many more technical changes to give a better show. Formula 1 has always stood out for the deployment of technology it uses to broadcast races on weekends. High-resolution cameras, helicopters, microphones and explanatory graphics.

The new owners of the company began to rethink the whole scheme, from putting different camera angles, microphones in different places to feel the real sound of the car, and new rules to make the race more competitive, all so that nearly half a billion viewers feel a closer experience. In total there are 90 cameras and 147 microphones.

Everything to improve the user experience

CEO Chasey Carey has a vision of transforming F1 from motorsport to an entertainment spectacle. To make it more competitive, they have put in place more technical and financial regulations, which means an important change for the teams.  “We have 21 races,” he said. “We should have 21 Super Bowls. They should be week-long extravaganzas with entertainment and music, events that capture a whole city.”

In addition, 360 cameras have been implemented, which means that VR technology is being experimented with and in the future we could watch the races from our own homes, seeing all the detail that surrounds a single-vehicle, improving how the experience of the Formula 1 is lived and made a game-changer on sports.

“Eventually, we hope to be able to stream that live from the car and then people at home could watch the main feed on their TV and [a 360° feed] on a mobile device,” says Steve Smith, responsible for the onboard camera team.

Data is King

With the help of Amazon Web, mass information and machine learning began to be applied to make use of targeted social media marketing. With more data, the company started to understand better the necessities of the fan base, and through social media they understood how to make a very technical and complicated sport much more friendly, getting to less traditional and younger spectators than before.

A lot of activity was generated on social media, especially on Instagram, where it is possible to reach an audience with attractive content, like videos and images, that manage to create awareness in the user. In this way, it is possible to have a younger base and therefore support the sport for a longer time.

This time not only the F1 social media accounts have a leading role. Garages and drivers are also part of most social networks, resulting in many more followers and fans of a specific driver or team. So athletes also become influencers; Now it is common to hear things like “Hamilton hasn’t done a post in a month. Do you think he’s going to retire?”

 

This is highly relevant to the team, not only to get a closer relationship with their followers but to the sponsorships, as they manage to land vital new deals and revenue opportunities to remain competitive and have a bigger budget.

On YouTube, they began to show the highlights of every race, which was a complete success since people could analyse the sport better and have a more specific opinion on different situations. Thanks to this they were able to double the number of followers on this channel reaching 7.33M subscribers and 4,245,630,830 views.

“In 2018 the number of users across Formula 1’s social media platforms also grew significantly, with the total number of followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube reaching 18.5m (+53.7 compared to 2017), confirming Formula 1 as the fastest growing major sport on social media platforms.”

From Drivers to Stars

In 2018, the year that Liberty Media began to be in charge of F1, a deal was signed with Netflix to make a docu-series about the entire world that surrounds the sport, having access to intimate spaces of the different teams and drivers to be able to document moments previously were impossible to see.

Thanks to the series, it was possible to see the real intensity of the sport, the drama behind it, the politics between the teams, who are all the characters that participate on and off the track, and everything that makes this sport possible. What was previously difficult to understand suddenly became simple and interesting for many.

Source: Statista,2022

The result was extremely successful. The series brought not only increased value for those already passionate about the sport, but also new TV audience interest and even boosted F1 ticket sales. A sport that was previously only for older men began to be accessible to all ages and genders.

“The number of women attending the event has risen by 30% compared to last year, according to Soberon, who is the president of race promoter CIE.”

“50% of fans who have started following the sport within the last 12 months are female, with 46% of all those interested in F1 now women.”

Going for an existing gap 

As can be seen above, along with the change of ownership of the company came extreme changes in how the future of the company is seen. Unlike the previous owners, Liberty Media was able to see an opportunity to find potential followers through social media and also the implementation of new technologies.

Figure 1. The Elusive Fan- Irving & Kotler

If we take into account the Fan Involvement Ladder in Figure 1, we can see that the company initially focused on the first two steps. Most of the new fans were on the “Indifferent” step, people who have no interest in this sport, but then through social media or multimedia content began to attract their attention and little by little they managed to have a larger and more solid base of followers.

Data management in marketing is key for detecting these existing opportunities and gaps, since without precise information it is difficult to visualise a specific approach to the opportunities that can lead a traditional project to be a leader in technology and marketing strategy.

Marketing has become essential for the survival of some sports or shows. Thanks to the fact that they had more information, they knew how to focus time and money on the necessary resources to capture this segment that had not been attracted previously. People who were never interested in this specific sport now can’t miss watching a race on the weekend.

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Source:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/we-have-21-races-we-should-have-21-super-bowls-what-f1-can-learn-from-the-nfl/3221518/

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/formula-one-liberty-media-chase-carey-bernie-ecclestone#:~:text=There%20are%2025%20cameras%20positioned,each%20of%20the%2020%20cars.

https://racingnews365.com/which-drivers-have-the-most-social-media-followers

https://corp.formula1.com/formula-1-announces-audience-figures-for-2020/

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.formula-1s-tv-and-digital-audiences-grow-for-the-second-year-running.OqTPVNthtZKFbKqBaimKf.html

https://www.racefans.net/2019/10/26/netflix-f1-series-caused-surge-in-interest-from-women/

https://sportcal.com/Insight/Features/126889

The Elusive Fan- Irving & Kotler 2007

https://www-statista-com.uow.idm.oclc.org/statistics/480129/cable-or-broadcast-tv-networks-formula-one-f1-racing-watched-within-the-last-12-months-usa/