Creator Marketing: Why It’s Essential for 2025 and How To Do It Right

Brands are adjusting their content strategies to focus on winning with great organic content. This pivot comes after phasing out third-party cookies and most global iOS users opting out of app tracking, which has changed the outlook for targeted advertising this year. 

Because of an increased focus on organic content, social channels are shifting to prioritize short-form video over static content, and marketers who want sustained growth in the social entertainment era are looking to creators and creator marketing for guidance.

Content creator marketing is a type of social media marketing that involves partnering with influencers or creators on content that expands a brand’s reach beyond its follower base. As social entertainment becomes the primary reason users tap into social media, influencers have evolved into video producers, writers and directors.

The platform-specific creators, influencers and brand ambassadors seen on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok have intertwined, and creators are building omnichannel strategies the same way brands do. TikTok influencer marketing, in particular, is more significant than ever before. Creators know how to run a business and have loyal fans. Now, even Hollywood agencies are signing TikTok stars, proving that celebrity status is shifting toward those who already have a strong following, helping grow the creator economy and push brands towards mutually beneficial creator partnerships.

What Is the Creator Economy?

The global influencer creator market — or the creator economy — is estimated to reach 22.2 billion in 2025. Brands are investing heavily in creator partnerships and social channels are responding by getting serious about monetization and opening up avenues for creators to build careers on their platforms.

All major social channels have designated creator funds to reward creators for their content and deliver ad revenue. Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, consistently invests in creator funds and introduces new ways for creators to place ads and earn revenue from top-performing content. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, has introduced a music distribution platform that pays 100% royalties on its channels, making TikTok creator marketing a viable career path for musicians.

Creators and influencers play a direct role in shaping and influencing what’s trending on every platform, making creator marketing one of the most powerful investments a brand can make. Now more than ever, users are seeking out engaging, authentic, people-first content from their favorite creators who have a direct impact on their purchases. With engagement now outweighing things like follower count as a key metric, creator marketing is no longer a ‘nice to have’, it’s a necessity. 

Brands that are ahead of the curve of the creator economy are leveraging data-driven insights from TikTok or Instagram to constantly refine their influencer marketing strategies and tap into the more meaningful connections that creator partnerships offer for the brand, the creators and their audiences.

Working with creators offers many benefits that can significantly elevate your brand's online presence. These partnerships open doors to diverse audiences across various platforms and enhance engagement and authenticity on social media. Brands can forge meaningful connections and conversations by tapping into creators’ unique skills and follower bases.

1. Embracing Authenticity Through Creator Marketing

In social media, brand authenticity is more than a buzzword; it's the heartbeat of successful creator marketing strategies. Creators have genuine connections and trust with their audiences that bring unparalleled authenticity. This authenticity is key to resonating with consumers who crave real, relatable content. By partnering with diverse creators, brands can harness this realness and ensure their messages are heard and felt.

2. Maximize Engagement Across Platforms

Creator and influencer marketing isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. Each social platform, from the visually rich Instagram to the trendsetting TikTok, offers unique opportunities for creators to shine. Understanding the nuances of each platform — whether it's leveraging educational content on YouTube or tapping into Pinterest’s aesthetic appeal — is crucial. While repurposing content has its place, brands can maximize their reach and engagement by tailoring strategies to each platform's specific strengths.

3. Cost-Effectiveness and Direct Engagement

In an era when marketing budgets are scrutinized, the cost-effectiveness of creator marketing stands out. Nano influencers, with their smaller but highly engaged audiences, offer a high return on investment. Creator marketing also tends to have a lower cost per lead. Creators' established audiences and trusted voices mean their endorsements can convert more efficiently, giving brands a higher return. These creators ensure a more budget-friendly approach and a level of direct engagement with audiences that larger influencers might not provide.

4. Diversity and Inclusivity

Today's consumers are not just buying products — they’re buying values. Working with a variety of creators and using creator marketing isn’t just a choice anymore, it’s a must. These partnerships aren’t just for show, they prove a brand is serious about inclusivity and diversity. By working with creators from different backgrounds, brands can genuinely reach more people, represent its audience and build a stronger sense of community.

5. Access to Niche Communities 

Many brands are challenged with community-based marketing and have a hard time reaching small, specialized communities where their products could make the biggest difference. But creator marketing helps build trust and real connections with these groups. By working with creators, brands can reach these niche audiences, spark meaningful interactions and build a community of loyal customers.

People often debate the difference between a content creator vs. influencer on social media, but the truth is, anyone posting content online is technically a creator. However, not all creators are the same — what they do and how they engage with their audience make a big difference.

Here are three types of creators every marketer should know.

1. Content Creators

Content creators include anyone who produces content online or on social media. They typically focus on a specific niche, like music, makeup or food. Whether they have ten followers or a million, they’re still considered creators. For example, someone who shares comedic content or television trivia may not be an influencer, but they are definitely a creator.

2. Influencers 

Yes, all influencers are also creators. However, influencers are mainly concerned with inspiring their followers to take a specific action — whether it’s something like trying a new recipe or buying a product through an affiliate link or other means. For example, a recipe developer who promotes a recipe book or cookware line on their social profiles is a food influencer.

3. Brand Ambassadors 

Brand ambassadors are influencers in a sense — however, they might not always be creators, for example, a celebrity like Emma Stone who is a Louis Vuitton brand ambassador, but is not active on social media. Brand ambassadors represent your organization and are often featured in sponsored posts or other advertisements on social, but will also appear on offline marketing — think commercials, print ads and more. For brands, it’s good practice to work with brand ambassadors who are also creators on social, so they have an understanding of exactly what you need. 

Brands shouldn't select just anyone to partner with for their creator marketing — here are a few tips to ensure you choose influencers who resonate with your audience.

Look at Your UGC Stats

There are several ways to find creators to partner with, and the most straightforward method is to look at who is already posting about your brand. Your most prominent UGC creators advocates in user-generated content will make great creative partners, as their love for your brand is authentic, and they will be more eager to participate. You can start small by asking to repost UGC and conceptualize how to involve creators in your content planning process from there.

Consider Your Target Demographic

The place you show up may differ depending on the audience you want to speak to. If your brand is marketing to Gen Z, you will almost certainly want to use TikTok. If your brand is going after Gen X, looking for influential figures on Facebook or YouTube makes more sense. If you’re looking to reposition your brand for a new audience, it may require getting started on new social channels that you may not be present on, such as TikTok. Creator partnerships will help you gain traction.

Use an Influencer Measurement Tool

Dash Social uses AI to predict which creator marketing content will perform best with your audience. The Earned Media Value metric allows you to benchmark individual influencers' impact, indicating which partnerships you should prioritize in your campaigns. You can even create reports that divulge granular metrics about your audience growth from Creator Management.

A great creator marketing strategy isn’t as simple as finding a creator to work with and getting them to post. It takes many steps, ten to be exact:  

1. Conduct Preliminary Research

Before diving into campaign specifics, it’s important to do some research. This can be done in many different ways, but we recommend starting with some competitive analysis to see how other brands are using creators and how it’s working for them. At this point, you can also look at general campaigns from other brands you admire and ideate how an influencer might fit into that type of campaign. This beginning stage helps set the scene for what your campaign or strategy will become. 

2. Discover the Perfect Creators

It may feel early to identify the creators you want to work with, but this is the perfect time. You want to avoid creating a campaign without an influencer or creator in mind and then trying to find the perfect one to fit into the box you’ve already made. By having an idea of who you want to work with before putting together all the details, you can create a much more personalized and effective campaign. This will also help with outreach because it will show the creator you did all this work with them in mind. 

3. Determine Realistic Goals and Budget

Before getting into the nitty gritty of your campaign, make sure to set clear goals and a budget. These will act as your guiding light when it comes to content creation and other major decisions. If this is your first creator campaign, start with realistic goals and a strict budget since you don’t have past data to compare. If you’ve run campaigns before, use their results to guide your new goals and budget.

4. Identify Marketing Tactics and Channels

Now that you’ve set your goals and budget, the next step is figuring out how to reach those goals and where to spend your money. Use this step to decide which channels you want the campaign to run on and map out what types of content will go where. Be picky when choosing the right channels, as it’s important they align with your creator of choice and overall strategy. We recommend starting with heavy hitters like Instagram and TikTok, and If things go well, you can expand to other channels. 

5. Create A Detailed Brief

The creative brief is perhaps one of the most important steps in your creator marketing strategy. The brief will cover every detail of your campaign and make the goals, budget, tactics and results crystal clear. There is never too much information in a creative brief, so be sure to include every minute detail at this point so nothing gets lost in the shuffle and you can effectively communicate what’s expected to your creators and team. 

6. Begin Creator Outreach

Outreaching your chosen creators can feel like one of the hardest parts, as you can’t even guarantee they will answer or be interested in a partnership with your brand. Luckily, with the amount of research and planning you’ve already put in up to this point, you will already have a good idea of how this creator will respond to your outreach. There are a couple of ways you can reach out to your creators, with the most popular being through their business email or through DM on their most active platforms. 

7. Secure Your Partnership

Once you confirm that the creator you chose is interested, we recommend having a call to review the details of the brief, campaign and partnership. Once the creator knows exactly what is expected of them, you must put together a contract for them to sign. This will help keep both parties accountable and ensure expectations are clear. 

8. Collaborate on Content

Now that the creator is on board and committed to the campaign, integrate them into the content creation and ideation process. A big miss by many brands is telling a creator exactly what they want them to create when the influencer themselves likely has many ideas that will align with the campaign and appeal to their audience the best. Work closely with the creator to make sure the campaign becomes a true partnership. 

9. Launch Your Creator Marketing Campaign

The content is ready to go which means it’s time to finally launch the campaign. Because of all of the prep work you’ve done prior, this should be one of the easiest parts of your strategy. Now it’s time to sit back and watch the engagement, likes and comments roll in. 

10. Track the Results

Tracking the results of your creator campaigns and efforts is the most important step in creating a successful strategy. Without knowing what’s working and what’s not, your brand will never be able to fully harness the power of creators. It is recommended that results be tracked as soon as an influencer campaign launches and then a regular daily or weekly cadence is set to check in on progress. The results will be able to tell you multiple things, but especially if the creator partnership is a good fit. 

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creator marketing. Just as there are different types of creators, there are also different ways brands can collaborate with them. Some collaborations focus on simple product placements, while others involve deeper co-creation or large-scale campaign activations. Below, we’ll explore some of the most effective ways to partner with creators and how they can help you maximize your marketing impact.

Product Placement and Sponsored Posts

The traditional method of partnering with influencers involves a one-time sponsorship for them to feature your product. This is a great way to get your product in front of audiences with very little lift on your end. However, these posts have a short shelf life, with most of the impact made the first day the post goes live. Many creators clear their feeds of sponsored posts within a given timeframe, especially if it was a one-off sponsorship and your brand has yet to re-engage with them over time.

Co-Creating Content With Creators

Co-creating content with creators is a great way to grow your presence in short-form video formats, especially if your brand still needs to expand its video creation process to meet the velocity of Instagram Reels or TikTok. No one knows these formats better than the creators themselves, and partnering with them allows you to make fun, entertaining content that will help your brand speak to new audiences. Creator partnerships also have the potential to boost your TikTok shopping campaigns if you link your e-commerce store to your content.

Amplifying Your Posts

Just as brands share user-generated content, creators can share content from brands. Formats like TikTok allow influencers to remix and stitch your videos. Creating fun trends and challenges enables you to expand your cross-channel creator campaign’s reach organically and in a way that sometimes takes on a life of its own.

Creator-Led Campaign Activations

Campaign activations are all about getting an audience excited about a brand or product. Creators and influencers are the perfect way to do this because of their built-in fanbase, which typically likes to get pumped up alongside them. The best and most effective activations are completely interactive, like an event, and help drive major awareness of your brand with the help of the right creators. 

Dash Social is built to help you discover your best influencer and creator marketing partnership opportunities with complete influencer management from end to end. The Creator Management suite lets brands search for creators based on a range of factors, such as location, interests, industry, number of followers and more. You can also measure creator impact through EMV, predict content performance before posting and have access to reliable, verifiable data to drive audience growth. 

What is a content creator?

A content creator produces posts, images, or videos that entertain, educate, or otherwise bring value to viewers.

Who is considered a creator?

A creator is anyone who creates content. Whether someone identifies as an influencer or a creator online depends on how they describe themselves. However, as social media moves towards video content, more people will identify with the work that goes into content creation.

What is the difference between content creators vs content marketers?

Content creators work independently, while content marketers work towards company objectives. Creators and marketers often work together in mutually beneficial partnerships.