When Do Marketers Start Noticing Creators?

August 12, 2022

This article is included in these additional categories:

Cross-Media & Traditional | Digital | Social Media | Sponsorships

Marketers are spending more on influencers, and seeking different types of content from them, just as social media users do. While there are various types of influencers, ranging from nano to mega, at what point do marketers start taking notice of creators as potential collaborators? Sprout Social teamed up with Glewee to find out.

Based on an analysis of more than 850 transactions that have taken place within the past year on its platform, which connects brands and creators, Glewee reveals a minimum threshold for various platform that creators need to meet in order to appeal to brands.

The data shows that of the various platforms, marketers expect the largest audiences on TikTok, with a minimum threshold of 30,000. Of note, research from Nielsen indicates that among TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, the former has the largest share of micro (10-50K followers) and mid-tier influencers (50-100K followers).

Meanwhile, the Glewee data indicates that marketers want to work with creators who have at least 17.5K followers on Instagram. The above-mentioned Nielsen study found that Instagram houses more nano-influencers (1-10K followers) than TikTok and YouTube, suggesting that it makes sense for marketers to set a smaller audience threshold on Instagram than TikTok.

It’s also true that the Glewee research sets the audience minimum threshold benchmarks at a far lower count for other platforms than for TikTok or Instagram. For Twitter the mark is 3.75K, according to the study, while for YouTube it’s 3K and for Facebook 2.5K. The low threshold for YouTube is interesting in light of Nielsen’s data, which shows that YouTube’s role grows when looking at influencers with large audiences..

What about engagement rate? The data shows some interesting and at times surprising results. The highest threshold engagement rate is reserved for TikTok, at 11%. This is to some extent to be expected, given that brands average far higher post engagement rates on TikTok than any other platform. More curiously, is that the lowest threshold creator engagement rate is for Instagram (3.5%), half that of YouTube (7%). That’s despite other research showing that influencers’ post engagement rates are higher on Instagram than on YouTube. (Other YouTube influencer engagement rate benchmarks, such as comment-to-view rate and view-to-subscriber rate, can be found here.)

It’s possible that marketers are setting higher engagement rates expectations for platforms in which they’re prepared to collaborate with influencers with smaller audiences (such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook), given that smaller follower counts generally translate to higher engagement rates. TikTok is the outlier here, with a high minimum threshold follower count and the highest minimum engagement rate. It’s also worth remembering, as noted by Sprout Social that “these benchmarks are far from one-size-fits-all, but they’re a great place to start evaluating your potential partners. An influencer with a smaller following might have a strong foothold with your audience, and what works on one platform might not work for another.”

For more, including typical content creator salaries, check out Sprout Social’s study here.

Finally, as is customary for MarketingCharts now when discussing TikTok, we note the real data privacy and national security concerns presented by TikTok usage in the US, as eloquently detailed by Scott Galloway here and Juan Mendoza here. Marketers considering using the app should fully consider these concerns before proceeding.

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