7 Influencer Marketing trends for 2023 (7 of 7) : the KOLtent Factory

Wanna know everything about the main Influencer Marketing Trends for the next few years? TREND #7 : The KOLtent Factory

I believe that 7 influencer marketing trends are now emerging for the next 3 years (for 2023):

The first six were detailed in previous articles:

1. The scarcity of data, or the end of easy and free access to data from social networks.
2. The CIOs era (Chief Influence Officer), or the affirmation of Influence Marketing as a field in its own, transverse to the various functions of the company.
3. We Are All Influencers, or the use and promotion of 100% of the stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders) of the company as Key Opinion Leaders (or K.O.L).
4. The End of Amateurism, or the professionalization of practices in Influencer Marketing, from advertisers to influencers.
5. Influence at Scale, or the boom in advertisers x KOLs collaborations, in terms of volume and complexity.
6. The ROI-Driven Influence, or the need for performance in Influence as a media – measured and managed

The seventh one is detailed below : the KOLtent Factory, or KOL as the best way to meet the challenges of massively creating digital content for brands, while increasing conversion rates.

TREND #7 : The KOLtent Factory

Influencers are the best way to meet the challenges of massively creating digital content for brands, while increasing conversion rates.

We trust each other more than we trust brands and businesses. We all agree on that now. As a result, the power in marketing is shifting from companies’ voices towards customers’ voices. And brands do it via Influencer Marketing, UGC (User Generated Content), as well as customer reviews.

We are entering the « Content Factory » era (or the « KOLtent Factory » rea)

Content creation has become a major issue for brands, which must feed their ever-growing communication channels with ever more demanding audiences.

This content must be original, aesthetic, creative and be renewed very frequently.

Brands and agencies have organized themselves to meet this demand by creating real studios dedicated to digital content creation. 

For example Publicis in France created the Content Factory, a warehouse in the Paris region bringing together studios, equipment and expert professionals allowing all the agency’s entities, but also their customers, to create all the content necessary for their communication. It seems that Sephora and L’Oréal would currently produce 100% of their content via the Content Factory Publicis.

KOLs are Content Creators

Influence Marketing, for its part, makes it possible to respond to some of these content creation challenges: like other media, it is a veritable content factory, with infinite creative potential … There is as much content as there are ideas conveyed at all times by all KOLs around the world.

As an illustration of that, you might have noticed that influencers are already considered by the main Social Networks as “Content Creators”, a new way of calling KOL since 2017.

NB : I personally do not agree with this name as for me, KOL are more than only Content Creator. They are a real media with an audience on different platforms, with all media characteristics.

This trend is confirmed by brands with the multiplication of collaborations around the creation of exclusive content: photos, videos, but also capsule collections, menus, travel guides, etc.

Long-tail Content through UGC and Online Reviews

For its part, the User Generated Content production as well as the content curation is not new but is now confirmed as a lasting trend. Long-tail K.O.L (below 5k followers) are key players to this complementary content creation industry.

Finally, content creation is now also extending to customer reviews obviously. Online reviews are in a way considered as a new field of Content Marketing.

Solutions to scale KOLtent creation

First, influencers will now be a preferred and probably the most credible solution to produce any type of content for brands « at scale » and over time. Brands should build solutions for that right now.

Then, the content produced by KOLs for brands, which was once ephemeral, is now considered to be usable over time. And it changes the overall relationship between KOLs and brands, for a more lasting and authentic interaction. In the best interest of the consumers.

Finally, Influencer Marketing solutions and User Generated Content (UGC) solutions will undoubtedly converge to better serve brands KOLtent creation requirements on the overall KOL pyramid.

And you, did you identified this trend too? How do you manage content creation at scale for your company? How do you leverage Influencer Marketing for Content Creation?