The release of The Oz’s “The Influence Index” left a few (read: many) of Australia’s creator economy professionals scratching their heads. Where were the YouTubers, the Facebookers, the gamers, and the creators that reach millions of Gen Z’s and younger in the first few hours after they publish?
Puzzlingly, a key criteria that wasn’t assessed is ubiquity. Many of the creators listed on the Index have millions of followers on their primary platform – with a focus seemingly on TikTok – but how many of them have cross-platform reach?
Assessing “influence” of a creator based solely on a platform like TikTok, where the majority of a user’s time is spent on the ‘For You’ feed, not on their ‘Following’ feed means that a TikTok-only creator’s reach, which can still be millions per post, is seldom reaching their actual followers with each new video.
Conversely, platforms like YouTube show you new videos from creators you follow, interspersed with videos from unfollowed creators that might appeal to you, based on what you’ve watched and followed. This means that YouTube creators who are working with brands can better ensure that the brand’s messaging is hitting the intended audience and delivering the target frequency, if the campaign runs across a series of videos.
Notably absent from the list, Perth trio, How Ridiculous have amassed more than 13.4 million subscribers on Youtube, 3.7 million on Facebook, 1.7 million on Instagram, 3.3 million on Snapchat and a further 14.4 million on TikTok, putting their combined (including duplicated audience) following at 36.5 million, four million clear of the top followed creator on the list, gamer, LazarBeam, and 16 million above fellow West Aussie influencers, The Rybka Twins.
While it’s easy to conflate popularity with influence, it’s hard to believe that How Ridiculous’s audience, which spans all the social video platforms, each with their own distinct demographic, aren’t influenced by their infectious energy and tactfully integrated brand endorsements. And this is just one example of who was missed.
The Index, to its credit, does include some heavy hitters who have turned their online audience into loyal disciples, who will jump when told. The Inspired Unemployed, for example, have gone from comedic dances and skits, to four-page spreads in Vogue and launching a beer brand that’s captured a noticeable share of the market, not to mention the PointsBet campaign with Shaquille O’Neill.
The massive gaming side of the industry also feels drastically underrepresented, with only five creators making the list, (seven if you include Mully and JoshDub from creator collective, The Boys, who are gamers as well as comedy creators). Given how seamlessly gaming creators weave commercial partnerships into their content, and the high rate of click-throughs and affiliate code usage some gaming creators achieve, it feels like a borderline snub to not have more of Australia’s impressive roster of gamers included in the list.
Why does having a multi-platform audience matter?
For creators, spreading your content across a wide variety of social channels means better monetisation opportunities, better cross-demographic reach (only around 50% or less of Instagram, Youtube, Facebook users also use TikTok according to We Are Social’s Digital 2022 report), greater appeal to brands (marketing messages can be creatively targeted based on the platform), and a decreased reliance on a single source of revenue.
For brands, working with creators that have a multi-platform audience means you’re working with creators who truly understand the nuances of each social platform, what type of content drives meaningful engagement and how best to deliver your messaging to their audience depending on the target platform. Working with these types of creators can also result in better post-campaign insights, for example, which platforms are more receptive to your brand message, and thus more likely to drive increased engagement, social media traffic and sales conversions, which were the three most important impacts for marketers, as measured in the Aligning Marketers and Influencers whitepaper from WARC.
Diversity for sustainability
As the creator economy matures into a staple of the media landscape, and influencer marketing continues to take up more and more of the media mix, creators and brands need to consider platform ubiquity as a key metric for success online.
Whether it’s future-proofing your business as a creator so that you can weather the storm of ever-changing platform algorithms and RPM shifts or spending on an influencer marketing campaign that achieves audience reach with precision, multi-platform audiences should be prioritised.
Alex Vans-Colina, partnerships manager-ANZ, Jellysmack