The creative entrepreneur: Understanding content creators and their business models

It all started in 2019, when videos of people attempting crazy and unique things became a trend on TikTok. As these videos went on to become even more viral, the creators of these videos came under the spotlight, receiving fame and fandom.

Pop culture turned these content creators into mini-celebrities across social media, helping them gain followers. Brands in relevant industry started collaborating with these creators to promote their products.

Content creators turned their hobbies and passion into rewarding professions. Their major source of income includes brand collaborations, patronage, streaming advertising, and selling online courses. The economic system built by these content creators is known as the creator economy or the influencer economy.

In this blog, we’ll explore the influencer culture, their business models, and a step-by-step guide on becoming a content creator.

Let's start with the basics.

What is a content creator?  

A content creator, also known as a digital creator, is someone who generates entertaining or educational content, in the form of YouTube or TikTok videos, blogs, Instagram or Facebook Reels, and much more. They target their content for a specific niche, and they understand their audience's content-consuming mediums to improve their engagement and follower count.  

To give an example, a professional musician prefers Twitch to YouTube to stream their content because the former has more casual viewership and engagement features than the latter. However, a baker may prefer to share their content on Instagram Reels or YouTube because that's where their relevant community consumes more content.

How do you become a content creator?  

Becoming a content creator sure sounds fun and tempting. Who wouldn’t love the freedom to do what they love, not to mention the big bucks and potential stardom that content creators could earn? However, not everyone generating digital content earns big money.

According to research by Linktree, 59% of beginner creators haven't monetized yet. Other data further reveals that it takes an average of six and half months for a content creator to earn their first dollar.

Taking this with a grain of salt before starting your content creation journey is as important as building your content strategies. This will keep you motivated and prevent you from giving up midway.

To help you on your digital content creation journey, we’ve curated five steps that will give you a fair idea about how to get started.   

1. Find your niche  

Just to reiterate the point: content creation is fun only when you do what you love. Just because a certain niche has more followers (meaning: big money) doesn't mean you must jump into it unless you’re truly interested in the domain.

However, it's important to be skilled in a particular niche before creating your content. People tend to follow content creators blindly, and as a content creator yourself, misleading your followers should be your biggest nightmare.

You could use the Ikigai approach to find your niche. If you're new to the concept of Ikigai, read our article on finding your niche. Just to quickly summarize the article, your Ikigai or niche must satisfy the following four criteria:

• You love doing this.

• You’re skilled at this.

• There’s a demand for your content.

• Your audience is willing to pay a premium for your content.  

If these criteria checks out, you've found your niche.  

Let’s consider the case of a hypothetical professional gamer, Trinity, who loves streaming Minecraft on Twitch. She uses her creativity to build beautiful in-game structures. Her creative building and survival skills have gained her followers who learn new tactics from her live stream. She has a Patreon account through which she generates a passive income.

All four criteria check out in Trinity's case. This shows that streaming games is a valid niche for content creators who are into professional gaming.

2. Understand your audience

It's important to give your followers the content that they like and want. Some people follow content creators just because they share entertaining content, such as a trending challenge, dance, music, or even comedy.

The first step is to decide what your goals are. Do you simply want to increase your followers, or are you developing content to supplement your business? Understanding your goals will help you produce quality content. It will also help you decide the type of audience you need to appeal to.

Just because a dare challenge is trending doesn't mean that you have to trend-jack it for your English coaching business. It neither helps your business nor appeals to your audience (who follows you just to learn English as their second language).

3. Preparing content

Once you understand your audience, you’ll know what kind of content they want to see on their feed. Remember that there’s no hard rule on what content works the best.   

• Structure an outline of your content, including what topics to include and what type of content will it be.

• Make a rough draft. Remember that this first draft will always be messy and out of sync.

• Revisit your content and fine-tune it.

• Watermark your content wherever necessary and make sure to follow the best practices to protect your digital content.

• Add relevant music, images, or hyperlinks based on the type of content.

• Publish it across relevant media.

4. Decide on the distribution mode   

The content you’ve prepared might be of various types, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, and much more. Certain creators mix and match their content format to appeal to a wider audience.

The key is finding your strongest medium where your content can gain traction. For example, entertaining content like vlogging, food preparation, and modeling portfolios works well on Instagram. Use Instagram Reels for preparing short and entertaining content.

Educational content, such as awareness and coaching programs, work well on long-form media like YouTube videos, blogs, and online courses. Deciding on the mode of distributing your content comes down to the type of content and your audience's preference.

With more than 2500 new videos uploaded on YouTube everyday and 2.35 billion active reel users, it comes down to how original and creative your content is. We'll cover this in a separate blog article on how to produce original and creative content.

How does a content creator make money? 

Apart from the media visibility and fan base, content creators generate revenue through different sources. From collaborating with brands to creating online courses, there are a number of different methods to make money as a content creator.

1. Brand sponsorships  

Maybe you’ve seen your favorite YouTuber talking about a product in their videos. You probably have guessed what's happening here by now.

Content creators with a huge follower base opens up an avenue for brands to promote their products to a wider range of audience. Content creators develop a close bond with their followers, which helps them promote a product easily.

However, creators must perform intensive research about a product and the brand before promoting them. Keep in mind that it's better to get legal advice when collaborating with bigger brands.

Trust is what gels followers to a creator. Promoting a scam product just because of profit, or without doing your research, could make your followers lose their trust in you.

While promoting a product, make sure that the sponsorship part isn't intrusive and doesn't disturb the flow of your content. It’s advisable to take up brands that your audience can relate to. For example, a chef should promote kitchen utensils rather than computer building parts.

2. YouTube Ads 

YouTube is a well-known mode of revenue for content creators. Creators with more than 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time (YouTube shorts doesn't count) on their YouTube videos are eligible for the YouTube Partner Program.

Brands promote their products through ads on YouTube. Creators eligible for monetization can earn a cut of the revenue from the advertisements that appear during their videos. This is one of the most popular passive income streams for creators.

To start monetizing your YouTube channel, create an AdSense account and link it to your channel once the above criteria is met. Read this article to know more about the eligibility for joining the YouTube Partner Program.

3. Affiliate marketing 

Another popular method to generate passive income is affiliate marketing. Several brands run affiliate programs to which content creators can register. After you’ve registered, a personalized link will be generated. This link will redirect viewers to the sales page of a brand's product.

Creators will place this link strategically on their content. For example, a YouTuber may talk a bit about a product in their video and ask their followers to click the link in description if they’re interested in learning more.

If a follower uses the link to visit the sales page and make a purchase (or any other desired action), a certain percentage of the revenue will be paid to the content creator. The percentage may vary for different products.     

To get into affiliate marketing:

1. Research brands that host affiliate programs.

2. Filter out these brands based on your niche.

3. Be extra careful not to fall for scam.

4. Sign up for the desired product and make sure to read their payment terms and conditions.

5. Check whether the affiliate program is for a lifetime or it has an expiry date.

6. Place the links across your content and promote them.

4. Subscriptions 

Once digital creators build a regular viewer and fan base, they can start creating premium content, which can be accessed only by those who pay a subscription fee. These creators create a membership page which they populate with subscriber-only content.

Subscription-based content is popular among gamers, podcasters, video creators, and musicians. One of the most popular websites for helping creators build subscription-based content is Patreon.

A vital point to be remembered before getting into subscriptions is to have quality content and a loyal fan base.

5. Merchandising 

This is a revenue-making method for professional content creators. Creators who have a celebrity-like following and fan base can create and sell merchandise. Items such as t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, artworks, and action figures relevant to the creator's content are created and sold to fans.

Call Me Kevin, a popular YouTuber who creates gaming content, has his own merchandise store. His items are printed with the funny quotes he uses during his voiceovers, or the names that he gives his in-game characters.

6. Online courses      

Online courses are the best way for digital creators to share their know-how with their followers and generate additional income.

People want to learn from the best. If you have a large enough follower base on social media, you can turn them into a learning community by teaching them your unique skills and expertise. This could be done in the form of online courses, coaching programs, and live workshops.

Becoming a successful course creator depends on the amount of expertise you have in your domain, the platform where you host your courses, the way you structure and deliver your curriculum, and the learning experience you provide for your learning community.

Repurposing your content into online courses  

Online courses gained momentum during the pandemic, and many content creators are now repurposing their content into courses. So we've added this section to help content creators looking to get started as course creators.

Here are seven steps to help you turn your content into online courses.

Step 1: Choose an online course platform

To launch your online courses, you need tons of tools, such as:

• A website: To list your online courses.

• Webinar tools: To host coaching programs and live workshops.

• Payment gateways: To collect payments from your learning community.

• Engagement tools: Tools like discussion forums, polls, tests, and assignments to keep your learners engaged.

• Business tools: To track how key metrics such as the number of signups, course completion rates, and more.

Online course platforms simplify these processes by providing a comprehensive tool with all the above-mentioned tools built in so that creators can just start building their online courses.

TrainerCentral is one of the most comprehensive online course platforms on the market, because it has all of the tools you’ll need to get started in your journey as an online course creator.

Step 2: Understand the learning goal 

To repurpose your content, you must understand the learning goals first. Figure out what benefits your learners will gain by completing your course.

If you're a chef, the learning goals of your course could be to learn basic cooking skills. If you're a gaming YouTuber, the learning goals could be either to learn the strategies and skills needed to compete in e-sports, or you could even create a course to become a successful YouTuber.

Step 3:  Structure the lesson plan 

Once the learning goal is decided, you need to structure your curriculum in a sequential order. Divide your content into bite-sized lessons so that your learners don't get overwhelmed.

Having a proper lesson plan helps you prepare a structured curriculum for your online course. Once you have set up your curriculum, you can add relevant videos or other multimedia content to the chapters.

Add other supplement materials, such as instructional walkthroughs or recipes, as handouts so that your learners can access them anytime.

Step 4: Choose the type of educational content

You can turn your content into courses in three different forms:

• On-demand content

• Live workshops

• Cohort classes

On-demand content 

You can add your content in the form of videos, PDFs, PPTs, or other formats and add them as lessons in your course. Learners can subscribe and access this educational content whenever it’s convenient for them.

Live workshops 

Certain skills, like perfecting a dance move, require constant monitoring and getting instant feedback from trainers. Such skills can't be taught through on-demand courses only.

You can host live workshops where you and your learners engage and learn in real time. You can share your screen to walk through game missions, use the digital whiteboard to break down complex topics, or use breakout rooms to conduct group learning activities.

Cohort classes  

In cohort-based learning, a group of learners with similar learning goals advance through an educational program together. You can host training programs such as a two-week content writing masterclass as a cohort. Here, a group of learners will attend your classes, submit assignments, and get certified together.

Step 5: Onboard your learners     

Your followers and fans can be your learners. Redirect your followers from other social media platforms to your course website. This will act as a funnel, where only interested followers will sign up for your course and join your learning community.

You can build awareness about your online course by creating a video on YouTube or posting on Instagram Reels. Professional gamers usually announce this during their livestream, where their viewership is at its peak. If you're already into subscription-based content, you can easily create a mailing list of your subscribers and run an email campaign about the launch of your courses.

Step 6:  Engage your learners 

Your courses must be engaging and beneficial to your learners so that they can gain some value by completing them. It’s important to keep your learners hooked throughout the course so that they don't drop out before the end of the course.

You can ask your learners to submit assignments on the topics you've taught them. This will encourage them to research outside of their learning hours and will help them get hands-on experience. Including a quiz or test at the end of each chapter will help you gauge their understanding. You can use this data to refine your teaching methodologies.

You can also award them with completion certificates, which will motivate them to complete your course successfully.

Step 7: Ask for feedback

The major goal in an online course is to educate your learners and help them meet the learning goals. But not all learners have similar understanding and grasping power.

Getting constant feedback from your learners will help you restructure your curriculum and add more study materials wherever necessary.

You can also keep a course completion chart to analyze how many learners have dropped out from your course before they reach the end. This will help you find any shortcomings in your course and address them promptly.

Final thoughts

Transitioning from a content creator to a course creator isn't a herculean task if you have the right set of tools and a good understanding of your learners. But, the focus here must entirely be on your learners and helping them learn new skills.

Diversifying your content creation strategy is a smart move, and online courses are a great addition to your portfolio to generate passive income.  

For more information on how to get started, read our blog on becoming a successful online course creator.