Login
Get A Free Trial Open Menu Modal

The Creator Advantage: How Partnering With Creators Keeps Brands Relevant

In the fast-paced digital world, staying on top of cultural trends is vital to staying relevant. Most brands face challenges in creating trendy, engaging content regularly due to constraints in time, budget, or resources. This is where content creators become invaluable. They have the unique talent for producing content that's both trendy and authentically engaging. Empowering these creators enables brands to genuinely connect with their audience while solving their content creation needs.

The Importance of Staying on Trend + Helpful Tools

Forget chasing surface-level trends! To truly resonate with today's consumers, brands need to dig deeper. Understanding societal shifts and cultural nuances goes way beyond just the latest aesthetic, trending song, or video format. 

Social listening and trend analysis tools like Sprout Social, Google Trends or Hootsuite are your secret weapons for identifying emerging trends across platforms and industries. They offer valuable insights into audience's preferences and conversations, helping brands connect with them on a more authentic level. To stay on trend, align yourself with the evolving values and preferences of your audience, actively engage in conversations, and truly understand your consumers.

Strategies for Brands to Stay Ahead

Staying relevant in today’s social climate demands a multifaceted content strategy, and one important part of that strategy is creator partnerships. Collaborating with creators unlocks a genuine and relatable voice, fostering deeper connections than traditional ads ever could.

When it comes to creator partnerships, agility is key. We recommend adopting a test-and-learn approach that involves experimenting with new platforms and content formats, including user-generated content (UGC) campaigns. This method helps brands identify engaging content for their audience, allow for quick, data-driven adjustments to align with changing preferences and inform future campaigns.

Brands That Did It Best

Brands of all sizes have leveraged creator-led trends to achieve success, whether it be boosting sales, increasing brand awareness or solidifying brand affinity. 

Olaplex: Their #OLAFLEX Challenge prompted users to share hair transformations using Olaplex products. This challenge took social media by storm — amassing 3 billion views and significantly boosting brand awareness. 

SKIMS: The brand utilized TikTok's social commerce features and collaborated with creators to showcase their shapewear products in engaging live sessions. 

Mint Mobile: Mint Mobile stays relevant and trendy by actively engaging with creators to incorporate current trends into their content strategy. They recently integrated the Girl Math trend with their Mint Math, connecting trends with their brand identity and personality. 

Navigating Challenges in the UGC Industry

While creator-driven strategies offer innovation, they also pose challenges. One significant hurdle is upholding brand consistency and quality control while creating content at scale. Balancing trend adoption with brand integrity is crucial.

Trend Adoption Survival Guide:

  • Adapt the how, not the who Embrace new content styles (like the “stitched” option on TikTok or the Reels Carousel on Instagram)  while staying true to your brand voice and message. 

Pro Tip: Repurpose existing content into trending formats. Can you turn a blog post into a Reel or a podcast episode into a stitched video?

  • Authentic content is key: Choose trends that align with your brand narrative and pillars . They should never seem forced or out of character. Ask yourself, "Does this trend align with the core values we have as a brand?" 
  • Build lasting connections: Prioritize building brand equity over short-term success.  A strong, consistent brand identity resonates with consumers to drive lifetime value, customer retention, and revenue.  Establish trust through transparency, valuable content, and customer-centric engagement.

Tips For Achieving Content Variety

Brands should move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and provide a range of options. Variety not only keeps things fresh but also unlocks deeper engagement, maximizes reach, and ultimately fosters a thriving UGC ecosystem. 

  • Work with multiple creators: Think beyond a single voice.  Collaborate with multiple creators who offer diverse styles and perspectives that resonate with your target audience.  This broadens reach and adds fresh energy into your content strategy.
  • Strategically utilize audios: Sound can be a powerful tool!  Spice up visuals with trending music or sound effects, or create content based on popular audio clips or memes.  
  • Think outside the box: Break free from conventional formats.  Consider hosting live Q&A sessions, user-generated contests with unique challenges, or interactive polls to spark conversations.

PRO TIP: Consistency is key. While variety is crucial,  so is maintaining a consistent brand identity across all formats.  Your audience should recognize your voice and values, regardless of the content type.

It's important to remember that ethical practices are critical when it comes to UGC. Respect the intellectual property of creators and take part in fair and mutually respectful partnerships. Prioritizing ethical collaboration is key to thriving in the dynamic creator-driven environment.

-

UGC is here, and it’s fundamentally reshaping marketing by bringing authentic stories from a new generation of creators to the forefront of brand storytelling. Brands can remain relevant and top-of-mind for their target audiences by engaging aligned UGC creators to tap into emerging trends. 

brkfst.io can connect your brand with our vast network of over 5,000 content creators who can produce on-trend, engaging content in under 3 weeks.  Send us a message to learn more. 

The Creator Advantage: How Partnering With Creators Keeps Brands Relevant

In the fast-paced digital world, staying on top of cultural trends is vital to staying relevant. Most brands face challenges in creating trendy, engaging content regularly due to constraints in time, budget, or resources. This is where content creators become invaluable. They have the unique talent for producing content that’s both trendy and authentically engaging. Empowering these creators enables brands to genuinely connect with their audience while solving their content creation needs.

The Importance of Staying on Trend + Helpful Tools

Forget chasing surface-level trends! To truly resonate with today’s consumers, brands need to dig deeper. Understanding societal shifts and cultural nuances goes way beyond just the latest aesthetic, trending song, or video format. 

Social listening and trend analysis tools like Sprout Social, Google Trends or Hootsuite are your secret weapons for identifying emerging trends across platforms and industries. They offer valuable insights into audience’s preferences and conversations, helping brands connect with them on a more authentic level. To stay on trend, align yourself with the evolving values and preferences of your audience, actively engage in conversations, and truly understand your consumers.

Strategies for Brands to Stay Ahead

Staying relevant in today’s social climate demands a multifaceted content strategy, and one important part of that strategy is creator partnerships. Collaborating with creators unlocks a genuine and relatable voice, fostering deeper connections than traditional ads ever could.

When it comes to creator partnerships, agility is key. We recommend adopting a test-and-learn approach that involves experimenting with new platforms and content formats, including user-generated content (UGC) campaigns. This method helps brands identify engaging content for their audience, allow for quick, data-driven adjustments to align with changing preferences and inform future campaigns.

Brands That Did It Best

Brands of all sizes have leveraged creator-led trends to achieve success, whether it be boosting sales, increasing brand awareness or solidifying brand affinity. 

Olaplex: Their #OLAFLEX Challenge prompted users to share hair transformations using Olaplex products. This challenge took social media by storm — amassing 3 billion views and significantly boosting brand awareness. 

SKIMS: The brand utilized TikTok’s social commerce features and collaborated with creators to showcase their shapewear products in engaging live sessions. 

Mint Mobile: Mint Mobile stays relevant and trendy by actively engaging with creators to incorporate current trends into their content strategy. They recently integrated the Girl Math trend with their Mint Math, connecting trends with their brand identity and personality. 

Navigating Challenges in the UGC Industry

While creator-driven strategies offer innovation, they also pose challenges. One significant hurdle is upholding brand consistency and quality control while creating content at scale. Balancing trend adoption with brand integrity is crucial.

Trend Adoption Survival Guide:

  • Adapt the how, not the who Embrace new content styles (like the “stitched” option on TikTok or the Reels Carousel on Instagram)  while staying true to your brand voice and message. 

Pro Tip: Repurpose existing content into trending formats. Can you turn a blog post into a Reel or a podcast episode into a stitched video?

  • Authentic content is key: Choose trends that align with your brand narrative and pillars . They should never seem forced or out of character. Ask yourself, “Does this trend align with the core values we have as a brand?” 
  • Build lasting connections: Prioritize building brand equity over short-term success.  A strong, consistent brand identity resonates with consumers to drive lifetime value, customer retention, and revenue.  Establish trust through transparency, valuable content, and customer-centric engagement.

Tips For Achieving Content Variety

Brands should move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and provide a range of options. Variety not only keeps things fresh but also unlocks deeper engagement, maximizes reach, and ultimately fosters a thriving UGC ecosystem. 

  • Work with multiple creators: Think beyond a single voice.  Collaborate with multiple creators who offer diverse styles and perspectives that resonate with your target audience.  This broadens reach and adds fresh energy into your content strategy.
  • Strategically utilize audios: Sound can be a powerful tool!  Spice up visuals with trending music or sound effects, or create content based on popular audio clips or memes.  
  • Think outside the box: Break free from conventional formats.  Consider hosting live Q&A sessions, user-generated contests with unique challenges, or interactive polls to spark conversations.

PRO TIP: Consistency is key. While variety is crucial,  so is maintaining a consistent brand identity across all formats.  Your audience should recognize your voice and values, regardless of the content type.

It’s important to remember that ethical practices are critical when it comes to UGC. Respect the intellectual property of creators and take part in fair and mutually respectful partnerships. Prioritizing ethical collaboration is key to thriving in the dynamic creator-driven environment.

–

UGC is here, and it’s fundamentally reshaping marketing by bringing authentic stories from a new generation of creators to the forefront of brand storytelling. Brands can remain relevant and top-of-mind for their target audiences by engaging aligned UGC creators to tap into emerging trends. 

brkfst.io can connect your brand with our vast network of over 5,000 content creators who can produce on-trend, engaging content in under 3 weeks.  Send us a message to learn more.