The Influencers’ Brand
Instagram has been around since 2010, making it a fairly established platform in comparison to other social media companies. It’s also one of the places where the “Influencer” or “Content Creator” job came to be known, though one could also add YouTube, Vine, and Twitter to that list as well.
Somehow, in some mysterious way, content creators began building a following with people who tuned into their pages/channels/feeds on a consistent basis, and most importantly built trust while creating interest with the followers.
Over time, these content creators began to influence their following, or really anyone who was driven to their page, to buy or consider buying things like clothes, accessories, home goods, books and so much more. To take it one step further, some content creators have even morphed their channels into a lifestyle for others to follow, showcasing their wellness, what their day-to-day life is like, and many other things.
The tricky thing about influencing or creating content is that followers are always looking for something new or the next big trend. And with today’s economy (2024 what is this?) it seems like content creators have shifted their focus to their own physical brand or product.
To be clear, Influencers and content creators already have their own brand, in fact, everyone does. Your brand is who you are, what you do, how you conduct yourself, the work you putout into the world and the things you do in your spare time, just to name a few attributes of a personal brand.
But what these Influencers do is take their brand a step further into physical product. Think: Dairy Boy or The Bar, where the influencers who own that brand have started with simpler swag or merch style product like sweatshirts, tumblers, candles, and t-shirts.
Here’s where my controversial opinion enters the chat. Anyone can source and screen print a logo on clothing, in fact, lots of mass market retailers or brand names do it as well. Ralph Lauren and Target a great examples of this, just go shop any department and you’ll find simple phrases or logos screen printed or stitched anywhere on the product.
What’s different about these Influencers though, is the trust and loyalty they’ve built with their followers. And that trust take years to build, which is why so many Influencers will tell you how they’ve been doing this for years and that they had started because they just found it interesting, but somewhere along the way their fashion sense, knowledge, or healthy lifestyle encouraged followers to stick around for the long haul.
To go even further, those who do content creation and influencing well and have a passion for product or fashion go one more step and create full blown companies. This allows them to pivot into being an Entrepreneur in the space of their choice and own aspects of their company like quality control and product development, to name a few. Brands like The Skinny Confidential and Nemah were started by Content Creators that grew their followings, had their own merchandise, then added onto their personal brands with new and innovative companies that filled a niche within their markets (this is a whole other topic we’ll save for another time).
The brands mentioned in this blog post are just a few that come to mind, but if you go out and look around, I’m confident that you’ll find other great examples to learn about and dive into along your branding journey.