The survey comes from the Argentine Business University (UADE). He claims that Argentines spend 5 hours and 6 minutes a day on social networks (those consulted are from AMBA). And there are also, although very few, people who spend the same number of hours (or more) create content for those social networks.
They go to places, they record, they take pictures, they ask questions, they take different shots. Then they go home, edit the material, write a script, record a voiceover, and upload the content. usually to instagram. What were the beginnings of those content creators like? How did it become a profession for them? How did they go from swaps to payments? Why do you think brands started choosing them? And what is the difference between them and a famous regular?
The three stories that follow contain the answers to all these questions. And more.
“Really?” asked Claudymar Orozco (27) when he was offered his first exchange from a beauty salon. Your account, @viajesconclau, had surpassed 12,000 followers. “Beyond 10,000 was fantastic. It’s the one that costs the most. At various times, the account only generated frustration for me. I didn’t see any signals. Consistency was important,” says Orozco, who arrived from Venezuela at the age of 23 in 2017. Today he is 28 years old and his account has more than 167,000 followers.
In his country he studied medicine and managed a blog. He had to emigrate. He chose Argentina. After learning that she had to start a career from scratch, she decided to go into marketing. In the first weeks in Buenos Aires, her curiosity led her to discover parks, promenades and restaurants. The tours were on the weekends: I took pictures, recorded videos and uploaded the material to your instagram profile. Like any user. He paid for the meals, the tickets, the tickets. I paid for everything.
In a bar in Palermo he recalls: “It’s the welcome of the people that tells you that there is something. They have commented on me, they have participated in the posts. I have perceived a growth”. There the account was born as @tuguiaenargentina. But in early 2018 he rebranded it. When he got close to 40,000 followers, and after many exchanges (for bus tickets, hotels, a bakery and a dental center, among others), he achieved the second big goal of a content creator: receiving a collaboration proposal for a fee. He had already traveled to various provinces of the country. Even in Chile. His goal was always to show the 24 provinces.
The “monetization” dream came true in March 2020. That is, three years after the account was created. It was his first payment. “Brands carry more brands,” he suggests. And he continues: “Suddenly everyone started asking me how I worked, what projects I proposed. I worked with several of them for two years and they made me their ‘brand ambassador’.”
Your marketing degree enables you to evaluate brand guidelines from both perspectives. “Things have changed. Today at least many of us spend several hours a day on the networks. Brands have found, in us, a direct way to reach people. But be careful: it is a complement to a marketing campaign”.
And on being a content creator, he says: “We tell things differently than on TV or radio. It’s like a friend telling you. It builds trust. And as soon as they see a recommendation from us, they want to consume it”.
Only in three videos (“3 stays for a field day”, “3 extraordinary getaways” and “3 outlets where to buy cheap”) adds over 7.4 million visits. “Thinking about visualizations and metrics is addictive. Although I am clear: if what I want to show is not good, I don’t do it. My goal is to influence travel; to show them that there is life outside the routine,” he He says.
And he concludes with everything he says that his followers or “ordinary people” don’t see: “The perception is ‘they eat and travel for free’. And no, it’s an extra job. They believe that there is only what is shown. But they don’t see the schedule, the editing time, the outputs, the sorting of the content. Nor the investment of cameras, the drone, drone courses, photography, editing. I do everything.”
Social networks practically did not exist. Coty Crotto and Maru Gándara started what they believed was missing in the newsroom where they met. “A more informal space to talk about fashion, something fun; a side B to tell where to buy cheap clothes and how to get deals”, was the initial idea. they baptized him Very pretty (@very pretty).
“Our first big leap was from blogging to Facebook”recalls Coty. “At first we bought all the clothes we showed. Brands just wanted to be in fashion supplements or static advertising. Also: they didn’t even invite us to their events.” But things were changing. To the point that relatives who previously questioned them about leaving their jobs in the media are now surprised by the encounters they have begun to have, with brands such as Mercedes Benz or Volkswagen.
Today, they say, Muy Mona is their own means of communication. They have 353 thousand followers. “We started with zero pesos and today we are a company (they have six employees). 90% of our content is guidelines. In the beginning we were anonymous. There was no choice but to go to the other side of the camera. The the key is to show who is behind the project, to present themselves as an entrepreneur. The Argentine is seduced by knowing who sells them and by helping the entrepreneur,” says Maru.
They weren’t the only ones to grow up. The same thing happened to the first brands that advertised Muy Mona. To cite just two examples, they tell of a brand owner who rode his bike to deliver clothes to them. Now, that same entrepreneur runs several stores in malls. The other case is that of an owner who started advertising when she ran her first restaurant in the neighborhood. You recently hosted an event at Patio Bullrich, with Zaira Nara as a guest.
Like Claudymar, “they talk about ‘work.’ Not everything is rosy: we see each other every day, a certain number of fixed hours a day. There is an editorial decision in everything we do. We give a service. Journalism has given us everything; it’s our best tool,” they agree.
Throughout the process, they created an online store, founded Muy Mona TV, organized events and generated follower meetings, among other activities. One of the keys that reveal was patience. “In the beginning, few people follow you. That’s why, if you want to dedicate yourself to this, you have to like them. Because it can take a while to start growing,” reflects Maru. Adds Coty: “We like to share our experience, because there are so many people involved. We say ‘if you like it, do it. If you don’t break it, at least you’ll be happy.’ The universe of networks is so vast that there is room for everyone. You just have to get over the frustration at the beginning.”
There was a click in the process. Not from them, but from brands. They were no longer limited to fashion supplements and static advertising. At one point they bet on the networks. “I’m a new kind of media. It does not replace the traditional ones”they warn. “It was the brands decision. They saw that there was a new voice. We had thousands of people consume what we showed. It was a build with our followers. Without being celebrities: our role is to demonstrate that we can be fine without having to buy certain exclusive brands. We are an everyday business and we generate community.”
Follower count is the cover letter of celebrities, influencers, and content creators. Cynthia Martínez Wagner, from Turista Foodie (@turistafoodie), explains the differences in quantity. “If as a brand you’re looking for something big, that makes your name ring, invest in a celebrity,” she advises. The content creator, she compares, “is more than a niche,” she clarifies. “I’m for another strategy. The creator will generate more real consumers for you. The difference is that followers of him trust him; they see what place he shows, or what product, and they will consume it, unlike trusting a celebrity.”
Cinzia and the social networks began with a crisis. «I worked as a graphic designer in a company. I was fine. But I needed a change of scenery », she recalls in a café in Palermo, before entering La Rural hired by the Salta Tourism Secretariat. “I liked photography, blogged and found that tourists knew more about Buenos Aires than the locals themselves. And it was a challenge: to show what foreigners see in the city.”
Thus, it was born @turistaenbuenosaires (671 thousand followers). Each day of the week has done something different: content on architecture, green spaces, information on activities to do next weekend, among other options. One of them was “Gastronomy”. “It was what people expected the most,” she says. And he felt it was worth opening another account. Believe @turistafoodie (219 thousand followers).
A few months after creating the first account, he was presented with a few invitations. Which made him talk about work: he changed his salary and the fixed plan for production payments. After six months the project was still growing. He had the doubt: to play with it or not. She spoke to her husband and supported her. “Go for it. If things go wrong, then look for a steady job,” she suggested.
After 8 months, what all content creators expect has arrived (although she considers herself a digital communicator, specialized in tourism and gastronomy in Buenos Aires): a cheap proposal, after having sent dozens of emails asking “are you interested in spreading the voice?” Until then, in late 2019, it was rare for a person to walk into a cafe or restaurant and record content. With great luck, the gastronomes didn’t charge him anything.
“I stopped putting money into generating content and explaining to merchants that it had to work for me too. Over time they started to notice what moves networks, the trust of those who follow you. What we do takes a lot of time and work so that the sales are replicated to the other and we do not charge anything Note that sometimes I go to a place by myself and if I like it, I take pictures, record them and upload them. It’s instantaneous. Without warning or talking to anyone,” he says.
Today, between his two accounts, four people work. “I love learning about new and innovative places and telling them in a different way. But what I like most are the messages I receive, from followers who have chosen a place that I have recommended for surprise anniversaries or special dates,” she says. “There is something very strong in gastronomy: in addition to moving a lot, and one a lot, It makes us happy to eat something delicious. And it’s good to eat something tasty.”
He is now in a fundamental stage, according to his vision, for the exploitation of the accounts: learning to delegate. Pick the staff, teach them, give them time, analyze the content they bring to you. Because to grow, she says, you have to learn to delegate.
Source: Clarin
