The creator economy continues to emerge as a subset of the SMB universe. One thing fueling it is the democratization of software that empowers them to create digital media – everything from Canva to the Creative Cloud. The other thing fueling it is creator marketplaces that feed creators with paid work.
That second factor continues to grow from the likes of Snap, TikTok, and Meta. The latter recently advanced its creator marketplace through Instagram. Specifically, it announced today that it’s extending its Creator Marketplace through an API that lets brands discover and spark relationships with creators.
As background, Instagram’s Creator Marketplace launched last July as a place where brands and creators could meet and find creative alignment. Creators can form profiles and display their portfolios, while brands can browse that information, then reach out to creators to find out more or hire them.
Reducing Friction
So how does this week’s development advance that program? Now that it’s packaged up as an API, brands can integrate the creator marketplace into a variety of marketing software products they already use. API features include marketplace access and an inbox to communicate with creators.
The API also lets brands publish project briefs to the creator marketplace from third-party software. Just as they can browse available creators, the inverse is true. And this function allows them to post available projects so that creators can sift through them and reach out if they feel that their skills align.
To get the ball rolling, Instagram has begun testing the API with third-party software platforms that are built for creator marketing. These include Aspire, Captiv8, and CreatorIQ. These are the types of products where the API can be integrated, making it easier for brands to access it all in one place.
In addition to all the above, Instagram is expanding the creator marketplace access to agencies. This lets brands delegate creator-economy recruitment to an agency that may be executing a given project or campaign. The theme in all these moves is reducing friction for brands to tap into the creator economy.
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The Race is On
Backing up, what is the creator economy, and why is it important? In short, it’s the music teachers, Etsy artists, and cooking shows of the world. It also includes traditional fields like graphic design. The common thread is online personas or micro-brands that distribute knowledge or goods online.
As noted, creators are SMBs after all, though sometimes a different flavor of SMB than local businesses that we typically think of (lawyers, plumbers, roofers, hardware stores, etc.). But this new SMB breed also means that the creator economy is a horizontal segment to which the SMB Saas world can expand.
The timing is also right for the creator economy. It has grown in the Covid era as SMBs like yoga instructors and music schools were forced to join the ranks of digitally-distributed pros. Correspondingly, the trend breathed new life into a new breed of software providers that build production tools.
And that brings us back to Instagram’s move. It addresses some but not all creator economy segments, as it’s more about multi-media production than some of the above SMB categories. But in all cases, we’ll continue to see the likes of Meta, Snap, and TikTok build products around the creator economy.
