Digital marketing has seen steady growth in the past decade, but last year – 2020, was a significant game-changer for everyone in this industry as there was an extreme upsurge in the growth of the entire digital marketplace.

As consumption of digital content saw an all-time high, there was an equally exponential rise in the number of digital content creators too. Whether it was blogging website giants like WordPress, Medium and Square Space, micro-blogging sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, or visual platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest, all the digital platforms saw a boom in the increase of content creators who were brimming with creative ideas.

The emergence of new content creators inevitably changed the digital marketing format to a great extent. Gone are the days when only bloggers were the main content creators for the entire social media marketplace, now we have a new generation of content creators who are equally as good as the old bloggers – Influencers. The influencer industry is composed of all kinds of content creators – Instagrammers or Bookstagrammers, TikTokers or BookTokers, Author Tokers and FashionTokers and YouTubers or BookTubers, AuthorTubers and FashionTubers to name a few.

Here’s a brilliant interview by author influencer Angela Maiers, who was announced as the Top 100 Social Media Influencer by HuffPost (2016) and IBM’s Top 20 Global Influencer (2017,) sharing insights into being an author and entrepreneur influencer.

The entire social media marketplace has changed and evolved into this amazing influencer industry. And in hopes of keeping up with the changing needs, almost all content creators have now started to lean towards being influencers instead of only being bloggers or only content creators. I personally feel that it is great to have one single umbrella term for everyone who creates different varieties of content for digital consumption because it is very liberating to not be categorised by any single platform one prefers to use.

Keeping in mind the current content needs and trends, I too have tweaked my own social media strategies and have started my own Bookstagram and AuthorTube channels. Where I only used to blog before, now I try to create a variety of content that is more diverse, creative and varied in terms of lengths and formats. I still write blog posts, but now I also create Reels, Shorts, Stories, Videos for IGTV and YouTube channel as well try to incorporate more and more of the current trends and hashtags into my content.

The expansion of the influencer industry has made me, on a personal level, realise that I am capable of way more creativity than I ever gave myself credit for. Where in the past I thought I was camera-shy, I am now creating videos on reading, writing and promotional videos for my brand as well as others. Therefore, I believe that this drastic evolution in social media trends has also led to the evolution of creativity in all content creators as well. And this is the aspect that makes being an influencer so lucrative to everyone, especially the millennials and the newer generations, though that does not mean that others don’t feel the same way. Influencer industry is open to one and all, no matter where they are from and no matter what they do or how old they are. If you have something to say or share, then, by all means, start creating content about the things that are most dear to you, including your career, passion and even hobbies.

What about you, are you tweaking your social media content strategy to stay ahead in this ever-changing game? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I’l love to hear all about it!

Image by expresswriters from Pixabay