Brands and Social Media Marketing

Aspire did a Survey which found that YouTubers made the most revenues from brand deals even though most creators preferred Instagram. YouTube creators were likely to earn at least $500 per month from brand deals.

Aspire is an Influencer Marketing Platform which conducted a survey and reports say that YouTube has emerged as the most profitable platform for creators and is also the most cost-effective channel for brands’ influencer marketing spend.

They surveyed more than 1,000 creators of which, about half of those who made YouTube videos reported earning over $500 per month from brand partnerships on the platform. This compares to only 40% of Instagram creators and 36% of TikTok creators who earned that level of income. 6% of YouTube creators are also the most likely to bring in $10,000 or more monthly from brand deals, compared to Instagram creators at 3% and Tiktokers at 2%.

A big reason behind this, are the high engagement rates that YouTube has, which Aspire found in a different report –

Engagement rates –

YouTube – 50%

TikTok – 17%

Instagram – 3%

In spite of this, YouTube is not the platform of choice of influencers. The most-preferred channel is Instagram.

Creators and their platform of choice –

Only 3% of creators preferred YouTube

About 32% of creators preferred TikTok

A whopping 87% of creators preferred Instagram

And as per Aspire data, 87% of brands planned to invest more in Instagram as opposed to just 45% who plan to increase their spend on YouTube.

On YouTube, consumers intentionally look for content from a creator. But on hewer platforms like TikTok, creators need to depend on the platform's algorithms to place their videos on consumers’ feeds. And so, different creators have different engagement rates. And in spite of having similar sized audiences, they can earn vastly different amounts of money. There is no uniformity in earnings.

And so there is a disparity in monthly income, compared to YouTube which has greater consistency.

Increase in earnings - 48% of creators across all audience sizes said their earnings from brand deals had increased in the past year, demonstrating that marketers are still investing in influencer marketing despite economic uncertainty.

All this information thrown up by the marketing platform Aspire is immensely helpful. Influencers use various channels to build their content on. Instagram seems to be the channel of choice for most influencers. And so is YouTube.

When brands sign up influencers, it is important that they sign up those who have an affinity to them and align with them. In the same way, it is important for brands to use social media channels that best meet their marketing goals.

Instagram works because it gives influencers and creators a great platform to showcase authentic content. It has very sophisticated analytics tools which can help brands really understand their audience and know what they find most compelling.

Instagram’s carousels are very popular – so brands can work with influencers to highlight a significant amount of brand content in a carousel. Stories can bring a sense of urgency to the mix if the brands so desire, and they give users a bunch of different ways to engage with creators and brands – it could be anything from answering polls or swiping up to find a link they can access, or things like tags, chats and a whole lot more.

Brands can use Instagram for shoppable ads. They can even turn images and videos that perform well into newsfeed ads so they don’t even feel like they are advertising material.

YouTube is great for ‘How to’ videos and even video product reviews and recommendations from creators and influencers. It offers a great platform for detailed, long-form videos – short form ones too!

Speaking of which, TikTok is great for short form videos. And a great place to build engagement. This is yet another channel for creators and influencers.

But regardless of who the influencers are or the creators might be, or which channel or platform a brand chooses to use – there is just one clear bottom line -

At the end of the day, brands need to know what channels their target audiences use. And that is where they need to be. That is the only way to use social media effectively.