Navigating the digital marketing landscape requires understanding the different players and how they can be leveraged to boost your brand. The Deloitte Creator Economy in 3D Report estimates that the creator economy is projected to be worth $250 billion and with figures like those it may be worth considering investment.
Influencers, content creators and brand ambassadors are roles we hear thrown around, but what are they really? We’ll decode the differences, determine their unique value and help you better understand how to refine your 2025 content strategy.
What’s an influencer?
We’ve all seen influencers on social media and (sometimes) IRL broadcasting their lives, promoting products, attending events, etc., while sharing the experience with an online audience. They are the modern day socialities that brands can use for marketing and content strategy.
Influencers hold the power to amplify your brand by leveraging their dedicated following. When brands collaborate with influencers, they are given direct access to their targeted audience and can build trust with authentic endorsements.
That being said, successful promotion hinges on alignment. Brands need to partner with influencers whose niche complements their brand’s values and goals. To do this, we recommend researching influencers’ engagement metrics and determining their audience demographics and content style to ensure they’re the right fit. In doing so you could improve your visibility as well as create meaningful connections that lead to conversions.
Pros |
Cons |
Gain access to a highly engaged audience that aligns with your target market, ensuring maximum reach and impact. | Popular influencers often charge premium rates, which may strain budgets or be out of reach for smaller brands. |
The endorsement of an influencer can build credibility for your brand with a potentially large audience. | The wrong match can waste time, money and even harm your reputation. |
Collaborations are short-term which allows brands to test different influencers and strategies. | Influencers maintain creative control, which may not always align with your vision. |
What is a content creator?
A content creator is a wizard at creating high-quality content that is tailored to your brand. They create visual content like photos and videos, written content including blogs, captions and other copy, interactive media, and branded assets to name a few.
These professionals only create the content so this means your brand doesn’t need to align with their personal niche. Plus outsourcing content creation is a great way for brands to save time while ensuring a consistent flow of high quality content that can be posted across your channels.
Pros |
Cons |
Content creators don’t need to align with your brand as they are solely creating content for you to distribute. | Brands receive the content which will then need to be distributed yourself to achieve reach. |
Save time by outsourcing content creation so your team can focus on strategy and execution. | Engagement is limited to your own audiences, as creators don’t actively engage with audiences on your behalf. |
Obtain high-quality, polished content that is tailored to your brand’s unique voice, needs and goals. | It can be costly for high volume as high-quality content often requires a decent investment per piece. |
What is a brand ambassador?
via Rollingstone
Onboarding a brand ambassador acts like a long-term partnership where you integrate your product into their content over an agreed period of time. This strategy offers authenticity and consistency while building trust with their audience.
The main component is exclusivity, so your ambassador becomes the face of your brand, championing it without distraction. This technique works to build genuine connections, loyalty and visibility in a partnership-driven approach
Pros |
Cons |
Long-term partnerships create consistent messaging and trust. | The commitment of long-term agreements can be costly and hard to exit if the partnership is misaligned. |
The exclusivity of an ambassador ensures your brand has sole focus and avoids competition. | Exclusivity clauses may potentially restrict your options for other partnerships. |
Build meaningful and stronger connections with authentic use of your product. | There is a reliability risk with an ambassador’s reputation or their audience relevance could decline. |
What’s right for your brand?
Determining what is right for your brand can be tricky. But with Red Herring Digital, we take the guesswork out of it.
We know that Employee Generated Content (EGC) fosters deeper brand connections compared to traditional paid partnerships or UGC. Our dedicated team can help strengthen your 2025 content strategy by leveraging this powerful approach to build trust and authenticity.
We have years of experience developing successful content creation strategies for Australian businesses from a variety of industries.
Experience it for yourself, book a strategy session and see how we can help connect you with the right influencers and content creators to elevate your business.