Creators and Influencers
To make Nayi Disha successful much more will be needed, not just a content factory, digital tools and platforms. It will need to cultivate creators and influencers. Creators are the ones who will add to the diversity and richness of content that is needed to attract members; Influencers are those who will help amplify the content to drive the membership flywheel. Creators and influencers are two sides of the same coin. In fact, this mirrors how the Internet itself is becoming the domain of creators and influencers.
The New York Times wrote recently: “Creators are people who build audiences online and find a way to make money from those audiences. They are usually young, digital natives who are trying to make a living from their social media work… By focusing on influencers, [Tiktok] forced changes from traditional social networks like Instagram and Twitter that had shied away from catering to the people who were creating the popular content on their platforms. TikTok allowed up-and-coming social media personalities to be discovered more easily, and gave them a clearer direct path to making money through the company’s Creator Fund, which pays creators a certain amount based on views.”
More from The Economist: “In the past decade anyone with a phone has become a potential content creator. Cameras have got sharper, processors more powerful and networks faster. Apps can improve even the shoddiest content. Instagram, launched in 2010, provided filters that made ordinary photos look cool. TikTok has made it as simple to edit video. In April Facebook unveiled recording tools that aim to do for amateur podcasters what Instagram did for bad photographers. The internet’s limitless, free distribution and searchability has made it possible for this output—videos, music, jokes, rants and all manner of things that defy categorisation—to find an audience, however niche… Just as the internet allowed brands to bypass physical shops and sell directly to customers online, social platforms “offer a path for creators to communicate directly with their audience,” says Mr Shmulik.”
From Subscribed: “The Creator Economy is booming. Empowered with publishing platforms and recurring revenue streams, thousands of people are striking out on their own as paid creators. This isn’t just about well-known journalists leaving established brands anymore. Today, anyone can become a media company.”
Influencers are celebrities in their own right. Some have become famous in other fields and extended that fame to the Internet. Others have leveraged the new platforms to acquire their own following.
Nayi Disha will need its own ecosystem of creators and influencers to complement what the content factory creates. This will keep growing the reach into newer and newer communities. The key is to get started. The digital world then allows for many methods of multiplying membership.
