Emad Kazi is the VP of Product & Lifecycle at Kajabi, an all-in-one platform helping Knowledge Entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
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The creator economy is booming: The content produced by social media influencers, vloggers, podcast hosts and more has brought in over $1 billion in funding this year alone. Once just “content creators,” the most successful of these innovators have been able to expand their brands and discover new ways to monetize their knowledge. Over the years, I’ve watched the growth of the creator economy and seen the positive effects of creators cultivating their brand to become knowledge entrepreneurs. Below, I walk through why being a knowledge entrepreneur and owning your brand is essential in today’s world.
The Emergence Of The Knowledge Entrepreneur
Creators now have unique opportunities to earn revenue from their knowledge and expertise — not just from brand sponsorships and affiliate campaigns.
Being a knowledge entrepreneur means you have established authority and expertise with your audience: They trust your brand and content. That credibility leads to more opportunities to monetize yourself. For example, a fitness content creator might have amassed a following by posting workouts on their Instagram feed. As they adopt a knowledge entrepreneur attitude, they can monetize their established authority through knowledge-based content such as a health podcast, webinars or even a subscription workout plan.
As content creators realize more ways to monetize their knowledge, like courses or coaching, they will see continued success and stand out in the oversaturated creator space.
Benefits Of The Creator Economy
It’s been said many times that the pandemic has fundamentally changed the way many businesses operate. With most demographics moving online for work, communication and fun, creators’ audiences have broadened. A larger audience means a higher return on your investment as a creator; at the same time, it also means you have more competition when it comes to growing and keeping your online audience. That’s why honing in on specialization and providing educational value as a knowledge entrepreneur is critical.
One advantage of being a knowledge entrepreneur is that tools for you to develop, curate and monetize content already exist. There are numerous platforms beyond the social media giants that allow you to own your brand and nurture your audience. You can start using such tools to create newsletters, courses or even podcasts for your brand, helping you broaden your monetization methods. Especially for those looking to expand their brand, knowledge entrepreneur tools are one of the best ways to help you both get started and build your audience.
Why Creators Need To Own Their Brand
As an established creator and knowledge entrepreneur, the number one key to success is owning your brand. Owning your brand goes far beyond just having a logo and mission statement — as a knowledge entrepreneur, it means being a thought leader in your space so people come to you because they trust you. You won’t have to chase followers and leads, especially with the right tools in place. Here are some quick tips on how to own and grow your brand.
1. Establish your voice across all your channels. Consistency is what your audience will appreciate, and it’s how you will be recognized in your space. Make sure you maintain the same voice and persona in your newsletter and on your social media channels.
2. Create your own language. Are there terms specific to your audience that they can use among themselves? Maybe it’s the name of your newsletter or what you call your followers; regardless, having terms only your audience socializes with creates unity.
3. Share your brand’s stories. When you share your brand’s story, people connect better to your offering. You might discuss how you started to become a fitness coach or why you love what you do. Stories are relatable, and maintaining your authentic narrative will help you differentiate yourself.
4. Have your own creator space. This includes your website and other tools that host all of your content to help you manage your audience and marketing. The most relevant example of this was the recent Facebook outage. Many small businesses, Instagram influencers and content creators who relied solely on social media for their audiences suffered because of an outage that was beyond their control.
As a knowledge entrepreneur, you want your audience to come to your space. This means curating your own website, email lists and communities, along with maximizing social media platforms. You never know what the future might hold for the content creator space, whether new regulations in social media or disadvantageous algorithm updates. Because of these possibilities, it’s imperative that creators start curating their own space as soon as possible.
The creator economy will continue to grow rapidly. By cultivating a knowledge entrepreneur attitude, you will stand out in the crowd and own your brand and your audience.
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