<\/p>\n
Is the new American dream a farce?<\/p>\n
We\u2019re talking, of course, about the \u201cdream\u201d of content creation, posting content, gaining a massive following on social media, getting a ton of brand deals, and quitting your 9-to-5. Someone might see it as a fool\u2019s game when watching the backlash that one creator, Connor Hubbard, or @hubs.life_, has faced over the last few months.<\/p>\n
Hubbard, dubbed \u201cthe most boring man on the internet\u201d last year by The Guardian, garnered massive followings on TikTok (917,000 followers) and Instagram (1.4 million) for his mundane day-in-the-life videos that, as GQ reported, drove \u201cthe internet insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the world is working,\u201d Hubbard told GQ last May, theorizing why his content normalizing the 9-to-5 had become so popular. \u201cThey have to work for a living. They can\u2019t all be influencers.\u201d<\/p>\n
But by that point, Hubbard had<\/em> become an influencer. And in February of this year, Hubbard followed the now familiar trajectory, quitting his 9-to-5 to become a full-time content creator, transitioning from what had made him famous to yet another influencer without a traditional day job. (Hubbard did not respond to Marketing Brew\u2019s request for comment.) Since then, Hubbard has faced backlash from his fans for no longer being \u201crelatable.\u201d There\u2019s even a new content cycle from other creators, breaking down what went wrong\u2014a \u201cdownfall\u201d that some say \u201cneeds to be studied.\u201d<\/p>\n Hubbard is one of a number of content creators who\u2019ve followed this trajectory, pivoting from a part-time influencer (who has a normal job) to a full-time content creator, dependent on brands and algorithms for income. It\u2019s a difficult transition for any creator to manage, one they should approach with a plan to guide audiences along on the journey, according to influencer marketing and ad agency execs.<\/p>\n While the appeal of content creation can be a sense of freedom and the possibility to create and make money doing so, what\u2019s happening for Hubbard is a reality check that there are boundaries\u2014even for the creator economy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a good reminder that if you\u2019re a creator, if the ultimate goal is to work for yourself, you have to work for your audience,\u201d Oliver McAteer, partner and head of development at ad agency Mischief, said. \u201cYou do have customers out there, so to speak, consumers that know you for kind of one thing. So it does kind of narrow you or limit you to how far you could go.\u201d<\/p>\n McAteer has experienced limits with his own content. Two and a half years ago, McAteer started to document his experience as a first-time dad on his personal TikTok account called The Mac Daddy. With that page, which has 28,000 followers, he experimented in switching up the content, running a series about being a Brit in America. \u201cWhilst [that] had a life of its own, my followership stalled, and it has stalled to this day,\u201d McAteer said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s because I tried to change my content and do something a little bit different.\u201d<\/p>\n Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Doing something different isn\u2019t inherently bad. Creators can and do need to adjust their approach to content creation as they see fit, but their audience may have a reaction to any changes. It\u2019s all a matter of how creators manage a shift in their approach to the content.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you think of it more like I\u2019m switching up my content and I\u2019m making a major life change\u2014there\u2019s always a risk with that; a lot of times, that risk pays off,\u201d Mae Karwowski, founder and CEO of influencer marketing agency Obviously, said. \u201cYour audience truly has a parasocial relationship with you, and they really feel like they know you really well if you\u2019re doing a good job, so you really need to understand and be very thoughtful about how you make a transition.\u201d<\/p>\n Karwowski believes that creators should think of themselves as akin to magazines. For instance, Karwowski posited that if Vogue started posting farm life content out of nowhere, its subscribers would probably unsubscribe. Creators making a stark transition in content should consider a scenario like that and think about what followers might want from them, she said.<\/p>\n For creators, it\u2019s not just a matter of whether or not they\u2019re making audiences happy. There\u2019s a ripple effect: \u201cYou as a creator should be taking cues from your followers,\u201d Christina Goswiller, SVP and head of social transformation for Digitas, said. \u201cUltimately, they\u2019re the ones who are engaging with your content, [determining] the performance of your content, which then determines brand deals and your livelihood.\u201d<\/p>\n If a marketer was looking to work with a creator because of their specific type of content and the audience they\u2019ve cultivated, but then that creator makes a change, they could end up losing out on future brand deals.<\/p>\n Marketers may want to \u201creevaluate that partnership,\u201d Goswiller said, adding that it depends on the longevity of the relationship.<\/p>\n And even if a creator wants to quit what made them successful, it can be smarter to stick with what has worked, Karwowski said. She shared a parallel of a successful small-town content creator who moves to LA, and \u201cthen the lifestyle creep is so real, and now it\u2019s just LA influencer content,\u201d she said. \u201cI always advise, if you don\u2019t have to move, [don\u2019t].\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nReality check<\/h3>\n
Switching up content<\/h3>\n
Get marketing news you’ll actually want to read<\/h5>\n
Happy audience, happy brands<\/h3>\n