How To Build a Long-Term Career as a Creator

Social media fame can arrive fast, but maintaining it is another challenge. We talk to agents and creators about how to build lasting relationships with audiences and brands, plus the power of niche content.

Just a few days before the Social & Creator Lions were announced at Cannes, over in Manhattan the Tribeca Festival (‘film’ was dropped from the name in 2020) was celebrating the launch of its Upnext Creators category. Among the 11 storytellers featured, with a combined following of over 14 million, was AriAtHome, a mobile beat-maker that takes his outlandish DJ booth rig through the streets of SoHo and Washington Square Park and who, fresh from a profile in the New York Times, now has a brand partnership with US tech company Sandisk. Alongside him was peanut butter skincare expert Walker Ward (a parody, lest anyone’s tempted to give it a go), who includes contact details for business inquiries in his bio.

The selected creators were given the full red-carpet, big-screen premiere treatment at the festival, taking their place alongside feature film directors and documentary makers. Meanwhile at Cannes, the fact that the category had changed its name from last year’s Social & Influencer Lions was mightily telling. We’ve moved from the age of the influencer to the age of the creator. The former, all about personal branding, lifestyle review content and audience growth, are being increasingly elbowed aside by the latter who, as the name suggests, are all about creativity, producing content that entertains and engages.

And, as Rafael McDonnell, founder and managing director of the Talent and Brands agency suggests, really all you need is a bit of confidence and a decent idea. “Anyone with an iPhone can be a content creator,” he says. “A 19-year-old creator in their bedroom can generate 16 million views that are targeted at the audience for a beauty or makeup brand. But it’s like everything else. There’s so much opportunity, but only people who have real skill and creativity and talent will win through.

“There’s been this explosion of creators over the past three years or so, the market is oversaturated. You have creators with lots of followers who are struggling to make a living, despite this dream that if you get the followers, brands will just throw money at you. It’s not like that.”