Kristy Wilson, Creator and Public Figure Partnerships Team Lead at Meta explains Meta’s new Creators of Tomorrow showcase and shares three top trends content creators should embrace for success in 2023 and beyond.

Over the years, we’ve seen the internet grow from hilarious viral home videos to the emergence of instant breaking news, and long-form blogs that have inspired new cultural trends. Content was born out of creativity, with platforms given to individual voices.

For the latest generation of content creators, the potential is greater than ever. Recently, Meta launched Creators of Tomorrow, showcasing emerging creators around the world who are inspiring a new movement of creative content online.

We’re also seeing a trend of small businesses and their teams emerging as the next generation of creators. They’re now taking on the direct role of the creator – putting a face to their brand and finding new ways to further engage with their audience.

Matt Hey, better known as, Alright Hey is a comedy creator who effectively leverages his Instagram profile for real world success. Building his community and brand, he’s launched a sell-out comedy tour, a Spotify exclusive podcast Trash Alley, and most recently, has released a cocktail recipe book.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CkDEozauLe2/

Other creators doing this across Australia and New Zealand include Lexie Herod, Jeremy Franco, Meissa Mason, and Bianca Beers.

Their content spans fitness, comedy, beauty and advocacy, as well as AR and digital art, and their commonality is their ability to speak authentically to their audiences, build their personal brands, and leverage their voices and platforms; not only for hugely successful brand partnerships, but to build their own businesses, ensuring career longevity.

3 trends and opportunities to consider in your creator career

1. An autonomous brand identity

We’ve long defined creators as individuals whose ‘personality is their brand’. They’ve established rooted identities amongst their communities through interactive entertainment. Their authentic ability to tell stories and engage audiences continues to make them attractive to advertisers and brands.

Today, Meta continues to support these relationships through branded content partnerships, such as our Brand Collaborations tool, and often broker relationships that allow creators and businesses to find synergies in their storytelling.

This brand-creator relationship is set to become even stronger. Instead of creators being used to promote existing products, we’ll see an increase in creators who are actively co-creating with existing brands. New tools and the emergence of Web3 will increasingly empower them to build their own small businesses from scratch – whether that’s fashion brands, written work, filters, or otherwise.

Underpinning this is the rise of tools that allow creator-entrepreneurs to build small enterprises more easily.

2. Flourish in new formats

At Meta, we are continually adding new ways for creators and businesses to tell their stories – giving them the flexibility to experiment with formats that best suit their audiences or customers. Today, short-form video formats such as Reels are becoming increasingly prominent. Over the last quarter, we saw more than a 30 per cent increase in the time people spent engaging with the format on Facebook and Instagram.

We’ve also been exploring fresh forms of expression through augmented reality (AR), giving creators access to our free global platform, Spark AR. Already, over 700 million people use AR for connection, expression and commerce every month.

3. Increased creative collaboration

Collaboration between creators and businesses are increasingly on the rise. Platforms such as Roblox, Fortnite, or even Meta’s own user-generated game-making tool, Crayta, offer new opportunities to create and take part in the building of different immersive worlds. We have also recently added new tools to help creators make and sell their own digital collectibles, on and off Instagram. Creators will have access to an end-to-end toolkit – allowing them to create, showcase and sell NFTs.

Excitingly, developments in Web3 networks based on blockchain and open data networks will also give them ownership of their content, the ability to diversify, and the freedom to distribute it even more freely across different platforms. The future could see creators cashing in on their content where they choose, at the price they set, without the need for an intermediary.

These developments may lay the groundwork for the growth of a more collaborative input in the metaverse – which looks to be dominated by immersive environments and 3D creation. Rather than publish work independently, the continued rise in collaboration could see creators and businesses build entire digital worlds together, and see them leveraging the direct, global sales of their created assets for financial opportunities.

There has never been a better time to branch into the creator space – whether this is through collaborations with creators or your team becoming direct creators for your business. Unleash your creativity today.

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