There are many ways a content creator can earn while doing what they love. The most popular is brand collaborations. You partner with a brand, they give you a set of guidelines, you generate content based on it, and you get paid.
If you’re lucky that payment is in actual moolah and if you’re starting your creator journey, then it’s in the form of gifts. While there is nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with collabs, as a creator, you should strive to earn in more ways than just this.
That’s where custom content comes in.
What is custom content?
If you’ve been using the DYT app, you’ve seen the custom content tab. This is the original content that you create exclusively for a brand. Allow us to paint a clearer picture.
Let’s say you open the app, and you see a beer brand looking for custom content. You do your thing and create a kicka$$ image featuring the beer in an hour.
You share the image with the brand through the DYT app and add a price tag to it. (FYI, you get to choose the price you think the picture is worth, not the brand.)
If the beer brand likes your image and wants to use it, they buy it for the price you quoted. After the content has been purchased, you cannot use it anywhere else. The rights for it belong to the brand that buys it.
What are the benefits of custom content for a creator?
Strap on your seat belts, because you’re in for a helluva of a ride.
There are tons of benefits of custom content, but the biggest is that you have the freedom to decide how much your content is worth. With brand collaborations, this is not always possible for a small creator.
Here are some other advantages of making custom content for DYT:
- While the DYT app has a lot of brand collaborations going on at a time, there are moments when you don’t find a collab you love, or there are none that match your niche.
When that’s the case, custom content comes to your rescue. You create original content for any of the campaigns and simply raise an offer to the brand.
- With custom content, you’re allowed price negotiation. For instance, you quote INR 700 for an image in the first bid. The brand likes your content but thinks the price is too high for one photo.
If this happens, you have the option to lower the price to INR 600 (or any amount you think is right) and raise another bid to the brand.
- If a brand buys your custom content, you secure that money bag. But that doesn’t mean you’re at a loss if the brand doesn’t purchase the image. You can always sell it to another brand! In short, custom content is a win-win situation for a creator.
One last benefit of custom content is using old content. As a creator, you have a whole bank of images that you haven’t published anywhere. Instead of letting these pictures waste away on your laptop or hard drive, why not put them to work and actually make some money!
Why do brands need custom content?
The picture on custom content is incomplete until you factor in brands.
Why would a brand be interested in buying content from you, instead of collaborating?
There are two reasons for it.
One, brands have finally woken up to the power of social media. They realise that it is easier to capture the attention of customers by posting on Instagram, Facebook, yadda, yadda.
For this, they need content. And we’re not talking about stock photos. We’re talking about real images that speak to users. That’s where you come in. When a brand buys your custom content, they get easy access to real pictures!
Two, custom content is unique. Therefore, it offers the brand an exclusive voice that engages their existing audience. That’s a lot of marketing lingo for:
“Custom content appears nowhere else online and thus is special enough to attract a brand’s customers.”
The Gist: Get to Creating Custom Content
A successful creator knows that it is not savvy thinking to put all their eggs in one basket. Yes, brand collaborations are a great way to earn, but they are just one avenue.
Custom content is another and one that can help small creators fatten their wallets quickly. So, go, Do Your Thng and get to generating custom content!
