Are curators taking over from influencers as the next thing in social media and branding?

In January, we wrote about the ongoing influence of influencers in 2023. In that article, we stated,

“In the last three years, the number of Google searches for “influencer marketing” has increased by 1500%. This shows that influencer marketing continues to have opportunities and will continue to play an essential role in marketing as brands balance the need to survive the economic downturn rising interest rates and build and retain trust and improve collaboration.”

Six months later, we are witnessing the rise of curators. Brands will continue to use Influencers in their marketing and campaigns; however, as the role of Curators becomes more recognised, brands will have another option to market and promote their products, particularly to aspirational consumers.

Consumer Culture and Aspirational Consumers

To understand consumer psychology, it is essential to understand aspirational consumers.

Aspirational consumers are those consumers who strive for more in life. They enjoy pushing themselves to learn new skills and tend to be career-oriented and opportunistic, and they are looking for brands that can help them become more successful.  Aspirational consumers makeup about 39% of all consumers and hence are a crucial audience for brands to consider in their marketing strategy.

For aspirational consumers, it isn’t about having the money to buy things but having the knowledge and taste to know what to buy. The product is more than the product. It is a vehicle for self-expression, identity, and social status. In this context, knowledge, judgement, and taste are valuable [1], and this is where the role of curators becomes essential.

Curators play a significant role because they act as tastemakers, trendsetters, and experts who help consumers navigate the overwhelming abundance of choices in the marketplace, particularly in areas such as fashion, lifestyle, art, and home decor.

These curators often have a distinct aesthetic or expertise and use their platforms to showcase products that align with their vision or cater to a specific lifestyle. By curating products and presenting them in an appealing way, curators provide consumers with a more focused and personalised shopping experience.

They also create a narrative around the products they showcase, highlighting their unique features, quality, and value. This storytelling aspect enhances the desirability of the products and fuels the aspiration to own them.

What is the difference between Curators and Influencers?

While there can be some overlap between curators and influencers, they are quite distinct.

Curators

Historically, a curator was a person who was responsible for selecting, organising, and presenting collections of items, often in the context of museums, art galleries, libraries, or online platforms. They are experts in their respective fields and possess knowledge and understanding of art, history, culture, or other specialised areas. They research, acquire, preserve, and interpret objects, artworks, or information to create meaningful exhibitions or collections. Their goal is to provide an engaging and informative experience for visitors or users, helping them appreciate and understand the curated materials.

This concept of curator has seeped into the aspirational economy. They have become influential figures in shaping consumer aspirations and the act of buying things by leveraging their expertise, storytelling skills, and platforms to create desire, offer personalised experiences, and guide consumers in their purchasing decisions.

Influencers

An influencer is a person who has gained a significant following and influence on social media platforms or other digital channels. They typically focus on creating and sharing content related to specific topics such as fashion, beauty, travel, fitness, technology, or lifestyle.

Influencers often have expertise or a strong interest in their niche and use their personal brand to engage and connect with their audience. They aim to inspire, inform, or entertain their followers through content and may collaborate with brands for sponsored posts or endorsements. Influencers typically have a direct relationship with their audience and can have a considerable impact on consumer behaviour and trends.

In summary, an influencer primarily operates within social media, creating and sharing content to engage and influence their audience, often related to lifestyle, fashion, or specific interest areas. Whereas a curator is an expert who selects and organises items, information or products in a way that establishes them as tastemakers, trendsetters, and experts who help consumers navigate the overwhelming abundance of choices in the marketplace.

The Importance of Curators for Consumers

While both curators and influencers have their roles, the importance of each depends on factors such as the nature of the content, the target audience, and the platform being used. However, in recent years, there has been a growing recognition of the value of curators, particularly in fields where expertise and trust are crucial. Curators provide a curated experience, filtering out noise and presenting high-quality, relevant content. This can be especially important in domains where accuracy, reliability, and in-depth knowledge are paramount.

While influencers have gained significant attention and have been highly influential in shaping consumer trends and promoting products or services on social media, there has also been some scepticism and a growing demand for authenticity and transparency in influencer marketing.

As a result, of the scepticism and ethical concerns around practices used by some Influencers, some consumers have started to seek out trusted curators who provide unbiased recommendations and a deeper understanding of the subject matter. This has made the role of curators on social media more important.

Unlike influencers, curators often choose to remain anonyomous to boost their credibility. They are also not after the sheer reach and volume of followers: in their niches. It is the quality of followers that count. By influencing quality followers, curators shape culture by becoming a  source of inspiration for broader trends [2].

Ultimately, the importance of curators and influencers is not mutually exclusive. They serve different functions and cater to different needs. While influencers often excel at promoting products and engaging with a broader audience, curators offer specialised knowledge, expert guidance, and a curated experience. The relative importance of curators and influencers will likely continue to evolve as audience preferences and the dynamics of online content consumption change over time.

Starting points for becoming a curator

When a brand is considering becoming a curator, it is essential to consider the following four points [3].

Define the brand’s business objective

Decide what curating will achieve for the brand. Curation can retain an audience and attract new ones that have yet to consider a brand. It can attract a collaborator or start a brand partnership. It can increase product value and protect pricing. Hence it is essential to be clear about what becoming a curator will achieve that is different to what the brand already achieves.

Define the point of view and the story the brand will tell (to achieve the brand objective)

It is important to ground curation in one of the following:

• Values
• Knowledge and expertise
• Culturual moment; or
• Story

When a brand has decided what the curation will be based on, it is essential to clearly define a filter that distinguishes the things and behaviours the brand focuses on. Decide and specify what makes the brand’s curation distinct and what is the unique aspect of its experience.

Define how the story will be conveyed (the strategy)

Identify the sources of the material (products, videos, memes, references, images) for the brand’s curation. Define the sub-themes or sub-categories that enforce a more comprehensive narrative. Organise them according to the brand’s filter. Remember that every item must tell the same story as the entire narrative. 

Execute the Strategy

Define when and how often the brand will share and how your selection will nurture and create that unique and selective experience for the brand’s community.

Curators will become more critical for brands, particularly in marketing to aspirational consumers. However, becoming a successful curator takes time and effort. Consistency, quality, and engagement are vital to establishing a brand’s credibility and attracting an audience that values the brand’s curated content.

When was the last time you reviewed your organic strategy?

The SEO landscape is ever-evolving due to the ongoing changes by Google, the impact of AI and the increasing use of voice searching technology. Google’s algorithm constantly evolves, with updates occurring up to 600 times a year [1]. As a result of these changes, organisations that want to ensure they have a strong, effective online presence must review their SEO strategies.

In this article, we consider four areas that are essential to building a strong SEO strategy in 2023.

The Impact of voice search technology and how it changes the use of language for seo

Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant voice searches are now utilised daily by a large percentage of the population. There are also appliances such as Google Home, Amazon Echo and Apple Homepad which are also driving the increasing use of voice search technology [2].

The impact of voice search technology has seen the rise of conversational queries rather than typed search queries. 

What does this mean for seo?

SEO must be optimised for voice search. Voice search focuses on natural language processing (NLP) which is different to typing a search query.

Google has launched LaMDA to understand natural language better.  LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) is a machine-learning model designed to understand dialogue better and deliver more efficient results. As LaMDA becomes more proficient, the emphasis will continue to switch to voice search rather than typed search queries.

How to optimise for voice search

Organisations can optimise their SEO for voice search in the following ways.

• Targeting phrasing: For example, a customer may type “best hiking boot brand” but verbally search “what’s the best hiking boot brand?” Optimising for these verbal searches is a great way to target conversational keywords.
• Keeping answers short: If you optimise for conversational keywords, it is essential to keep your answers concise to deliver helpful information quickly.
• Considering the vernacular: Different countries and different states within countries use specific phrases to describe objects or places. Knowing the vernacular words can help you optimise for more conversational keywords [3]. 

The increasing use of ai

The increasing acceptance and use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and its impact on SEO are associated with the rising use of voice search technologies.

Search engines such as Google rely on sophisticated algorithms. AI-powered algorithms can improve search engines’ algorithms, making search results more accurate, personalised, and efficient. As AI improves and becomes more mainstream, search engines will likely adopt similar technologies, resulting in a more accurate understanding of user queries and better search results [4].

Consequently, organisations need to consider how they use AI as part of their SEO strategy. To refuse to consider using AI will ultimately negatively impact the organisation’s online presence.

Video marketing

Consumers are increasingly using videos to help them make purchasing decisions, and Google is also rolling out features to help users find information faster in videos [5]. These features include:

• Clip markup – enabling companies to highlight critical points in their video so users can go straight to those parts. YouTube also provides an autocomplete feature that provides an easy way to find video keywords.
• Seek Markup – this tells Google how your URL structure works, which enables Google to display critical moments of your video immediately.

With the increasing use of videos, they become an essential component of an organisation’s SEO strategy to increase its market presence.

Since users spend 88% more time on pages with videos, incorporating videos in the content can boost engagement, rankings, and traffic. It is also essential if using clip markup or seek markup to use keyword-rich markups [6]. 

This brings us to the third area to build a strong SEO strategy in 2023.

The Importance of Keywords

The purpose of keyword research has changed in recent times. It used to be that keyword research was done for a website to ensure it appeared first in the search results. However, this is no longer the primary objective as SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) are often taken over by adverts and snippets from other articles that are thought to be more relevant to the searcher. For this reason, keywords are now being optimised for SERP marketing [7].

What this means is that keywords are related to clusters of topics or phrases that are similar. The advantage of this is that by linking to similar keywords, the subject the reader is interested in is expanded, providing more context and value. This is a more holistic approach to SEO where content is created not just to rank but also to cover relevant subtopics.

The shift from keywords to the idea of the searched phrases and cluster topics provides more value to the person. It also means focusing on the user’s intent and considering “questions people also asked” around the topic.

User intent can generally be broken down into four areas:

• Navigational – This refers to when someone is trying to visit a specific website online.
• Informational – These searches are done to find an answer to a specific question or to find information about a particular topic.
• Transactional – This occurs when someone is looking to make an online purchase; and
• Commercial – When people intend to make a purchase but need more time or want to make an informed decision.

The increasing importance of expertise

The final area is the importance of expertise. In other words, showing first-hand experience with your content is essential.

Search engines want to provide users with the most valuable content to answer their queries and provide the necessary solutions. The best way to do this is by showing users content from creators that have relevant, real-world experience on the topic [9].

This means the content that is shared across your social channels must be within the area of your organisation or business expertise and practice.

It also means the content that you provide must give value to people.  In the early days of SEO, content would be written to ensure ranking rather than providing value. Using such a strategy in 2023, where the only intent is to achieve ranking, is no longer effective. The advances made by search engines and the use of voice searches and AI mean that SEO strategies must be aimed at providing value to clients and potential customers.

It is about providing a great user experience and demonstrating first-hand knowledge of the topic.

Google’s e-a-t is now e-e-a-t

Google has produced E-A-T guidelines that will continue to be used to determine higher Google search rankings. E-A-T was introduced as a document for human search quality raters to assess the quality of web pages. 

The acronym stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. To this has been added E, which is experience [10]. Google wants to see pages that demonstrate an experience with the product or service they provide or sell rather than just generic information.

Using these E-E-A-T guidelines enables pages to achieve a higher ranking.

SEO is not static. It is continually evolving and changing in response to changing technologies and updates by search engines. This means organisations need to constantly review and revise their SEO strategy to ensure they adapt to these changes and maintain their profile and relevance to clients and users of their product.