Also available in:
Deutsch (German)
From Influencer to Entrepreneur: 4based Sees the Creator Economy Approaching the Next Level of Professionalization
100,000, 500,000 or one million followers: For years, the number under a social media profile was considered the most important currency in the influencer world. It is now well known that large reach alone does not equal a successful business model. For professional creators on platforms like 4based, the next question has long been far more relevant: What is a single fan actually worth?
This brings a key metric into focus that has been standard in classic marketing for a long time: Customer Lifetime Value. Simply put, it describes the economic value a customer develops over the entire duration of a relationship. Transferred to the creator economy, this means: What matters is not only how many people follow a creator or buy content once. What matters is how many of them become loyal core fans.
100,000 Followers – But How Many of Them Are Real Customers?
A simplified model shows how different the individual stages of a creator community can be. A creator, for example, has 100,000 social media followers. A portion of them regularly views her free content. Perhaps 1,000 eventually decide on a paid offer. 300 regularly buy additional content, and 50 finally belong to a particularly active core community that keeps coming back.
100,000 Followers → 1,000 Paying Fans → 300 Active Buyers → 50 Core Fans
The figures are a model calculation and do not represent user data from 4based. They do, however, illustrate why the pure follower count says less and less about how successful a professional creator’s business model actually is. Economically, a few hundred particularly loyal fans can be more interesting than tens of thousands of people who only occasionally look at a post.
The Most Valuable Fan Is Not the One with the Like
“That followers do not automatically mean revenue is something professional creators have long known,” says a spokesperson for 4based. “The next step is to look at one’s own community in a much more differentiated way. Who is only watching? Who buys once? Who comes back? And who really belongs to the core community?”
In this way, the creator economy is increasingly approaching classic business models. Companies have been distinguishing for decades between prospects, new customers, repeat buyers and especially loyal regular customers. Creators are beginning to view their community according to a similar principle. Reach turns into a funnel:
Attention → Interest → Purchase → Repeat Purchase → Loyalty
Social media primarily stands at the beginning of this chain. Instagram, TikTok and other platforms create visibility and bring new people into contact with a creator. For the actual business model, however, the decisive phase begins afterwards – exactly where platforms like 4based come in.
From Influencer to Entrepreneur
This development is also changing the professional profile. Professional creators today need to be able to do far more than produce photos or videos. They develop their own brand, market content, communicate with their community, calculate prices and consider which offers are interesting for which fans. This makes questions important that used to primarily occupy classic companies: How does a prospect become a customer? Why does someone buy a second time? Which offers create long-term loyalty? And how much is a loyal customer worth over months or even years?
“Creators are increasingly becoming entrepreneurs of their own personal brand,” says the spokesperson. “Anyone who only looks at new followers is therefore only looking at the beginning of the business model. At least as important is what happens afterwards with that attention.”
Core Fans Instead of Constantly New Reach
This shift in perspective can also have consequences for content strategy. Anyone who exclusively wants to generate as much reach as possible must permanently create new attention. Trends, viral videos and algorithms then determine a large part of the strategy. Anyone who instead builds a loyal community can develop part of their economic success from existing fans. This increasingly turns the hunt for ever new followers into a secondary task: retaining existing fans in the long term. Exclusive content, different content offers, regular communication and personal interaction can play an important role here.
The Next Key Metric of the Creator Economy?
Followers will therefore not disappear. They remain an important indicator of reach and awareness. For professional creators, however, other metrics could become increasingly important alongside them: How many followers actually become paying fans? How many buy again? How long do they stay? And how does the value of a community develop over time?
The classic influencer question “How many followers do I have?” is thus increasingly turning into an entrepreneurial question: “How many real core fans do I have – and how well do I succeed in retaining them long-term?”
For 4based, exactly this development is a sign that the creator economy is growing up: Reach creates attention. Only fan loyalty turns it into a sustainable business model.
