(Fashion) Digital Content Creator 

Key skills/talents

Content creators, whether digital or not, must be fundamentally and innately creative, which means they're good at putting things together visually (and perhaps audibly). They've got to have a good eye for what works well together and then know how to deliver on it.

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However, it's a busy... no, manic industry, both behind the scenes, and out front; so perhaps more importantly than being creative, creators have to be resilient and fully progressive in their approach. Resilient in order to deal with negative feedback from many sources (and there will always be negative feedback), and progressive because it's an industry that's changing and adapting all the time. What worked 6-months ago, maybe even 3-months ago, might not work now. Understanding creative trends & online algorithms are the keys to success here.

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• High level of interest in fashion and styling.

• Learned and innate knowledge about fashion.

• Great eye (for both fashion styling and indeed photography/design

• Photography skills (know how to take a good picture)

• Video editing (know how to record a good video and edit it in the best way)

• Writing skills (good use of tone and grammar to get key points across)

• Marketing (understand what commercial brands need to sell products)

• Social media skills (yep, you guest it, algorithms… you gotta understand them!)

• Sales and Negotiation, for when your blog takes off and you’ve got to start discussion money.

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Qualifications required

It’s perhaps obvious to say, but no-one needs qualifications to be a solo creator. You’ve simply got to want to do it, start, and then learn on the job; wearing a thick skin as you do.

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However, should you wish to work in this type of role for a brand/corporation, or even a studio or agency set-up, then recruiters will be looking for qualifications that demonstrate a deeper understanding of content creation and content execution. Two examples that we’ve found, are:

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• Open University

• City & Guilds

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A number of universities across the UK offer a degree in digital content creation, i.e:

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• Ravensbourne University London offers a BA in Digital Content Creation

• Nottingham University

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If it’s fashion that you want to specialise in, then you could follow a more specialist route, and study a Fashion Merchandising and Buying degree, and then later-on top it up with a digital content course. One such example is here, but there are many such degrees across the UK.

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Another route is apprenticeships, and an apprenticeship course in content creation. This could be good if you are already working in a corporate environment and would like to transition into this area (it could be done alongside your day-to-day work).

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Finally, it might be worth considering courses that cover the skills of content creation, like photography or writing:

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• Open University Digital Photography

• Creative writing

• Even a blogging course

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There's no specific training for solo creators either, you just need to get good at it as quickly as possible. The better you are, the more followers you’ll get and the more (and better quality of) brands will want to work with you.

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For businesses and corporations, they will, however, expect some on-the-job experience, even if/when you are freshly qualified; so be sure to look out for intern programmes in general, but especially within brands/business you’d like to work for; and offer FOC work-experience to build up your CV.

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Rules and regs

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) are the official body for all advertising and promotional activity, and they have vital info - and clear rules - to be aware of.

This link details what the ASA specifically expects of online ads from digital content creators.

The ASA also run some great events/seminars for creators.

An absolute key thing to remember with any type of content, is the matter of ‘Intellectual Property’ and the rules on who owns what. Generally speaking the ‘creator’ owns it forever,  and a brand or business will pay for ‘rights’ to use it over a period of time. These brands and businesses do not own the content when a deal like this is done, unless they outright buy the IP and you effectively sign-over the IP to them. So, know the deal and be clear on this area up front, because once content is out there, it can be used and repurposed without your control or consent a million times over; and sadly this is very very common. Heck, TikTok exists for this very purpose - however - TikTok creators are clearly signing up to this with the platform and giving this permission before posting (i.e. it asks you to ‘allow others to share’, ‘use audio’ etc).

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Remuneration framework

How much an 'in house' content creator (corporate or agency) earns varies depending on all of the qualification and training factors above, plus what your specialism is (i.e. static photography, videography, editing, producing, purely social content etc); and indeed, where you live in the UK, as is the case for all UK salaries.

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How much a solo content creators can earn is a different ballpark altogether, and varies HUGELY from one account to the next, and indeed from one deal to the next, as Sally-Anne discusses. The key drivers, however, tend to be:

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• Reach - the number of followers - the more you have, the more you can charge.

• Engagement - the number of likes, shares and comments - the more you get, the more you can charge.

• Quality - which means the level of effort into content execution. Is it a quick snap and go, or has it been carefully considered and curated?

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Sally-Anne makes another great point in the chat, which is to know what the content’s goals are, during any negotiation. Is the brand looking for sales (and a direct response to your content), or are they looking for (let's be honest about it) cheap, GREAT content that they won’t have to do a lot to get? Or, are they looking for both?

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Deals can be done a number of ways:

• Freebies, as Sally-Anne mentions. You don’t get paid, but you get some free stuff in exchange for a piece of content and a recommendation. Remember with this deal, you can always sell the product later-on, to make some extra pennies. We wouldn't advise this straight away, because it will likely reflect poorly on you; BUT, if at the end of each year you simply have too much stuff, it’s common for creators to sell/auction gear off (pre Christmas); often with a donation to charity. Win-win.

• One-off payments (less and less prevalent these days, but common for smaller accounts).

• Mixed deals of a 'smaller' one-off payment and then a second response-driven payment, once sales are tallied at the end of the agreed term (i.e. a week/month). This is probably the most common payment these days, as it balances the financial risk between the creator and the brand.

• Purely response-driven payments, generally with a high % of profit agreement. Common for really big ‘influencers’ that know the power of their recommendation and therefore want rewarding appropriately for any sales from it. These deals are often even classed as partnerships or collaborations. These deals are a nice, relatively risk-free approach for brands, because they don't have to pay anything upfront. Finance Controllers like these kinds of deals especially and tend to pat the in-house marketing team on the back when they successfully pull these off.

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This survey states that 'influencers' could earn between £1,000 and £10,000 a month; but as we all now know, many big accounts can earn up to and beyond £100k a month.

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How to get started

As we’ve already discussed, depending on how you want to work and what type of creator you want to be (solo or in-house/agency), there are a few different ways to get started, and a few different course options you can take.

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However, our main advice would be to just put the hours in… Content creation is a HUGELY popular role/ industry now, particularly with younger people, who almost do it (often extremely well) as a matter of day-to-day life,. So be sure to build-up a clear level of skills, with a mixture of courses (shows a level of interest that others might not have), alongside strong practical work experience. If you want to stand-out from the eager crowd, then you have to do exactly that. You have to know your s**t and be able to talk and show it with every execution.

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Beyond that, and as we’ve said, put your thick skin on and get cracking. Get the feedback, listen to it and learn from it. As Sally-Anne says, what works for other (solo) creators might not work for you, and vice-versa. So establish your own style, execute it really really well and then engage effectively with the people that are engaging with you, be that followers or brands. Do, Learn, Adapt, Go Again.

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At this point in the post, we tend to suggest some social accounts for you to follow, as an FYI; but the fact is (and again as Sally-Anne says), it’s all subjective. What we think is good content, or who we think is a good creator, no matter how big they are, might not be what/who you think, and you most likely already follow the creators you’re interested in anyway. So we’ll instead just say, find some biggies that you like (if you haven't already), study those creators and learn from them. What are they doing that’s working? And by working we mean (a) getting responses from followers (likes, shares, comments etc), and (b) getting interest from brands and are working successfully with those brands (which means the brands are actively engaging with them on their own brand channels, not just via the creators accounts.

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Associations or official bodies to register with

The Digital Creators Association was launched this year (2023) to help with the protection of digital creators, their professionalism and to shape the industry.

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Job site links

In-house and agency jobs are advertised on all the usual job sites, i.e:

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Indeed

Reed

Total Jobs

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However, Linkedin In are especially good for this type of job, so (a) make sure your Linked In profile is both good and up-to-date, and then frequent the job section of it regularly.

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Finally, research the brands, or the agencies that you want to work for and be proactive - send in your CV and your portfolio and keep chasing them.

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Progression pathway

To progress you’ve literally got to grow, in every sense of the word.

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If you’re working for a brand/business, this means growing your skill-set, experience and reputation. As you do, you’ll keep working up the career ladder, until you finally get to the top, and can then look back/down at the people at the proverbial bottom, starting out, just like you did.

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If working (solo) for yourself, then growing also means via your skillset and experience, but it mostly means growing your following and your community. As we’ve said: Do, Learn, Adapt and Go Again. If you commit to being good at it, you will be good at it; and then the money will come as a matter of course.

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Common progression routes for in-house roles are:

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If you are a creator working for a single brand/business, you could consider broadening your approach and shift across to the agency-side of things, which would mean creating content for multiple businesses/brands, rather than just one. Be mindful here that agency life is pretty full-on (it’s rarely a 9-5 due to paying client expectations), however, it can also pay well and be immense fun.

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Likewise, if you have been working for an agency or a studio, you could try moving to an in-house role for one single brand/business. People that do this often move for a promotion and to head-up teams/projects; and in fact, are often head-hunted into these roles, due to their reputation.

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Common progression routes for solos creators are:

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Ambassadorships. Signing up to work with brands for 6-12 months, sometimes even 2-3 years, if the deal is good enough. You can be a brand ambassador for a number of brands, providing they don’t conflict with each other, and/or unless a particular brand wants a level of (and is willing to pay for) exclusivity with you.

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Collaborations. Which means working with other creators, either on each others’ accounts to cross-pollinate content and followers, or by creating new collaboration accounts to complement your individual accounts, and perhaps focus on or specialise in a particular area that would restrict your ‘main’ account.

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Additional links/FYI

This legal website advises some legal pointers for content creators and influencers.

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This link aims to help you to manage your rights of usage as a content creator.

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This link, although aimed predominantly at businesses that use content creators, gives great information on what is expected of content creators when sharing/promoting businesses products.