Content Creator vs. Influencer: Which One Should You Become?

No, despite having some similarities, content creators are not the same as influencers. It’s easy to see why this is a common misconception—after all, influencers do create content, and content creators sometimes engage in influencer marketing. There is definitely overlap.

In a nutshell, all influencers are content creators, but not all content creators are influencers. This will make more sense after we take a deeper look at what each of these digital creators actually do.

What do content creators do?

Content creators produce digital media content that covers topics in which they have special expertise, extensive experience, and/or a strong interest. This type of work is niche-driven, and the content creator’s goal is to inspire, entertain, or educate their audience.

For the audience’s part, they’re mostly interested in the substance of the content being shared rather than in the content creators themselves.

Content creators can create content in various formats, such as blog posts, YouTube videos, TikTok reels, and podcast episodes. They focus on creativity and originality to stand out among competitors.

A few common ways content creators make money include running ads, using affiliate links, setting up fan funding, and creating sponsored content. They often use a combination of monetization strategies.

What do influencers do?

Influencers also create content. However, the focus of influencer content is on building a personal brand rather than educating or entertaining their audience. To achieve this, influencers often create content centered around their lives to build a personal connection with their followers.

Social media is an influencer’s primary content creation platform. Their monetization methods are less diverse than content creators, focusing on receiving compensation for promoting products and services for brands.

Influencers leverage the trust and connections they have with their followers to persuade them to make purchases. They drive opinions, trends, and buying behaviors among their followers. Much of their content is tailored to and created for brand sponsorships and partnerships.

As mentioned, while both content creators and influencers create content, they have different intentions and ways of making money. Beyond these major differences, there are other factors that distinguish these two types of creators from each other.

Let’s take a look at the main defining characteristics of content creators and influencers in the table below.

Influencer vs. Content Creator Comparison Chart

Whether you’re a content creator or an influencer, if you engage in a brand collaboration, you must clearly disclose your relationship with the brand to your audience according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations.

Examples of a content creator vs. an influencer

Here are two prime examples of what content creators and influencers are actually like.

Content creator

Mark Wiens is a popular travel and food vlogger on YouTube, with over 10 million subscribers on his channel. He publishes high-quality content about different cuisines around the world.

While he primarily makes money from video ads, he also has other income streams, including selling merchandise and ebooks, making money from blogging (migrationology.com), and doing affiliate marketing. Below, you can see how he links to his online shop and discloses affiliate links in the description box of one of his videos.

Example Affiliate Link Disclosure

As a successful content creator, Mark has a large, loyal audience, allowing him to participate in brand collaborations. If you take a look at his Instagram account, you can see he’s made a few sponsored posts.

Example Content Creator Sponsored Post

Here, Mark has partnered with a smart glasses brand. He demonstrates how he uses the smart glasses to capture unique video footage, showing the connection between the product and his niche. He also plays by the rules and clearly indicates in his post that he’s affiliated with this brand.

Mark’s example highlights the diversity of a content creator’s monetization strategies. It also shows how content creators may partner with brands with products related to their niche as one of the many ways to make money as a content creator.

Influencer

Kat Braden is an influencer who posts short-form videos about her life with her dog, Oliver, on her Instagram account, @girlandadoodle. She creates skits with her dog and shares parts of their daily life, and she’s garnered over 800,000 followers on her Instagram account.

She also posts similar content and repurposes some of her Instagram videos on her TikTok account and YouTube channel. Her content appeals to a broad audience interested in her day-to-day life with her dog.

As you scroll through her Instagram account, you can see several paid partnership posts, some with brands related to her main theme (raising a dog). For example, the image below shows a post sponsored by Wellness Pet Food.

Example of a Thematically Related Influencer Sponsored Post

However, she has also partnered with several brands and companies that aren’t directly related to living with and raising a dog.

Example of a General Influencer Sponsored Post

In this sponsored post, Kat made a video showing how she uses Walmart+ to order items for Oliver. Walmart arguably isn’t related to her main theme, but she still created a piece of content based on this partnership.

Kat’s example shows how influencers primarily rely on brand partnerships to make money and leverage their wide social reach to partner with all types of brands.

Content creation and influencing come with their own unique sets of advantages and disadvantages. You should carefully consider these pros and cons before you jump into an influencer or content creator side hustle.

Pros and Cons of Being a Content Creator

By contrast, an influencer’s monetization options are more limited, but this type of lifestyle has many characteristics that can allow you to find huge success.

Pros and Cons of Being an Influencer

Content creators vs. influencers: who earns more?

It’s tricky to estimate exactly how much you can make being a content creator or influencer, but we’ve discovered typical earning ranges as well as the key factors that can impact your earnings in these fields. Here are the results of our analyses into what content creators and influencers earn:

• How much content creators make: $3,500–$6,400 per month.
• How much influencers make: $10–$20,000 per post.

These earnings estimates are tough to compare—not just because there are huge income variations even within each of these fields but also because their earnings are calculated differently. Influencers get paid per post or campaign, whereas a content creator’s revenue streams are so varied that it makes more sense to evaluate their earnings on a weekly or monthly basis.

For both content creators and influencers, the top 1% are able to pull in millions of dollars per year, while many of their peers struggle to make a livable wage.

Whether you should become a content creator or an influencer mainly depends on your personal interests, strengths, and career goals.

If you’re passionate about a specific topic and enjoy producing in-depth content with lasting educational or artistic value, then becoming a content creator may be a better choice. Doing so allows you to venture into other types of content creation and develop your expertise.

On the other hand, becoming an influencer is a great option if you thrive on creating trending content and engaging with diverse groups of people. Building a strong personal brand can lead to various marketing opportunities.

With enough ambition, you can even become both by producing different types of content on different platforms. For instance, you can exclusively post sponsored content on your Instagram page and reserve your YouTube channel for your in-depth content in your field of interest. You’ll get double the benefits, but it’ll be double the work.