It is not a provocation, but the perspective towards which the crisis of traditional social networks and the growth of co-creators are projecting us. Provided you know how to build authentic and informed content

In the beginning it was the K factor, from the letter that indicates the thousands of followers and likes on Instagram.

The K-factor was the jet that lifted someone's dream to the sky, but it was also the boulder that crushed those of millions of would-be gurus to the ground.

Then we discovered the micro-influencers, and with them the beauty of more relaxed social communication, vertical in content and focused on limited communities.

Now, while the crisis of traditional social networks accompanies the birth of the so-called Web 3, we are living in a phase that we could summarize with the title of a recently published essay, We are all influencers by Giampaolo Colletti, released by Roi Edizioni.

See also: Make your home, the Instagram of contemporary living

What does the title of the book want to tell us, which sounds like the manifesto of a new widespread opportunity, defined as opposed to what has so far been an exclusive dream, realized by a few ?

“What is happening” explains Colletti, journalist of the Sole 24 Ore and one of the main Italian marketing and communication experts, “is a shift from the concept of narration towards that of co-creation.

It is a new phase, both for the Internet and for social media, which sees the emergence of specialized figures, less generalist and more thematic.

In the words of an expert like Ashley Fell, the new generations have grown up with a responsive technology that no longer asks to consume passively. For this, it is time for platforms such as Tik Tok, Minecraft and Roblox, which have defined users as active co-creators”.

While on the one hand this phenomenon appears democratic, because it potentially invests anyone with the role of narrator, on the other it rewards those who know how to construct a story with two essential prerogatives: authenticity and competence.

“A great expert like Seth Godin has also written about this phenomenon: the consumer niches divided into tribes and sub-tribes, if consulted, become the key to opening new businesses.

The strength of these niches materializes thanks to the new players in the field, who are precisely the creators”.

The niche, outside the generalist sea in which the contents of first generation social networks are lost and no longer arrive, becomes the impersonal competitor who is giving the most trouble to those who, until recently, was the unchallenged king of social media i.e. Mark Zuckerberg with his Meta reign.

The protagonists of this renewed world often build their own identity in opposition to the actors of the past world. “Let's take Poparazzi. The app by brothers Alex and Austem Ma against retouched selfies calls itself the anti-Instagram and has made its debut with a post that says it all: people's real life is made above all of imperfect moments that also deserve to be captured and shared".

But there is also the case of the most successful writer on the paid newsletter platform, Substack, who earns more than $500,000 a year from reader subscriptions, the top creator on Podia , a platform for video courses and digital subscriptions, which reaches over 100 thousand dollars a month.

In the US, however, teachers are earning thousands of dollars a month with their live virtual lessons on Outschool and Juni Learning. “It is the so-called economy of passion” explains Colletti, “as defined by Li Jin, business angel and founder of Atelier Ventures”.

In the new panorama of creators, the network sees its strength grow because it is partitioned and concentrates on specific contents, generating opportunities for particular contexts, in which seriousness and competence are rewarded.

“It is a phenomenon” adds Colletti “that we could define as editorial power widespread, the new stage of disintermediation initiated by social networks: while the crisis of the latter accelerates, it is the so-called long tail of content”.

Provided you have them, of course.

“This means that for each niche there can be interesting content, and that for each niche we can become the point of reference that was missing, also because most of the time it is the creators themselves who define the perimeter of communities and, therefore, to build them”.

Colletti is convinced of this: “We are facing a Copernican revolution that redefines languages, formats, channels, rules of involvement, so much so that a giant like Blackrock has spoken of a second birth of the Internet.

A phenomenon that rewrites the dynamics of the game related to consumption and sociality.

Thus the best product or service - but also the best campaign ever created - could come today from any client and not from a manager on the payroll of a company or agency.

We are moving from special effects to special affections, which means building a constant relationship with the community by giving something extra. The real challenge is that you have to know how to do it”.