SETSUNA "AKOSI DOGIE" IGNACIO, Elyson "Wrecker" Caranza, and Edgar "ChooxTV" Dumali all have one thing in common, these are bigtime content creators and online personalities, with millions of followers and a sustained source of income and endorsements.
Sounds like a dream career huh?
However reaching these levels is no easy task as there are a lot of factors to consider. Dogie for example had the advantage of being one of the pioneers in the industry.
While his story of sacrificing a wealthy career in Belgium could inspire a lot of hopefuls in the content creator sphere, the current setting could be a risky proposition for these aspiring creators as there are loads of competitors and factors that would affect their progress.
With such a saturated market, the big time content creators are the ones receiving more opportunities, while the small and up-and-coming creators would struggle to make their breakthrough.
In order to address this issue, Nexplay has forged a new platform that would help these micro content creators.

Bridging the gap between content creators and brands
Would this new platform be similar toTwitch or Facebook Live? That's not the case according to Nexplay's CEO Gab Benito, as he drew inspiration from freelance websites.
"It's not a content plane, I guess you can compare it to Upwork or Freelance.com, but specifically for content creators. So we're not going to do all the jobs, but only connecting brands who is keen on doing creator or influencer marketing," said Nexplay's CEO in an exclusive interview with Spin.ph.
Like most of the micro content creators, Benito once tried his luck in building his brand. With only a few viewers on his chosen platform, he experienced the daily struggles that they endured.
"I was a content creator before on Twitch and I only had 10 viewers and I was happy (laughs). So I know the grind and so we're here, me and my co-founder, to really make it sustainable for these creators."
Given his experiences before, Benito realized that small scale content creators deserve the support and recognition they aspire to have.
"I think the beauty of creating a platform is that we don't always need to cater to the mega-content creators. We're here for the nano, the micro, the mid-tier. Followers with a thousand, ten thousand, or even fifty thousand, we can cater to that."
"That's the sad thing about it, it's only the mega-content creators who gets most of the opportunities, but little did people know that even if you're a small content creator, you can dish out quality content."
And going back to Nexplay's vision, Benito reiterated: "Ultimately, the mission of Nexplay has always been helping creators succeed, gamers is one sub-category that we want to succeed and we want to take this to other industries that you're very keen at, whether in sports, beauty, gaming, or tech."
He continued: "We wanted to be able to provide them sustainable income, that's what we've done with RENEJAY, H2wo, Yawi, and the rest of the guys, but they're making sustainable income and we want to be able to create an impact to these young generations and provide them jobs in this new era through brand deals that are self serving, automated."
However, this isn't only limited to content creators as the platform likewise aims to help brands.
"For example, I'm a tech brand I go to the Nexplay platform, I'm able to pick the right content creators there, the right age, the right niche, the right geolocation, the right interests, the right looking features, and so on, which you cannot just do currently right now, but you can do it with an agency model, but it will take time," said Benito.
"But for you as a brand, you want it to be fast, you want to be cheap, you want to execute quickly, so those are the things that we wanted to approach on a brand perspective."

Solving other problems in content creation
Besides his own personal experiences, Benito has personally dealt with content creators and brands and learned more about their problems.
For small scale content creators, given the limited resources at their disposal, there is a tendency for them to seek aid from agencies. However, there are drawbacks.
"I think the agency model it's just not scalable, meaning to say that the profit margins is alongside the costs of operating it. In order to scale it, you need to higher more people to actually handle brands," opined Benito.
He further revealed: "So we're focusing also on the long tail, providing opportunities for nano content creators...we can only do that with a platform because if you're put in a situation, where you're an agency and you're handling 100 nano content creators and it's one campaign, it's going to be tough for the agency to scale and you cannot do that without tech."
And with the technology at their disposal, this also eases the burden for brands in terms of selecting their ideal creator.
"Another point that I want to kinda highlight is that usually, it's the brands who reach out to creators, but this time around, we want to provide them the power. They choose who they want to work with."
Even brands with only a few resources would also benefit.
"We want to be able to provide this service also to the brands because usually it's the big brands who has the money, but some brands that I've spoken to, they have about Php250,000 to do their marketing."
"Most of the times, agencies don't accept that because it's just too small of a quantum to put their resources in. But some brands who has a hundred thousand a month of marketing or two hundred thousand or even smaller can participate here, because we can now provide them content creators who can fit their budget."
Ultimately, it's a win-win situation for both parties.
"So both sides of the market win. The smaller brands can get better ROI (Return on Investment), because data says that usually when you involve yourself in influencer marketing, you get about six times of your ROI invested on the marketing campaign in terms of sales conversion."
"On the flip side, you as a nano content creator, you have a chance to make money out of your passion, whether endorsing beauty products or creating content in gaming."
When will the platform launch?
In launching the platform, Benito mentioned that they'll first start in the Philippines, where he revealed that brands can tap the potential of other native languages in the country.
"You can now select in the platform, different languages, so English, Tagalog, Bisaya, and even geolocate them where they are. For example, I'm a brand that I want to be able to promote in Cebu, then in the platform I can tick Cebu, the language, the location, and so on," revealed Benito.
Eventually, once the platform becomes a success, Nexplay plans to expand in other countries, specifically in Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
While these are ambitious endeavors, the org admits that they're confident to launch the product within the year.
"We're going to launch it mid-year and we're very confident that we'll be able to release it because of the funding, we're able to onboard really high quality hires from Facebook, Google, Meta, Lazada, who were able to build products like this before in their previous companies."
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