One of the most common mistakes brands make when entering the creator economy is optimising for reach. They find a creator with a large following, brief them loosely, and hope for the best. The results are almost always disappointing.

The right creator for your brand isn't the one with the most followers. It's the one whose audience most closely resembles your customer.

Here's how we think about casting.

Audience alignment over audience size.

A creator with 50,000 highly engaged followers in your specific niche will outperform a creator with 500,000 general followers every time. Niche audiences convert. General audiences scroll.

Content style matters more than aesthetics.

A creator's visual style is easy to adapt. Their storytelling style isn't. Look for creators whose natural way of communicating - their pacing, their humour, their energy - fits your brand voice. If you have to fight their instincts, the content will feel forced.

Engagement rate is a signal, not a guarantee.

High engagement means an audience is paying attention. But look at the type of engagement - are people asking questions, sharing, saving? That tells you far more than a like count.

Brief them properly.

The best creators are storytellers, not billboards. Give them the context they need - your brand positioning, your target customer, the key message - then give them room to interpret it. Over-scripted content performs poorly. Creator-led content that's strategically grounded performs best.

Getting casting right is one of the highest-leverage decisions in any short-form campaign. We've seen great briefs fail because of the wrong creator, and simple concepts succeed because the right person delivered them.