U.S. adults are spend­ing upwards of five hours of day with dig­i­tal media, and more than half of the time this media is accessed via mobile devices. All the while, Mil­len­ni­als are aban­don­ing TV for online video. These con­sumer trends are cat­a­pult­ing short-form con­tent, espe­cial­ly video, to the fore­front of influ­encer mar­ket­ing.

Here are a few phras­es the mar­keters of the “Mad Men” era would have nev­er seen com­ing: Cord-cut­ter. Vine celebri­ty. Net­flix and chill. Tech­nol­o­gy has ush­ered seis­mic changes into the mar­ket­ing land­scape – and as the media world has become dig­i­tized and frag­ment­ed, it has also become democ­ra­tized. Beau­ty influ­encer Michelle Phan has 8 mil­lion sub­scribers on YouTube. Allure mag­a­zine, one of the most estab­lished women’s beau­ty mag­a­zines around, has 71,000. For brands, this means that the media stal­warts that have dom­i­nat­ed adver­tis­ing bud­gets for decades are no longer the most effec­tive places to reach audi­ences. It also means that influ­encer and native mar­ket­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties have nev­er been more valu­able, but they have also nev­er been more com­plex. So, what’s a mod­ern-day mar­keter to do? Here are three quick tips for brands invest­ing in influ­encer mar­ket­ing in 2016 and beyond.

1. Rethink Your Content Distribution

Dis­tri­b­u­tion used to be a pret­ty straight­for­ward con­cept for mar­keters: iden­ti­fy the top chan­nels for reach­ing large audi­ences and place media buys with­in those chan­nels. Obvi­ous­ly, a lot has changed since there were only a few media prop­er­ties call­ing all the shots. Social media plat­forms and apps like Snapchat, Vine and Insta­gram are chang­ing the game for mar­keters. Beyond there being more chan­nels where peo­ple are con­sum­ing con­tent, these are also places where peo­ple are empow­ered to tell their own sto­ries via user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent. Mil­len­ni­als are spend­ing 30 per­cent of their total media time with UGC, in large part due to the fact that emerg­ing plat­forms are dom­i­nat­ed by indi­vid­u­als and per­son­al­i­ties – not brands and media prop­er­ties. Key Take­away Step away from the mind­set that peo­ple are only valu­able inso­far as they are impres­sions. By acti­vat­ing short-form con­tent cre­ators as media chan­nels in their own right, you will bet­ter align with shift­ing con­sump­tion habits and bring your brand into rel­e­vant, peer-led con­ver­sa­tions in social media.

2. Learn What Motivates The Next Generation Of Influencers

Mar­keters who cut their teeth in the mom­my blog­ger era might not rec­og­nize today’s crop of influ­encers, who have amassed large and engaged audi­ences based on sub­ject mat­ter exper­tise and a knack for cre­at­ing com­pelling short-form con­tent. While blogs are still rel­e­vant, short-form con­tent – espe­cial­ly video – is the clear future for influ­encer mar­ket­ing. Crowd­tap recent­ly inter­viewed more than 50 con­tent cre­ators to learn about how they approach brand part­ner­ships. One of the biggest find­ings was the extent to which cre­ative free­dom is val­ued by influ­encers today. The most in-demand cre­ators are care­ful­ly vet­ting brand part­ner­ships (some field up to 15 to 20 brand pitch­es a week!) by ensur­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ties are rel­e­vant to their audi­ences and align­ing them­selves with brands who pro­vide con­text and then get out of the way. Key Take­away Ced­ing cre­ative con­trol might seem like a scary propo­si­tion, but with the right guid­ance and guardrails, brands can part­ner with short-form cre­ators on pro­grams that authen­ti­cal­ly engage audi­ences in these spaces.

3. Evolve Your Compensation Structure

The pay-per-post mod­el is no longer rel­e­vant in today’s influ­encer mar­ket­ing land­scape. Short-form con­tent, espe­cial­ly video, is a dif­fer­ent ani­mal and requires a mod­el that incor­po­rates addi­tion­al inputs beyond the creator’s esti­mat­ed reach. When we asked cre­ators what informs their rate card, sev­er­al fac­tors emerged – beyond reach – includ­ing the num­ber of posts, turn­around time and the com­plex­i­ty of the ask. This is a tes­ta­ment to the rise of short-form con­tent, as brands are less fre­quent­ly part­ner­ing with influ­encers on one-off posts. Instead, mar­keters are learn­ing that sus­tained, cross-plat­form cre­ator part­ner­ships are a pow­er­ful means to reach­ing audi­ences with­in var­i­ous lifestyle cat­e­gories. Key Take­away While reach can pro­vide mar­keters with a base­line for esti­mat­ing cam­paign per­for­mance, engage­ment is the sin­gle most impor­tant met­ric for brands to look at when vet­ting cre­ator part­ner­ships. Con­sis­tent­ly high engage­ment rates – regard­less of fan or fol­low­er counts – indi­cate that the cre­ator has a cap­tive audi­ence of peo­ple who trust them to cre­ate com­pelling, authen­tic con­tent on a par­tic­u­lar top­ic.