Not All Creators Are Influencers (And That’s OK)
Understanding the gap between content and conversion in 2025.
Just because you’re posting doesn’t mean you have influence. And just because you had it in 2014 doesn’t mean you still do.
That’s not a harsh callout (no tea, no shade). It’s just something I’ve been sitting with lately. Watching this space shift. Talking to creators who’ve been at it for years, who feel like they’re doing everything “right”, but still aren’t seeing the results they used to.
I know the “what is an influencer” vs. “what is a creator” debate gets tossed around all the time, but I want to be clear, this post isn’t that. Yes, I’ll touch on definitions because they matter. But what I really want to explore is where you sit in the middle of all the noise that is influencer marketing in 2025.
If you’ve found yourself wondering, “Why isn’t this converting?” or “My engagement used to be so much stronger”, I hope this makes you pause and reflect. And if it does, DM me. I’d love to hear what came up for you.
The internet has changed. What people respond to has changed. And the gap between creating content and actually influencing people has never been wider, or more important to understand.
What are you actually building?
Here’s what I keep coming back to:
Are you a creator? An influencer? Or are you trying to do both?
Let me explain.
A creator is in the weeds. You love the edit. You’re filming, styling, writing, refining. You probably work with brands on UGC or deliverables. You get paid for what you make. And you’re damn good at it.
An influencer moves people. You talk, and your audience listens. They click. They buy. They trust you. You get paid for the relationship, not just the post. You don’t need to have the prettiest feed if your people show up when it counts.
If you’re doing both, you’re the hybrid. You’re creating great content and leveraging your influence. You're monetizing through brand deals, affiliate, your own offers, maybe even building a product or service that doesn’t require you to be on camera 24/7.
Visual Breakdown
If you’re creating beautiful content but your links don’t convert, it’s not because your content sucks. It’s because you might be focused on creation when your business needs influence.
If you’ve built an audience but feel stuck with brand deals that don’t excite you? Maybe it’s time to create something of your own.
There’s no one right path. But you do need to pick a lane, or build the bridge intentionally.
For the Bloggers, the Writers, the Early Adopters
If you built your platform in the days of blog sidebars and Google Friend Connect, this is where I want to pause and speak directly to you.
The creator space was born from creativity. I know you didn’t get into it for conversions or brand strategy or virality. And that can make it difficult to still exist today. But what worked then doesn’t always work now.
Not because you’re outdated but because platforms, audience expectations, and the internet as a whole have evolved. And many creators are still showing up with the habits and rhythms of 2013, hoping for 2025 results.
You don’t need to become someone new. But if your content feels like it used to land and now it doesn’t, it’s probably time to shift.. not your voice, but your framework.
The skills you built back then still matter. Your eye, your writing, your storytelling, they’re valuable. But influence today is about resonance. It’s about cultural fluency. And often, it’s about emotional trust more than aesthetic appeal.
What Your Audience Wants Has Changed
And this is where cultural fluency starts to matter more than ever.
Because today, being relevant isn’t about hopping on every trend or using the right audio. It’s about understanding what your audience cares about: what they’re thinking, feeling, craving and showing that you get it.
The influencers who are resonating right now are the ones who make their audience feel seen.
Like they’re in the same group chat, on the same page. Like they’re not just scrolling, but connecting.
That’s why it’s no coincidence that 2025 has seen a massive rise in routine content, employee-generated content, and those intentionally low-fi vlogs we can’t stop watching. We’re craving relatability. We want to see ourselves in the creators we follow, especially when it comes to lifestyle, beauty, and fashion.
Maybe it’s because our lives are more chaotic than ever. Maybe it’s the anxiety that comes from the endless scroll of politics, the economy, the general “what now” energy of the world. We won’t get into all that right now.. but still, you feel it.
Routines soothe us. Familiar faces calm us. And realness (the kind that doesn’t feel overly curated or six layers deep in product placement) is what people are responding to right now. I mean… is anyone else deep on #monktok?
If this is hitting, I actually have a great podcast rec for you (look at me showing up with a resource): the episode titled "Get aMonkgst It" on Shameless by Shameless Media gets into exactly why so many of us are gravitating toward this softer, slower kind of content right now. Well worth a listen if you want to go deeper.
The takeaway here is you don’t need to be trendy, you need to be in touch.
Ten years ago, influence came from consistency and curation. Now, it comes from emotional relevance. If your content isn’t landing, it might not be because you’re doing anything wrong. It might just be that your audience has changed, and it’s time to reconnect with what they actually need from you right now.
Influence vs. UGC
There’s also this other track we don’t talk enough about: creators who’ve stepped back from building a public-facing platform to focus on UGC work.
You don’t need a big audience to make money through UGC. You can produce high-quality content for brands behind the scenes and get paid well for it. That’s a legitimate business. It rewards craft. It doesn’t require daily posting or engagement metrics and it gives a lot of people the freedom to stay out of the “influencer” spotlight altogether.
But it’s not the same as being influential. Influence means people care what you think. They trust your recommendation. They come back for your perspective. They ask for links, not just inspo. They buy things because you posted them, not because the edit was perfect.
If you’ve built that kind of trust, and you’re still operating like a content creator-for-hire, it might be time to reconsider what your business model could look like.
Influence is a currency. And a lot of creators are sitting on more of it than they realize.
Using Your Influence on Purpose in 2025 (and Beyond)
The thing no one teaches you is what to do with your influence once you have it.
A lot of creators get stuck in the middle. Where they’re known, trusted, even beloved but unsure how to make that trust work for them. Maybe you’ve built a loyal audience, but the brand deals don’t feel aligned. Or you’ve been posting consistently, but your content isn’t converting. Or maybe you’re starting to feel like you’ve outgrown the way you’ve been showing up.
This is usually the moment where something has to shift. Not your voice, nor your values. But your strategy.
Using your influence on purpose might look like:
Building your own offer (a product, service, membership, experience)
Being more intentional about affiliate and brand partnerships
Shaping your content around what your audience actually needs from you now
Letting go of performative posting and focusing on what converts
It’s not about doing more. It’s about moving with clarity.
What are you building? Why are you building it? And what does your audience expect from you, not just your content? When those things align, influence becomes more than an outcome, it becomes a direction.
Creators Who Shifted Their Influence
Here’s what we can learn from creators who didn’t just keep showing up, they shifted on purpose. They used their influence with clarity, and built businesses that made sense for who they were and what their audience needed.
Samantha Faiers
Samantha Faiers | Revive Collagen
You probably know her from the early reality TV era. But what stuck with me is how she evolved before she had to. She could have clung to the TV thing, but she didn’t. She knew when that chapter was fading and instead of forcing it, she pivoted.
She leaned into motherhood, built trust through lifestyle content, and launched Revive Collagen: a wellness brand not centered around her face, but still rooted in her influence. It worked because the shift made sense. She didn’t wait for the relevance to wear off, she moved while it still meant something.
What we can learn: Knowing what’s working is just as important as knowing when to move. Don’t sit on an idle blog, or an IG grid that’s not doing anything for you, just because it’s what you’ve always done. If it’s not making you money, building trust, or moving the needle? Mooove on, girl.
Nabela Noor
Nabela Noor | Nabela Noor Home
She started in beauty, but her power came from her softness. Her “Pockets of Peace” series was the shift: quiet, intentional, deeply human. It was the kind of content that didn’t need trending audio or a hook in the first three seconds, it just made you feel something. And that feeling turned into a brand. A book. A movement. She built an entire business around emotional resonance and the kind of connection you can’t fake.
She didn’t pivot for virality. She moved with purpose. She doubled down on what was resonating, even if it didn’t fit the mold of what “performs.” Because here’s the thing: when your audience is emotionally invested, they’ll follow you anywhere.
What we can learn: You don’t have to scale by getting louder. You can grow by going deeper. If your audience connects with how you make them feel, not just what you post, that’s influence. That’s the kind of brand power that lasts.
Chriselle Lim
She began as a fashion YouTuber and stylist, long before it was trendy to turn your taste into a brand. Her content was aspirational but grounded, elevated but never out of reach. Over time, Chriselle proved she wasn’t just a curator of beautiful things, she was a builder. With the launch of Phlur, the now cult-favorite fragrance line, she stepped beyond influencing trends and started shaping them. She understood her audience so well that she could bottle up desire (literally) and sell it back to them. What started as affiliate links and editorial styling turned into products that people not only wanted, but emotionally connected with.
What we can learn: Real influence isn’t about chasing every opportunity. It’s about knowing when to stop waiting for brand deals and start becoming the brand. Chriselle didn’t just leverage her aesthetic, she transformed it into an ecosystem her audience could step into, wear, and carry with them.
You’re Not Behind. You’re Between Chapters.
If you’re feeling stuck right now, creatively or strategically, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It just means you’re in a transitional season, the space between what used to work and what will work next.
This is the part nobody talks about. When you’re still showing up, still doing the work, but the results aren’t what they used to be. The content feels good, but the clicks are low. The audience is there, but the energy’s off. It’s easy to internalize that, to assume it’s you or maybe you’ve lost your edge. But more often than not, it’s just a sign that you’ve outgrown the way you’ve been operating.
This isn’t about scrapping everything or chasing something new just for the sake of it. It’s about getting honest about whether the platforms, partnerships, and posting rhythms you’re sticking to still make sense for the business and influence you want to build next. Just because something worked in one chapter doesn’t mean it belongs in the next.
Not to be intentionally promotional, but if this is resonating with you and you’re reading this thinking “this is me”, you should book a call with chloédigital. Sometimes it takes someone from the outside looking in to show you the shifts you can’t quite see yet. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It just means you’re too close to it. Most of us are.
This is your permission slip to pause. To question. To evolve.
Because you’re not starting over. You’re starting from experience.
Something to think about:
What role am I playing right now: creator, influencer, or hybrid?
If my platform disappeared tomorrow, what would my audience actually miss?
What part of my voice have I been holding back?
Am I building something that reflects where I’m headed or just maintaining what I’ve always done?
Am I showing up with purpose? Or, just showing up?
PS. When I write monthly for The Shift, you’re getting a direct line into my brain, and the conversations we’ve been having behind the scenes with our team and the creators we support every day. If there’s something specific you’d love our take on, drop it in the comments or DM us on Instagram. We’re always down to dig into the real stuff.
OMG!! You ate on this one. I think many OG creators from 2014 and earlier are experiencing this and trying to navigate this new world as a creator and/or influencer. This definitely spoke to me .