You’ve just got home after a long day. You’re tired, and all you want is to relax. You open Instagram or TikTok and start scrolling through one video after another, until your favourite creator shows up.
You’ve been following them since they were recording grainy videos in their parents’ bedroom, with the window light flickering in and out. Today, though, the leap in quality is obvious: tight editing, cinematic colour grading, brand collaborations with names you used to see only on billboards in Piazza Duomo.
The common assumption? “They made it on their own. They kept at it, posted every day, cracked the algorithm.”
But what if that’s not quite how it went?
The “Just me in front of the camera” illusion
Many of today’s successful creators started out exactly like this: just themselves, alone, in front of a camera. Some to share a passion, some driven by a creative urge, others simply chasing fame.
Along the way, though, there comes a point for everyone when the hobby becomes a real job. And that’s where “I do everything myself” becomes the creator’s first major obstacle. Because there’s a world of difference between picking the right track for a TikTok and dealing with legal contracts, strategic decisions, and the constant hunt for new content.
The point is simple: if you’re spending 80% of your time acting as your own accountant and lawyer, you’re left with just 20% to be creative. And in that 20%, you’re usually too exhausted to come up with the idea that really lands. That’s where communications agencies come in. Ours included.
The case of Frainodicrochet & Propaganda3
Take our very own Francesca. On social media she’s known as @frainodicrochet (over 150,000 followers/subscribers across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube); to us, she’s simply “Panny” our Head of Administration.
What started as a simple outlet (crochet) turned, in a very short time, into a genuine second career.
Front-facing camera, “Allora nodine!” as her signature hook, and a screen-breaking charisma. That’s how every video of hers begins — addressing her followers before introducing a new product, a new tutorial, or announcing an upcoming event.
Sure, Panny hasn’t yet reached the numbers of the world’s top creators. Even so, it would be unthinkable for her to manage every aspect of her activity entirely on her own. And that’s precisely why, as the project started to grow, we at Propaganda3 stepped in to help.
Together with her, we handled naming, logo design, poster graphics, the organisation of “Crochet at the Cinema” events, and press office duties. These are just some of the responsibilities we happily took on, so she could focus primarily on what truly matters to her: her love of crochet and her desire to share that passion with as many people as possible.
The Big Names: Mattia Stanga and Khaby Lame
Naturally, the same applie to those with just “a few” more followers than our dear Franci.
Staying right here in Brescia, take Mattia Stanga. His viral rise was built on sharp humour about Italian mums and public servants, but it was the structure provided by an agency (One Shot Agency) that allowed him to step beyond the boundaries of social media and walk red carpets and Prada runway shows.
And then there’s Khaby Lame.
From losing his job during the pandemic to becoming the most followed creator on TikTok. Pure genius, no question, someone who turned simplicity into his winning formula, but behind his holding company (recently sold for nearly one billion euros) is a managerial machine that enabled him to sign global deals with organisations like FIFA and Binance.
Protecting the talent
Now picture Mattia Stanga or Khaby Lame sitting down to read a 50-page contract packed with legal clauses, image rights terms (the famous broadcasting rights), invoicing requirements, deadlines, and bureaucratic technicalities that only those who have been in the industry for years would even recognise.
If they had to handle all of this themselves, they’d be forced to spend the vast majority of their time on matters well outside their area of expertise. An agency and its partners, on the other hand, give them back the space to do the only thing that truly counts: being creative.
But the role of an agency goes much further than that.
Take support and planning, for instance. In today’s world, one day you’re everything, and the next you could be nothing — that’s the harsh reality of social media. Algorithms are constantly shifting and can trigger a sudden drop in numbers.
These are not things you should be trying to analyse on your own. Knowing you can rely on an agency that can look at the data with a cool head and say: “Don’t worry — it’s not you, the algorithm has changed; let’s adjust our approach” — that makes all the difference.
Long-Term Brand Strategy (Beyond the Single Reel)
The creator’s life is, or at least appears to be, the one so many of us dream of: fame, money, flexible hours, the freedom to travel anywhere. Sounds perfect, right? And yet there’s one crucial aspect that is all too often overlooked by those who choose to go down this path.
We’ve grown used to taking platforms like Instagram and TikTok for granted. But what if tomorrow Italy’s entire internet connection went down for good? What if the servers went offline even for just a day? Or if the rules around accessing and using social media simply changed? What if they shut down forever?
It’s with this (very real and rather alarming) prospect in mind that agencies work to shift a creator’s audience beyond the confines of a phone screen. And so, personalities born on the web take on new forms, building a kind of “life jacket” for themselves.
Take The Jackal. They’re still a major presence on social media today, but if you ask your grandmother who Ciro Priello is, she probably recognises him because she saw him in prime time at Sanremo, or because he won the first series of LOL in 2021.
An agency, then, builds bridges between different worlds for the creator, reaching new audience segments and establishing a plan B (and a plan C, and a plan D) in case something goes wrong on social media.
The creator industry, today
With this article, we wanted to explore just how much the digital landscape has changed in recent years. The days when all it took to become an influencer was switching on a ring light, pointing it at a camera, and hoping to go viral are well and truly over.
Today, the Creator Economy is a very serious industry. Behind every face that makes us laugh or teaches us something, there are more often than not one or more agencies or small businesses — made up of account managers, legal experts, strategists and creatives (much like the team here at Propaganda3).
An agency, then, should be seen as the creator’s exoskeleton — a load-bearing structure that carries the weight of bureaucracy, performance anxiety, and gruelling commercial negotiations, freeing the true protagonist to focus solely on what they do best: create.
When the content is good and the creator is at ease, the audience receives a better product. And that, ultimately, is the real goal of any agency.
Curious to find out what we cover in the other articles of Propaganda MAG? Since you’ve made it this far, take a look at our magazine section.
