Navigating the Creator Economy

I grossed $81,109 in Q2 as a part-time creator. no management or viral moment. Just consistent systems, repeatable offers, and a clear message that attracts the right brands. Here’s where the revenue came from: ✔️ Sponsored Content (67%) ✔️ Brand Partnerships (14%) ✔️ Speaking Engagements (9%) ✔️ Advising (7%) ✔️ Digital Products (2%) ✔️ Newsletter Ads (1%) I share this because 3 years ago when I started I didn’t know how to charge more than $500 for anything. I thought I needed a huge audience and representation. But all I needed was a strategy. Here’s what worked for me: 1. Revenue follows trust and trust is built in public. From day one, I shared my ideas, gave away value for free, and stayed consistent. That's still my number one focus today. 2. Price everything in advance. Know your rates before they ask. It removes emotion and speeds up decisions. 3. Save a counter-offer email template. A calm, clear response helps you push back without burning bridges. 4. Treat your brand like a business. The newsletter, brand deals, advisory work, and speaking gigs aren’t side hustles. They’re business lines and I have a plan to grow each. 5. Be selective. Growth isn’t about saying yes to more. It’s about saying yes to the right things, the ones that compound your credibility, audience, and income. 🧠 If you’re a creator-entrepreneur who wants help, I break this down weekly in my newsletter Content to Commas 📩 Join the community → https://lnkd.in/g9EGuyRa

2024 was a year of legitimacy for the creator economy. 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗮 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. Marketers will get serious about influencer marketing as it is held to higher measurement standards - and more “serious” industries like B2B and healthcare embrace the tactic. Some creators and influencers will also get more serious, as their social content moves from ad hoc to episodic—and scales into podcasts, CTV, and retail. Here are 5 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤 (and some a little unexpected) predictions for the industry in 2025: 𝗠𝗶𝗱𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸. Follower counts don’t accurately reflect a creator’s ability to drive business outcomes for brands. In 2025, brands will prioritize choosing creators on metrics that matter - like engagement and creative alignment. This will benefit the longtail of creators, particularly those with medium-sized audiences, strong creative and high-quality engagement. 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴. Meta shut down live shopping on Facebook and Instagram in late 2022 and early 2023, as its ad business was suffering. With its ad revenues booming - and a TikTok ban looming - the time could be right to try again. Live commerce has been a boon for some creators and small businesses on TikTok, and it could make Meta a more attractive alternative for users, creators and brands. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁 “𝗢𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘀.” Serial creator video is taking over social media, shifting TV viewers and audiences. As more YouTube creators bring their content to streamers like Netflix and Amazon or FAST TV channels, YouTube will want to give them more reasons to stay. YouTube will also continue to push into CTV: Last week, it announced that “Watch With” will come to TVs soon. 𝗟𝗧𝗞 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗸𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵. Its technology has quietly underpinned social shopping behavior for years. In 2024, LTK deepened its relationship with retailers and the social platforms, most notably through an integration with TikTok. It also launched LTK DM on Instagram, helping drive more traffic and spending to creators on its app, which has become a go-to for creators and shoppers looking for a more curated and controlled experience. 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 - 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀 - 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲. The social platforms are saturated with sponsored content. In 2025, both brands and creators will continue to look for more sustainable ways to reach audiences. The rise of both predictable video and creator-founded products will offer new opportunities for brands and creators to collaborate, such as sponsoring a series or a co-branded product launch. And stay tuned for my 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤 social media predictions later this week.

I get the aggregated e-mails from 40+ creators' inboxes every day. Yes...I'm reading ALL of your cold outreach. And very few of you are nailing it. I'm sure your response rate confirms this. Some tips (save this post if you reach out to a lot of creators): 1. Don't send from a non-company account. I won't say which one, but there was a Fortune 500 brand that reached out to a HUGE creator from a gmail account. I was about to toss it to spam, but decided to reach out to the person on LinkedIn to see if it was legit. Disaster averted, but barely. 2. Most creators are just looking for real, upfront-paid offers. If you have one, say that in the subject line. Especially if you know the rate and it's at-market. 3. Follow-up steps should NEVER be, "Can we hop on a call to explore?" unless the campaign is at or above rate. Creators are busy. Spending a half hour on a call to explore a potential deal is not a great use of time. 4. Reps trying to poach: probably not smart to reach out to an e-mail that literally has a competitor's website in the e-mail. Should go without saying... 5. There's so much power in a TL;DR. If you have an offer, pop high-level terms up top, then go into detail below. 6. Never, never, never, never tell a creator to follow a link to see a campaign. Do you know how many phishing scams there are? Not only will your CTR be terrible, but you'll only get creators who are notably not careful with their careers. 7. AI creator marketing companies are killing the efficacy of cold outreach. If you are an AI company that automates creator outreach, be a bit more cautious with the number of e-mails you send. Don't have AI in your e-mail or name, as it signals to us that you're farming for sign ups. And if you work at Google, please ban these companies! 8. Be realistic. If you're doing a gifting campaign, don't reach out to MrBeast offering a free battery for a video shout-out. If you're asking someone to attend an LA event, make sure they don't live in the Maldives. It makes you look sloppy. 9. Stop with the 'send me your rate card then I'll tell you my budget' dance. Know what you want to achieve and send a first offer. There will be less back and forth, higher response rates, and it makes you look like you actually value the creator's work instead of trying to milk them for as much work as possible at the lowest possible rate. (Also, creators, you should know your rate too and don't be afraid to tell people what you want) 10. If you really want a creator, go multi-platform. Send an e-mail, then DM saying, "I sent an offer to your e-mail" and if they have a rep, ping their manager saying you'd love to work with their creator. A little additional effort will go a long way.

I spoke to someone today trying to scale a CPG brand. And here’s how I told him to grow it: They’ve got an Olive Oil brand. Phenomenal product. Great story. In all Whole Foods. But he’s trying to scale and gain awareness around his product. His idea? Crank meta ads. Problem? His ad account is fresh. They don’t have winning creative. Hasn’t tested LPs or PDPs. Budget? Tight. So, here’s what I told him to do instead: • Seed Influencers/Creators • Invest in organic content •Turn on paid with winning pieces from creators and organic • Invite top creators and/or influencers to become ambassadors 1. Seeding Influencers/Creators And not just any influencers or creators. Go niche. Go deep. And find very specific creators who talk to very specific people aligned with your ICP. So instead of going for the foodie because they have a large audience. Go for the mom foodie, who lives a luxury lifestyle, and lives in a major city near Whole Foods that carries your product.. Next - hit 250 - 500 influencers a month. And two things will happen: 20-30% will opt-in to receive product 30-35% will post content about the product for free And you now have 30-90 pieces of content at the cost of goods. The goal is to build a lasting relationship with all of these creators. Hence, seeding them and letting the plant grow over time. 2. Now, Organic Content Key here is for influencers and creators to play into his content funnel. The influencer and creator content drives awareness and brings ppl into his ecosystem. But it’s his job to turn awareness into follows. Followers into fans. So, three options from cheapest to most expensive: • Hire an in-house creator • Build a lean content team around the founder • Build an entire content and marketing team for biz Regardless, approach the content like a funnel: TOF - How can I make people aware of me, brand, and product? MOF - How can I get people to follow me, brand, or product? BOF - How can I get people to become fans of me, brand, or product? He hasn’t built a content team so to start - I told him to have a testing strategy over a growth strategy. Have a lot of ideas. Test them. Set baseline KPIs. When a piece of content hits the KPI, take note and scale it. 3. Then Turn On Paid After months of influencer seeding and posting organic content, this will happen: You’ll now know what to run as paid ads. You’ll know which influencer posts drove sales. And you’ll know which organic pieces drove sales. Those will be the winners you use for paid as he tries to unlock it as an acquisition channel. And again - he’s lean right now. If the budget was bigger, then I’d advise throwing every piece of creative into the ad account. Launch dynamic creative testing. Cost caps. And refine, optimize and scale from there. Anyways, I hope that helps some of you who are in the same shoes and trying to scale a brand. Below is my favorite resource for finding the right influencers.

I've worked on over $20M in creator brand partnerships. And I'm noticing a significant shift in where brands are spending their money. It's not that creator marketing is slowing down. It's just becoming more targeted. Here's what's happening... Brands are pulling back from creators with younger audiences and doubling down on those with older, more affluent demographics, or with more niche audiences. Creator channels struggling to land brand partnerships: • Kids content • Pre Teen-focused entertainment • Gaming channels with young audiences • Creators with high views but audiences who have low purchasing power Creator channels thriving: • Finance and investing • Home and lifestyle • Professional development • Creators with affluent, adult audiences I'm starting to think the right litmus test brands should be using is: "Does this creator's target persona own a credit card?" If the answer is yes, the deals are flowing. If the answer is no, it's getting really cold out there. Brands have finally figured out that a million views from 12-year-olds using their parents' accounts won't drive the same ROI as 100,000 views from adults with purchasing power. What makes it even harder is that the metrics on YouTube's backend often don't tell the full story. A channel might show 18-34 as their primary demographic, but the actual viewers could be much younger using their parent's account. In this new phase of the creator economy, audience quality is trumping audience quantity. #creatoreconomy #marketing #business

🍫📈 MrBeast, the YouTube sensation with over 300 million subscribers (cross platform), has just revealed that his chocolate business, Feastables, raked in a whopping $250 million in sales last year, more than his YouTube media business. This isn't just a sweet surprise; it's a sign of something bigger happening in the world of content creation. #ChiragSpeaks on the fascinating world of #MrBeast and his chocolate empire, #Feastables! I've always said that content creators like MrBeast are becoming the new supply chain masters. They're not just making videos; they're building entire ecosystems around their brands. Think of it like Amazon in its early days, solving for the "last mile" of delivery. Once creators crack the distribution code, they become nearly unstoppable. IP and Audience: Creators own their intellectual property and have direct access to millions of fans. This is like having a built-in customer base, ready to buy whatever they create. Product Diversification: MrBeast's Feastables is a prime example. By launching a product line that resonates with his audience, he's created a new revenue stream that outperforms his traditional content creation. Distribution Power: Once creators figure out how to efficiently distribute their products, they can bypass traditional retail channels and go straight to consumers. This cuts out middlemen and maximizes profits. Influencer Edge: With their massive social media influence, creators can drive demand and manage supply chains more effectively than traditional brands. They can promote products directly to their fans, creating a seamless marketing-to-sales pipeline. So, what does this mean for the future of marketing? It's all about creators becoming full-stack businesses—owning the product, the audience, and the distribution. Once they master this, they'll be the ones setting the rules in the retail game.

This week Whalar secured strategic investments from Marc Benioff and Shopify, while Publicis Groupe acquired Captiv8. These aren't isolated moves. This is representative of a broader shift in how marketers and agencies are taking influencers more seriously. U.S. influencer marketing spend is set to hit $9.29B this year. That's a 14.2% YoY increase, outpacing both digital and social ad spend growth. 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝘁𝗼 𝗡𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗿𝘆: A decade ago, influencer marketing agencies were a novel idea. No one knew where influencer marketing lived (if it was happening at all). Did PR own it? The media teams? Creative shops? Digital shops? These days influencer marketing is commonplace. Every major holding company either owns or partners with influencer specialists. But what's next? 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲: Today's social landscape has exploded into countless micro-disciplines. Even within a single platform, there are multiple paths to success: • Short-form vs. long-form content • Live vs. pre-recorded video • Community engagement vs. content creation • Platform-specific ad formats and features Each social platform is like a Matryoshka doll—what appears simple on the surface quickly reveals deeper layers of complexity. I am obviously biased. But, 10 years from now I imagine we'll see a series of acquisitions around specialized influencer marketing agencies - whether that is by platform or community. In our case at Creator Authority we've chosen to place our bet on LinkedIn. This feels like YouTube in 2010—a nascent marketplace where specialists can build disproportionate value. LinkedIn alone offers massive scale: • 1 billion users globally • 200+ million in the U.S. • 91% of marketers rank it as their most effective B2B channel Yet, most marketers are missing the opportunity with creators on this platform. Influencer marketing is incredibly effective and is likely to see massive growth. Why? LinkedIn is the most trusted platform for B2B creator content, and its impactful: • 59% of B2B buyers consumed creator content on LinkedIn • 82% of B2B buyers who use industry influencers in their purchase journey say that creator content directly influences their decisions • 87% of B2B buyers prefer credible content from trusted industry influencers over traditional marketing In today's hyper-specialized landscape, the "do it all" expectation sets teams up for mediocre results. As influencer marketing matures, brands won't just need influencer agencies; they'll need partners who understand the platforms those creators thrive on. The agencies that go deep—not wide—will likely win. Specialization isn't a constraint—it's the strategy. --- Enjoy this? ♻️ Repost it to your network & follow Brendan Gahan for more. Interested in Influencer Marketing on Linkedin? Reach out to us Creator Authority

Creators are being judged by metrics they can’t see, can’t control, and often don’t understand. And that's a problem.... This week, I dig into the new “Share Of” metrics from CreatorIQ, designed to help brands benchmark creator performance across platforms. They’re smart. Sophisticated. And despite likely moving more money to creators, there's a terrifying potential unintended consequence. Why? Because if opaque metrics become the new currency of influence, and creators aren’t in the room (or even shown the math) it means brands hold a disproportionate amount of power And creators are left walking a tightrope woven out of data they can’t reach. Add to that: 🔻 Mary Meeker’s new AI report predicts a world where creators must blend with machines to stay relevant. 🔻 Meta’s launching fully AI-automated ad campaigns next year, potentially shifting even more power (and dollars) away from creators. 🔻YouTube’s top 10% of creators account for 94% of all non-Shorts views, making it harder than ever to break through unless you’re already winning. I’m all for better benchmarks, and I'm a big fan of what CreatorIQ is trying to do. But let's not optimize creators out of the system they helped build. 👉 Full breakdown in this week’s Inside the Creator Economy newsletter (read it below). Should creators push back on opaque metrics? Or is this just the cost of scaling a business in 2025? #creatoreconomy #influencermarketing #attribution #AI #media

Alex Hormozi may be the first creator billionaire. I interviewed him on the Karat podcast to learn his secrets on how he made over $10M+ last year from content- here's 3 lessons below: 1. Content isn't the business. Content generates *leads* for your business. Most creators are in a broken business model based on volatile brand deals. Hormozi recommends developing a business around a sticky retentive problem - then pumping leads to it through content aka free advertising. He follows this himself - his content drives deal flow for his private equity firm - and also customers for portfolio companies like Skool. Last year, his companies made over $250M in revenue. 2. Hormozi sees 5 distinct ways to make money from content: * Brand deals * Affiliate * Collabs with investment (as he did with Skool, or see PRIME) * White label * Doing your own product in-house (e.g., Feastables) If your content is good at getting impressions but not conversions - do brand deals - and you're basically a media company. But if you have conviction in your conversion- start with affiliate - and then carefully consider deeper partnerships based on your bandwidth. Hormozi knew he only had energy for one real "brand bullet" - and saved it for a deep collaboration with Skool. 3. Most creators are a 97/100 on content - but they're a 0/100 on monetization. Hormozi believes they spend too much time on thumbnails and not enough on learning business. That's the real constraint to their growth. Comment HORMOZI and I'll send you 21 takeaways from the pod as a timestamped transcript - and an analysis of 10+ other creator talks we've done.

Sales and revenue are the only influencer metrics that matter going into 2024 It poses a bit of a problem since we live in a world where 80% of brands are still only able to track approximately 30% of sales driven by influencer marketing (Source: Advertising Week) It poses an even bigger problem when you are competing not only with giant brands but with millions of creators with their own digital storefronts As more creators become microentrepreneurs selling through TikTok Shop , legacy brands reliant on proxy metrics like impressions and engagement rather than direct sales attribution stand little chance And with shoppable livestreams and the only integrated mobile commerce infrastructure, TikTok possesses the ultimate measurement suite - real-time sales velocity I keep wondering why American brands aren't freaking out more Even our giants like Amazon and Shopify don’t have the closed feedback loop between recommendation algorithms, creator curation, instant mobile video commerce, and purchase conversion data at this integrated scale The platform with the most transactional data wins - and right now no one can touch TikTok’s commerce flywheel momentum and hyper-targeted personalization capabilities 2024 will separate retailers still racking up vanity metrics from the ones doing what matters most - directly driving revenue through creator collaboration and community commerce As a brand your job is to know Vanilla Crush’s top sales are for earwax removal even though she is a tech and lifestyle creator And she tried really hard with the slushy maker for frozen wine drinks to no avail She's crushing it as the #1 creator this month earning $150k in commission for 11 shoppable videos... More people will join because it's just life changing money to do things you enjoy with little effort You need to activate the RIGHT Influencers for your brand, backed by category-specific transaction data Meanwhile legacy brands leaning on outdated top-down strategies while micro creators are running commerce circles around them The future belongs to those abolishing siloed creator, customer & commerce data sets While retailers paralyze themselves w/ irrelevant metrics, TikTok is tracking every step of the consumer journey into unified profiles To become the ultimate retail superpower - predicting exactly which products each user will love AND buy next by name Imagine if shoppable pins automatically displayed your highest probability purchases rather than items merely inspiring... Make no mistake that future has already arrived on TikTok Shop When content IS commerce, the feedback loop compounding is unlimited The brands embracing creators beyond impressions stand ready to capitalize on a commercial scale no analog retailer can currently fathom #thegreatfashionreset #genz #creatoreconomy #contentistheproduct #tiktokisthestore