TikTok crowned its own monthly bestseller list, replacing a hundred years of New York Times tradition with a formula built on vibes. YouTube listens to its users while betraying its creators. Similarly, Meta’s affiliate engine is built (stolen?) from creators’ content. Malibu rum used age-verification tech to slide ads into the feeds of the soberest generation in a century.

Spotify announced fitness as its next vertical, Amazon flipped its podcast business into a monetize-everything play, and new data confirmed that YouTube on the living room TV now competes with Netflix for ad dollars.

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TikTok eats NY Times’ lunch

BookTok now has an official monthly chart. TikTok partnered with NielsenIQ BookData and Media Control to launch a U.K. bestseller list combining verified sales with on-platform engagement. Raw sales alone will not get you in. If the buzz is not loud enough, the book gets cut. They tested a chart in Germany in 2023, expanded to Austria and Switzerland, and now plan to enter every English-language market.

For forever, the phrase “hit the list” meant the New York Times list. The Times built its authority on slow, mysterious sampling and a quiet phone call to your editor. TikTok is replacing that authority with engagement metrics decided by its own algorithm that decides which books get read in the first place 😮.

YouTube listens to users, takes advantage of creators

YouTube is pulling two levers in opposite directions. On one side, it shipped a setting that lets users zero out their Shorts feed. The previous floor was 15 minutes a day. Now you can set it to zero, and the Shorts tab and feed disappear from the app. For a platform whose entire strategy was wedging Shorts into every available surface, that is a huge concession to users.

On the other side, YouTube is testing “Ask YouTube,” an AI search tool that returns a step-by-step guided answer instead of a list of videos. Type “plan a 3-day road trip along the west coast” and you get a packaged itinerary with text, short clips, and segments of longer videos stitched together. YouTube describes it as a way to help users discover content. Others might say it’s Google adding an AI summary on top of a video site to keep you from clicking through to the videos. YouTube spent fifteen years convincing creators their videos were the product. Now the videos are the training data and the answer is the product.

Malibu rum slides into Gen Z feeds via age-verification tech and get ready with me videos

Malibu launched a new campaign with comedian and creator Sabrina Brier, built on the #GRWM format. The twist? Malibu is using TikTok’s age-verification technology to serve this campaign directly to the Gen Z demographic. Gen Z drinks less than any other cohort and accounted for only 4% of U.S. alcohol sales in 2025.

The original reason for age verification on social platforms was child safety, but the functional outcome is that brands can now target the exact 22-year-old who follows lifestyle creators and is statistically least likely to drink.

Streamers and conglomerates agree: creators === trust

Tubi, the Fox-owned free streamer, continues to expand its creator-led originals slate. The streamer added TikTok food reviewer Keith Lee (planning a Tubi-original event called FamiLee Day), Traitors alum Bob the Drag Queen, and survivalist creator Sofi Manassyan, who is making a horror-mystery anthology called Who Did It?. Last year Tubi brought in former TikTok exec Kudzi Chikumbu to run creator partnerships and launched a creator studio inside Fox.

A year ago, Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez announced the company would hire “20 times the amount of influencers” as part of a new marketing strategy. Hellopartner went back to check the receipts and Unilever kept its promise - the company now works with 300,000 influencers compared to 10,000 in the last two years. Fernandez says it’s necessary for building trust - messages from creators land where messages from corporations now barely register.

The C-suite of a CPG giant and the development team of a free streamer are arriving to the same conclusion. Audiences prefer an authentic individual over a faceless brand. Tubi puts a TikTok food reviewer in front of a slate that used to belong to network development executives. Unilever moves the influencer line item to the primary marketing channel. Both companies are paying creators to earn them trust that their own brand can no longer earn.

Meta moves into affiliate, and creators say it’s stealing their stuff

Meta has been quietly rebuilding Instagram into an affiliate engine with new AI partnership tools, expanded creator programs, and updated affiliate links. The wrinkle: creators like, Julia Berolzheimer, alleged that Instagram's "Shop the Look" feature was scraping her outfit posts and routing users to knockoff dupes, essentially stealing any potential affiliate commission from her. This is very similar to how YouTube is treating its creators. What happens when creators realize they are building their business on top of a platform that will just steal their traffic?

The UK officially recognizes creators as a real industry

Creator-led businesses now have a formal classification in U.K. economic data. That sounds boring, but SIC codes determine tax treatment, business banking access, mortgage applications, government grants, and trade body eligibility. A YouTuber in Manchester just became as legible in the UK tax system as a plumber.

The U.S. has nothing like this. The IRS still classifies most creators as miscellaneous self-employed.

Spotify launches fitness content, because what else is left

Spotify announced fitness as its next category after podcasts, audiobooks, video, and physical books. The pitch: workouts, classes, and trainer-led content slotted alongside your music and Joe Rogan. They are licensing from existing fitness brands and courting creators to build native shows.

Amazon turned podcasts into run-of-the-mill inventory

The New York Times reported that Amazon’s podcasting operation has transformed over the past six months. It’s shifting away from prestige exclusives, toward squeezing revenue out of every show in the catalog through ads, premium tiers, and bundling. Amazon Music is the distribution arm, Wondery is the studio, and each podcast is treated as an inventory unit, not a flagship.

It seems like the prestige-podcast era is over. Spotify spent a billion dollars on exclusive deals (Rogan, Obama, Meghan Markle) and quietly walked it back. Amazon is now formalizing the next model: scale and ad-load, forget exclusive talent. Independent podcasters get more distribution surface but lower per-show revenue.

Gen Z and millennials live on YouTube, officially

London-based ad-tech firm Precisify dropped a new report on U.S. viewers ages 13 to 44, breaking down how Gen Z and millennials actually consume video across streaming, social, gaming, and creator content. The headline: YouTube is the dominant surface across both screens (mobile and TV) and across both cohorts. Precisify pitches the data as the new backbone for ad planning.

The number that matters for creators: YouTube’s TV-screen viewership now rivals streaming services for younger millennials, which means creator content is competing for the same ad dollars as Netflix originals.

Thanks for reading.

Google casually admitted they've been using your YouTube videos to train AI without asking (but it's technically legal, so that's fine?). Meanwhile, Denmark made face-stealing illegal, solving a problem that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

Also, AI is now flooding social media with so much garbage that half of YouTube's top channels are just AI content used to train other AI content. On the bright side, a horror movie about influencers getting murdered for clout somehow counts as optimistic fiction.

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Horror movie about influencers dying somehow less dystopian than reality

Skillhouse is a new horror film that follows ten content creators who face kidnapping and must endure deadly social media challenges, where "clout is life" and failure to gain enough likes means game over. Josh Stolberg from Saw directed the film as a satirical take on influencer culture, blending gruesome horror with commentary on the pursuit of online fame. Drama has surrounded the production, including a high-profile lawsuit from 50 Cent over the use of his image and name, though a court allowed the film's release to proceed. Early reviews are divided with some calling it a witty satire and others saying it’s one of the worst movies ever made.

Moonvalley promises copyright-free AI that will still steal your job

Moonvalley publicly released its Marey video generation model designed specifically for professional filmmakers. The model stands out because developers trained it exclusively on openly licensed data, helping it avoid potential copyright issues that plague other AI video tools. Marey offers new control for filmmakers through features like "hybrid filmmaking" that allows creators to upload scenes with real actors and generate similar footage with altered objects, backgrounds, or costumes. The subscription-based service starts at $14.99/month for 100 credits, which also means AI continues to drive down the cost of film production.

Google politely stole your videos to train AI

Google has confirmed it uses a portion of YouTube's huge video library to train its AI models, including Veo 3, but most creators remain unaware that the company uses their content for this purpose. While YouTube claims to only use a specific subset of videos and states it has agreements with some creators and media companies, experts and interviewed creators say YouTube didn’t inform them or obtain their consent for AI training use. YouTube's terms of service grant the platform a broad license to use uploaded content, which technically allows Google to use videos for AI training, but this practice has raised ethical and transparency concerns among creators and industry observers. The scale of AI training reaches massive scale, with even a small percentage of YouTube's 20 billion videos amounting to billions of minutes of data, far exceeding the training sets that other AI models use. The controversy has sparked debates about intellectual property rights, the need for creator consent, and the lack of an opt-out mechanism for creators who do not want companies to use their work to build AI tools that could eventually compete with them.

Denmark makes stealing faces illegal, shocking nobody

Denmark will become the first European country to grant individuals copyright over their own face, voice, and physical likeness, aiming to combat the rise of AI-generated deepfakes and digital impersonation. The proposed legislation, which most political parties back, would allow people to claim legal ownership of their personal appearance and voice, giving them the right to demand removal and seek compensation if someone uses their likeness without consent. The law includes exceptions for parody and satire to protect freedom of expression but primarily targets harmful uses such as non-consensual deepfake pornography, scams, and fake political content.

Replacing humans completely, AI floods social media with garbage

The mass creation of highly realistic, AI-generated clips in minutes is fundamentally changing social media feeds. Tools like Veo 3 allow creators to produce lifelike videos with minimal effort, resulting in a flood of low-quality, automated content that already dominates TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. Nearly half of YouTube's top channels now feature AI-generated material, and virtual AI personalities attract millions of followers, indicating a shift toward automated entertainment. The platforms themselves embrace AI not just for content creation but also for automating ads, leading to a more addictive and less enriching user experience. The overwhelming volume of low-value content and the growing challenge of grabbing users' attention in a sea of infinite scroll makes you wonder if these platforms will regret embracing AI for content and ad creation.

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If you need a simple way to organize and search your media library, check out Cosmos, a tool made for creators who want to spend less time on admin work and more time creating.

Adobe just made every professional photographer's worst nightmare come true with a free iPhone app that shoots like a $5,000 DSLR. Meanwhile, science confirms what we all suspected: AI only makes smart people more creative (sorry everyone else).

A new social app promises to pay creators from day one without needing a single follower, China is spending millions to rescue Jackie Chan movies from looking like garbage, and Pinterest finally figured out how to make money after 15 years of confusion.

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Throw your Nikon out

Adobe released Project Indigo, a free AI-powered camera app that transforms iPhones into DSLR-quality cameras. The app uses generative AI to enhance dynamic range, sharpness, and lighting in real-time, enabling content creators to achieve professional results without expensive equipment.

Your IQ = How Much AI Helps You

A study from Tulane University shows that generative AI tools like ChatGPT can enhance employee creativity, but only for those with strong metacognitive skills. Researchers at a technology consulting firm observed that employees who actively analyzed their tasks and adjusted their approaches benefited most from AI assistance. This finding urges companies to consider if their employees can actually benefit from AI investments.

Get Rich Without Going Viral

The new decentralized social media app, Own, launched its beta version last week. The platform features a swipeable feed for short videos, text posts, and images, and stands out by utilizing the blockchain and a token economy. Content creators on Own can earn revenue without minimum follower requirements, receiving rewards based on video engagement through the tradeable $OWN token.

$14M to Rescue Jackie Chan from Bad CGI

China launched a $13.9M initiative to use AI to restore and modernize 100 classic kung fu films, enhancing their visuals, audio, and production quality while preserving the original storytelling and aesthetic. The project also includes the creation of "A Better Tomorrow: Cyber Border," which they bill as the world’s first fully AI-produced animated feature film. Chinese studios expect AI technology to significantly reduce production time and costs, marking a major shift in film restoration and animation methods. This government-backed effort positions AI as a crucial tool for cultural preservation and innovation in China’s media industry.

Pinterest Finally Learns How to Make Money

Pinterest named Emma Chamberlain's coffee company as its first-ever co-branded product partner. This collaboration marks Pinterest's entry into product partnerships with content creators and highlights the platform's strategy to leverage creator influence for commercial opportunities.

Midjourney Says 'Hold My Beer'

Midjourney launched its first AI video generation model V1 just one week after Disney and Universal filed a massive lawsuit against them for copyright infringement. The timing is either incredibly bold or spectacularly tone-deaf.

Thanks for reading!

If you need a simple way to organize and search your media library, check out Cosmos, a tool made for creators who want to spend less time on admin work and more time creating.

• TikTok encourages brands to create ads without humans

• Snapchat unveils new creator features

• Barbie is getting an AI upgrade soon

• AMC Networks partners with Runway for AI production

• Disney and Universal take Midjourney to court

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AI Tools Power Up Creators and Brands

TikTok’s New AI Ad Tools
TikTok dropped AI-powered ad tools to create five-second video ads from images or text prompts. Digital avatars can now show off products and even model clothes, all through the Symphony platform. Brands can pump out influencer-style content fast, without needing real people, and we’ll probably see a flood of AI-generated ads on TikTok soon.

Snapchat’s Creator Upgrades
Snapchat rolled out new features to help creators grow their audience and make more use of their content. Now you can save stories to profiles, use their video editor and and templates to turn memories into videos. Analytics also got an upgrade with returning viewers and top content stats.

Brands Dive Into AI

Mattel and OpenAI Team Up

Mattel is teaming up with OpenAI to make AI-powered toys and games, with Barbie likely getting an AI upgrade. They’ll use tools like ChatGPT for personalized, responsive and interactive play while (hopefully) keeping safety and privacy front and center. Mattel also plans to use OpenAI’s tech behind the scenes to enhance product innovation.

AMC and Runway Join Forces
AMC Networks is working with Runway to bring AI into its marketing and TV development. They want to speed up everything from promo images to special effects and let showrunners test out ideas before filming. AMC hopes this keeps them creative and competitive as the industry changes.

Not All Brands Are On Board

Disney and Universal Sue Midjourney

Disney and Universal are taking Midjourney to court, claiming its AI image generator copies their copyrighted characters in a “bottomless pit of plagiarism."

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If you need a simple way to organize and search your photos and videos, check out Cosmos, a tool made for creators who want to spend less time on admin work and more time creating.

• AI is turning creators into micro studios and VCs are taking notice

• AI avatars might be more popular than real people

• Gen Z is leaving Pinterest as AI content takes over its platform

• Older creators are leading the charge in AI adoption

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AI is turning creators into micro studios and investors are betting big on their earning power

Generative AI is changing the creator economy by helping solo creators and small teams produce studio-quality content that once needed large budgets and staff. With accessible AI tools for video, audio, writing, and design, creators can now take on ambitious projects without big technical barriers.

The Dor Brothers, for example, use AI to create cinematic-quality work on a shoestring budget. They’ve produced over 300 video projects, including dozens of commercials and viral videos, with their work grabbing more than 100 million views worldwide. The Texas State Senate personally invited them to testify on upcoming AI regulations, recognizing their expertise with creativity and technology. They show how individuals can now go toe-to-toe with traditional production houses.

This shift in production comes as industry investment and new monetization models grow. In 2024, over $900 million in venture capital went into the creator economy. Tech giants and platforms like TikTok and Amazon launched new initiatives to support and invest in creators. TikTok moved from its original Creator Fund to performance-driven programs. Amazon’s Creator Connections lets creators partner directly with brands for campaign commissions. These moves show a broader trend toward helping creators earn more and build sustainable businesses.

Even with these new opportunities, most creators still make less than $1,000 a year, and only 4% earn over $100,000. Access to capital and advanced tools drives this gap. As AI lowers the cost and complexity of content creation, more creators can produce more content, reach wider audiences, and tap into new revenue streams like affiliate marketing, brand deals, and eCommerce.

The creator marketplace is maturing. Tech companies, VCs, and brands now compete to partner with creators. As AI tools become standard and investment grows, creators who use these technologies and platforms can break through old income ceilings and change what’s possible in digital entrepreneurship.

At the same time, AI is generating new jobs at studios

As AI becomes central to content production, new jobs are appearing. Roles like AI content curators, prompt leads, and workflow designers now manage and refine AI-generated material to keep brand consistency and creative quality. This human-AI collab leads to faster turnarounds, lower costs, and higher engagement. It also makes you question who’s in control and what’s real when humans work so closely with AI.

AI avatars are becoming brand powerhouses

AI-generated personalities like Lil Miquela, who has over 2.4 million Instagram followers and partnerships with brands like Prada and Samsung, show that virtual influencers can build real connections and drive big campaigns.

The rise of these AI avatars marks a new chapter in social media influence, where compelling narratives and community engagement matter more than whether the creator is human or virtual. The viral rise of Ballerina Cappuccina, an AI-generated character with a complex family tree, shows how AI avatars are very much part of pop culture. Ballerina Cappuccina’s backstory is a big part of what makes her so appealing and viral. She isn’t just a quirky AI-generated ballerina with a cappuccino cup for a head, she’s the star of a sprawling, absurd, and intentionally over-the-top fictional universe of “Italian brainrot.” TikTok and Instagram users have embraced her by remixing her videos, adding dramatic music, and inventing new episodes of her “life.” The intentionally silly, ever-expanding lore lets fans participate and riff on her story, making her feel like a living, collaborative pop culture phenomenon rather than just a static meme.

This elaborate, crowd-sourced backstory deepens Ballerina Cappuccina’s appeal by giving her a sense of personality and “history” that invites ongoing engagement and creativity. Her virality is just a peek into how AI avatars can become true brand powerhouses, not just by looking cool, but by letting the internet co-author their story.

Gen Z is fleeing Pinterest as AI-generated content floods the platform

Pinterest, once a favorite for Gen Z because of its personal, journal-like feel and human creativity, now faces backlash. Users report a surge of AI-generated pins dominating search results. Many now struggle to find real, human-created inspiration for things like hair color, nail art, or interior design. This frustration is pushing users toward other platforms (like cosmos.so).

All content isn’t created equally. While AI can increase content volume, it can also erode the trust that got users to a platform in the first place.

Older creators are leading the AI adoption wave

A new survey shows that 59% of creators use AI to streamline workflows and boost monetization. About 34% automate follower engagement and 23% use AI for product curation and analytics. As the creator economy becomes more saturated and consumer spending tightens, creators focus more on efficiency. AI adoption is less about hype and more about survival.

Surprisingly, creators over 25 are more likely to use AI throughout their workflow than younger creators. Cost barriers and the complexity of advanced AI tools may slow younger creators, but the trend is there. AI is now a must-have for most professionals, not just early adopters or tech enthusiasts.

Thanks for reading It’s the Creators, a weekly email about creativity, AI, and creators.

If you need a simple way to organize and search your photos and videos, check out Desktop Docs. It’s a tool I made for creators who want to spend less time on admin work and more time creating.

See you next time.

Now, instead of being overwhelmed, I’ve found a way to work smarter, not harder.

Unless you’re automated from top to bottom, there’s a better approach to managing your tasks.

AI-powered workflow tools are like your new comrades in productivity, ready to help you automate the repetitive stuff and keep your focus on what really matters.

Imagine cutting down on those mundane tasks and getting back to the work that lights you up.

Sound good? Keep reading.

Here’s how AI can transform your workflow…

• It automates the boring stuff. AI can take over tasks like scheduling, data entry, and routine email management. Getting all that time back in your day is **chef’s kiss**

• It centralizes your tasks. With AI-powered tools, you can keep all your work in one place. No more hunting down random emails or toggling between tabs.

• It enhances collaboration. AI can help you streamline communication, delegate tasks, and keep everyone on the same page—without the endless meetings or follow-ups.

AI does more than make your life easier (though it definitely does that).

It frees up your mental space so you can focus on the tasks that require your brainpower.

Ready for 3 AI workflow tools?

• Zapier: Automate your workflows across apps and platforms. It’s like having a personal assistant who never misses a beat.

• ClickUp: Customize your workflow, collaborate with your team, and automate tasks—all in one platform.

• Trello: Manage projects visually while keeping your team synced up and your boards up to date with minimal effort.

Now that you’re familiar with AI-powered tools, here’s something a bit more advanced: machine learning (ML). If AI is the Watson behind automation, then ML is its Sherlock, learning from data patterns to make your workflows smarter over time.

Here’s how machine learning can elevate your workflow:

• It predicts your needs. ML analyzes your past behavior to predict what tasks you’re likely to need next—like suggesting the best time for a meeting based on your schedule’s history or auto-filling forms based on previous entries.

• It personalizes your experience. ML adapts. The more you use it, the more it learns your preferences. Whether it’s adjusting your project management style or fine-tuning task suggestions, ML ensures your tools work the way you do.

• It optimizes efficiency. By analyzing data patterns, ML can identify bottlenecks and suggest optimizations in your workflow.

Machine learning can take your workflow from “pretty good” to “how did I live without this?”

These tools are incredible, and they’re just the beginning.

Ready to learn how AI can save you time and boost your productivity? Swing by our newest blog about organizing your workflow with AI automation.

Until next time, work smarter, not harder!

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Every time you refresh your feed, there’s a friendly neighborhood content creator out there to thank for that daily dose of serotonin.

But what makes a great content creator?

Is it the ability to come up with a viral meme or lip-sync the hell out of a catchy TikTok sound?

Well, sure.

But it’s a bit more complex than that.

Content creators are the Renaissance minds of the internet, blending creativity with technical know-how, mixing a dash of internet-savvy with risk-taking.

Who wouldn’t want to be a content creator?

And if you’re thinking of being one, I’ve got just the blog for you.

And if you’re curious to know the personality traits and skills that make the difference between someone who just makes content and a great content creator, this is just the newsletter for you.

Let’s gooo.

Every great content creator has these personality traits:

• Empathy: Great content creators have an innate ability to understand and connect with their audience on a deep level. They can tap into what their viewers are feeling and create emotionally resonant content.

• Curiosity: They’re endlessly curious, always exploring new ideas, trends, and perspectives. This trait keeps their content fresh and helps them stay ahead of trends and sometimes even set them.

• Risk-taking: The internet and the algorithms reward the bold. Great content creators aren’t afraid to push the boundaries, try new things, and occasionally, fail spectacularly.

• Attuned to internet culture: They’re the ones who understand the language of memes, the ebb and flow of trends, and can make a pop culture reference so sharp it cuts through the noise.

I didn’t mention the ability to keep your cool while your Wi-Fi is having a moment, but, obviously, this is also a must.

While these traits are what set content creators apart, personality isn’t everything.

There’s more to the content creator cocktail.

(Quality) Content creation also requires certain skills:

• Technical proficiency: From mastering editing software to cracking the code on SEO, a good content creator has a toolkit packed with the latest tech. They’re part artist, part scientist.

• Analytics understanding: Knowing how to interpret data and apply its insights turns good content into great content.

• Creativity: Obvious, right? Somehow, content creators make the mundane magical and put it in ways that captivate people.

• Adaptability: The internet is like a rollercoaster—wild, fast-paced, and a little intimidating. Great content creators can pivot on a dime.

These folks deserve all the roses.

They are cultural curators, trendsetters, and a little wild.

In the best way though.

Until next time, happy scrolling—and creating!

One place I promise to help you keep it from? Your content calendar.

Hundreds of AI tools are ready to boost your content creation game.

But where to start?

AI tools are not created equally—and no two tools do exactly the same things.

To keep your to-do list doable, I rounded up the 9 best AI tools for social media content creation in our latest blog.

I’ll touch on 5 of the tools here for my TL;DR people.

Whether you’re LinkedIn’s Hemingway or TikTok’s Kubrick, I’ve got tools for you.

Let’s play with some serious writing tools

You know the feeling when you’re staring at a blank screen, waiting for inspiration to strike? Jasper.AI is the antidote to that writer’s block.

This tool is like a very efficient writing buddy who’s always ready to:

• Brainstorm

• Outline

• Put the finishing touches on that blog post you've been putting off 🫣

If a plug-in that offers synonyms and sentence rewrites on the fly sounds up your alley, check out our blog for the full list.

Edit videos and audio like a pro, no sweat

Video and audio editing can be nerve-racking, especially for beginners.

But Descript makes it as easy as editing a Word doc. Seriously.

It transcribes the words spoken in your video or audio file.

Delete the transcribed words you don’t want—and the corresponding clip is gone.

(It does A LOT more than that, tbh.)

Whether you’re a YouTuber, TikToker, or podcaster, Descript’s AI is all about saving you time and making you look good.

Hit a #HomeRun

Are you striking out on your #HashtagGame? RiteTag has you covered.

This AI tool provides instant hashtag suggestions. All aimed to boost visibility, engagement, etc., ensuring your posts get the right attention.

Get your head in the game

Finally, let’s talk organization.

Because if your content calendar’s a mess, everything else will be too.

• Notion is an all-in-one powerhouse for managing notes, projects, and everything else that keeps your content world spinning. (I couldn’t make content without it.)

• Desktop Docs indexes your media files by their content rather than file names. Files going MIA is a thing of the past. With desktop docs, files are easy to access, edit, and share, helping you stay on top of your game from start to finish. (Similarly a must for my content creation process.)

Want 4 more tools 4 more help with content?

These five tools are great, but I’m just scratching the surface.

Head over to our blog, where we speak on all these AI tools in depth and 4 more.

Trust us—your content (and your sanity) will thank you.

Send this to someone who could use a little 🦾 AI magic 🪄 in their content game.

The four stages of content creation—research, creation, distribution, and analysis—are equally important.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you better do ‘em all.

In the marketing game, one thing’s for sure.

Making refined, lead-generating content takes a very specific set of skills.

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Before we get rolling, what exactly is content creation?

At its core, content creation is about generating ideas, crafting content that resonates with your audience, and sharing it on the right platforms.

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Last week, we wrote a blog about content creation and why it matters. For this newsletter, we’re going to go a little deeper into the four stages of content creation. Here we go:

1 - Research everything. Study your competitor’s strategies. Review your industry’s past several years and its future projections. You’ll need to know the person you’re trying to sell to better than you know your best friend, too. But keep from getting stuck here. Even the best of us have been struck by arrested development in the research stage (i.e., procrastinating by way of “looking into best practices”). Keep it focused—keep it moving.

2 - Creation—the fun part. Once you’ve done your homework and you know your audience’s needs, remember them. It’s easy to get lost in the sauce of perfecting a design or pontificating on your area of expertise in a thought-leadership piece, but for the love of all things decent, remain focused. Your content needs to align with the research you’ve done. Keep your target audience in mind, and create with one purpose: to provide value and solve problems, making your content indispensable to your audience.

3 - Distribution is key. Next you have to pick the right medium, platform, and channel for your content. Each has its own purpose. For example, to ensure people discover your website, a blog is essential. For building a connection with your audience and sharing your business journey, focus on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and TikTok. The same goes for Pinterest, Snapchat, the oh-so-wonderful Substack, and everyone else.

4 - Analyze and then analyze some more. Once your content is out in the world, you can pack it all up and go home. That was a lie, but it was a lie that brought momentary comfort, no? The work goes on. Is your content doing what you’d hoped? Driving traffic, generating leads, building a loyal audience, etc. Look for your content’s strengths and areas for improvement, then tweak your strategy based on that. Wash, rinse, and repeat from here.

And there you have it—research, creation, distribution, and analysis, the four stages of content creation.

Skipping any of these stages is like building a house with no foundation.

It might look pretty for a while, but it won’t stand the test of time.

Ready to learn more about the importance of content creation?

Of course you are. You’re still reading.

Lucky you, we’ve got all the ins and outs of content creation in our blog.

It’s worth the read—your content (and your KPIs) will thank you.

Before you bounce, share this post with someone who stays in the ideation of creation.

Middle Way Marketing (MWM) and Cosmos recently partnered to reduce the time MWM spends on project management tasks. Previously, this process required manual reconciliation between emails, spreadsheets, and project management tools.

To start, our teams audited and documented the existing workflows using a 3-step process:

1. Document the workflow to identify the most time-consuming tasks.

2. Re-architect existing data models to support automation.

3. Design the best automation to perform these tasks.

Documenting the Process

We reviewed the workflow, recorded critical information for each task, and identified inefficiencies to streamline. We focused on 3 goals:

• Trace the workflow: Map how information moves through the system from initial client contact to project completion.

• Capture key data points: List all necessary information for project tracking, including client details, project type, and key dates.

• Identify time-consuming tasks.

This planning step helped us gauge how much of the process could be automated and set realistic time-saving expectations. We then focused on the most time-intensive tasks, which fell into 2 categories:

• Data entry: Manually inputting project details across multiple platforms took significant time and increased the risk of errors.

• Data reconciliation: Ensuring consistency across different tools required cross-checking and manual updates by multiple people.

We then planned which tools would capture and publish the necessary information across all tracking platforms.

Re-architect existing data models to support automation

Before implementing the solution, we reorganized existing data to facilitate automation by:

• Normalizing values: Using consistent naming and formatting to reduce possible data types and minimize the need for manual oversight.

• Creating derived values: Using formulas in spreadsheets and project management tools to generate downstream values like statuses or calculations, giving users more control over conditional logic.

For example, if a project status is "Complete" only when several conditions are met, it’s better to use a formula for this check rather than asking Zapier to update the value, reducing the number of operations and potential troubleshooting.

Design and implementation

Most project cycles at MWM are kicked off via email and a team member manually records important information from the email in several places.

To save MWM time, we designed and implemented an AI-assisted solution that parses information in real-time and makes decisions on how to record that information across multiple platforms.

Using Zapier, a no-code automation tool, we integrated the solution with MWM's existing tech stack with minimal custom code. After normalizing data fields, we divided the solution into 2 parts:

• Large Language Model for data extraction: The LLM extracts relevant project information from various sources, including emails and client communications.

• Automated data distribution: Zapier automatically populates project details across multiple tools, keeping data consistent and reducing the need for manual oversight.

Results

The new AI-powered workflow impacted MWM's operations in 3 keys ways:

• Cost-savings: Using Zapier’s Pro plan and OpenAI’s pay-per-usage API, the cost of automating this process is ~$35/mo, which is significantly less than the cost of an individual performing these tasks.

• Time Savings & increased productivity: The project tracking process now takes less time, saving an average of 10 hours per month. Team members spend less time on manual data entry and experience fewer interruptions, leading to increased productivity.

• Real-Time Campaign Processing: The automation handles incoming projects as they enter the system. Previously, a human needed to set aside time regularly to process a certain number of projects. With these tasks now automated, campaigns can start faster without manual oversight.

AI & productivity

This project shows how AI can be strategically employed to automate repetitive business operations. By using AI for data extraction, entry, and reconciliation, companies like MWM can:

• Save money

• Increase productivity by reducing context-switching 

• Minimize data entry errors

This new process also helps MWM prepare for growth, as it can handle increased workloads without proportional increases in manual effort. With the built-in Zapier and OpenAI price tracking tools, MWM can easily scale its operations and manage costs.

While there has been much discussion about how AI will change the way we work, it’s not always clear how this works in practice. Large Language Models, no-code tools, and AI-assisted platforms like Microsoft Copilot offer significant promise for general tasks. However, the key to productivity lies in how well AI-assisted workflows can perform the tasks specific to your business. In this case, the project management tasks are well-suited for automation because all the tools are interoperable, making it easy to reproduce the workflow in Zapier.

If you’re interested in exploring custom AI workflows for your business, Cosmos can help. Reach out to us to learn more about how to leverage automation to improve your team’s productivity.

Everyone feels busy, but they also can’t get enough done – especially not enough “of value.” 

Symptoms include: doing “real work” on nights and weekends, Zoom fatigue, search rage, Slack-a-mole, and the bi-weekly sync. 💀

I remember at one job I used to spend hours boomeranging between Slack, my code editor, Jira, and email.

This was before the pandemic. It’s clear this is the new normal post-pandemic. 

There’s little time left over for clear thinking, creativity, and collaboration.

Call it the Busy Paradox.

Three Big Causes of the Busy Paradox

What’s causing it?

Part of it is cultural. If you’re incredibly busy with business, you must be in-demand – and important. In a world of work-ism, busy-ness is sacred.

Part of it is perceptual. Check-ins, document review, project trackers – these provide the sense that a lot is getting done, progress is being made, value is being created.

Part of it is technical. Modern work has built up layer after layer of digital tools. Each one takes another chunk of your time. Together, they make for constant digital distraction. Automation features exist (Zapier, Excel macros, etc.), but people don’t really know how to use them.

A Few Little Solutions (But They Add Up)

What’s the solution? (if there is one).

First of all, let's acknowledge that it's difficult, especially considering the cultural and perceptual causes.

These are system problems. It’s difficult for one person or business to move the needle on their own.

Would your client or boss be okay if you showed up to your next check-in and said, yeah, we really haven’t done much in the past week? Probably not.

But there’s still room for progress, and things you can put into practice on your own. 

I wrote a few weeks ago about how I’ve limited myself to 3 tabs at a time, found a good office setup, and moved to a new mindset: doing less = competitive advantage.

Underrated hack: decline more meetings.

Let’s be honest, you probably don’t need to be there.

There can also be technical solutions to the technical problems. Basically, automate the stuff that eats up your time, so you have more bandwidth for the work that truly matters. 

ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude all support uploading documents and summarizing text. Be an early adopter and start consolidating what you read.

It might seem like these steps don’t match up to the size of the problem at first. but the busy paradox built up slowly over time, and that’s the only way back out. 

One step (less) at a time.

Before you go…

I recently learned that people spend ~2 hrs a day searching for files on their computers.

That’s why we built Desktop Docs — an AI search engine for photos and videos on your Mac.

Don’t be like those people who can’t find their files.

Instead, use Desktop Docs to:

• search your videos by actions (“kid reading a book”)

• describe an emotion (“sad baby guy on the beach”)

• find screenshots by text or colors in the frame

Desktop Docs is launching this week on Reddit, Hacker News, and Product Hunt.

If you’ve made it this far and want a free copy, I know a guy.

Just reply to this email with with the promo code: AI4Me.

I asked them what parts of their jobs they thought could be automated or AI-assisted. 

For the most part, people are eager to automate menial tasks like data-entry and updating different apps that don’t communicate.

I spoke to accountants, doctors, bankers, lawyers, administrators, engineers, and entrepreneurs.

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Here are 27 things I learned:

1. People don’t use no-code automations like Zapier because it’s “too technical.”

2. Recent bad press has made lawyers hesitant to use AI for legal research and opinion writing.

3. There’s a surprising amount of admin work that goes into creating content. Creators need to manage scripts, calendars, content, and brand deals.

4. Automating document ingestion and review is a priority for everyone.

5. Large Language Models to train employees are a practical use-case.

6. Advertising and marketing firms already offshore a lot of campaign reporting.

7. Internal meetings are killing productivity. Can AI make this more efficient?

8. In-house legal teams are understaffed. They're often "brought in too late" to do their job effectively.

9. Companies are making a concerted effort to reduce manual overhead.

10. AI is well-positioned to take over internal company communications.

11. "Young, hungry" analysts will be expected to come in and automate.

12. AI-assisted documentation would save everyone a lot of time.

13. Accounts payable and accounts receivable are incredibly manual.

14. AI will change Big Law's business model. Eventually less work will be billed hourly and more will be done as a flat-fee that is mostly done by AI.

15. Everyone knows about AI. Few are actually using it to help them to do work.

16. Due diligence is mostly document review. AI-assisted reviews will make it easier to acquire companies.

17. Idea: AI-powered transcription and summary for meetings that integrates into existing knowledge-base tools.

18. One possible moat in AI is specialized models. It’s easier than ever to build a proprietary model for a vertical: plaintiff-side litigation, architecture, ad tech.

19. Administrative overhead is everyone’s least favorite part of their jobs.

20. You can’t throw AI at everything. Automating or assisting an existing workflow is a good place to start.

21. Large Language Models will enable custom workflows on demand.

22. The AI arms race is keeping costs low for companies building on top of GPT, Claude, and Gemini.

23. Extracting tabular from PDFs is hard. There might be a business in offering this as a service to other AI companies.

24. Using Large Language Models to generate lesson plans and course materials isn’t mainstream in education, yet.

25. A lot of people are “busy” but not getting enough done.

26. Most people agree that AI will make fewer mistakes.

27. Chatbots vs forms: would you pay a chatbot for a job a form could do?

Want to chat about AI?

If you’re interested in talking about AI and automations, let me know. I’d love to hear your perspective.

In the spirit of automation, we released an AI-powered audio transcription app. Skeleton Fingers.

Don’t transcribe anything, ever.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this, please send it to a friend.

1. Instagram is testing AI chatbots for creators

2. Would you pay to tweet?

3. Taylor Swift does it again

4. YouTube is coming for QVC

   - Katrina

Get informed in just 4 minutes

It’s the Creators delivers quick and insightful updates on creators, their businesses, and the platforms they use.

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To chat, or to chatbot?

Instagram is introducing a new program called "Creator AI" to help creators manage interactions with fans.

This program uses AI to automatically respond to direct messages and potentially comments, mimicking a creator’s tone and style. Influencers can customize the data the program learns from, including past posts, messages, comments, and audio from Reels and Stories. To start, messages sent with Creator AI will disclose they are generated by AI.

Creator AI is designed to help creators with large followings respond to all the inbound messages while lowering the amount of time it takes to personally respond.

AI chatbots may help influencers juggle conversations on IG, but people can usually tell when a connection isn’t authentic. If fans see a chatbot is responding to their messages, it’s unclear if it will actually help foster genuine connection and engagement that fans crave.1

Gotta pay the troll toll

Elon Musk has stirred the pot once again by announcing that new users on X will have to pay to tweet.

In an effort to combat bots, Musk claims that implementing a fee for posting on X is necessary. Specifics regarding when this fee will take effect and how it will operate remain uncertain.

Musk suggests that the charge will last for three months before users can post for free.

This toll was trialed before in New Zealand and the Philippines last October, where new users had to pay $1 to post on the platform.

Musk's decision may come from financial concerns regarding X, but others also see it as yet another bold and polarizing shift in the platform's direction.

Oops, she did it again

Universal Music Group pulled its music catalog from TikTok earlier this year due to failed negotiations with the platform, leaving the app notably quieter.

UMG represents some of the most popular artists in the world, including Taylor Swift, Drake, Ariana Grande, SZA, Billie Eilish, The Weeknd, and Coldplay.

But, it looks like Taylor Swift has struck out her own. She recently secured an independent deal with TikTok, bringing back some of her songs, including hits like "You Belong With Me," "Cruel Summer," and a handful of "Taylor's Version" tracks.

The deal reflects Taylor’s desire to control her music’s distribution (especially after her legal battles with Scooter Braun).

Swifties are celebrating the return of Taylor’s music on TikTok, but the situation highlights the disparity between big-name artists and smaller creators who don’t have the same leverage to negotiate while waiting out corporate conflicts.

Let’s go shopping…on YouTube

YouTube released a few updates to its shoppable video features.

Creators can now curate themed Shopping Collections for fans to explore handpicked items showcased on virtual shelves with buy icons. Channels like LongHairPrettyNails and Sydney Morgan are already showcasing their Collections.

For any creators looking for more marketing opportunities, they can also use the Affiliate Hub to discover shopping partners, commission rates, and promo codes for items they want to promote in their Collections.

And, if you’re a creator with a Fourthwall store, you can now integrate it right into a YouTube channel.

With these features, YouTube is nurturing over 100,000 shoppable channels, promising subscribers an enhanced shopping experience with curated products from their favorite creators.

Are you having a hard time tracking down that screenshot?

Check out Desktop Docs to to search your files with AI.

Desktop Docs is an application for Mac that uses AI to search image and video files by their content. Even if your files aren’t organized, it can help you find that file you are looking for.

Desktop Docs was built to browse all your files, from your downloads to Apple photos in one place.

Learn about Desktop Docs

1. Beehiiv wants you to launch a newsletter

2. Members only Shorts

3. X-rated communities on X

4. AI is taking music managers’ jobs

   - Katrina

Get informed in just 3 minutes

It’s the Creators delivers quick and insightful updates on creators, their businesses, and the platforms they use.

Subscribe now

It’s time to start that newsletter

Beehiiv is courting creators to help grow their platform. They just hired a new VP of Creators, who previously led Creator Partnerships at Twitter.

Creators who join the platform are getting dedicated resources to write and distribute their content on Beehiiv.

Who has joined so far? Everyone from creator economy insiders like Colin & Samir and Tubefilter to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Building a business on a single social media platform is risky these days (cough, TikTok ban, cough, Instagram outages). With this in mind, it makes sense for creators and business owners to have a direct line of communication to their fans and followers.

Email is a great way to directly engage with people and a gateway into email marketing. Any creator with long-term business plans can see the appeal in starting a newsletter.1

Members only

YouTube continues to release features to help creators monetize.

The latest feature lets creators toggle a “Members Only” option for Shorts. To watch these short-form videos viewers will need to purchase a membership for the creator’s channel.

YouTube is coaching creators to create Members Only Shorts that give paying fans “intimate” access with behind the scenes content, Q&A sessions, and exclusive previews of upcoming long-form content.

So far more than 25% of channels in the YouTube Partner Program have made use of ads on Shorts to monetize. Members only content may help make Shorts even more lucrative for creators.2

X-rated community building

X released a bunch of updates for its communities.

One of those includes letting admins label a Community as NSFW. In most timelines on X, NSFW content is automatically filtered out. With this new setting, a community can prevent NSFW content from being filtered out and actually promote it.

With X openly endorsing NSFW content, it’s making itself very friendly to adult content creators.3

Would you let AI manage your music career?

Venice Music released Co-Manager, an AI music career assistant.

Co-Manager analyzes your music’s streaming data and listener demographics to suggest release plans for your music and promotion ideas.

It can also track your musics’s performance on Venice Music’s distribution platform.

The Co-Manager is trained on knowledge from artist managers, marketers, and streaming analysts.4

Is your downloads folder a hot mess?

Check out Desktop Docs to to search your files with AI.

Desktop Docs is an application for Mac that uses AI to search image and video files by their actual content. Even if your files aren’t organized, it can help you find that file you are looking for.

Desktop Docs was built to browse all your files, from your downloads to Apple photos in one place.

Learn about Desktop Docs

1. YouTube wants creators to label AI-generated content

2. Meta is shutting down a tool used to discover misinformation

3. India drives the most international subs for Amazon Prime Video

4. TikTok has entered is search engine era

   - Katrina

Become informed in just 3 minutes

It’s the Creators delivers quick and insightful updates on creators, their businesses, and the platforms they use.

Subscribe now

Disclose your AI

YouTube now allows creators to self-label AI-generated content, aiming to increase transparency with viewers. 

The new label is required for content that could be mistaken for real people, places, or events.

It seems that YouTube wants to keep content simple and free of misinformation ahead of elections.1

Misinformation entanglement

Meta, on the other hand, is saying goodbye to its misinformation discovery tool, CrowdTangle. Researchers, reporters, and even government officials relied on the tool to spot trending conspiracies and other misinformation on Facebook and Instagram. 

Meta is building a replacement, the Meta Content Library, but it will only be available to academic and nonprofit researchers. 

This means for-profit organizations, like news outlets, won't have access to CrowdTangle's features anymore.

With the 2024 election campaigns coming up, the removal of a tool to identify misinformation is questionable.2

India drives Amazon Video’s global growth

India has become a major market for Amazon Prime, with more subscribers signing up there than anywhere else (except the U.S.).

India is clearly important to Amazon's international growth with Prime Video's latest local content in India featuring nearly 70 films and shows. 

Indian Prime subscribers are also most likely to convert to Prime Video and are highly engaged, with Indian content trending globally on Prime Video. 

Despite recent cuts in international originals, India remains a key focus for Prime Video, with a diverse set of content catering to Indian audiences across languages and genres.3

TikTok is giving creator payouts the SEO treatment

TikTok is shaking things up by paying creators based on how well their content matches what users are searching for, a metric called "search value." 

Similar to SEO, TikTok's search value measures whether creators are making content that aligns with user searches within the app. 

To help creators, TikTok introduced a tool called Creator Search Insights to find trending topics.

This move not only encourages creators to tailor their content but also positions TikTok as a serious player in the search engine arena, challenging platforms like Google.4

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1. Influencer fatigue is spreading.

2. Google’s big update to search results.

3. TikTok’s potential ban in the U.S.

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Subscribe for creator news and analysis.

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A trip to Bora Bora? In this economy?

Tarte Cosmetics invited 30 influencers on Trippin with Tarte, a trip to the Four Seasons Resort in Bora Bora, documented on social media  to promote the makeup brand.

For years, Tarte has been running this series, sending influencers to tropical destinations, and for the most part, it’s paid off. Some of their products became very popular among the beauty YouTube community after these trips.1

This year, though, the reception online has been mixed with lots of comments on how tired people are of overt displays of consumption. 

Enter influencer fatigue.

People are over influencers showing off glamorous lifestyles and selling them on products they either got for free or in exchange for a paid promotion.2

Instead, people are into loud budgeting.

Loud budgeting is openly sharing why you might not want to spend money, even if you’ve got it. 3

@lukasbattleReplying to @operelly LOUD BUDGETING IS THE NEW 2024 trend

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On TikTok, people are participating in eating-in challenges and sharing tips from what to say in different situations to help you stay on track financially to picking high-yield savings accounts.

People are finding community in openly talking about how to save and reach their financial goals during a time when the cost of living keeps rising.

With this in mind, it makes sense that influencer marketing is alienating people that can’t relate to excessive influencer lifestyles.

Brands will have to adapt their marketing to resonate with an audience that is more budget-focused than ever.

One of the biggest updates in Google’s history is happening this month.

The update is designed to improve the quality of Google’s search results to be helpful, reliable, and made for people.

With the popularity and accessibility of AI text generators, content written by AI is flooding the internet and surfacing in search results.

Google is fighting off search spam in three areas:4

1. Expired domain abuse - when people purchase expired websites with brand recognition to use their existing credibility, but replace all the original content with AI-generated articles to manipulate search rankings.

2. Scaled content abuse - when large amounts of unoriginal content are generated to game search rankings.

3. Reputation abuse - when trustworthy websites allow third-party sources to publish low quality sponsored content that is not helpful to users.

In all these cases, the content that is created is usually made with the intention of ranking a website higher in search results, and is usually AI-generated.

The content isn’t actually helpful and Google doesn’t want its users wasting time on articles that were written for optimizing search, and not for real people.

TikTok, TikTok, TikTok

Lots of TikTok updates this week.

TikTok is going public with its Creator Rewards program.

The platform will pay creators for their videos based on four criteria: 

1. Originality

2. Play duration

3. Search value

4. Audience engagement

Right now, it’s open to creators who are over 18 years old, have at least 10,000 followers, and at least 100,000 views over the past 30 days.

The program will work with creators from the U.S., U.K., Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, and Korea.

The program may not be open in the US for long though.

The White House is backing a bill that would ban TikTok in the US due to concerns on how the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, tracks and stores user data.5

The bill allows the president to determine platforms under the control of “foreign adversaries” as national security threats. Adversaries include China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

When an app is labeled as a threat, it will be banned from app stores unless it completely ends ties with these countries within 180 days.6 Any app stores that have a banned app available to download will receive a penalty of $5,000 per active user per day.

The only way TikTok can avoid the ban is by cutting ties to its owner and finding a buyer who isn’t a foreign adversary.

Finding a buyer could be hard as the app is worth around $50 billion and may be too expensive for other companies to acquire.

If a buyer does take over, it’s unclear what the future of TikTok could look like. Either way, banned or under new ownership, the future of TikTok impacts creators the most.

TikTok is relying on its users and creators to help fight the ban. Last week, users were interrupted in the app with a message to call their reps in Congress to keep TikTok available.

It’s a polarizing issue as creators are running businesses on TikTok and relying on it as a way to connect with their audience.

Platform News

• Mike Tyson will fight Jake Paul in a boxing match in July that will be live streamed on Netflix.7

• Twitch CEO published an open letter on changes coming to the platform. The changes focus on discoverability, exporting to Instagram, and community building tools.8

• X is launching a TV app for Amazon and Samsung smart TVs.9

• Chucky is making an appearance on Roblox in an “interactive horror experience” called Griefville: Survive the Nightmare.10

• Anonymous social apps, Yik Yik, Fizz, Sidechat, and Whisper are banned by University of North Carolina system.11

How do you like this newsletter?

I love learning from readers, and I’m always looking for feedback on what you enjoy reading.

Is there anything you’d like to see more of or less of?

Let me know in a comment or send me an email at katrina@golivecosmos.com

Happy Monday,

Katrina

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Why? 

The obvious answer is that it’s good for their businesses. But that only explains half the story. 

A more interesting answer is that AI is actually driving interest in original writing.

Writing is about creat…

Read more

In today’s newsletter:

• Why is LinkedIn showing you a post from 3 months ago?

• New finance and technology tools help creators operate as businesses.

• AI generated marketing can mislead consumers.

Know someone who would benefit from this content? Share it with them!

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Your LinkedIn posts could now live on forever.

As long as they’re useful.

LinkedIn is updating its content distribution algorithm in an attempt to stamp out virality and promote relevant knowledge and advice.

The company’s mission is to "connect the world's professionals to economic opportunity." To achieve this mission, LinkedIn wants its platform to be a repository of professional knowledge. It wants to match that knowledge with people whenever they might need it. 1

That means helping users connect to the few people in their industry who can make a meaningful difference instead of reaching the largest number of other professionals on the platform.

To do this, LinkedIn is testing a new feature, “suggested posts,” where relevant posts are surfaced to users regardless of when they were published.

This means a post could be served up months or years after it was originally posted if a user shows an interest in the post’s topic.

The bet is that suggested posts will encourage users to share useful content over clickbait content.

This means users on LinkedIn might see their content get less reach in the short-term for the trade off of targeted reach in the long-term.

How is LinkedIn making these changes?

With AI, of course.

The platform uses AI to share content at scale and its trained with the guidance of LinkedIn’s global editorial team to understand what content is most relevant to users.

Part of this push to get professionals sharing their knowledge also includes expanding LinkedIn’s newsletter product. Today, its newsletter offering lacks a lot of the features found on platforms like ConvertKit and Substack, but it plans to improve this and compete directly in the space.2

How much is good content worth?

It turns out this is something creators don’t even know.

Karat Financial, a company offering credit cards for content creators, is changing this with Karat Insights, a tool for creators to see anonymized financials from their peers.

Karat Insights’ data comes from thousands of creators who’ve connected their bank accounts directly to Karat’s services, like bookkeeping and tax prep, providing data on how much they’re earning and from where.

Insights was built to give creators transparency into their own income and also see how they compare to others on YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and TikTok.

So far the tool is helpful in establishing benchmarks on what creators are earning across platforms. For example, creators with one million followers earn:

1. ~$500k/year on Twitch.

2. ~$90k/year from AdSense on YouTube.

3. ~$500/year from the Creator Fund on TikTok.

This data is valuable for creators who need more transparency into how much they could be making in an industry where payments from platform and brands can vary.

Products like these are part of a larger trend of recognizing creators as businesses who need tools and technology to help them scale.

We see this trend reflected in venture capital where companies supporting the creator economy are receiving venture funding.

KLIQ, a no-code platform for creators launching branded apps and educational courses raised €1.4 million in a funding round led by Serena Williams’ venture fund.

According to Serena, “KLIQ is on a mission to redefine how we perceive creators as the backbone of the next generation of small and medium-sized businesses.”3

Visa is also recognizing creators as businesses and is working with 500 creators on a social media video series called “GetP@id.”

The series features interviews with creators who share tips on growing your personal brand and generating income. Visa sees creators as essential for marketing to other creators and servicing their financial needs.4

Expect to see more businesses serving the unique needs of creators as solopreneurs and small businesses.5

When AI generated marketing goes wrong

If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

Willy’s Chocolate Experience in Glasgow, Scotland, promised an enchanted garden with giant sweets and magical surprises at ~$45/ticket. The website for the experience included AI generated art like this to promote the event:

The marketing was totally misleading and complaints led the cops to show up and the event closed soon after opening.6 The event actually looked like an abandoned warehouse:

The organizer, House of Illuminati, blamed the not-so-enchanting experience on a series of last-minute issues and will be giving full refunds to people who purchased tickets.

AI generation not only played a role in the event’s marketing, but in it’s production as well. Actors hired for the event were given scripts that appeared AI-generated because of the script’s unnatural wording.

As more business start using AI for marketing and production, the burden falls on consumers to decide if what they are being sold is actually real.

This is especially true of online video as deepfakes become more common. Andrew Huberman recently sued a supplement brand for running AI-generated video ads that made it look like he endorsed the brand’s supplements.7

AI generation has so much potential for helping people create content without big budgets. But resistance to using AI in marketing is understandable when companies use it as a shortcut for creating premium experiences and scamming people out of money.

Platform Headlines

• OnlyFans has paid $15B to creators since its launch in 2016, and now has more than 3M creators and 238M fans.8

• Meta announced its performance bonus program would no longer have monthly payout caps. The invite-only program gives creators the opportunity to earn money on interactions on their public Facebook posts, excluding reels and Stories. Bonus payouts will be based on the amount of reach, reactions, shares and comments on eligible posts.9

• Reddit is targeting $31 to $34 per share for its IPO, which would imply a valuation of as much as $6.5 billion.

• TikTok is an official partner of the Cannes Film Festival. The platform will hold a competition for minute-long videos and send one grand prize recipient (of €10k), one top director, and one winning screenwriter to the festival.

• YouTube’s video editing app, YouTube Create, is now available in 21 countries.

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He’s a Stanford professor and host of the Huberman Lab podcast. And he’s building a massive fandom off of his ability to take niche health and biology topics mainstream.

Since 2021 he’s been growing an audience of rabid health nuts. 

These are people who:

• tape their mouths shut while they sleep

• stopped drinking alcohol and started drinking bone broth 

• are going blind staring into the sun first thing in the morning

But how did he do it?

He started publishing long-form interviews about general health in 2021. His in-depth interviews are a way to give everyday people easy-to-understand nuggets of science to improve their lives. 

Sometimes he brings on guests to chat about topics where he’s not an expert. But his early episodes are basically him talking to camera for 90 minutes about stress, jetlag, dreams, and the effects of food on your mood.

He’s known for taking complicated topics like sleep, cannabis, and alcohol and breaking down how they affect our brain development. 

Huberman is basically a science translator. That’s the genius of his marketing.

He presents as a regular guy who loves talking about science. But what if you don’t have time for the 90 minute episode? He’s got you covered with short-form video highlights.

When you listen to his podcast it’s like he’s whispering “everything you’re doing is bad for you” into your ears, but in a nice-guy kind of way. His content is approachable and easy to consume.

This is no accident (cue evil mastermind music).

From Covid to health daddy

In mid-2020, during the throes of the pandemic, Huberman search queries started increasing on Google. By May 2022 he’s got 1 million subscribers on Youtube and the Youtube algorithm gods are showering him with ad dollars.

Fast-forward to today and he’s got ~10M followers across Instagram and Youtube and the 3rd most popular US podcast on Spotify. If Hubes were a musician, he’d officially be multiplatinum.

This is where it gets interesting.

In August 2023 Huberman goes mainstream because of a New York Times article profiling “Huberman Husbands” – men who follow his biohacking advice so religiously their wives can’t help but laugh at them.

“I don’t know which is worse, an almond mom or a Huberman husband. The case for the Huberman husband being worse is not only do I have to live with him my whole life, but I’m also going to live forever.” - @siececampbell

(we’ll talk almond moms another time).

They’re mouth taping, wearing blue blockers shades to watch tv, and doing 5am cold-plunges. You know, normal shit.

His audience is truly dedicated to self-improvement and fitness culture.

According to ViewStats, Huberman’s Youtube channel gets about 15M views and generates ~$80K in ad revenue per month. This does not include any paid sponsorships he promotes on the podcast.

His stated goal for the channel is to provide valuable health information at “zero-cost.”

But what happens when your podcast is so popular and your fans so passionate that any topic you cover has the potential to move markets?

Pass the Courvoisier Magnesium

Sleep is a well-covered topic on Huberman Lab. I’m not a doctor, but the short of it is that cannabis, alcohol, screens, caffeine, and breathing through our mouths are all disruptive to our sleep.

One supplement for improving sleep that is discussed on Huberman Lab is Magnesium.

Taking Magnesium supplements allegedly helps increase sleep depth, decrease the time it takes to fall asleep, and may help protect brain cells against damage and degeneration.

Again, I’m no doctor, but you know I always got that Mag on me.

Let’s look at the Google Trend data.

For the last 18 months Magnesium has been increasing in popularity. There are significant jumps in search volume around December 2022 and again late in 2023.

This coincides with an increase in “magnesium Huberman” queries on Google Trends.

There isn’t enough data to say he is directly responsible for the Magnesium search boom, but given the context of his growth, it’s fair to say Hubes is having some impact on our culture.

Not convinced? Check out the cold plunge + Huberman trends:

He’s a scientist-creator.

He distributes his specialized knowledge in a credible and relatable way that resonates with millions of people interested in health and wellness.

The way he distills complex scientific information is turning him into a creator with considerable cultural and product influence.

Like I said before: none of this is an accident. It all starts with his content. He is authentic in presenting his “protocols” for how he lives his life.

He doesn’t tell you what to do, he just tells you what he does.

I can’t say for sure Hubes in the pocket of Big Magnesium, but it’s obvious he has the power to influence purchasing decisions for his audience.

It turns out the Creator Economy is for scientists too.

Interested in the Creator Economy?

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In today’s newsletter:

1. Creators and brands continue to team up

2. How much revenue the top creator educators are making on YouTube

3. Lots of updates from our favorite platforms

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Creators are launching products

Since 2016, Ridge, an e-commerce brand, has spent close to $9 million sponsoring creators on YouTube.

Now, Ridge is partnering directly with creator Marques Brownlee as the brand’s chief creative partner, member of the board, and investor.1

Ridge is tired of static image ads on Facebook and hoping Marques can teach them how to be a content-first brand with better storytelling.

Marques wants to see his product ideas come to life and with Ridge, he can tap into an established brand’s manufacturing and distribution.

Marques joins the growing trend of creators and brands partnering to launch products:

• Ryan Trahan joined JoyRide as Co-Owner and Chief Creative Officer to sell sour candies.

• Ninja, a Twitch streamer, is partnering with Nutcase Milk to create a cashew-based chocolate milk.

How much are creators making on YouTube?

I looked at 5 channels to see how much creator educators are earning on YouTube.

Using Viewstats, I estimated revenue from Google-sold ads.2

Here’s what I learned:

• Veritasium

  • Dr. Derek Muller talks about science and engineering

  • 14.9M subscribers

  • Estimated Revenue: $1.2M - $3.4M/year

• Ali Abdaal

  • A doctor shares productivity tips

  • 5.2M subscribers

  • Estimated Revenue: $200k - $500k/year

• Smarter Every Day

  • Destin, an aerospace engineer, shows how science works

  • 11M subscribers

  • Estimated Revenue: $132k - $372k/year

• Rachel’s English

  • Rachel teaches American English

  • 5.2M subscribers

  • Estimated Revenue: $39k - $110k/year

• New EdTech Classroom

  • Two teachers help teachers make lesson plans

  • 218k subscribers

  • Estimated Revenue: $1.9k - $5.9k/year

People say there is no money in academia, but academics who can package their knowledge into video are building real businesses from their audience on YouTube.

Platform News

Reddit

Reddit is inviting 75,000 of its top creators to gain access to the company’s shares before its IPO in March.3

Reddit also signed a $60M deal with Google, allowing the company to train its AI models on reddit conversations.4

Pinterest

Pinterest has entered the chat.

Partnering with Tastemade, Pinterest is launching “Deliciously Entertaining,” 22 minute episodes with recipes, tutorials, and inspiration with shoppable boards.  

YouTube

Morphle TV, a YouTube channel with over 11M subscribers, is launching a show on Disney+.5

Spotify

Peggy Gou is the first artist to sign a brand deal through Spotify AUX, a service matching artists with Fortune 500 brands.

Peggy signed a long-term partnership with Coca Cola to work on live concerts and events, social media content, and a branded playlist.6 

TikTok

TikTok hopes in-house developed influencers can fire up engagement on TikTok Shop to make it more popular with major brands.7

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