This week: Creator Events Wilt, why EGC and RPF are the new KPIs for 2025, the collapse of creator products and 21 other Creator Economy Predictions for 2024 – and a Quibi in a pear tree.
Welcome to the last newsletter of 2024! This week I flipped the format. We’ll start off with my Trend-a-Palooza, 25 developments what will shape the creator economy in 2025. You’ll find a few short news updates at the end that just couldn’t wait (Mr. Beast and TikTok) and a smattering of QUIBIS too. We’re back to our regular newsletter format on Jan 6, but with a special set of creepy signals that could turn into trends in 2026 and beyond.
A special thanks to the Whalar Group for sponsoring Inside the Creator Economy for the entire second half of 2024 (and the first half of 2025 too). Their support keeps this newsletter free for everyone. I am constantly amazed by this visionary and creator-first company. Whalar – unlike many others – truly wants what’s best for creators – and its where culture, compassion and execution combine so deliciously. Check out co-CEO Neil Waller’s predictions here if you need an amuse bouche ($) for my 25 trends below.
Meetup Alert: Coming to Dubai for the Billion Followers Summit Jan 11-13? If you get in early please join me, some of our speakers and other friends and readers on Jan 9 for a low-key meetup at my friend Ivan Zeljkovic’s Poddster studios. RSVP here.
25 PREDICTIONS AND TRENDS FOR 2025
SCALE DRIVES SPECIALIZATION: There’s rarely one overarching theme for any year, but if I had to pick it would be how the massive and growing global creator economy will spark a shift towards specialization. The center will hollow out, the very biggest will get bigger, but more focused and specialized creators, experiences, products and services will be among 2025’s big winners.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I reference a few companies I advise and/or consult with below, including Verix (accreditation), Motom (custom creator storefronts), Influencers.Club (connecting with creators at scale), Super Fans (optimizing brand and creator advocates). Open Sauce (Maker Faire meets VidCon) and Creator Lab (a creator-economy pop-up inside NAB). I only work with innovative companies that are truly changing the creator economy, so take that for what it’s worth.
TOP 10 TRENDS
- CREATOR EVENTS MUSHROOM – AND WILT: Seems like every time I turn around there’s another creator event coming soon. The big dogs are adding creator economy tracks to their events – including CES, Cannes Lions, and the upcoming SSSW London and Web Summit Vancouver. Niche events are multiplying, led by Open Sauce, Foodiecon, AthleteCon and more I know about but can’t discuss. Socom’s focused on the business of streamed shopping, Creator Economy Live and Creator Fest (Orlando) return for their second year. Creator Camp is expanding into more event categories, Patreon has a plan and I’m helping to build the third Creator Lab pop-up at NAB. And Colin and Samir’s Publish Press is planning a big event in NYC in May. In part this reflects the growing experiential market as we put Covid behind us – and how AI paradoxically makes us hungrier for IRL. Plus venerable VidCon has a new owner – I predict a perilous transition.
- My friend @vira Slyvinska posted 40 top creator economy events for 2025, but she’s just scratching the surface. In the end we will see too many events chasing too few ticket-buyers in 2025. Those who focus on niches and local will have a better survival rate – but more than a few 2025 debuts will end up one-and-done.
- AVERAGE REVENUE PER FAN ARRIVES: Forget CMP, CPA and EMV – a new metric emerges as Subscribers, Likes, Followers and Views slouch towards irrelevance. Smart creators increasingly focusing on maximizing Revenue Per Fan (RPF) to build their business. Mass scale is no longer required, as smaller creators maximizing revenue per fan thrive. Not all fans are equal, as we increasingly realize that superfans drive disproportionate value. Creators also lean into yield management, optimizing their revenue mix across sponsorships, paid communities, affiliate links, live shopping and streaming, events, custom storefronts (like those from Motom), courseware, SAAS, physical goods and more. New tools emerge to track and optimize RPF, along with a wave of self-proclaimed experts promising to “help” small and mid-sized creators adopt these principles (separating the wizards from the charlatans will be time-consuming). As community value usurps mass scale, brands prioritize high-RPF creators to maximize sponsorship ROI. H/T @andrew leonard for the RPF inspiration.
- CREATOR PRODUCTS COLLAPSE: The gravy train of creator products derails in 2025. Audience fatigue and backlash will doom most new creator product launches – especially blatant cash grabs lacking a clear Unique Fan Proposition (aka UFP— my personal riff on USP). Livestream shopping and affiliate-heavy posts face a similar backlash, as everyone gets fed up with social morphing into a modern Home Shopping Network. Creators respond by leaning into community feedback and embracing more intimate formats, including vlogging, personal storytelling and authentic engagement – instead of launching yet another undifferentiated product. Want to thrive? Prioritize trust over transactions in 2025. Pulchritudinous pitchpeople are so last year.
4. RICHES IN NICHES: Mass appeal starts to give way to focused creators and niche topics. Those who try to appeal to everyone end up resonating with no one. Entertaining, educational and inspirational content, events and networks tailored to specific audiences win. Smart brands lean into targeted long-term collaborations with creators who own their vertical, rather than appealing to a broad but less engaged crowd.
SPONSOR – YouTube’s $70 billion Creator investment highlights its symbiotic relationship with Creators, said @Kim Larson at the Power Women Summit. Joined by YouTuber Michelle Khare, they explored YouTube’s role as a creative hub for long and short-form content. Moderated by Whalar NA President Jo Cronk, the panel emphasized creators’ impact in blurring lines between studio and Creator content. Read more about the session in The Wrap: https://www.thewrap.com/youtube-creators-success-panel-power-women-summit/
- EGC BLOSSOMS: Forget influencers and UGC. The new trend in 2025 will be businesses harvesting their internal creators. With 10% or more of all social users identifying as creators, at least 10% of most salaried staff moonlight as creators too – mostly about topics unrelated to their employer’s business. Smart companies figure out how to identify, engage, incent and develop these sources of Employee Generated Content. But the devil is in the details. First, how do you find them (companies like Influencers.Club can help). Then how do you incent them to create without affecting their actual job – and within HR’s boundaries. Third, what will companies do with newly discovered but off-brand creators? Early EGC adopters have seen good results – cheaper and with less drama than working with traditional influencers. Check out Izea’s data on the scope of influencers, and this story about pilots and flight attendants already minting UGC Gold for Southwest and United. H/T to the always insightful @Melissa Laurie, who is speaking about this topic at One Billion Followers Summit next weekend.
- PLATFORMS ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND: The power imbalance between platforms and creators continues to grow. X’s recent attempt to reinstate Infowars highlights just how capricious platforms can be. And in a zero-sum / declining market, the growth at all costs mentality means creators get will squeezed. And deplatforming continues to grow, whether due to policy violations, algorithm updates or mission creep. Creators need to accelerate platform diversification to hold onto the communities they’ve already built.
- CREATORS BUILD EMPIRES: The biggest creators buck the niche trend as they build the next billion-dollar media companies. From Dhar Mann’s sprawling media studio to Alan Chikin Chow’s 10,000-square-foot production hub, creators scale up, launching independent studios, and controlling their content. Expect more acquisitions and creator accelerators to emerge, following in the footsteps of Rhett and Link’s Smosh acquisition and new networks from Alex Cooper and Issa Rae.
- GLOBAL FRONTIERS: The creator economy looks beyond western markets for growth, inspiration and relevance. With over 80 million creators in India, 12 million in Indonesia, and possibly 40 million or more in Africa (anyone know the exact number?), these regions explode onto the global stage. Nollywood storytelling, Indian serials, and Xianxia fantasy dramas captivate global audiences, following in the footsteps of KPop, K-Dramas and Anime. Creators tapping into these cultural wells mirror Paul Simon’s “discovery” of world music in the 70s and 80s. But with the internet’s global reach, and AI-fueled advancements in translation and dubbing, cultural appropriation gives way to cultural celebration. Want to know more about Africa? David Adeleke’s new report about the creator economy in Africa is required reading (h/T @marie Lora-Mungai).
- CREATORS ACCELERATE TRADITIONAL MEDIA’S DECLINE: in 2025 creators move even further from the sidelines to the center of advertising, entertainment and journalism. Partnerships extend far beyond sponsored posts, as creators direct commercials, headline campaigns and build brands. By the end of the year, 2024’s progress, including Kai Cenat launching the Chicken Big Mac, Ashley Wu’s Taco Bell ad and Hershey acquiring Sour Strips become just the tip of the spear. Smart brands and agencies will stop treating creators as side acts and start embracing them as creative, development and operational partners. Add “brand lab” to the growing list of the ways creators will revive traditional CPG.
- CREATORS DISRUPT EDUCATION: In 2025, creators upend the traditional education system, breaking the stranglehold that gatekeeping institutions have on knowledge. Clever creators, powered by AI, deliver on-demand, community based and IRL learning experiences tailored to individual needs and learning styles. Disruptive certification platforms like Verix certify these educational experiences with trusted credentials secured on the blockchain. Creators aren’t just teachers; they’re building learning environments where credibility comes not from ivy-encrusted ivory towers but via expertise and impact. As creators redefine how and who we learn from, traditional institutions will face a choice: either adapt or fade away.
Bonus!
There’s a lot more on my trendline for 2025. Here’s 15 more that will emerge or accelerate in 2025.
- Governments Tighten Social Media Rules to Protect Kids: From the EU to Canada and Australia, governments crack down on toxic social media just as they did with tobacco and alcohol. As my friend Mark Anderson of Strategic News Service notes in his annual predictions, maybe it’s time grown-ups got some safeguards as well.
- The Age of Social Begins to Wane: GenZ continues to lean into private groups and turn away from big social. The big question? What will Gen Alpha do.
- GenZ Fades as Gen Alpha Ascends: The Skibidi Generation arrives. Expect tectonic shifts.
- Creators Redefine Trust and Journalism: Happening already, but more trusted journalists emerge from social video platforms – and more traditional journalists embrace the creator model.
- From Theft of Content to Theft of Person: protecting name, image and likeness becomes as important as protecting text, visual and auditory content. See YouTube+CAA in the news section below.
- The Rise of VTubers and Faceless Channels: As tech improves and AI matures, creating content without showing yourself accelerates.
- The Center Cannot Hold: A corollary to “Riches in Niches”, it’ll be a great year to be a micro or nano creator – or among the top .1%. The vast middle, alas, sees declining CPMs as brands realize – via the help of AI – that a flurry of brand-safe nanos delivers better results than a handful of mids.
- YouTube Becomes Top Global TV Streamer: Big Red increasingly dominates the living room as it ekes out profitable margins from what we used to call old media.
- YouTube remains the RevShare King: Although Kajabi, Patreon and others drive significant creator revenue, no one comes close to YouTube in 2025. Meta, TikTok, Snap, Twitch, LinkedIn and Pinterest still lag embarrassingly far behind.
- More Brands Become Creators: Duolingo’s bird paved the way; Nutterbutter too. Brand mascots triumphantly return as fully-formed creators with personality, wit, charm and humor.
- Creators Begin to Disrupt Sports: A corollary to “ EGC Blossoms”, as global leagues realize the best way to engage GenZ/Alpha is not to send creators to cover sport, but to lean on already-famous athletes playing the games. New creator leagues and teams emerge like Good Good Golf and Al Qabila FC . And Paul Skenes/Livvy Dunne join Taylor/Travis as among the top creator/athlete power couples.
- Lofi Rises: Audiences demand less drama, sensationalism and over-edited content from their creators, as content shifts towards real people telling straightforward, genuine stories. LinkedIn leads the way.
- Creator Financing Cracks Emerge: The business of creator financing shows troubling signs of strain. Whispers of predatory contracts, perpetual terms, and exploitative covenants grow louder. There are good companies here, but I worry the entire space will be tarnished by a few bad actors doing bad things to creators. Reminds me of the early MCN days. Make sure and read the fine print.
- TikTok Remains Under Fire: Whether its banned or not, TikTok will be increasingly under fire globally. Expect big changes as Bytedance manages the fallout.
- Agency Consolidation Continues: Advertising agencies follow the Influential/Publicis lead and snap up the best influencer agencies in 2025. And the run on talent and management agencies continues too. In all cases agencies move from boutique to 365, helping brands and creators thrive in the new media/marketing/talent landscape. These trends are related.
TIKTOK BAN UPDATE
Headed down to the wire. Here’s what happened over the last two weeks:
- TikTok appealed to Supreme Court, initial arguments will be heard on Jan 10. Franklin Graves analyzes what’s next.
- TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew made a pilgrimage to Trump’s estate in Florida, presumably to kiss the ring and bend the knee.
- Trump says he has a “warm spot in his heart” for TikTok.
- Trump asks Supreme Court to delay the law so he can negotiate a solution (the art of the deal!).
- TikTok will sponsor an inauguration party celebrating the top 30 creators.
My Take: TikTok’s leaning into first amendment issues with the Supreme Court, but this is primarily a national security issue. But anything could happen. And don’t pay attention to what President-elect Trump says, pay attention to what he does. He’s consistently acted for American interests and against China, and I don’t expect that to change in his upcoming term. Going soft on China as one of his first official acts will reflect badly. Using TikTok as leverage to extract other concessions from the People’s Republic could be in the cards. But it’s all just speculation – the next three weeks will be fascinating.
BEAST GAMES DISAPPOINTS
Depending on who you talk to, the Amazon series has seen poor performance on Amazon Prime, with many fans calling it evil and twisted. Some of the contestants I’ve talked to agree. Reviewers called the show dull, ugly and tasteless (although the same could be said for most realityTV). Haters gonna hate for sure, but the awful working conditions and horrible injuries to contestants are certainly real. Beast Games sponsor MoneyLion is also being criticized as more loan-shark than lion. Donaldson fired back at IGN’s review, calling it “sad”. But it’s too early to claim win or lose. Let’s see how many people tune in for the last few episodes later in January. Want to play along at home? Bookmark Reddit’s “MrBeast Drama” flair.
QUIBIS:
- Another TikTok Ban: No dilly-dallying for Albania, the country will ban TikTok for a year starting sometime next year.
- YouTube + CAA: Youtube and CAA are working on a deepfake detection tech, but just for CAA clients. It sounds a lot like ContentID for humans. But why just CAA, YouTube? Shouldn’t this new “likeness management tech” be widely available for anyone?
- IA Hardware Ascendant: Meta’s Andrew Bosworth recaps 2024, looks forward to 2025, sees glasses and other AI-infused hardware as the future.
- Leah, Kai, Jimmy and Jenny: Good list of top winners on the social ‘net in 2024 from Garbage Day – well worth a sub, btw.
AI Disclosure: 100% written by me – no human or AI ghostwriters were involved (except for the cover art!).
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I’ve built and sold multiple creator economy startups to top media companies – including Discovery and Paramount. Subscribe here on LinkedIn to get this newsletter every Monday.
Let me know what you think – email me at jim@louderback.com. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.
