This Week: Keep your eyes open for a special newsletter mid-week recapping a fascinating conversation I had with Patreon’s founder and CEO Jack Conte. It’s the second week of October and here’s what you need to know.
Creators Move Markets: Want to increase your market share? Then increase your google search traffic. Want to increase your Google search traffic? You could pay a fortune to SEO consultants. Or work with more creators. That’s the surprising results of a new study that found 50-86% of all google search volume came from “Earned Media Value” because of creators and influencers. Great post from @Conor Begley exploring the topic with links to studies that go into more detail.
Patreon Rebrands, Broadens Focus: There’s more to Patreon than just tips. The iconic creator monetization company has been expanding and adding new features recently, and now it gets a rebrand, new logo and expanded mission. CEO Jack Conte gave me a preview a week ago, and as he explained, Patreon is “no longer just a membership company”, but a fan company. I like their direction, and the rebrand is cool and adventurous. I’ve heard from many recently hoping to build a suite of tools to help creators build a sustainable career – but I’d bet on Jack and team to become one of the big winners. Look for my special midweek issue for a summary of our conversation last week leading into the rebrand. Verge coverage here.
Here Comes the Private Web: TikTok and Meta join Twitter in exploring an ad-free tier. TikTok is just testing, but Meta is serious. It plans on creating a paid tier for both Instagram and Facebook in response to new European legislation. $14 is way too much but shows you just how valuable you are to the popular platforms. I’ve got a crazy idea. How about we just put ALL the platforms behind a (very small) paywall. It would solve so many problems. I floated the idea in a post and got some smart and thought-provoking responses. Related, Insider explores the move from wide-open social to smaller and more private platforms – along with drowning in a sea of sameness. Related: Meta experiments with a feature letting users prioritize comments from paid/verified accounts – which also diminishes the reach of bots and other spammers.
SPONSOR: Jon Youshaei announces new breakthrough in Gen AI Broll in collaboration with Opus Clip
During his talk on YouTube packaging at VidSummit, Opus Clip Creator Ambassador Jon Youshaei unveiled a trailblazing new feature for the industry leader in AI content repurposing: AI B-Roll. Opus Clip’s AI now has the ability to identify topics and keywords from the clips it creates, search through several huge libraries of B-Roll footage, select the best suited options, and then instantly integrate them into your clips. Curious? Get 50% off your first month with Opus Clip using my exclusive link.
QUIBIS:
YOUTUBE
- More docs released in the Google anti-trust case. Get ‘em while you can!
- YouTube testing a community “posts-only” feed on mobile.
META
- Threads needs a reboot – Instagram is working on it. Maybe pay some top Twitter users to move 100% over?
- Those AI stickers we talked about last week? It’s not going well.
- Top media exec Campbell Brown leaves Meta.
- Good money if you can get it Bru – Meta pays millions for celeb AI chatbots ($).
TIKTOK
- 1030 days and counting: the official India TikTok blog is still very sad.
- TikTok ban heats up slightly, as US lawmakers question why Bytedance execs are now running much of TikTok.
- Trash or Treasure: That neon alien-head I bought on day 1 of TikTok Shop US arrived. Watch my unboxing!
- TikTok creates culture. It also enables and profits from dangerous health advice.
- Sellers stranded in Indonesia as TikTok Shop shuts down.
OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY
- LTK now lets creators pitch brands.
- NCAA begins to assert some oversight of NIL – about time.
- X sues X for copyright infringement.
- LinkedIn now lets Premium business members add a CTA button to their profile. Why doesn’t it include a “subscribe to my newsletter” on LinkedIn? Seems like a horrible oversight. Guess I’ll start pushing people off platform.
- Smart Paramount, very smart – they celebrated Mean Girls Day by releasing the entire movie as 23 short TikToks. But just for a day.
- The end of the one-trick pony. Teachable launches memberships and communities are coming soon.
- Looks like the “Me Generation” might be coming back.
- Taylor Lorenz’ new book is good. You should read it. But boy is she everywhere!
- Amazon kills Amp, its attempt to reinvent radio. Maybe media isn’t their core competency?
- How Chipotle, True Religion and Obviously lean into creator content beyond the sponsored post.
- SuperOrdinary raises $58M on an $800M valuation – see Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus.
GENERATIVE AI
- Resound adds AI-based automated podcast editing tools including gap detection, deleting filler words and more.
- Uh-Oh. AI Deepfake ad featuring “MrBeast” shows up on TikTok.
- Interesting essay that sees a step-change in AI now that image recognition and voice come to the top LLMs – and where it might be going.
- Canva launches a metric-ton of AI capabilities, including a video integration with RunwayML.
TIPS
- Nice piece on how to get started with professional looking lighting for YouTube and other online video projects.
- 19 things to do before you quit your day job and become a full-time creator – or something else.
Thanks for reading and see you around the internet. Send me a note with your feedback, or post in the comments! Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested, and if someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up and subscribe on LinkedIn for free here!
If you’re interested in working together as a sponsor to reach the leaders in the creator economy, check out Inside the Creator’s sponsorship packages and/or email me at jim@louderback.com
And don’t forget to listen to The Creator Feed – the weekly podcast Renee Teeley and I produce – get it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher!
