Navigating the Creator Economy

When I started building my brand ecosystem publicly, everything shifted. The traditional advice says, "build it and they will come." But after studying founder brands, I've learned that most founders are stuck choosing between getting attention and maintaining integrity. Last year, I watched a brilliant entrepreneur struggle with this exact paradox. When I shared my Brand Trust Equation with her, something beautiful happened. Here's what I learned about building in public through systematic brand development: 1. Identity System Transparency Share your core messaging, positioning, and values openly. Building your identity in public creates accountability for authentic choices. Your audience connects with the journey, not just the destination. 2. Content System Broadcasting Document your strategic output across all platforms transparently. Sharing your content framework helps others while establishing your authority. Your systematic approach demonstrates professionalism and intentionality. 3. Experience System Documentation Show how people interact with your brand at every touchpoint. Building your customer journey in public creates better experiences for everyone. Your process transparency helps prospects know exactly what to expect. 4. Conversion System Sharing Reveal how attention becomes revenue in your business model. Building your funnel in public demonstrates the value of systematic thinking. Your transparent approach shows prospects the clear path forward. 5. Lighthouse Content Strategy Create cornerstone pieces that attract your ideal audience while repelling everyone else. Building your manifesto, methodology, case studies, and vision in public establishes authority. Your transparent philosophy becomes a filter for quality connections. This approach builds long-term brand equity instead of short-term attention. 6. Platform Synergy Framework Show how different platforms serve different purposes in your ecosystem. Building your multi-platform strategy in public creates strategic alignment. Other founders learn how to maximize impact across channels. This isn't just about building brands, it's about creating beautiful, systemized, and authentic businesses that serve both founders and their communities. When you build your brand ecosystem in public, you're not just attracting attention. You're building trust through the Brand Trust Equation: (Consistency × Authenticity × Value) ÷ Self-Promotion. The solution isn't choosing between integrity and attention, it's building systems that deliver both simultaneously through transparent, value-first brand development. The future belongs to those brave enough to build their brand systems in public. __ Enjoy this? ♻️ Repost it to your network and follow Matt Gray for more. Curious how this could look inside your business? DM me ‘System’ and I’ll walk you through how we help clients make it happen. This is for high-commitment founders only.

Lorde leaving Universal after a deal she signed at 12 has sparked a lot of conversation. She's made it clear there's no bad blood, and she framed it pretty simply: a child agreed to terms before she really understood what she was giving away. But that dynamic isn’t limited to 12-year-olds. It still plays out across the industry. Artists sign agreements they don’t fully understand, complex royalty structures, rights that shift hands, clauses that only reveal themselves years later. The system has historically relied on that imbalance. What’s changing is visibility. Information is easier to access, and some artists are asking better questions.... or choosing not to sign at all. But it’s not a clean shift. For every artist taking control, many are still trading long-term rights for short-term advances. The model hasn’t gone away. It’s just adapted. Dance music saw an early version of this. Artists built audiences independently, so ownership wasn’t theoretical; it directly shaped outcomes. If you controlled your masters or publishing, you controlled the upside across streaming, touring, and increasingly, sync and brand deals. That’s what's different. When you control the rights, you have options. When you don’t, the value still gets created; it just flows elsewhere. Artists are getting smarter. And while more established artists have greater choices, I think decisions like these show people on the up that alternative paths are out there.

Two platforms. Two completely different outcomes. Over the past year, we’ve run hundreds of KOL posts across Instagram and TikTok — and one thing is now very clear: Creative style matters more than creator size. Instagram rewards polished, cinematic, aesthetically-driven content. TikTok rewards raw, honest, UGC-style content that feels like a friend. When creators tried posting the same video across both platforms, performance dropped almost instantly But when we asked them to tailor the creative for each feed, the results changed dramatically. On Instagram, the strongest performing posts were: • cinematic lifestyle shots • color-graded, mood-driven edits • product integrated into an aspirational moment On TikTok, top performers were: • talking-head explanations • quick product demos • organic, handheld “real life” moments It’s not just a platform difference — it’s a culture difference. Instagram is curated aspiration. TikTok is unfiltered relatability. The brands that win are the ones that don’t copy-paste content, but design creative for each platform’s storytelling format. If you want consistency across IG + TikTok, the answer isn’t more influencers — it’s the right creative format on each. Happy to share more examples of how we structure IG vs TikTok briefs for our campaigns. DM me if you want to compare formats or explore what works best in your market.

Only 4% of content creators made over $100,000 last year.[Socialmediatoday] Yet venture capital is pouring hundreds of millions into this space. What do they see that most people miss? After years in retail and sourcing, I'm fascinated by this shift in how value is created in the digital economy. The creator economy is transforming from a views-driven popularity contest into a serious business ecosystem with multiple revenue streams: 📍 Professional services now account for 36% of creator income. [WPBeginner] 📍 Digital products generate 18% of revenue. 📍 Traditional brand partnerships contribute just 11%. This explains why we're seeing major investments like Spotter's $200M YouTube creator fund [TechCrunch] and Slow Ventures' $60M bet on creators as entrepreneurs. [Business Insider] These VCs aren't investing in viral dancing videos. They're backing creators who build real businesses with diversified income. Take MrBeast or Vivian Tu - they've built empires not by chasing algorithms but by developing six or more revenue streams that complement each other. The most successful creators now operate like mini-conglomerates: 📍They create content that builds trust. 📍They leverage that trust to sell products and services. 📍They reinvest profits into building lasting assets. This model challenges everything we thought we knew about digital business. The smartest players aren't chasing views - they're building assets. What business lessons have you learned from watching how top creators operate? #CreatorEconomy #Monetization #Investing

India’s fastest-growing career doesn’t have an offer letter. For a long time, content creation in India was seen as a side hustle and something you did after college, work, or while figuring out your “real” career. GenZ didn’t buy into that idea and the data now proves it. Nearly 75% of young creators in India today see content creation as a genuine career. And this isn’t driven only by fame or followers but how work itself is changing. Platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Shorts have become career infrastructure. Distribution is free, reach is global and monetisation isn’t limited to a single paycheck. What makes this career different is leverage. Creators build audiences first, then layer income through partnerships, sponsorships, subscriptions, communities, products and even businesses built off their content. As creators, we are not chasing virality every day. We are building systems that compound attention over time. The most misunderstood part is that this career is not just about making money. It’s about choosing what you work on, who you collaborate with and how your work fits into your life. Content creation isn’t an alternative career anymore. For an entire generation in India, it is the career.

The ultimate power move in music isn't a chart-topping hit—it's re-recording your entire catalog. When Taylor Swift's masters were sold against her wishes, she didn't just complain—she headed back to the studio. "When something says (Taylor's Version)," she explained, "that means I own it." Four albums in, her strategy has paid off spectacularly. Music copyright is multi-layered: composition rights (melody/lyrics), master recording rights (the actual audio), and performance rights (for public playback). Artists often control some but not all—which is why re-recording creates new masters they can fully own. Crucially, Swift retained her publishing rights for her early albums, making the re-recording strategy feasible in the first place. Swift isn't the first to play this card. JoJo re-recorded her early albums after a label dispute left them unavailable on streaming services. Def Leppard created "forgeries" of their hits to gain leverage in digital royalty negotiations. Frank Sinatra founded his own record label and re-recorded his classics for creative freedom. The financial impact is staggering—Swift's re-recordings consistently outperform the originals. Red (Taylor's Version) broke Spotify's record for most-streamed album in a day by a female artist, effectively devaluing the original masters. This strategy has contributed significantly to Swift becoming a billionaire in 2023—largely through music revenue, a rare achievement in the industry. Meanwhile, music catalogs have become hot investment properties, with over $5 billion spent on acquisitions in 2021 alone. Investors view music rights as stable assets that generate reliable returns. The industry has noticed. Labels are now extending re-recording restriction periods from 5-7 years to 10-30 years in new contracts. Musicians should consider strategic pushback: leveraging existing fanbase data in negotiations, pushing for shorter contract terms, and seeking reversion clauses that return masters after a certain period. If full ownership isn't possible, joint ownership structures with labels offer an alternative—even partial control provides a seat at the table for future decisions. As Brendan Brown of Wheatus, who re-recorded "Teenage Dirtbag," bluntly advised: "Never give away your publishing or your masters... there's no excuse not to hoard your s*** and keep it under your bed." If you could see any artist reclaim their back catalog through re-recordings, who would it be and which album deserves the "(Artist's Version)" treatment first? #IPidity #copyright #WorldIPday #MastersOfTheirDomain P.S. Interested in how IP supports investment in the music industry? Tune in to WIPO's IP Finance Dialogue on May 13. We'll be discussing ongoing research we're conducting on this topic. Register here: https://lnkd.in/eD9cXSak

Kourtney Kardashian's Lemme just did $13 million in a single month on TikTok Shop. But the strategy wasn't one perfect campaign, it was 53,000 videos. Most brands work with 100-500 creators, with outreach and approvals done manually. Lemme onboarded 13,000 affiliates simultaneously, with AI handling approvals, product distribution, content moderation, performance tracking, payouts, and creator comms. The next step was to incentivise volume. Tiered commissions meant creators posted five times: unboxing, first impressions, week one results, competitor comparisons, long-term updates… 13,000 creators + five videos each = thousands of pieces of content flooding the algorithm. TikTok quickly learned which hooks convert and the winners got fed into paid ads that still looked native. It's impressive. But it raises questions. Scale like this works for a product you can ship to thousands of creators without much briefing. But for brands where tone, positioning, and creative consistency matter more, the human approach still has advantages: fewer creators means deeper relationships and more control over how the brand shows up. Volume beats polish in some categories. In others, one wrong video from the wrong creator can undo months of positioning work. There's no single right answer here. But it's worth watching how this plays out, and asking which approach fits the brand you're building.

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

Sequels are always better 👏 New research: The Creator Effectiveness Playbook System1 and TikTok launched 'The Long and the Short (Form) of It' last year. Authored by myself, Josh Fruttiger, and some brilliant people at TikTok, including Callum Mayfield Smith. To our disbelief, nearly 500,000 people have now visited that research page (?!?) In that research, we showed that creators grow brands more than brand-made content if they get it right. Since then, research from the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) and Effie Worldwide has confirmed the same thing. Creators are the next biggest brand-building opportunity. But there's a total lack of research in this space, even a lack of knowledge on how we work with creators at scale. So we are back, now with the incredible WPP Media to launch The Creator Effectiveness Playbook. Led by the incredible Beth Marchant and Joshua Gornell. We've analysed £70mil of social spend (23.6bil impressions?!?) to create the first evidence based strategic playbook to QUADRUPLE the brand growth from your creator campaigns. Diving into... - Brand fit, what it means, and its use - Does size matter? Follower count vs creator fame? - Platform fit and how to increase it - Early branding, if it matters, and how to achieve it - How to measure creator campaigns and a new, surprising metric that matters (and metrics we've proved simply don't) - Can creative quality beat creator strategy? -How to brief to win, with what consumer needs per category. And I'm excited to introduce the Social Device. The first clear definition of a Distinctive Creator Asset that will be your secret weapon on social over the next decade. I'll share a sneak peek with Jon Evans, Orlando Wood, and Mark Ritson next Tuesday at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Then launching the full research on the effectiveness stage on Tuesday with Eugene Healey. You'll be able to hear more quickly on the Uncensored CMO, Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast and WARC podcast. Or - you can sign up free here and we'll email you the full research as soon as it launches: https://lnkd.in/eUkFTuN8 Thanks to our partners at WPP and TikTok for Business, who are leading the industry, funding research like this, and sharing the data to make it possible. PS. Engagement rate does not create brand memory growth 🩷 Amy Prunty James Eyton-Jones Isobel Sita-Lumsden James Gregory Vanessa Chin Genevieve Norris I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

After working with the TikTok Shop team... here's what I think is going to unfold over the next 6 months First off, the evolution of TikTok Shop has been fascinating. We've seen a transition from low-priced drop shipped products to higher quality brands finding success with standout products. Currently, the default agency strategy involves massive outreach via bots that send upwards of 5000 DM to creators per day This will be unsustainable and TikTok is tightening controls here They're putting a limit on the number of DMs a brand can send per day, based on their amount in GMV And they require creators to post within seven days after getting a gift to maintain their affiliate eligibility An effort that aims to decrease bot message fatigue while driving DM engagement/ecosystem health. As we approach the next phase, the key questions are Will brands continue to keep creator relationships on TikTok Shop or move relationships off-platform? AND what type of creator will perform over time? In my opinion, TikTok Shop is becoming the defacto way you work with ANY of your TikTok creators... and that is a HUGE milestone. I think we're going to see a shift from mass top of funnel approaches, with the hope that a nano creator goes viral to.... fewer higher quality relationships with slightly larger creators The platform's future lies in balancing tools for new creator discovery while also allowing the nurturing of established brand-creator relationships, I'm optimistic about where TikTok Shop is headed and excited to see how these predictions pan out Knowing how fast this landscape changes... I could certainly be wrong... and quickly so