As America's Creator Economy Matures Australia Takes Its Early Steps

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• Mark Zuckerberg announced creator-made chatbots via Meta AI Studio on Instagram, starting with U.S. tests.  

• Meta is tagging real photos as 'Made with AI’, photographers say.

• The White House announced at the 2024 VidCon that it will host a Creator Economy Conference, the first of its kind. The conference will take place on the White House campus and discuss the economic and cultural impact of the creator economy. Topics of discussion will include AI, Privacy, Fair pay, Mental Health, and more.

• TikTok creator Hallie Batchelder has signed a deal to join Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network.

• Big Tech is reshaping AI by hiring teams from startups like Inflection and Adept and licensing their tech, sidestepping traditional acquisition scrutiny. This strategy consolidates their influence while navigating regulatory challenges.

• TikTok has released a What's Next 2024: In Action Trend Report tracking the evolution of their new year's predictions.

VIDCON 2024 RECAP

Everyone was talking about one thing at VidCon and no, it wasn’t AI.

The convention's overall theme, which brought together influencers, fans, executives, and online brands, was, in fact, focused on scaling creator operations.

Remember when you heard about how a creator made money online, and it felt like it was melting your brain?

Then, when you finally understood it, explaining that to someone else was even harder… until recently.

Now that the creator ecosystem is maturing, brands are starting to truly understand the value of collaborating with a creator that gets its audience, which is affecting creators and their businesses.

This is why scaling that business is at the front of everyone’s minds at VidCon.

With scaling comes discussions about finding the right team in an industry that is figuring itself out and changing in real-time. What about your exit strategy? How do you ensure it has longevity beyond you so that you don’t burn out and can pass it on to someone else when you’re ready?

Here are some insights from my favourite talks that I attended:

Instagram Creator Culture: Trends and Insights

• The creator-fan relationship is increasingly reciprocal. Creators are listening to and implementing their audiences ’ feedback more and more.

• The creators who are growing the fastest on the platform are those who post 10x reels a month.

• Follower count is nowhere near as powerful as your engagement level.

Perfect Your YouTube Packaging: Ideas, Thumbnails, and Intro Masterclass – hosted by Jon Youshai

• Videos that do well today need to stand out; one way to do that is to create outlier content. Start looking for outlier content and dissect why it worked. It can even be a piece of content within your own work that is punched above the rest.

• Find outlier videos within your niche by using incognito mode on Chrome. Search 1-3 words related to your idea on YouTube > sort by “view-count” > sort by “anytime” > click top videos > check subscriber count.

Creating a Sponsorship Pitch No Brand Will Ignore

• Please stop copying and pasting pro forma reachouts.

• When making a pitch to a brand, they will more than likely say no. This is because you’ve missed their campaign window, your idea isn’t relevant to them, or they need proof of an organic connection between the audience, you, and the brand. You’ve gained information on how to generate what they’re looking for.

For me, VidCon highlighted the contrast between America’s more maturing creator economy and Australia’s early stages.

Sure, budgets and populations are bigger in the United States, but the brand opportunities amongst Aussie creators are way underserved and probably undervalued.

I don’t see this as bad; in fact, it’s pretty exciting to see how much potential there is to be gained over the next few years.

Just make sure you’re part of it now.

PS. If you'd like access to my notes from VidCon, just reply to this email after referring it to someone else, and I'll send them directly to your inbox.

Instagram

• now lets you share carousel photos in their original aspect ratios.

• Is testing a ‘Creator Insights’ profile performance overview for brands

• now enables you to explore trending audio

Threads

• is working on self-destructing posts that disappear after 24 hours.

TikTok

• has added features like location pages for food, hotels, and shopping.

YouTube

• is testing the ability to ‘Hype’ a video published in the last seven days.

• has added 'Your podcasts' page as Google Podcasts shuts down globally.

X

• will soon provide insight into when your audience is active in the app.

• plans to make live-streaming a Premium-only feature.

READ: How brands are using the comments sections to drive results.

LISTEN: YouTube creators Colin and Samir speak about their experience attending and speaking at the Cannes Lions, the festival of creativity.

WATCH: Former Instagram and YouTube employee Jon Youshai interviewed MrBeast about how his business operates.