One of the best parts of writing a newsletter is having such a direct line to readers. We’ve gotten quite a few questions about the creator economy, so we wanted to kick off the New Year by diving into some of them today. (If you have more questions, shoot us a note by responding to this email!)
Let’s get into it.
What’s the best way to truly measure effective creative engagement?
It depends what you mean by effective. If you’re asking about how audiences react to creator content on social media, metrics like time spent, shares and saves are some of the best indicators of engagement.
These go beyond vanity metrics such as likes, number of comments and follower counts to show whether people actually consumed the content or if they found it meaningful in some way. They also better reflect the way users are interacting on social platforms these days, meaning less in public feeds and more in private DMs.
Take liking a post, for example. That only takes a second and is generally done passively while scrolling. The likelihood that the viewer will remember the post or return to it is low. But if someone saves or shares a post, it means they plan to come back to it later or found the content interesting enough to send to someone else. (The next question, of course, is why? That’s much harder to answer.)
Saves and shares are also better predictors of things like purchase intent or consideration than the number of public reactions to a post. But beyond that, things get more complicated: The methods to determine whether engagement on creator content actually led to a purchase are messy and incomplete.
What do you think is missing from the marketplace for CEOs and CMOs to track full return on investment against creator activity beyond just engagement and brand lift?
Standard frameworks to measure and attribute business outcomes at scale (see question above). Many creator economy experts argue that brands shouldn’t treat creator content like they do performance media. That is misguided: Creator content isn’t performance media in the traditional sense (e.g. paid search or display ads), but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be held to similar measurement standards.
Outdated and incomplete metrics are partially to blame for the challenges in measuring creator ROI. But the issue runs deeper than that.
For one, brands work with creators on multiple platforms to drive various types of business goals, from awareness to consideration to sales. That means there is no universal metric that CEOs and CMOs can take to a CFO and say “it worked!”
What’s more, the metrics marketers use to measure creator campaigns are often misaligned with their objectives. CMOs in a recent LTK and Northwestern University survey, for example, cited sales as their top influencer marketing goal, but awareness as their top campaign success metric. Sales goals should be measured with sales-related metrics, like conversion rates or revenue.
Creator pay rates are also all over the place and usually negotiated in private. That means CEOs and CMOs may not have full visibility into the costs of influencer marketing, which makes it difficult to calculate the true ROI of creator activity. An added bonus: Being able to show their influence beyond engagement and brand lift would also help creators negotiate fair rates for their work—and potentially unlock more budget for influencer marketing.
Do you think vertical dramas will last on the apps they currently exist on? Or do you think this is a trend that will end up transferring to the existing social platforms that people know and love?
It’s always a challenge for upstarts to compete with large tech and content platforms and their massive audiences. It’s also difficult to convince users to download—and regularly return to—a separate app, especially when they can access the content they want on the apps they’re already on.
As we wrote in our 2026 predictions, we expect TikTok and other social platforms to go big on microdramas. We also expect them to strike direct deals with creators to develop or exclusively host these shows. The rise of microdramas on apps like TikTok and Instagram would put pressure on standalone apps like ReelShort and DramaBox.
These apps also charge users to watch shows. TikTok and other deep-pocketed social apps could make content available for free or at a lower cost, further challenging standalone microdrama apps.
That doesn’t mean that these standalone apps will disappear, but we think they’re going to have much more competition this year from social giants.
I was told that the word “authentic” is now passe and “genuine” is now the correct word to use in the context of the experiences creator marketing can deliver. Is this true?
Authentic has become one of the biggest buzzwords in the creator economy, and swapping it out for “genuine” doesn’t change much.
It’s not just the overuse of the word. The reality is that what we refer to as “authenticity” on social media is now largely performative. Gen Z, in particular, understands that even content that appears to be unfiltered is still carefully curated and edited.
And as AI videos flood feeds, what really matters isn’t whether creators are “authentic” or “genuine,” but whether they bring personal experience, expertise and develop a real relationship with their audience. (We recently wrote a column about why we should stop saying “authenticity” here.)
If you had a magic wand, what would be built?
Jasmine: A universal dictionary for the creator economy. If we can’t agree on definitions for terms as basic as “creator” and “influencer,” how are we expected to effectively build or measure anything in the “creator economy”?
Kaya: We also still don’t know basic facts about the creator economy, like how many creators there are. We’ve seen many reports try to take a whack at it, with often widely different figures. I’d love to see definitive research on the space, like a US Census for creators.
I also want a personalized AI agent who can help me with my never-ending to-do list—from editing short clips for social media flawlessly and keeping me organized with emails to allowing me to search across our content, including newsletters, podcasts, speaking gigs and much more. I know there are lots of different solutions out there already, but so far I haven’t seen one product that does everything that I want it to do!
Podcasting’s 2026 Reality Check
After a gold rush year, we think podcasting could face a reckoning in 2026.
Top hosts like Scott Galloway and Joe Rogan make tens of millions from their shows. But that’s not the reality for most: The top 500 shows in the US accounted for 48% of all podcast ad spending during the third quarter of 2025, according to data from Magellan AI. Data about the total number of active podcasts in the US is hard to find, but some estimates place it at around 500,000. That means podcast ad revenues are heavily consolidated at the top.
We’re already starting to see some signs of this. Creators including Shelby Church and The Try Guys have recently abandoned their podcasts, in part as they questioned whether the paycheck was worth their time and energy.
At the same time, podcasting’s pivot to video is also threatening to worsen the industry’s gender gap. Men already make up the majority of podcast hosts and guests, according to data from USC Annenberg. Men are also twice as likely as women to start a podcast, according to data from Sounds Profitable. Now that video is becoming a must-have for podcasts, more women and minorities could be discouraged from trying: Underrepresented groups are more likely than men to face appearance-based criticism and harassment online.
That’s on top of the fact that the pivot to video is creating a confusing landscape where no one really even knows what a podcast even is anymore! Read the rest of our 2026 predictions here, including which creator we think could IPO this year.
In other news…
The Round Up
CES is underway in Las Vegas this week. The major consumer technology conference has also turned into a gathering place for creators and executives in the industry over the past few years. We won’t be there this year, but you can find us at the 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai this week to record our first live podcast on stage!
Triller, a short-form video upstart and creator marketing company that once tried to compete with TikTok, was delisted from the Nasdaq after failing to file reports on time.
West Co, a new company making social media apps started by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp, has raised $29 million in funding led by Spark Capital. The startup in November launched its first app Tangle, which asks users to share their goals with friends. It’s invite only for now and the company aims to be a positive antidote to the “terrible devastation” caused by social media.
Elon Musk indicated he’d “crank” up payments to creators on X in an effort to better compete with YouTube. In response to a post encouraging him to do so, Musk wrote “ok let’s do it,” tagging the company’s head of product Nikita Bier. Musk added that X should be “rigorously enforcing no gaming of the system.” We shall see.
Global Media & Entertainment, a British media company, took a majority stake in The Overlap, a sports media company focused on football, rugby and cricket. Through the deal, the companies will build out a media network with multiple brands and channels in different sports categories. The Overlap gets more than 38 million monthly views on YouTube.
Digital Voices, a London-based influencer marketing agency, was acquired by marketing agency PMG. Terms of the deal were not announced. (One of our predictions was for more M&A in influencer marketing this year!)
Soundbite
“The bar is shifting from ‘can you create?’ to ‘can you make something that only you could create?’” wrote Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram. His end-of-year reflections about how AI will impact the creator economy and social media in 2026 are worth a read.
Regulatory Woes
Poland called on the European Commission to investigate TikTok after the app showed AI-generated content, such as calls for Poland to withdraw from the EU, which the country asserted is Russian disinformation.
Talent Tracker
Stephen Riad was promoted to executive vice president of advertising sales at Reddit. Previously, he was vice president of global mid-market and SMB sales and channel partnerships. Before joining Reddit, he led global strategy, sales, operations and business growth teams at Google.
Rosie Gee was promoted to Substack’s head of entertainment for the UK. Previously, she led creator partnerships and events.
Gwen Miller announced she’s leaving Rhett & Link’s Mythical Entertainment where she was senior director of creator growth. She said she’d share what’s next in the coming weeks.
MrBeast is hiring a head of viral marketing for products and services. According to the job posting, the person will “convert cultural moments” into sign ups, revenue and retention.
Scott Kitun joined GigaStar as chief business officer. The startup enables YouTubers to raise funding from individuals and institutional investors. Previously, Kitun co-founded Songfinch, which connects fans with musicians for personalized songs.
Lise Slimane is now the affiliate and influencer marketing lead at Granola, an AI note-taking software. Previously, she was a freelancer for the company and for voice AI startup ElevenLabs.
