ICYMI: The Creator Effect - Turning Followers Into Fans
Social stars are out here selling their own projects
⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
TikTok is streaming an exclusive live Player Spotlight featuring Messi during the MLS Cup Playoffs
Meta launched a Threads webpage with tips, insights and advice for growth and engagement
Instagram released its 2024 Creators of Tomorrow spotlight list
YouTube partnered to launch a teen media literacy program
LinkedIn is testing a new “news” banner at the top of the feed
Daze, a new teen messaging app, has 160K people on the waitlist for launch
Poll: Social-first celebrities are rallying their online audiences to boost TV ratings — is this the future of entertainment?
Case Study: How TikToker Mei Mei’s branded bachelorette came to be
Report: Creator content is used in an average of four different channels outside of social media
💻 ROADMAP
📲 TikTok Updates
TikTok announced it would stream an exclusive live Player Spotlight featuring Lionel Messi Friday night during the Audi 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs Round One Best-of-3 Series match. This could be an interesting indicator of a new hybrid model since the full game is streamed on AppleTV with the single player focus showing up only on social.
TikTok is expanding its TikTok STEM Feed to 100% of users in the US, UK and Ireland today — it was previously only on default for users under 18. According to TikTok, there has been an 18% increase in STEM-related content since the feed was introduced.
📲 LinkedIn Updates
LinkedIn is testing a new “news” banner at the top of the LinkedIn feed. The banner will highlight new and developing stories that are shaping the professional world.
Rishi Jobanputra, LinkedIn’s Senior Director, Product Management, wrote a guide to Understanding How the LinkedIn Feed Works.
📲 YouTube Updates
In honor of Media Literacy Week, YouTube partnered with Poynter’s MediaWise to launch a media literacy curriculum for teens ages 13-17 called Hit Pause (access materials here).
A separate report on News Literacy in America shows an overwhelming majority of teens (94%) want their schools to teach media literacy, but just 39% reported having had any related instruction during the 2023-24 school year.
YouTube creators can now add poll stickers to their Shorts videos.
YouTube clarified that Oct. 15 is the date after which all videos 61 to 181 seconds long will be considered Shorts.
📲 Meta Updates
Meta launched a Threads webpage with tips, insights and advice to increase engagement and grow your followers, such as:
Funny content receives a higher number of views on Threads
Posts that drive conversations are more likely to get recommended
Posting more frequently on the weekends can help drive higher engagement
Meta released a Restaurant Summit 2024 report that revealed “Webrooming,” or researching online before buying in person, has risen 1.95x over the last four years.
Instagram released its 2024 Creators of Tomorrow list. Now in its 3rd year, it’s a program that spotlights “emerging talents and community builders.” It also gives some insight into the types of creators and the content that the Instagram team considers innovative.
Adam Mosseri clarified that your own logo as a Reel watermark is OK.
Meta and Go Fund Me teamed up to simplify social media donations, including a “seamless” integration with Instagram Stories.
Instagram launched some Halloween-themed Easter eggs in the app through Nov 3.
Spotted (TW): A new Instagram prompt to "Chat with AI Characters" is now popping up in the Feed, just like suggested accounts. One of the options is a Therapist chatbot. Someone also spotted a George Floyd chatbot (since removed) on Instagram. This comes against the backdrop of a lawsuit claiming a Character.AI chatbot is responsible for a teen's suicide.
Tech companies need to improve their efforts to protect users, especially the vulnerable. Given that social responsibility doesn’t seem to be a primary driver, maybe financial incentives related to brand safety can motivate them to take more action.
📲 Snapchat Updates
Snapchat launched new AI-powered, Halloween-themed Lenses and Bitmoji costumes.
🤳➡️📺 DEEP DIVE: HOW SOCIAL IS BOLSTERING TRADITIONAL ENTERTAINMENT
This week, we’ve seen a couple of high-profile examples of social-first celebrities leveraging their online audiences to follow them to more traditional entertainment channels.
Most prominently, Markiplier (a gaming streamer with more than 37 million YouTube followers) used his sizable social following to support his new scripted Amazon Prime show The Edge of Sleep. By rallying his online audience to view the show that most major streamers passed on, the six-part series cracked the top of Amazon’s most streamed shows list and got more than 6,000 ratings on IMDB.
This comes on the heels of Brian Jordan Alvarez supporting his new FX series English Teacher with a series of TikTok dances. The videos went viral, generating more than 18 million views, and helped push the series to the second most-watched program on Hulu this week.
The use of social platforms to guide audiences offline is not exclusive to television, as a number of high-profile TikTokers are using their online followings to build their careers as DJs. Xandra Pohl and Christine “Tinx” Najjar are among the creators-turned-DJs profiled in this Rolling Stone piece.
On Broadway, The Great Gatsby combatted middling reviews with a social-first strategy that leveraged its stars, influencers, and TikTok dances to the cast album.. The result? A show that regularly grosses more than $1 million a week while more well-reviewed productions post closing notices.
What unites these stories is how the offline creators were dismissed by traditional gatekeepers, only to be championed by online audiences. While social followers have long been known to support talent with their fandom, these recent examples show how they are also bolstering creators with their pocketbooks.
-Mo Brady, co-creator of @Daddy_Papa_and_Me_Make3 and Influencer & Activations Director for Super Awesome Friends
Related: Amazon announced, Celebrity Substitute, a new branded content show debuting on YouTube — not Prime
*I'll be moderating a panel about this topic at next week's Future of TV conference - Lia
🏝️ CASE STUDY: HOW MEI MEI’S TIKTOK BECAME A BRANDED CAYMAN ISLANDS BACHELORETTE
I love a good social listening story, especially when combined with a rapid response approach — and if you’re one of Mei Mei Monsta’s 3.8M followers who followed her wedding story this year, you might know where I’m going with this.
The Background: Earlier this year, TikToker Mei Mei shared a video about her dream of hosting a tropical bachelorette party. Praytell, which represents the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism, immediately saw the potential. The agency slid into her DMs and pitched the idea of hosting not only Mei Mei’s bachelorette party but also her fiancé’s bachelor party in the Cayman Islands.
Results: Party guests and on-island partners created a combined 540 posts across Instagram and TikTok with an estimated potential reach of 296 million — all with $0 in content creator fees since the partnership was an in-kind collaboration.
Campaign Takeaways: I wanted to get more info on how this all came together so I asked Mattie Ahearn, the agency’s Account Director, Influencer Marketing, to share some of the details on how they they jumped on the opportunity:
ICYMI: Was this a case of social listening or someone in the agency who happens to follow Mei Mei?
Mattie Ahearn: An agency team member (who actually doesn't work on the account, but IS a personal Mei Mei fan) spotted the initial video while scrolling social media one morning, and Slacked it to the team. While Praytell has agency-wide social listening strategies in place that leverage a stack of monitoring tools, sometimes the best opportunities stem from the simple fact that we're a chronically-online crew.
How quickly were you able to activate?
Speed is critical. When flagging to clients, we aim to share the opportunity the same day (ideally, within the first hour or two!) to capitalize on the moment. In this case, our clients at the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism were quick to approve our outreach to Mei Mei, which allowed us to be the first destination to get in front of her.
Do you have any tips or advice for jumping on opportunities like this?
Set up social listening tools and proactively scan social: Make sure you’re fully leveraging tools and platforms to track and spot brand mentions and trending convos – while also encouraging team members to manually scan for and elevate trends automated tools might miss, or be delayed in sharing.
Empower team members: Foster an agency culture and client relationship where everyone feels comfortable sharing ideas. Make spotting and circulating trending conversations a collective responsibility across EVERYONE at the agency.
Act quickly: Set up clear communication channels for fast approvals (Slack, WhatsApp, email, text). Time is crucial when capitalizing on trending conversations.
Maintain a flexible budget: A dynamic budget or “slush fund” to execute on opportunistic moments enables faster decision-making and timely activation when opportunities arise, avoiding lengthy financial discussions and approvals.
*this interview has been lightly edited for length
📊 DATA DROP
Creator content is highly valuable as marketers use it in an average of four different channels outside of social media, including content marketing (56%), sponsorships (44%), connected TV (43%), display advertising (43%) and affiliate marketing (31%).
-via LTK and Northwestern University Retail Analytics Council second annual Creator Marketing Study unveiling key insights in creator marketing for 2025.
👀 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT HEADLINES
Daze, a creative, AI-powered messaging app for Gen Z, is blowing up prelaunch -TechCrunch
"This Is Not Safe" — Rosanna Pansino Finds Mold in Her MrBeast's Lunchly -Distractify
The grocery cart flat lay is officially taking over as the new TSA flat lay -Trendspotter
For high school age TikTok influencers, online fame can bring real-life consequences -TeenVogue
Is a cheese pull worth 1,000 words? Los Angeles’s mid-aughts food bloggers thought so -Eater
The Tongal creators who helped build Pharrell's LEGO movie,Piece by Piece -Tongal
Can you name all the influencers featured in SNL's TikTok parody -NBC News
How to deal with the feeling of too many “trends” -Earnest Pettie
Oooo loved the case study for the Cayman Islands bach party🎊🇰🇾
Love this take on how creators are influencing major media like TV in ways something like a late night show interview never could. Creators are absolutely going to continue dominating marketing as a whole, think about the saturation of influencers at NYFW the last few years compared to 5 years ago. We could argue that creators have the most engaged audiences (vs. a more passive audience on something like TV) and finally those 'traditional gatekeepers' are taking notice, however, they still somehow value a Super Bowl budget more than a creator budget in most cases...