In this week’s newsletter, the importance of understanding how a creator fits into a marketer's funnel is explored and broken down. TikTok’s once-short attention span may be growing, but is it sustainable? And our creator of the week is Lindsay Graham (but it’s not the person you're thinking of); he's a podcast host, so to find out what podcast he hosts, you'll have to read the newsletter.

Beyond Likes: Why Creators Are the New Marketing Goldmine

As the landscape of the creator economy has grown and evolved, marketers have started to distinguish between when to work with an influencer and when to work with a creator. Marketers have started to use influencers in their marketing efforts when they're performance-focused and require a longer-term commitment.

But marketers have started to find creators at the top of marketing funnels, as they are seen as an affordable option over influencers. Brands and marketers have started to understand that when they collaborate with a creator(s), they aren't just purchasing the content; they are purchasing access to that creator's audience base. We have yet to see the peak of influencer and creator marketing, and the landscape is only going to continue to grow every day. As marketers continue to increase their spend in the space, their strategies are only going to get more deliberate and purposeful.

So as a creator, your ability to understand these two ideas is paramount.

1. Understanding how your content performs when repurposed on the brand's social media channels and how it will perform as paid media vs. organic media

2. effectively communicating with brands about what their vision is for the content and understanding how to tailor your content style to align with the brand vision.

As a fairly new creator myself, I have yet to experience this topic. But, my advice would be to reach out to past brand managers you've worked with and have meetings with them to understand the changes they are seeing in their industry so you can get a better hold of what changes are happening and how they're not only affecting content creation but also content performance.

TikTok's Short Attention Span Gets an Extension

At the end of October, TikTok invited dozens of creators to a private event at their New York office. The event's aim was to mobilize creators to generate long-form content. TikTok told the creators that across TikTok's userbase, people are now spending half of their time on the watch watching content that exceeds sixty seconds, and in addition, in the first half of the year, creators who posted content longer than sixty seconds gained five times more followers than creators who posted content shorter than sixty seconds.

This shouldn't be a surprise; back in February 2022, TikTok started to allow its users to upload content up to 10 minutes long. But, based on the new metrics, TikTok has started to play around with the idea of upping it to fifteen minutes. At the same October event, TikTok encouraged creators who were interested in long-form content to explore content ideas like vlogs, story telling, commentary, and challenges.

While all of this sounds great, Matt Koval, who worked at YouTube for almost a decade and was the first Creator Liaison ever, doesn't believe that the momentum will last. He told The Information “They’ve trained viewers that this is a rapid-fire, dopamine slot machine,” he said. “Pull, pull, pull.”

I agree with Matt. I view TikTok as a great place to help people discover your content. But as creators, you have to diversify your audience across multiple platforms. We've seen it time and time again that creators focus all of their efforts on a specific platform, and it ends badly for them. That being said, I see TikTok as a place to host all of my short-form content, like clips, teasers, and highlights, in the hopes that it will push my audience and people to other platforms.

📸 Creator of the Week 📸

Meet Lindsay Graham!

Lindsay Graham (not the senator) is the CEO and founder of Airship, a podcast publishing company, and the host of my favorite podcast, "Business Movers."

Business Movers is a weekly business podcast that brings you the true stories of the brilliant but all-too-human businesspeople who risked it all. I fell in love with Business after listening to its second season, "Coca-Cola's Greatest Mistake," which detailed the rollercoaster ride of Roberto Goizueta's decision to change Coke's recipe.

Since season 2, Lindsay and his team have covered topics ranging from the building of Lego to McDonald's invasion of Russia. Each episode is an easily digestible 30-ish minute-long episode that includes entertaining dramatizations that are all based on historical research.

Business Movers is in its 31st season, covering the story of Macy's. I am loving this season. I highly recommend that if you are a history nerd or have a business mindset, you download and listen to Business Movers.

Keep up the great and entertaining work, Lindsay, and I hope to meet you someday.

Check out Business Mover's on your favorite podcast platform.