Business of Creators 💬

Being a creator means more than just recording, editing and uploading…

In one day, you might need to mock-up some designs for your scheduled posts, bag a sponsorship deal, email back that supplier, chase an invoice and find that perfect licensed sound effect you’re looking for.

What’s more, digital platforms are constantly evolving their algorithms and trends get old quickly. Keeping up with the pace of the Creator Economy is overwhelming.

The Business of Creators is your comprehensive support guide, in the form of a weekly newsletter, giving you the run-down of what’s new for platforms, trends you could be jumping on and tools to help spend less time on the mundane and more on your interests.

A note from our sponsor:

Creator Report 23 Presented by Linktree

Explore the dynamic internet realm in the 2023 Creator Report by Linktree. Uncover challenges in a landscape flooded with content, as the report guides 200 million creators on cutting through the noise, forging genuine connections, and optimizing earnings. Get the report!

⏰Top Stories

• 💋X signs Paris Hilton for live shopping boost

• 🤑 TikTok enhances ad effectiveness with new notes

• 👓 Meta's AI & VR push: Celebrity chatbots, smart glasses

• 📺 YouTube new introduction…

• 💬 How an AI deepfake ad of MrBeast ended up on TikTok

X signs live shopping deal with Paris Hilton in bid to revive its fortunes

X, formerly Twitter, has signed a first-of-its-kind deal with celebrity Paris Hilton centred around live shopping and other exclusive content, as chief executive Linda Yaccarino attempts to revive the platform’s fortunes.

The two-year deal required the American socialite to work with X to create four original video programmes per year including for its nascent live shopping space, the company said. Hilton would also produce content on other X mediums such as its Spaces audio feature, it added. A revenue-sharing agreement had been struck between Hilton’s 11:11 Media company and X, the social media platform added, describing the financial arrangement as “attractive” for both parties. (Read more)

TikTok shares new notes in maximizing ad effectiveness

Have you ever seen an opera singer shatter a wine glass simply with their voice? The same force behind this phenomenon can also make bridges wobble alarmingly. This force is called resonance and it can have a major input in ad effectiveness too. To understand the value of resonance in ad effectiveness, we have to look at the value of attention and engagement in how well an ad communicates with its consumers.

Engagement and attention are sometimes used interchangeably, but they represent two distinct concepts. What is the difference between attention and engagement? In 2002, the Advertising Research Foundation defined attention as the degree to which those exposed to advertising focus on it. Engagement expands on this by incorporating our brain's processing and reaction to the ad, or, to put it another way, Attention x Resonance = Engagement. This definition also indicates that attention is a pre-exposure ad metric, while ad engagement is a post-exposure KPI including our sentiments and how we start to react or internalize an ad. Let's look at each of these in turn. (Read more)

Meta's new AI and VR push

AI Chatbots Integration: Meta introduces AI chat assistants in WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and Quest 3. Powered by a custom model from Llama 2 and the latest language research, featuring real-time search through Bing.

Celebrity Chatbots: Meta's AI chatbots boast 28 personalities using celebrity voices like Bear Grylls, Chloe Kim, and Josh Richards for enhanced engagement.

AI Tools on Instagram: Instagram debuts AI image editing tools like "Restyle" and "Backdrop," potentially sparking new visual trends and aiding brands in creating thematic visuals.

Generative AI Stickers: Meta introduces AI stickers on WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook Stories, allowing users to create custom digital stickers using text prompts.

AI Studio for Personalization: Meta launches an AI studio enabling users to create personalized AI engagement systems and lets developers build third-party AIs for messaging services through APIs.

Ray-Ban Stories V.2: Meta unveils the upgraded Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses with improved hardware and battery life, featuring livestreaming to Facebook or Instagram. Available for purchase from Oct. 17, with pre-orders open.

Quest 3 VR Headset: Meta reveals Quest 3, its most advanced VR headset, starting from Oct. 10, with breakthrough mixed reality experiences. Pricing starts at $499.99 for the 128GB version and $649.99 for the 512GB model.

YouTube launches new subscriber analytics to assist in content planning

Before the launch of this new feature, creators could only see how many new or returning viewers they had, or how many views they got, from all viewers. But now, creators have the ability to see how different audience segments watch their content. This means that creators can now see how many views they got from new viewers, and compare it to the number of views from returning viewers. (Watch it here)

Platform round-up

Here we give you the latest run-down on updates and new features introduced across digital platforms. Leverage these to help you get ahead of the game…

• META:

  • Facebook will now allow users to create multiple profiles to explore different interests.

  • Meta’s new AI-generated stickers are lewd, rude, and occasionally nude.

  • Meta proposes $14 per month charge for an ad-free Facebook.

  • Meta’s reportedly exploring new options to reignite interest in Threads.

• YOUTUBE:

  • YouTube announces new creator tools, including generative AI options, at ‘Made On’ event.

• TIKTOK:

  • TikTok’s experimenting with an ad-free subscription offering.

• X (FORMLY TWITTER):

  • X announces it’s shutting down Circles on October 31st.

  • X adds subscriber-only DMs setting for deeper engagement with paying audience.

How an AI deepfake ad of MrBeast ended up on TikTok

In a recent incident, a sophisticated AI deepfake featuring popular YouTube creator MrBeast managed to circumvent TikTok's ad moderation, promising 10,000 iPhones for $2. Known for extravagant giveaways, MrBeast's deceptive ad seemed plausible, underscoring the challenge of identifying deepfakes, even for AI algorithms. Despite TikTok's mix of human and AI moderation, the deepfake slipped through, highlighting the escalating concern of manipulated media, with notable figures like Tom Hanks and Gayle King warning followers about being targeted by fraudulent ads, adding urgency to the need for effective regulation in the face of increasingly accessible deepfake technology.