Business of Creators 💬

Platform round-up

Leverage the latest updates and features across digital platforms to help you get ahead of the game…

🖼️ TikTok now lets creators upload custom thumbnails for their videos, either by selecting a frame or uploading an image, to make their content more attention-grabbing.

📣 Reddit has introduced Lead Gen Ads, allowing marketers to collect customer information directly from their promotions with a streamlined, mobile-friendly sign-up process, which has shown improved lead quality and campaign performance in early testing.

📺 YouTube Creator Liaison Rene Ritchie is sharing insights and tips via Shorts to help creators understand YouTube’s systems and best practices, covering topics like algorithms, thumbnail strategies, and using Shorts to grow long-form content.

🎦 Instagram has released a new guide to live streaming, detailing how to go live, schedule broadcasts, incorporate co-hosts, and use notifications to engage your audience, with options to archive or share your live videos afterward.

🎵 YouTube now lets creators save music from a Shorts feed directly to their sounds folder for easier reuse, enhancing music discovery and creative engagement with Shorts audio.

Reddit’s new deal for creators

The social network has launched a new content and ad revenue-sharing program in collaboration with sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, and NASCAR. This program will allow leagues to post videos on Reddit, with advertisers buying ads against this content, resulting in shared ad revenue between the leagues and Reddit. This model, similar to those on YouTube and previously on Twitter, has historically been successful in increasing viewer engagement and generating reliable ad revenue.

Starting with sports (due to its popularity), Reddit plans to expand the program to other genres like entertainment and lifestyle, working with producers who have active fan communities. Although Reddit's ad business is smaller compared to YouTube's, it is growing rapidly, and this new program could further boost user engagement and revenue. With users spending more time on Reddit as their account ages, this initiative could attract creators seeking new opportunities to monetize their content and grow their audience.

Google cancels its Cookies debacle 

After years of planning to phase out cookie tracking and numerous delays, Google has announced it will not retire cookies after all, opting instead to develop a new data privacy approach centered on user choice within Chrome. 

This change follows Google's initial 2020 announcement to phase out cookies by 2022. Despite launching Privacy Sandbox in 2023 and planning to replace cookies by 2024, concerns from regulatory bodies like the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) led to further delays. Ultimately, Google decided to maintain cookies while continuing to develop Privacy Sandbox APIs and exploring new privacy methods that empower users to control their data. This decision, driven by challenges in balancing industry needs and regulatory demands, means that while privacy enhancements are still on the horizon, the immediate changes many marketers feared are postponed, keeping the current tracking systems intact for now.