You’re probably sick of me writing about the White House Creator Economy Conference.

Well, too bad!

If you want a full recap, here’s a long-form video of me explaining what went down—

Don’t worry, I’ll TL:DR; it for you later.

This week also brought back the print edition of The Onion (thanks Jeff Lawson!), the FTC going after bots, and Disney claims a death at their theme park can’t go to court because they agreed to a clickthrough Disney+ ‘Terms of Service’.

I’m also switching up some of the newsletter format as I’ve heard you loud and clear: more hot takes, less newsy news. So now the news section will cover more stories in a shorter format with more ‘my hot takes’ sections. Let me know what you think!

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

Joe Biden is Funny and Cares about Social Media

Don’t get mad, partisans! This is my opinion: President Biden was funny in person and told a compelling story around why creators matter.

He was only supposed to speak for 4 minutes and we got 40.

He was whispery, but ‘confident Joe voice’ came out while doing a character named ‘Angelo’ while recounting an anectode.

Yes, he was doing character work!

But he discussed a lot of substantative issues too: the need to collaborate with government, spread truth, wield our power responsibly.

I have my recap above so I won’t belabor, but why would his team even do this conference then take it so seriously?

My hot take: they wanted to take social media back from Republicans.

He really honed in hard on misinformation and the power of our reach.

He even had a moment where he was stern with the press asking them to write about the ‘soft landing’ of inflation going down.

Clearly, he believes, as we all do, that creators will continue to be more important voices in pushing public discourse.

The FTC Won’t Let Bots Be

The FTC pronounced influencers can no longer buy fake likes and followers for financial gain.

They were scant on details in the BOTS Act, but did say those engaging in this behavior will be ‘punished’.

And the directive was broad. It included using deepfakes or pretending to be another person for growth.

My hot take: nothing changes.

This activity is already banned by most terms of service.

Much like brand disclosures governed by the FTC, there may be some minor wrist slapping but won’t slow down those huge TikTok channels stealing Matt Rife stand up bits for cloud.

Don’t R.I.P. After Signing Disney’s T.O.S.

Jeffrey Piccolo’s wife Kanokporn Tangsuan died of an allergic reaction at Disney Springs’ Irish Pub, despite telling the waitstaff of her allergies.

In the wrongful death case, Disney said because they agreed to Disney+’s ‘Terms of Service’ any lawsuits against Disney in any way must go through arbitration.

This sheds light on something we all know: clickthrough ToSes is seldom read and always clicked.

South Park even had an outstandingly foul episode about this years ago.

My Hot Take: legislation is coming, you sneaky huge corporations!

Scamming consumers into giving up rights through clickthrough ToS has never been fair.

Frankly, I don’t know why the government has looked the other way for so long.

Limiting the power and scope of what can be agreed to via an automated clickthrough would be an easy, bi-partisan win and should be announced the second someone in Congress is looking for a big win.

OPTIMIZATION:

Taking Distribution Bets

Longtime readers will know that I’m very hot on the ‘distribute everywhere’ strategy.

I’ve had multiple teams run multiple tests on audience cannibalization from uploading on multiple platforms and have never found a significant issue.

So when you create a piece of content and have the resources, it’s usually smart to make sure it’s on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

But what about smaller platforms?

I have a rule about this: take one bet on a platform where your content is most likely to thrive.

You could spend all day uploading on every TikTok competitor on the internet, but most genres of content have one perfect fit for up and comers.

I’ll give you an example: if you’re a small business with a physical location or restaurant reviewer, Atmosfy is awesome.

And I don’t know how many users Atmosfy currently has, but it has raised $13m and there are a bunch of videos with over 100k views.

If you give it a try, you may find that perfect, high-intent audience you’re looking for!

So don’t sleep on the smaller platforms. They may just be a cheat code to find your tribe.

MONETIZATION:

Why You Aren’t Closing Brand Deals

You’re a creator rep and you’re sending 50 e-mails per day pitching your roster to brands and you aren’t closing anything.

Why?

Maybe your roster sucks (sorry).

But probably not.

It’s because what you’re doing right now is e-mail marketing, but you’re likely not using the best practices of e-mail marketing!

Trust me as someone who experienced it when I worked at Facebook: if you’re deploying money in the creator economy, your inbox gets insane.

I was getting a hundred e-mails per day from managers and talent hunting for deals.

Many books with hundreds of pages have been written about cold e-mailing, but I’ll point out the three things everyone should do but most get wrong:

1. Personalize the subject line: Proves it isn’t automated.

2. Pitch value first: Don’t just send links, tell me why your client is the best.

3. Keep it short: brands get a lot of e-mails. I try for 5 sentences max.

So perhaps it’s time to cut your 50 outreach down to 10 and make them better!

INDUSTRY HIRING:

Amazon wants a Senior Media Manager, Prime Video and maybe you’ll get a sweet discount on bulk Amazon Basics AAA batteries!

TikTok seeks a Creator Marketing Lead for a v demure person with skibidi rizz (no cap).

Wurl is looking for a Senior Business Development Lead - Agencies & Brands for connected TV experts who aren’t spending all day re-watching Suits.

MEME ZONE:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this edition, give it a share and if you get someone to sign up, I’ll send you my ‘10 Rep-Friendly Ways to Monetize Today!’ deck!

Until next time, protect yo rep.