It’s a good time to be a brand that ‘gets it’.

McDonald’s made waves last year when dcdx named it the Most Magnetic Brand for Gen Z, on par with The Rock.

But this comes from a long line of brands that threw out the classic playbooks and got a lot of attention, from Nutter Butter’s unhinged TikTok channel to Wendy’s infamous Twitter troll account.

So, creator rep, what does this mean for the future of brand partnerships?

Meanwhile, X takes a new approach to creator monetization, and LinkedIn hits a huge milestone as it challenges UpWork.

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

Bada Ba Ba Ba, I’m Loving Creators

McDonald’s continues its Gen Z dominance with its latest play: get Kai Cenat the get his famous friends to try the new Chicken Big Mac on stream.

This already generated huge buzz this week, but I expect it will explode again now that John Cena and Fanum are streaming with Kai eating a Chicken Big Mac with those stars as I write this.

And these moves have worked for Mickey D’s. Many fast food restaurants struggled post-COVID, but McDonald’s just keeps growing.

So, creator reps, what could this mean for the future of your clients’ branded content?

My hot take: finally, brands are having some fun with their marketing.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve been part of thousands of influencer marketing campaigns where the brand has been brand protective to the point of joylessness. Creator swears? Not eligible. Creator is weird? Not eligible. Creator doesn’t fit neatly into a specific genre? Not eligible.

McDonald’s has flipped the script by embracing weirdo memes, launching a meal with Travis Scott, embracing an anime parody of the restaurant, and, yes, working for less brand-safe creators like Kai (with previous scandals including an NYC riot and featuring banned streamers on his stream).

But also notice: These aren’t shout-out campaigns. If you have a creator who’s a bit more of a renegade like Kai, it needs big creativity to back it.

So it’s time to dust off your creative agency skills!

X is Still Trying to Get Creators to Care

Yes, X is still around! And despite being a cesspool of misinformation and trolling, they still want creators to join in the fun.

This week they announced a new monetization strategy that is no longer ad-based.

Now creators who are part of the Premium program will be paid based on engagement from other Premium members.

My hot take: they made a bad thing worse!

The announcement tweet was awful, specifically mentioning X Premium four times in their first two announcement tweets.

And creator feedback has been obvious: “So I’m getting my fans to sign up for X Premium so I can get paid?”

Needless to say, creators would be better off just posting on an ad-monetized platform (you know, one where you don’t have to pay in order to be paid) or, if you want your fans to pay for your content, start a Patreon.

LinkedIn Ups Their Promise to Get You Work

This week LinkedIn announced a huge milestone for their Services Marketplace: 10 million freelancers.

Much like UpWork, you can search for nearly any skill and find a freelancer who is willing to work on a per-project basis.

And guess what? There’s A LOT of social media optimization and execution people.

So is this the future of work?

My hot take: yes.

There’s no putting the gig economy back in the bottle, and I consider the creator economy to be an offshoot of the gig economy.

And for your creators, this presents a huge opportunity as influencer marketing becomes as much about infrastructure and strategy as it is about ‘shout outs’ and ‘click the link in bio’.

Unless you have absolutely no time in your schedule, I highly recommend you and your creators sign up.

OPTIMIZATION:

Get Back to Basics

After a few conversations this week with creators with stagnated views, I was reminded of Little League.

When I was striking out too much, I go back to my form.

Elbow up. Eye on the ball. Widen your stance.

It’s the same for creators.

A lot of creators worry so much about their MrBeast-ian growth hacks that they forget about the basics.

Stay on brand.

Use metadata that presents a question the viewer needs to be answered.

Hook in the first few seconds.

Evolve slowly or re-brand openly.

Give clear calls to action.

Whether you have 100 followers or 10 million, revisiting the basics weekly will help you start hitting homers again.

MONETIZATION:

AI Companies Want to Pay You

If you’ve uploaded content on social platforms, you’ve likely had your content scraped by major AI large language models.

And you didn’t get paid a dime.

Now there are incredible companies who are trying to flip the script by offering licensing fees for LLMs to train on your content or create likenesses of your image.

Companies like Troveo and Calliope Networks are revolutionizing content licensing for the AI generation, and their rates are strong (if you reach out, make sure to tell them I sent you!)

Warning: once you license your content to AI, it’s theirs. You may be training your replacement someday.

But if you have a large back catalogue of content and you’re ready to make some extra dough, it could be an excellent option!

INDUSTRY HIRING:

OpenAI needs a Community, Head of Internet Creators if you want to convince more creators to fire their writers!

The All-In Podcast wants a Community Manager in case you need every day to feel like Shark Tank.

HopeScope is looking for a Lead YouTube Video Editor. Love of neon colors required.

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.