Sponsored by RockWater

Mia Zelu’s sudden ubiquity says more about AI content than the oceans of ink spilled on tech editorial pages over the past two years.

AI content can work.

We know because it already is.

And hand-wringing about ethics and content precision misses the bigger story: a lot of social media users don’t really investigate too deeply when figuring out whether the content they’re engaging with is ‘real.’

So is Mia Zelu the future or a fluke?

Also in this edition:

• Creators’ Inspiration, Aspiration, and Persperation

• LinkedIn’s Recent Time Machine

• Twitch Gets Vertical

• Substack’s $100m Growth Trajectory

• Job ops from Pixio, CommentSold, and Thrive Market

• …and a dank creator economy meme by yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

Wimbledon’s Biggest Racket

If you haven’t heard of Mia Zelu by now, you’ve been living under a rock (and didn’t read the top of this newsletter).

She’s blonde. She’s stylish. She’s wealthy. She’s confident. She’s all ones and zeroes.

There’s almost no information to glean from her socials about why she was created, who created her, or what tech stack can be attributed to the content, but we can see how audiences have engaged.

But there are three lessons that Mia has taught us that have become undeniable:

A lot of social media users don’t care if something is made by AI if it’s good. Let’s face it: most Instagram creators may as well be AI. They’re static images with aesthetic scenes and post text that’s usually as deep as a puddle. Mia Zelu is an aspirational, good looking woman who got to ‘attend’ Wimbledon in amazing clothes and a confident way about her. Is that so different from many of the models who were actually at Wimbledon?

AI can also benefit from the idea of being popular for being popular. Mia’s turning point was 12 weeks ago when she had a viral post that showed her at Wimbledon looking well put together, even showing up on the court talking to the players. A brief scan of the comments shows that many posts from the first few weeks had no idea she wasn’t real. She was surfaced by the algorithm. Once the news story broke, the comments changed to talking about her as an AI character. But after that post, her per-post impressions and engagement jumped 5x.

The imperfections of AI are acceptable to most. One of the biggest posts on Mia’s accounts show her legs and she clearly has two knees on one leg. Her outfit changes within a single location. Her face doesn’t look the same post over post. Her tan changes. She holds water bottles with jibberish labels. There’s not really a cohesive plotline in her life or comments. Nobody cares outside of the wonkiest social media circles.

What Mia Zelu’s account has shown us is one way AI content can and will catch fire despite the naysayers continuing to scream ‘nay.’

So does this mark the end of the human creator?

Absolutely not.

But much like reality TV was able to take a massive bite out of primetime scripted viewership, AI creators are going to eat very well.

As long as they create like humans.

SPONSORED BY ROCKWATER

Have you thought about selling your creator business?

RockWater advises owners in the creator economy on the sale of their business. We have the largest buyer network, and negotiate the best deals possible for our clients. We’re proud to be the industry’s top M&A advisor.

We recently advised Lionize, an influencer marketing platform, on their sale to gen.video. We’ve also advised Long Haul Mgmt (sold to Wasserman), Bottle Rocket Mgmt (sold to Night), Bounty (sold to gen.video), and have many more deals yet to be announced.

If you want a POV on your company’s valuation and readiness for a sale, reach out to to [email protected] to setup an intro call.

GROW 1%:

Phil Ranta’s weekly social media growth newsletter with one actionable tip to grow.

This week’s ‘Grow 1%’ is titled Inspiration, Aspiration, and Perspiration and discusses a simplified framework on how to be successful on social media.

Here’s an excerpt, and you can read the entire edition in the link above:

I spent the week in Lubbock, Texas, meeting with the brilliant team at The Creator Society, who are helping creators sell millions of dollars per month in affiliate goods through social media.

Not total. Their top creators are individually selling millions per month.

Affiliate creators are playing a challenging game. They live and die by the 'pitch' in each post.

Sometimes the pitch is obvious: "Buy this pitch! This product is great!"

But sometimes the pitch is more subtle: "I'm wearing this amazing dress. You can get it too by clicking this link."

And discussing the careers of these creators made me think about an old framework I used to present to clients I worked with: Inspiration, Aspiration, and Perspiration.

Continue reading here.

FAME & FORTUNE:

LinkedIn has their time tables a bit confused. Now that they’re surfacing more content that are weeks or months old if they have strong engagement, users are starting to point out that there’s still content being surfaced announcing they will be at Cannes or asking for recommendations for job posts that closed weeks ago. When industry news moves fast, this can be devastating to the usefulness of their timeline!

Twitch is firing shots at TikTok’s successful live video business by introducing vertical video as part of their platform. Considering they just lost the second-place spot for vertical watch time to TikTok (YouTube is still first) they may find themselves leaning even harder into IRL moving forward.

Substack, the newsletter service turned viable option for journalists looking to launch paid newsletters announced a $100m Series C fundraise at a $1.1b valuation. Considering they launched 16 years after Mailchimp and could become so dominant in the market by focusing on independent creators, it’s one heck of a testament to the power of the creator economy.

Songwriters rejoice! TikTok announced they will begin crediting songwriters on platform. Considering the importance of music to drive discovery and viewership on TikTok, this appears to be a way to woo the best musicians to focus on TikTok as a primary distribution outlet.

INDUSTRY HIRING:

Pixio needs an Influencer Marketing Manager but don’t even try to make any ‘monitor their growth’ puns.

CommentSold is looking for a Creator Experience Manager who can watch shoppable video streams all day without going into permanent debt.

Thrive Market wants a Manager, Partnerships - Instagram who can check out aesthetic food pics for 8 hours per day.

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.