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⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
MrBeast, the world’s most popular YouTuber, wants to make the jump to streaming
TikTok is reportedly storing sensitive creator data on servers in China
Colin and Samir’s biggest tip for launching a successful Discord server
Some Instagram users have a new Group Chat feature called Roll Call
I’m doing an AMA today (June 2) at 11:30am PT on the new Slack channel I just launched. Become a paying subscriber of ICYMI to get access to the Slack channel and other subscriber-only benefits.
💻 ROADMAP
📲 BeReal Update:
BeReal is testing a new chat feature called RealChat allowing users to send each other private BeReal images.
📲 Snap Update:
Snapchat+ subscribers can now swap pictures with My AI chatbot and receive generative AI Snaps in return.
📲 Meta Updates:
An Australian creator named Jonah Manzano spotted a new Instagram feature this week called Roll Call: a Group Chat mashup of Add Yours and BeReal.
You have five minutes to add a photo or video “on time”
Roll calls and any responses expire after 24 hrs
Person starting a roll call can unsend it at any time
Everyone who adds their photo or video can see yours
Adam Mosseri recorded a 9-minute video (!) to shed more light on how Instagram, and specifically ranking across Feed, Stories, Explore, Reels, and Search, works. If you don’t have the patience to watch, he also recapped the highlights in this informative blog post.
Meta’s threatened to remove news stories from Facebook and Instagram in California rather than come to a rev share agreement with media companies. This is all tied to the Journalism Preservation Act and it’s not an empty threat. People in and outside Australia, which passed similar legislation, can no longer share stories from Australian publishers.
Mark Zuckerberg punked us all by hyping a new release in his Broadcast Channel, only to reveal the new Quest 3 headset. Nothing wrong with that but he knows everyone’s anxiously waiting for the new Instagram app. Come on Mark, give us the goods.
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👆🏻 CLICK THRU
🎲 MrBeast Pitches Game Show to Netflix, Disney, HBO
MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) tweeted at the streaming services on Thursday with a pitch to turn one of his over-the-top YouTube videos into a streaming series to see how it performs.
The Pitch: “Imagine a 10 episode series with 10,000 people competing for the largest prize in game show history”
The Players: Donaldson tagged Netflix, HBO, Peacock and Disney+
Pros: There’s a reason Donaldson is the world’s most popular YouTuber. He understand what gets people to click and, more importantly, what keeps them watching. There’s no guarantee it would translate but it would be a fascinating experiment.
Cons: Donaldson would be trading almost unlimited freedom as part of the deal for streaming distribution. There might be no standards and practices department but he’d still have to contend with programming executives, legal, marketing and lots of other departments weighing in. Even if Netflix took a hands off policy to the production, it would be virtually impossible for MrBeast to control every aspect of distribution and promotion and we could wind up with a watered-down version of his vision.
How This Works: One side would need to yield. Either the streaming service decides it’s a risk worth taking and appoints MrBeast as Chief Creative Officer — temporarily turning the company into Donaldson’s own personal fiefdom. Or MrBeast decides he’s willing to cede some creative control to a streaming company, as long as he gets to produce the greatest game show of all time. Either way, I’d watch.
🫣 TikTok Creators’ Financial Info, Social Security Numbers Have Been Stored In China
TikTok has stored the most sensitive financial data of its biggest stars — those in its "Creator Fund" — on servers in China, according to a Forbes exclusive. This runs contrary to CEO Shou Chew’s testimony before congress earlier this year, where he said under oath: “American data has always been stored in Virginia and Singapore.”
Forbes quoted a TikTok spokesperson saying, “we remain confident in the accuracy of Shou's testimony.” There’s also a take from “YourRichBFF” TikToker Vivian Tu, who said: "If you're okay with being on TikTok, you probably don't care that much about your banking information being everywhere it's stored.”
Creators may or may not care. But if this report does turn out to be true, it could be used in support of a ban and will make it increasingly difficult for TikTok to fight the claims that the Chinese government is harvesting U.S. user data.
In laymen’s terms: don’t do the thing you swore you didn’t do.
🤖 Generative AI comes for advertising
By 2032, AI will influence 90% of all ad revenue, according to this Axios piece on generative AI’s role in advertising. “Agencies will likely take on bigger roles regarding compliance, accountability and measurement,” as generative AI takes on more creative roles.
It doesn’t mean there won’t be a need for creators — along with production capabilities, creators are trusted sources of information. It’s a big part of their value. And it’s that credibility that will serve them in the long run. But it could mean less reliance on UGC creators or other anonymous creatives who could be replaced by generative AI.
🔵 A verified AOC parody account got a boost from Elon Musk’s Twitter
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is justifiably concerned after Elon Musk reinstated and engaged with a verified parody account using her name and avatar. It’s almost impossible to explain how wildly absurd this app has become to a creator or brand manager who’s not on Twitter. Imagine being impersonated on Instagram or TikTok, and not only do Mark Zuckerberg or Shou Chew reinstate the banned account but they openly flirt with it?! It’s a surreal shit show. And it’s only going to make wooing advertisers back to that platform even harder.
Related: Twitter is now worth just one-third of the $44 billion Elon Musk paid for the company, according to Fidelity. And the platform’s head of trust and safety has resigned.
💫 BEYOND SOCIAL
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This is part of an ongoing interview series with creators and influencers who have branched beyond the social feed to reach their audiences. I talk to people who have found new or different ways of connecting with their communities on owned and operated platforms or other unique spaces. Best of all, they’re sharing their tips for doing the same!
This week I swapped emails with Samir Chaudry to get the lowdown on his and Colin Rosenblum’s community efforts. They just launched a Discord server — something I’ve seen several creators do this year. So, I had to know more. How does Discord fit within the Colin and Samir universe, which includes the speaker circuit — they’re making multiple VidCon appearances later this month; two consistent YouTube channels — Colin and Samir and Creator Support; a podcast; and a newsletter?
Lia Haberman: What’s your primary social platform?
Samir Chaudry: Our primary social platform is YouTube, where we upload interviews and behind the scenes videos with creators on the Colin and Samir channel. In early 2023, we started a second channel called Creator Support, where we host a weekly podcast answering questions from our audience about the business of being a creator. The goal of the second channel is to build depth with our community – so the metrics we pay most attention to are average view duration and returning viewers, not subscribers or views.
LH: Where else are you looking to connect and communicate with your community?
SC: We started the Colin and Samir Discord server as an extension of our relationship with the Creator Support audience. The audience that listens to Creator Support is really highly engaged, and listens to the show every week. We actually make the show with our audience, by answering their questions about how to build a career as a creator. But we can’t answer every question that we’re asked, so we saw an opportunity to build a space where our community could answer each others’ questions.
There’s a huge need for spaces that allow not only Creator to audience interactions, but audience to audience interactions, and YouTube comments really aren’t great for that. Discord helps us organize conversations and build a deeper relationship with and between our fans.
LH: How does the Discord server help you?
SC: The Discord gives us immediate feedback from our audience on our content and on what they’d like to see from us in the future. For instance, we have a channel called thumbnail feedback. We posted a draft of our thumbnail for an upcoming episode and got over 150 comments with feedback for how we could improve it. And it’s not just us, I jump in the Discord and give feedback to other community members, as creatives I think giving feedback can at times teach you more than getting feedback.
It’s also really cool to talk with our audience via Discord, instead of at them. Two of our favorite features are voice chats and Stages. In voice chats, small groups of our community are just hanging out and chatting – I jumped into a voice chat that was a group edit session, which was really cool to be part of. Being a creator can be such a lonely job, so helping build relationships between creators is really fulfilling. We use Stages to host AMAs, where our audience can ask Colin and I questions. But unlike the Creator Support Show, we can ask follow up questions and hear more specifics from our community members.
LH: Are you monetizing Discord — what does that look like?
SC: We launched the server in partnership with Discord, which is now a sponsor of the Creator Support show. We were first approached by Discord for a partnership after we left a podcast network at the end of 2022, and said we were looking for a partner on the show. It’s great to work with a community-building brand that is actually part of our community. The integration with Discord is really genuine, and is likely something we would have launched if we weren’t partners, but having their support helped us build the community faster and with better organization.
LH: What’s your BEST tip for other creators considering this?
SC: Our best tip for other creators interested in starting a Discord is to plan out the structure of the Discord before you go live, so that the community knows how to engage when joining a Discord. We built a really intentional space, with channels for feedback, questions, discussing creator news and sharing memes and inside jokes about the show, and that’s set us up for success.
That does require more work upfront, so having a strong team of moderators and support from Discord really helped. Moderators will likely emerge from within your community and it’s important to take it slow and allow that to happen. The most engaged community members will deeply care about maintaining the value and culture of the space.
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Thanks to the team at Insider who added me to the list of 23 Top Creator Economy Experts to Know. Follow, subscribe, download or read everything this all-star roster of smart people are sharing — they inform me daily. And add to this list the incredibly talented Insider journalists who consistently put out some of the best reporting on the business of being a creator: Sydney Bradley, Shriya Bhattacharya, Nhari Djan, Amanda Perelli and Marta Biino, among others.
*The Insider union is on strike today so the decision not to link to the article is a conscious one.
🎓 IN SESSION
Mekanism’s Chief Innovation Officer Brendan Gahan spoke to my UCLA Extension class this week about social strategies and shared this valuable tip for creators on how to approach brand deals with repeat business in mind:
Working with so many creators, a lot of people don't read their contracts and so they don't hit their deadlines, they're late, they're unorganized.
There's a real lack of understanding sometimes that this is a legally binding document and they're a little bit too loosey goosey about it. And that's just not the way brands want to work.
Internally, we definitely keep a list of creators that are great to work with and creators that are not. And we will go back time and time again and even try and shoehorn in certain creators that are easier to work with.
🔨 RESOURCE
Marketer Chris Lam is doing a 30 posts in 30 days LinkedIn challenge and shared a spreadsheet of her content prompts. Follow her for small business marketing ideas and tons of actionable tips.
📖 ON YOUR RADAR
Beauty brand Too Faced hired TikTok creator Sara Echeagaray as its first-ever Creative Director In Residence -Lindsey Gamble
L’Oreal Philippines to train ‘beauty influencers’ -Business World
22-year-old Fanfix founder sells subscription platform for $65 million -Lad Bible
TikTok Creator Marketplace Myth-Busting -TikTok
Caroline Calloway Survived Cancellation. Now She’s Doubling Down… by writing a memoir and Vanity Fair is lapping it up in this cringe feature - Vanity Fair
Generative AI Podcasts Are Here. Prepare to Be Bored -Wired
Perfect Corp and Snapchat are leaders in the constantly improving virtual beauty try-on tech -Retail Brew
While parents worry, teens are bullying Snapchat AI -TechCrunch
College Grads Are Turning Their Backs on the Tech Industry -DotLA
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