Phil Ranta’s Post

49% of consumers make at least one purchase per month due to influencer posts. Is your brand showing up? Sprout Social, Inc. just dropped their ‘2024 Influencer Marketing Report’ and it’s packed with good info (btw, this is a sponsored post for Sprout Social) Spoiler alert: influencer marketing works. But loads of platitudes you hear on creator economy panels don’t appear to be true. For example, only 35% of Gen Z value influencer authenticity. That’s way below the 50%+ from Millennials and Baby Boomers. This is incredible news for the AI revolution. In fact, 37% of consumers would be more interested in a brand if they used AI influencers. And some brands may have to use AI to up their owned content game. 93% of influencers say a brand’s current social content impacts whether they will collaborate with that brand. So it’s not just about the money anymore. In short: 📈 Brands, learn AI and make content. Your buyers will love it and creators value your content. 🎥 Creators, authenticity isn’t as important as ‘aligning with viewer values’, so stand for something! 👨👨👦 Viewers, your trust in influencers is growing, with 30% of you trusting influencers more than they did 6 months ago. A bit of extra good news for shoppable video! There are loads of more awesome data about influencer marketing pricing, AI, and success metrics, so check out the whole report here: https://bit.ly/4aPdeaY Let me know what you learned from the report that I missed! #socialmedia #creatoreconomy #SproutSocialPartner

Marketers rejoice! Google cookies are sticking around through 2025! Users revolt! You're going to continue to be tracked around the web! Cookies are such a tricky subject. On one hand, understanding how users move around the internet does lead to more targeted and effective ads which should create a better experience for users. If I go to parenting websites, send me stroller ads. If I go to video game blogs, don't send me stroller ads. On the other hand, most internet users likely don't understand how much of their data is being accessed and by whom. And if they did know, they'd likely not love it. How many times have you heard people say, "I was talking to my husband about _____ then I saw a Facebook ad about it!" Huge 'ick factor'. It's one of the reasons I'm so bullish on influencer marketing. You don't need to track someone around the internet to know someone who follows a book reviewer on YouTube to know they like books. They're watching a book reviewer! But increased privacy regulation is an inevitability. And brands with an owned social audience and/or has a mature influencer marketing strategy and/or has built a 1:1 relationship with their customers will win. And if you haven't, let's chat! #influencermarketing #cookies #socialmedia https://lnkd.in/gypi-Jmz

Your content has three audiences. This is an oversimplification, but it helps to think of these three buckets with every single post you create. How do you make sure strangers like you enough to follow? How do you make sure casual followers become fans? How do you make sure fans don't get bored and keep becoming bigger fans? Brevity is the point, so tap in if you want some tips! This edition is sponsored by DoubleJack, the iGaming platform that gives 75% of platform earnings back to the influencers that refer players to their platform. If the house always wins, now you're the house! More info inside! #socialmedia #creatoreconomy #linkedinnewsletter

Telegram is quietly growing into a creator-first powerhouse. When most people think of the Telegram app, they think 'messaging'. Maybe 'end-to-end encryption' or 'another WhatsApp'. But there are signals that they are poised for an incredible breakthrough. 🤼 Despite WhatsApp being owned by Meta and therefore has incredible resources and staff, Telegram has almost half as many users (900m to WhatsApp's 2b). 💾 Notice that the cool tech, especially in AI, seems to always push to Telegram? That's because they made it super easy to build software and accept payments through the app. 🤑 Speaking of payments, Telegram is super crypto-friendly and recently announced free USDt transfers, NFT transfers, and teased other stablecoin partnerships. I know I haven't talked about digital assets recently, but they're having another incredible run right now. 🎥 But what does this have to do with creators? Quite simply, they make it incredibly easy to start a 'broadcast channel' where you can have a one-to-many experience, they have an amazing camera that can capture both your front- and back-facing camera at the same time, and, as mentioned before, you can do a lot of cool payment and coding stuff to enhance the experience. May be time to consider a Telegram play, creators and brands! And thank you to Anthony Adamovich from Squad.App for putting this on my radar, which led to me spending three hours on the app last night tinkering around. #creatoreconomy #socialmedia #telegram

A new web experience has launched on Snap! So why would such a 'mobile first' company put effort into their web experience? I can see a few reasons: ✨ With Snap leaning into AI messaging, they've likely looked at the metrics of other chat apps on web. For example, WhatsApp is getting 2.5b monthly users on WhatsApp Web. That's a huge audience for text chat, and if Snap can also lead in AI, filters, and images, that can be a huge win! 🎥 It's meaningful that a video feed of virals shows up on the right-hand panel. Watch time is longer on the web, and if Snap wants to bring in more meaningful ad dollars, getting more web viewership is a strong move. I don't follow anyone that showed up in my video feed. 👴🏼 Snap's been around for a while, and they now have more users that are working professionals. Having a cooler way than Slack to chat with colleagues (and free-er!) could bring on a valuable new user segment. Have you checked it out? What do you think? #Snap #creatoreconomy #socialmedia

Meta's Llama 3 model is finally open to the public! And it's pretty much a ChatGPT clone. So let's do a bit of apples-to-apples testing on the important part: are the outputs better or worse? (Spoiler: the real-time image generation feature is THE killer feature of this platform) This is a longer edition, so I'll keep this part brief. Tap in and see how Meta's LLM performed! This edition is sponsored by Wolfsbane.ai, your IP protector in the age of AI. Give it a try and let them know I sent you! https://wolfsbane.ai #llama3 #ai #socialmedia

The TikTok 'ban or sell' bill passed the House. And, no, I'm not panicked. Not even a little bit. First of all, I believe divesting is the smart move for TikTok. I think if / when this gets more real, they'll agree. There's too much at stake and, to be frank, there are so many Chinese apps gathering so much data on US citizen data I don't think they want to get too aggro here and risk larger legislation. But perhaps more importantly, I have learned in my 18 years working in the creator economy that in times of great uncertainty and change, the cream rises to the top. Not just for creators, but for executives. The creators that have built stable businesses cross-platform with deep fandom would leap far ahead if TikTok gets banned. And large creators and brands that didn't plan for this possibility will drop into my DMs begging for strategic help to redirect their content and audience. Finally, TikTok has already shown us what consumers want, and YouTube, Meta, Snap, and even Uber Eats has copied their feed. My creators and brands won't have to change their content much to thrive on these other platforms with the exact same strategy. I hope TikTok can continue operations per usual. It's a fantastic algorithm, boundary-pushing technology (during a time when most social platforms are failing hard at innovation), and thousands of small businesses and creators depend on the platform. But I also hope these creators and SME's are preparing for the worst case scenario. And if you aren't, let's talk! #creatoreconomy #tiktok #socialmedia https://lnkd.in/g2MQprVN

Meta's Llama 3 is here, and ready for you to use! Seriously. Go to https://meta.ai and try it. I'm going to do a full review in my next 'Generative Phil' newsletter, but in short: it's hard to tell the difference between this and ChatGPT at first blush. Except for the image generation. Oh. My. God. The real-time generation of pictures based on your current prompts, typos and all, is an absolute gamechanger. No waiting for generation and meticulously prompt-tweaking. Just type until you have what you want. Keep adding adjectives. Go back and delete stuff. Add new stuff in the background. And in near realtime it generates. Crazy to think that in just over a year, we went from laughing at Dall-E 2's inability to draw Shrek to this. I can't even imagine where we'll be next year at this time. #AI #creatoreconomy #meta

A single idea can be hundreds of pieces of content. If you're struggling to develop new ideas, you may be working too hard. I have presented my mix/remix strategy to hundreds of creators, and even those who may no longer remember my name are still using it to this day. And those seem to be the ones who aren't burning out. In this edition, I provide a very simple framework to extend a single idea into near-infinite pieces of content and optimize for success along the way. Brevity is the point, so tap below to read! And if you enjoy this edition, give it a share. It helps out the newsletter tremendously! #socialmedia #linkedinnewsletter #creatoreconomy

LA creator economy peeps: let's grab a drink! Brendan Gahan, Avi Gandhi, James Creech, and me (known as the 'Creator Authority Party Planning Committee') are hosting a get together in Santa Monica along with our friend, Favikon's founder and CEO Jeremy Boissinot. Jeremy is coming from Paris, so if you miss this event you'll have to make a mad dash to the airport like the last scene in a romantic comedy! This is a collab between Creator Authority and Favikon and YOU! RSVP link is in the comments! Leave a comment if you're coming so everyone knows all of the wonderful people planning on being there! Location announced soon. #losangeles #creatoreconomy #meetup