Influencers Earn Money Through Brands, Virality, or Division
The 3 routes to influencer $ (v.i.): 1. Brand deals/"human billboard," & usually beholden to (multiple) brands 2. Platform partners/desperate pursuit of virality, usu via clickbait/negative emotional arousal 3. Monetize audience/usually involves cultivating "us vs them" dynamic.
Substack Bestsellers Aren’t Guaranteed Profits, Just Hype
Being a bestseller on Substack doesn't mean you're making money. It looks like they've created those lists with the purpose of blowing smoke up your ass to keep you producing content.
Trust Beats Audience Size; Convert, Don’t Just Attract
Everyone's building an audience. Almost nobody's building trust. Audience tells you how many people see you. Trust tells you how many will actually buy. Those are not the same number. For most people, they're not even close. Reach gets you in the room. Trust closes the deal. Stop...
Half of Surveyed Users Admit Tipping Fatigue, Reduce Tips
In a clear sign that tipping fatigue is hitting home, nearly half of respondents to a new survey said they're not tipping as much as they used to. https://t.co/RfbfQZTASa
Pick the Platform that Fits Your Audience, Not Hype
Every platform expert is going to tell you their platform is the most important one. TikTok experts will tell you TikTok is where all the growth is happening. LinkedIn experts will tell you that LinkedIn is where all the money is. Instagram experts...
Bookfunnel Streamlines ARC, Bonuses, Audiobooks & Newsletter Integration
Benefits of Bookfunnel for authors- What I use mine for… Arc sending Bonus scene & Reader Magnet distribution with newsletter sub integration. Direct Audiobook distribution integrated with Shopify website. Sign up for newsletter sub blasts with other authors or sales/freebies blasts...
YouTube Rolls Out Dozens of Creator‑focused Features Worldwide
Over the last month, our @youtube team shipped these products and features for our viewers and @youtubecreators: 🪟Fully custom multiview on @YouTubeTV ⏳Countdown stickers for mobile live streamers 🖼️Picture-in-Picture for non-music content globally 🔍Ask YouTube, a new way for Premium subscribers to...
AI Becomes Competitive Edge, Saving 10 Hours Weekly
Wayne Stiles runs Walking the Bible Lands—a business where creativity and content are everything. AI could have been just another distraction. Instead, the AI Business Lab® Mastermind turned it into his biggest competitive advantage. He now uses AI as a thought...
Twitch Trials Personalized Shoutouts for Subscriber Milestones
Twitch is testing a way to send personalized notes to your viewers as Streamer Shouts. This will include things like Subscriber Anniversaries, A Returning Viewer, Watch Streaks, and more. It's being tested with a small group of streamers.
AI Triples Amazon eBook Volume, Floods Market with Slop
If you thought the book market was crowded before, it's even worse now. Since the release of AI, the number of new eBooks published on Amazon has jumped 3x from 100,000 to 300,000 per month. And established authors who've published books...
X Payouts Lag Despite Higher Impressions and Content Volume
My X payout is much lower than my last payout, even though I have been posting more short-form content (1-3m), and my impressions have gone up significantly. Meta and YouTube payouts are very consistent in relation to analytics I have...
Platypus Economics Hits Substack's New Bestseller List
Love to see it. Absolutely love it. Platypus Economics launches at the top of Substack's "New Bestseller" list. Come join us! Apparently all the cool kids are doing it: https://t.co/2QEpMRPmd8 https://t.co/XGzaSzbJJb
Ben's New Interview Revisits 1987 on Our Channel
Ben, the glue that keeps dampedspring together, just launched his own content on our YT feed. He interviewed me about 1987. It's fun. First installment here. https://t.co/esbKNwEi5s
Switching to Beehiiv After SXSW Happy Hour Serendipity
Who has two thumbs and just committed to moving her newsletter list over to @beehiiv? This girl 👍👍 Lots more to come on this, but it feels like serendipity after going to their happy hour event at SXSW earlier this year....
AI Analyzes Newsletter Subject Lines to Boost Open Rates
If you run a newsletter, you need this AI workflow: I connected my newsletter to Claude (via Beehiiv MCP) and asked it to analyze every subject line against open rate from the last year. It categorized 60+ sends, ran the math, and...
BACH Ensures Consistent Characters Across AI Video Shots
Every AI video creator has this nightmare: You generate a character with one prompt… but in the next shot, she’s a different person. Different face. Different skin. Different eyes. You can’t tell a story like that. BACH — the world’s first...
Different Skills Needed: Content Creation vs Live Selling
On a previous #TeawithGaryVee I was asked "Can you break down the skill set required to be a great content creator on social versus the skill set to be a great live seller?" if you have a question for me, drop...
TikTok: Musicians' Ultimate Guide to Audience Growth
TikTok is the most powerful music discovery tool ever built. Here's everything you need to know about using it to grow your audience, straight from the musicians who've figured it out. https://t.co/qRVoz0fI6E
AI Influencers Erode Trust by Masquerading as Real Advisors
AI influencers are starting to sell fitness, health and lifestyle advice that looks completely real. The problem is not just fake images. It’s that people increasingly cannot tell whether the person giving advice even exists. That changes the internet fundamentally. Trust is...
Polo AI Beats All Competitors at $0.11 /Video
You're overpaying for Seedance 2.0 generation. 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨 𝐀𝐈 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐭 $𝟎.𝟏𝟏/𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨 — the market's lowest price. That's a better rate than Seedance, OpenArt, Topview, Higgsfield, and Freepik. Create more. Test more. Spend less. The best tools win on quality. The best...
Packaging on YT Matters; Team Delivers Strong Results
A reminder that packaging on YT is a BIG deal. Team did a great job here. To be clear, I’m still a fan of @openclaw and think that @steipete and co will figure it out. https://t.co/NXnC4jql1Z
AI Search Strategy Perfectly Powers Influencer Marketing
Tim gets it, too. AI search strategy (or AEO, or GEO...whatever you want to call it) is a perfect match for influencer/creator marketing work. Take those two programs and combine them into one. https://t.co/JKkeX942Hs
OnlyFans Outscores Entire Premier League Revenue
We often talk about the growth of the Premier League and football in general, with it being trumpeted as one of the UK's biggest brands. But is that true? The biggest PL revenue club (Liverpool) generated £703m in 2025,...
Viewbot Crackdown Unlikely to Hurt Creators, Says Streamer
was streaming when the viewbotting update was announced - but have seen a lot of pessimism and concern that this will harm creators (by using viewbots as a weapon). But I don't see that being likely. This is how I...
Substack Gains Google Scholar Citations, Boosting Academic Credit
Good news for academics—substack is now piloting a project to allow for citations to Google Scholar. This means if you write a great piece on substack and someone cites it in an academic journal, then you will get a DOI and...
Boomer Bonanza: Celeb Podcasts Fetch Seven‑Figure Deals
the podcast industry is in its Boomer Bonanza phase. the hottest bidding war right now is for a yet-to-launch show from ina garten (7-figure offers per year) while oprah just signed a mega deal with amazon for her show
AI‑Curated Viral Pipelines Are the Future of Social Media
Love it or hate it, this is where social media is heading. Why force originality when you can curate viral trends, run them through Claude agents, strip the AI smell, and auto-publish? Robin just open-sourced this pipeline (Claude Code, Postiz, Apify). Fascinating to...
B2B Visibility Now Driven by Creators and SMEs
Aaaaand another one: @Substack's Comms lead surfacing that more teams are talking creator partnerships over on LinkedIn today. The future of B2B visibility is creators and third-party SMEs 👏 https://t.co/ayEauSHIgX
Twitch’s Community Focus Creates Moat, TikTok Stays Swipe‑driven
Daniel Clancy thinks nobody met their partner by leaving a TikTok comment. "I really like your comment. Want to get together sometime?" was something nobody ever said on TikTok. Ever. The Twitch CEO delivered that line with a straight face...
Staying Solo Keeps Creative Control and Authentic Content
One thing I see is the moment YouTubers built big teams and stop doing things themselves things go wrong fast It's better to just DIY and solo it and keep control of your narrative, I like how PewDiePie always did that I...
Match Demand: Answer, Teach, Review to Gain Views
The real reason you're not getting views? Low demand. 👀 It doesn't matter how good your video is if nobody's searching for it. Stick to three formats: answer questions, teach skills, review products. Serve the demand. 🎯 https://t.co/QpjDZ9U1Ps
Hybrid Monetization Drives 59% Ad Revenue Surge
AppLovin Q1 2026 earnings: 59% ad revenue growth, the hybrid monetization opportunity for games "In prepared remarks, AppLovin’s CEO highlighted a trend of mobile games adopting a hybrid monetization model (ads and in-app purchases), given the opportunity to monetize through advertising...
Big Social Followings Will Drive Future Film Investments
I think the next generation of actors and filmmakers will have grown up in a culture that rewards a large follower base. Not everyone who slings sleep aids on TikTok will star in the next Marvel movie, but I think...
Band Battles Surge of AI‑generated Bootleg Remixes
The deluge of AI-generated music on streaming platforms continues. Took a look at one band's efforts to curb bootleg AI remixes of its work: https://t.co/ems6ELKMwU
Lock a Single Face Across All AI Video Clips
This is kind of insane. I just found the fix for every AI video creator's biggest headache. Bach lets you upload one photo, AI locks that face across every clip. Same face, same skin, same eyes and no drift, no reshoot, no fixing...
Publishers Shift From Google Dependency to Own Traffic
“Diller said publishers had been “serfs on the property and land of the monopoly of Google and this transition out of depending upon someone else to give you traffic, this is what every animal has done in this digital world...
Jack Dorsey Revives Vine, Now Called Divine
Jack Dorsey is relaunching Vine as Divine nearly 10 years after he killed it. https://t.co/D7JGsJpOP4
Artists Must Track Every Sale to Avoid Exploitation
Artists most likely to get taken advantage of are those who don't keep track of their art: Where it's for sale, how it's priced, if or how much a seller can discount it without needing to contact you, what's sold,...
Apple Faces Sanction Risk if App Fees Exceed 4%
Boom Apple has now exhausted all options AFAIK. IMHO, if they try to push the required revenue share on apps from current 0% to anything north of ~4%, it would seem to be sanctionable at this point. https://t.co/LC2RgB3aFr
Google Gemini's Lyria Generates Full Songs, Not Just Lyrics
Creating song lyrics with AI is so 2025. Now you can compose entire songs using the Lyria model in Google Gemini. It's pretty darn astonishing. Here's how it works, with sample tracks in a variety of styles: https://t.co/7pNLIXLd7b #gemini #lyria...
Shorts Are My Top Growth Driver, Newsletter Coming Soon
Fascinating insights from my @YouTube channel: Shorts are WINNING for me, and I will be doing a deep dive on this in my newsletter very soon📈 https://t.co/81VS3AtmgC
Switching From Patreon to Substack with Free and Paid Options
I'm not the best at promoting. Currently I'm moving from Patreon to Substack, sparking the comment of "You have a Patreon?" I've also enabled paid subscriptions on the substack but the free option is still there as well. https://t.co/gRzWl9zBMm
Twitch Bans Off‑platform Bit Use, Tightens Enforcement
Twitch has updated the Bits Acceptable Use policy for the first time since 2018. Changes: - Bits can ONLY be used for things on Twitch. (A ban on anything off-platform or of monetary value.) - Much stricter enforcement, including a new "forfeiture clause". -...
LinkedIn Creator Partnerships Boost B2B SaaS Leads
B2B SaaS are getting smart about leveraging LinkedIn creator partnerships and seeing real impact on lead generation + sales. I did a deep dive on the data in today's newsletter: https://t.co/Gjlq6bTA8f https://t.co/Q5MXl083gP
Explanatory Content Beats Contrarian for Paying Subscribers
Wow, Claude just looked at my newsletter analytics to analyze what drives the highest conversion to paid subscribers. I LOVED this response: "Explanatory beats contrarian. People pay to understand. Pretty much the opposite of Twitter dynamics." 🤣
Data-Driven Thumbnails and Titles Drive YouTube Growth
YouTube growth isn't just about great content anymore. 👀 It's about testing what gets people to click. Thumbnails. Titles. Data. Creativity still matters. But data is what scales it. 🎯 https://t.co/E6UezYOUCh
Bundle Sponsorships Across Platforms for Steady $10K Income
The approach I take that has turned sponsorship revenue into a (fairly consistent) $7-10k/mo stream: Multiple touch points. My channel is small (31.6k), but I have my mailing list, my socials, and my website with a fairly high domain authority. Combine that with...
Webby Livestream Creator Award Misattributed to Bieber
The Webby Award for Best Livestream Creator went to... Justin Bieber. However, Bieber didn't actually win as he's nowhere on the list of credits. Instead, Twitch and Stagepilot received the award.
Influencer Marketing Spend Nears Tipping Point, Creators Brace
The way advertisers spend money on influencer marketing is heading toward a tipping point. @dwhate & I break down what it means for creators: https://t.co/Iq6mouafEU
Economics Is Useful, Surprising, and Beautifully Universal
Announcing: @PlatypusEcon — a Substack, YouTube channel, and podcast built around one idea: Economics is one of the most useful, surprising, and weirdly beautiful subjects in the world. It belongs to everyone — not just the people who happened to...