Dive into the trends shaping the creator economy in 2024 with insights from Inside the Creator Economy editor and publisher Jim Louderback. Watch the full conversation below and/or read on to discover what changes are ahead for creators.
Louderback is confident that “short form [content] is not going anywhere,” despite some articles proclaiming a return to longform media. “People will be consuming a lot of it in those gaps of time between when they’re living their real life,” he says.
On the subject of content formats, Louderback says video podcasts are also on the upswing: “We’re seeing that video podcasts, whether it’s on Spotify or on YouTube, are actually outperforming audio podcasts.”
Another trend that’s accelerating “is the move to live content,” per Louderback. He points to several reasons behind the trend.
“We see TikTok and others really leaning into live shopping, making live streaming super helpful. There are great ways to monetize yourself, if you can build a live audience on Twitch on TikTok, and on other platforms,” Louderback explains.
It’s also a reaction to one of 2024’s super trends: AI. “There are a lot of problems out there with AI deepfakes and not knowing if something is real or not real. That’s going to ratchet up this year,” Louderback says.
In contrast, live content is a reassurance to your audience that your content is real. Your mistakes prove that you’re “not an AI construct because… AI doesn’t really mess up like that.”
(In-person events, in addition to streaming content, are also predicted to benefit from this deepfake backlash.)
Monetization Strategies
“Creators are waking up to the fact that they cannot rely on platform-only revenue to make a living,” Louderback says.
Frankly, “A lot of the revenue that creators counted on in years past has gone away. So Facebook [is] not sharing as much revenue; TikTok [is] cutting back on funds and doing other strange things. And just a lot of revenue sources are going away.”
So in 2024, he says, “It’s all about building your own revenue mixes and doing yield management to figure out ‘How do I take people and think about the platforms as more top-of-funnel and awareness and move my biggest fans over to my own platforms?’ Whether it’s a community, a course, merchandise, or other ways for them to pay you directly.”
A common spin off of this is creators “launching their own products,” which Louderback notes has come with its own set of headaches (not to mention unsold inventory). He emphasizes considering “What are you best at as a creator?” before moving into a different model.
Content Distro
Windowing has come to the creator economy!
Louderback points to the recent kerfuffle over MrBeast’s X content experiment (repurposing existing YouTube videos to the Elon Musk-owned social media site, FKA Twitter) as an example of windowing.
“You may not see the same success on X” by repeating MrBeast’s trial, he says. “But there are other ways to do this sort of windowing of content, including putting them all together in a single, like, 20-, 50-, 100- hour stream and creating a live stream platform on Roku on Pluto or others.”
Additionally, Louderback points out, “we’re starting to see new AI tools that let you take, let’s say, that 20-minute long form that you did, and cut it up into shorter form videos.”
Not only do these tools help you make a quick cut, some can even reformat your content so that it appears in the appropriate dimensions for the destination platform. AI can get creators quickly to “50, 60, 70% of the way” there in these expedited workflows.
The Rise of the Global Creator
Speaking of transforming one piece of content into many: Translation and dubbing services have also been revolutionized by generative AI, Louderback says. In 2024, he says, “If you’re creating great content, and you dub it the right way, and get it out there, you can reach a global audience.”
We’re going to see “the rise of the global creator,” he predicts.
“Using AI and other things, you now can take the content that you do in one language, dub it in another language, it will automatically use your voice speaking that language,” he explains. “And in some ways, it will actually change your face so that it makes it look like your face is speaking French instead of English.”
For example, he says, “YouTube now allows you to have a single channel with multiple voice versions, and it’ll serve [the appropriate] voice version to the native speakers.”
Understanding the Creator Life Cycle
Content creators face the same challenge that has dogged professional athletes forever: You’re not going to do this job forever.
“Creators have a life cycle,” Louderback says. “Short form creators, maybe one to three years; longer form creators, five to seven years. What do you do after that?”
Louderback predicts: “We’re going to hear a lot more about life after creating.”
No matter how long you stayed in the creator game, Louderback says, “You’ve just gone to the University of YouTube or the College of TikTok. And there are a lot of opportunities for creators who no longer have those big audiences, but can use that expertise, working in brands, working at events, doing other things.”
And by the way — creators are starting to determine their own course of study long before the senior thesis.
“Creators realize they are more and more in charge,” Louderback says. “And they’re the ones saying ‘no’ to brands that don’t fit their audience because they’ve realized their audience is more important than the brand dollars.”
Part of what’s driving this change is that “social video platforms have become a mature industry,” according to Louderback.
Of course, maturity doesn’t necessarily equate to stability for creators. These platforms, Louderbacks says, are “doing things that mature businesses do. They’re stealing creators from other platforms. They’re shoving a bunch of different features out there.” The companies are experimenting constantly to retain audiences or, ideally, to incrementally grow their market share.
Louderback points out that YouTube and TikTok’s forays into the world of television are great examples of this.
A Controversial Prediction About AI
Louderback is not convinced that we can rely on AI getting exponentially better, at least not forever. He wonders if 2024 is going to be the year of “garbage in, garbage out,” in programmer parlance.
He says, “AI is going to start feeding on itself” because “tier one sources” (ahem New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc) will “have been shut off” via legal and societal pushback.
If this does indeed come to pass, Louderback says, “The quality of AI, particularly in writing and creating content, will go down because … it’s gonna start training on all those crap AI articles that are flooding the internet.”
Learn More at NAB Show’s Creator Lab
Those attending this spring’s NAB Show will have the opportunity to dive into these trends and much more at Creator Lab. (Louderback serves as one of content curators and program producers, along with Robin Raskin.)
Louderback emphasizes that this is not another meet-and-greet. Creator Lab is focused on developing “infrastructure for creators” and treats creators like “direct-to-consumer CEOs trying to build a business,” he says.
A big part of that infrastructure is literal. Louderback says Creator Lab will feature “the studio and the technology and the gear to actually create great stuff” and point attendees to “do it so that you can compete with other people or not waste a lot of money or time.”
But then there’s also the metaphysical system surrounding content creation. Louderback says they’ll cover: “How do you find the resources? How do you use new tools to upskill and uplevel what you do? How do you find and build the right support teams?”
Creators may be “the CEO of their small business or a large business, direct-to-consumer enterprise. But they need help. They can’t do it all. So how do you find that, too?” Louderback and Creator Lab will provide the resources creators need at NAB Show 2024.
