Influencers are Media Entrepreneurs.
In the creator economy, the line between influencer and entrepreneur is blurring fast. What’s coming next will reshape the entire media landscape.
In all the discussion about the creator economy, it’s easy to forget that the business of being a creator is changing as fast as the media industry it's replacing.
Evan Shapīro, one of the sharpest minds in TV and streaming media, highlighted this transformation in his most recent article (video below), where he pointed out that The Hollywood Reporter's "50 Most Influential Influencers" list "... is not a list of Insta models. This is a comprehensive list of successful entrepreneurs, many of whom run large and growing enterprises."
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Over the last decade creators have evolved from individuals posting on social media into micro-media companies, and now a few are taking the next step into building personality-driven business ecosystems with a variety of sub-brands, media endeavors and celebrity endorsements.
If you’re still thinking of the creator economy as brand sponsorships for media-friendly individuals, you’re in the wrong universe.
While most of the people on The Hollywood Reporter's list started as TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube stars, the long-term winners are the creators who see their audience as an engine for expansion into various businesses — podcasting, TV, agency work, events, or media brands — minus traditional media's baggage.
If you’re still thinking of the creator economy as brand sponsorships for media-friendly individuals, you’re in the wrong universe.
Look at Jake Paul's Betr Media network with its creator network and sub-brands, Mr. Beast's food empire, or Azam Faze's agency, Gymnasium, whose tagline nails the moment: "We're making TV for the screen you actually watch."
The headline-grabbing case studies have a lot of zeros in the deals, but remember that there are waves of smaller creator-entrepreneurs coming along, all building audiences to fuel multi-faceted careers.
Goldman Sachs now estimates that the global creator economy will hit half a trillion dollars in a few years, powered by both blockbuster deals and countless smaller partnerships with a sprawling ecosystem of creator-led businesses.
All signs already point in that direction. Brands consistently say they plan to increase investment in creator content, with over a third of marketers planning to spend more than 25% of their budget on creators.
Interestingly, the Linqia research above also indicates that 94% of brands use influencer content outside of the creators’ channels, and 81% generate content that those creators will never post on their own channels.
Two things jump out here. First, this means that creators are replacing agencies and traditional “creatives.” This is neither surprising nor new, as creators have long been on-trend, agile and masters of the medium.
Second, it’s a sign that many creators are recognizable enough that brands can leverage their content outside their own channels. (This is typically a budget question too, as many creators charge separately for content creation and posting, so brands may be optimizing budgets by using content on their own channels, and reaching audiences via paid.)
All the data back up a marketing focus on creators. In the many creator-driven brand campaigns I’ve worked on, the creators consistently blow brand channels out of the water for reach and engagement, and they can be highly effective lower in the funnel via affiliate too. Brands are growing their investment in this area because, as Adam Faze says, our phones are the screens we actually watch.
The disruption is wreaking havoc on jobs in traditional media and TV and streaming, but a variety of agencies may be at risk too.
The Linqia study indicates that the strategy and labor to manage this new economy won’t come from traditional agencies. Only 9% of their respondents were using their PR or creative agencies for creator programs. The preferred options were creator agencies or an in-house with a creator platform.
So where does this leave us?
I worked with a variety of athletes through Instagram’s rapid growth phase, and saw first-hand the burnout of a single person trying to post their way to financial independence. It’s relentlessly demanding, burnout-inducing, and monetization is hard.
The creators who win in the media entrepreneurship phase will be operators who run media brands with the operational savvy of a big company and less overhead. We’ll see them benefit via affiliate opportunities, new business ventures, and very likely via collectives of creators that can share resources and grow audiences together. Those networks will stretch the definition of the “creator” economy.
The creator economy isn't just growing—it's maturing. The future belongs to those who can scale beyond personal brands into true media enterprises.
There will be additional burden on creators as well. As these media entrepreneurs find more financial success, they’ll likely be expected to take more responsibility for their posting. That will range from providing increasingly sophisticated performance data and analytics to brand partners, to fact checking and disclosure to actual accountability for what they say. So far we’ve largely excused “just asking questions,” and “big, if true”, but brands may not put up with that forever.
The creator economy isn't just growing—it's maturing. The future belongs to those who can scale beyond personal brands into true media enterprises, while maintaining the authenticity that attracted their audiences in the first place.
TL;DR:
Don’t think of creators as just influencers anymore—they're becoming full-fledged media companies with diverse revenue streams.
Goldman Sachs projects a $500B creator economy by 2027, built on both mega-deals and thousands of smaller creator businesses.
Brands are bypassing traditional agencies to work directly with creators, even using their content outside social channels.
The next phase belongs to creators who can operate like media companies while maintaining authentic connections.