The Engagement Rate

An industry bulletin for marketing pros.

April is a month of renewal and growth, so we thought to delve into what’s working well in the industry to help inspire you. Have a killer week! 👊

Industry latest

🤳It looks like TikTok is closer to launching its new photo app than we thought. Rumors are floating that still image uploads will also be viewable on "TikTok Notes”. 

📍Snapchat's annual Partner Summit, where it unveils new updates for the app and its expanded projects, is set for September 17th, 2024, at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, CA.

⛔X faces potential ban in Brazil after Elon Musk defies court order to block "certain popular accounts”. 

^{Sponsored by Smart Recognition}

🤯 New AI LeadGen Tool Identifies Email Address of Your Visitors 

What if we told you that you can now Identify the email addresses of your anonymous website traffic!

Rather than getting only 5% of your traffic via an opt-in form, a new AI-powered tool, Smart Recognition, lets you target and email most of your website traffic, growing your email list and revenue faster!

Here are some examples of how you can use this:

• 10x your list growth.

• Send more abandoned cart emails to people who don't complete checkout.

• Add those email addresses to Meta remarketing audiences.

See how much of your anonymous website traffic you can identify.

Highlights from The Information’s Creator Economy Summit

The event, held last week in California, featured some big names in the Creator Economy space ranging from execs leading monetization and influencer marketing partnerships on platforms like Twitch, TikTok and Snap and huge companies like the NFL. Here’s your cliff notes: 

👉Marni Levine, head of TikTok Shop’s U.S. operations for small and medium businesses, confirms no plans to reduce e-commerce content in the For You tab, aiming to bring more book publishers into the e-commerce business.

👉Mike Minton, Twitch's chief monetization officer, reveals Amazon's testing of using Twitch content to train AI models, hinting at potential AI services like generating short clips and chatbots.

👉Ty Haney, co-founder of Outdoor Voices, launches new startup Try Your Best (TYB) after experiences at her previous company, planning to collaborate with a pop star on an album and implementing a rewards system for followers.

👉Scott Manson from The Chernin Group discusses the risks of investing in individual creators, preferring those who can amplify other voices to hedge risks.

👉Neil Waller, co-founder of Whalar, shares data showing the growing strength of creator economy businesses, with a significant rise in creators having managers or agents, and some having full-time employees.

Platform round-up

Leverage the latest updates and features across digital platforms to help you get ahead of the game…

💡Instagram has introduced the Notify sticker for creators, offering a new way to alert audiences about your posts. With this sticker, creators can prompt their audience to set reminders to view upcoming posts, potentially addressing frustrations with the algorithm's feed updates.

📸Instagram is experimenting with a feature allowing users to comment on specific images within carousel posts by linking their replies to the assigned number of the photo or video.

These creators share the media kits they’ve used to bag brand deals

Brand sponsorships are probably the biggest money-maker for creators on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and OnlyFans. To land these deals, creators often send a media kit, which is like a resume for their online presence, to show companies why they're worth partnering with. These kits include things like their audience demographics, past collaborations, and performance metrics to prove their value. Creators update these kits regularly and tailor them to fit the brand they're pitching. It's all about showing brands why investing in them is a smart business move. 

👉Jour'dan Haynes 

22-year-old Instagram influencer, secured her first brand deal in 2021 with 2,000 followers. She began posting consistently three years ago, focusing on themes like confidence, high school challenges, and college life. With 6,200 followers now, she calls her audience "sprouts," mostly Gen Z facing similar young adult struggles. Using a $7 Etsy template in 2023, she created her first one-page media kit to appear more professional to brands. She's since updated it, raising her rates and adding more details about herself and past collaborations. Haynes now earns up to $600 per post, factoring in the time spent planning content, not just filming it, giving herself a better chance to monetize her platform. View media kit.

👉Laur DeMartino

Part-time lifestyle content creator, DeMartino views her content as a valuable learning experience. As a "nano" influencer, her primary focus is YouTube, with 4,600 subscribers, although she also has 7,200 followers on Instagram. She started with 5,200 Instagram followers and 3,300 YouTube subscribers in November 2020. DeMartino's starting rates for YouTube collaborations range from $300 to $500, adjusted based on the brand and the agreed deliverables. Notably, she has partnered with brands like Lululemon and SeatGeek, highlighted in her media kit.