You Asked, We Answered: AEO, Getting Paid on YouTube and the Short vs. Long-Form Debate

0:00Jasmine Enberg: Hi, everyone. This is Scalable, a weekly show about the business of the creator economy. I'm Kaya Yurieff. And I'm Jasmine Enberg. Every Thursday, we take you beyond the headlines to tell you what's happening, what it means, and why it matters.

0:30Jasmine Enberg: This is so awesome later. Or sell fast now and pop the champagne later. Cash now, more later. Now available nationwide. Start your offer at opendoor.com slash ACAST. Profits calculated after fees and costs, eligibility and offer price may vary. What you don't see behind the scenes, is that Kaya and I don't always 100 % agree on everything. So I think we disagree a little bit here. Here's my take on all of this. So I tend to agree, but I also think the lines are blurring a lot.

1:04Jasmine Enberg: Hi, Jasmine. Hi, Kaya. And hi, everyone. Welcome to Scalable, our weekly show about the business of the creator economy. Every Thursday, we tell you what's happening, why it matters, and where it's all going. We also bring on founders, creators, executives, and other experts who are driving this industry forward. Today, we want to focus on you, our listeners and viewers, and what is top of mind for you all when it comes to the creator economy. So we've already been answering your questions in our newsletter on a regular basis, and there are some of our top performing additions. And so we thought that you might like to hear answers to those questions too, because part of what you don't see behind the scenes is that Kaya and I don't always 100 % agree on everything.

1:41And this gives us an opportunity to share how we think about what's going on in the industry.

1:46Jasmine Enberg: Yes, there's definitely a lot to talk about. And even when we disagree, we move on pretty quickly. There is just no time when you're running a business to sweat the small stuff and we keep things moving and don't fret over it. And we're also friends. So, you know, you can disagree and then have a drink and everything's okay. Exactly. So all the questions that we're answering in this episode come from our newsletter readers from this past year, and we've thrown them into a handful of buckets. The first one we'll talk about is answer engine optimization, better known as AEO. This is one of the most common questions we get and a very hot topic in the industry right now.

2:19Jasmine Enberg: Our answers might surprise you. The second topic we'll cover is how to make money from content creation. Obviously, there's a lot of different ways to do this, but many readers have specifically been asking about how to monetize a new YouTube channel. They've also asked about the mismatch between what content people are consuming versus what type of content creators are making money from. So we'll try to get into as much of that as we can. The third thing on your minds has been about the form of the content, long form versus short. This is a never-ending debate, and there is so much to talk about.

2:50Jasmine Enberg: It's also perfect timing to be having this conversation given that Instagram just released a test of its new long-form horizontal video product called Features. Scalable fans heard it here first. Instagram's VP of product, Tessa Lyons, first teased the return of long-form video to the platform at our Scalable Summit in May. Here's Tessa. I remember the IGTV days, which I know you were there for, which did not end well for Instagram. But are you going to start incentivizing longer videos and longer-form content as well? I think that's going to be part of it. I think that, you know, we're still early in figuring out exactly how we can best help creators and consumers on this mobile and TV journey.

3:28But it's hard to imagine that it isn't going to include some long form content. And so I think the question for us and the thing we're talking to creators about right now is like, how can we best help them at the moment? I mean, this is like, if you project forward two years from now, and you think about Instagram being a meaningful part of a creator's long form and TV strategy, in addition to their mobile short form strategy, I think a piece of that is going to be podcast, I think a piece of that is going to be live. I think a piece of that is going to be short form dramas.

3:55Jasmine Enberg: Anyway, we've been getting a lot of questions all year about whether long form is having a comeback because of the proliferation of long form podcasts and newsletters after years of creators seemingly going all in on short form content. So we'll give our take on that and Instagram's move into long form. So the final thing we'll get into today is creator economy definitions. I mean, even on the most basic level, we don't have widely accepted vocabulary to talk about the industry. Like we can't even agree on who a creator is or whether or not influencer is a dirty word. And if you know me, you know that I argue for justice for the word influencer.

4:28But it's also really great timing to be having this conversation because we have some new research from our friends at Syracuse University on creator economy definitions that we can dig into.

4:39Jasmine Enberg: Before we get to the rest of today's episode, we have a message from our sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by Central Talent Booking. Okay, real talk. A lot of people still think podcasting is easy. You grab a mic, hit record, and done. If only. Booking a guest is a project in itself. You have to figure out who's right for the show, track down the right contact, pitch them, and then juggle calendars. And as a team of two, we don't have endless hours for that, but we know that landing the right guests can make or break a show. Which is why we are so excited to be partnering with Central Talent Booking, or CTV.

5:10Jasmine Enberg: They book guests for podcasts and creator-led digital shows across comedy, wellness, business, news, and culture. Their founder, Joanna Jordan, has been doing this for more than 25 years. She started CTB in 1999 after running the talent booking department at The Late Show with David Letterman. Today, they work with some of the biggest podcasts and creators out there. They bring deep talent relationships to the whole process, from finding the right guest and pitching them to locking in the date. So you get to focus on what really matters, the conversation. If you have a show and want to land a guest that'll help it grow, check out centraltalentbooking.com.

5:43You'll see all the great work they're doing on the homepage. Okay, let's get into it all and starting with AEO. So we get questions from all angles and from all types of readers on this topic, be it social platform executives, creators, brand marketers, you name it. So things we hear a lot are if and how creators should be part of AI search strategies. Also, how should brands be thinking about their content in a world where more people are starting their searches on AI chatbots? And will AI replace creators? I mean, the list of questions just goes on. But let's start with a little bit of data to frame our conversation.

6:18According to McKinsey, about half of U.S. consumers already use AI-powered search, and$750 billion in U.S. revenue will flow through it by 2028. hey, brands that are not prepared for this could lose 20 to 50 % of their traditional search traffic. So obviously this is a very real, very tangible threat to brands right now. At the same time, it presents a really big new opportunity for discovery, for monetization. Okay, Kaya, thoughts on this. I mean, should brands and creators be changing who they're optimizing content for?

6:51Jasmine Enberg: So my answer would be yes and no. AI chatbots are definitely a new place to get your product or company or content discovered. many of our guests on the show have talked about LLMs becoming discovery channels for their brands. For example, online travel company Expedia was one of the first brands to put ads in ChatGPT. Expedia's chief communications officer, Lori Metro, said that AEO is one of its fastest growing channels alongside social. For us, the philosophy is always be, be wherever the consumer is. And so if that's in ChatGPT or some of the other LLMs, We want to be there because we want our brands to surface up.

7:27Jasmine Enberg: We're also focused on it from our product perspective, too. Why would somebody come to Expedia to search? How are we connecting the discovery and the search back to our product? We're looking at ways to also have more proprietary content within our product as well. And just to give a sense of how quickly these companies really have grown, Anthropic, one of OpenAI's competitors, and the company behind our favorite chatbot, Claude, filed paperwork for an IPO. And the filing showed that Anthropic's revenue reached$16 billion in the first half of this year, which was up 14 times year over year. And for comparison, YouTube's revenue in the first half of 2026 was about$20 billion.

8:09And it has been around for over 20 years versus about five years for Anthropic. So clearly, these companies are growing incredibly quickly.

8:17Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I mean, these companies are huge. And for us, we're also starting to see some traffic coming through thanks to AI. Every week, we see a handful of our scalable newsletter subscribers coming from AI chatbots like ChatGBT and Claw. Those are the top two that we see. But right now, we don't know exactly how we're showing up. Is it because people are searching for new sources to follow on the creator economy and scalable shows up then? Or are people asking questions about the creator economy or topics that we've written about? Like, are they searching creator equity. And the recent story we wrote about that comes up.

8:47Jasmine Enberg: And that's how they're finding our newsletter signup page. We have no idea. So until we have more information about how scalable is showing up in LLMs, it really doesn't make sense to overhaul our content strategy. Day to day, we're really focused on what AI can't easily replicate and what makes our content unique from other humans as well, which is original reporting, real expertise, and also having a clear point of view. Yeah, I think all of that said, though, we do think a lot about ensuring that we're answering the questions that people are asking about the business of the creator economy and then also producing content in a way that's easy for AI chatbots to read.

9:20So we know that AI likes things like authority and structure and newness, which luckily were things that we were already known for, but now it's become even more important in this environment. We also think a lot about what platforms we're showing up on and making sure that we're in the places that LLMs are pulling their answers from. So for us, that means a lot of YouTube, which is consistently ranked at the top of the charts when it comes to AI chatbot sources, as well as LinkedIn. I mean, here we are doing an episode on reader questions that will live on YouTube.

9:52Jasmine Enberg: Yes, but to be clear, we are obviously not making this episode so it shows up in an LLM. That's just an added bonus. No, but yes, but hopefully it helps. To your point, though, I mean, I totally agree that the other thing that AI search has made us think even more about is that our content really does need to always have a point of view or a unique angle or a take on something that's happening. Because like you said, we don't really know how we're showing up in LLMs right now. But what we do know is that LLMs have made it so that people can get basically any information really quickly. So we need to go beyond just giving the news or an interesting data point.

10:31We're focused on explaining what it all means from our perspectives.

10:35Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, and to just add to the point on not overhauling our entire strategy, as a business, you just never want to be overly reliant on one source. I mean, whether that's a traffic source or being overly reliant on one type of customer or one big sponsor. Whenever we talk about AEO, I think a lot about the media companies of the 2010s, like the BuzzFeeds of the world, that became overly dependent on Facebook video and then saw their businesses take a huge hit when Facebook shifted strategies and changed its algorithm. And earlier this year, BuzzFeed, which was once valued at$1.7 billion, was taken over in a$120 million deal.

11:10Jasmine Enberg: So quite the haircut there. But I think these media companies can serve as a cautionary tale for what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket. Yeah. And I mean, I think that's true for any channel, not just AEO. I mean, the TikTok ban was a huge wake up call to creators and brands that they couldn't base their entire strategy on any single channel, especially one that they don't own, that they don't control, and that can literally disappear overnight. But to bring this back to brands and to AEO specifically, a lot of what we're saying and doing is actually stuff that brands can and should be doing too.

11:43So one example I always come back to is from Mondelez, which owns Oreo cookies. So earlier this year, a company executive at a conference that I was at said that Oreo is only showing up in about 10 % of LLM responses to questions like, what's the best cookie for a kid's birthday party? And that's despite the fact that Oreo is the best-selling cookie brand globally. And a big part of the problem they realized was that Oreo wasn't developing content that answered that specific question that people were searching for. So they then set out to fix that by leaning into YouTube and Reddit and creators, among other things.

12:19And Mondelez isn't alone in this. I mean, there's data from video analytics company Sundogs.io now that shows that 10 % of sighted videos in LLMs come from brands. 30 % come from experts, and 60 % come from creators. I mean, this is one data source, but this is something we see reflected in other research as well and just shows how critical creators really are.

12:41Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, at the same time, the one wrench I would throw into this is that there are some creators who might choose to avoid AI chatbots altogether, and there's valid reasons for that too. Tyler Dank, CEO and co-founder of the newsletter publishing platform Beehive, said it this way. There's two ways to look at it. One is, I want more subscribers. Give me more LLM juice so more people discover me so I can grow. There is the other side of the coin, which is I don't want these LLMs training on my content and my data. And they're never even surfacing scalable. They're just answering questions about the creator economy from our interviews without me getting any credit.

13:15Jasmine Enberg: And so I think it's up to the creator to determine what they want to do with it. You've got big plans for your money. You invest. You track. You plan ahead. But does your financial app actually help you decide what to do next? Quicken helps you go beyond balances and basic reports. Project your cash flow, dig into your investments, and use Quicken AI to understand what matters across your finances. With Quicken, you can make sense of your options and decide what to do next. Quicken. Know what to do next. See how at Quicken.com. Cash Now, More Later from Opendoor gives you cash up front for your home, plus all the profit later.

13:53Jasmine Enberg: That's no chaos now, no cash left behind later. Skip the showings now, pocket extra profit later. This is so simple now. This is so awesome later. Or sell fast now and pop the champagne later. Cash now, more later. Now available nationwide. Start your offer at opendoor.com slash ACAST. Profits calculated after fees and costs, eligibility and offer price may vary. The content. Okay, that's a good segue into our next question on this topic, which is how much should brands be leaning on creators for their AI strategies? It's so interesting because even a year ago, this is not what people were asking.

14:33I mean, the rhetoric then was that AI was going to replace creators because who needs them when you can make content so quickly, cheaply and easily on AI? And I remember arguing to what I would call mostly deaf ears at my previous job that that was not going to happen and that creators and AI were actually going to be a lot more complementary and dependent on each other than we originally thought. I eventually won enough that I was able to write a whole report about it, but I can guarantee you that not everybody was convinced. But if you flash forward to today, I mean, a lot of what I was saying back then was right.

15:05So two weeks ago, we had LTK's Amber Vance Box and Northwestern University professor Frank Dudley on the show to discuss their latest research study. And the one big data point that really jumped out to me was that 41 % or close to half of brand marketers in the US now use creator content to help influence how they're showing up in AI search results. I mean, that is wild. And that's meant a few things for the industry. I mean, one, there's more demand than ever before for creator content, and the survey showed that too. But it's not just any content. So brands increasingly want to work with specialized or expert creators who can cut through the noise and also then be cited by LLMs.

15:48So anyway, to answer the question, brands definitely should be leaning on creators to help shape how they show up in LLMs, and a lot more of them are now.

15:57Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, for sure. And hopefully as an industry, we can now stop asking whether AI is going to replace creators. although probably not knowing this industry. Okay, but all of this could mean more brand deals for creators, especially export voices, because brands are increasingly going to want to tap them. So in the study, roughly half of these brands also said they now work with 100 or more creators. And that's a really big change from previous years when many marketers were trying to limit the number of creators they partner with. So now there could be even more opportunities. We will go deeper on this in the next topic, but it's also changing who is actually making money as a creator as well.

16:31Yes. But before we move on, here's my big question about AEO, which we'll also dive into in an upcoming episode. It's an existential one, I think, for creators, brands, and literally anybody else who's online, which is basically everyone these days. But what happens to content when everyone is designing for AI chatbots rather than for real people? And I mean, I think we're already seeing a regression toward the mean when it comes to content and feeds that just look more similar than ever before. And it could only get worse. But anyway, we'll talk about that in more detail soon. But let's talk a little bit more about how to make money in content creation.

17:09So a very common question that we get is how to effectively monetize a YouTube channel. So for example, somebody recently asked us, if somebody is starting a new YouTube channel, what would be your number one piece of advice to get to monetization fast?

17:25Jasmine Enberg: So we're obviously very much still working on growing our YouTube channel ourselves, but we've spent a lot of time this year talking to YouTube experts, creators, and company executives about what is working. And two things that have come up over and over again in our conversations are packaging and consistency. The cadence of content can vary. So this doesn't mean you have to post seven days a week, right? But you have to commit to uploading regularly. And that's really the best way to build a habit with people and hopefully keep them coming back to your channel. Here's what corporate Natalie told us.

17:53Jasmine Enberg: You can do a hundred things and you can keep testing and it doesn't, all your videos don't have to be viral. I firmly believe this. A lot of other creators would say every video has to be viral or I'm embarrassed or it was a failure. I disagree. I posted every day for three and a half years and some of my videos don't do well. And that's totally fine. That's a learning lesson. And we're able to take that and say, okay, we're retiring this character. She was fun. Glad we tried that. On to the next. And so those failures are just as important as the success is. So I love this approach, but it can also feel scary as a creator, especially when you're just starting out.

18:26Jasmine Enberg: I mean, I've heard a lot of creators talk about overcoming kind of the fear of being cringe and just it can be so hard to put yourself out there online. But at the same time, you do have to test different formats to see what works and what really hits. And when you find that, really double down on that. One thing that's worked for us is really riding the news cycle or what people are already talking about on social media, which can be tricky because we move on really quickly in this day and age, but we do have such a big library of content now, so we don't necessarily have to sit down and create a new video, but we can pull from what we've recently said about a topic.

18:57Jasmine Enberg: So for example, when Alex Earle and Alex Cooper's feud was really hitting a peak, we cut a video of us previously talking about their business breakup and how they've separately since then gone on to build their own business empires. And that performed really well for us on YouTube. I think everyone still wants, I mean, we want it too, a silver bullet. Like, how do you go viral? How do you win? but it doesn't really exist. And there's just so many different ways to create compelling content on social, depending on your audience and genre. But most experts we've spoken to have agreed that thumbnails and titles are key to grabbing people's attention on YouTube.

19:30Jasmine Enberg: But there's still a lot of debate over just how important they are. I mean, there's so much debate that we dedicated a whole podcast episode to it. My take is that thumbnails do matter, but only to an extent. So you definitely need to have a strong thumbnail to draw people in. But if the content isn't good, people aren't going to come back no matter how amazing your thumbnail is. So for me, I would rather focus my energy on making a great show rather than spend hours trying to perfect a thumbnail because I would rather build a small but very loyal audience than go viral because of a great thumbnail.

20:04Jasmine Enberg: So I think we disagree a little bit here because I do think thumbnails really matter. And the flip side of what you're saying, so basically we're saying the same thing, actually, is that you can also make the best video ever. But if your thumbnail or title isn't great, it won't matter if no one finds it or ever watches it. I mean, I think we're saying the same thing, but in different ways, which actually happens to us more frequently than not. Also, basically, you need to have a good thumbnail and a good video. You have to do it all really well. Unfortunately, I also know that you do agree with me here is that you have to deliver on what you promise, especially if you're leaning into clickbaity packaging.

20:43Jasmine Enberg: So we talked a lot about this with former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who decided pretty early on to lean into clickbait now that he's running his own independent media company. But he also agrees that you have to deliver on the promise. The title that I will use for YouTube is not necessarily the title I'm going to use for Substack or Spotify or iHeartRadio or Apple Podcasts or whatever I'm on. I'm not going to use that because those people are more sort of traditional. They're interested. They're going there. But for YouTube, you have to stand out because YouTube is the biggest television network or the biggest.

21:17Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, it's television and streaming or whatever in the world. So we quickly had to realize this is what we have to do in order to survive. It has to be clickbaity. So we come up with the most clickbaity things that we think are acceptable. But speaking of clickbait, it also reminds me of the cautionary tale of the Buzzfeeds of the 2010s that you were just talking about, because the other thing that they did besides relying too heavily on Facebook was leaning too much into clickbaity titles that drove a ton of virality, but didn't necessarily translate into loyalty or long-term business. Anyway, the other thing I would say on the monetization front is this.

21:53Brands really are where the money is. And I know a lot of creators say that they don't like to do brand deals and that they'd rather monetize directly, whether it's through the audience by subscriptions or through YouTube's AdSense, but that's really only going to get you so far. Plus, and I think this is lost in the conversation a lot, like, where do you think YouTube is getting the money to pay out creators through AdSense? Through brands who are buying ads. And then on top of that, most big creators are actually doing brand deals. I mean, just look at Mr. Beast, like in the past month or so, he has scored a big brand deal with Gemini and with MasterCard.

22:30So he's clearly doing that too. And then when it comes to brand deals themselves, it is also totally okay for creators to do one-offs, especially when you're just starting out. I mean, these big longer-term deals take a lot of time. And I mean, we're only just now starting to do longer-term partnerships, and we're about a year into Scalable at this point. And the really good news for creators who are just starting out is that we're getting out of what I've been calling the million follower era, meaning that you don't need to have a massive audience in order to get brand deals. Meanwhile, if you want to make a lot of money from paid subscriptions, you better have a lot of subscribers.

23:05Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, and I think even for bigger creators, it may still always be a combination of longer-term deals and shorter-term deals or even one-offs. I mean, longer-term deals, like you said, take a while to hash out. And there are also just short-term opportunities that are worthwhile even if they don't bring guaranteed income over a longer period of time. So, for example, lots of creators get invited to promote a movie premiere or to conduct red carpet interviews at the Oscars. I mean, that's a one-time thing, but still very worthwhile for them to do, very fun. You're not going to turn down the Oscars just because it's for one night.

23:36Jasmine Enberg: So I think there's a lot of factors at play here that go into deciding kind of what deals you take and don't. That is also a very flashy example, Kaya. Like, not every creator is going to get an Oscars deal as their first one-off. I mean, I wish. Well, obviously, but I'm saying to illustrate the point, you're not going to turn down a big opportunity because it's for one time. A hundred percent. And there's a lot of other options out there, too. I mean, there's brands that do one-off deals around, you know, sales promotional periods with smaller creators. And that can be a really good way to get involved with brands, even if it's just for a limited time.

24:10But yes, we all want to go to the Oscars.

24:12Jasmine Enberg: I mean, I wouldn't turn down the Oscars. No, no way. Okay, I want to pivot a little bit and also talk about how there is sometimes a mismatch between the most popular content and what type of content creators can actually earn money from. So, for example, comedy was the most popular content category among social media users in the U.S., according to YouGov data from March. But only 23 % of U.S. comedy or skit creators said that they had made money from their content, which was on par with current affairs creators, according to a November 2025 report from the CTA. So we talked to Scott down about the challenges of making money from comedy content on a previous episode.

24:50Jasmine Enberg: Scott is the co-founder of Unicorn, which is a content studio and management firm which works with comedians and other creators. So spoiler, if you haven't listened to that episode, much of comedy is not very brand safe. I mean, if you think about the crude jokes and off-color comments that you often see in stand-up routines, brands don't typically love that, which is why many comedians want to nab that Netflix comedy special or still appear a lot at comedy clubs in real life to make money from their work. So a potential risk of all of this is that it could push creators toward more safe or even bland content that actually isn't all that interesting for audiences or just pivot kind of out of the comedy or other verticals into something more lucrative.

25:28Yeah. And it might also not be content that's super interesting for the creators who are developing. I mean, one of the things we hear all the time from creators is that they feel like they have to chase the algorithm and then they end up making stuff that they really don't want to be doing. Although it does feel like more creators are starting to push back on that now and making stuff that isn't, you know, just for the algorithm itself. In fact, I feel like we're also at this moment where there is a creator for literally everything. And somebody actually recently asked us if we're at peak creator.

25:56And in some ways, it definitely feels like yes. And my favorite example of this is from, Kaya, you know what's coming. TikTok's Marissa Hammons, who was on stage with me at the Scalable Summit, describing how there is this creator on TikTok who exclusively posts about insects. And like I said then, great for him. But I do wonder how far you can realistically take that. I mean, of course, it could be a side gig or a passion project, but I feel like there's a ceiling to weird bug content.

26:25Jasmine Enberg: Not the insect influencer again. We have, like, I'm sorry, I just, like, lose it every time. I'm like, what? At least you turned on stage when it happened. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to the insect enthusiasts out there, but that's just not my cup of tea. No, no. But the example lives around frame of my head. Anyway, at the same time, there are a ton of sectors outside of insects that are not served by the creator economy. And this is something that we've been asked about as well by our readers. Yeah. People have asked us, like, what? And we asked this, too. Like, what are the niches that are still under tap, to your point?

26:59Jasmine Enberg: I mean, it feels like there's virtually a creator for everything. But here are a few categories that we think kind of are generally underserved. So content around military service members and their families, outdoor creators, especially focused on kind of extreme sports, hunting, fishing, and then also fashion-focused B2B creators. What a very different three examples there. But these were just kind of what popped into our heads when we got asked this question. But speaking for myself, I would love more content on what to wear to specific work events. I mean, it's really, really hard to find good inspiration or understand kind of the vibe of an event, especially when you're going for the first time and you still want to look professional but fashionable.

27:40Plus one on that. And I have to shout out Leah Haberman, who has been doing some of this content. We see you and we love it all.

27:47Jasmine Enberg: No, I mean, she is definitely an inspiration here. We also have definitely been thinking about starting something ourselves where we can provide some sort of style guide for work events. I mean, we've been to so many at this point, Can Lions, et cetera. So watch the space and let us know if you would like that. But anyway, to generalize a little bit, many of the categories that I just mentioned face a combination of smaller audiences, fewer brand partnership opportunities, or stricter advertising standards. I mean, if you think about outdoor creators, especially in the hunting space, that can be really tricky for an advertiser, obviously outside of kind of outdoor sporting brands.

28:20Jasmine Enberg: I mean, needless to say, guns are a very fraught topic, especially in the US. And depending on the type of military content as well, that could also fall into kind of the same potential issues. So that just makes it harder for those creators to turn their content into a sustainable creator business. Although Meat Eater was very early. They had a Netflix show. Now they're much more focused on YouTube and podcasts. So it's obviously possible, but I think it's just you have to be really, really thoughtful about how you do it. All of this is not to say that many niche creators can't make money, including in those categories.

28:48Jasmine Enberg: I mean, just look at the rise of B2B influencers who can command really high rates from brands because they have very specific engaged audiences. Maybe it's C-suite tech leaders or senior engineers, and that can be really attractive to advertisers. I mean, for us, for example, 45 % of our newsletter subscribers are founders and executives. And that stat has been really resonating with the brands that we speak to because they want to reach decision makers in the creator economy. And we just live in a world now where someone with a million followers in a general lifestyle category might make much less money than a niche creator who say, I don't know, makes AI content or what CatGBT said about underwater basket weaving.

29:27Jasmine Enberg: Like, I was like, not to say, I don't know how lucid that is. I don't even know what that is. But I'm just saying, I know, I was like, I've never heard of that. But anyway, someone with 20 ,000 followers may actually out-earn someone with a million followers is my point. We also live in a world now where two guys with like 70 ,000 YouTube subscribers can make hundreds of millions of dollars by selling to a tech company. So it's true. It's true. Anything's possible these days. But moving on to the third thing that we get asked about a lot, which is whether long form is having a moment again. So a lot of this has to do with the massive growth of podcasts, as well as podcasts going into video, but also newsletters and just longer videos in general.

30:05Jasmine Enberg: I mean, after years and years of short form dominance. So people have been wondering, is that a real pivot or a pendulum swing? Yeah, I mean, it's neither, really. I think we love to live in a world of extremes, but we're starting to see that longevity in this industry is really all about finding balance. So short form is definitely still the dominant way that people are consuming content on social media, and that isn't going to change anytime soon. But it is really hard to build a loyal audience and a strong business with short form content alone, especially now when feeds are so crowded, there's so much competition, and you have so little control over who sees your content, and of course, over your own audience overall.

30:45At the same time, though, it is so much harder for audiences to discover creators through podcasts, through newsletters and long form videos than it is through short form content. And so that's why you see most podcasters, streamers and long form video creators clip their content for short form video platforms. And they need that in order to drive people to their main channel, though I will say how well that works is still up for debate. But long story short, you need to really be doing both long form and short form. I mean, even newsletter writers like us have a short form video strategy, though luckily we're not making those videos ourselves anymore.

31:21Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I think it's safe to say you can delete CapCut from your phone now, but you had a good run in there. You really did. I did. I tried. I pulled all my hair out, but I tried. I didn't even try. So at least you tried. One of us had to do it. But in all seriousness, short form videos also have limits, right? You can only get so much information across and they can also get old quickly. I mean, creators often go viral for a specific shtick, like portraying the same character in a skit. And it can be really hard to expand beyond that, especially with short-form alone. Monetization is also really limited for short-form clips and to your point Jasmine.

31:54Jasmine Enberg: I mean, these videos generally live on platforms like TikTok or Instagram where creators do not have much control over their audience. And that's why we're seeing more and more creators and companies now focus on long-form content, podcasts, newsletters. Alex Earle launched her Get Real With Me series on YouTube in January, and she also debuted a reality TV show on Netflix in September. And Alex Cooper's Unwell Network launched a newsletter, as have brands and celebrities like Goop and Matthew McConaughey. Jack Goldberg, the founder of Jack's Dining Room and Yes Chef, recently signed a$25 million deal with 101 Studios, which houses Taylor Sheridan's TV portfolio, including Yellowstone, as well as projects from George Clooney.

32:33Jasmine Enberg: And this deal will help him develop Long Form Series, which is a departure from the short form videos that he's built his business around. The short form is not going away, but this is an opportunity for him to expand kind of into other formats. And then just from a personal perspective, I mean, our primary focus with Scalable is our podcast and newsletter rather than social media. And then, of course, our in-person events too and research. But that's mainly due to our business-focused content and audience. I mean, it also just gives us more ownership and a direct line to our readers and listeners.

33:01Jasmine Enberg: And the podcast especially really lets us go deeper and build more audience loyalty because we're in your ears for 45 minutes or longer each week. We're also apparently on people's TV screens, which always blows my mind. I want to know who's watching us on TV. But anyway, to give... I know, remember at Cannes Film Festival, someone was like, oh, I watch your YouTube videos. I was like, no one has ever said it to me that way. I know, but then at Creator IQ's conference too, someone else said the same thing. I was like, what? Really? I know, it's so nice. It is very nice. But anyway, to give credit to the reader who wrote in with that question, It really was spot on just considering how much emphasis there has been on long form content lately.

33:41So the latest platform to launch its long form horizontal video product called Features is Instagram. I want to pivot and talk a little bit about that. So first of all, Kaya, are you in the test?

33:52Jasmine Enberg: So I have not seen any long form content on Instagram yet, but that could change even minutes after we stop recording this podcast. But as of this recording, I have not seen it live yet. So I have not seen what it looks like. Oh, I am definitely in it. And I have been seeing quite a few shows pop up already, including Hot Smart Rich, which she had an episode actually with Mel Robbins, which I thought was a very smart episode to do as her first one. And then there was also Colin and Samir, who sat down with Adam Mosseri to talk about the news when it launched. And not surprisingly, that was the very first show that popped up on my feed.

34:23But anyway, here's my take on all of this. And it is that it kind of puts a new spin on the streaming wars. I mean, everyone has been so focused on the competition between YouTube and Netflix and now also Disney as well as the other streamers. But I think with this news, maybe YouTube's biggest rival is actually going to end up being another social network rather than a premium streamer. So hear me out. Instagram's features basically adds to a bunch of new tools from Instagram. And when you take all of them together, it actually makes Instagram look more like YouTube than any of the streaming services that it's normally compared to with its new clipping tool.

35:02It also has premium and user-generated content. It has a TV app, which it announced about a year ago. The list goes on. And I think actually the biggest thing that's still missing from Instagram is live and on-demand subscription TV. Obviously, this is not the first time that Instagram has tried to make long-form video happen, so I'm still pretty skeptical of it all. but Instagram now has YouTube success to model its own efforts after. It also has made a lot of improvements to its algorithm to get the right content to the right people at the right time. We've talked about this a lot on this podcast.

35:34And then of course, there's all the recent struggles at Netflix, which kind of seem to suggest that it might be easier for a platform to go premium than vice versa. And then one last thing that I think is really working in Instagram's favor is that it already has really strong ad tools and a very wide base of advertisers who are more likely to bucket YouTube with Instagram than say with Netflix. And one of the metrics they look for is time spent, which is still higher on YouTube, but is now at an all-time high for Instagram and could become even higher with these long-form videos. Obviously, we have to see still how Instagram does on TVs.

36:11I mean, it took years to build up that muscle for YouTube. And just having long-form video doesn't automatically mean that people are gonna start watching Instagram on their TVs. I mean, one thing we say all the time is just because you build it doesn't mean people will come. So I agree with all of that.

36:25Jasmine Enberg: And like you said, Instagram has been down this road before with IGTV, RIP. I do think things could be different this time because it is a very different social media world now than it was back in 2018. One thing that's not clear, though, is monetization. Immediately, I saw questions for Adam Masseri in the comments of these announcements, whether they're going to pay creators. and even if they do end up doing some sort of monetization program, are they going to make it worth their while? I mean, no one has been able to unseat YouTube when it comes to long-form monetization and you just need more resources to make compelling long-form video.

37:00Jasmine Enberg: And I think also, I mean, for Meta and Instagram to give away half of revenue to creators when they haven't been doing that the whole time, like that's just a really tough kind of thing from a business standpoint. But I do think this announcement was pretty inevitable, especially with its expansion onto TVs. I mean, you need to have long form content. That doesn't mean people will watch, but like at a baseline, you need to have stuff that's watchable on a TV. I mean, even if you do watch reels on TVs, which as you know, we are very skeptical about, how many reels can you really watch on your TV, right?

37:33Jasmine Enberg: Like TV screens really are for longer shows and movies. But one thing I think this could be really good for is trying to drive people to watch long form podcasts from clips if Instagram can figure that out. I mean, it's always hard to get people somewhere else, especially when you're in kind of the short form scrolling mode. And it's something YouTube has really struggled to do as well, even though it has features where you can link a longer form video from shorts. But if Instagram can somehow crack that for podcasters, that could be a really huge advantage. Yeah. And on the monetization front quickly, I mean, I agree.

38:06I think it's pretty unlikely that Instagram is going to be paying creators anytime soon for content. It isn't completely unheard of. I mean, if you think back to the Facebook watch days, I mean, they shared revenue with creators back then. But overall, Meta's approach has really been to let creators monetize on their own on its platforms through brand deals, through subscriptions, without getting involved very much until it benefits them. Hello, partnership ads. And I think a lot of creators are excited and there's a lot of opportunity to monetize in different ways that don't necessarily require Instagram giving out cash.

38:37I also don't think this is meant for every single creator. Like when you start seeing the shows, Kaya, I mean, these are already highly produced shows. And so, you know, these creators obviously already have the tools and the resources and the experience to put things together. Crazier things really have happened, though, than, you know, seeing Instagram starting to share revenue with creators. I mean, YouTube just rolled out its first bonus program for shorts, which is not something we typically associate YouTube with. So potentially we could see some type of payment program from Instagram in the future.

39:10But for now, I mean, I think Instagram is really focused on the big picture here. Like, yes, all the noise is about long form and it's huge news. But if you look at what it's building altogether, it really is this entire entertainment ecosystem, for lack of a better way to describe it. They want to be the studio. They want to be the network. They want to be the marketing vehicle. And they have all different types of content on their platform. And I love the way that Rachel Carton described it. She said, Instagram wants to be the place you go to watch a 90-second video and a 90-minute video. We'll see if they can pull that off, though.

39:42Jasmine Enberg: At the same time, I will say this is just another example of how every platform is always chasing each other. I mean, we saw this happen with short-form video, too, where TikTok came on the scene and everyone from LinkedIn to Instagram rolled out short-form video. We saw it with social audio after Clubhouse had its brief moment in the spotlight and everyone rushes to compete and roll out a similar feature and around and around we go. That said, ultimately, the audiences will decide whether Instagram is the place they actually go to watch a 90-minute video. Speaking of going around and around, I mean, for so many years, we were designing for mobile phones.

40:17Now, of course, designing for TVs again. So it really just is this constant circle that we're in. But before we move on to our last topic, I do want to talk about a very specific type of short content, microdramas. Somebody asked us if microdramas are going to last on the apps that they currently exist on, or if it's a trend that will end up transferring to the existing social platforms that people know and love. I mean, a lot of the behavior is already transferring, in fact.

40:44Jasmine Enberg: Also, I have to say, you nailed it with our 2026 predictions when you said that microdramas would be huge this year. I don't think we could have even anticipated how much hype there has been, but it has been the year of the microdrama. Oh, thank you. Predictions are always really scary, but they're so much fun to do. But part of that prediction was also that TikTok and other social platforms were going to go really big on microdramas this year, and that that could then squeeze out a lot of these standalone players. I think the first part of that prediction has come true. So TikTok recently just signed a deal with Made by Us to produce more microdramas that are starring creators.

41:19And then in April, of course, it announced a big partnership with Issa Rae's Hooray Media to co-develop a microseries. It's also launched a standalone app. I mean, there's just been so much movement from TikTok in this space. YouTube has also gone all in on microdramas, including one with Alex Cooper, which launched a brand cast. And I think what remains to be seen, though, is just how this ripples on to the standalone apps. I think, broadly speaking, it is always a challenge for any upstart to compete with the large tech and content platforms and their already massive audiences. It's also really, really difficult to convince people to download and then regularly use a separate app, especially when they can get the same content they want on the apps that they already have on their phone, and they can get it for free.

42:04No, it's true.

42:05Jasmine Enberg: I mean, yeah, the rise of microdramas on apps like TikTok and Instagram definitely is putting pressure on the standalone apps like the real shorts and drama boxes of the world. I mean, these apps also typically charge users to watch shows. TikTok and other, you know, deep pocketed social media apps have the advantage of being able to make content available for free or at a much lower cost. And that further challenges and pressures these kind of standalone apps. That doesn't mean that these apps are going to disappear, though. I mean, they still have the benefit of being specialists. They also were ahead of the game.

42:35Jasmine Enberg: They have users who are already there. And then TikTok has to cater to so many different people and so much different content and maybe people who never want to see a micro drama or see one and are like, why is this on my feed? So, yeah, but like this late into the year and with all of TikTok's moves this year, it does feel like this is a deeper commitment rather than TikTok just kind of testing the waters and seeing. I mean, Issa Rae's screen time became the most watched vertical show ever on TikTok and Pine Drama with, I think it was nearly 75 million views in the first week alone. And the microdrama format actually first exploded in popularity in China.

43:10Jasmine Enberg: And as I know from talking to so many TikTok and ByteDance employees over the years, that what works in China, the company is determined to also make work in the US. Same goes for TikTok shop and live shopping. So I don't see them backing away from the microdrama. Cash Now More Later from Opendoor gives you cash up front for your home, plus all the profit later. That's no chaos now, no cash left behind later. Skip the showings now, pocket extra profit later. This is so simple now. This is so awesome later. Or sell fast now and pop the champagne later. Cash Now More Later, now available nationwide.

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44:30Somebody asked us, if you had a magic wand, what would be built? It was actually such a great question that we have since asked it on stage when we're interviewing people. What I would build is a universal dictionary for the creator economies. Like I said at the very top, if we can't agree on definitions for terms that are as basic as creator and influencer, how are we supposed to effectively build and measure anything in this industry? So there have obviously been a lot of attempts at this, meaning defining creator and influencer's terms. And I made my own definitions back when I was an eMarketer.

45:03I still stand by them. Here they are. A creator is somebody who develops content primarily for digital platforms with the goal of building and monetizing an audience. So no starving artists here. An influencer, or not people who want to be starving artists, but anyway, an influencer is someone who can sway the purchase decisions and loyalties of a broader population. And I think when you look at influencers this way, it is a much more acceptable term to use. It can include anybody from your next door neighbor to Barack Obama to Martha Stewart to an affiliate creator on TikTok. And there's obviously a lot of overlap between these two terms.

45:38So an influencer can also create content and content creators can also sway people's opinions. And that's where things start to get really murky.

45:46Jasmine Enberg: I think your definitions totally stand. One thing that I've been also asked is whether creators or influencers need to be earning money. I sort of lean towards yes, but I also know people who, for example, have run huge meme accounts and have not made any money or have made barely any money. And I would still say that they're creators. Syracuse actually ran a study trying to get to the bottom of this. I'm going to pick out a few of the data points that stood out most to us. So 66.7 % see a difference between a creator and a social media influencer. So we agree with that one. And then 87.2 % see a difference between a creator and a celebrity.

46:24Jasmine Enberg: So I tend to agree, but I also think the lines are blurring a lot. You can see that from the amount of traditional celebrities who have recently joined Instagram or TikTok after being holdouts, including Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. But then there's also the Kardashians, who are totally celebrities at this point, but are also the ultimate OG influencers. I think also what makes things complicated is when you have kind of crossover talent. Like, Justin Bieber started singing covers on YouTube, but obviously he's a pop star and a celebrity. But then you have people like Addison Rae, who really was a TikTok creator and a TikTok star, and now, you know, is really focused on her music career and is a singer.

47:00Jasmine Enberg: So you kind of put her more in the traditional celebrity bucket. So I don't know. it's really hard. And then 83.7 % in the Syracuse survey said a sustained commitment to the craft over time is what separates a true creator from a casual internet user who posts. So for them, it wasn't necessarily about money, but more about the creating process and the commitment to it. I'm really surprised that number is so high. I still kind of tend to err on the side that you need to be monetizing or trying to monetize to be a creator because all of us are posting on the internet, if not constantly, regularly enough.

47:37Yeah, 100%. I think at least the goal of the content creation should be to make money, even if you're not making money at that exact moment. I mean, creators really, they're not just in it for the art, is what I'm trying to say. But anyway, I'm going to get back on my soapbox about influencers just for a moment, if you'll let me, because what also irks me is the attempted rebrand of influencer marketing to creator marketing that's happening right now. I totally understand where this is coming from. I mean, as we said already, influencer doesn't capture the content creation side of things. But creator marketing to me just sounds like jargon or, you know, marketing speak, right?

48:17And I also just think it's time for us to just get over the baggage around the word influencer. I mean, even Michaela Nogueira, I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing that, who to me is one of the faces of the big influencer scandals is even starting to have a comeback now.

48:31Jasmine Enberg: So this is really bad to admit, but I only recently heard of her and now I see her everywhere. You know, it's like when you buy a car and then you see the car everywhere. Like now she's all over my feed, all over everything. And she also recently just raised$15 million in funding for her skincare brand. But I agree with you. It felt like Creator became a rebrand for Influencer. And now I'm also hearing Storyteller, which just drives me nuts. And then also Simply Founder, which I think is fine if you have a broader business. Yeah, okay. Clearly, we have a lot of gripes over vocabulary, and we need to make our own dictionary at this point.

49:03But I was so surprised that you had never heard of Mascaragate. So for those of you who are listening who are also living under a rock like Kaya was, basically, in I think it was like 2023, Michaela posted a video promoting a L 'Oreal mascara, and then people accused her of wearing fake eyelashes in the video. She first denied the allegations, then she deleted some of these comments, and then she disappeared for a little while on social media. Since then, she's also been dragged for several other things. I mean, she's a pretty polarizing figure, but this was one of the big scandals that people, especially brands, were put off about when it came to influencers.

49:41It was also during the time of de-influencing, if you remember that, so I think it just really rubbed people the wrong way. But now recently, I've seen her on Jay Shetty's podcast talking about her personal life and her career. And I think that's a way for her to try to improve her image and her reputation. And like you said, Kaya, she just raised$15 million from investors for her beauty brand, POV Beauty. So clearly, investors are getting over it. And if you don't know POV Beauty, it launched in 2025. It just expanded into stores or into Sephora stores in September. So at least one brand is now over it too.

50:15Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I think a lot of creators who are canceled actually end up sometimes having an even bigger comeback and becoming more famous than they were before. I mean, hence me not knowing who she was until now. I mean, Logan Paul was tasing rats on YouTube. And if you remember, showed a dead body in the so-called suicide forest in Japan and got demonetized by YouTube. I know this because I wrote a story about it for CNN, which wasn't really covering creators at the time, but it was such big news and just such a big moment to have YouTube demonetize someone. And of course, he's had a crazy successful career since then.

50:49Jasmine Enberg: So I think some of the fear of being canceled for creators maybe is also dissipating because people forget and move on, I guess. Well, I would like some of that attitude to rub off on me because I feel like I give my list of fears all the time on this podcast, but I'm going to add one more to it, which is being canceled. and it is a totally irrational fear, but I don't know. It doesn't feel, it feels like it happens all the time. And then I read that book called So You've Been Canceled. Have you read that? The fact that there's a book about this though, like I do think you can make a comeback.

51:22Jasmine Enberg: I don't think it's impossible now. Well, yeah, that's where this is going. Like it makes me feel a little bit better knowing that you can come back, but it's still this like crazy irrational fear that I have. But anyway, moving on. Okay, back to definition. So we also, besides not having definitions for the space, we also don't know basic facts about the creator economy, like how many creators there are. I mean, we've seen many reports try to take a whack at it, often with widely different figures. And I would love to see really definitive research on the space. Like, I'd love a US census for creators, but we don't have that yet.

51:55Jasmine Enberg: Hopefully we will one day. Well, we need to decide on what a creator is first. No, it's true. I mean, even for us, it's like, yeah, the lines are a little bit blurry. Like, it is really hard to do this. I think these are real big questions that, you know, we need some definitive answers and decisions on it. But at least for now, creators are getting more recognition in the federal government thanks to new guidelines from the U.S. Small Business Administration. And these new guidelines basically make it easier for creators to receive loans and other resources from the SBA. So who knows, maybe this will bring us one step closer to the federal government getting more involved in tracking the creator economy too.

52:30So that's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in. And be sure to keep sending us your questions at hello at scalablepod.com. We will try to answer them in future newsletters and podcasts. And we'll see you back here next Thursday.

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53:26Jasmine Enberg: Skip the showings now, pocket extra profit later. This is so simple now. This is so awesome later. Or sell fast now and pop the champagne later. Cash now, more later. Now available nationwide. Start your offer at opendoor.com slash ACAST. Profits calculated after fees and costs, eligibility and offer price may vary.