Happy Tuesday!

Between the Austin City Limits music festival and F1 this weekend, it’s been a chaotic but fun month for the LoudCrowd team! Wherever you’re reading in from, we hope you’re enjoying similar amounts of fun.

For our readers in the South, impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton, we hope your friends, family, and colleagues are safe and making a hasty recovery.

Alas, here’s this week’s creator economy digest:

Now sealed internal TikTok documents reveal major negative impacts on children:

Children addicted to the app in only 35 minutes of initial usage and “unattractive” people being deprioritized in algorithms are just two of many major revelations. Read more here.

Instagram launches new profile cards for users:

The two sided “card” contains fun profile information on one side and a QR code to connect on the other. The new feature is available to everyone today.

Adobe launches a new AI video generator:

The new tool is aimed at providing a practical toolkit to everyday video creators.

Another creator dies after filming content for social media:

The influencer, 26, was attempting to scale the Castilla-La Mancha Bridge in Spain, despite the warnings against doing so. This comes amidst criticism of creators putting themselves in danger during hurricanes Helene and Milton, for clicks and views.

New article on Business Insider claims brands shifting back to using mega-influencers:

Business Insider cited a new Linqia survey of 200 enterprise brands. It found a slight decrease in interest to partner with micro-influencers vs. mega-influencers, compared to a 2023 survey.

Please enjoy the rest of the newsletter!

Cheers,

Al & Alexa

Industry News By Al

A new article from Business Insider, titled “The influencer middle class is feeling the pain as marketers turn toward superstars” is stirring up debate amongst influencer marketing professionals.

The article cited a new study from influencer marketing agency Linqia of 200 enterprise marketers. The study found that the percentage of respondents interested in working with celebrity mega-influencers increased to 40%, from 30% last year. At the same time, interest in micro-influencers from from 74% to 62% and nano-influencers from 37% to 28%.

My own anecdotal experiences go against the findings of the Linqia study. My personal conversations and observations about the influencer marketing space suggest that interest in micro and nano-influencers is at an all-time high. More and more brands (some of the biggest enterprises in the world) are increasingly coming to LoudCrowd to develop revenue-driven, scalable creator-affiliate programs. I’d be keen to see a larger-scale study that includes mid-market businesses, segmented by industry. I think that would be a lot more revealing of the true trend in influencer marketing.

Check out the full article here: https://www.businessinsider.com/micro-influencer-campaigns-decline-marketers-turn-to-big-stars-2024-10

Brand of the Week By Alexa

Sacha Cosmetics has officially entered the owned social commerce game with LoudCrowd by launching its brand-new affiliate program!

Here’s why creators are loving their program so far:

💰 A generous 20% commission on every sale made through their personal Storefronts and unique affiliate codes.

🎁 An exclusive welcome gift to start their affiliate journey as soon as they’re approved into the program.

🚀 The chance to be featured on Sacha Cosmetics’ social channels and website

Dive more into their program details with its beautiful landing page: https://sachacosmetics.com/pages/influencers

Content of the Week By Alexa

Try not to panic, but we’re less than 50 days away from the busiest AND best time of the year—Black Friday. As you finalize your plans, be sure to check out LoudCrowd’s guide on leveraging Creator Storefronts and affiliate codes for this major sales period. If there’s one key takeaway, it’s this: make sure your affiliate discounts are one of the following:

• Stackable with your sitewide Black Friday sale
• Matching the sitewide Black Friday sale
• Higher than the sitewide Black Friday sale

Check it out here: https://help.loudcrowd.com/en/articles/8569770-leveraging-storefronts-for-black-friday

Tool of the Week By Al

Adobe Firefly

Adobe released its video AI generator – Firefly. Adobe states that the release is the first commercially safe Generative AI video tool for creators as it is not trained on scrapped or customer data.

The key features are pretty cool as well:

• Generative Extend allows the creator to add up to 2 seconds before or after a clip that maybe have been too short
• The text-to-video tool takes detailed inputs and creates a video that can be used in Premiere or After Effects –
• With image-to-video, users can provide reference images with their descriptive texts to generate videos as well

Interested users can sign-up for the waitlist. Creations are free for now.

LoudCrowd Updates By Alexa

LoudCrowd’s Influencer List Page (ILP), which gives customers the opportunity to find and shop influencers picks directly on your site, can be utilized in many ways, such as:

• A section on your home page
• As a stand alone page, found in the navigation bar, footer of your site, etc.
• On your programs’ landing page

Fashion brand, Boohoo, has utilized this feature by having the ILP block on their program landing page here: https://boohoo.com/page/loudcrowd.html

This is serving as instant inspiration for net-new creators who are interested in applying for the boohoo Collective program, and are curious as to what their storefront would look like on the brands site. Brands can choose who they’d like to feature on their programs’ landing page, and switch out that group as often as they’d like.

To get this added to your programs’ landing pages, reach out to your dedicated LoudCrowd Client Strategist.