The creator economy is changing fast. Creator-first industry experts highlight innovative period tactics to keep creators top of mind while maintaining strongly connected communities. Simplifying Eric Wei, the cofounder of Karat Financial, recently called attention to an amazing trend, which he terms “clipping.” This approach includes contracting teens through services such as Discord to create attention-catching short-form content. This new approach to awarding creators substantially increases their exposure and marks a powerful step towards addressing the evolving state of social media engagement.
As the creator economy continues to transform, leaders of the movement tell us how it’s bouncing back and where it’s headed next. With predictions that clipping will gain traction this year, experts suggest that niche creators will increasingly outperform macro influencers like MrBeast and Charli D’Amelio. The insights from these leaders underscore a broader shift in how creators connect with their audiences amid a backdrop of advanced algorithms and changing consumer behavior.
The Secret Weapon of Clipping
In Eric Wei’s view, clipping is increasingly becoming an essential tool for creators. Creators can maximize their impact by tapping into armies of teenagers coalescing on Discord. This deliberate strategy allows them to adapt quickly and authentically to the unpredictable world of social media.
“Clipping is important if you’re a creator, because you do need to flood the zone with content, and it’s a good way to get your face out there,” – Reed Duchscher
This strategy uses the power of social media to create millions of high quality impressions, breaking through the clutter that can plague social media interactions. And creators are discovering new forms to captivate and immerse their audience. By creating content that’s easily sharable in the form of short clips, they’re able to remain relevant in a fast-moving landscape.
Wei warns that although this approach has many benefits, the main challenge is still expanding it at the required scale.
“It’s also very hard to get to scale, because there’s only so many clippers on the internet, so to spend large media budgets… there’s just a lot of complications,” – Reed Duchscher
Even with all these hurdles, Wei argues that this model is a win-win for everyone. This will allow creators to extend the reach of their work while giving young potential clippers a legitimate way to make money.
“The creator wins because they get more of their content out. The clippers win because now this army of teenagers are getting paid. Everybody wins, except that if you take this to its logical conclusion, we just get lots and lots of slop,” – Eric Wei
Navigating Trust in the Creator Economy
Amber Venz Box, CEO and cofounder at LTK, knows a thing or two about consumer trust. Yet it still is an incredibly powerful engine in the creator economy. If audiences are already sensitive to the commercial intent behind influencer marketing, they’ll start by meeting a creator with mistrust. All that is suddenly changing, as the consumer landscape has evolved remarkably over the last few years.
“If you asked me at the beginning of 2025, ‘Hey, is trust in creators going to go up or down?’ I would have probably said down, because people understand it’s an industry – they understand how it’s working,” – Amber Venz Box
Box notes that due to the rapid pace of AI development, consumers are, ironically, craving genuine interactions with actual people more than ever.
“But actually, AI pushed people to kind of rotate trust to real humans that they know have real life experiences,” – Amber Venz Box
As algorithms continue to shape the marketing landscape, learning how to achieve that balance between targeted marketing and maintaining the human element will be critical. Sean Atkins from selectpa explains how to keep it real when everyone’s getting more automated.
“In a world that’s driven by AI and algorithms, where people trust another human being more in this micro atomization of attention, how do you market when you sort of can’t control that?” – Sean Atkins
The Future of Niche Creators
As the creator economy matures, Reed Duchscher believes that niching down will lead to higher levels of success. Those macro creators, heavyweights like MrBeast and PewDiePie, will be harder to replicate. Audiences have a greater appetite for real, everyday people who are inspirational yet aspirational.
“Algorithms have gotten so good at giving us exactly the content we want. It’s much harder for a creator to break out into every niche algorithm,” – Reed Duchscher
TikTok’s evolution is just another example of this larger trend of niche communities prospering as audiences search for more specific content catered to their interests. With over half of social media users rotating towards smaller communities that feel more authentic and engaging, the creator economy extends beyond entertainment into various sectors.
Amber Venz Box has been at the forefront of this change. She notes that 94% of adults believe social media has become less social. Many are now looking for real interactions in smaller communities.
“Over 94% of people are saying that social media is no longer social, and over half of them are rotating time elsewhere into smaller niche communities that they know are real and that they can talk to and interact with,” – Amber Venz Box
Brands and marketers are still playing catch-up with these rapid developments. True enough that 97% of chief marketing officers intend to increase their budgets for influencer marketing!