“Brands, despite everyone saying, ‘It’s about quality, not quantity,’ still, in their briefs it’ll say, we’re looking for 250K-plus follower accounts.”
Shira Lazar, Founder and CEO, What’s Trending
This one we recorded with Evan Shapiro in the coolest podcast studio (this thing’s on wheels!!) outside at IBC (you may hear the suitcases rolling past…) with Shira Lazar, as they released the Affinity 100 Quotient.
They built it with Whalar Group and Foam and it ranks nearly 700 eligible creators on how many people react to each view. The #1 has about a million followers in total. The biggest creator in the world ranks in the 80s.
I love the approach but I also told them that letting go of vanity metrics is very hard to do. I’ve made my peace with a post that gets 10 likes, but the people on the other side of the table (brands and advertisers) still count followers. Shira agreed: the briefs still say 250K-plus.
So are you in the scale game or the trust game? Evan puts it as a cost-benefit call for brands: 500 million fans with 1% reacting, or a culinary creator with a million engaged fans and 10%. Shira names the creators she sees starting to change the briefs and explains why it will take time.
We also get into YouTube’s new view count, the creator middle class Shira thinks everyone forgets and why the next list may measure offline influence through events.
The second edition of the Creator Ecosphere Map, built around the Affinity Quotient, launches on 8 October at Jupiter Festival in Miami. Shira and Evan, let’s meet same time next year: let’s see if the briefs have moved.
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That’s it for today but before you go: