Tuesday, January 14

🌟 Today’s Highlights:

• TikTok users are fleeing to another Chinese social app

• Will Meta let brands & creators pay for engagement?

• This is going to be your new favorite growth podcast

• 📊 Stat of the Day: Twitch accumulated 1.58 billion hours of watch time in December, its lowest monthly total in over four years. (Source: Twitch)

• 💡 Today’s Insight: 7 social media predictions from creator economy experts

🏅 3 Things Worth Checking Out

1️⃣ Your new favorite podcast is here! Listen to the first episode of my relaunched podcast covering 'What Entrepreneurs & Marketers Got Wrong in 2024' on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube (& don’t forget to subscribe)!

2️⃣ SEO That Works, Without Breaking the Bank? With ranked, you'll get weekly content, white-hat optimization, and transparency for just $99/mo— all on a month-to-month contract. Start your free trial here!

3️⃣ Skip the resume overload & let GoCarpathian place perfect-fit overseas talent on your team for a fraction the cost of US recruiters. They'll source and place A+ talent in marketing, operations, dev & more, with a perfect fit guarantee. Join dozens of startups & agencies getting unlimited overseas placements here →

💡 Today’s Insight 💡

7 social media predictions from creator economy experts

🗞 TL;DR - Buffer recently asked 11 experts for their thoughts on what would happen on social media in 2025 and found 7 key themes across the responses.

💡 Insight - Creators and brands will be world-building as they move beyond traditional strategies to create immersive, interconnected ecosystems.

Smaller, exclusive communities and spaces will be prioritized as places to interact.

Platforms have already said they’ll be making big bets on AI, but content creators will be embracing it as time goes on – though it won’t be without roadbumps.

Short-form video will continue to dominate across platforms, even if TikTok is banned in the US and even in spaces previously dominated by long-form or static content.

LinkedIn will be a dominant force in the creator economy and influencer marketing frontier, redefining its role from a professional networking platform to a creative hub for individuals and brands.

Platforms will become their own all-encompassing ecosystems where creators and brands can consolidate workflows and utilize native tools without leaving the platform.

Creator business models will evolve and creators will move from being solo entrepreneurs into building structured, scalable businesses.

⚡️ Today’s Headlines ⚡️

🇨🇳 Users are moving from TikTok to another Chinese social platform. Users are preemptively fleeing TikTok for Xiaohongshu, which literally translates to “little red book” in Mandarin and was the top downloaded app in Apple’s US App Store on Monday.

💪 2025 is Your Year of Growth! So long as you don't gamble it on an proven marketing agency. Match with a top-tier & third-party vetted marketing team to help you squash your 2025 goals in just 60 seconds, 100% free. Find your dream team here →

🤔 Will Meta allow creators and brands to pay for engagement? Maybe. A new survey on Instagram points to Meta considering an option that would allow accounts to pay for views, likes, or other engagement in the app.

🆓 An offer that’s too good to pass up! OneNine would like to give you 10 free hours of design & development work. Need updates? New feature? Page redesigned? Better splash pages? They handle all of that stuff. Book your call to claim your 10 free hours here!

✨ Google announced new advanced AI tools for retailers. Retailers can now use AI agents to personalize the customer experience, offer tailored product recommendations, answer questions in real-time, and help guide customers through the buying process.

Want more from me?

🙏🏼 Save big with exclusive discounts on my favorite marketing tools & services here 

🎙 Hear me interview marketing experts on Spotify, Youtube, or Apple Podcasts

📣 Partner with me to get your product/service in front of my audience here

🤝 Hire me to audit your marketing strategy or as a Fractional CMO here