Influence Weekly

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Oct 2026

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Join us as we dive deeper into the latest trends, insights, and stories from the world of influencer marketing and the creator economy. Our podcast brings you exclusive interviews with industry leaders, in-depth analysis of key topics, and a behind-the-scenes look at the stories that matter most to our community.

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October 16, 2026Episode 4546 min

Talent Managers Keep a List of the Brands That Lowball, with Gigi Harville (The Paul Harville Group)

Your agency is sending offers out under your logo right now. Somebody on the other side is reading them and deciding whether your brand gets a reply next quarter. Gigi Harville manages talent, and she has been doing it since 2009. She sees what hits creator inboxes: three TikToks, a story, six months of exclusivity, ad rights, $250. She says no on the spot. Then she tells the other managers, and they tell theirs. No one sends you an email about it. Your shortlist just gets thinner, the creators you wanted start passing, and nobody in your Monday meeting can explain why. The cheapest offer you ever sent is the one line finance will never find, because it does not show up as a cost. It shows up as access you no longer have. She is not anti-brand. She told one creator to accept a fee well below her rate, because the brand came back fast and excited and had clearly run out of budget. That brand returned months later with three times the money. In the same week she watched a creator with 10,000 followers, every video clearing 100,000 views, get offered $500 and almost take it. Her verdict is blunt. They are offering crumbs, they know their own budget, and if creators start saying no together, the budget comes up. If you run creator marketing and you have never seen the offer that goes out with your name on it, watch this one. Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:17 Follower count stopped setting the price, and nothing clean replaced it 09:03 The small creator pitch is ten years old. Why it is different this time 10:10 Same engagement, lower rate, and who keeps getting it 10:56 The terms nobody can redline, and the likeness rights that never expire 25:09 What a creator is worth once the scope of work decides the price 29:42 The below rate offer worth taking, and the one that is an insult 32:02 $250 for three videos. The brands that get cut off a roster 34:14 Engagement is purchasable now, so she watches the lives instead 40:06 Selling a smaller creator to a CMO who only knows the big names Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: IH7G4PMANDB2VSFW The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

October 9, 2026Episode 4437 min

The Creator Economy Is Not a PR Tactic, with Gregory Curtis from Empower Media

Your shoppers are not browsing anymore. They are following one person who eats, breathes and posts a single subject, and they buy what she tells them to buy. Your deck still ranks that person by follower count, because that is the column your agency sends you. Here is the part that should keep you up. Your creator money is sitting in the wrong line item. It is filed as publicity, as social, as a nice moment, which means when finance pulls the report there is no media plan to point at. You are spending real dollars in a place your CFO has no column for, and that is a budget you cannot defend twice. Gregory Curtis is Director of Brand Marketing at Empower Media, the agency behind an award winning JD Sports campaign. He pulled a report on a 22,000 follower account with a gorgeous feed and found the audience was 60 percent real. He watched a brand fall in love with a 50,000 follower page whose audience was 70 percent in India. And he has sat in the room where a marketer had to explain the numbers after the fact. His verdict, said flat: creators are media assets, and most brands are not buying them that way. If you own a creator budget and you can already hear the question coming from finance, this is the episode that tells you how to walk in with an answer. Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:22 The number on your brief stopped meaning anything 05:01 Why the small creator pitch is different this time 08:36 Ten thousand followers beats a hundred thousand, every time 11:20 When the big name is still worth the money 15:33 Filed as publicity: how creator spend loses the room 22:32 The beautiful feed that was 60 percent real 29:32 The bots your agency is not flagging 32:44 Walking into the budget review with proof 37:04 What the best creators are building next Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: UZ9M2SWRFHJNZHEK The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

October 5, 2026Episode 4321 min

The One Number Worth Judging a Creator On Does Not Exist Yet. With Kristen Wiley (Statusphere)

Your customers are not asking you how they found the product. They saw a video from someone with 500 followers, trusted her, and bought. Then Google took the credit for the sale, and the number sitting on your brief, the one your agency keeps optimizing against, had nothing to do with it. Here is the part that should land in your budget review. There is no agreed price for any of this. Kristen Wiley, founder and CEO of Statusphere, has spent fifteen years watching the range stretch past anything a rate card can hold. She has seen a creator with a million followers post for free product. She has seen a creator with a thousand followers get paid twenty thousand dollars. Her words for the whole market: there is no normal. So when your CMO asks what you are buying and what it costs, the honest answer is that nobody has built the number yet. Wiley would use a trust score if one existed. It does not. Impressions got pulled out of Instagram and TikTok, so anything still reporting them is deriving them from a formula nobody can show you. EMV gets calculated differently by every platform selling it. If you are defending a creator budget with numbers you cannot fully stand behind, this is the episode that tells you which ones are actually dead, what a real audit looks like, and what is still solid under you. Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:21 The algorithm quietly took follower count off the table 04:49 Attention bought reach. Trust buys the sale 06:08 The small account converts better and looks worse in the deck 09:18 Free product or twenty thousand dollars for the same post 11:05 Why paying only for performance punishes the creator who sold it 12:40 Google and Meta got marketers drunk on last click 14:15 How to tell a bought audience from a real one before you sign 18:17 Taking the small account bet upstairs to a CMO 20:07 The one number worth having does not exist yet 20:59 The metrics to stop putting on the report Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: HR3WXQOF8CVGL5BI The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

October 1, 2026Episode 4216 min

October 2026 Creator Economy News Recap: 5 Million Views, Nothing to Show for It

In this October episode, hosts Ceci Carloni and Nii Ahene break down three stories that together show what brands are actually paying for in creator marketing right now: what a view is worth, what a fee is buying, and who owns the content after the campaign ends. Your UGC is dead by Thursday. Not underperforming. Dead. Most creator posts stop moving two days after they go up, and the next batch does the same thing, and the line item keeps getting approved because nobody has said it out loud in a budget meeting. One AI startup ran a UGC program for three months this year. Five million views. Tons of engagement. No results they could point at. They shut it down. Two months later an agency took the same product, used twelve creators instead of a crowd, and got one hundred million views in twelve weeks. So what did the first five million buy? That is the uncomfortable part of this month. The best UGC creators now have brands bidding against each other for them, and if your answer is to pay ten thousand a video when someone else paid five, you are in a race to the bottom with your own budget. The top fraction of a percent will always be expensive. Everyone else is a training problem nobody is funding. Ceci and Nii also get into Fashion Week, where a creator deal went from a free invitation to a twenty five thousand dollar fee and most of them never see a runway, and into perpetuity rights, where thirty three people in the industry were asked if it is ever fair and most said no. If you are defending a creator budget this quarter, this is the half hour that tells you which part of it is real. Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:22 Five million views, no results, program shut down 01:51 Twelve creators, one hundred million views, and what actually changed 02:40 Your UGC is dead two days after it posts 03:33 Brands are bidding against each other for the same creators 04:41 Paying more per video is a race to the bottom with your own money 05:06 Fashion Week costs twenty five thousand a post and nobody goes to the shows 08:10 Any event can be bought into a creator moment now 09:51 Is perpetuity ever fair? Thirty three people in the industry answered 11:14 The deal you signed for five hundred dollars that blocks your next one 13:01 Most creator content stops working in sixty days, so why are you buying forever 14:58 What is coming next month Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: 84BMNYFFENC5ZTGB The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

September 29, 2026Episode 4133 min

Reach Is the New Follower Count: Why Smaller Creator Accounts Are More Valuable to Brands w/ Adam Harris (Gaggl)

Your customers are spending their evenings in small rooms where the host knows their names. Seventy percent of what they watch comes from accounts they never followed. Your media kit still prices a deal off a follower number, because that is the number your CMO recognizes and the number your agency keeps putting on the slide. Nobody in the room will say the quiet part. The roster that looks strongest upstairs is the roster that converts worst. Finance already asked the only question that matters, how many sales will it drive, and the big names you paid for went straight into the ether. There is no line on your dashboard for a post that disappeared. Adam Harris sold brand partnerships at Twitch when nobody wanted them and now runs creator hosted TV at Gaggl, where he is co-founder. He has heard the CMO objection in its purest form, I do not know who these people are, but my kid follows Mr Beast. He has A/B tested the two rosters against each other on every campaign he runs, and the small creators come back with five times the engagement. Every time. He is not telling you to fire the big names. He is telling you that you have been buying one thing and reporting on another, and that the fix is smaller and cheaper than the meeting you are dreading. If you have to defend your creator budget this quarter, start here. Chapters 00:00 Cold open 01:34 The number on your media kit stopped predicting anything 03:55 The three objections that killed your last small creator pitch 10:02 The micro creator story was true five years ago and still lost the budget 13:25 Five times the engagement, and the reach you give up to get it 17:02 What you are actually buying when you buy a small community 19:26 What 50,000 of the right people is worth 21:47 Followers can be bought, and only a human can tell you whose are real 25:17 How to take the small account bet upstairs and survive the room 30:36 The NFL already handed its content over. Your category has not Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: ZV3AVIKJZ6EQ7F5E The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

September 25, 2026Episode 4034 min

Every Brand Cuts Usage Rights to Save Money. They All Regret It. With Julia Salume (Moburst)

Your creator quotes came back higher again this year, and the number arrives as one line on an invoice. Nobody can tell you what is inside it. Not the creator, not your agency, and not the manager who says the rate is the rate. So you do what everyone does when the check looks too big. You cut the usage rights, because that is the line that feels optional in the room. It saves you a few hundred dollars in a budget your CFO is already circling. Then the post takes off, and the only asset you actually wanted is the one you do not own. Julia Salume, Head of Influencer and UGC at Moburst, has watched this land both ways. A brand comes back after the post pops and the creator has already done the math, because the leverage moved across the table. Two hundred dollars a day, every day, for a video the brand thought it had paid for. Meanwhile the paid media team is still waiting on a file, and the momentum is gone. Her verdict is blunt. If a creator sends you one blended number and cannot break it into production, distribution, and usage, that is a red flag about what they think their own work is worth. If you are defending a creator budget this quarter and you cannot say what each dollar bought, this is the episode that tells you where the money actually goes and what is still worth paying for. Chapters 00:00 Cold open 01:06 One invoice, three products, and why the total looks insane 04:18 What you are actually buying before you negotiate anything 07:08 Deals went from three thousand to seventy four hundred. Here is what changed. 11:00 You bought deliverables. Your CMO is grading you on results. 12:50 The first line every brand cuts, and the regret that follows 15:15 Splitting a ten thousand dollar quote line by line 17:44 Follower count is still on your brief, and the math behind it is broken 21:16 Usage runs twenty to thirty percent of production, every month 24:20 Paid media never gets told the rights expired 27:11 The renegotiation you walk into with no leverage 29:44 What to change in your next outreach email 31:35 The one thing to fix if you sat in the CMO seat Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: QIUZTF7K9GNSKPQD The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

September 18, 2026Episode 3928 min

Why Is Creator Pricing Still the Wild West? with Shirel Benji of Creator Origin

Four years ago, a brand opened a media kit, looked at the follower count, and priced the deal off it. Shirel Benji, founder and CEO of Creator Origin, says that number hasn't disappeared, but it's stopped being the thing that actually predicts a campaign's results. In this episode, she breaks down what changed in how platforms distribute content, why relevance now matters more than reach, and why the industry still can't agree on what a creator's price should even be based on. Shirel walks through the real difference between an influencer and a creator, why a Seattle coffee-truck activation staffed with 40 nano and micro creators outperformed the handful of mid-tier names in the room, and how her team actually vets a creator's engagement by hand before a brand ever signs off. She also gets candid about what happens when a CMO wants the big name in the deck and the smaller account is the one quietly driving conversions. In this episode: * Why follower count stopped predicting anything once platforms shifted to discovery-based feeds * The difference between buying reach and buying relevance, and why that distinction matters more as budgets tighten * Why an influencer and a creator aren't the same thing, and what that means for how brands staff a campaign * The Seattle coffee-truck story: how 40 nano and micro creators out-converted a handful of bigger names * Why there's still no standard pricing calculator for creators, and what the industry is doing instead * What Creator Origin actually asks for when vetting a creator's engagement, beyond a bot-detection tool * How to defend a roster full of small accounts to a CMO who only recognizes the big names * What Shirel would change first about creator budgets if she had the CMO seat Timestamps: 00:00 – Comparing 2026 to 2022: why follower count stopped predicting anything 00:32 – What actually changed in how platforms distribute content 03:50 – Relevance over reach: what brands are really buying 06:24 – Influencer vs. creator: why they're not the same 09:56 – A 10K account at 10% engagement vs. a 100K account at 1%: does it hold up? 13:16 – The Seattle coffee-truck story: nano and micro creators outperforming bigger names 15:12 – Why there's still no standard calculator for pricing a creator 19:43 – How Creator Origin actually vets a creator's engagement by hand 22:06 – Making the case for small accounts to a skeptical CMO 26:17 – If Shirel had the CMO seat: the first thing she'd change about creator budgets 27:36 – Her closing message to creators just starting out Shirel Benji is the founder and CEO of Creator Origin, an agency helping brands structure creator campaigns across nano, micro, and mega tiers. 🎧 Subscribe for more conversations with leaders across the creator economy. The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

September 10, 2026Episode 3848 min

AI Changing How Discovery in the Creator Economy Works, with Yehuda Neuman of PartnerCentric

Your customers are starting to ask ChatGPT which brand to buy. The answer it gives them comes partly from creators. And nobody can tell you how it decides. Not the platforms, not the agencies, not even the people who built it. That should worry anyone who has ever had to defend a creator budget. Three years ago finance won the argument: prove the sale or lose the spend. Now the AI rewards the awareness those same creators build, and there is no line on your dashboard for that. You could be paying $14,000 for a post that did its job in a place you cannot see. Yehuda Neuman ran creator programs for ByteDance and built celebrity deals before that. He has watched one AI assistant name a random LinkedIn user the world's top expert because the man said so on his own profile. He has watched a video with 30 views outrank a million-follower account. And he will tell you, with no hedging, that if you are still buying creators on follower count, you are paying for the wrong thing. If you run creator marketing at a brand and the ground under you feels like it is moving, this is the episode that tells you why, and what is still solid. Chapters 00:00 Cold open 01:06 How shoppers find brands now, and how brands find creators worth paying 05:26 The creator videos already showing up in AI answers 07:36 Finance won the performance argument. Then the AI changed the scoreboard 11:56 Getting your brand into the AI's answer is your job, not the creator's 16:39 Nobody knows how the AI decides who to trust 21:17 Should you be paying YouTube creators more now 25:49 What he would stop paying creators for 30:25 Why follower count is still on your brief, and who put it there 36:04 One huge creator or an army of small ones 37:39 The creator who moved a sale that no link can prove 41:20 When affiliate, influencer, and AI visibility become one budget 46:24 If you still buy on follower count, you are paying for the wrong thing 🎧 Subscribe for more conversations with leaders across the creator economy. Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: VKJJY3KHNBD74KOB The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

September 2, 2026Episode 3713 min

September 2026 Creator Economy News Recap: A Deep Dive Into Unilever's 300,000 Creators Bet

In this September episode, hosts Ceci Carloni and Nii Ahene break down three stories that together paint a clear picture of where creator marketing stands heading into Q4—who's winning, who's scaling, and why measurement is still the industry's biggest unsolved problem: 🛒 TikTok Shop Has Arrived—But Most Brands Aren't Ready : American consumers spent $11.8 billion on TikTok Shop in the first half of the year, double the same period last year. But the top 1% of sellers still take 60% of everything sold. Nii's take: the fence brands are sitting on is fake. If you're already on TikTok, the real question is whether your retail, marketing, fulfillment, and customer service teams are aligned enough to actually run a store. TikTok Shop is not a marketing channel—it's a full retail commerce channel. And the hardest part no one talks about enough is the cold start problem: you can't just show up and expect affiliates to promote you from day one. 🌍 Unilever's 300,000-Creator Network Is the New Benchmark : Two years ago Unilever worked with 10,000 creators. Today that number is 300,000—and at the World Cup they activated 50,000 of them with a combined audience of over 600 million. Software handles the finding, vetting, contracting, briefing, and content review. Nii's read: this is the canonical example of a traditional brand fully committing to the creator economy at scale. But the question he'd most want answered is how Unilever manages brand safety across that footprint—because if they've cracked it, there's a playbook worth studying for every brand still hesitating over creator program expansion. 📊 Creators Are 26% of Daily Video Time—But ROI Is Still the Biggest Obstacle : The Video Advertising Bureau found creators now account for 26% of daily video consumption in the US, with the median viewer age of 21 versus 61 for linear TV. Creator ad revenue is on track to hit $27 billion by 2028. And yet 71% of marketers still name ROI as their biggest obstacle. Nii's explanation cuts to the core: brands are measuring creators with tools built for the channels creators are replacing. Until teams get specific about which type of creator serves which part of the funnel, measurement will stay messy—but that won't stop the spend, because most marketing teams already understand that creators aren't just ads, they're the entire media mix. From TikTok Shop's cold start challenge to Unilever's infrastructure bet to the measurement gap that keeps growing even as budgets do—this episode captures the operational and strategic realities brands are navigating right now. VWD Webinar Signup: https://www.airmeet.com/e/783f0d20-9772-11f1-b494-938ef7004cc2 Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: PCFCEHI8ZQKWYTRA The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.

August 20, 2026Episode 3637 min

What Every Brand Gets Wrong When Splitting a $100,000 Creator Budget - James Nord (Fohr)

Influencer marketing is becoming a math problem, not a creative one. For years, brands have believed that great creative is what makes a post go viral. James Nord, founder and CEO of Fohr, says that's backwards. In this episode, he breaks down the data behind why distribution has almost nothing to do with the content itself — and everything to do with probability. James walks through how Fohr uses mathematical models borrowed from financial markets to predict campaign performance before a single post goes live, why the same video can get 1,700 views one day and 20 million the next with zero creative changes, and why brands should be spending far more time on the math side of their strategy than the art side. In this episode: Why "we have almost no control over who sees a post" — and the wild real-world case study behind that claim How Fohr borrowed principles from hedge funds and financial markets to model influencer performance Why brands split their time 80% on creative and 20% on data — and why James thinks that should flip How predictive modeling changes the way brands negotiate with and select creators Why price and performance can't be separated — and what that means for how brands should think about creator ROI What changes for brands once campaign prediction becomes the norm instead of the exception Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro: We have almost no control over who sees a post 01:38 – How Fohr predicts campaign performance 04:04 – What led Fohr down the predictive modeling road 07:47 – Science vs. art: why the split should flip 10:16 – The cat video case study: 1,700 views vs. 20 million 14:59 – How predictability changes creator negotiation 28:19 – Are we killing the art of creator marketing? 33:41 – What brands should do right now to get ahead 35:55 – The one thing James would change as a CMO today James Nord is the founder and CEO of Fohr, an influencer marketing intelligence platform that helps brands predict campaign performance before launch. 🎧 Subscribe for more conversations with leaders across the creator economy. The Big Three by Influence Weekly: 3 Biggest Stories. 1 Essential Conversation.