Session notes
Build a media company.
Jordan Schwarzenberger's talk at the Creator Leaders Retreat, written down as he gave it. His slides, his order, his words where I have them. Very little of me.
Seven home truths
What has already changed.
- 01Curatorial social is tired. Everything is “personal”.
- 02Influencer marketing is breaking.
- 03Followers are out. Non-followers are in.
- 04Brands are becoming creators.
- 05#Ad has killed campaign impact.
- 06Linear TV is dying a slow painful death.
- 07The power of celebrity is fading.
The mono culture is dead
- Institutional media power
- Curatorial feeds
- Followers > content strength
- Linear TV dominance
The micro culture is here
- Decentralised media landscape
- YouTube > linear TV
- Brands becoming creators, and the reverse
- Content strength > follower count
The big question
How can you actually build a long term career as a creator today?
His own answer, on the same slide: you can't. Not really.
You are not a content creator. You are a media company. Start acting like one.
What a media company looks like
Four functions.
- Editorial
- Your daily content output, value led and audience first.
- Commercial
- Your commercial content, that blends your editorial style for brands.
- Creative agency
- Your function that processes commercial opportunities creatively.
- Management
- Your leadership of the business, the team and the vision.
The north star
Build an audience that has scale and specificity. Specificity is value.
Priestley made the same point from the money side. His customer pyramid splits an audience 1 / 9 / 90 by what people will spend, and the top 10% carry 60% of it. That section is here, and there is a prompt for pinning down who yours are.
Then
Build vehicles.
A vehicle is a thing brands can buy into that is yours rather than a post. He used Mia McGrath as the worked example. It is the same shape as Priestley's product ecosystem: the thing you sell is not the content.
Sell like a media owner
Same three posts. Nearly three times the money.
“Hi, we’d like to enquire about costs for a 3 post Instagram campaign please.”
How most creators answer
- Instagram, per post
- £1,000
- Post quantity
- 3
His label for this one: “broke creator”.
How a media owner answers
Media
- Projected impressions
- 100,000
- CPM
- £15
- Media value per post
- £1,500
- Post quantity
- 3
- Total media value
- £4,500
Production
- Production cost per post
- £750
- Post quantity
- 3
- Total production value
- £2,250
Gross campaign value
- £6,750
Usage (3 months, social)
- 10% of campaign value
- £675
- Usage quantity, months
- 3
- Total usage value
- £2,025
Aim for direct monetisation through your IP or your vehicle.
Where the two talks agree
Jordan and Daniel Priestley are describing the same thing.
You are a media company, not a content creator.
→ Become a database. Own the relationship rather than the reach.
Aim for direct monetisation through your IP or vehicle.
→ Products and services do not make money. Product and service ecosystems do.
Scale and specificity. Specificity is value.
→ 1 / 9 / 90. Ten percent of your audience carries sixty percent of the spend.
Followers are out. Non-followers are in.
Build vehicles that brands buy into.
→ The lead form, then the ascending transaction model on top of it.
Everyone else who spoke.
Lets Discover
Direct monetisation needs an audience you own.
A media company owns its distribution. A Lets Discover map is the version of that for a creator whose audience is built on recommendations.