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Lead
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A major university now offers a degree in becoming an influencer
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Arizona State University has launched a Bachelor of Arts in Content Creation through its journalism school, the first program of its kind at a major public university. The 120-credit degree covers video and podcast production, audience analytics, personal branding, and monetization strategy, and students are required to actually build a real social media following and show measurable audience growth as part of their coursework, not just study the theory. The program arrives as the creator economy is projected to reach 480 billion dollars by 2027, and more than half of Gen Z now says being an influencer is their dream job. Whether or not a formal degree is the right path for you, the curriculum itself is a useful checklist: audience analytics, personal branding, and monetization strategy are exactly the skills that separate creators who build a real income from those who only chase views.
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Platform Change
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AI creators can now set their own prices on Civitai
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Civitai, a marketplace where people share and use AI image generation models, is overhauling how it pays the creators who build those models. Under the old system, creators earned a flat 25 percent of whatever a generation cost, a number the platform set with no visibility into how it was calculated. Starting now, creators can set their own licensing fee on their models directly, meaning they control what their own work is worth instead of accepting a platform-imposed split. The old system fully retires on August 31, after which every generation charges exactly the fee the creator chose, and nothing else. This is a genuinely useful trend to watch beyond just this one platform: as more AI tool marketplaces mature, creators are increasingly being given direct pricing control rather than a fixed cut, which rewards people who understand their own work's actual value in the market.
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New Opportunity
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LinkedIn now pays creators for professional expertise content
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LinkedIn opened its first Creator Marketplace this year, letting brands search for and directly pay creators who post professional, expertise-driven content, with sign-up available through a new Monetization tab on eligible profiles. This is a real, distinct opportunity if your strength is knowledge rather than entertainment: LinkedIn's own research found that 82 percent of B2B marketers believe creators boost a brand's credibility with buyers, and over half of buyers say creator content directly influences their final purchase decisions. Unlike platforms built around viral reach, LinkedIn creators get paid for demonstrated expertise in a specific field, whether that is finance, software, marketing, or any other professional niche, which means an established career background can be a genuine advantage here rather than something to hide. The marketplace is still rolling out gradually, so this is worth watching closely if your audience or interests lean professional rather than purely entertainment focused.
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Reality Check
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What real payout data says about picking a selling platform
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Whop, a marketplace for digital products and paid communities, reported paying out over 400 million dollars to creators last year, roughly triple the year before, while charging a flat 3 percent fee on every sale. That compares to Gumroad's 10 percent fee on its free tier, which becomes an effective 13.2 percent once payment processing is included on a typical 50 dollar sale. The real difference between these platforms is not just the fee though: Gumroad expects you to already have an audience and simply gives you a place to sell, while Whop actively helps new sellers get discovered through its own marketplace browsing. If you already have a following, a lower-fee platform where you bring your own traffic can work well. If you are starting from zero, a platform built around organic discovery matters more than shaving a few percentage points off your fees, since a sale you never make costs you 100 percent either way.
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That's it for today. See you tomorrow.
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Ternautics Media
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