| When Reza Izad starting representing influencers in 2009, the end goal for his clients was to crossover into the mainstream. Lucas Cruikshank (aka Fred) turned his YouTube channel into a series of movies for Nickelodeon. Logan Paul booked roles on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "Bizaardvark." Lily Singh got a late-night talk show on NBC. People who first got famous on social media still seek opportunities in Hollywood. Look no further than TikTok's Addison Rae, who landed both a record deal and a starring role in "He's All That," a romantic comedy that is the most popular title on Netflix in the U.S. this weekend. But creators now make so much money from social media that crossing over isn't the be all and end all. They can make millions of dollars in advertising on YouTube and sponsorships on Instagram. They leverage their audience to start their own clothing or make-up line. And unlike many other creative pursuits, the creator economy has proven pandemic-proof.
"We represent people that are already making or managing their own business from their houses," said Ali Berman, co-head of digital talent at United Talent Agency. The business around digital talent has gotten so big that it's spawned a new phrase, "the creator economy," that has become one of the business buzzwords of the year. Look no further than the rise of Substack, Patreon, OnlyFans, all of which are giving journalists, podcasters and sex workers the chance to replicate the business models of YouTubers. The creator economy is worth more than $20 billion, Izad says. With all that money floating around, I decided to talk to four of the savviest representatives and executives to talk about YouTube, TikTok and which celebrity has the best social media presence. These experts include Berman, Izad, the co-founder of Underscore Talent, Lisa Filipelli, a partner at Select Management Group, and John Robinson, the chief operating officer of 100 Thieves. Between them, they work with many of the most popular influencers working today. Our conversations have been condensed and edited for clarity. This whole business started with YouTube. When did you first realize there was money to be made representing YouTubers? Berman It was April Fool's Day, and there was an agent who sent out an email saying he'd signed this YouTube channel called the Annoying Orange, which was an animated orange. Most people were laughing and thought it was a joke. I thought it was so cool. Filipelli: While I was at Creative Artists Agency, I worked in the endorsement department and I was fascinated by deals I saw happening on Twitter. It wasn't a focus for the company at the time, but Google had invested $500 million into original content programs and channels. I decided to pivot my career to represent creators after noticing none of them had representatives. All of them needed them. I was like 'this is crazy.' You are getting as many impressions as a billboard on Sunset Boulevard, and I know what they pay Brad Pitt. Izad: We started by managing talent in 2009. A manager named Evan Weiss signed Lucas Cruikshank, who had created the character Fred. In 2009, Fred was the largest channel on YouTube at the time. Where have you found the most new talent over the last 12 months? Berman That's an easy answer. TikTok. When did you start to take TikTok seriously? Berman About the fall of 2019, I signed our first TikTok talent, Brittany Broski. She had a viral meme moment, and was known as the kombucha girl. Off of that we started working with the D'Amelio family. Filipelli I try to pay attention to any platform that launches that gets any buzz. You sign up, you tell clients to sign up and you assess. I loved Vine so I found TikTok enjoyable. I loved it for the comedic aspect. There's so much discoverability around comedians. You can get discovered so quickly, and grow a following so quickly. The 'For You' page was well done. Discoverability on YouTube became more challenging because everyone saw multitudes of research of what happens if you watch 1 QAnon video. You get indoctrinated 2 days later. What has been the long-term impact of YouTube's brand safety issues? Izad They've been very good at confronting issues on the platform in a manner that supports bringing more advertisers on. They've never had a consumer problem; they've always had more consumers than they knew what to do with. They had to evolve ad build technical tools to deal with some of the problematic issues that have come up over the years. A lot of these challenges YouTube faced helped open up the market to other platforms. It opened up the mindset to a lot of creators that you have to be multiplatform. You have to exist on as many platforms as possible where you can extract value. Is YouTube still the most important platform for your clients? Izad YouTube has been the dominant player, and remains. If you look at the total payout to creators, no one else is close. But now there's more room for other players to participate, more room for more creators to emerge. Fillipelli I don't give any one platform any more value than any other one, TikTok changed a lot of stuff. The elephant in the room is TikTok changed everything. How would you compare building a creator business on TikTok to YouTube? Filipelli TikTok is faster but I find following and engagement curious. 100 million followers on TikTok might mean 20 million on Instagram. That's a massive discrepancy. Or 100 million on TikTok means 8 million on YouTube. The data is not as transparent as other platforms. Google metadata is great. Instagram metadata is great. TikTok metadata is ... curious. And brand deals are much smaller on TikTok. Maybe that's where my bias comes from. Knowing a brand will not pay as much on TikTok as on YouTube. Berman It's all relative. If you compare where TikTok is in its lifetime now to where YouTube was at this time, it would be the same. YouTube has just been around so much longer. Can nobodies still break through on YouTube? Izad Like anything, it's harder. But the answer is yes. YouTube has been very aggressive on rolling out shorts. If you look at the top 10, it's a lot of talent who weren't around a couple years ago getting hundreds of millions of views a month. Robinson It's always been hard. Valkyrae is the classic five-year overnight success story. She's been working really hard, and has had an amazing community supporting her for a long time. Other than YouTube and TikTok, what are the most important platforms? Izad Instagram generates more branded content than YouTube. So being on Instagram is super important, particularly in key categories like beauty, lifestyle, culinary and fashion. Berman The most common places are YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. In 2014, we saw some talent pop off of Snapchat, but the ecosystem was so new for creators that there was no opportunity to build a business around it. I'm really excited to see the direction Pinterest continues to go in. There's a lot of amazing voices and more mom and pop shops. The next Chip and Joanna Gaines could come from Pinterest. Robinson Instagram is the 800-pound gorilla. It's always one of the top two or three platforms, and it's just a question of how Facebook wants to leverage that. Reels and Instagram Stories are two very big product evolutions driven largely by competitors. We know Facebook is smart at watching what's happening. I don't think those are the last production innovations we'll see. For a long time it seemed like people wanted to talk about creators "crossing over" to the mainstream. We don't really talk about that any more. Filipelli People were surprised by how little money could be made and how much control you gave up. Giving up control and financial benefits was a deterrent. Being an influencer is a slightly more legitimized job now. People were looking for legitimacy. Hollywood gave you a stamp of approval. People don't look for it anymore. How do you take someone who is popular on YouTube or TikTok and turn them into the CEO of their own business? Izad This is the biggest challenge a lot of creators face. They tend to be in a business that grew out of a garage. It's them, a camera and maybe an assistant or two. Not a lot of people. There's a period of time where you add more people to your life and it feels like more work managing the people than the output you get from it. It seems really inefficient and laborious. It's hard. But you get to the other side, and what you have is a sustainable business. Assuming you can keep up the creative and things you are good at. Rhett and Link have done that masterfully. That's how you build sustainability. You build a business around yourself in a manner that let's you take a vacation and not think about work 24/7. Robinson We try to be flexible. We usually offer people opportunities to do things beyond what they are already doing. With CouRage, one of the reasons he was excited to work with us is we said 'hey what about a podcast with [100 Thieves founder] Matt [Nadeshot]?' He had a big community around streaming on Twitch and making YouTube videos. Doing a podcast was a big shift for him. What's the biggest deal you've seen a digital-native talent do? Or the business that most impresses you? Robinson Probably something either Ninja or Dr. Disrespect has done. They both have a really good perspective on their reach beyond the traditional gaming community. Izad Dave Portnoy has been very successful at taking his personality and what he did well and building a company around it. The Crooked Media folks have done a good job of taking what was one or two podcasts and turning it into a media business. Creators are posting new videos and clips every week, every day and sometimes every hour. How do you manage against burnout? Flipelli Know that you have a plan to retire or slow down or change the way you work. It's a hard thing for a lot of talent to acknowledge or do. People just slow down. They value different things as they get older, or have enough money that they don't have to work as hard. Why not live comfortably instead of killing yourself? Berman There is an inevitability to it. Not every film comes back with a sequel. Not every TV show has more than one or two seasons. Ultimately when you're a voice and creating content… you're going to hit some sort of dead end. The best thing as a rep you can do in those moments is listen. Izad We're constantly thinking about how to make more time in the day. How do we take work off people's plates and give it to a service provider, or do it internally at a company. That's a constant thing. Try to get a schedule and get everything organized. Robinson If you're going to be successful working with content creators, you have to be really understanding and sensitive. There's a natural ebb and flow. Lean in for a month at a time, and then take a step back. If you could ask any of the biggest social platforms for one thing, what would it be? Berman It would be amazing to be able to edit a YouTube video after it goes live. Robinson Instagram to build gaming live streaming into its platform. Gaming already dominates on Instagram. And if you gave creators that ability that would be a true game changer for Instagram as a product and for creators who use it. What traditional Hollywood celeb has the best social media presence? Robinson Does Tyler the creator count? He's super raw and authentic. Berman. Molly Sims is really creative with what she does in speaking to moms and balancing aspiration with attainability. Filipelli Lil Nas X. No one is better at the internet than Lil Nas X. — Lucas Shaw | 
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