The creator economy is growing fast , as writers, artists, gamers, and thought leaders across every field tap into social media to monetize their content and build communities. According to a study by CB Insights published in June, the creator economy saw a record $1.3 billion in funding in the first half of 2021 alone. That’s a 188 percent increase from all of 2020.
The latest episode of the WorkLab podcast features Daniel Roth, LinkedIn editor in chief and VP, who’s seen how creators are leveraging the platform and changing their careers.
The pandemic showed that people are looking for more flexible ways of working, and that pay and recognition are becoming lower priorities in terms of what they want out of work. Instead, Roth says that many people want to embrace their talents and find work that fulfills them.
He offers advice on how companies can empower creatives within their organizations to bring their full selves to work, and explains why creators are integral to product marketing.
Also in this episode, you’ll hear from Temi Ibisanmi, a media campaign manager at Microsoft, who shares the story of how he became a digital creator while maintaining a corporate job, and the positive effects it’s had on his career.
WorkLab is a place for experts to share their insights and opinions. As students of the future of work, Microsoft values inputs from a diverse set of voices. That said, the opinions and findings of the experts we interview are their own and do not reflect Microsoft’s own research or positions.
You can follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Here’s a transcript of the Episode 6 conversation.
188%: The Rise of the Creator Economy
Elise Hu (Host), Daniel Roth (Guest), Desmond Dickerson (Correspondent), Temi Ibisanmi (Guest)
[Music]
ELISE HU: This is WorkLab , the podcast from Microsoft. I’m your host, Elise Hu. On WorkLab , we hear from leaders and scientists about the surprising data and trends that are transforming the way we work.
DAN ROTH: These creatives, these influencers, are the ones who are fueling so much product purchase right now. And if you are not thinking about how whatever it is you’re selling is being used or talked about by the creative class, then I think you’re missing out on a key part of the funnel. You have to be in front of this authentic group of people. These are all creator economy people who are finding their passion and their community around your products. You need to embrace them.
ELISE HU: That’s Daniel Roth. He’s the editor in chief of LinkedIn, which is part of Microsoft. And he knows a lot about creators—all the people who monetize their content online. Writers, photographers, gamers, influencers, and, of course, business leaders who share advice on LinkedIn. He’s got insights on why businesses in all sectors should pay attention to the creator economy. For one, it’s growing fast. Funding for creator-focused companies is up 188 percent so far this year compared to all of 2020, according to CB Insights.
Later in the episode, we’ll hear from a Microsoft employee who moonlights as a digital creator—and who’s building skills that help him grow in his day job, too. But first, my conversation with Daniel.
ELISE HU: All right, Dan Roth, welcome.
DAN ROTH: Hello. Thanks for having me here.
ELISE HU: Where are you joining from?
DAN ROTH: I am in Brooklyn, New York. I’m in my attic, which is incredibly hot. And over the course of the pandemic, I’ve been consistently moved out of rooms as my family has demanded that I stay quiet and stay out of their hair.
ELISE HU: Okay, well, tell us a little bit about yourself. I understand you were a journalist before joining LinkedIn as an editor.
DAN ROTH: I am a longtime business journalist. So I’ve worked at Wired, Fortune, Forbes . I was the tech editor at Fortune and then ran Fortune.com. And while I was at Fortune , about 10 and a half years ago now, I was building an app for Fortune called the Fortune 500 Plus. It was going to take all this great data that Fortune had, and we needed some kind of social data.
So I flew out to LinkedIn to see about using the APIs and had a really good meeting with the CEO at the time, Jeff Weiner, who called a few weeks later and said, hey, we’re going to move into content; why don’t you come and join us?
And so, that was the start of the next part of my career, which involved building out the entire editorial operation of LinkedIn.
ELISE HU: That’s fantastic. So, for those who don’t understand the thinking behind the editorial content on LinkedIn, you know, a lot of us might use LinkedIn or probably do use LinkedIn as a job networking or a recruiting hub, but you do things for creators and have really championed this idea of a creator economy. What is that and what is LinkedIn’s role within it?
DAN ROTH: The creator economy is the idea that anyone through their voice, whether that is video or writing or posting interesting ideas, they can form a business; they can find some way to connect to economic opportunity through their creations.
The way the economics of this work is either you’re paid directly through your work, so maybe you publish content to get sponsored, maybe you’re an influencer and someone then sponsors you as an influencer to talk about their work, or, and this is what we see on LinkedIn, is that it is often indirect monetization.
And that can mean getting a job, it could mean teaming up on a project, it could mean getting a book deal or a podcast deal. It could mean, you know, getting invited to come speak at a conference or speaking event or become a speaker.
ELISE HU: It sounds like it’s really hard to become an influencer or somebody who kind of gets to write books, right? So, you mentioned that this is actually a huge economy. Are the barriers to entry of this getting easier?
DAN ROTH: The barriers to entry always get easier. The ability to get attention for your work always gets harder. CB Insights had a recent report that looked at creator-focused companies that have reaped in over $1.3 billion in funding in 2021 alone. That was up nearly 200 percent from 2020. There is a belief in the market that this is what a future of work looks like.
ELISE HU: And what is a creator-focused business? Can you give some examples?
DAN ROTH: It’s really anything where there is some creation involved and you’re getting some kind of direct payment for it. I’ll give you an example. There is a creator on LinkedIn who I’ve talked to in the past, who is a former chef. Her big belief is that the future of cooking is all induction—an induction cook is when you cook by electric.
On LinkedIn, she kept posting about induction cooking, why it was better, why it was good for the environment, what she was doing with it. She shared her own personal stories of induction cooking, and she was doing it because it was her passion.
Someone from the San Francisco mayor’s office saw her post on LinkedIn, and said, you’re an induction cooking, you know, expert or influencer. Why don’t you come do a cooking class with the mayor? And she did this cooking class with the mayor. Someone else saw that. They opened a kitchen with her—induction cooking kitchen. She’s now sponsored by induction cooking companies. And it all came because she had a passion for this area and she built a community around this topic.
ELISE HU: I love that. And these kinds of examples, these kinds of people together make up the creator economy.
DAN ROTH: Exactly. That’s right.
ELISE HU: How does this differ from side hustles?
DAN ROTH: A big difference between a side hustle and having something be a full-blown creator economy company is you have to build a community to be able to have a successful creator economy company. You have to have fans and you have to have super fans.
ELISE HU: That sounds pretty challenging. What has changed among this community or the creator economy writ large over the past couple of years? What are you seeing?
DAN ROTH: The pandemic has shown us all that the traditional way that we have worked might not be the best way of working. We see this in all of our data at LinkedIn, there is this incredible demand for the ability to be able to carve out your own path and to have flexibility. There was a recent survey we did that showed that of the demands—
ELISE HU: Eighty-seven percent, yeah, 87 percent of workers in a LinkedIn insights survey found that they would prefer to stay remote at least part of the time and that flexibility is the fastest rising priority for workers. Is that the one you’re talking about?
DAN ROTH: That’s exactly it. And that’s 73 percent of workers saying job flexibility is their top priority. We’ve never seen that before. We’ve done these kinds of surveys before, and it was always like, hey, what’s a priority for you as a worker? It was always pay and recognition. In the pandemic, job flexibility shot instantly to the top and then just stayed there.
Have you heard of Miss Excel?
ELISE HU: Tell me about her.
DAN ROTH: Miss Excel is a creator, a young creator who just offers quick tips about how to use Excel. She started on TikTok. She built a massive following for these Excel tips on TikTok. She brought those over to LinkedIn. They’re doing incredibly well on LinkedIn as well.
ELISE HU: We are talking about the spreadsheet software?
DAN ROTH: Yes, I should be clear, these are tips on how to use your spreadsheet software better on a platform that is known for their funny dances. I think that what she has found is that the audience might be more on LinkedIn than on TikTok. This is a persona for her, and you can build a business out of doing something like this.
[Music]
ELISE HU: Thanks, Dan. Now let’s hear from someone who leveraged their passion to do exactly that. Here’s Temi Ibisanmi chatting with our correspondent, Desmond Dickerson.
[Music]
DESMOND DICKERSON: I'm super excited to talk to a good friend of mine today. Temi and I met in college and now we both work in marketing at Microsoft. He’s also a successful member of the creator economy, with a travel Instagram account that has over 18,000 followers. He frequently collaborates with his partner, Skylar Marshai. Welcome Temi, so glad to talk to you today.
TEMI IBISANMI: Yeah, man, I’ve really been looking forward to talking about this with you.
DESMOND DICKERSON: You know, I can think back to our time together in college. And before there was this thing called the creator economy, it was you in the DJ booth, rocking a party. Or it was you with the camera in hand, showing your creativity that way. What sparked all of that for you? When did you start to think of yourself as a creative person?
TEMI IBISANMI: I’m Nigerian, so some listeners may relate when I say that my parents wanted our lives within the home and to begin and end with our family. I was only allowed to go to school and then to football practice and then back home, and for a long time, that was about it. So to really fill that time, I was really interested in books and movies and, more than anything else, Japanese anime.
The storytelling and character development, I feel, gave me a real early peek into what it is to put depth into building out a story or a timeline. I mean, that was just really cool, because then I was able to take that and put it into practice because we would have African parties where kids were there, sleeping at tables until 2 or 3 a.m., that’s just our culture. And then my mom would nudge me awake like, hey, come take this picture for the family.
And from there, as I continued on, I learned storytelling through Instagram, TikTok, and through travel and traveling while Black and letting my audience see what it’s like to travel as a Black man, a Black man, a Black woman—a couple—through these various countries. And essentially, with Black people being one of the least traveled groups of people, letting them know how safe it is out there for us in the world and how welcoming the world can be towards us and how accessible it is.
DESMOND DICKERSON: With everything you’re doing within the creator economy, what impact has that had on your career?
TEMI IBISANMI: It’s been really great. First off, starting off in Microsoft, one thing I always tell people how great of a company it is because with it being such a large company, if there’s something that you want to do, you’re more than likely to be able to find it here at Microsoft. My first position coming in as an account manager wasn’t necessarily what I wanted to do, but I felt like that account management skill is something that I would be able to use in the long run as I continue into the profession of digital marketing.
DESMOND DICKERSON: Yeah, so it sounds like your creator work is definitely helping you get a different perspective on marketing that’s useful in your day job. I know you’re at NYU right now and you’re doing the MBA program. In conversations with classmates, or just in classes in general, is anything about the creator economy popping up?
TEMI IBISANMI: When I discuss what I do for a living with my classmates, their ears or eyes automatically just pop up, and it’s just like, okay, I want to hear more about this, what can I do? And I’ve been having those discussions with my classmates, and it’s so funny. It’s always just, what interests you? Why does it interest you? And it becomes a conversation. I kind of stop the conversation 20 minutes in, and I’m like, you know way more about this than I do. The conversation so far has been great. You’ve caught my interest. What would it be to make a video? Not even with your face in the video, but just words on a screen or just something to keep the interest of your audience and just stay informative. Boom, you’re a creator.
[Music]
ELISE HU: That was Microsoft employee and digital creator Temi Ibisanmi, giving us a personal view of what it’s like to be a creator. Daniel Roth, we were talking about the creator economy in general. Let’s zoom out even more.
Why should the creator economy matter to business leaders who might see themselves as separate from individual creatives? What can today’s managers or workers in general, the workforce writ large, learn from creators and what they’re up to?
DAN ROTH: If you are managing a workforce that has any Gen Z or millennial workers, this is an area that you have to be on top of, because it is highly likely that your employees, they are thinking about what the alternative is to working with you, and that alternative is going to be being a creator and going off on my own. So it’s in the back of your workforce’s mind, so you have to stay aware of it.
ELISE HU: Could companies identify and then empower the creators so they can use those skills within the company?
DAN ROTH: Absolutely. This is especially true in the environment we’re in right now where talent is so hard to find. When someone’s looking for a job, what are they looking for? Is this a place where I can work? Does this company line up to my values? That is something that has emerged out of the pandemic. How do you know if that company lines up to your values? The employees are telling you that it does.
So if you have creators internally who can talk about their work, who can talk about their passion, that is good for your brand, that helps you get people in the door. People say, oh, this is a company that employs this kind of person; I can fit in there as well. They let me bring my whole self to work. So that’s one big part of it.
The second is that these creatives, these influencers, are the ones who are fueling so much product purchase right now. And if you are not thinking about how whatever it is you’re selling is being used or talked about by the creative class, then I think you’re missing out on a key part of the funnel. You have to be in front of this authentic group of people who are saying, I love using X product and here’s why I do it, or here are my tips for how to make Y product work even better—this is what I do using it. These are all creator economy people who are finding their passion and their community around your products. You need to embrace them.
ELISE HU: Who are the unknown creators in an organization that can really push an organization forward, drive innovation, and how do you uncover them, especially when those skills don’t necessarily show up in a traditional way?
DAN ROTH: If you are at a company, you should see which of your employees are posting. You want to find the people who are not afraid to share their voice. And so, if I were in a company trying to figure out who the creators are internally, I would just start following my employees. I would start following them on LinkedIn, I would look for them on Instagram, I would look for them on YouTube, and start seeing what they’re creating.
ELISE HU: All right, Dan Roth, thanks so much.
DAN ROTH: All right. Thank you.
[Music]
ELISE HU: That’s it for this episode of the WorkLab podcast, from Microsoft. Check out the WorkLab digital publication too, where you can find, among many other things, a transcript of this very episode. That is all at microsoft.com/WorkLab. And for this podcast, please rate us, review, and follow us wherever you listen.
The WorkLab podcast is a place for experts to share their insights and opinions. As students of the future of work, Microsoft values inputs from a diverse set of voices. That said, the opinions and findings of our guests are their own, and they may not necessarily reflect Microsoft’s own research or positions.
WorkLab is produced by Microsoft with Godfrey Dadich Partners and Reasonable Volume. I’m your host, Elise Hu. Our correspondents are Mary Melton and Desmond Dickerson. Sharon Kallander and Matthew Duncan produce this podcast. Jessica Voelker is the WorkLab editor. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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