Designing for the Creator Economy: Empowering Content Creators

Grace Ling at UXDX Community: Unleashing Change and Creativity. Video: https://youtu.be/X5WWSZ6A02s

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Introduction: designing for the creator economy

[00:00:00] Hi everyone, I'm Grace. Today I'll be talking about designing for the creator economy, essentially a lot of content creators who built a business over the internet. Previously at Electronic Arts I built products for content creators called EA Creator Network, and I'm a content creator myself, so I'm really excited to share about how to empower content creators today, specifically as a UX designer and product builder.

[00:00:24] I also drew a lot of the illustrations in this by myself. This is Fluffle, the bunny mascot of Design Buddies. Let me know in the chat if y'all are familiar with Design Buddies. I can't see the chat at all, but hopefully there's people engaging in there. Fluffle is the mascot of Design Buddies and I drew all the mascots, all the Fluffles, throughout this presentation, so I hope you all enjoy.

[00:00:49] Today I'll talk about what is the creator economy, what is the current state, what design challenges and product challenges we have and opportunities, how to become a creator yourself if you're interested, and Q&A.

[00:01:01] I'm Grace, I founded Design Buddies, the world's largest design community. We have a total audience of 150,000 members, helping designers grow their careers, land jobs, and make networking fun. I also founded a creator house called The Bunny House, inspired by Design Buddies, in San Francisco, and host a lot of parties here. I actually left EA last week to follow my dreams and do community building and content creation, but I was there for almost four years building products on the player experience and marketing side.

[00:01:35] I've also been a content creator for many years. I talk about design and career tips on LinkedIn, as well as lifestyle and travel on Instagram, and I've been to over 30 countries. Fun fact: I spent two months last year living on cruise ships, over 20 countries. I'm based in California, born and raised in Cupertino but I live in San Francisco. I know I have some interactive parts, but since I can't see the chat I will skip these.

What the creator economy is and how it works

[00:02:03] The creator economy is a 100 billion dollar industry. Essentially a lot of content creators, for example Mr Beast, or smaller content creators like YouTubers, they start online businesses. These can look like Beast Burger, or [?], or merchandise, but they also make money through sponsorships, through working with brands to promote their brands and creating content as well.

[00:02:26] There's also a lot of tools and software that fuel the creator economy, for example Substack, who has newsletters helping creators monetize, Instagram, LinkedIn. I feel like this is very significant, because in traditional media it was only people who had connections to Hollywood or something like that, they were born into a famous family who have this wide distribution. But now with the internet, it's really interesting how anyone can have an audience these days, and thanks to the creator economy for making that possible.

[00:03:02] There's a lot of different types of creator types, not always the Mr Beast type. There's also educators, like YouTubers who make content about a topic they educate on, writers who write newsletters, artists, as well as performers, dancers and more.

[00:03:21] Currently I feel like it's really disrupted traditional media, so now people don't have to go through traditional labels or regular TV. They have the internet, and I feel like TV watch time has been down, which is pretty significant. Because with all these platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, content creators can directly engage with their audience.

[00:03:46] Some examples of companies participating in the creator economy are distribution channels like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, LinkedIn as well for B2B creators. But there's also other companies that help creators monetize, for example Patreon, helping them with subscriptions, Buy Me a Coffee helping give tips, Gumroad giving digital products, and Linktree doing link in bio. So there's all these companies helping creators grow their audience and monetize and make a living through that, which is actually what I quit my job to do as well.

[00:04:20] Some specific creator examples are Mr Beast, [?], PewDiePie. These are just some examples of big ones that I found interesting to study, how they work in the creator economy. Feel free in the chat, who are your favorite creators? I cannot see the chat, but hopefully you can all engage in it too.

A brief history: from blogs to communities

[00:04:45] A brief history. During the early internet, like the 1990s and the 2000s, there were just publishing platforms like blogs. They were highly one-directional, but people could put their posts out there through Blogspot. And then during the 2010s we saw Instagram, Twitter, the rise of social media where people can now follow each other. Previously on Facebook, which was made in 2004, you have to add your friends, so it's mutual. But with Instagram and Twitter, now I can follow people and grow an audience that way, because it no longer has to be that each party has to approve. With this came the rise of more sponsored content, more audience, more platforms and so on.

[00:05:27] These days there's so many content creators out there, and with the rise of 2020 everyone was stuck at home, they were very lonely and they wanted to find their own niche communities so they can participate and connect with each other. A lot of creators have tapped into communities, because previously in the 2010s it was kind of one-directional, you kind of just watch a creator and comment something in the chat. But now there's communities, sometimes like Design Buddies as well, and some content creators have a Discord server or a Slack channel where you can talk about common things you have in common. For example with a fashion creator, people like fashion and they can talk about that.

[00:06:04] There's also email lists now, because the algorithm is always changing, and sometimes a creator can put a lot of effort into the video and it completely flops, and sometimes their accounts can get shut down for no reason. That's why I think it's important to collect emails so you have direct ownership and you can reach your audience without the reliance of social media platforms and algorithms. So I think that's the trends that we see, that I personally saw coming in.

Challenges and product design opportunities

[00:06:31] Some challenges and product design opportunities. Some challenges: there's so many tools out there, there's so many publishing platforms. People often ask me, what platform should I focus on? And it really depends. Data privacy as well, because a lot of times how brand sponsorships work is the brands want the data from the audience, so they know demographics and how to market to them, and sometimes, depending on where you live in the world, there's privacy law issues, and just ethically as well.

[00:07:01] Legal issues, because with the rise of AI, sometimes as artists, these training models are taking their work and using their intellectual property to train their models to pump out work similar to theirs, so that's an issue. Audience growth, because there's so much saturation out there of content creators depending on what niche, and also with the algorithms always changing. Monetization, because I feel like creators are giving a lot of value for free and sometimes I feel like value should be exchanged. And also time management, because these creators are often solopreneurs. They need to deal with not only being a performer putting stuff out there, but like taxes, accounting, customer service, dealing with all that as well. So, some challenges.

[00:07:45] The current solutions: there's a lot of creators, including myself, who have smaller group communities where we can talk shop about growth, monetization, email lists as well to not be reliant on the algorithm, scheduling posts so you don't have to stop what you're doing each day to post, hiring outside help like virtual assistants, editors and more.

[00:08:08] And monetization, helping creators make money. It's mainly through sponsorships, like brands would pay a creator to make a video about their new product launch or something. Affiliate links, where a creator can sell a discount on a product or service and take a cut from that. Coaching, consulting, online courses, digital products like resume templates, tipping, merchandise, community memberships and more. So there's lots of ways for them to make money.

[00:08:33] And so opportunities. You can think about how you want to make the life of a creator easier, whether that be helping them edit videos faster, generate multiple income streams, and grow and engage their audiences.

AI and the future of UX for creators

[00:08:48] The future of UX and some trends I see: with AI, I know it's a huge buzzword. I feel like a lot of people want to use AI to make content, but nobody really wants to consume content made by AI. That's why I would recommend just using AI as a starting point and then adding your own personality and ideas through that, and just being mindful of that when building AI tools as well.

[00:09:17] AI definitely increases the speed of production, so there's so many things out there. You might have already seen on LinkedIn some AI generated content. Reduced cost, because now you don't have to hire other people to do it. And now with AI, AI is not only just generative AI, but there's machine learning algorithms like TikTok, and it's so addictive because it kind of learns what you watch and what you spend time on, what you engage with, to give you a hyper-personalized feed.

[00:09:44] But I feel like AI can also create new forms of content, like human and AI working together. I don't think it will replace jobs, in my opinion. I feel like AI will replace designers who do not use AI. I think designers who use AI will replace designers who don't. So I think it's important to learn how AI can fit into your workflow, help you be more creative and productive. It can be seen in more content recommendation algorithms and in automating content editing tools. Some examples were obviously ChatGPT, there's also Copy.ai and Jasper that help you write copy, Descript to help you edit your podcast and so on.

[00:10:22] Some challenges: there's intellectual property, like a lot of generative AI, unfortunately, like Midjourney — or not Midjourney, but I don't know any specific platforms — but they take a lot of artists' intellectual art and train on them. There's also so much content out there, so how do you stand out? And also ChatGPT sometimes hallucinates, and it's also important to make sure you've checked your facts. For me — I'm not sponsored by any of this — but I like using Perplexity to help check my facts, because I can ask a question and then it will cite the sources where it came from.

AR, VR and blockchain

[00:10:56] And those AR and VR, with Apple's Vision Pro and the rise of immersive experiences, there's a lot more opportunities to design more immersive experiences. Beyond video, beyond writing, beyond this: three-dimensional. Use cases would be like marketing, hosting virtual events, gaming, education and more, and virtual worlds, so it's a new platform to engage and also put ads on there and monetize it too. Then for AR there's also Snapchat stories, like Instagram, like the AR filters that can be seen, not fully immersive. Some tools that help you create AR and VR experiences are like Bezi, Spline, Unity, these tools to make more 3D models and 3D experiences, as well as more filters like the TikTok and Snapchat filters.

[00:11:46] But I feel like with that, the challenges that come: these tools are relatively expensive to own. I think the Vision Pro is like $3,000, so not very accessible to the wide audience. I feel like technically it's more complex to build these experiences, but there are companies like Bezi helping make that easier. And the cost of hiring someone to run these, and the GPU costs as well.

[00:12:11] And also blockchain. I know it's kind of controversial, but I feel like blockchain is a technology that can be used for good and for bad. With NFTs you can own your audience, it will be linked to an address on the blockchain. There's also smart contracts, decentralized platforms, and helping creators have more control over it. But with new complex technology there comes lots of unknowns and lots of scammers, so for me, I personally don't create NFTs anymore, because I feel like there's a lot to learn from that, but I think it's an interesting technology to pay attention to.

[00:12:52] It is complex, it does have a steeper learning curve. There's security concerns, because you own the address to your NFT on the blockchain, but if you lose it you lose it for good, and there's no middleman. For example, if you have crypto and you store it on a blockchain, if you lose access to your keys, you lose it forever. There's no bank to help you find it out, so there's pros and cons to that. But it can help unbanked people be banked. So yeah, with everything there's pros and cons, and proving ownership is kind of hard, because you just have the address, there's no banks or middleman to help you out, no customer service.

How to become a content creator

[00:13:30] Lastly, I'll talk about how to become a content creator, in case y'all are interested. I feel like it's kind of just doing things and telling people. Identifying what topic you want to do. What are you interested in? Are you interested in running, in design? And what is the interest in the market for that? And who are your target audience, what are they interested in? For example, I create a lot of design content and run a huge design community, and they want to grow in their careers, they struggle with how to stand out, and they want jobs. So I try to create a lot of career topics and opportunities for them to get connected and get a job. And also, where are they in the world, because sometimes when you work with people, different cultures have different ways of seeing things.

[00:14:15] And then choosing your platforms. You can have content whether it's written, image, audio or video, and it can be short form or long form, so there's no right or wrong answer, just what kind of platform you're interested in. I feel like the key is just giving value. Value can be seen as educational content, giving practical skills, helping people feel entertained or inspired. And consistency is how you grow and develop a relationship with your audience.

[00:14:45] These are just good skills to improve as you go about your journey, because I feel like content creation is fun, but also having distribution is fun, it can help you unlock more opportunities. So you can improve your skills like writing, photography, video, SEO, be knowledgeable of trends, and optimize your SEO so you can build your distribution.

[00:15:08] For monetization, these can come in like sponsored content, you can sell digital products, selling subscriptions like a premium subscription with some perks, have a community, and also run ads like YouTube Partner. But I feel like when you're starting as a creator it shouldn't be your main focus, because I believe in getting into something because you truly enjoy it. For me, I personally enjoy improving my soft skills and technical skills in video editing, writing. I enjoy scaling my knowledge and giving back in that aspect, as well as increasing my distribution so I have more opportunities.

[00:15:50] I feel like social media is a social place, and just as important as connecting to the community, I think it's also cool to leverage social media to connect with other creators, other people doing something in common, and learn from each other, help each other out and grow.

[00:16:08] Also, I know it's easy to get caught up in, oh I need more likes, I need more views, and oftentimes a lot of the algorithms are outside of your control. You could work really hard on something and not get a lot of views, but treat that as data. It's always an opportunity, and also as designers, treat every feedback as data. It's not about you, but how you can improve. So it's always opportunities to see how many comments, how many likes, how many views, and experimenting and iterating from that.

[00:16:37] It's also important to be aware of copyright laws, just based on where you live, whether you own your data and things you should and should not be sharing, and things like that. And definitely, when you put yourself out there, the internet is a wild place. People can easily hide behind a screen and hide behind a name and say really mean things. I know a lot of people have different ways of dealing with it, but I feel like it's important to recognize that hey, it's not about you, as long as you know you're not putting any harm out there. I think oftentimes when people are trolling or commenting negative things, it's more about them, and you don't owe them anything, you can just ignore it. And joining relevant communities can help you unlock more knowledge and access more people and increase your distribution, have more fun.

[00:17:27] I would love to hear in the chat what you would like to create content about. I think it'll be cool for y'all to make your first LinkedIn post after this, as an action item to do. Something to start with, if you have never posted on LinkedIn before, is to introduce yourself and your career journey so far. You can talk about your background, like what did you study in school, are you a career transitioner, and why you're interested in design. And then if you're a career transitioner or studied something else, highlighting some skills that you've gained from that. I think this is a great way to stand out as a designer. And also include a photo of yourself, and also tag me, because I would love to see it and comment on it and engage with it, so people in my network can see as well and support your post.

Takeaways, resources and Design Buddies

[00:18:11] Some takeaways and resources. Overall, user generated content from creators is becoming more influential than traditional marketing. Oftentimes audiences want to listen to humans instead of a brand, very corporate. I feel like some opportunities as a product builder and UX designer are addressing how can we help creators monetize, improve their content and attract the relevant audience, and also tapping into newer emerging technologies like AI, AR/VR and blockchain, and how they can shape the future of the creator economy.

[00:18:47] These are just some reading materials, newsletters and YouTube channels, that I personally reference and enjoy and learn from, and that built a lot of my experience creating my own content since my Tumblr days in 2014.

[00:19:02] I would like to share a resource for all of y'all as well. Design Buddies is the community, we are 100% free to join, so just Google Design Buddies, you'll come up with our website. It's on Discord. Our goal is to help you level up in your design career, so we have a lot of opportunities for you to improve your skills and land jobs and make networking fun. We host a lot of events, both virtual and online, have design challenges, content and more.

[00:19:27] I'm based in San Francisco and run a founder creator house here, so I host a lot of events here, but I'm also flying to Atlanta next week and we'll have some events there as well. I'm speaking at Creative South, so if y'all are there, I'll host a meetup there as well. And then I'll be in London, Tokyo and more. I'm based in SF so I host a lot of events here, but also going global around the world, and we have over 150,000 combined audience, so it's a free resource, we're always going to be free for you to join.

[00:19:57] We're also hosting our first conference as well, called Design the Future. It's in person in San Francisco but free online, and we'll be focused on topics like AI and spatial design, blockchain and more. It's going to be our first one, we already have a couple of thousand people signed up, so you don't want to miss that. Tickets for in-person are running out. And I think that is the end of my presentation. I will take the last seven minutes for Q&A, and feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and join Design Buddies.

Q&A

[00:20:35] Host: Excellent, thank you very much, Grace. I hope everybody out there enjoyed that as much as I did. It was quite a detailed overview of the creator economy. We do actually have a few questions that have come in. The first one from Adam, and I kind of was feeling this as well: there's so much there. Or, as you put it, is it up to one person to manage content, legal, privacy and all of those different things that you mentioned, or how are people supposed to do that? Because you went through quite a lot in that presentation.

[00:21:09] Grace: Yeah, I mean, you could if you want, but I personally hire an accountant, hire a lawyer. I think it is important to, at least — it depends how much time you have and how far you want to go in depth into tax laws and legal laws. Some people prefer to go deep dive, but I personally would rather work with an expert because I don't have an accounting degree. So I think it's important to delegate, and I also hire people to edit videos. I don't think it has to be up to one person, it could be if you want to dive deep, but I feel like it's important to seek mentors and seek expert advice whenever you can, so you're not violating any tax laws or legal laws, especially for the accounting and legal side of things.

[00:21:53] Host: And is there anything you wouldn't delegate?

[00:21:56] Grace: Wouldn't delegate. Yes, I feel like with content creation I want to keep my own unique voice, so for all my ideas and all of, at least, how I film stuff. For me it's like my channel, so I wouldn't have other people, at least unless I'm interviewing them. I would not really delegate, I guess, the essence of it, the overall vibe, or the actual content itself. I want to be the one creating it. I can hire people to edit it, but I'll be the one mostly making the content and doing that. So that's what I personally would not delegate.

[00:22:33] Host: So it's your personal voice or touch.

[00:22:35] Grace: Yeah, and everyone has a personal voice that I don't think can be replaced by anyone else.

[00:22:42] Host: Excellent.

[00:22:44] Grace: Unless — I think there's something called the AI virtual assistant where you can feed it all your content and it could talk just like you, so maybe. But they have HeyGen[?] and Synthesia, the fake avatars. So it could be that, but I personally would prefer not to use it right now, because I feel like people can tell it's AI right now. But if I ever am way too busy in life but also still want to maintain the relationship with the audience, maybe. But I would make sure to run all the content produced by my AI intern by myself and make any edits as I can, just to make sure it's always authentically my voice. I would never recommend cutting and pasting from AI in general, as a designer or anyone else, but adding your own personal flavor to it. So that's a maybe, but right now, no.

[00:23:39] Host: Excellent. There's one from G[?]. Because you mentioned Mr Beast, they were saying, how does somebody compete, because Mr Beast has those budgets for his videos? Can you compete as a person with no budget?

[00:23:54] Grace: I think so. You just need an iPhone. All you need is an iPhone, or an Android phone, a smartphone, and connect to the internet. I feel like people are drawn to people for themselves, and you already have what you've got. I know there's people who are very successful out there, but I don't think you need a big budget. I just think you need to have a voice and an opinion and put yourself out there.

[00:24:21] Host: Excellent. And then I guess the distribution, as you mentioned, once you create it you then have to work on the distribution.

[00:24:29] Grace: Yeah, so I start by just using hashtags. When I started back in 2014 on Tumblr I just started using hashtags, and then, for example on LinkedIn or Instagram and Twitter, following who you already know and just following people in your niche and your interest, engaging with their posts, like commenting on it, is a good way to build distribution. Following relevant people, commenting and posting and using hashtags is a way to get started on distribution.

[00:24:59] Host: Awesome. And another one just came in from Anastasia: is it better to try to jump on a new platform or work on the existing ones? Like you mentioned with AR and VR, should you try to become the person of AR/VR, or is it better to stick with existing but more crowded platforms?

[00:25:20] Grace: I don't know, what do you mean by existing platforms?

[00:25:26] Host: Anastasia, write in if I'm understanding this right, but my understanding is that on LinkedIn there's already quite well known people, on Twitter or X there's quite well known people, on YouTube there's quite well known people. Is it better to take, let's say, YouTube, where there's very big names, is it better to go to that platform, or would it be better to spend your time and effort tackling a new platform where maybe you're going to be one of the new and standout people?

[00:25:56] Grace: I think it depends, and it depends on what kind of format you like. Do you like long form, like YouTube? Do you like short form, like TikTok? And I wouldn't let the fact that there's a lot of people discourage you from starting. I personally gravitate towards LinkedIn because there's a lot of eyeballs on there but not a lot of people posting regularly, and so there's a lot of views and I can post a lot on there. So there's that. Instagram is fun, I feel like a lot of my friends are on there and it's very visual.

[00:26:33] Grace: So I would just go for it, and don't let the fact that there's a lot of people discourage you from starting out, because that also means there's a lot of potential for you to grow really big. But there's always up and coming platforms, there's Threads and all that, and Bluesky. So yes, do all of it, and just test it out. If you like it, if you meet people on there, good, you can stay there. If you don't like it, if you're not getting any engagement after trying it out for a couple of months, then you can leave it, it's okay. It's always iterative.

[00:27:01] Host: Brilliant. Well, that actually brings us to time, so thank you very much for sharing. I hope everybody out there enjoyed it as much as I did, and thank you once again, Grace.

[00:27:10] Grace: Thanks for having me on, it was fun, and hope you have a wonderful day.