Earlier this month, the Creator Economy Live conference brought together marketers, brand leaders, and creators to midtown New York to share insights on the ever-evolving landscape of creator-brand partnerships. Here’s a breakdown of the emerging trends and strategies they highlighted.

Money Talks Panel:
Brands across various industries are emphasizing closer collaboration between creator and media teams for authentic audience reach and increasing their marketing budgets to do so. Talent sourcing strategies now include:

In-house creator curators,
Creator vetting tools for curating brand safe creators
Partnerships with creator agencies

One-Off vs. Long-Term Collaborations Panel:
During this panel we learned that 62% of creators prefer long-term partnerships, which are key for brands who are willing to invest in a creator’s growth vs. one-off collabs which tend to be better to jump on current trends. However, it’s important for brands to consider creator fatigue and ensure that their long-term partners remain genuinely passionate about their product and engaged with their own communities.

In summary, One-offs are great when a brand wants to leverage a trending creator in an organic way, or to jump on a trend in a way that feels genuine. On the other hand, Long-Term collaborations are great when a brand is ready and willing to bet on a creator on the rise.

Spending Smarter panel
During this panel we heard a lot about how brands are using their creator collaborations to amplify their content through paid. Brands are testing organic content via creator channels before paying to boost it. One incredible note came from Fabletics, who has an engine of over 7,000 creator partnerships monthly, giving them a lot of leverage when analyzing that content which means they can boost through paid the top performing ones.

Last but not least, we also attended a panelfocused on the best ways for brands can enter the cultural conversation. The best way to do this organically is through creators who add value and entertainment to the moment. MCo Beauty hit the mark when they flew out a Timothee Chalamet lookalike to a contest and used their makeup to highlight his Chalamet-esque features.

The success of partnerships like this one can be tracked through: