Why the Creator Economy Is Bigger Than Hollywood

Hollywood has been the stuff that dreams have been made of for more than a century and a quarter now. It has given us epic movies, larger-than-life film stars and directors and elevated the age-old art of storytelling into a spectacular audiovisual extravaganza.

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From cowboy westerns and Biblical tales to war movies and from classics like Gone With The Wind to comic superheroes like Superman and Batman, Hollywood has been a part of everyone’s growing-up years, youth and old age- a constant reassuring companion that makes you look at everyday life with curiosity, awe and wonder. It made life worth living.

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Yet we have, in our collective wisdom, decided to turn our back on that wonderful edifice of entertainment, spectacle and knowledge and replace it with what- the creator economy?!

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What is the creator economy?

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The creator economy comprises everyday people using modern technological tools like smartphones, digital cameras, laptops, and digital software to create content (text and audiovisual) for other people, which they monetise through ads, product promotions, subscriptions and memberships, digital products, and myriad other channels.

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The content creation industry, aided by the technological revolution, has given Hollywood and other traditional media a run for their money in vying for audience attention. Rather than watch movies in cinema theatres, hundreds of millions of people prefer to consume audiovisual content available on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook across every genre under the sun on their smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

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Size of the global creator economy

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Not only do these platforms provide customised entertainment as well as information on the go, but they also provide a viable income stream to millions of content creators and influencers around the world. The global creator economy market size is expected to touch $310.4 billion this year and reach a whopping $1345.5 billion by 2033. As many as 200 million people worldwide consider themselves to be creators. According to Deloitte,50 million content creators create content for 5 billion social media users worldwide, making the creator economy a buzzing hub of activity.

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Size of Hollywood

At $50.9 billion, Hollywood has a modest turnover compared to the burgeoning creator economy. A mere 407000 people work across the motion pictures and sound recording industry in the USA, which includes those associated with Hollywood. So, Hollywood is really a pygmy compared to the creator economy, and the number of people who are gainfully employed in this industry is constantly dwindling.

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The creator economy is gargantuan compared to Hollywood

In sheer size and financial heft, Hollywood is no comparison to the creator economy. However, it is in the colossal loss of its social capital, or to use a more political term, soft power, that Hollywood has suffered its biggest fall from grace. It is not its Oscar-winning movies and caped crusader fantasy franchises that have an all-pervading influence on communities and societies around the world.

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On the contrary, it is social media influencers rising from amongst the ordinary people around the world who carry tremendous clout with peoples across nations. If young people come out on the streets in support of a movement anywhere, it is social media that influences them. Politicians these days worry much more about their online support base than the number of people who turn up for their public meetings and rallies.

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While Hollywood is largely about the entertainment industry, the creator economy drives business itself. Brands know that they will get more bang for the buck chasing influencers than they will possibly get by signing up waning Hollywood celebrities at exorbitant prices. Things were tough as it is for Hollywood for quite some time now, but the advent of cutting-edge technology, especially AI, has in all likelihood put the final nail in the coffin of that venerable industry.

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The Hollywood writers strike a few years back in protest against the use of AI in writing was an early sign of things to come. Today, AI has pervaded every aspect of filmmaking, ranging from pre-production and actual physical production to post-production.  As a matter of fact, social media is already full of short films or reels which have been created entirely from scratch, right from writing and scripting to filming and composing the music to filming with virtual actors using virtual voiceovers.

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The creator economy is not just much bigger than Hollywood; it is fast becoming a way of life for hundreds of millions.

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The future of content marketing after ChatGPT

When it comes to content marketing, there is clearly a period before ChatGPT and after it. One fateful November day in 2022, ChatGPT was launched, and the world of content marketing was shaken to the core. With its incredible ability to create any amount of text on any subject under the sun in practically no time, it upended the world of wordsmiths around the world at that time, and content marketers began to worry about their jobs.

​Things didn't quite pan out that way, with people eventually being able to distinguish seemingly brilliant AI created content from human created one and feeling shortchanged on account of it. They increasingly chose the former over the latter as it felt real, relatable and more human.

​That does not mean that AI-generated content isn’t useful. It is, but as a recognisable separate category of its own alongside human-generated content. AI can help one with research, generating ideas and helping structure human-created content, and where necessary generate the content, thereby making the content marketing process smoother, faster and much more efficient than before.

​Clients are fine with AI being used by human content creators to the extent that it makes them perform better. At the same time, they would like to have a disclosure on the part of the content creator with regard to the use of AI, as they would likely like to know how much of what they are paying is on account of human inputs.

​It is not surprising, therefore, that 40 percent of marketers use ChatGPT regularly. It helps them streamline their writing and  get the job done faster and better. No wonder content marketers these days consider prompt engineering a very important skill.

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What's there not to like about ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms?

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While ChatGPT is a great companion to the human content creator in helping them come up with topical, reasonably well researched and resonant content, it is not as if it doesn't come with its own set of pitfalls.

​For one, you are not sure about the provenance of the content it displays for your consumption. You cannot take what it provides you at face value every time it comes up with some information. Any references that it might cite need to be checked to ensure accuracy.

​Besides, the content that ChatGPT and other generative platforms often generate comes across as formulaic and repetitive. Machine-created content, which is not imbued with real human emotions which can only come from lived experience, does not connect with the target audience the way one would want it to. Human communication has to be both subtle and nuanced and not just expressive, and that often does not reflect in the text created by generative AI.

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A partnership between generative AI and humans

​Just like handcrafted and bespoke products and services are valued more than mass produced cookie cutter like ones, honestly created real content based on a living person’s real-life experiences will always resonate with people much more. AI is good at managing the mundane aspects of content creation like pulling up stats, organizing text into bullet points, research, creating structure and carrying out grammar and spell checks. It is also great at repurposing content.

​But when it comes to originality of thought, critical thinking and strategic insight, human content creators have an inherent advantage over AI. This is also true in the case of storytelling. Even though AI can spin a brilliant yarn in practically no time, it is inevitably regurgitating other people’s style of writing. It could write like another Hemingway, but never be another Hemingway.

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The Path Ahead

The future of content marketing after ChatGPT is in fact better than it would have been without it. The advent of aeroplanes did not kill off road and rail transport, but made the latter better. As a matter of fact, there is a resurgence in rail travel, which is seen as a cleaner alternative to air travel in these environmentally fraught times.

​Human content creation is evolving thanks to the advent of ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms, which makes content marketing perform way better than it ever has in the past, providing more bang for every buck spent on it.  

According to Harvard Business Review, premier management consulting firm McKinsey stated back in 2023 that LLMs and other types of generative AI would bring about a $4.4 trillion growth in corporate profits.Let’s see how things pan out on a macro level, but the future of content marketing is brighter and better than before- one should know how to be a part of it. Human-centric content and marketing are going to be at the forefront even as ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms play a vital supporting role.

Prompt Engineering Is Dead. Strategic Thinking Is Back.

 When it came to using Large Language Models (LLMs), it used to be all about prompt engineering, which was seen as the silver bullet to obtain the best possible answers with the help of generative AI. The limitations of this belief  became apparent soon enough, and one began to turn to what has been termed context engineering. This involved inputting more advanced information from sources such as database summaries, retrieval pipelines, and contextual memory, among other things.

​Given that LLM models have evolved considerably over time and today possess an enhanced ability to comprehend natural language, it is far less dependent on prompt engineering than in the past. The ability to apply strategic thinking in order to accurately describe the problems in question, ask pertinent questions, analyse AI-generated output and use it to achieve one’s objectives is what is required these days. The AI era does not advantage those who are past masters at using prompt tricks, but those who can bring critical thinking to the fore and combine it with domain expertise and an ability to make sound judgment calls. Creative people who can strategise with the help of a partner that thinks and is more than a chatbot will be the ones to call the shots in this new dispensation. So strategic thinking is back in business, and the days of mechanically hammering in formulaic prompts into unthinking chatbots are definitely over.

​There was a time when prompt engineering had taken on a life of its own. It was all about skilfully using clever phrases and chain-of-thought tricks to somehow coax or trick generative AI models into offering up reasonably sensible output. Modern models happen to reason by default. It no longer has to be all about clever words; not so much the prompt but the thinking that goes into creating it that matters. Having a handle on the exact nature of the problem one is trying to solve and what it is that an optimal answer should look like helps. A query that is supported by a clear knowledge of one’s goals, the context in which it is required and the inherent constraints one might face will obtain the most useful information almost by default. In other words, strategic thinking is the way to go, not how good you are at using a predefined prompting structure. A victorious general is almost always marked by a superior strategic understanding of the battlefield, which helps them provide their troops with just the right brief for the latter’s best course of action.

​An extensive prompt vocabulary is not what helps one leverage AI in the best possible way. It is instead the ability to clearly define problems, be able to catch answers that are even the slightest bit wrong and come up with a better iteration. It is not about how you talk to a machine, but how clearly you express your request to the model in question. Prompts are, of course, not entirely dead, but they have to be backed by clear thinking and not some kind of engineering. No place for snake-oil salespeople- it's back to strategic thinking.

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AI Search vs Google Search: The New Battle for Visibility

 

Google search has been a part of our lives for decades now, and unless one was born under a rock and stayed there all these years, we have all had occasion to use it to obtain information for practically everything under the sun. In fact, to digital natives, anybody who hasn’t “googled” something might as well as be an alien from outer space.

​But as the old adage goes, change is the only thing that is permanent; the era of Google search is giving way to the age of AI search. This  promises to make the process of obtaining information more involved, as it involves a collaborative process where we can have a conversation about what exactly we are searching for instead of merely posing a simple mono-dimensional query and hoping for the best.

​What is AI search?

Like Google Search, AI search too can be used by people to obtain information or seek answers to any question they might have. AI search is superior to traditional search engines like Google Search as it does not rely on keyword-based indexing and instead is able to intelligently analyse the exact context of the query in question and is, therefore, able to come up with very pertinent and relevant answers that speak to the exact need of the person carrying out the search. This is made possible on account of AI search leveraging the power of cutting-edge AI technologies like  Large Language Models (LLMs), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Machine Learning (ML).

​AI search vs Google Search- The path ahead

For all the talk about the emergence of AI search and its growing importance in the overall scheme of things, the fact of the matter is that Google Search still dominates, with AI search only being able to drive less than 1% traffic to most sites. People still primarily turn to Google Search when trying to locate products, services or websites. That is the reason why businesses around the world continue to spend big bucks on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to ensure that they are able to obtain top rankings.

​However, the advent of AI has refined the process of obtaining information with the help of AI-backed search platforms like Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT. Where they score is in their ability to provide customised information on the basis of conversations they are able to have with the searchers. That makes AI search considerably more useful than traditional SEO ones, and that is something that hasn’t escaped the notice of brands and businesses. They have caught on to the fact that they need to optimise for both types of search engines-Google and AI

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It is not surprising, therefore,  that 37% of consumers are already searching with AI tools in place of the Google search engine, with ChatGPT alone boasting over 900 million active users. The Google Gemini app has as many as a very impressive 750 million active monthly users. Today, a brand's online reputation is more important than keywords for achieving optimal search results in the world of AI. Over here, your AI search strategy requires that your brand is the answer to people’s questions. Your digital presence has to be optimised so as to catch the attention of Large Language Models. The more the ChatGPTs, Claudes, Geminis and other such models cite your content and accord it importance, the better your brand’s authority gets stamped in the digital universe.

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While SEO will stay important and relevant, it will have to be strengthened by what is called answer engine optimisation. The more high quality original research goes into your content the more can you expect to build your industry authority and thereby lead to better capitalisation of traffic to your site.

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Summary

The old way of obtaining information via good old Google search is passe. No longer do links that will hopefully lead to the right answer do the trick. Instead, AI-powered search engines are able to come up with direct, personal, precise and conversational answers that serve your interests much better than the old way. Consequently, the click through rates are no longer as high as in the past, being supplanted by authoritative and highly reliable content. Brands are now called upon to do more than SEO and work on enhancing their AI visibility as well, by furnishing precise, high-quality, and context-rich information which helps them stay on top in the battle for online possibility.

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The Death of Traditional SEO—and What Comes Next

 

Traditional SEO, as we have known over the last three decades, is effectively dead. This is borne out by the fact that experts reckon that the $80 billion SEO market is on its last legs. What is slated to replace it instead is Generative Engine Optimisation or GEO. In place of using traditional search bars, consumers increasingly feed their queries into chat boxes on platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. More and more, we are  seeing the rise and domination of an AI propelled system of search that brands would do well to adopt at the earliest, unless they want to be consigned to oblivion.

​It is no longer about ranking, but reference

In the old way of doing things, the higher one ranked on the results page, the better it was. The world of GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) or LLM (Large Language Model) Optimisation that individuals and brands now operate in demands that one achieve creditable reference rates vis-a-vis AI, instead. Where this form of search is intrinsically better than the old way is in the fact  that it actually entails engaging in active conversations rather than merely typing keywords. 

​AI Search all the Way

Online discovery is done the AI way in the post-SEO era with the help of a myriad of platforms like Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. Factors like keyword density and backlinks, which were the lifeblood of traditional SEO, are no longer as critical in the online discovery process. Instead, AI models zero in on content that is well crafted, factually reliable, and sufficiently cited. In other words, they go for content that is unequivocally authoritative. The way things are these days, a brand may do without a website, but not without an impressive digital experience.

​Go for GEO

World over, people are making a move to EVs (Electric Vehicles) from traditional ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) Vehicles, troubled by the growing incidents of extreme weather events caused by global warming. A similar paradigm redefining move is afoot in the digital marketing universe with regard to a move from SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to the more contemporary GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation). This is because it helps generate content that is reliable, trustworthy and authoritative and, therefore, more liable to be found useful by AI models.

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GEO requires individuals and brands to ensure that they prioritise high-value and high-quality content over articles stuffed with keywords as was practised in the past. One has to be recognised for one’s insights and cited often enough to denote credible authority. This helps build a brand that exemplifies expertise. The idea is not to encourage clicks, but to become a go-to source for knowledge.

​Up the Trust Quotient

You may be masterful at technical optimisation and a past master at creating reams of content, but the ladder to success in the age of AI will come to those who display real expertise, rather than the ability to crack an algorithm. Your ability to come up with high-quality content that provides demonstrable value will make people as well as AI gravitate towards you as a point of reference. Now’s the time to up the trust quotient of your brand.

​Age of the Personal Brand

This may be the AI era, but there is an increasing premium on the human connect in an age of AI generated content with its almost cookie-cutter precision. Businesses and brands with the foresight to empower their leader by allowing them to create and build personal brands that emotionally resonate with their prospects and customers are on to a good thing. People crave to hear from successful people who seem to have everything sorted. These could  range from a highly regarded CEO, a super rich and successful entrepreneur, a hugely respected researcher or a consultant whose advice is much sought after. A credible  personal brand allows a business to wield far more influence than a mere website. It also helps the brand place better in AI driven searches.

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As the old adage goes-the old order changeth, yielding place to the new. We are on the cusp of a digital marketing revolution.

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Why Every CEO Needs a Personal Brand in the AI Age

There are several reasons why the personal brand is so valuable in the age of AI, the least of which is that a personal brand is several times more powerful than a business brand. As a human being, one connects better with another human on a primal level before one ever gets to fall in love with a product or a service. This is the reason why soldiers will perform better in battle under an inspirational commander than a lacklustre one. The same reason is why the skipper of a team sport like cricket or football often inspires their team to victory against seemingly impossible odds.

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The presence of social media has made it very easy for CEOs to connect with people on a personal and individual level, something the brand itself needs much time and effort to achieve. It is way easier for a CEO with a personal brand to lend his charisma to the brand than the other way around in today's times. It is this personal connection that brands crave in order to influence their target audience. This also explains why brands value influencers so much. They add an emotional connection to the outreach.

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Brands crave relatability with their target audience more than anything else, and a CEO’s personal brand can help them get just that. People trust people whom they relate to. That is something that no amount of advertising and other forms of paid promotion can easily create. If the CEO in his or her personal capacity wields the mojo when it comes to addressing the aspirations of the target audience of a business, they have hit the jackpot. That is because the CEO will get the business connections they seek at a fraction of the cost.

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The good news is that your personal brand as a CEO is easy to build. You don't have to be a media-savvy rock star. As discussed earlier, you have to be a relatable and real person with genuine  stories to share with people who know where you are coming from.

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The companies and brands which have seen revolutionary growth over the last thirty years or so have largely been led by people of tremendous courage of their convictions, possessing great personal brands. Everybody from Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk  had captured the minds and hearts of millions by sharing their seemingly grandiose dreams and making them approachable and achievable.

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With artificial intelligence automating all the repetitive tasks and increasingly taking on the mantle of decision making people will crave more and more for a steadying human voice which advises them in the manner of a friend they know well. This is where a CEO with a strong personal brand will be able to raise their business brand’s profile far above the mechanical clutter created by a super efficient world managed by soulless AI.

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As AI finds its way into more and more of our activities, humans will increasingly hark back to creativity, passion, connection, community, and vision to connect with the humans behind a business's products or services. AI may very well improve both products and services and their delivery, but it is the human connection that will make the customers loyal and stay.

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Using AI as an ally to build your personal brand as a CEO

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AI is here to stay and with good reason. It is not the villain to compete against, but the Ally who can help a CEO do better personal brand building. For instance, not everyone is a born writer and you as a CEO can surely use generative AI to draft content that helps you connect with your target audience, as long as it genuinely reflects your voice.

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AI tools can also help analyse vast amounts of data pertaining to your target audience in double quick time, giving you critical information to speak to their concerns on a personal level.

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Personal Brand as an exclusive club

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Finally we are reaching a stage where the personal brand of a dynamic CEO and their loyal followers will determine the success of a business. It will not be so much the product or the service that a business provides, but the values and aspirations that the CEO as a person displays that will draw his loyal followers, associates, fellow believers to buy what's on offer. Much like Trump has his MAGA supporters and Elon has his Tesla lovers. To take a sporting analogy die hard Beckham fans will buy merchandise of the football club he plays for, because he is there. Personal branding is the way to go for CEOs.

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How AI Is Reshaping PR Forever?

Photo by Werner Pfennig: https://www.pexels.com/photo/an-elderly-man-having-an-interview-6950236/

 AI is transforming the scope and very nature of PR activity, imparting it a dynamism and urgency it didn’t have in the past. Thanks to it, communication is always on point, as it is data-driven, leading to much smarter campaigns and way better results than was possible in the past.

Public Relations as we knew it in the past no longer delivers in the age of technology, especially since the use of AI tools started becoming standard practice for PR practitioners. AI has caused a paradigm shift in the way that PR frames narratives, connects with audiences and tracks its deliverables. Is it any surprise then that PR professionals have majorly come to use AI tools in a major way to bolster their outreach efforts?

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AI helps smooth the AI process

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AI tools help PR professionals in a plethora of ways, including allowing  them to get a more precise idea of what is trending with the target audience, thereby allowing them to come up with bespoke messaging for their communication campaign. AI can help them do everything from creating emails and social media posts to press releases that are primed to meet the exact requirements and expectations of the target market in question.

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PR practitioners these days can perform a slew of formerly time consuming tasks like writing press releases, media tracking and creating performance reports in practically no time, freeing them to focus on the human aspects of communication that make it more resonant with the target audience. These involve the all-important tasks of framing the core strategy and narrative as well as building human relationships.

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AI makes PR more creative and innovative

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AI has made PR creative in ways that was not possible in the past. It can, for instance, carry out an analysis of journalists’ past articles, social media engagement and their propensity to respond and help one come up with customised media pitches that get the timing and the tone of the pitch just right for the journalist in question. This increases the pitch success rate by as much as 40%.

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PR professionals can make their press releases more impactful by embedding them with striking visuals created with the help of A generative AI. This can be especially impactful with things like product launches.

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AI promotes efficiency in PR

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AI makes PR way more efficient than it used to be. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by PR professionals, as evidenced by the fact that a study by WE Communications and USC Annenberg Centre for Public Relations found that AI in PR was used 54% of the time for content creation, 40% of the time for data analysis and 37% of the time for background research. What’s more, 95% of the respondents observed that AI helps enhance both efficiency and the quality of their work. For all the criticism PR faced historically on measurable deliverables, new age AI powered PR wears efficiency and easily quantifiable results as a badge of honour. AI in the truest sense provides teeth to PR.

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AI has helped brands rediscover PR

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There is a renewed interest in PR in the age of AI on account of the fact that language models these days analyse media to zero in on which brands to feature in their results. This has businesses calling upon PR companies to help them make their presence felt across the media. It is up to the PR professionals in question to use AI in an intelligent and ethical manner so that they  majorly enhance the reputation of their clients with the help of cutting-edge and highly efficient AI tools. Using disclaimers, for instance, wherever using AI-generated content helps one be more productive and efficient while not in a way impacting upon the integrity of the brand. Similarly, any research that one uses has to be properly attributed. AI, if used the right way, has the ability to supercharge PR and deliver stupendous results.

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AI Use in Public Relations

Content Creation       ████████████████████████████ 54%

Data Analysis          ████████████████████         40%

Background Research    ██████████████████           37%

Benefits Observed by PR Professionals

Enhances efficiency & quality     ████████████████████████████████████████████ 95%

Improves media pitch success       ██████████████████                         Up to 40%

               AI TOOLS

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Content         Analytics          Research

Creation        & Tracking         & Insights

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