Keeping It Currant: a newsletter at the intersection of the creator economy & social impact

Welcome to the latest issue of Keeping It Currant, a newsletter by Social Currant & Girl and the Gov® focused on sharing insights on how to navigate the intersection of the creator economy and the political and social impact space. Before you scroll, make sure to pop in and say hello in the Social Currant creator-dedicated Slack channel, here.

…and one more thing, we’d love to get feedback from our creators on what types of paid campaigns, issue areas, and organizations you’d like to work with in the future. Fill out this form and let us know!

ATTN: POLITICAL CREATORS

Take this survey on your 2024 election experiences in the industry

Our eyes are on the future, which means we also have to take a look back at what happened during 2024 – the good, the bad, the ugly. The following survey will help us get a thorough understanding of how we can build back better with a strengthened progressive digital media sphere.

RESOURCE ROUND-UP

Something to save, something to use

FOR THE CREATOR WHO IS ALL-IN ON YOUTUBE → According to the platform, viewers are watching YouTube content via their TVs. Translation: your content needs to be TV-ready. This guide, right from the source that is YouTube itself, can help get your content there.

FOR THE CREATOR LOOKING TO AMP UP THEIR NEWSLETTER SIGN-UPS → It’s all about the “ask” in business and when it comes to asking potential subscribers to sign up for your newsletter. This run-down of what makes a good “ask” provides helpful techniques for making your newsletter grow.

FOR THE MANAGER THAT’S TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO POSITION THEIR CLIENT → New year, new environment, new possibilities for how you position your creator client. This look at what trends are emerging and resonating in the social media space can be utilized as a reference when formulating a broad strokes strategy for the year. 

THE TOOLBOX

Tips n’ tricks for editing, monetization, and more

• BRAND OUTREACH & NETWORKING → Trying to find a contact’s email can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Cue, RocketReach, which lets you search for the emails of contacts you’re looking to connect with.

• PODCAST CLIPPING → Clips are a necessity for podcasters, but making those clips can be a huge time suck. OpusClip aims to make that process a bit easier with its generative AI clip making capabilities. Give it a whirl here.

TIKTOK TRANSITION TIPS

Quick ideas to move your audience to your other platforms

• CAPTION: For videos posted from now until the currently scheduled ‘ban date’ have your captions simply share one to two platforms you’d like followers to follow you at and the respective handle for those. For example: “IG: @joeschmo123456” or “For more, follow on IG: @joeschmo123456”. This doesn’t apply of course to videos that rely deeply on a descriptive caption to provide necessary context for a viewer – but use your best judgment on that.

• COMMENTS: As we all know the comment section is a critical piece of the viewer experience on TikTok, meaning that viewers will likely pop down to the comment section for more details. That behavior provides a great opportunity to again share your other platforms. A few ways to do that specifically:

  • Comment on your own post – and yes, we wish the ability to pin a comment still existed too. The comment can look like: “For more, follow on IG: @joeschmo123456”.

  • Respond to a comment posted by a viewer – best if it’s a neutral one but that has gotten a good amount of attention. The comment can look like: “Totally agree! PS if TikTok gets banned you can follow me on XYZ”.

• DMS: DMs are in a way a form of business communication like email, so “handle with care and finesse” when asking mutuals to follow you elsewhere in those conversations. However, it is an opportunity to make that happen, so don’t let the moment slip by. Drop it into the convo with a “BTW, I wanted to make sure in case this app goes away that we’re connected elsewhere. This is my IG, email, etc:”

FAQS

Classic questions, quick answers

“There’s a brand I want to work with, but I don’t know how to find the email of the contact that I think is right to reach out to. Any tips?”

This can be tricky – and frustrating [we really wish everyone just listed their email on LinkedIn, tbh]. While not foolproof, there are a few avenues to try when aiming to reach out to a specific contact that you don’t have the email for:

• First look at the brand’s website and see if any employees are listed with their emails. And when we employees are listed with their emails, we mean a specific person with the work email that is assigned to them, not a generic or department email. If an email in that scope is listed, you will be able to see the cadence/pattern/design that the company uses for their employees’ email addresses. If you know the first and last name of the person you’re trying to reach, you can copy the cadence of the email available. For example, if the employee that’s on the website’s email is “[email protected]” and you’re trying to reach “Jane Doe,” you can then try email “Jane” at “[email protected].”

• If there are no emails listed on the company’s website, you can try Googling other employees that are listed on LinkedIn. The search formula: “name + email + company.” That may also help you find the style of email the company uses and thus is a jumping off point.

• You can also try RocketReach. You only get so many searches, so utilize with that in mind.

“I know I need to use my address for a certain platform and also to receive PR, but I don’t want to share my actual address because that seems a little scary right now. What should I do?

P.O. boxes are a life-saver. Whether you’re in need of an address for PR to be sent to, to meet platform requirements, or simply to have an address separate from your home that’s reachable for business, getting a P.O. box at a local post office is a great solution. To explore the process of what that looks like, you can head over here to the USPS P.O. box HQ. 

To submit questions for consideration in this section, please send a note to [email protected].

PLATFORM UPDATES

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META → In an interesting turn of events, Meta has made the decision to end its fact checking program and replace it with the “community notes” style system that the Elon Musk owned platform, X uses. In tandem with this change, the Meta platforms policies on content moderation surrounding politics and civics will be shifted, with the claim that it will no longer be suppressing political content. With that, the platform’s head has shared that it will be relying more on the company’s “automated moderation systems” for what it vaguely describes as “high level violations” as well as the platform’s own reporting. In addition, according to NBC, the team handling what is the “trust and safety and content moderation team” will be moved from California to Texas. This news also comes as Republican Joel Kaplan was tapped to lead Meta’s policy team, and Trump supporter, UFC’s Dana White was reportedly tapped to join Meta’s board.

BLUESKY → The platform quietly released a new feature over the holiday – its own variation on Trending Topics. As with Trending Topics features on competitor apps, and ones that have come before it, it enables users to tap into the leading conversations happening on the app, at that moment. The Trending Topics will be defined by key terms, thus based on how often those terms are found throughout posts – it’s kind of giving “SEO vibes.”

THREADS → In a move that aims to help creators get credit for their original content work, the platform has released a new way for fellow users to share Threads content. In addition to users being able to repost and quote a post, they are now able to utilize the “Use media” function. The media [ex: an image from a post] shared via this function will have a post credit to the original poster in the left upper hand corner. In that design, the next phase creator is able to create the content that they’re inspired to do so without failing to credit the OG.

HEADLINES

News at a glance from ‘round the creator sphere

• DigiDay: How publishers are strategizing for a second Trump administration: softer news and more social media

• Social Media Today: Meta Appoints New Public Policy Team To Align With Trump Administration

• Gizmodo: Deepfakes Barely Impacted 2024 Elections Because They Aren’t Very Good, Research Finds

• EMARKETER: Instagram, powered by Reels, ascends the paid social media throne

LET’S GET SOCIAL

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