Welcome to the latest issue of Keeping It Currant, a newsletter brought to you by Social Currant & Girl and the Gov®. If you’re new here, this monthly inbox drop lives at the intersection of the creator economy and the social impact space, providing the latest need-to-know on how to navigate this rapidly evolving digital space. And since we’re doing introductions, before you scroll, be sure to pop in and say hello in the Social Currant’s Slack channel for creators, here.
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ADD TO THE CAL
Creator events to add to your cal
Economic Futures Creator Happy Hour
About: The Economic Security Project will be announcing their 2026 Economic Future Cohort with an afternoon of programming covering the current affordability crisis, the ramifications of corporate concentration, and what it means for creatives in the field. The programming will be followed with a happy hour, providing a chance for attendees to connect with other creators and advocates across L.A.
When: March 26, 2026; 3:00-6:00pm PDT
Where: IRL @ The KINN, Los Angeles, CA
The Punchline Has a Point: Comedy as a Tool for Storytelling & Education
About: Join Social Currant for a creator briefing with Bill Worley & Mark Kendall from CoolCoolCool Productions, for a discussion on how comedy can be a legit tool for education and storytelling in the impact space. Bill and Mark will highlight how humor can make even the heaviest topics land differently—and open up the “floor” for creators and organizations to discuss about how they're thinking about humor in relation to their content.
When: April 1, 2026; 5:00-5:45pm
Where: Virtual
Masterclass: Substack Recording Studio
About: Substack has launched the Substack Recording Studio, enabling creators to create shows directly on the platform. With the goal of helping Substackers’ get to know the feature and the best practices for using it successfully, Substack is hosting a masterclass. Topics covered will range from the technical like how to invite guests, to how to grow your audience.
When: April 1, 2026; 1:00-2:00pm EST
Where: Virtual
OPPORTUNITY BULLETIN
Creator-centric openings to go after
Apply for the Climate Cultura Program: Generation180 and Climate Power En Acción have are taking applications for the second edition of Climate Cultura: Philadelphia. In case you’re not familiar with the paid program, Climate Cultura is designed for Latino creatives such as comedians, content creators, filmmakers, and other artists who want to use their talents to make a difference on climate. The one-month program brings together Latino creatives to learn about clean energy from local experts, create new content, and inspire positive, local action. Applications can be submitted here through March 30, 2026.
Apply for the Social Currant x Defiant Dispatch Program: If your content mostly colors outside of the political lines, but you want to integrate politics into your platform a bit more on the reg, the new Social Currant x Defiant Dispatch Program may be up your alley. The paid program centers around creators amplifying content on key issues like immigration, affordability, and social justice via reposts and reshares over the course of six weeks. To learn more about the program’s parameters check your Social Currant dashboard, and to apply, fill out this form.
Pitch yourself for paid campaigns via Social Currant: Getting paid to post about what you care about is a win for you and a win for your audience. And on the Social Currant platform, creators like you are able to connect directly with leading progressive organizations to discuss paid collaboration opportunities. Tl;DR: instead of going down the RocketReach rabbit hole to find the right contact to pitch, you can do it through the Social Currant platform when you join here.
Apply for Facebook’s Creator Fast Track Program: Facebook has been putting in the work to return to its former glory as the “it” social media platform. In its latest effort to bring FB back, Meta has launched the Creator Fast Track Program. The program offers a set of bonus payments to established creators on other platforms, namely Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube in exchange for them posting to Facebook Reels and Facebook. Specifically, the program is offering $1K/month for three months to creators with at least 100K followers, and $3K/month for three months for those with over 1M followers, along with immediate access to the platform’s monetization tools. Participating creators are required to post at least 15 Reels per month across 10 different days. Following the three-month bonus period, program creators will then rely on the platform’s standard monetization features to cash in. To be considered for the program, apply here.
RESOURCE ROUND-UP
Save ‘em, share ‘em
→ For the creator that’s heard about Trial Reels but isn’t sure what they are…there’s this run-down on Trial Reels from Later. Aside from Later making a play for readers to sign up for their platform [obvi we respect the hustle], the guide shares what Trial Reels actually are and provides three strategic ways to utilize the in-app Instagram feature.
→ For the creator that’s looking to get a bit more organized…there’s this content calendar template from Social Currant that can be used to track upcoming content, where it’ll be filmed, and all of the other need-to-track details to keep the content and creativity flowing. To use the template, simply make a copy of this Notion page and start adding your add to cal content moments.
→ For the creator trying to create healthy boundaries with their online work…there's this uber useful tool that helps creators draw parameters that make sense for them. The Creating Healthy Boundaries Guide shares tips on how to limit screen time to figuring out how to understand the dynamics between creator’s private v. public lives.
→ For the creator who’s gone all-in on LinkedIn… this new guide from LinkedIn shares how creators can optimize their content to show up AI chatbot searches. The tl;dr is that a new report has shown that LinkedIn gets cited out the wazoo by AI chatbots, driving traffic back to creator’s posts on the platform – meaning chatbot searches in one’s content strategy is becoming a must.
PLATFORM UPDATES
New capabilities loading…
SUBSTACK → New in the world of Substack, is the platform’s just-launched Substack Recording Studio. The new built-in-tool allows creators to pre-record and publish video content directly on the platform, forgoing the prior need to either go live on the platform or to produce video elsewhere. The Recording Studio is available on desktop, and supports both solo recording and convos with up to two guests – and perhaps most helpful of all, it automatically generates clips and thumbnails to use. The end product [the content] is then distributed across all of the usual corners of the Substack-verse, including on the app and Substack TV.
YOUTUBE → YouTube is expanding its likeness detection tool, which was OG introduced last year to creators in the YouTube Partner Program, to include government officials, journalists, and political candidates. The tool is designed to ID AI-generated content that uses a person’s likeness, such as deepfakes. Similar to the ‘Tube’s Content ID process, the system scans for matches of a participant's face in AI-generated content. If a match is detected, the participant can then review the content and request its removal if it violates the platform’s privacy guidelines. To note, this is being rolled out to a pilot group – TBD, on when it expands past that crew.
INSTAGRAM →
CAROUSEL POSTS: As IG doubles back on pushing carousel posts, the platform has unveiled an update that seems to have the crowds giving a standing ovation… well at least in the comments section of this post. Anyways, the new feature enables creators to reorder the photos and videos in their carousel posts after they’ve been published. To reorder a carousel post’s content, creators can simply long-press and drag the slides into the order they want viewers to experience it in. Toodles to first-pic regret, hello to more flexibility.
LINKS: IG is testing a new and highly requested feature that would allow Meta Verified subscribers to add links directly to post captions – obvi, this feature is one that non-verified users of the platform have also been requesting since the dinosaur days. Alas, the feature is only in the “being tested by a small group of Meta Verified subscribers” phase, but if it makes it into full launch mode, it’s likely to be a boon for increasing Meta Verified subscribers.
TWITTER → The platform is introducing a new monetization feature called…wait for it… Exclusive Threads. The feature enables creators to put parts of their longer, serialized posts behind a paywall. The rollout taps into the popularity of serialized content, which is having a boom, and high key incentivizes those whose Twitter fingers create Tweet storms and long-winded rants.
HEADLINES
News at a glance from ‘round the creator sphere
Variety: TikTok Radio Sets Relaunch on iHeartMedia App and 28 U.S. Stations After Leaving SiriusXM
Tech Crunch: Tubi joins forces with popular TikTokers to create original streaming content
Gothamist: The social media influencers now run Washington Square Park
The Verge: Robinhood is making a social network
Tubefilter: A new hybrid model is coming to the Vtuber world. Say hello to the “XTuber.”
TOOLBOX
Creator tools from political HQs
→ FROM RUN FOR SOMETHING: National Run for Office Day is just around the corner – next week in fact. To help creators and occasional internet posters inspire community members to run for office, Run For Something has put together a social media toolkit of posts to share or use as inspo. Tap into the toolkit here.
→ FROM NO KINGS: Ahead of this weekend – and tbh, beyond – No Kings has made a creator toolkit and library of resources available for those looking to tell their audiences about the No Kings Protest. Tap into the toolkit here.
STATUS QUO
Reports, stats, & data to know in the creator world
The Ultimate 2026 YouTube Creator Marketing Playbook: This playbook is useful whether you’re a creator or on the brand side, and the very reason why is because it nails down two essential pieces of the “what does success look like on YouTube” puzzle. First, it identifies that views are a way more influential metric than followers – it isn’t Instagram [albeit they’re prioritizing views over followers now too]. Secondly, and an incredibly important metric to use for creators pitching brands, that at least for those that use the tool behind the report, Agentio, about 40% of views and 30% of clicks happen more than 30 days after a post goes live. In other words, YouTube is a long-game platform.
Emplifi’s “What keeps viewers watching Facebook Reels” Report: Emplifi dug into what currently keeps a viewer from scrolling away on Facebook Reels, and two of the findings are a W for humanity honestly. Their deep dive found that Reels where human speech starts within the first three seconds, and videos that feature a person within the first three seconds, had higher retention rates than other formats.
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