Forget “posting to social.” 

According to Lindsey, we’re operating in a full-scale content ecosystem – one that’s streaming-first, storefront-powered, AI-disrupted, and driven by creators who’ve outgrown the feed.

Recorded live at the Brand Advocacy Summit: New York, this keynote from Lindsey Gamble (LinkedIn Top Voice & creator economy expert) is a rapid-fire download on what’s actually next in marketing.

From the collapse of old playbooks to the rise of creator storefronts, Substack strategy, and content that earns its way into DMs, this is Lindsey’s devotion-driving newsletter brought to life on stage.

Tap in to understand:

📉 Why Traditional Ad Spend Is Shrinking & What That Means for Brands.
📈 How Platforms Are Handing Creators (& Marketers) the Keys.
🧠 Why Personalisation, Niche Content & Human Insight Are the Future of Performance.
🖥️ Why YouTube Is Eating Netflix – and What It Means for Your Content Strategy.
📬 Why Substack Is the Underrated Channel for Influence & Conversion.

This isn’t theory. It’s strategy, backed by real shifts in attention, tech, and creator behaviour.

Turn this one up for the download on what’s really reshaping marketing in 2026.

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome to the Creator Economy IRL

01:00 – Why Creator Platforms Just Overtook Traditional Media

04:05 – Social-First Brands Are Now Creator-First by Default

05:00 – Everyone’s a Creator: Storefronts, Employees & CEOs

08:20 – YouTube Is Eating Netflix: What It Means for Marketers

11:55 – Substack & LinkedIn: The Next Channels for Influence

14:00 – From TikTok to TV, It’s The New Era of Creator Content

16:00 – AI, Algorithms & Why Personalization Wins Performance

18:20 – The Future Is Human: Why Connection Beats Content

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Verity (00:00.054)

Lindsey Gamble is a LinkedIn top voice and is the writer behind one of the most read newsletters in our industry. And if you're not subscribed, you will be after this. Today, Lindsey is bringing it to life on stage. So please welcome Lindsey.

Lindsey (00:26.126)

Well, thank you so much for that introduction. I'm honored to be able to kick this off and I'm excited to be on the other side of stage later on and hear from all the great speakers on today's lineup.

That's me. So for the next 25 minutes, hopefully I make it through everything. I want to dive into the creative economy. As you heard, I read a newsletter. I've been doing it for like, I think almost four years now. And I love it because it forces me to stay up to date in our industry, diving into the news, pulling out the trends. what I love is the challenge of really providing actual insights for creators and marketers.

We hear so much data points about the creator economy. And the one that isn't talked about enough is actually this chart from WPP's mid-year advertising report. And for the first time ever, creator platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube will actually surpass traditional media and ad revenue for the first time ever. That's huge. That's, I think that's, it should be talked about every day instead of the Goldman Sachs stat that you always hear about the creator economy.

It, this reflection of, or the shift in dollars really reflects where our attention is going. As you heard, we're spending more time on social media and digital platforms and less time on traditional media like linear television, newspapers, and radio. And to no surprise, creators are the reason. Creators are at the heart of these platforms. They're the ones creating content across all different formats. They're educating us. They're inspiring us. They're entertaining us. And of course, they're influencing us.

And they're doing it in way that traditional media can't do. And so we see traditional media leaning into creators, but also acting or trying to act more like creators. And of course this overindexed with younger generations, but it actually cuts across all generations.

Lindsey (02:23.958)

Advertising is just one of many illustrations that creators are disrupting and driving innovation. Media and entertainment, of course, news and politics, I don't have to get into that. Sports, as well as higher education. One in five Americans get their news from influencers on social media. And depending on what influencer you're getting news from, it's probably not a great thing.

Any Syracuse University alumni in here?

You know what I'm about to say next? Awesome. Breaking news. But Sarah Houston University announced the nation's first ever academic center for the creative economy. And I love this because it's higher education. Once higher education embraces and adopts in the industry, it means a lot. And so this center will prepare creators that go to the university or aspiring creators, as well as the people that want to be behind the teams of creators for a career.

Being a creator or influencer is more than a viable career path, but the creative economy is an industry that's here. And I think at some point we won't call it the creative economy. We'll just call it the economy.

And in brands at the beginning of this year, Unilever CEO made a splash with a headline of the CPG giant was gonna invest more in social. And the big part of that was actually working with 20 times more influencers across the portfolio. He actually talked about having at least one influencer in every zip code and priority markets, which is kind of crazy. Social spending was gonna increase or is increasing from 30 % to 50%.

Lindsey (04:03.244)

And that's just one examples of brands that are going social first. I imagine a lot of people in here, wouldn't be here today if you didn't believe in social, but more brands are going social first and by nature that is creator first. Shark Ninja is a big one, a brand I worked with early in my career on influencer marketing campaigns. They are all in on social content and actually opened up a design studio somewhere in New York that has a dedicated space for the internal teams and creators to produce content. So they're investing from an advertising.

standpoint, but also a physical standpoint and providing these physical spaces to actually go social and creative first. And then lastly, a lot of any brands have a agency of records for social and influencer marketing. But anyways, a lot of brands that aren't in this room are moving towards a agency of records for social and influencer marketing. So they're hiring third-party services to help them build that social first strategy, especially when it comes to creators.

Create a storefronts everywhere. Any brands have storefronts?

I think that's my last question. you do. What were brand? Awesome. So creative storefronts, this is something that's popped up a few years ago. Of course, LTK kind of made them famous, but this year we've seen so many more brands launch their own creative programs that the hardest programs are creative storefronts. It's then this simple, right? It's the, it's getting creators the ability to have their own shared space on a brand or retailer site.

They're curating their favorite products, they're building collections. In most cases, when they drive a sale through those recommendations, they earn a commission. So it really brings together the trust of creators from social media, but to a channel where a brand owns that data and that touch point, and also brings more performance into creator brand relationships. And another big point around this is that a lot of these programs are open to everyone, which I think is great, right? When we say creator influencer,

Lindsey (06:03.65)

We have an idea of who that is, but today everyone is essentially a creator. Whether it's a customer, whether it's your employee, whether it's your CEO, everyone is producing content for some type of economic opportunity.

The social media platforms themselves have been more aggressive in bringing creators and brands together. I think YouTube has probably done the best job. They historically haven't been really active when it comes to, you know, helping brands tap into creators on the platform, even though there's a lot of influence of marketing that's happened there. If think about TikTok, I think they've been the best for the last couple of years with the creative marketing place and just being strategic about how they partner with third parties to help their brand clients.

But essentially every platform is helping the creator marketing space through new APIs and integrations, new ways to discover creators and going back to the idea that everyone is a creator, going back to kind of the true UGC, right? You, a UGC creator we think of it's basically not, it's on the UGC piece of content. It's, you know, a creator that's producing the asset. But what I've been really enjoying is seeing that these new social listening tools allow you to find content from.

Everyday people that are producing around your brand, your product or service, get those permissions and turn that into a performance ad. And when we think about trust and, I hate to use the word, but authentic, who better than your customers activating them? And we're all smart in here, but I also would argue that sometimes you can write the perfect brief, but the content that's going to perform the best is actually content that is created by individuals without any guidance.

We're also seeing some new ways. One of the, you know, the new tactics or new tools I'm most excited about is YouTube's brand dynamic brain segments, segments, which will allow creators to swap in and swap out integrations. Anyone hear about this? Awesome. And what I love is that it gives another route to partnering with creators. Historically, a creator has to produce a long-form video and integrate your brand in it. And that's great because it's going to be more authentic again.

Lindsey (08:18.004)

and natural and organic. But with this new feature, it's going to allow creators, first of all, to be able to monetize the existing video library. But also there's a lot of perks and benefits for brands. For example, if you have a quick turnaround campaign and you want to work with a YouTuber, you can work with that YouTuber to create a integration that goes into existing video that you know is performing already. I think even more strategically is that this ability to

swap integrations in and out across regions. So we know the importance of being able to test different brand messaging with different regions, but also being able to, you know, get some insights of what's working. And then the last one is efficiencies. Who doesn't want to save time and who doesn't want to save money? And with this too, some brands will be able to activate creators quickly, but also think more about partnerships that focus around CPM performance or affiliate and kind of leaning into where we see the markets going when it comes to creators, right?

You have your top of the funnel metrics, but all of you would love to partner with creatives and drive sales or some type of, you know, metrics that actually impacts the business.

Lindsey (09:29.422)

We're also seeing platforms emerge. LinkedIn's my favorite. I think I'm probably here because of investing in LinkedIn and creating content around this space. But I think it's one of the best platforms out there, especially in the B2B space. And I'm seeing more brands activate creators on LinkedIn across B2C. And I think that's the big opportunity, right? When we go on LinkedIn, we're in professional mode or business mode. But I think for those brands that can get creative, and this is many of you,

It's finding a way to work with people on LinkedIn that brings a professional world and a personal world together. So I wasn't able to do this, but my idea, like, oh, I'm speaking in a couple of months. Actually Calvin Klein was a brain-arcing about Ralph Lauren. Can I get a partnership where I wear that during my talk and then go back and post it on LinkedIn? It didn't happen, but those are the type of things I'm thinking about when it comes to bridging the gap between LinkedIn and consumer products.

And then along with LinkedIn too, we're seeing CEOs feel like they have to produce content, right? Like again, going back to the idea that everyone is a creator, employees. And when I think about employees as creators, I think one nuance and one thing that I try to get across is that, well, it's great for the brand, not everyone wants to do it. I've been posting content while I had a nine to five and I've seen the benefits of it, but like not everyone wants to do that. And I think as a brand, have to find a way to actually incentivize people to do it, but also understand like,

Well, that's common in a marketing world. It's not the same thing for everyone. So big platform, Substack. Anyone read a Substack? Nice. Anyone subscribed to a Substack? So knew it. So Substack, think is going to be the big channel for influencer marketing in 2026. I love it. the funny thing is my newsletter is not even on Substack, but that's for different reasons. But when it comes to Substack,

I think it has the best of both worlds where it's an own channel, but also social media and engagement and community engagement tools. And when we think about, you know, getting in front of audiences, it's not necessarily always getting the most reach, it's getting in front of the right audience with the right reach. And I think, you know, with Substack, you're able to get, you know, by partnering with creators, whether it's you know, editions that are presented by the creator or affiliate links or just editorial content.

Lindsey (11:52.322)

You're able to get in one of the most important spaces of anyone outside of tech, know, outside your phone, the inbox. On the other end, everything I think we've heard previously and probably here today goes back to community, right? There's some really great subs actors that actually have a community and not an audience. According to a creator IQ one in 10 agencies are using Substack right now. I expect that number to go up to three to four in the future. LinkedIn, Substack.

regardless of what platform it is, one of the best ways for brands to actually onboard or jump into these platforms is to go to creators. You think about the content that's doing the best on LinkedIn and Substack, it's all through creators. And when we look back, when TikTok popped off, there was a lot of brands that were hiring TikTok creators or TikTok specialists to help them build out their presence because it's a very unique platform. And I think that's the same case with LinkedIn and Substack.

Lindsey (12:51.714)

Social media is a new TV and YouTube is leading the charge. For the several months now, YouTube has been the number one streaming platform in the US, being now Netflix, Disney, and many others. And creators have been leaning into that with the type of content they're producing in terms of investing in the quality of it, but also creating more episodic series, multi-part content. And we see some of the big streamers try to take a page out of the YouTube playbook.

You have Netflix that now has several episodes from Ms. Rachel's library. You have Tubi and Samsung that are partnering with creators on fast channels. Of course you have an Amazon that's partnering with a Mr. Beast on our original series. And then a couple of weeks ago, Netflix and Spotify announced that Netflix will soon be able or soon host a number of Spotify, Spotify video podcasts.

Naking up words there. And it all makes sense, right? People engage with creator content. So why not put it there? But also, know, creator content tends to be more cost effective than content coming out of Hollywood.

Lindsey (14:09.122)

This content isn't limited to YouTube. We see it on TikTok and Instagram. Anyone watching any series before, we're familiar with them, right? They're part of culture. And while they're not long form pieces of content, we're seeing a lot of this TV-like content come to all types of social media platforms. And I actually think these formats are great for brands that want to work with creators on a long-term basis, instead of just having to create or post XYZ amount of times over a couple of months.

integrate yourself in these series that essentially have become part of digital culture today. And you also have the benefit of people tuning in and returning week after week or whatever that cadence is.

Lindsey (14:52.182)

As Instagram does, it always finds a way to copy another platform. Instagram and TikTok are both exploring dedicated TV apps. Instagram's head basically said that if people are moving to the TV screen and open to this, we have to follow. I don't know how much time I'll spend consuming Instagram content on TV, but I don't think it hurts. I think it's just another touch point for creators and brands to get in front of audiences that, you know, it's...

It's beneficial. I don't, it's as simple as that. And for brands and creators, that means that your reach goes beyond the mobile devices and you can actually reach people in their living rooms.

feeds are gonna get more personalized with AI. Also you're getting more control of your algorithms, which means that as a brand and a creator, you should partner with brands and create, or yes, you can partner with other brands, but also creators that have a really specific audience, right? You for example, on Instagram, and some people might have this already, but you'll be able to say exactly what you want to see, exactly what you don't want to see. And TikTok has a similar feature as well. And...

I don't know if anyone's on X Twitter. Anyone use that these days? Yeah. I check it every now and then I'm like, why am I here? but eventually they plan to roll out the ability to prompt the chat bot and say, Hey, I want to see more of this on my feed. And so you're just getting more personalized recommendations. with AI, the platforms are no longer limited to having to look at the caption or the text overlay to actually understand what's in the video. And I say all this, you know,

bring home the point is that recommendations are going be more personalized and just like we see on TikTok. And so as a brand, I think it's going to be more important to really have a specific niche, a specific topic. And some cases you might have to launch additional accounts so that you can kind of break out the different topics. But I also think when it comes to working with creators, know, smaller creators and micro creators have these really engaged audiences. And that's a great way to work with them because, you know, at the end of the day, the platforms want to connect, you know, the content to the right audiences.

Lindsey (17:04.142)

and keep people engaged. That's ultimately the goal of social media platforms.

Lindsey (17:12.48)

A lot of Instagram reels are being shared through direct messages. When's anyone share a Instagram reel with a friend in the last? Yeah. I don't post a lot of Instagram and I would like to, but I share a lot of reels with my wife and friends. And I think that's part of social media today. It's not just posting the content, but we're connecting over content. We're having conversations. We're driving conversations around the

you the creators and the brands that we like. And if you think about the content that you share, it's not seals the content. It's usually something that connects to you emotionally, whether it's, you know, helps you express a cause that you align with or social proof, right? Who doesn't love sharing something that, you know, they discovered with someone else.

I don't share a lot of brand content. so I think, you know, brands that want to get in direct messages as a new discovery avenue need to think like creators, but also work with creators on that content that, you know, you would share with your friends. Think about that and try to reverse engineer it.

Lindsey (18:21.304)

The AI generated social media error is here. How do people feel about that? Did anyone play with meta vibes or open AIs? Sora?

Yeah. So when both those and for anyone that doesn't know, they're basically, you know, a feed of AI generated apps or AI generated videos. And then OpenAI has its own app with AI generated videos. OpenAI has probably made the most noise because you can create a deep think of yourself and your friends and some of them are kind of wild. But you know, I think with AI for me, it's, you got to embrace it, right?

but I also think that is we're not going to live in a world where all the content we see is AI and, or all the content that we, you we want to see is AI. And so, you know, regardless of what I talked about, I think what this social media era of AI is really going to bring us back to is like the power of humans. Like Paul talked about is like, no matter the content and how much AI is playing a role, it really comes back to the, you know, the human connection.

That means that the creators you partner with are going to be more important, right? You're to have so much content, not going to matter about the content itself because people are going to be able to create whatever content they want at, know, a high production value is going to be actually the person behind the content. Do you trust what they say? Do you trust the recommendations? Do you trust them to deliver the message on behalf of your brand? And so you want to partner with creators that you trust, but you also want to tap into those communities, your own customers and advocates and

really bring that human aspect of like out. And I think, you one of the biggest opportunities we've seen this already is in real experiences. Like this is awesome, right? Like you go to conferences, you go to happy hours, you go to whatever. You really remember those. You're not going to remember so much of the piece of the piece of content you saw in your feed. And, know, regardless of what I said and we are also the platform is changing the human creator from the content itself to the insights, to the connection is really the most important thing.

Lindsey (20:29.996)

That's it. Thank you so much.

Lindsey (20:37.046)

If this is my newsletter, if anyone wants to join, I'll probably do a deeper dive on this, but thank you so much for the time and I'm looking forward to Do you want to do any questions? sure. Go to a minutes if you want to. Hi everybody. How do you think brands can use their actual influencers and creators and build their community with that creator? Yeah, think consumer insights and research, that's something I've actually been, I used to do some stuff with Everyman Jack as a micro creator on Instagram.

And one of the coolest things is that actually got to test our product before. Like I don't have a big following when comes to Instagram. I think things like that make you feel part of it. So it's like tapping into creators or customers when it comes to insights and whatnot, but also, you know, working with those creators to gather, you know, basically reverse engineering. Like what, what, you know, why is a creator attractive to a brand is because of the packaging that makes it easy for them to create content is because.

the brand represents their values and everything along those lines.

Awesome, thank you so much.