Hi all,
Happy Monday from NYC.
Creators this. Viral that.
I’m more into ROI.
I’ve spent years placing bets on creators and have spent $3M+ doing so. I’ve also generated 2B+ impressions online largely due to a creator strategy I layered on top of a viral organic strategy.
I’ve proudly said “no” to ~1K+ creator deals when it’s a bad fit, weak team, or deal terms that didn’t make sense.
Some of the hundreds of creators i’ve worked with, ranges from huge people to meme accounts:
Street People of Los Angeles (750K followers on IG, started working with them at under 100K)
What is New York (1M followers on IG, started working with them at under 400K)
School of Hard Knocks (8.4M on IG)
Raw Alerts (1.4M on X)
0v0breezy (550K on X, started working with them at under 100K)
Gohar Kahn (7M on YouTube)
The trick is to find and work with them when they are budding. The internet will indicate that they like the creator, and you can see the account growing with strong engagement.
When evaluating which ones are right for your brand, here are creator types that pay off.
Core 4 Creator Types:
UGC:
What it is: UGC traditionally was an acronym for “user-generated” content. In today’s marketing world, this acronym is used to describe content that brands pay for that looks incredibly organic.
Interesting: UGC creators don’t need to have any followers. All that matters is that they can pretend like they are having an organic experience with your brand
Market movement: Consumer companies have totally doubled-down on this growth lever over the last year
Pricing: $10-250/video. Range depends on UGC creator experience.
Agencies and software offering this:
Knight Vision: Of course we offer sourcing and creative generation here. Our creators are HOT! We just closed incredible UGC creators for our client, Grifin (top fintech app)
Heave: End-to-end support, super high quality creators
Sideshift: self serve platform. Use my code “HAPPY” for 20% OFF.
Shoutout to Nick the founder who also went to Wisco and is a newsletter subscriber!
Opportunity: B2B brands should start leaning into this. It’s only a matter of time. The creative is super inexpensive, you can test different angles and even pressure test new verticals this way.
Example: We’ve run UGC at beehiiv (has done rly well with low CACs) targeted towards business owners
B2B Creators:
What it is: “Business-to-business” Creator aka someone who’s content is focused on business, whether that’s marketing, sales, career development, software engineering, interviewing, etc.
Popular B2B creators:
Example: Kyle Poyar (who Knight Vision brought into beehiiv’s creator program this year!) talks about marketing and GTM super analytical newsletters
Example: Lara Acosta (huge on LinkedIn and also amazing new bestie)
Example: Me, hiiiii! 🙋♀️
Thanks beehiiv for featuring me on the cover of the “2025 Year in Review” sandwiched right in between 2 legends - Tyler Denk (cofounder/CEO of beehiiv) and Austin Reif (cofounder/former CEO of Morning Brew) 👇
Top Row: Tyler Denk, Julia Knight (me), Austin Reif
Market movement: There are still very few “good” B2B creators = lots of opportunity for new ones.
Having 250K+ followers as a B2B creator with strong engagement (either on your newsletter, posts, reels, YouTube shorts) is still considered top tier.
This differs from normal “influencers” (aka girls on Tiktok with Amazon storefronts) who routinely have 250K+ followers
Why? This content is highly educational and requires strong motivation and comprehension. It’s definitely growing in popularity tho!
Pricing: This is not definitive, just what i’ve seen across 100+ B2B creators
0-20K followers: <$1K/post
20K-250K followers: $2K-10K/post
250K+ followers: $10K-50K/post
Opportunity: Massive for B2B brands who are looking to generate real trust and repetitive case studies with respected industry professionals (aka the creators).
This is my absolute favorite way for B2B brands to show up right now + meet their customer where they live and consume content online!
Influencers:
What it is: The most common creator type that sells a lifestyle through their personality. Everyone has the ability to lean-in and become an influencer.
Popular influencers:
Best example everyone knows: Alix Earle
Example: Regan blew up this year with her viral series on rebuilding her life after a 5-year relationship. 0 to 600K followers in ~3 months.
Example: Hot girls on TikTok who love shopping
Market movement:
I’m so over this creator type…..anyone else agree?!
When TikTok rose in popularity during the early days of the pandemic, there was a newly opened window where people shot to fame (example: Tinx) as influencers.
All good influencers now need to make short-form video content
Audiences are super aware of influencers now, so on the brand side its better to partner with creators for long-term deals.
I only recommend buying these types of packages AFTER you have tested the creator and know they can help sell for you!
Pricing: Truthfully, I haven’t bought from a normal influencer in a very long time because I never see good ROI. For that reason, I would suggest setting a CPM goal and having their price per post factor into how you define if the purchase is “worth it”
Opportunity:
There’s an opportunity for brands to continue developing bespoke product lines with influencers who truly deliver value and alignment with their core customer.
Grow your own influencers in-house at your brand! That way you own all the distribution. This is harder but worth the investment IMO.
Works well when brands can put paid spend behind the posts and push them out harder (less organic feel but more reach; can boost after post lifecycle is over)
Culture & Meme Accounts:
What it is: Page built around a specific cultural lane (humor, niche obsession, industry jokes, identity-based content) vs. a personal brand
Popular theme or meme accounts: :
Raw Alerts – 1.4M followers; They steal content from everywhere/everyone online but have grown a lot, now partnered with Polymarket
School of Hard Knocks – 8.7M followers; I’m so lucky to work with this incredible team, shoutout to cofounder Josh Smith who is the coolest ever and best to partner with
Collegefessing – 4.9M followers; My good friend David owns this account and crushes it. Very college focused humor.
Interesting: These accounts can be super cheap compared to influencers, especially on X
Market movement:
I’ve personally generated sub $1 CPMs before with culture page posts that I’ve purchased
They are growing!!! Popular ones are now huge cultural trendsetters and are a really nice bridge between elite people online and normies
Pricing:
$300-$4K/post depending on follower count
You can def negotiate with these pages. Oftentimes the current owner is not the original person who started the account. They bought this to sell posts and use as a business!!
Opportunity:
10/10 opportunity if you know what creative to run
Take your most viral/popular creative and flight it on these accounts = slam dunk
B2B brands should playfully use these accounts to make their product more mainstream
Well, How’d I Do?
I hope you all had an incredible long weekend.
Whether you’re B2B or B2C, creator-led distribution is one of the most defensible growth engines you can build. If you aren’t already testing into this or rapidly scaling based on success, try another approach or reach out to me for help.
Knight Vision is currently building out beehiiv’s creator program, where we’ve deployed over $1M in incredible talent, ranging from well-known superstars to up-and-coming fan favorites.
Picking the right creators requires the perfect blend of taste + data.
These 4 categories (UGC, B2B, influencer, theme account) are where I’ve seen the best ROI.
Btw, I have to write my best friend’s wedding speech this week. If you have any good inspo or tips, send them my way!!
Have a productive week and crush it.
Julia
