🔎Moneyball, but for creators (& creator hunters on a budget)

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Icy weekend here, folks. Good excuse to hermit and read. 

Gonna touch on an interesting creator story (ok, more of a whine). The point of the story is to show creators how to get noticed by the right people (5 tips). And how platforms can spot creators to hire who are likely to blow up (5 more tips).

Then, there’s good stuff in Monday’s Marketing News (including money-making opp. via your unused videos).

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Moneyball for Creators

Saw this story from Simon Owens. He gave big credit to Dave Portnoy (Barstool Sports) for being able to spot talent long before anyone else sees it. 

Gives Portnoy the chance to hire top creators at a low price compared to their future value (if they blow up, of course). 

I’d take that “low price” any day, after seeing one of Barstool’s former creators (Grace O’Malley) whine about not getting paid fairly. 

Portnoy responded and said her base salary was $175,000 per year. With bonus sponsorships, she racked up like $250K in her third and final year with Barstool. 

I’d never heard of O’Malley. But she must have talent or wouldn’t garner such a big payday. 

Her complaint? 

Another Barstool creator was earning more than her. Lots of American mental illness is driven by fame-chasing… even when you’re famous and getting fat checks!

Get a 9-5 job if standardized pay is the goal. Earn $43k just like Bob in the cubicle next door. 

So… if you do think $250k is decent pay, how do you stand out as an unknown creator to gain the spotlight of a large platform’s audience?

5 Tips for Creators To Get Noticed by the Right People

#1 Develop your unique voice and perspective (only resource you have that others don’t).

#2 “Outwork” creators who don’t have time to talk with the followers they do have.

#3 Brand your content from the start.

#4 Engage with content from the platforms you’d like to work for.

#5 Perform at live events (open mics, talent competitions, etc.).

What if you’re looking for unknown creators to hire before they get a huge following?

5 Tips for Spotting Creators with Huge Potential

BTW. You don’t need to own a huge platform like Barstool Sports to be on the hunt for talented but unknown creators.

You might have a business wanting to lock in someone for 10 sponsorship posts over the next two years.

#1 Look for creators with high engagement-to-follower ratios (indicates an active, loyal audience). 

#2 Use tools like these to spot patterns and potential breakout stars based on factors like content quality, audience growth rate, and topic relevance.

#3 Monitor new platforms that get popular fast (like BlueSky or Lemon8).

#4 Develop predictive models that forecast a creator's potential future performance.

#5 Erase assumptions (i.e., Polished might not mean much. Theo Von is the picture of awkwardness on his podcast sometimes — even now as he’s top-ten in the world.).

Hope those tips help. Whether you’re a creator or looking to hire one.

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Thanks for reading. Please share Inbox Hacking with your people. Talk to ya Wednesday.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin of Inbox Hacking

Bonus… What Walmart’s current CEO’s reading (via Axios)...