Erin McGuff has 3 million social media followers, but with the money she makes from Instagram and TikTok, she wouldn’t be able to pay for the plate of mozzarella sticks we share at a Baltimore bar.
“On Instagram, I’ll get a video to 900,000 views and make six dollars.” MacGuff He said. “It’s an insult.”
Like most content creators, McGuff makes her living from brand deals, sponsorships and subscription products, not the platforms themselves. But this reality is emblematic of the dilemma that content creators find themselves in: They push social platforms to new heights, but those same platforms can betray them at any moment with one small algorithmic change or baseless comment.
Creators deal with the same pressures as any self-employed business owner, but at the same time, they are completely dependent on the whims of massive social platforms, which don’t pay them enough, or at all, to create massive value. And when it comes to brand deals and partnerships, there is no standard to ensure that content creators receive fair compensation.
“TikTok and Instagram make a lot of money from advertising, and they don’t share that with creators,” McGuff told TechCrunch.
The creator economy has a sustainability problem. According to Matt Koval, one of the first creators who went on to work for a decade as YouTube’s first creator liaison, a creator’s career typically lasts between five and seven years.
“If creators don’t take their flash of fame and turn it into some sort of sustainable business, they can find themselves in a really difficult position of, ‘Okay, what do I do now?'” he said. YouTube video.
Since starting her social media accounts in 2021, McGuff has made more and more money every year, but she still worries that her job could disappear at any moment. What if her TikTok account is deleted? What if her followers get bored of her? Except for a small, elite group, there’s really no blueprint for what a content creator’s career might look like in ten, twenty, or thirty years.
“You have to act like your influencer money could disappear tomorrow,” she said. “A lot of creators think, ‘I’m going to make online videos and make a bunch of money,’ and that’s unfortunately not sustainable. You have to have a business mindset and understand how to make money work for you.”
These concerns are not unique, nor are they unfounded. As creators try to build their multi-faceted businesses, they’re also starting to wonder if they can work together to advocate for more transparency with platforms and brands, which could help make their careers more viable.
Last year, creatives saw Hollywood’s writers’ and actors’ unions picket under the harsh Los Angeles sun, eventually winning contractual changes with studios that would help them secure better treatment and pay. Some creatives even pledged not to cross picket lines during strikes. Generation Z has come of age in an era in which workers at Amazon, Starbucks, REI, Trader Joe’s, Home Depot, UPS and many others are waging high-profile strikes and union campaigns to fight for better working conditions. And this generation – which decrees a a lot of time On social media – it is Most of the pro-union generations are alive.
Is now the time for content creators to get their due?
Lack of transparency
As a content creator who creates videos and resources about career advice, it makes sense that McGuff would think so intently about her career path. The same goes for Hannah Williams, founder Salary Transparency Street (STS), which has amassed more than 2 million followers across platforms.
In her videos, Williams asks people on the street to share their salaries as a way to promote pay transparency. Since starting its TikTok account in 2022, STS has grown into a broader resource hub for helping people get paid fairly.
“I personally started TikTok in 2022, and I just talked about how much money I made at every job I did, because I was like, ‘This is my only way to give back,'” Williams told TechCrunch. At the time, she had recently discovered that she was underpaid as a data analyst in Washington, DC. this. So I came up with the idea of going out into the street and asking random people about their salaries.
Williams is living the content creator’s dream. Her business earned more than $1 million in gross revenue in 2023, more than double what it made in 2022, and pays itself a salary of $125,000. But while Williams helps people in other industries achieve greater salary transparency, she’s been thinking about issues related to her own professional world.
“We definitely need a union, because we need uniform prices,” Williams said. “We need something for all companies to commit to. We need help. We need advocacy. We need people to stand by us.”
Since the film and television industries in the United States are unionized, workers in all aspects of production are insured by a number of workplace protections and paid minimum wages.
“If we look at it from the perspective of SAG and the studios, the creator studios are social media platforms. They are the people who host our content. We make them money,” Williams said.
Without any industry oversight, brands can pay creators anything – or nothing – for their work.
Some advocates are trying to change that. After getting burned multiple times due to low-paying brand deals, Lindsey founded Lee Lorgin Fuck you, pay me (FYPM), a database where creatives can share which brands they work with, and how much those brands paid them for specific deliverables.
“I’ve had people say to me, ‘Thanks to your website, I rented this month because I was going to get a free T-shirt from this brand, but I joined FYPM and saw I could charge them $2,000,’” Lurgen told . TechCrunch.
Creators also want more transparency from the social platforms themselves. Since much of a creator’s work is done through these platforms, any arbitrary algorithm change, disciplinary action, or update can mean a loss of income.
“One time on TikTok, I reported someone’s comment for being homophobic, and I responded to them and said ‘Ew,'” Williams said. “My account was restricted for 48 hours, I appealed that and nothing happened… It hurt me as a creator because I didn’t I get to interact or interact with my audience.”
In the worst cases, account suspension or hacking can have tangible impacts on a creator’s business. Let’s say a creator gets $5,000 from a brand for a sponsored Instagram post; If the creator doesn’t have access to their account to publish this post, they won’t get paid. These concerns are so widespread that startups have sprung up to offer content creators insurance in case their accounts are hacked.
“Instagram has no customer service at all, so if there’s a problem with your account, you don’t have anyone to help you, unless you know someone,” McGuff said.
According to Williams, these platforms aren’t doing enough to stop reposting either.
“There’s not enough regulation for people who copy your content — they’ll download your video, repost it and make money from that,” she said. “There’s no way I can report this and get them to take it down. Instagram is happy because they’re making money, but I’m not happy as a creator, because what am I going to do, not post on Instagram? My hands are tied.”
Can content creators unite?
Over the years, many creator economy leaders have floated the idea of a creator union. In 2016, longtime YouTuber Hank Green tried to create an Internet Creators Guild, but the idea may have come too early; The project lacked the funding and momentum to keep it running, so it was shut down in 2019. Since then, with the rise of TikTok and the boom in social media usage during the pandemic, more and more people have been making their living online.
Now, Ezra Kuperstein, an industry veteran, is working on a project called Creators.org, a nonprofit that aims to serve as a unified voice for creators. A similar group, the Creators Guild of America, launched in August. In 2021, SAG-AFTRA was opened Membership is for creatorsBut the union will not negotiate with brands; Rather, this special agreement allows creators to qualify for benefits from the union, such as health insurance. But none of these organizations are popular enough to attract a large enough community of creators — at least not yet.
“It’s hard to find common ground with everyone because everyone wants different things,” Williams said. “Depending on what type of content creator you are, you may have different priorities.”
In the meantime, platforms can still make changes to better support their creators.
“I think what we can do is give creators a voice on the platforms, like having a say in how the algorithm changes, and more legal protections to recognize that work as legitimate,” Lorgin said. “The people who make the rules at the top, they’re completely disconnected from it. It’s like deleting someone’s job if your page gets stolen.