Meta's AI matchmaker

And creators team up with a Billion Dollar Boy

Author

Emily Burton
May 06, 2024

It’s Monday and NBA player Jayson Tatum just posted his first new YouTube video in 11 years. More than a decade apart, the Celtics star taught us how to tie a tie and tie a shoe. Unfortunately for him, there are no ties in basketball.

META MATCHMAKER

Meta is bringing AI solutions to influencer marketing campaigns

The pitch: Meta appealed to brand and agency representatives during the fourth and final day of the 2024 NewFronts. Among other plans, the House of Zuck is applying AI advancements to influencer marketing, Reels, and much more.

  • On Instagram, the Creator Marketplace is getting an AI-inspired makeover. Brands that visit the hub will be able to utilize machine-learning insights to find creators who fit their campaign goals. The results can be sorted based on categories like audience similarity and topic relativity.

New to Reels: Meta’s signature short-form format is also getting AI-powered enhancements. The new “Image Expansion” tool will automatically resize content to fit multiple formats. And “multi-dimension product ads” will enable more creative options for Meta’s brand partners.

  • At the NewFronts, Instagram Head Adam Mosseri said that his company is “very focused on creators” because “we believe that power is going to continue to shift from institutions to individuals across industries, from teams to players, from labels to musicians, from publications to journalists.”

The context: Meta has made a significant investment in AI as it attempts to keep pace with the industry’s innovators, including the Microsoft-backed firm OpenAI. Last year saw the release of Meta’s AI companions, who shared their likenesses with celebs like MrBeast.

  • Earlier this year, Instagram announced that it would continue down that path by working alongside creators to develop AI chatbots that will be capable of handling interactions with fans.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

DATA • U.S. TOP 100 📈

The chessmasters of YouTube Shorts couple pranks

Family matters: Our ranking of the 100 most-viewed U.S.-based YouTube channels of April 2024 featured a familial focus. Two channels in the top five — Toys and Colors and CoComelon — appeal primarily to young children.

  • Further down the list, there are some family channels that prefer a sillier brand of short-form content. Creators like Logan Chitwood and The McCartys have earned fans with videos that depict hijinks in the home.

  • Lindy and Jlo may be the king and queen of that genre. Their most popular Shorts clips don’t just depict pranks. Instead, we get to see what happens when a nuclear unit initiates an all-out prank war.

  • The titular stars of the channel laugh as they hit one another with paint-filled balloons, but they also show us how their signature prank has evolved. These days, the counterpranks are as funny as the originals. In this house, everyone has to stay three steps ahead.

How it’s going: Lindy and Jlo reached 67th place in the U.S. Top 100 during a month when they added 378.6 million YouTube views. That was more than double their previous monthly total, and it brought their lifetime YouTube traffic up to 4.2 billion views. Their pranks reach more than 6.5 million subscribers.

Other highlights: The man at the front of the latest U.S. Top 100 is MrBeast, who got 1.9 billion monthly views by appealing to viewers of all ages (and not just kids).

  • More details about this month’s Top 100 U.S.-based YouTube channels can be found in our complete recap.

CREATOR BUSINESSES

An influencer marketing firm has an idea: A membership community for creators

Billion Dollar Boy has a million-dollar idea: A hybrid space where members can receive mentorship “in the business of being a creator.” The influencer marketing agency has launched FiveTwoNine, a membership community that will include a mix of IRL and online components

The roster: To kick off FiveTwoNine, Billion Dollar Boy assembled an advisory group of creators. The list includes gamer Slogo (who has founded a media production company Limax Studios), beauty creator and journalist Lucy Edwards, and The Other Girls Club founder Sophie Butler. Billion Dollar Boy brand partner Lipton is also involved in the launch of the new space.

  • Those innovators will get together at a brick-and-mortar space in London, which is equipped with production facilities and meeting rooms. After a four-month pilot period, access to the space will be priced on a tiered basis.

  • The online portion of FiveTwoNine will kick off in the fall and will include masterclasses from creators and other industry experts.

Déjà vu: Sound familiar? YouTube explored a similar concept in the 2010s when it opened YouTube Spaces in several cities around the world, including London. By reintroducing the “IRL creator hangout” concept, Billion Dollar Boy is looking to fill the void created by the cessation of YouTube’s Spaces program.

  • Another company in the influencer marketing industry, Whalar, got to work on a similar initiative last year.

WATCH THIS 📺

Welcome back to Twitch, BruceDropEmOff

There and back again: Last year, BruceDropEmOff was one of the high-profile streamers who signed with Kick after growing disillusioned with its rival Twitch. But Bruce’s exodus from Twitch didn’t last long

  • The man born Bruce Ray Condones announced that he’s “going back to Twitch full time” and “taking over” the platform once again. Fans can catch him on his official account, where he counts more than 1.3 million followers.

  • Does Bruce’s decision mean there’s trouble in paradise for upstart Kick? Maybe so — but it will take a few more creator departures to confirm that hypothesis.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.