TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday and Anthropic’s Claude AI is trying its darndest to catch ‘em all. The bot’s new Twitch channel is 100% devoted to its Pokémon conquests, which currently include three gym leader badges.

MAU MILESTONE

YouTube's podcasts now reach one billion users per month

The stat: YouTube just hit a major milestone. In a post published on its official blog, the Google-affiliated platform announced that it now reaches one billion monthly active users with its podcast content. The reveal of that ten-digit total comes only two weeks after CEO Neal Mohan described YouTube as "the most frequently used service for listening to podcasts in the U.S."

The context: YouTube's activity in the podcasting world ramped up in 2021, when Kai Chuk joined the company as its first Head of Podcasts. A flurry of internal developments and brand-facing products followed soon after, with YouTube devoting funds to lucrative initiatives and harnessing its vast distribution network to ensure the success of its podcasting push (at least, from a numbers perspective). Now, even as YouTube faces increased competition from rivals like Spotify, its massive scale and increasing suite of offerings have continued to help it secure content from big names like Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy.

YouTube’s podcast growth meshes nicely with its other areas of focus. The platform is currently enjoying record-setting viewership on TV screens—much of which goes to long-form shows. Last year, viewers consumed 400 million hours of YouTube's podcast content on TV screens.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

More Than a 30-Second Spot: How Creator-Driven Campaigns Turn Super Bowl Buzz into Year-Round Success

The Super Bowl is more than a game—it’s a marketing arena where brands fight for attention long after the final whistle. The companies that succeed no longer rely on TV ads alone. Instead, they adopt social-first strategies, partnering with creators to turn campaigns into cultural phenomena.

🏈 Here’s how brands stayed ahead of the game during Super Bowl 59:

1. Pre-Game Hype: Uber Eats and Dunkin’ teased their ads weeks in advance, leveraging TikTok trends and influencer partnerships to build anticipation.

2. Real-Time Engagement: 68% of viewers use social media during the game, creating opportunities for real-time memes, polls, and influencer reactions. 

3. Post-Game Amplification: Verizon, for instance, kept the momentum going with a four-day activation featuring creators like chef Tini Younger and designer Kristin Juszczyk. With those kinds of expertly-curated creator partnerships, the cultural impact doesn’t stop when the game does.

You don’t need an $8M TV spot to stay in the game these days—because influencers are the real MVPs of engagement. As a marketing agency born out of a creator talent agency, Viral Nation’s unique expertise and end-to-end social media marketing services can turn your next big event into a year-round victory lap.

Get in the game with Viral Nation →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• After earning $177,000 through Kickstarter, open web app Tapestry—which organizes feeds from decentralized platforms like Mastadon and Bluesky—has secured financial backing from Tumblr. (Techcrunch)
  
  

• Starting May 2025, YouTube plans to begin “improving the quality of mid-roll ads” by timing more slots to occur at “natural break points.” (YouTube Help)
  
  

• Instagram head Adam Mosseri assured long-form creators yesterday that the platform takes into account “not only the percentage of a video that was watched, but also the number of seconds.” (Social Media Today)
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• OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it’s begun rolling out deep research access to “all ChatGPT Plus, Team, Edu, and Enterprise users.” (OpenAI via X)

BIG INTEGRATIONS

Look alive, Twitch streamers: A new crop of sponsorships are en route to your dashboard

The integration: Creators on Twitch have a fresh slew of sponsorship opportunities coming their way. StreamElements has announced a partnership with the Amazon-owned hub that will integrate “performance-based sponsorships” into streamer control centers.

The self-described “ultimate streamer platform” offers products that range from streaming broadcast and engagement tools to monetization features such as sponsorship hubs for middle-class creators. So far, more than 100,000 creators—including notable streamers like JonBardcore and bbjess—have completed and cashed in on campaigns offered through StreamElements. In total last year StreamElements told Tubefilter creators participated in over 250,000 sponsorship campaigns spanning across 75 different brands.

Now, the company’s integration with Twitch will introduce influencers to “marquee brands” by placing sponsorship opportunities in a new tab on the streamer dashboard. That pact is described in the press release as the first time a third-party monetization partner has been embedded into the Twitch platform. And although Twitch is seemingly trying to offer its streamers a wider variety of monetization opportunities, none so far have been this integrated.

The details: Campaigns offered to streamers will include pitches for gaming brands like Candy Crush Saga and Honkai: Star Rail, while payouts will come in the form of a base rate with additional performance-based incentives. Access to partnerships is contingent on a streamer’s home region. Initially, a select group of 10,000 English-, German-, and French-language Twitch partner creators will get a shot at the sponsorships. By March 11 it will be available to Twitch Affiliates with English support.

TOY STORY

75% of kids ask their parents to buy something after seeing it in an ad on YouTube

The study: Parents, beware: according to data published by Precise TV, watching YouTube with your kids could get expensive fast. The London-based agency found that 75% of YouTube viewers between the ages of two and 12 have asked for a product after seeing an ad for it while watching alongside their parents.

That figure comes from the latest Precise Advertiser Report: Kids, which surveyed 2,000 young consumers and parents. Among other findings, the report noted that YouTube is the most popular platform for kids, with Shorts usage increasing 32% year-over-year among Precise TV’s respondents. YouTube’s viewership share was also over 2x as large as broadcast TV’s, and more than half of the surveyed parents said they've watched YouTube alongside their kids.

That dynamic has turned the platform into a potent marketing vehicle: YouTube’s effect on recall is up 20% year-over-year, and 38% of parents said the most recent item they purchased for their child was a product they saw advertised on YouTube.

The industry impact: Many of those ads are integrated into gaming content—and for good reason. Almost half of the surveyed kids play games on a second screen while watching TV, and YouTube channels like LankyBox and GamingWithJen (pictured above) ranked highly among both boys and girls in PreciseTV’s survey. Those findings help to explain why so many creators have inked deals that bring their likenesses to popular gaming worlds. MrBeast, for instance, showed up in Stumble Guys, which ranked as the #1 video game content choice for boys surveyed by PreciseTV.

The PARK report also shows that traditional toymakers can benefit from influencer marketing partnerships, since channels like MrBeast, CoComelon, and Ryan’s World — which have all showed up in the toy aisle — remain popular among both toddlers and primary schoolers.

WATCH THIS 📺

Creators are still finding new ways to do “the most” on YouTube

The genre: From testing out “the world’s most dangerous trap” to sampling fast food’s most expensive drive-thru items, creators like Ryan Trahan and MrBeast have perfected the art of superlative videos—and they’re not the only YouTubers willing to do the “most” for their fans. An up-and-coming creator with just five public long-form videos is leaving his own mark on the viral format.

The creator: Despite being relatively new to the genre, Socks seems to have skipped past the easy stuff and gone straight for the extreme—most recently by testing out “the most dangerous beds in the world.” If you’re wondering what it’s like to sink into the deepest mattress on earth or snooze on the side of a cliff, you’ll find the answer here.

Creator economy marketing starts here. Get in touch to advertise with Tubefilter.

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