Duke McKenzie
LinkedIn - Duke McKenzie
Kyle Kaplanis
LinkedIn - Kyle Kaplanis
TikTok - @theweb3guy
IG - @kyle_kaplanis
YT - The Web3 Guy
Duke McKenzie
LinkedIn - Duke McKenzie
Kyle Kaplanis
LinkedIn - Kyle Kaplanis
TikTok - @theweb3guy
IG - @kyle_kaplanis
YT - The Web3 Guy
Welcome to Tomorrow Today the podcast, with Kyle Kaplanis and Duke McKenzie. How's it going, Kyle?
Kyle Kaplanis:What's going on, Duke, how's it going?
Duke McKenzie:I'm good. Guess what? This is the first episode, we're recording sound first released in 2023, but this is the first episode that we are recording in 2023. How was your holidays? How was that?
Kyle Kaplanis:It was good. It was nice to spend some time with family and reflect on the new year, but I'm really pumped about 2023. I think this year's gonna be very interesting but, it's gonna be a good one.
Duke McKenzie:Yeah, no, no, I agree. I think it's gonna be a good one. What's funny is that it's the third week of, January, and it felt like this is the week that everything kicked back in. You know what I mean? Everyone got back where it still felt a little bit like vacation and all those type of stuff, but vacation is done. We're back. We're ready to go.
Kyle Kaplanis:Yes, sir.
Duke McKenzie:There you go. All. This is what I wanted to talk to you about today is, there's been a lot of talk about the downturn of the economy. All the tech companies have been doing a bunch of layoffs and all of that type of stuff, and even though we're more in entertainment, as many of the audience may know, we work with creators. A big part of our job is helping creators get these branded opportunities, partnering with corporations, partnering with brands. That's one of our core traits of what we do over where we work on a daily basis of Project Z. And I'll ask you, are you finding that the downturn in the market and the corporate pressure is that affecting creators with their brand partnerships? And what are you seeing on that?
Kyle Kaplanis:Yeah, 100%. We talk to a lot of people, experts in the community just like us, who maybe are talent managers. And what we're seeing is a trend happening where the inboxes of these creators, these large creators who have a really big, audience and great audience aggregators mm-hmm. are seeing a down trend of what is coming into their inbox of brands directly reaching out to them direct is definitely decreasing. So with that being said, we're now having to really focus on outreach, and I think a lot of companies are now having to pivot on that and being like, whoa, what's happening here? We gotta change direction.
Duke McKenzie:Yeah, it's crazy because I know it's been our thing, I've always wanting to do outreach and stuff like that, but it's crazy as in a lot of the creators we work with are, younger than I'd say 27 and younger and all of those things. Right. And they have never seen a downturn. And it literally is, when, if you look. Not like two year, like pretty much just like in the middle of the pandemic and before the pandemic. Brands were calling all the time. Brands were wanting to work, brands were doing those things. Brand dollars are still there, deals are getting done. It's just the deals are a lot harder. Mm-hmm. And what is interesting as a creator is that I think it's surprising some of the creators. I think that this is the first downturn that they've had. I don't know, what do you think? What is your outlook for 2023 from creators working with brands and just the whole creator economy in general?
Kyle Kaplanis:This is my expertise talking and theories is the beginning of this new short form content creator. There was no tools, brands were just testing the waters and where did they see they wanted to test with was creators who were trending. Popular who had built these audio aggregators and they were just throwing money because they were testing it out. Now that they've had the period to test, they're going through 2023 now, especially we're not on a stable economy right now. Mm-hmm., they're to be smarter withed dollars. What I'm thinking is that U C G content creators, who are those creators who just create content for brands or whoever on a smaller budget, these brands are like, let's just work with them and then we're gonna . Throw the money that we were gonna spend maybe on a creator. into some backend boosting . Mm-hmm., and see how that works because they're able to convert. Now, some of these top creators, they're having trouble converting and therefore they're like, well, why should we spend here? But there's going to reach a time where those creators don't have the affinity of being able to speak to somebody their best friend. These creators who have built these audiences can speak directly to these people, so there is gonna be a point, I think, even within this year where it's gonna have to shift back because that's just who the people wanna see heard from, if that makes sense.
Duke McKenzie:Yeah, no, that, that totally makes sense. You know what's crazy? So here's the thing about boosting and all that stuff. Let's dive in a little bit more. Here's what I think one of the things that are happening. A lot of the creators we work with, we been spending a lot of time over the last, I would say, three years thinking about TikTok, talking about TikTok doing TikTok, and we are, we're very bullish on TikTok. We've been spending a lot of time talking about TikTok and all of that type of stuff, and. One of the things that I am. I don't wanna use the word suspicious. What I am wondering what is going on, cuz TikTok is great. Love TikTok. God bless, TikTok. Hallelujah. Amen. Right. But one of the things that I'm wondering is that Talk's ad business is growing aggressively. It's actually the only social media platform right now that is having strong ad growth. Beating numbers year over year, like bashing them out of the park is TikTok YouTube, which is the granddaddy and the king , and all that type of stuff of the creator economy is experiencing softness. In fact, to the point where they're launching, guaranteed revenue or something for, YouTube shorts, and there's rumors or whatever that we're hearing from some feedback from creators or whatever that is that the revenue that they're going to be expecting. YouTube brought it up saying, oh, we're gonna pay people for shorts or whatever that, the advertising demand, cuz how YouTube works is. YouTube gives creators a percentage of the ad revenue that's generated when someone sees it before their post or like before or after their post. I wasn't sure. How do you know how the shorts was gonna work? How they're gonna divide up the revenue for shorts? Do you know how it's gonna work? Yep. How is it gonna,
Kyle Kaplanis:so basically the shorts fund, how it's gonna work is that it's like a pool system, so it's not on individual videos because of the fact that they don't wanna run an ad after every video. Mm-hmm., that would be so redundant. People would be off the app. So it's gonna be very much like TikTok, where. As you're scrolling, you're gonna see an ad every once in a while. Now the creators who are within the partner program, who have qualified and have approved to the new 2023 terms and conditions, will be put into a pool. And in that pool, the revenue will be shared across the creators who are participating and whatever, the ad revenue. And it's gonna be split up equally, but also dependent on the views of what each creator has brought in. If you're a. Tier creator that brings in a ton of views, you're gonna get more of that pool and it's a, 40, 60 split on the shorts because of the fact that they are allowing you to monetize on music. Anything that they own licensing to, you're able to still monetize on that because it's very sound based, which is cool.
Duke McKenzie:Ah, right, right, right. You were
Kyle Kaplanis:really cool. It's better than TikTok.
Duke McKenzie:So it's a 40, 60 split to the create, like who
Kyle Kaplanis:gets the 60? So 60 goes to YouTube. And that's only because of the music licensing program. That's only on short form, not on long form. It's still 60 40. But on the short form it's 40 60 because of the music licensing. Because you are still able to monetize on. The music that you use on your content. Got it.
Duke McKenzie:Cuz they're, they're paying, they're, they're gonna pay, they're paying for all the life. Right, right, right, right, right. You know, I don't actually believe, I gotta check this out. It's funny. YouTube is the granddaddy, but I actually don't think that YouTube is profitable yet. I'm gonna do a check and see if, put it in the show notes, but YouTube, it's not secret. They're starting to . Talk to critters and give some guidance that to temper revenue expectations from this new short program where when it just came out and they were talking to all these creators about it and everything, they were really like, this is gonna blow TikTok away. And whenever you're gonna get a big chunk of the revenue now TikTok problem is that their creator revenue share program is garbage. Like it doesn't work. Nobody like, and I, again, God bless, TikTok, love, TikTok, all of that type of stuff, no creator that has come on here or that has talked about. And you could look in public, they're not mad at it. It's just a non-entity where the YouTube ad sense program like the YouTube creator. revenue is an entity, they care about that revenue. People have built large businesses from that. But one of the things going back, as we're going onto this tangent, the reason why I brought this all up is because one of the things that is being spoken about in the industry is the growth of the boosting of media. On TikTok, is that taking away from the creator earnings because instead of buying 20 sponsored posts of working with the creator directly, when brands call TikTok and asking for advice and all those things, TikTok as it should because it, that's where it's incentivized, cuz they don't get money from the sponsored posts from the band. TikTok is driving all that money to boost, media. And it seems that's one of the things that people are, people are question.. Kyle Kaplanis: Yeah, no, for sure. TikTok focus right now isn't creators. Their focus right now is media dollars. And, as a business it's pretty smart because of the fact that they are, buying out all the branded content and then being able to distribute it even to creators as such within the app and being able to plug it in, but I just have a feeling that, you know, if YouTube can figure out a way for this to work in short form to really stick over there and, craters are eventually going to figure out where their time will be spent, and more people who are spending more time over it somewhere else, eventually the app is going to catch up. Um, like, you know what I mean? Yeah. Hundred percent. Eventually, and I think that's gonna happen, because like you said, the TikTok creator fund is just not good. And they gotta, they just, they gotta get it toge. Like, it just seems that one of the advantages that TikTok has, because it's all algorithm based and stuff followed, like Instagram, whatever, is that they, the algorithm can make stars, can make people follow, and could really push a bunch of different content. Making it so that it's not really, it is creator dependent because it's all user-generated content, but they're less dependent upon creators as YouTube is, but are they? Because YouTube grew up really celebrating their creators, they've taken a little bit of a break after the pandemic, but doing their YouTube summary list with their top creators and all that type of stuff, and making the videos and really embracing creators, right. I think that's the way to go, and I think that that's the way TikTok should go. Yeah. That if these creators could make a living outside of just the, our branded, the branded and sponsored post, that seems to be better for the app. The interests of TikTok and the interests of the creators that produce the most of the, content on the platform it might be fair to say that their interests at this moment aren't aligned. Yeah.
Kyle Kaplanis:A hundred percent. As a creator, you actually can't live off TikTok Whereas YouTube, you can grow to be a creator and you can just, off of theen revenue dollars, you can pay all your bills. TikTok you can't, unless you're a small business who have a product, then it's freaking great., some of these small business are killing it. But right now, like, you're right, the creator, and TikTok s focus is they're not an alignment and when that happens, it can only go so long before it's gonna either have to give in one direction,
Duke McKenzie:right? Right. And it might take some time because, TikTok scoring, like gangbusters, it is the only social be like, so you have, you, you have teenage daughters and whatever. So my daughter who is 16 and my son who is 14, he uses Snapchat, but as communication, I'm in the business. And it's funny cuz I still I don't know how to use, like, I, I don't use it Well. Like, I, like, it's not designed for me, it's not intuitive. I try, I get on there and all those things. They use, and they use TikTok they do use YouTube. Yeah. But it's TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok.
Kyle Kaplanis:TikTok TikTok. What Interesting though, duke, so my teens use TikTok. Religiously and YouTube for long form. But my younger two, my nine and 11 year old only use YouTube shorts religiously. Really? And they even told me, yeah. Which was interesting. They both have access to TikTok and YouTube shorts, but my younger two prefer it. They just say they like it because of the fact that they can go and click on, that creator they might have liked and see do they have longform content, like they wanna go explore more ah, for them to go between the two. And being able to explore longform content quickly. And the capabilities on TikTok as well by, if they have it linked to their profile. But it's faster just to go. Boom, now you're on the longform content. I feel like that's something that might play a part as well, because longform is still the number one stickiest content of all time. Right, right. Like if you, you can make good videos there and you have people watching you,, you can convert people,
Duke McKenzie:right? No, no, no. And when we say long form, it's like five seven, 10 or 20 minute YouTube videos. And that's why YouTube, in the long run, in the creator economy, there's a company called Spotter, right? Yes. And Spotter, what it does is that in their algorithm, if you have a history of making YouTube videos and guessing the views, it will pre-buy your YouTube videos and at a discount and then try and make money, at a profit from the YouTube AdSense programs. It's a whole economy and everything. Instagram has that, it's fun to use. It still has that factor of, coolness is not the right word, but Instagram still has cache it. It does have cache, but the thing is that it does not supports craters. Oh, none at all. Right? Like you can't, yes, you could make like it. They are the worst. It's funny if you take the list, like, right. So right now as creator friendly, and I encourage all of them to change. But right now, as creator friendly, right, you have YouTube is number one. As the most creative, friendly platform meaning that you can make a living without selling a sponsor post and just focusing on your content, right, that is accessible to you to do. All right. Number two, I would argue that TikTok, even though we complain about or whatever, but TikTok right now is the second most friendly creator platform because at least they're trying and they're younger. Meaning it's a newer company. TikTok in this form, in its current form has really only been active for the last three years or so. Right? If you look at YouTube when it was three years old or whatever, they had a lot of the same problems and they did not support creators as well, and all of that type of, But Instagram, it is 13 years old. It is 13 years old. Instagram was found in October 20. And it's founded so long ago, and they have no creator infrastructure. They don't care. It boggles my mind. Boggles my mind. Boggles my mind. Because their content is a crater driven platform and all of those things, right? Kardashians, big on there, I think Ronaldo is the most followed Instagram personality. But it's just crazy that they just, they don't care. It's not a creator first. Type of platform. And that's why I think, TikTok is challenging it first. Yep. Because if you wanna do a reels, yeah, they'll do reels and stuff like that, but you're not paying me, you're not doing these things. I know they had some type of pay program, but it's funny that they could do a lot.. Kyle Kaplanis: Yeah. And they're paying on the Facebook side. So Reels does have a Facebook creator program, that pays decently well. Mm-hmm., but not really on the like IG side, which is interesting. Yeah. Which is interesting. We used to talk about it a lot and stuff like that what do you think about Triller right now? Do you even think about it? I have
Kyle Kaplanis:not thought about them. Without us bringing it up or somebody asking me about them. Not once. And we're in the space, right? Like we're in the space. No, that is very interesting. They've not seen their name pop up anywhere, so that they're not pop of mind. If I start seeing a name a few more times or if I started seeing it, I'd pay more attention. But if I'm in this space and I don't see or hear of,
Duke McKenzie:Yeah, no, I'm looking it up. It looks like the ring sued by universal music. Trier removes major label music catalogs from app reassessing deals. Remember there was a time in their history where there was an argument that they could replace TikTok now. Yeah. Here's the thing about TikTok, right? Here's the thing. Now, I don't believe, and we're. Pivoting here like future predictions, right? So I don't believe that the US will ban TikTok. I think that they're gonna go to this solution that we've talked about in past episodes where it'll get spun out somehow and all that type of stuff and move in that direction. However, I don't think that's gonna be a smooth process. And the thing is, That still gives an opportunity for the YouTubes and the Facebooks and all of that type of stuff to go after and try and kept market share. Mm-hmm.. And for an Northstar like Triller or someone like that, that is TikTok s Achilles heel. At the moment of trying to figure out, well, how can it stay here cuz Bunch of state schools have been banning it. The government, like the Biden administration's under more pressure to ban it. And you know what's gonna be crazy? A presidential election is starting next year. Yep. That'll be a hot topic. They'll be back at the crosshairs again.
Kyle Kaplanis:Yeah, for sure. And when that happens, again, like we saw this with Trump and administration, that advertisers pulled their money out because they don't wanna risk. you know, so it's gonna be very interesting. And we're gonna see how that plays out. And the shift might go back into all ad dollars are going to the granddaddy, YouTube. Mm-hmm.. it's gonna be interesting. I think right now, what I tell craters is you can't, and I've been saying it from the beginning, even though one platform might be your biggest audience, aggregator. You can't put your eggs in one basket. You have to be able to play the whole game. And being able to bring audiences other places, because you never know.
Duke McKenzie:Right., again, I don't believe that they're gonna get removed from the us. I think there'll just be a lot of unnecessary negative pressure totally. For someone to do that. However, I thought that this would've been solved and sorted out. I know, but it's still, we were in the TikTok space. When President Trump, stood in front of a tarmac saying, okay, we're gonna bat TikTok. And then he signed an executive order. And that was when all the deals got paused? Yes. All of the deals got paused cuz they're like, yo, man, this is nuts. And then we had to go through that, but that is still a possibility, again, I don't think it is likely, but it is still a possibility. I'm sure. people are trying to rush through And figure that out.
Kyle Kaplanis:Yeah. Because like it is banned across federal regulated phones. Yeah, they did pass that. Yeah. To me, I think that should be a thing anyway. Like why are these phones that are government issued have social media and Right,
Duke McKenzie:right, right, right, right, right, right, right. I'm like, Hey,
Kyle Kaplanis:cool. Like I don't mind that anyway, like that. That makes sense. Anyway, that's actually a
Duke McKenzie:good take that like maybe these phones shouldn't have any social media on them anyway. Right? Like they should
Kyle Kaplanis:be, that's your job, or you have to be monitored those things. But if not, like it's not your personal phone. you should just be using it for the use of your job. But, so I didn't take that as a negative thing.
Duke McKenzie:Like that's very, that's very hard. Nose of you, hard nose of you, Kyle . that's smart. That's smart. Okay. All right. And then the last take here, is there. Not a replacement of TikTok or whatever, but, is there a hot app that we're gonna be talking about this year? There's that app right now. You basically take a picture of what you're really doing at that one time,
Kyle Kaplanis:It's called Be Real. Yes, my teens use it religiously, do they? But yeah, they do and they still do.
Duke McKenzie:Explain to everyone how it works and what B real is and all that type of stuff.
Kyle Kaplanis:B real's concept is, it's a social media platform where you're trying to show yourself in the real moment. So what it does, Take some photo of your front camera and back camera so it can show you and whatever you're seeing and you get a notification and you only have a few minutes to be able to do it. You cannot wait. You can't change it. If you miss it, you miss it. So therefore the whole concept is to show people the reality of their environment without showing fakeness. cuz influencers can take the best pictures, but that's not the reality of their world. My thing is I just don't know. Like, I think authenticity is huge and I think that will continue, but I don't know how long that will stick around
Duke McKenzie:right? Like it seems like that's a feature. Like that might be, that might be a feature. If you what? TikTok copied
Kyle Kaplanis:it. They already did. Yeah. It's already on their app. It's called like TikTok. Now you're.
Duke McKenzie:No. Okay. There you go. You heard it here folks. Okay, because that's what it sounds like. It sounds like it's a feature. People are gonna copy it and Oh yeah. That's what happened to Snapchat. Snapchat was great and I forgot whatever their stories product was and an Instagram stories game. And that's the only thing. It's funny on Instagram. That is actually the only thing I really use. And the dms, it's Do you use the dms? I don't nearly DM anybody. Who do you dm? Oh, like
Kyle Kaplanis:I was gonna say, Instagram's like the C-suite, Gmail of dms for crater. People use that for contacting each other, I feel like they use it. Ah, fun.
Duke McKenzie:So interesting. All right. Yeah. All right, well, there we go. All right. Well, okay. Here's my last prediction, and this is where we'll close it off. How do you think the year's gonna turn out? Do you expect the slowdown to last into next year? Do you think that the creator economy, from a brand deal perspective of everything will have a strong q4? How do you think this year will play out for 2023? Yeah,
Kyle Kaplanis:I think as a creator right now, because of inbound, you have to be smart and think about who your team is because you need a team more than ever. And your team has to be able to pivot wherever the hell they can be because I think it's gonna continue. We're gonna see this go in to all of 2023 and we have to be more flexible. creators need to be more flexible. Mm-hmm.. It'd be more willingness to give back more. And those that don't, they're gonna sit there one day and be like, what's happening? Like,
Duke McKenzie:where's my money? No, I agree. That is good advice for creators. There is like, be flexible. Yes. There is brand dollars out there, brand partnerships. It's just they're more picky. Yep. And they will expect more for their dollar. Yep. And one of the things is there's very few creators out that you may think you're one of one, but there's alternatives and.. At this point, brands are, much more comfortable going after and looking at alternatives and trying new things. It's a lot of opportunity. Life is great. A lot of opportunity, but it is absolutely there is, we are at a season of more pressure.
Kyle Kaplanis:Yes, that's it. 2023, the pressure,
Duke McKenzie:you're 2023 is the season of pressure. Yes, sir. Alright, thank you everybody. For listening to today's episode. Please subscribe. Please leave a comment. Please rate. I'm Duke Mackenzie. This is Lanis. We will talk to you next time.