This is something I've been thinking about recently.

A lot of people assume that if a company becomes huge, its product must be significantly better than the competition but I'm not sure that's always true, sometimes it feels like distribution, storytelling, positioning, and brand perception have a much bigger impact than people want to admit.

I'm not saying the product doesn't matter.

Just that I've seen products that were objectively solid struggle to get attention, while others became incredibly popular because they understood how to capture attention and stay top of mind.

So here's my question-

What's a company that you think has exceptional marketing, but a product that's fairly average compared to alternatives?

And what specifically do you think they're doing right from a marketing perspective?

Genuinely interested in hearing different opinions on this

closed a small brand deal over dm's back in march. reel + 2 stories, agreed the price, made it all, posted on time. fine for about a week. then my contact left the company and whoever replaced them had no clue what we agreed on. asked me to forward "the agreement" and all i have is a messy dm thread, half of it was on a call anyway. still chasing the rest of the money. so yeah dm's are not a contract, learned that the expensive way. but i honestly still don't know how to lock a small deal down without coming off as distrustful on a first collab. do you send an actual contract every time or is a confirmation message enough

I realized something uncomfortable most of my posts sounded like a company trying to get attention not a founder sharing what was happening. So, I deleted everything and started over.

Lost karma.

Lost post history.

But I'd rather build an audience that trusts me than one that ignores me

Anyone else ever restart from zero?

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ok this has been bugging me all week so im just putting it here

talked to a brand last month, decent size, they drop 50k+ on creator

campaigns. founder tells me the last one crushed it. cool. i ask what

numbers theyre actually looking at, just curious

he sends me screenshots. of instagram likes. thats it. thats the

measurement

no tracking link, no code, nobody even wrote down when the creators

posted. one of them apparently went live like 5 days late and that

just wasnt noted anywhere. the whole "report" was a couple screenshots

and a feeling

and the part that gets me is this isnt some clueless brand. they have

a marketing person. theyve done this a bunch. its just nobody set up

anything to measure it so afterwards you kinda just look at whatever

numbers are lying around and decide it went well

i used to think this was a small brand thing but every person i talk

to does some version of this. spend a lot, track almost nothing, build

the story after

anyway is anyone here actually measuring this properly. and if you are

what does your setup look like cause i havent seen a good one yet

I've been asking this exact question for 3 months.

Not "what do you think happened." Not "what's your gut feeling."

Do you have enough data, tracked properly, to walk into a room and say with confidence — here is exactly what went wrong and here is why.

In 40 conversations with brand founders and agency heads, I got a straight "yes" twice.

And it's not because people are bad at their jobs.

It's because the infrastructure to know simply doesn't exist in most setups.

Tracking links that nobody checked. Attribution windows that were set wrong. Campaigns running alongside sales events so you can't isolate any variable. "Before" baselines measured differently than "after" numbers. Creators posting three days late so the window shifted.

Most campaign reports I've seen aren't analysis.

They're a story built backward from whatever the outcome was. Good outcome — creator gets credit. Bad outcome — timing was off, algorithm changed, audience wasn't right.

We're spending billions on a channel we can't reliably measure.

And somehow this is just normal.

Been doing research for something I'm working on and keep running into the same finding. Wanted to check if I'm missing something obvious.

The actual day-to-day workflow for running an influencer campaign doesn't seem to have changed much. Most people I've talked to are still:

- Finding creators by manually scrolling Instagram or using basic search filters

- Reaching out via DM from personal accounts

- Negotiating rates over WhatsApp threads

- Sending briefs as Google Docs

- Tracking everything on a spreadsheet

- Piecing together "analytics" from screenshots of Instagram insights

There are tools that solve individual pieces of this. But nobody seems to have connected the full workflow properly. So people default back to spreadsheets.

Am I missing something? Is there a tool stack or workflow that's actually working for your team? Genuinely asking because I keep hearing the same complaints and want to know if a good solution already exists that people just aren't adopting.

Been deep in this space for a few months doing research

for something I'm building and one thing keeps striking me.

The tools have changed. The platforms have changed.

Creator rates have changed. But the actual day-to-day

workflow for running a campaign is almost identical

to what it was in 2018-2019.

Find creators manually. Outreach over DM or email.

Negotiate over WhatsApp. Brief over Google Doc.

Track on a spreadsheet. Report manually.

There are platforms trying to solve pieces of this

but nobody seems to have connected the full chain

properly. So people use multiple tools and still

maintain a master sheet to tie it all together.

Is this actually a problem people want solved or

has everyone just accepted this as how it works?

Genuinely asking because the answer matters a lot

to what I'm building.

this is the part i don’t understand.

every brand says they want authentic creators and real community.

then the first filter is still follower count.

so what do they actually want? because a creator with 8k followers who gets real replies is apparently “too small”, but a 150k page with dead comments feels safer because the number looks big. i get why brands do it. nobody wants to risk money.

but then don’t call it authentic creator marketing. call it what it is:

buying the biggest number you can afford and hoping it works. maybe i’m missing something, but it feels like brands want trust only after someone already looks famous.

isn’t that the whole reason good smaller creators stay invisible?

The whole influencer marketing space feels like everyone is pretending they know what works.

Brands pretend they know how to choose creators.

Creators pretend engagement automatically means influence.

Agencies pretend having a list of influencers is a strategy.

Platforms pretend follower count + engagement rate is enough data.

But most campaigns still feel like guessing.

A brand pays a creator and then everyone waits to see what happens.

If it works, they call it strategy.
If it fails, they blame the creator.
If the views are high but sales are low, nobody knows what to learn from it.

That’s the broken part.

Creators are not only “promotion channels.”
They can show what angle people care about, what objections show up, what audience reacts, and what message feels natural.

But brands still use them like rented billboards.

I think the next serious shift in influencer marketing is not “more creators.”

It’s better proof.

Better signals.
Better tracking.
Better matching.
Better understanding of what actually moved people.

Because right now, influencer marketing is full of confidence… but not enough clarity.

Nobody talks about this, but there is a weird dead zone in the creator economy.

If you have 500k+ followers, brands come to you.

If you have no audience, people tell you to “just keep posting.”

But if you’re sitting between 3k–30k followers, you’re in the worst position.

You’re too small for brands to take seriously.
Too big to treat content like a hobby.
Too good to work for free.
Too invisible to get discovered consistently.

This is why a lot of small creators quit.

Not because they can’t make content.

Because the market gives them no clear path from “I have a real audience” to “brands actually pay me.”

Everyone says:
“Build trust.”
“Post consistently.”
“Make a media kit.”
“Pitch more brands.”

But that doesn’t fix the real problem.

Brands don’t discover creators fairly.

They discover whoever is already visible, already connected, already on agency lists, or already looks big enough to feel safe.

So the same creators keep getting deals, and thousands of good smaller creators stay invisible.

I think the next big shift in creator marketing won’t be about bigger influencers.

It will be about proving which small creators actually have audience trust.

Because follower count is not influence.
Visibility is not value.
And a creator with 8k people who actually listen can be more powerful than a 200k page nobody cares about.

Curious from creators here:

Do you think small creators are struggling because they’re not good enough?

Or because brands have no real system to find and trust them?

Hot take: a lot of creators are wasting time making pretty media kits when brands don’t even know how to read them properly.

You can show:

8% engagement
strong comments
niche audience
good content quality
past collabs
clear pricing

And still get ignored because your profile says 6k followers.

Meanwhile someone with 100k followers and dead comments gets taken more seriously because the number looks safer.

I don’t think the problem is only creators “not presenting themselves well.”

The bigger problem is brands still don’t have a better way to judge creator value.

They need to see things like audience fit, trust, content style, real engagement, buyer intent, and niche match — not just a PDF and follower count.

So I’m curious:

Are media kits actually helping small creators get deals?

Or are they just another thing creators make because everyone says they should?

Be honest — has your media kit actually helped you close a brand deal, or do brands still ghost after seeing your follower count?

I feel like a lot of small creators are not actually “small.”

Some creators have 3k–10k followers but their audience trusts them more than big influencers.

Still, most of them struggle to get paid brand deals because they don’t know how to get discovered, how to price themselves, or how to show brands their real value.

So I’m curious:

What is the hardest part for creators right now?

Getting brand deals?
Knowing what to charge?
Building a media kit?
Getting replies from brands?
Finding brands in your niche?
Or proving your audience is valuable?

I’m working on something in the creator-brand space, so I’m trying to understand the real problems before assuming anything.

Would love honest answers from creators.

I’ve been thinking about this:

Most founders build a product, then spend money on ads to see if people care.

But what if there’s a cheaper way?

Instead of spending the first budget on Meta/Google ads, test the product with 10–20 micro-creators.

Each creator gives you:

Audience reaction
Real comments
Different angles
Trust-based feedback
Early sales signals

If nobody reacts, maybe the product/positioning is weak.

If one creator’s audience responds well, you now know which niche, message, and content style to scale.

So creators become more than “influencers.”

They become a market-testing layer.

Curious: would you test micro-creators before running ads, or still start with paid ads?