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Marketing Brew

Ryan Barwick

marketingbrew.com

 X ad costs, engagement continue to fall, per report 

Data from Tracer provided a snapshot of the ad platform ecosystem.

 X ad costs and engagement continue to fall, per report 

Katie Hicks

Influencer at the center of a ring light being scanned

Deepfakes are spreading, putting creator and brand safety at risk

Michel Janse, who said her likeness was recently used without her consent, told Marketing Brew the experience was “violating.” 

How brands are thinking about a possible TikTok ban

Duolingo, Osea Malibu, and Truff are among the brands that tell us they’d turn to alternative short-form video platforms, like Instagram Shorts and YouTube Reels.

An @ symbol denoting social media and influencers

Social & Influencers

In 2023, Instagram unveiled broadcast channels, a feature for creators to “engage directly with their followers at scale” through what is essentially a one-sided group chat, offering channel owners the chance to take polls, gather photo responses, and share updates with those who opt in. In the last two years, brands have also begun using the feature, but many are still exploring the most effective ways to do so.

, and Béis, have operated broadcast channels for a while, while others, like 818 Spirits and Tony’s Chocolonely, began using them more recently. Marketers say the channels are a powerful way to reach engaged customers, solicit feedback, and offer exclusive insights and deals, but the feature could still use some improvements—and some brand channels have gone dark in the meantime.

“When we went into it, we were like, ‘This is very much a test,’” Amanda Tedesco, director of social media at Shake Shack, said. “We’re still kind of in that place.”

Shake Shack created its broadcast channel a year ago to draw attention to its Innovation Kitchen, where it tests and develops new menu items, and to connect with fans, Tedesco told us.

“[The culinary team is] always ideating and coming up with these cool culinary innovations,” she said. “We thought, ‘Maybe there’s something there for the broadcast channel.’”

The channel now has nearly 4,000 members, and Shake Shack’s social team often collaborates with its consumer insights team and uses the Poll feature to gather input on decisions like what to name the restaurant chain’s next burger or which cheese-fry innovation looks most appetizing. The brand has even offered some channel members the chance to come to the Innovation Kitchen to try new menu items and share feedback.

Cava launched its broadcast channel, Tzatziki Town Hall, last year and now has about 2,400 members. Andy Rebhun, Cava’s chief marketing and experience officer, told us the brand most recently used the broadcast channel to help collect customer photos of the 

 it released in August. It has also used the channel to generate social content, like asking members to build the social team’s 

, solicit input on new chip flavors, and offer exclusive access to new menu items.

The channel, Rebhun said, “allows secret information and news to get to [members] first.”

Abby Davison, communications manager, North America, at Tony’s Chocolonely, told us the brand has used its broadcast channel, which it launched last month, to get feedback on its products. After the brand planned to rename its Dark Milk Chocolate Pretzel Toffee bar (a decision made because US-based consumers “did not understand what dark milk chocolate” meant, Davison said), the brand headed to its broadcast channel to ask followers what they might rename it if it were up to them.

“It was a great place to get that feedback, and that’s something that we’re bringing to the product and innovation team, like, ‘Hey, this is what our deep fans and community would call it,’” she said.

Kathleen Braine, CMO of 818 Spirits, said the brand created its broadcast channel last month in an effort to reach both superfans and more passive consumers. She likes the ability to interact with customers, which can be missing in traditional SMS and email marketing, and plans to use the channel to assess demand for certain products and variations.

“We’re constantly getting DMs and comments about, ‘When does this launch?’ ‘How can I find this hat?’ ‘How can I get tickets to Outpost next year?’” Braine said. “We thought it made a ton of sense to just put our community all in one place.”

Beyond communicating directly with customers, marketers are using broadcast channels to reward them. So far, 818 has used its broadcast channel to give away a YSL bag with a 

 and share RSVP info for a tailgate event in Dallas for last Saturday’s Texas vs. Oklahoma game.

Tedesco said the broadcast channel allows Shake Shack to increase the value of its giveaways compared to those on its main Instagram page. “We can afford to give a bigger prize because it’s a smaller group, but also they appreciate it more,” she said.

For Tony’s Chocolonely, Davis said the broadcast channel can create “digital VIP opportunities” for fans through giveaways and in-person events where they can meet other fans and company executives.

There’s still room for improvement, marketers said, and Tedesco hopes Meta will add more analytics to broadcast channels. “Right now, it’s very manual to go through and see our top-performing posts,” she said. “Getting to see a little bit more of our followers and the breakdown of where they are would be super helpful for us.”

As brands experiment with new ways of engaging with customers on Instagram, Tedesco said finding the right channel comes down to finding what works best for a brand’s niche.

“Those are big considerations when there’s already so many social channels to stay abreast on,” she said. “It’s the lift and what you want to get out of it and what you want to give your community in return.”

four mobile phones with multicolored speech balloons coming out of them are held by four arms, reaching from outide of the frame

How brands are maximizing Instagram’s broadcast channels

Brands like Shake Shack and Tony’s Chocolonely continue to experiment with the feature, where marketers can engage with and collect feedback from brand superfans.

A cartoon image of Kristina Monllos created by Morning Brew

Kristina Monllos

It’s hard to make people happy. But in today’s attention economy, some brands are getting good at making people very, very mad.

, have faced accusations of ragebaiting, or the practice of generating anger-fueled online engagement, in various marketing campaigns and product announcements that seemed tailor-made to evoke a response. At the same time, creators like 

 have built followings in the hundreds of thousands on social platforms by riling up audiences with fake stories and scenarios. Some creators have even found success in fanning the flames of brand campaign dramas as a way to drive their own growth.

In the attention economy, views are currency, and marketers told us that many brands are feeling the pressure to stand out and go viral at just about any cost. But all press may not be good press, and controversy, whether intentional or not, doesn’t necessarily lend itself well to long-term marketing success for brands, experts told us.

“The short-term bump in attention is not really worth the trade-off of damaging brand equity,” Lia Haberman, a social and influencer marketing consultant and author of the ICYMI newsletter, said.

Some marketers may realize the risks of riling up various corners of the internet, but in a time of 

 online, social experts said keeping brands out of any heated discourse requires diligence and awareness of bad-faith campaign interpretations that could pull them in.

“We are in a sloppy era,” Haberman said. “I think it’s less about ragebait or outrage marketing, and really [about] carelessness or sloppiness in not thinking about who your audience is, how your messages have come across, [or] the choices of the creators or the talent that you’re using.”

American Eagle’s controversial Sydney Sweeney campaign is just one recent example that got plenty of people talking. Company executives have defended the campaign, which 

 over the summer for its references to genetics, and CMO Craig Brommers 

 last month that the campaign wasn’t designed as intentional ragebait, but instead aimed at sparking “a conversation about optimism, confidence, and self-expression”; so far, the company has reported initially positive results.

Megan Morass, co-founder and CEO of the creative agency Full Fat, told us that even a single controversial brand post can make consumers feel anxious, which can be damaging to brand equity, trust, and value in the long term. “It’s quite a risky tactic as a marketer to use,” she said. “You’re putting something out into the world that is, on purpose, trying to incite rage or frustration from your audience.”

In the case of American Eagle, Morass said she’s interested to see if the brand sees long-term success beyond the short-term sales results. In contrast, Morass pointed to Gap’s feel-good denim ad with girl group KATSEYE released around the same time, which has proved to be the brand’s 

 to date, and which she believes will drive greater brand love in the long run.

If a brand is intent on courting controversy, Morass pointed to a Doritos campaign from earlier this year, in which the brand implied it might change its signature triangle chip shape into a 

 and plenty of online chatter, but all in good fun.

“That is really nicely done ragebait, if there is such a thing,” Morass said. “It’s nothing serious. It’s not going to create any emotional [or] behavioral triggers.”

Dulma Altan, a TikTok creator who posts about business strategy, said ragebait can be risky for creators and brands alike, even if it can deliver results. While she pointed to the Kardashians and Gwyneth Paltrow as celebrities who have seemingly figured out how to 

 outrage into tangible brand outcomes, she considers them to be exceptions to the rule.

“I’m convinced that brands and prominent public figures might accidentally stir up controversy, but then they realize that either that controversy can be beneficial for brand awareness and can be harnessed in some way, or they realize they can never really avoid it, so [they think], ‘Why not just use it and try to keep it contained?’” Altan said.

If ragebait becomes a widely adopted strategy, Morass said she anticipates that audiences might unfollow brands to avoid seeing it.

“We need to make the marketing industry take responsibility for the impact that it has on audience mental health,” she said. “As marketeers, we’re responsible for uplifting and empowering our consumers, not bringing them down.”

While some brands may ragebait intentionally, Haberman said she suspects that for many brands, it’s likely accidental.

“In retrospect, a lot of these companies probably wish that they were strategic and savvy enough to have orchestrated this as ragebait or outrage marketing to increase conversation and awareness around their product or product launch,” she said.

Lola Bakare, a CMO advisor, inclusive marketing strategist, and owner of marketing consultancy be/co, said she believes it’s a marketer’s responsibility to understand how a campaign could be received across audiences before it goes live.

“Marketers are being held responsible for the importance of having a high level of cultural literacy, which has always and should always have been part of the job,” Bakare said. “A lot of people have not nurtured and invested in that education, so they’re falling short.”

Take, for instance, e.l.f.’s recent campaign featuring comedian Matt Rife. The company reportedly focused on Rife’s TikTok audience when signing him, e.l.f. CMO Kory Marchisotto told 

 but the brand seems to have overlooked Rife’s 

 making light of domestic violence in a Netflix special, which outraged some consumers. Marchisotto acknowledged that the campaign missed the mark in the interview, explaining that the brand doesn’t “[look] in the rearview mirror when operating the real-time marketing machine.”

Haberman pointed to the e.l.f. campaign as “a really great example of not spending maybe an extra half-hour manually scrolling through somebody’s feed, looking on Reddit, and seeing how people are talking about this creator.”

Increasingly, experts said, marketers should be prepared for backlash even when a business decision may seem innocuous. That’s because there may be broader forces at play: the negative reactions to Cracker Barrel’s recent minimalistic rebrand, which prompted the brand to reverse course, were reportedly 

, while social intelligence platform Open Measures reported that backlash to American Eagle’s campaign was 

 by “conservative political personalities.”

Altan noted that social platforms can benefit from this type of engagement, whether orchestrated or organic, which she suspects means this practice will only continue.

“We have to remember that the smartest engineers in the entire world are all being paid millions of dollars to figure out how to get us constantly enraged,” Altan said. “The odds are stacked against us.”

As the political divide deepens and people look for signs from brands to see what they stand for, Haberman advised marketers to be forthright about brand values to minimize confusion.

“If you don’t put your stance and your beliefs and your values out there,” she said, “somebody is going to ascribe those values to you.”

A desktop computer monitor that is displaying a red angry face emoji.

Ragebait is everywhere. Should marketers lean in? 

Whether brands intentionally rile up audiences or unintentionally get caught up in the culture wars, experts say they should be prepared for the consequences of short-term, bad-faith engagement.

Jennimai Nguyen

TikTok creator Jake Schroeder tries to post at least two ballads a day.

They’re entirely original songs, usually performed by the singer-songwriter as he plays piano, and they can be about anything from the 

. There’s almost no way to predict what subject he will take on in musical form next—unless you’re a brand partner.

Schroeder has been posting on TikTok since he was in high school, but he only began “taking it seriously” this May, he told Marketing Brew. The recent University of Chicago grad wanted to be more creative and had begun using a journaling technique called “morning pages,” a method from author Julia Cameron’s book 

 that requires a stream-of-consciousness, 30-minute writing practice every day. This practice led to what he calls his “dumb songs” written as musical comedy, which he posted to TikTok. He now has more than 360,000 followers.

After Schroeder’s songs began going viral, brands started reaching out to commission their own ballads, drawn to his platform-specific humor and his ability to stand out on the app without the typical barriers around copyrighted music trends.

In just three months, he’s completed around 60 wide-ranging brand deals, including work with AI writing assistant Grammarly, deodorant brand Degree, and a Swedish music library brand called Epidemic Sound. And he’s only seeking to do more. The topics Schroeder features in his songs are wide-ranging and often random-seeming, which he sees as an asset in creating funny and feel-good posts about just about anything.

“Things that are as simple as the Caesar salad can be exciting and fun,” Schroeder said. “Working with [so many brands]...sort of represents what I’m trying to say in my other songs too, which is like, life can be enjoyed.”

Schroeder said he doesn’t seek out brand partnerships so much as they have come to him, and brands of all kinds have come calling. The first brand to approach him was personal hygiene company Good Wipes, he told us. The second? Luxury designer brand Jimmy Choo.

“Gag of the world,” Schroeder said of the dichotomous duo. “If I can do butt wipes and Jimmy Choo…what’s in between that?”

Schroeder credits the brand outreach to his decision to make a series of ballads featuring brands that he already loved, including Diet Coke and Costco; those posts, he said, led to more brand attention. (He didn’t sing about those brands because he thought it would attract sponsorships, he told us, instead choosing them simply because he thought they were funny to sing about.) As he continued recording his songs, Schroeder recognized that his particular approach could be brand-safe while still offering a comedic sensibility that so many social media managers chase.

“Comedy could be really good for brands, but a lot of people are either like, really hypersexual or kind of take the comedy over the top in a way that’s inaccessible,” Schroeder said. “I am really conscious about what is brand-safe in my content.”

Maggie Khoury, social media manager at Grammarly, told Marketing Brew that Schroeder’s Diet Coke ballad helped pique her interest, and she bookmarked him as a creator to watch for potential future collaborations. When it came time to work on Grammarly’s back-to-school campaign, she said she reached out to compare Schroeder’s audience demographics to the campaign’s target college-aged audience, finding that there was a great deal of overlap.

“He’s not just a great creator who’s really taking off. He is so specifically himself,” Khoury said. “We wanted to basically say, ‘You’re the expert of your audience and this corner of the internet that you’ve carved out for yourself.’”

Khoury said that she wanted to give Schroeder as much creative liberty as possible in order to not “dilute” his work with “brand brain.” The resulting 

 riffs on the use of the word “period” as both a punctuation mark and a slang term, and it nabbed more than 100,000 views.

This hands-off approach Grammarly took isn’t always what brands are comfortable with, though, which Schroeder said can sometimes be detrimental to engagement.

“The ones that don’t perform well are the really rigid ones,” he said.

For brands looking to get in on trends on TikTok, singer-songwriters like Schroeder can offer up a unique opportunity. Instead of jumping on a trending audio, which can be complicated by 

, a brand can essentially create its own audio-based piece of internet culture.

“Partnering with Jake gave Degree a unique opportunity to lean into a musically driven platform while also making the creative execution feel distinct, ownable, and fun to watch,” Christopher Symmes, head of marketing at Degree US, said in an email. “Honestly, his song has been stuck in my head for weeks now, so he’s definitely doing it right!”

As brand requests continue to roll in, Schroeder said he isn’t agreeing to every single one. He describes his approach to selecting partnerships as a way to build his universe, and he goes off a gut reaction of whether, ultimately, the brands feel “cute.”

That’s not to say he doesn’t also do his research. When a doorbell security brand (whose name he declined to share) approached him, Schroeder chose to look a little deeper into the company, which ultimately led to him turning down the partnership.

“I found that they give all of their data to ICE,” he said. “They offered me a really big, fancy, crazy deal, and I was like, hell no, because why would I support and raise the voice of this company that is doing evil things?”

Schroeder does often choose to weigh in on political subjects or current events in his non-branded ballads, which he said can affect how his brand partnerships operate; sometimes, he told us, existing brand partners request that he delay posting branded content to avoid being too close in proximity to hot-button topics. Still, Schroeder said he doesn’t plan to stop making this kind of content, and his commitment has opened up opportunities to work with organizations that align with his beliefs, like the 

“I think it’s obviously so important to show my humanity beyond my thoughts on food, or my thoughts on TV shows, or my thoughts on countries in my songs, especially because I am putting out something every day,” he said. “I think it’d be strange if I didn’t share my opinions on this dying world around us. But it’s dope when a brand is like, we’ll pay you to do this.”

Creator Jake Schroeder surrounded by text bubbles featuring words "Sauvignon Blanc," "Grammarly," and "rotisserie chicken."

How creator Jake Schroeder unlocked a comedy and audio niche tailor-made for brands

Schroeder’s short, comedic ballads feature just about everything under the sun, and brands are clamoring to work with him.

Kelsey Sutton

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself 

Brit Starr is CMO of the creator marketing platform CreatorIQ. She previously worked at the influencer marketing analytics platform Tribe Dynamics, which was acquired by CreatorIQ in 2021. She has also had stints as head of marketing at Verve Coffee Roasters and at the Austin-based creative shop McGarrah Jessee.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? 

I’m the hype girl behind the powerful creator community that drives brand and business growth, and an enabler for the teams that make it happen. My job is part creative direction, part strategic foresight, and a lot of real-time storytelling. I help brands tap into the influence and authenticity of creators to build trust, relevance, and results.

 In the early days at CreatorIQ, we ran scrappy, high-impact quarterly events in key markets, unveiling new research, creating a space for real connection, and capping it off with a happy hour. With a team of ~20 and a shoestring budget, we all pitched in: planning, executing, and engaging directly with customers for a valuable on-the-ground experience. The hands-on experiences gave us deep insight into our audience and laid the groundwork for our events strategy and overall marketing playbook. Today, we’re bigger and more polished—our LA tentpole event draws 1,500+ attendees—but the DNA is the same. Our team still shows up on the frontlines, owning every customer-facing moment.

” by e.l.f. Cosmetics is hands-down my favorite campaign. It was bold, disruptive, data-driven, and brutally honest. It called out that more men named “Dick” sit on US public company boards than entire underrepresented groups. It was the perfect collision of creativity and activism—it sparked conversation, challenged power structures, and proved that creativity can drive real cultural change.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: 

I’ve got two boys who are three and five, and like most working parents, I wrestle daily with the balance of showing up fully for both my job and my family. It’s something I try to give myself grace for every day. I was also raised with a “no-thank-you bite” rule: try everything once. That mindset has shaped my life—from quitting my job at 28 to travel the world for a year, to landing in San Francisco with just a carry-on and no plan, to taking a chance on a tiny influencer marketing startup that turned into a defining career move.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? 

I’m bullish on creator marketing and creator-led media. There’s never been a more exciting shift toward real, relatable content that resonates with actual communities. Today, people own brands, not the other way around, and as a marketer, that’s thrilling. I’m more skeptical of marketing that chases novelty over substance—campaigns that go viral but lack long-term resonance. In a world of noise, depth wins.

What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? 

. It’s a selfish plug (I host it!), but the guests on the other side of the couch (or screen) are some of the smartest, most generous leaders out there, and I walk away from every 30-minute convo with new insight. Beyond that, there are two LinkedIn accounts that I am always energized by: 

 at e.l.f.—her commitment and unapologetic enthusiasm for the work and purpose behind it are inspiring (and slightly intimidating)—and 

 at OK Cool–he gives great takes on some of the boldest breakthrough creative from brands today.

Cutout of a woman, Brit Starr, on a templated background with large 'Q' and 'A' letters.

Coworking with Brit Starr

She’s CMO, CreatorIQ. 

 exploring how brands craft standout social media strategies. If you’d like to chat about how your brand is approaching social, Katie Hicks wants to hear about it. Reach out to her at 

It’s March Madness for chubby bears, and it’s a viral sensation.

Last week marked the start of the twelfth annual Fat Bear Week at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. What began in 2014 as a one-day event called Fat Bear Tuesday, in which viewers online compared how much the bears in the park grew over the summer, has evolved into a March Madness-style bracket competition on social media that draws more than a million votes each year, Matthew Turner, social media specialist at the National Park Service, told us. There’s even a Fat Bear Junior competition for younger bears now. This year’s finalists, Bear 32 Chunk and Bear 856, are competing today in a final vote; polls close at 9pm ET.

“Fat Bear Week, no pun intended, gets bigger and bigger every year,” he said. “In the last five to six years, it really exploded into this really huge viral phenomenon.”

Each year, the NPS, which oversees more than 400 national park sites, ranging from Yellowstone to the Statue of Liberty, helps the park staff at Katmai, the Katmai Conservancy, and the media organization 

 amplify Fat Bear Week content. It’s just one of the ways that the service combines fun with environmental facts in what Turner calls an “edutainment” strategy, which has allowed the service to amass more than 10 million followers across Instagram, Facebook, and X.

“It’s not fat-shaming the bears,” he said. “It’s to educate the public.”

For as much as Fat Bear Week has grown over the years, Turner’s team has remained small and mighty. While he works as part of the national communications team, he tends to manage the national flagship account on his own (individual parks, like Katmai, have their own managers, oftentimes park rangers).

When it’s not Fat Bear Week or another tentpole moment like National Park Week in April or NPS Founders Day in August, Turner said much of the focus is on posting tips for people of all ages about how to plan trips to parks and historic sites—and, most importantly, navigate them securely. Much of the content, he said, is spur of the moment and not scheduled far in advance.

“A big part of our messaging throughout the year is safety, especially around wildlife,” he said. “I think we’ve only had two bison gorings this year, which is a lower number than usual, so maybe it's working.”

Taking a humorous approach has helped the NPS grow into the wide-reaching social account it is today, Turner said. Tips and warnings are delivered in a fashion that he calls “safety with a smile,” often leaning into trends, viral moments, and cultural references to stand out and, hopefully, be memorable. A 

 about not “[petting] the fluffy cows” (bison) has 

 a viral and perhaps life-saving phrase since the NPS first posted it in 2022.

“A lot of our posts try to lean into wit, maybe sarcasm or sass here and there, as that hook to get people’s attention,” he said. “But we’re also including that educational component in the rest of the post.”

One-liners seem to work well for the service, Turner said, pointing to 

 like “You know it’s cold outside when you go outside and it’s cold,” or “If you come across a bear, never push a slower friend down…even if you feel the friendship has run its course,” the latter of which drew some 

“We’re only as good as our last post,” Turner said. “It does [create] a lot of pressure to keep it going, but I think we’ve been pretty successful in maintaining that voice and strategy, and we’ll continue to see growth across all our platforms.”

While humor tends to be the name of the game, don’t expect the NPS to get too wild. Because it’s a government agency that oversees sites like battlefields and civil rights landmarks, Turner said there’s a responsibility to be sensitive and know when to tone the humor down.

“The National Park Service is this century-plus-old organization that a lot of people admire,” he said. “We want to make sure that we’re respecting our resources and our rangers as much as possible.”

The NPS has faced some adversity before: In 2017, the Department of the Interior, which oversees the NPS, temporarily shut down the service’s X (then Twitter) account after it 

 two posts critical of President Donald Trump. It didn’t take long for people to try to fill the void and stand up for the national parks through accounts like the 

. After the Trump administration’s budget cuts took place earlier this year, park rangers 

 to protest the termination of thousands of parks and forest service jobs and defend park preservation.

Last year, the NPS reported a record 331.9 million recreational visits across its sites. While Turner said he doesn’t track park visitation, he assumes that there’s likely an uptick in interest in certain landmarks after the account posts about them. Bare (bear?) minimum, he said he believes that many people have become more aware of the NPS and its different sites as a result of social media.

“We’re really trying to showcase the magnitude of what the National Park Service is and how people can support their parks,” he said.

As for what Turner plans to do now that Fat Bear Week has wrapped? 

Screenshots from National Park Service's social media account templated onto Instagram posts, with a phone in the center held by a hand.

How the National Park Service became a social media behemoth

From Fat Bear Week to “fluffy cow” bison PSAs, the agency is reaching millions of followers through “edutainment.” 

A US TikTok, it seems, is actually coming.

The sale of TikTok’s US operations was made nearly official Thursday via an executive order from President Trump, executing the terms of the divest-or-ban law that required TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to cede control of the app’s domestic operations to US-based owners or be shut down. The sale will now likely undergo 

 from both the US and Chinese governments to make it a sure thing.

If approved, a group of investors including Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and Rupert Murdoch will oversee a company overseeing TikTok’s US operations, which the White House valued around $

 retain less than 20% stock in the new company. The timing of the new app’s launch is not yet clear.

The announcement is the pinnacle of a yearslong effort and national security panic that began when President Trump 

 TikTok in 2020. Congress then introduced the divest-or-ban bill that passed in 2024 with bipartisan support, was 

 into law by President Biden, and was upheld by the Supreme Court. Since taking office, President Trump has delayed implementation of the law four times via legally questionable executive orders, during which time ByteDance and the Chinese government seemed averse to a sale as multiple 

 from the US threw their hats in the ring. On Thursday, Trump said he got the “

” from Chinese President Xi Jinping, making the sale possible.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 Six Americans will reportedly sit on the board to control TikTok, with 

 from ByteDance. Under the terms of the deal, US-based users’ data will be stored in the US and overseen by Oracle, which already oversees TikTok’s US user data on its US-based servers. Ellison, who co-founded Oracle, is on track to 

 of various media companies, including CBS, Paramount, and now TikTok, this year.

 A new algorithm for US users is reportedly on the horizon as part of the deal, which, according to 

, will be “retrained and continuously monitored to ensure that US content is free from any outside manipulation,” though it’s not yet clear what that will look like.

 of the TikTok app was in the works, some expressed concerns about censorship and the impact of a platform ecosystem detached from the rest of the world. While White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that US users will still be able to watch and share content with global audiences, for marketers, it raises questions around audience reach and scale, as well as what global campaigns or TikTok Shop sales could look like. 

 have also expressed anxiety about the fate of their roles.

Should users, creators, and TikTok staffers react negatively to the American version of the app once it comes to fruition, it will be a matter of watching where they go next. For competitors, it could be a Reel opportunity in the Short(s) term.

Tiktok logo displayed in front of US, China flags

Trump orders sale of TikTok to US investors

The yearslong effort to get TikTok under US-based ownership seems to be over—but what comes next?

Ask twenty-something-year-old women what they think The Cut’s brand is, and their responses might echo what one Redditor put 

has been posting insane articles (among some very good journalism) forever.”

The publication came onto the fashion scene in 2008 as a section of New York before later expanding into covering wider women’s lifestyle topics on its website and twice-yearly 

. These days, online chatter about The Cut often ignites when an unpredictable personal essay is published, or when it chooses a particularly poignant cover star, like Savannah James or GloRilla.

But the publication isn’t solely relying on written content to define its brand or place in culture, especially as online creators’ impact and reach continues to grow.

Enter Tefi Pessoa. The social media personality began rising to prominence in 2019, and now, just over five years later, has built up a following of nearly 2.5 million across TikTok and Instagram. Known mainly for her deep dives into celebrity relationships and pop culture, she’s cultivated a loyal fan base that Lindsay Peoples, editor in chief of The Cut, said she wanted to get in on. Earlier this year, after serving as a red-carpet correspondent at the Academy Awards for The Cut, Pessoa officially joined the publication as a special contributor, writing an advice column.She also became the host of 

, a podcast produced by Vox Media (The Cut’s parent company) in partnership with The Cut and sponsored by Dove and Macy’s.

It’s a partnership that seems beneficial for all parties involved. The Cut gets to align itself with an established-but-still-exciting internet persona, not only signalling to its audience that it knows what’s up, but potentially gaining new audience members along the way, too. Dove, which has previously worked with Pessoa, gets to deepen its relationship with the creator. And Pessoa gets to legitimize and expand, proving to anyone that still thinks influencing is not a real career that she’s got the chops to partner with a legacy media brand and go beyond just social media.

“Being partnered with The Cut allows her to [reach] a really rich and even bigger and broader audience than what she has on her social media platforms,” Nishat Kurwa, SVP and executive producer of audio at Vox Media, told Marketing Brew.

Pessoa’s not the only influencer branching out beyond short-form video and personal accounts. As creators look to make the jump from internet content to more traditional media via platforms like Tubi and Spotify, that mutual benefit is playing out across the board, and brands are taking note.

“As creators like Tefi increasingly branch into podcasts, live events, and broader media properties, we see tremendous opportunity to extend our collaborations into these formats,” Kevin Tolson, head of deodorants, Dove and SheaMoisture at Unilever North America, told us in an email. “This allows Dove to engage audiences across multiple touchpoints in ways that feel personal, memorable, and deeply aligned with our mission.”

For The Cut, Pessoa’s increased cultural footprint with the new podcast directly reflects back on the media brand’s own cultural relevance.

“As we came across a lot of different creators in the industry, it just felt like Tefi had so much alignment with The Cut,” Peoples said, later adding that “We try to do a really good job of connecting what she’s talking about with what we’re already blogging.”

By continuously integrating Pessoa and The Cut’s brand images together, Kurwa hopes to create a “constant back and forth” between the value of the publication’s written product and the new podcast. While she said the podcast exists as a place to deepen Pessoa’s content offerings and brings her celebrity and pop culture expertise to a new level, it also integrates The Cut’s editorial stories, all in service of amplifying both platforms and brands.

“It’s one big flywheel,” Kurwa said.

Pessoa’s particular platform expansion has also opened up new doors for Dove, according to Tolson. 

 marks the first time the brand has sponsored an entire podcast, and when the show taped a live episode at The Cut Cafe activation (at Bluestone Lane’s TriBeCa location) at New York Fashion Week, the partnership enabled Dove to show up at the weeklong fashion event, providing a deodorant vending machine in The Cut’s takeover of Bluestone Lane for any sweaty fashion week-goers that stopped by.

The activation marked one of the few times Dove has made inroads during the buzzy week.