It’s been a bananas few weeks in my world. I went out to LA to be the first to play on the Clippers’ new floor, flew up to SF to run in the Warriors 3×3 tourney, then participated in the first ever White House Creator Economy Conference, which earned a surprise spiel from President Joe Biden. To top it off, my basketball Instagram account hit 50,000 followers yesterday. A very cool run of trips that’s left me more motivated (and tired) than ever.

But let’s talk about social media, yeah? In this issue, you’ll get

• An inside look at the White House Creator Conference

• Thoughts from industry experts on what needs to improve

• My revamped business to help you get better at LinkedIn!

—Jack Appleby

Inside the White House Creator Economy Conference

I’ve never been any good at the front-facing selfie. I’ll nab the occasional gym mirror thirst, err, progress pic, but I just never get the angle right when I’m pointing the cam back at me.

But boy, am I glad this one came out.

The first White House Creator Economy Conference (WHCEC) featured chats between creators and administration officials on a variety of hot creator topics. There was a panel on mental health, fireside chats on AI and fair pay, breakout sessions where influencer industry pros could debate issues and voice desires to the government, and that surprise appearance by the President (which we’ll dive into, because he shared some gold).

You’d expect most conferences to program for their attendee’s education, but the WHCEC reversed things—we were there to share our thoughts and needs with our hosts. It was a day of the government listening to creators about our industry—how it works, our needs, our struggles. Biden’s digital team has been far more active with creators than previous administrations, and it’s clear they wanted to recognize the industry and make us all feel heard.

Rather than run you through the full agenda, I’ll take you through my takeaways.

Watch for future presidential campaigns to lean heavily on influencers

When I tweeted my selfie with the President, Boston Globe VP of Platforms Matt Karolian quote retweeted me with this sass.

I couldn’t help but fire back (I didn’t like his implication or tone), but his overall point is dead on. If you’re in a campaign or active administration, and you’re looking to earn public support, the strategic move is to partner with whoever has the widest distribution with the most influence while also painting you in a strong light. If you give a creator with millions of followers time with a President, they’re probably gonna garner more love than a news article.

President Biden even shared a story on when he understand the power of content creators:

Traditional press is important—I was a journalist before my advertising career kicked off, and my biggest gripe with the democratization of social media is how many unvalidated takes run around the algorithms—but I’d at least give equal focus to creators as traditional press for any modern political campaign. Case-in-point: watch for how many creators were invited to the Democratic National Convention this week, and more importantly, how they speak about the opportunity.

We still don’t have good solutions for creators’ biggest career concerns

Two of the four big chats of the day were centered on mental health in social media. Creators Jackie Aina, Lexi Hidalgo, Kate Mackz, Joel Bervell all shared tough stories on cyber bullying, evil comment sections, and the realities of depression triggered by the internet.

The energy of the room was more support group than solutions, though, largely because we really haven’t found many solutions. The same felt true of the AI talk with Gohar Khan and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Dr. Arati Prabhakar, as well as the Fair Pay fireside with Hannah Williams and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo. Every pairing felt like a much-needed therapy session for creators, and every administration official did a great job acknowledging they’re aware of the concerns, but really… not much was said in how to make these things better.

I don’t blame them, necessarily. Social media’s still brand new and arguably unsolved, and the day’s intention was for our hosts to hear from creators. The sessions did sometimes feel like they weren’t for the audience, though—the other attendees I chatted with agreed that on-stage acknowledgement of issues is nice, but we’d hope for more takeaways on the subject matter if we’re watching panels & fireside chats. I didn’t really leave with any new information on the government’s thinking regarding AI, or fair pay in the creator economy, or how we can improve mental health on social.

Creators are looking to connect with other creators, and brands could learn from the WHCEC

I’m on year three of writing this newsletter, and I’ll tell you that the hardest parts of creator life are loneliness and only having your own brain. I worked on huge teams during my ad agency days—now I’m running a new age business without anyone else with skin in the game.

It was quite clear every creator appreciated that chance to be around other creators. I know I was excited to finally meet writers Lindsey Gamble and Lia Haberman after years of tweeting social thoughts at each other, and I saw similar smiles and “finally!” hand shakes throughout the room. Combine those introductions with the prestige of sitting in the White House and you’ve got 100 big thinkers ready to share their thoughts—exactly what the White House digital team wanted. Their team did a great job fostering a welcoming environment where creators could openly share, both with each other and administration officials. No one held back (which we’ll dig into shortly), and I suspect Biden’s folks have plenty of notes on the day.

As brands look for new ways to connect with creators outside of campaign-based influencer marketing, I really think there’s a ton of opportunity if they bring creators in early, make them feel heard, and provide way more access. You’re gonna get better sponsored content if you bring multiple creators together and give them ample inspiration than some forwarded bullet-point brief from an influencer agency. Brands that spend heavily in the space should really consider mimicking the WHCEC format as a means of building rapport and relationship, as well as hearing what creators actually want from brands.

I’m concerned how quickly creators want the government to get involved in industry issues

The best conversations happened in the side rooms. The WHCEC wisely dedicated 1.5 hours to breakout sessions, where the attendees were split into groups of 10-20 to answer questions from the White House digital team & discuss industry issues.

The kick-off question: what are our biggest concerns as creators right now and how can the government help?

To no one’s surprise, pretty much everyone in my room started complaining about the algorithms.

The creators and influencer managers wanted more transparency from the social platforms on how the algorithms work, when they change, and what each platforms’ priorities are. Several claimed they know that their branded and #ad content is being suppressed by Meta and TikTok… but when I asked them for evidence, all just shared their personal view counts… which, yes, sponcon traditionally performs worse than organic content because of course it does, it’s an ad. Some went as far as suggesting government regulations on the algorithms, though none really could voice what that meant or how it would look.

I pushed back quite a bit there, mostly because I didn’t want the government thinking our view counts were their problem. The same algorithms everyone complained about were key to making those same creators famous. Influencers want all the credit when their content goes viral, but none of the blame when content flops. That wasn’t well received, with one influencer manager actually asking me why I’m siding with the evil corporations instead of my own business (yes, they actually used the word “evil”).

Hysterically, when I tried to get our room to pivot by asking our White House Digital Team moderator if we were way off track from their intention, I got a smirk and a quiet “yes.”

That’s honestly the reality of most creator-on-creator conversations I’ve been part of. Seems like we rarely see the forest through the trees in these rooms. And hey, we’re all running our personal creator businesses and deserve to voice our needs! But uh, the solutions call might not come from inside the house.

I wanna help you learn to be yourself on LinkedIn

Writing about my job on LinkedIn changed my career. My jobs at R/GA, Twitch, and Morning Brew? All came in the DMs from me writing about my work. When I worked with Spotify? One of their product managers read my threads and reached out to me to work together.

Now, I wanna pay it forward & help you start sharing how you think on LinkedIn.

Introducing Break An Egg 🐣, my try at building the world’s most inexpensive career development tool on the market.

For just $5/month, you’ll get:

• 30 LinkedIn prompts designed to mine your experience for content

• New ways to highlight your career milestones & accomplishments

• A community of 1000+ other BAEs who help each other!

You can sign up right here. Cheaper than a latte. I’m keeping it at this $5/month mark for anyone who signs up until Black Friday, then it’ll go up a bit (but you’ll be grandfathered into your original price). Can’t wait to help ya break some eggs!

Social Cues

There are so many social big thinkers out there, writing all kinds of amazing strategies, analysis, and breakdowns. All ships rise with the tide, so here are a few reads from other places I think you could learn from.

Behind the scenes of Barack Obama’s Reading List (Esquire). God, I love a great BTS piece that gives you the inside scoop on how great work gets done. I don’t wanna spoil the piece—give it a read (boom, wordplay). 

Instagram is testing vertical profile grids (The Verge). This was inevitable now that vertical video runs the show. Sorry to those of you who carefully curate your grid look.

Very mindful, very demure, explained (The Oklahoman). None of us can escape the phrase, so you might as well learn the history.