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Extra Value | The New Wave of Content

Extra Value | The New Wave of Content

PLUS: How ESPN is tapping into content creators and Labubu's new competition!

Creator X & JT Barnett
August 07, 2025

What’s Hot?

Cava Jumps on the Labubu Craze.

Cava just launched their first meal box with squishy pita chip plushies inspired by the viral Labubu’s 😂. Cava doesn't blow millions on big influencers, they’re looking for creators who actually care about their brand. For this new campaign, they partnered with a former employee who genuinely loved the brand instead of hiring mega-influencers.

MrBeast's $40M Campaign.

Jimmy started Team Water with over 3,000 creators to raise $40 million for clean water access to 2 million people worldwide! 🌍️ This could be the largest creator collaboration in history, with every $1 donated providing one person clean water for an entire year!

ESPN 🤝 Influencers

ESPN tapped creator Katie Feeney to lead digital strategy and join their football programming. How cool is it to see as traditional sports media finally embrace creator culture? 🔥

Gen Z's Latest Nostalgic Obsession

“Older Brother Core” exploded on Pinterest with Gen Z guys obsessing over that messy 2000s aesthetic. 73% of these searches are coming from people who weren't even around in the 2000s 😂. Pinterest is literally predicting and driving culture right now… users are actively searching for what they want to buy, wear, and become!

New IG updates!

Instagram has three new updates to bring back genuine friend connections! Reposts (finally!), friend maps for sharing locations and a friends feed in the reels tab that shows what your buddies are liking and commenting on!

Inside Bilt's Genius "Roomies" Series

Loved this Substack from Rachel diving into Bilt's genius move. They created "Roomies," a series about a 25-year-old from Ohio navigating NYC roommate drama. Most viewers have no clue it's branded content, which is exactly the point. The series hit 8M+ views and 115K followers across TikTok and Instagram.

Snapchat… not doing so hot. 😭

Snap is losing users in North America (their biggest money maker) while growth coming from lower-revenue markets. Despite “Spotlight” contributing 40% of total app time, the hype just isn’t there anymore.

Founder’s Corner

I gotta share something that's completely shifted how I think about content strategy and it’s something you might want to consider. 🤔

We can all admit, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube... they're not what they used to be. These platforms have completely flipped from being all about followers to being straight-up recommendation engines.

And that changes everything about how we should approach the next wave of social media! 📱

Problems With The Algo

This is what I'm thinking about right now. My JT Barnett IG account covers entrepreneurship, it covers my family life with my wife. It covers me as a hockey player. It covers I'm making coffees and talking about my coffee machine.

As a strategist, when I look at my account, I'm like… “this is not the move rn.” 😪

Those all four need to be completely different accounts because the way that the algorithms work is it's preference mapping + audience targeting… so followers don’t matter anymore!

Here's why: Every caption, hashtag, audio clip: it's all data, telling the platform who should see your stuff. When you're all over the place with topics, the algorithm can't build a clear user profile. So the platform serves it to whoever has the highest engagement probability (follower or not). It's about algorithmic compatibility, not audience size.

The Power of Focussed Content

So the more data that you give this engine of who it's getting recommended to, the better your content has a chance of landing on that person's FYP organically.

Imagine having an account that's 100% focused on entrepreneurship. Every single post, caption, comment, all about business. The algorithm quickly gets it: "Oh, this account is for entrepreneurs. Let's show it to ALL the entrepreneurs."

Now you're not fighting for recognition. You're just focused on making content that entrepreneurs actually want to engage with.

The strategy everyone needs to adopt is this: Pick one target audience and stick with them. Every piece of content should be designed for that exact same end consumer.

Split Your Content: If you're posting fitness, business tips, and lifestyle content all in one place, break them up. Create dedicated accounts for each niche and hyper-focus on that specific content style (per account).
One Account = One Audience: Stop trying to please everyone on the same platform. The algorithm needs to know who you want to target.
Consistency Drives Discovery: Every post should feel like it belongs to the same person talking to the same group of people.

The Admin Nightmare

And yes, management and admin wise this sounds like a nightmare. 🤷

But the results are insane. Look at brands crushing it like ClickUp with their different channels or Nude Project with their content strategy. They get it.

Here's how to make this work:

Streamline Your Admin Workflow: Use scheduling tools like Later or Buffer to batch content across accounts. Create content pillars for each account and set up automated cross-posting workflows. This type of org might need new hires and AI tools (for brands and companies).
Cross-promote the smart way: Use collab posts to introduce followers to your other accounts without messing up your main feed. Or, bring in other creators and and influencers to one of your accounts.
Early stages: Also keep in mind, we're only in stage one of this new media style. Eventually down the road platforms will recognize this shift and hopefully come out with tools that help with audience segmentation and multi-persona content distribution.

The New Opportunity

Brand new accounts can post one great video today and immediately reach 30-50K people focused on a specific product or topic. The game has completely changed.

Look, I'm not saying this is easy. But if you're serious about breaking through all the noise and actually connecting with your audience, this is the way to go! 🎯

✅ So ask yourself:
Who do you want becoming obsessed with your content?
What does the strategy or content style for this one specific channel look like?

➡️ Start with one focused account if this feels overwhelming. Get that dialed in, then expand. Trust me, both the algorithm and your audience will thank you for it.

I’m helping companies make pivots and strategies like this all the time, would love to help more people! 😎 reply back to this email and let’s connect!