The Monetization Wake-Up Call for Mid-Tier Creators
What creators must do to stay visible and profitable in a changing algorithm landscape
First, welcome to my Substack! I’ll be posting a variety of musings about the creator economy (with a few broader digital marketing tangents). I’ll be experimenting with how many hot takes I put into each article, always feel free to push back and add your own thoughts.
Where have my followers gone?
In my conversations with creators lately, there's one question that keeps coming up in different forms:
"Am I shadow-banned?"
Whether it's someone with 200K followers on Instagram reaching only 3% of their audience, or a TikTok creator with half a million followers asking why their latest video got 12K views when they used to hit 150K regularly, the concern is always the same. Businesses and creators with solid followings are now facing a reality where their content struggles to be seen.
The answer isn’t shadow-banning, and it’s not malicious. With millions of creators now posting content, platforms like Instagram have shifted their algorithms from follower-based to engagement-driven distribution. Currently, the creator economy has brands paying creators directly for sponsorships and partnerships. The platforms see the impact of these partnerships, but they aren’t getting a cut. So they're changing the algorithms to funnel more of that revenue through their own monetization tools.
Beyond anecdotes, industry numbers back up what creators are experiencing:
Facebook's organic reach has dropped 87.5% since 2012.
Instagram's organic reach is down 18% from last year alone.
Even TikTok, often celebrated for its organic product, saw engagement rates fall 53% from 2023 to 2024.
This decline in reach is driven by two key factors:
Content Over-saturation: The democratization of content creation has resulted in more creators and brands posting than ever before. Increased competition naturally dilutes organic reach.
Algorithms Favor Paid Visibility: Algorithms now optimize for time-spent metrics and user retention signals, promoting content that maximizes session duration and ad impression opportunities. By promoting what keeps consumers on the app longer and more engaged, platforms create more ad revenue opportunities. Non-viral organic posts, especially affiliate (non-TikTok Shop) and paid partnership deals where the platform doesn't earn a share or support their ad ecosystem, take a backseat.
Why The Shift Happened
Understanding why organic reach is fading also requires looking back at how these platforms have evolved. Meta, in particular, has undergone a series of algorithm changes designed to nudge users toward paid promotion. Instagram's algorithm has steadily evolved from chronological feeds to engagement-based systems aimed at maximizing user engagement and revenue.
Meta initially allowed businesses and individual creators to thrive organically because it encouraged more users to engage with their platforms. However, brand partnerships and influencer deals historically have largely taken place outside of their paid ad ecosystem. At a certain point, the strong performance of these partnerships generates conflict with growth in investments on paid ads.
This evolution from creator-friendly to revenue-optimized represents a fundamental shift in platform priorities. The historical timeline below shows how systematic these changes have been (if you’re familiar just skip through)
Key Algorithm Shifts
Early 2010s: Meta began deprioritizing organic reach for business pages, pushing brands toward paid ads.
2020-2022: Instagram launched Reels and TikTok competition drove algorithm changes that initially boosted creators, then gradually made consistent reach harder to maintain.
2023-Present: Platforms now prioritize viral content and "unconnected" users over follower-based distribution, fundamentally changing how reach works.
Recent updates have continued this trend, emphasizing viral content that drives high engagement, regardless of follower count. The approach rewards content that retains users on the platform while minimizing visibility for posts that don't contribute to Meta's revenue ecosystem.
New Challenges
This shift benefits Meta in two ways:
Creators who want to maintain consistent audience engagement must now budget for paid promotion as a core expense.
Brands working with creators will now have to allocate budget and invest in paid promotion to ensure their collaborations reach the intended audience, reinforcing Meta's ad revenue model.
At its core, this change is a response to the growing efficiency of creator-led marketing. Brands have discovered that influencer-driven campaigns often outperform traditional paid social ads, making them more cost-effective. However, if brands rely too heavily on creators rather than paid media through the platform itself, platforms like Meta will inevitably adjust their algorithms to regain control over advertising dollars. This shift ensures that Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms continue to profit from the marketing ecosystem they host.
Note: It's important to understand the distinction between TikTok and Meta regarding affiliate marketing. TikTok captures revenue through its Shop marketplace fees, while Meta relies on pushing affiliate content toward paid promotion to monetize these partnerships.
Potential Impact and Outstanding Questions
Moving forward, creators and brands must adapt. Viral content will still find an audience, but sustained reach will require consistent, high-quality, engaging videos. This makes it harder for small and mid-tier creators who haven't yet refined their content strategy to grow at the same pace as before. While this may elevate the best creators to the top, it will also reshape expectations for those entering the industry.
For example, recent research shows 90% of creators now experience burnout, with 71% having considered quitting social media altogether due to financial instability and declining reach.
For new creators, this shift poses a crucial question: will it discourage fresh talent from entering the space? And for those already established, does this mean treating content creation more like a traditional business, where partnership marketing budgets are an essential part of growth rather than an afterthought? How will this impact the lifecycle of the creator? Creators will have to consistently adjust their content to stay relevant and maintain viewership levels.
My prediction:
Businesses and creators now operate in a definitively pay-to-play landscape. Those refusing to adapt will become increasingly irrelevant. To succeed in this new era, creators and brands must:
Budget for paid amplification: Treat promotion spend as a core business expense, not an optional add-on.
Build full-funnel community engagement: Focus on nurturing your audience through exclusive content, valuable information, community chats, special deals, and ongoing engagement that goes beyond just posting content.
Diversify beyond social platforms: Build revenue streams through digital products, direct partnerships, and alternative monetization channels that aren't subject to algorithm changes.
This shift requires strategic investment, but those who adapt thoughtfully will maintain competitive advantage. The creators and brands adapting to this reality now will shape the next phase of digital marketing. Those waiting for their reach to return are going to find themselves left behind.
What are you seeing in your own content performance? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Cheers,
Colin
Next week, I'll break down the emerging CPM-based creator economy and why per-view payments might replace traditional sponsorship models. Following that: how successful creators are building platform-independent revenue streams and the measurement frameworks that actually predict creator business success.