Trends in social media: The Motherhood, one of the top influencer marketing agencies, scours the headlines so you don’t have to. Check back throughout the month for more!
Influencer Marketing Industry Resources
The Campaign That Listened Before It Launched – June 27, 2026
The campaign for SheaMoisture’s Silk Press in a Bottle generated millions of views and sales that doubled in peak retail weeks. The strategy behind those numbers started long before cameras rolled. During an ADWEEK House Cannes Lions panel co-hosted with Collectively, Rebecca Stewart, brand editor at ADWEEK, sat down with Raven Walker, SVP of client partnerships at Collectively, and Reema Amin, head of marketing at SheaMoisture, to discuss the listening-first approach behind the launch.
‘We’re not doing it because it’s cool’: Inside Unilever’s approach to creator marketing – June 26, 2026
Unilever’s CMO has insisted the business’s focus on creators is not about picking one channel over the other but rather choosing the best medium for its messaging. “It’s not bringing a focus on social and focus on creators just because we believe that that this is cool,” Leandro Barreto, global CMO of Unilever said. “It’s because we believe this has more return of investment, that this helps us to build the brands to drive more trust, to drive more credibility.”
How the creator economy became a $700b industry – June 26, 2026
For three days last September, Frisco, Texas, played host to LTKCon, an invitation-only influencer conference now in its 13th year. In between keynote speeches by the company’s co-founder, Amber Venz Box, and sessions on how best to optimise iPhone search results to urge the shopping platform’s 40 million-odd users to buy more, the largely female attendees snacked on branded biscuits, picked up jeans at the Abercrombie Denim gifting suite, and watched as eight of the 300 hand-picked invitees were given awards in categories such as “Video Creator of the Year”.
Influencer Marketing Is Moving From Rented Attention To Creator Infrastructure – June 25, 2026
For years, influencer marketing was treated as a shortcut. A brand could find someone with an audience, send them a product, pay for a post and hope that attention would turn into sales. For a while, that model worked. Creators felt more relatable than celebrities. Their recommendations felt personal.
The unexpected brands running creators want to work with – June 24, 2026
There’s nothing better than an ice cream cone or an ice-cold beer after a long run. But at the finish line, many runners are rewarded with snacks of the healthier variety: granola bars, fruit, and water bottles. Given the physical demands of distance running, healthy snacks may make sense—but sometimes, runners just want a little treat. And they want the brands to know it.
Marketers, it’s okay to let creators get experimental with your ads – June 23, 2026
Hey marketers, it’s OK if a creator shakes up your carefully crafted messaging in their sponsored content. That actually may be the only way to get people to pay attention. That was the key advice coming out of a Tuesday fireside chat between YouTuber Adam Waheed, better known as Adam W, and Google ad executive Sean Downey. The pair dove deep into the brand-creator relationship during a discussion at Business Insider’s annual CMO Insider Breakfast, hosted with support from founding sponsor BCG, supporting sponsor PayPal, and contributing sponsor LinkedIn.
Forbes tests a creator-led audience play to grow off-platform reach – June 23, 2026
Forbes is testing a creator-led audience play that puts TikTok and Instagram talent at the front of its off-platform push. Through a new “Forbes Creator” banner, the publisher is using TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIN, podcasts and events to push out video-led coverage fronted by a small group of creators, rather than just staff reporters.
How Lipton Ice Tea is using local creators instead of building in-house social teams – June 22, 2026
Lipton Ice Tea is testing a new way to do creator marketing without building big in-house social teams. After a two-year global trial, the tea brand is using influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy’s “Social Hubs” — a program where local creators make a steady stream of content for Lipton’s social channels and their own, effectively acting as on-the-ground social teams in each market.
Brands using AI-generated influencers to promote products on social media – June 21, 2026
Brands promoting their products online are quietly deploying AI-generated influencers on social media, an investigation has found, prompting calls for greater transparency. The findings suggest companies are increasingly turning to AI-generated content that purports to show genuine customer experiences while giving no obvious indication that the people featured are not real.
B2B influencer marketing fails when brands buy voices like media – June 21, 2026
B2B influencer marketing is starting to look deceptively easy to buy. LinkedIn now has a Creator Marketplace. Creator discovery tools are more mature. Paid amplification is easier to attach to expert posts. Procurement can see names, audience data, rates, and deliverables in a way that makes the channel feel closer to media planning than relationship building.
Employee advocacy vs influencer marketing: why B2B brands need both – June 22, 2026
Most B2B marketing teams treat employee advocacy and influencer marketing as two line items competing for the same budget, or worse, as two names for the same thing. They are neither. One runs on credibility the brand already owns. The other runs on reach the brand has to rent. Brands that pick one over the other are leaving half the funnel uncovered, and the ones getting this right in 2026 are running both at once, on purpose, with a different job assigned to each.
The creator economy grows up: what skills matter now? – June 19, 2026
Creator marketing is no longer a niche discipline. As creators become businesses, content studios and entertainment brands in their own right, the industry is entering a new phase of maturity. From disclosure and measurement to brand partnerships, training and long-term growth, the expectations on creators are changing fast. We asked experts from across the creator economy what it will take to succeed in this next chapter.
Lumanu and Sprout Social Bring Creator Payments Into the Influencer Marketing Workflow – June 18, 2026
Lumanu, the payments and compliance platform for the global creative economy, today announced a native integration with Sprout Social (Nasdaq: SPT), a leading AI-powered Social Intelligence Platform. The integration embeds Lumanu’s financial infrastructure directly into Sprout Social Influencer Marketing, allowing marketers to pay creators within their campaign workflow while giving finance teams a single, audit-ready vendor to manage.
Marketing’s most valuable influencer has zero followers – June 16, 2026
The person who wrote those words picked the restaurant, booked the tickets, fronted the cost and then collected payment from everyone afterward. Next weekend, when nobody else wants to make the call, they’ll do it again.
How to pay influencers: Complete guide for 2026 – June 15, 2026
From influencer discovery to campaign ideation, influencer marketing teams are already fluent in planning and executing campaigns. What they sometimes struggle with is the grueling admin work of managing influencer payments.
From Weeks To Minutes: How AhaCreator Redefines Influencer Efficiency – June 14, 2026
Artificial intelligence has already transformed how brands buy media. Programmatic advertising, automated bidding, and AI-driven targeting have turned what was once a manual discipline into a system that learns and optimizes in real time. Influencer marketing, by contrast, has remained stubbornly analog. Behind the polished facade of creator campaigns sits a workflow that is still largely manual.
Creator Marketing Earned the Budget, Now It Has to Justify It at Scale – June 12, 2026
Most brands running creator programs already know it’s working. The harder questions are whether they can prove it precisely enough to justify (or get more) budget, and whether they can scale it without breaking what got them there. Those two questions are where most programs stall — and where the gap between a creator program and a creator system becomes impossible to ignore.
Influencer marketing isn’t broken. Your measurement model might be – June 11, 2026
Ask any marketer how they evaluate an influencer campaign and you’ll likely hear the same question: ‘Is it driving ROI?’ It’s an understandable reflex. But it’s also the wrong place to start. Today, the real challenge confronting most influencer programs isn’t whether or not the channel works. It’s whether brands measure it in a way that reflects how people actually buy, and how, over time, influence compounds.
Helping Brands Deliver Impact With Creators and Stronger Creative – June 10, 2026
- Introducing new ways for brands to connect with trusted voices and create content that drives real business results on LinkedIn
- Bringing creators and brands together in one place—so trusted voices can scale, and influence becomes real opportunity with Creator Marketplace
- Providing hands-on support to help marketers create LinkedIn content and custom campaigns that drive measurable results with BrandWorks
Today’s buyers expect more from every interaction. In fact, 77% of B2B marketers say buyers need to trust and know a brand before they’re willing to engage.* That’s why we’re introducing Creator Marketplace and BrandWorks: Creator Marketplace helps brands find and work with the right creators, while BrandWorks provides hands-on support to create content and custom activations for campaigns, all built for LinkedIn.
How content creator Natalie Marshall built her company’s culture from the ground up – June 8, 2026
Natalie Marshall started creating social media content in 2020 just for fun. Before long, she became known as “Corporate Natalie.” And what started as a hobby turned into a small business, Corporate Natalie LLC, inclusive of Marshall’s social media platforms, influencer marketing agency, and virtual assistant platform, that she runs as its CEO.
From One Post To Many: 6 Ways To Repurpose Influencer Content For Maximum Impact – June 8, 2026
Influencer marketing is taking a bigger chunk of many brands’ budgets. Unilever, for example, announced in 2025 that it was putting 50% of its marketing budget into influencer spend. This investment is often only possible if you make influencer content work harder. Unilever’s CEO explained that the brand would prioritize “variety of creators, volume, virality and velocity of content.”
Inside imaging company Prenuvo’s creator strategy – June 4, 2026
“Come with me to see if I have cancer!” That’s how creator Victoria Paris started a recent video showing what it’s like to get a full-body MRI scan from Prenuvo, a company that offers elective imaging tests. Her tone was knowingly satirical—who makes a day-in-the-life-style video about getting an MRI?—but she documented the entire process anyway.
Inside the Creator Economy’s Quiet Revolution – June 2026
Influencer marketing used to be simple. Find someone famous. Pay them to hold your product. They post it to their millions of followers. Job done. Reach bought. The model worked because social media was built on the follow graph. You saw content from people you followed, in roughly the order they posted it. Influencers were distribution channels with personalities attached. Follower count was the media rate card. That world is gone.
5 AI Tools That Replace A $10,000/month Marketing Agency – June 5, 2026
Many businesses overpay marketing agencies that often lack the founder’s deep customer knowledge. New software tools now empower founders to manage marketing more effectively and affordably. Claude Cowork acts as an AI strategist, building assets and dashboards based on “vibe coding” and voice commands. Senja collects crucial social proof via customer testimonials, integrating them into campaigns. Coachvox creates an AI founder version to nurture leads and answer questions, boosting conversion rates. Syllaby transforms ideas into viral short video clips with scripts and AI voices for broad distribution. Lastly, Cape, a non-AI app, combats digital distraction, fostering creative insights. These tools enable founders to leverage their unique market understanding, execute strategies independently, and outperform traditional agencies, saving significant costs.
Smash the silos between creator spend and media budget – June 4, 2026
Remember the old influencer marketing playbook? Write a fat cheque to a charismatic creator, let them post organically to their profile and cross your fingers that cultural relevance, engagement and reach magically follow. If anyone mentioned paid amplification, it was usually treated as an afterthought with a bit of budget thrown at a post three weeks later, long after the moment had moved on.
Why creator Lola Torres prefers the stability of affiliate marketing over brand partnerships – June 4, 2026
After years of relying on affiliate sales, retailers are rushing to roll out their own creator programs en masse to make creator commerce more measurable, scalable, and controllable. But creator Lola Torres, who won influencer shopping platform LTK’s beauty creator award in 2024, has built her career on affiliate marketing, and she’s sticking with it despite how labor-intensive it is.
The UGC Revolution: How Brands Are Building Content Engines Without Studios – June 3, 2026
A few years ago, if a marketing team wanted fresh content, the process was fairly predictable. A brief would be written. An agency would be called. A production schedule would be drawn up. Budgets would be approved, locations booked, talent hired, edits reviewed, and assets eventually delivered. By the time the campaign reached consumers, weeks—sometimes months—had passed. Today, that timeline feels almost outdated. Spend a few minutes scrolling through the social feeds of some of the world’s fastest-growing brands and you’ll notice something interesting. The content that attracts the most engagement often doesn’t look like advertising at all. It looks like a customer showing how they use a product. A creator sharing an honest review. An employee posting behind-the-scenes moments from a workplace. A community member documenting an experience in their own words. Somewhere along the way, the centre of gravity in content creation shifted. Brands stopped being the sole storytellers and started becoming curators of stories happening around them. What we are witnessing isn’t simply the rise of user-generated content. It is the gradual dismantling of a marketing model that relied heavily on studios, large production budgets, and tightly controlled creative processes. In its place, brands are building something far more dynamic: content engines powered by creators, customers, employees, and communities. The irony is that many marketers spent years trying to make advertising look more authentic, only to discover that actual authenticity was sitting outside the studio all along.
How Top Brands Turn Creator Marketing Into a True Business Driver: 3 Key Takeaways From CreatorIQ Connect. – June 3, 2026
Where influence meets impact. That’s the promise of CreatorIQ Connect, and for the leaders who’ve been in the room, those words describe the day itself: the room where the industry’s boldest moves begin. Each October, more than 1,000 global marketing leaders and creators from the world’s most influential brands, agencies, and social platforms gather at The Ebell of Los Angeles for a single high-impact day that shapes how they think about creator marketing for the rest of the year. Past attendees point to three things that make it different.
The Deinfluencing Era: What Happens When Creators Say ‘Don’t Buy This’ – June 2, 2026
“Don’t buy this” is not a phrase brands expect to hear from a creator they’re paying, yet it’s quickly becoming one of the most powerful signals in influencer marketing today. Not long ago, I worked on a campaign where every deliverable was polished, positive and perfectly aligned with the brief. The influencers did everything right on paper, yet the response was underwhelming. Engagement was shallow and conversions lagged. Around the same time, a creator outside our campaign posted an unsponsored video breaking down why a similar product was not worth the price. That video drew more comments, saves and debate than our entire campaign combined. More importantly, when that same creator later recommended an alternative, it sold out within days.
The Creator Marketing Secret That AI Can’t Replace – June 2, 2026
In one version of the future of influencer marketing, human creators are optional. In that version, brands generate virtual influencers on demand: perfectly consistent, infinitely scalable, with no reputational risk, no negotiation, and no days off. The content is algorithmically optimized, the aesthetic is brand-controlled, and the campaign deploys globally overnight. It is efficient, predictable, and—at least on paper—logical.
Why retailers like Target and Aerie are moving beyond straight affiliate deals with creators – June 2, 2026
Retailers from Target to Urban Outfitters and Aerie are trading one-size-fits-all affiliate schemes for hybrid creator programs that mix gamified communities, tiered rewards and performance-based pay. The goal: to fix affiliates’ weak spots like tracking gaps, scaling headaches and creator frustration with flat commissions.
B2B Influencer Marketing: Building Trust Through Industry Voices – June 2026
Looking to create campaigns that win awards in 2026? This blog is informed by examining shortlisted campaigns from the 2025 B2B Marketing Awards. Evaluated by more than 100 independent, client-side judges through a rigorous two-stage process, the analysis goes beyond just the winners to reflect the full breadth of high-performing work—offering a clearer picture of what’s driving success in B2B marketing today and how teams can evolve their strategies accordingly. In this blog, we share more about influencer marketing and share a brilliant campaign to demonstrate its impact.
Employee-generated content (EGC)
At Cannes, C-Suite Content Creators Are Becoming The New Influencers – June 28, 2026
Is content creation the next act for C-Suite executives? For the last several years, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which takes place every June in Cannes, France, has been synonymous with advertising’s biggest agencies, global brands, and celebrity influencers. But walking down the Croisette this year, another type of creator was increasingly commanding and seeking attention. What was once a field of fashion influencers, travel vloggers, and TikTok personalities is now lined with an increasing number of CEOs, founders, chief marketing officers, and senior executives.
‘Authentic storytelling’ | Starbucks ramps up employee-generated content with launch of TikTok scheme – June 26, 2026
Starbucks is ramping up its investment in employee-led marketing with the launch of a new pilot scheme in partnership with TikTok. Through the “Creator Network” program, the coffee giant will issue briefs to employee creators and compensate them for the content they produce through a share of advertising revenues. The partnership with the social media platform marks an ongoing investment in employee-generated content (EGC) at Starbucks, an increasingly popular marketing tool in which staff are directly encouraged to post about the brand or organization they work for.
marketing
Why Publishing More Content Is Making Your SEO Worse – June 17, 2026
For most of the history of modern SEO, publishing more content was considered almost universally beneficial. More pages meant more keywords, more long-tail visibility, more opportunities to rank, and more traffic. Entire agencies and publishing businesses were built around this premise. The logic was simple: If one page could rank, then a thousand pages could dominate.
SOCIAL NEWS
Instagram tests more algorithm controls – June 28, 2026
Instagram is experimenting with additional ways to give users a level of control over recommendations in the app. The update aims to make it easier for people to tell IG’s system what content they like and don’t like in-stream.
ChatGPT is the most popular AI tool for people in the US – June 28, 2026
ChatGPT remains the most popular artificial intelligence chatbot on the market for American consumers. Meanwhile, most people in the U.S. are using chatbots to assist with search, as opposed to image generation or for professional usage.
Meta plans to replace 90% of content review staff with AI – June 25, 2026
Despite recent concerns regarding its reliance on artificial intelligence systems, Meta is reportedly moving forward with plans to replace staff with AI tools, with the company planning to use LLMs to review the vast majority of its content and ads by the end of this year.
LinkedIn tests suggested feeds – June 24, 2026
LinkedIn is trying out a new way to drive topical engagement, with some users now being shown a range of suggested feeds in addition to their regular news feeds.
TikTok adds new AI creation tools for marketers – June 22, 2026
TikTok announced new artificial intelligence-powered features to assist in ad creation, including an agentic tool that can create whole video campaigns from text prompts. The tool will also be able to provide guidance based on an examination of trending videos in the app.
LinkedIn launches AI training courses for marketers – June 16, 2026
LinkedIn has partnered with Adobe to launch a new series of artificial intelligence training courses for marketers. The program is designed to teach marketers the fundamentals of AI usage, as well as how to best use of the latest AI advancements in order to improve their outputs.
Edits is getting a desktop version and an AI production assistant – June 14, 2026
Meta has announced that a desktop version of its Edits video editing app is coming, while it’s also adding an artificial intelligence-powered assistant tool within the Edits workflow, which will be able to assist with idea suggestions and analytics-based tips.
LinkedIn outlines effective B2B marketing strategies – June 11, 2026
LinkedIn partnered with Bain & Company on a new report that examines the key considerations powering B2B buying decisions. The study also looks at how marketers can better align their messaging with these factors to improve response.
LinkedIn launches its own Creator Marketplace – June 10, 2026
LinkedIn is taking the next steps in empowering creators to make money from their in-app presence, with a new Creator Marketplace that will enable brands to connect with creators who can help them reach their target audience.
Instagram expands Reels post-view ads to all advertisers – June 8, 2026
Instagram is giving more advertisers access to its post view ads in Reels, according to a press release sent to Social Media Today. The post view ads display a promotion after the conclusion of an organic Reel in-stream.
Edits adds new audio and font features – June 7, 2026
The updates keep on rolling for Edits, Meta’s separate video editing app. The latest round of feature additions includes the ability to import audio files, volume level matching across tracks and even more new sound effects.
LinkedIn adds more post performance insights – June 7, 2026
LinkedIn wants to give creators more insight into their content performance in the app, via expanded insight data on how much of their post reach is coming from their followers, and how much is from those they’re not directly connected to.
Meta launches creator assistant chatbot – June 4, 2026
Meta has launched an artificial intelligence-powered creator assistant chatbot, which aims to help creators understand what to post, when to post, and more. The new chatbot offers customized advice and tips on how creators can maximize their Facebook and Instagram presences.
How to Use Instagram Carousels in Your Marketing – June 1, 2026
Instagram carousels are a powerful yet often underutilized tool for marketers. With the ability to share multiple images or videos in a single post, carousels offer a dynamic way to engage your audience, tell stories, and showcase products or services.
Instagram introduces teleprompter tool – May 31, 2026
Instagram is expanding its in-stream teleprompter tool from Edits to the main Instagram app, which will give creators another way to manage their script in-stream.
Are social platforms going to charge all users for access? – May 31, 2026
After Meta announced a range of new add-on subscription packages, questions were raised as to the viability of free social media moving forward, and whether, at some stage, everyone will have to pay to access the apps.
Instagram engagement rates provide insight into reach – May 26, 2026
Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri shared new tips on how to utilize Instagram’s content performance insights, as well as which data points are relevant to different types of engagement and usage.
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