Friday Buzz: Why Influencers Don’t Have it Easy These Days

Are advertisers starting to get wary of the potential of digital influencers?

Certainly, they probably won’t say it, but those advertisers’ actions have created a situation where it’s getting harder for them to make a living.

Here’s the short version: After advertisers raised concerns that some of their ads were running with violent or offensive content on YouTube, the network drastically changed its standards for ads, and that cost some of the bigger-name folks on the network a bundle  (opens in a new tab).

YouTube owner Google has changed its process for approving videos for monetization, and that has put some creators and specific categories—particularly gaming, a huge niche on the network—at a loss.

“Back in March we rolled out new controls for advertisers to help them better choose where their ads are placed, and we rely on machine learning to evaluate the millions of videos on our platform to implement those choices,” a YouTube spokesperson told Digiday  (opens in a new tab). “But no system is perfect, so we encourage creators to appeal for a human review when they feel we got it wrong, and every appeal helps our advertising systems get smarter over time.”

For creators, this could be a major problem—they may find their automated videos blocked, at least for a short time, from getting any revenue for that content from automated advertising.

If your association is looking to get a message out there, this might prove a good time to work directly with a YouTuber who matches your audience and niche. Check out my blog post on the topic from last year.

It’s the Intent That Matters

https://twitter.com/estiennedebeer/status/905731144410333184

Work somewhere that doesn’t get a lot of recognition? You might be wondering to yourself how your organization can show up on a “Best Places to Work” list, seeing the idea as a pipe dream of sorts.

But over at Switch and Shift, MedReps.com  (opens in a new tab) EVP and General Manager Karyn Mullins offers a different way of thinking  (opens in a new tab) about the issue: Really, it comes down to how employees feel about coming into the office every day—and how you’re maximizing the experience for those employees.

“While making it on a publicly recognized ‘Best Places to Work’ list is a significant achievement, it is just as significant to create a workplace culture your employees would be proud to call their best place to work,” she explains.

Check out her full post  (opens in a new tab) for more details.

Other Links of Note

New tool alert: Over at Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog is a list of scheduling tools  (opens in a new tab) to more effectively set up meetings.

Need to shake up your chamber model? At Frank J. Kenny’s website, author Christina R. Green offers takes from chamber pros  (opens in a new tab) on how to rethink the model.

Does AI offer event-changing potential? Event Manager Blog‘s Julius Solaris ponders in a new video  (opens in a new tab).

(Anatoliy Babiy/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus)