Here are six ways to prepare and strategize so that you may one day have a shot at rubbing elbows with your favorite content-creator-turned-celebrity. 

Content creators have been around for as long as the internet has existed. We had the bloggers and popular MySpace kids before we had YouTubers, and the term “Instagram model” was largely accepted in the industry before we sort of started pooling everybody together with the word “influencer.” But it wasn’t until 2020 that the creator economy truly took off.

People across the globe had unprecedented amounts of downtime with “nothing to do.” Being stuck at home with limited recreational options meant social media became the entertainment source of choice for many. TikTok was still in its early days post-musical.ly rebrand, and the algorithm was designed to identify active users whose image aligned with the app’s aspirations of competing with the big dogs, then pushing their content to millions and millions of viewers. So, for lack of a better word, some people got “lucky.” Their content went viral, their followers skyrocketed, and we saw the overnight rise of a new kind of celebrity — enter the Addison Raes and Charli D’Amelios of the world. 

This signified a massive shift in the way the digital world operated: it no longer took years to grow an audience. Anyone could — in theory — get lucky with the algorithm and wake up to a million followers which, in return, thanks to the entertainment industry finally embracing multi-hyphenate talent, could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars, a record deal, a book, attending Paris Fashion Week and signing your life away to a streaming service. The dream, right?

Five years in, things have slowed down a bit. The ones who have reached a certain level of success continue to dominate the space, but it’s now significantly harder for those hopeful creators to break in. 

Going viral happens on the daily. The difference? Twenty million views on a video means absolutely nothing in terms of building a following nowadays. Several pieces of good content aren’t enough to keep an audience engaged anymore; now they have to want to keep up with you. They have to like you.

Everyone from wannabe-influencers to legacy artists, filmmakers, comedians — every single person is pushing out videos like a madman buying multiple lottery tickets a day, hoping one does the trick. And that’s exactly the problem: The market (and your feed) is oversaturated with content. So, how do you snag the winning ticket? Well, there is no answer to that — otherwise, it wouldn’t be a lottery.

However, here are six ways to prepare and strategize so that you may one day have a shot at rubbing elbows with your favorite content-creator-turned-celebrity. 

While talent managers/agents can’t do magic if there’s no quality pixie dust to play with, having a good team early on is key. Don’t let the 10 percent to 20 percent commission scare you away.

A good team has invaluable experience with negotiating contracts, digital strategy and crisis management, plus they should have existing relationships with brands and partners you might want to work with, and can tell you which ones to stay away from.

The Rolling Stone Culture Council is an invitation-only community for Influencers, Innovators and Creatives.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming you need to have a certain following to get signed. If there’s a legitimate manager/agent wanting to work with you, they either see value or potential.

Both are equally important, and most teams would rather sign a client with fifty thousand followers who produces quality content, has an incredible engagement rate and is consistently getting brand deals, than someone with millions of followers who is impossible to sell. 

Unless you have a law degree or read contracts for a living, let your team do the work. If you do not have a team, hire an entertainment attorney as soon as that first contract lands in your inbox.

You don’t even have to pay them upfront, they take 5 percent of whatever your total fee is, and you know you’ll be covered. Exclusivity, licensing, usage, ownership, termination and payment terms are things you do not want to risk.

Most creators who reach a plateau in their growth have something in common: They failed to treat their brand as a business. Whatever you’re building requires daily effort and sacrifice, even on the days when you don’t feel like it.

Communicate with your team, be professional, deliver on time. It is a job after all, one of those rare ones that can turn an unassuming student into a multi-millionaire if you play your cards right. 

Although most people use them interchangeably, they mean two completely different things. A content creator is someone who creates content on social media — that’s it. Anyone can be a content creator. All influencers are content creators, but only a tiny portion of content creators are influencers. An influencer is someone who influences others—influences their audience’s style, choices, taste, opinions. Ever seen an “influencer” with a failed music career? A product collaboration that didn’t sell? Influence-less influencer. 

The influencers who prevail and maintain relevance are the ones whose careers end up leaning a bit more toward traditional Hollywood. You must plan for it and find a way to become what we call a hyphenate creative. The creator slash actor, slash artist, slash author, slash host, slash model, slash investor.

Once doors start opening up for you, it’s your job to mold those opportunities to best serve your future self. The brands you work with, the type of content you produce, the creative snippets you share — it all adds up to a world of possibility that could very well give you the career you’ve always dreamed of.