The creator economy has evolved rapidly over this past decade, and approximately 200 million people consider themselves creators today. This includes social media influencers, content creators, bloggers, vloggers, and community makers.

But for creators, the road to achieving autonomy has been an uphill battle. Traditionally, creators have had to rely on third-party content-sharing platforms to engage with their audiences and monetize their offerings. Unfortunately, these platforms, including social media giants and search engines like YouTube, employ revenue-sharing models which are often unfair. On Spotify, for example, an artist makes $0.003 per stream of their song.

Many creators struggle to achieve financial freedom, but as we move towards the decentralized world of web3, creators are taking back control. New opportunities have emerged to engage with fans and fund their work.

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The 2022 creator economy is empowering creators to reduce their reliance on platforms that lock in creators and their fans. Instead, creators have the opportunity to own their relationships with their fans.

Many of the discovery platforms creators rely on today not only reduce the earning potential of creators, they create barriers for their fans. For instance, the relationship between creators and their fans who follow them is limited to that single platform, and creators cannot interact with or reward their fans with new offerings anywhere else.

Moreover, the algorithms on these platforms make it difficult for creators to reach their fans and grow their audience. Think of Instagram and Facebook's limited organic reach, which affects how many followers see your content. Because of the many limitations of existing social platforms, more creators are investing in their own websites where they can own the relationship with their fans and port them anywhere.

The idea behind prioritizing superfans is to focus on quality relationships with people who connect with your creative output over quantity of casual followers. While influencers traditionally prioritize growing their follower counts and reach, creators are becoming more content with loyal communities of superfans. These fans stick by you, love your content, and are happy to invest in you.

Focusing more on superfans helps independent content creators stay motivated and develop more meaningful relationships. After all, measuring your success in terms of follower count can be disheartening at times – but hearing genuine, encouraging feedback from your biggest fans who connect with your work motivates you to create more content.

Community building is one of the most demanding, and rewarding, parts of being a creator. But if you're reliant on a third party, you have no ownership or control over your relationship with your community. If the platform blocks your account, censors your content, or even cuts down your organic reach, there's little you can do about it.

Thus, creators are exploring new ways to own their relationships with fans. They're growing their followings across multiple channels to reduce their reliance on a single platform. They're also creating websites and email newsletters to reach their audience easily. Creators can message fans directly with platforms like Laylo. Plus, no-code website creator platforms like Tellie make it easier for creators to take back control and reduce their reliance on third parties.

Creator communities can make a lasting impact

Creator communities have become so influential in joining together to drive change that they can even influence All-Star bids. For example, bamBam, a social media creator and influencer, helped NBA player Andrew Wiggins get selected to the All-Star game. The social media influencer used a Twitter hashtag campaign to increase votes for Wiggins, and the results were exceptional.

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Thus, creators have the opportunity to cultivate communities of their own, finding like-minded people and banding together for the better. Moreover, creators have considerable influence over their fanbases, much like celebrities do, providing them with the opportunity to positively impact lives.

Web3 is helping creators reach their existing goals – more ability to make a living from their passion, closer relationships with their fans on creator’s own terms, the ability to port their audience from one platform to another, and more control over their earnings. And here's how.

When someone owns one of your NFTs, there's a unique, verifiable relationship between the NFT creator and the NFT holder, which can allow you to build long-term relationships that no single platform owns or controls. Using that NFT as a key, fans can unlock exclusive benefits in a creator’s world.

With web3 platforms' built-in payment options, creators don't have to rely on third parties to monetize their personal brand. This also reduces the financial barrier between creators and their fans – there's no unfair revenue sharing rates with expensive platforms. Moreover, creators can participate in the resale value of anything they sell, so they can keep prices more affordable and reap the rewards fully.

Creating a token-gated landing page lets you reward your superfans who buy NFTs or tokens from you with exclusive content, benefits, and merch. This helps creators connect with fans in a new, more personalized way.

Using a web3 website builder helps you own your audience and take back control. You can showcase your NFTs and put them up for sale, token gate exclusive content like unreleased music just for fans who buy your NFTs (as opposed to making $0.03 per stream), and reach your audience without relying on third-party platforms.

Tellie is a no-code web3 site builder that helps you own your audience and monetize your personal brand – and here's how.

At Tellie, we believe creators are more than just a list of links. Traditional link-in-bio tools have identical designs and direct audiences to platforms that aren't truly yours.

At Tellie, we empower creators to organize their most valuable content in one location with design and storytelling tools as unique as you. Creators can tell their stories and display their visual brand. Fans can interact with every piece of content, buy your products and merch, and buy tickets to your events, all without clicking out of your Tellie Page. We're leveling the playing field by giving under-resourced creators the same customization and monetization tools that the big influencers have been using for years.

Tellie is a no-code web2 and web3 builder that lets you create an online store in minutes. You don't need to hire a developer, learn web design, or rely on third parties to monetize your brand.

And unlike traditional link-in-bio tools, Tellie doesn't take a one-size-fits-all approach; you can fully customize your site, add various media formats (including video, audio, GIFs, text, etc), and embed over 1900 sites and apps including virtually all of the platforms you live on today.

After creating your online store, you can embed exclusive content or use Tellie's Shopify integration to token-gate and sell exclusive products for your superfans. Easily give your most loyal followers access to exclusive merch and content that they can only access by purchasing your NFT.

Currently we are rolling out Tellie Collections, allowing all creators to easily mint gasslessly on Tellie via Polygon. Soon everyone will be able to mint NFTs directly from Tellie, but for now we are accepting applications to join our Beta, apply here.

As the creator economy continues to evolve, artists, creators, and community builders are exploring new ways to serve their audiences better and monetize their personal brands. We're seeing more creators reduce their reliance on social media platforms by developing their own websites and online stores to overcome restrictive, revenue-sharing models.

Web3 is leading the charge into a creator-first world, helping creators own their relationships with their superfans and participate long-term in the value they create.