AI Influencers and AI UGC: A Look at What They Are and How Brands Use Them
AI influencers and AI generated content are real tools now. Here is what they actually are, how brands use them, and the one rule I will not break.
TikTok Shop Samples: Why You Have to Spend Before You Earn
New TikTok Shop sellers have to seed wide before they earn. Here is how to spend on samples without going broke, and when to finally get selective.
Who’s Responsible When Your Influencer Gets Deported?
In the first three weeks after launching a dedicated immigration enforcement unit, Bali detained 62 influencers. Fined. Deported. Multi-year entry bans. That’s not a rumor or a policy memo. That’s active enforcement with real consequences, and it sent a very clear message to the creator economy operating on the island: the free pass is over. […]
The FTC Is Watching Your Influencers (And You’re the One Who’ll Pay)
A few months ago I got a call from a brand owner who was furious. Not at me, thankfully. At a creator they’d hired to promote their supplement on TikTok. The creator had gone off script, made a handful of claims about the product that were flatly untrue, and the video had already racked up […]
What You Can’t Say: A Real-World Guide to Social Media Claims for Regulated Brands
Last year I watched a supplement brand lose their entire Facebook ad account in a single afternoon. Not because they were doing anything shady. Not because their product was dangerous. Because someone on their team posted a customer testimonial that said “this cured my insomnia” and nobody caught it before it went live. One sentence. […]
Maybe You Shouldn’t Be an Influencer. And That’s Okay.
I’m going to say something that most people in this industry won’t say, because their business model depends on you believing the opposite. Maybe influencer marketing isn’t for you. Maybe affiliate marketing isn’t your thing. And maybe that’s not a failure. Maybe that’s just useful information arriving faster than it does for most people. I […]
You’re Not Getting Screwed on TikTok Commissions. Here’s What’s Actually Happening.
It’s one of the most common complaints I hear from TikTok Shop affiliate creators. They make a video, it starts selling, the brand reaches out for their Spark code, the brand turns it into an ad, and then the creator notices something: the commission on ad-driven sales looks lower than what they were expecting. Cue […]
Why TikTok Affiliates Aren’t Responding to You (And What Actually Works)
You’ve set up your TikTok Shop. You’ve got a product you believe in. You’ve started sending out affiliate invites, maybe hundreds of them, and you’re sitting there watching the response rate hover somewhere between depressing and nonexistent. Four people accepted. Two of them made videos that looked like they were filmed in a closet during […]