With a period of national financial downturn and recent big bank failures, it’s been a tumultuous couple of months for the economy as a whole to say the least.

In our industry, influencers who typically find their inboxes filled with inbound brand partnerships have noticed fewer incoming offers, and many creators are wondering “where does this leave us?” heading into a period of economic slowdown.

Today, we're going to get down to business and talk about where influencers and the creator economy as a whole stand right now, as well as reviewing some strategies you might want to consider implementing to prepare your business for anything—including a potential recession.

Current state of the industry

In November of last year, I spoke with Business Insider about the current state of my business with a specific focus on the expectations versus reality of the fourth quarter.

Q4, also known as the last three months of the calendar year is typically a busy time for influencers and creators, myself included.

If you look at the trend of marketing and advertising overall, this makes sense because in the first quarter brands will usually delegate a large chunk of their marketing budgets for the end of the year with a big push towards holiday shopping and spending.

Plus, with more companies moving away from traditional advertising and investing influencer marketing, the fourth quarter has historically been a pretty profitable time for content creators.

In fact, in 2021, over half of my income that I made for the entire year came from Q4.

October 2021 was the month in which I signed the most brand deals, which makes sense, because in October brands are looking ahead to campaigns that will go live in November and December and you need a little bit of lead time before those campaigns get fulfilled.

However, by the end of October 2022, I had only signed one contract and conversations that I had been having with brands seemed to fizzle out rather than lead to signed deals.

So naturally, I was left thinking, "what the heck is going on?!"

And I realized that I was not alone with many other creators confirming they were experiencing the same thing.

What does this mean?

Here's what I’ve been noticing as a creator who has been doing this for over 10 years.

First, even with a slow couple of months, it’s hard to ignore the growth of the creator economy as a whole which was estimated to be valued at over $16 billion dollars by the end of 2022.

Then, if you look at the industry and the economy as a whole, it all comes back to a little something called supply and demand and overall the demand for influencers and independent creators hasn’t changed.

There are still brands out there who are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars paying content creators to advertise their products and services to their specific audiences.

As a result, we have more creators than ever who are not just creating content, but who have chosen to monetize their content creation and make this into a business.

Not only that, but we have a greater supply of creators than we've ever had before.

Things are changing

We have more content creators than ever before and brands are more carefully watching every dollar they spend.

Creators who became prominent in the last two years thanks to short-form platforms not only have big reach and good engagement, but with less experience they may be charging brands less for sponsored content than seasoned creators.

When I consider all of this, I’m not surprised to have fewer inbound brand requests.

Over the last few months I’ve been prioritizing long-form content and creating my digital course, reducing my effort and content on Instagram and TikTok.

Not only that, but big conglomerate brands are probably still spending at the same level, where mid-tier brands and small businesses are likely looking much more closely at the dollars that they're spending.

If a small business is spending even $1, especially on marketing or advertising, that they really are hoping to see the return on that investment.

“Where do we go from here?”

Remember why you started creating content in the first place, whether it was to connect with people and build a community or to ultimately become your own boss or run your own business.

Your “why” is a guiding factor that will not be impacted by external forces and things beyond your control, like the economy, brand spending, and more.

If you’re not clear on your motivation behind creating and posting content online, I actually have a quiz inside of my free guide called The Influencer Launchpad, that you can take to find your why and take to figure out what type of content creator you are.

Key strategies to recession-proof your business

Cutting costs

As I mentioned, small businesses may be cutting their marketing or advertising costs in a period of financial uncertainty.

This is also a good time to take a look at your expenses and see if there's anything that you no longer need.

So take a few minutes to look through all of your expenses and see if there are any contractors or subscriptions that are no longer really necessary for your business or that you're not really seeing a return from.

As an example, I recently ended my Epidemic Sound subscription.

I actually loved it, but I signed up when I was creating more vlog content where I always wanted new background music but it was cheaper for me to find a copyright free song to use at the end of my videos now and save the $15/month.

Diversify your revenue streams

If you've followed me for a while you know how important I think this is.

If you're currently relying on one platform or one stream of income to make like 80% or more of your total revenue, you're going to want to change that.

In the past, I've been able to predict “I think I'll be able to earn X amount” in each fourth quarter because of brand deals.

Even though that prediction was off in 2022 as I mentioned earlier in this post, I wasn’t in a full panic, because I had other income streams to supplement myself in the short-term.

I still had my workshop, ad revenue, affiliates and other income streams meaning nothing came to a screeching halt.

One other big thing I want to mention about establishing multiple revenue streams is I think that having one or two revenue streams that are almost happening on autopilot, or that are super low maintenance.

This can be hugely helpful especially in periods where you're bringing in a little bit less than you anticipated.

Don’t underestimate recurring revenue—no matter how small it may be in the beginning.

One example of this for me is my ad revenue on my YouTube channel.

You could be watching a video that I made two years ago, and if you watch an ad on that video, I still get paid. Like—current day, 2023 Austen still gets paid for that. Love that for me.

Do more of what works

Set aside 10 or 15 minutes later this week to go look at all of the income you've made this past year and figure out where the majority of that income was coming from right of all of your different revenue streams.

Where did you make the most? Digital products, TikTok creator fund, something else?

Now what could you do to grow that? Can you double it or grow it 5x?

If brand deals have been profitable for you, go back to your previous brand partners and pitch them on a long term collaboration.

If you can lock in multiple posts across multiple months with them, that gives you some predictability in your income for the future.

Or maybe one of your most profitable income streams was digital products. So go back and look at your digital products and say, what's selling the best?

Can I offer it in more colors? Can I bundle it with another item to increase my sales per customer?

Thinking outside the box will always help you stay one step ahead.

So even amidst all of these changes and all of the necessary tasks you need to do day to day to maintain and run your creator business you will do yourself a favor thinking about the long term thinking one to five years into the future and not just what the next few weeks look like.

Don't forget to grab my free guide The Influencer Launchpad and take that quiz about finding your why as an influencer so you can always come back to that whenever you're in periods of uncertainty.

yours,

Austen

Photos above by Jessie Alcheh

Preparing For a Potential Recession as a Content Creator