Get Rich or Reply Trying: Shrek and the creator economy ▶️▶️▶️▶️▶️▶️▶️▶️▶️▶️▶️▶️ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

If you’re a creator who is currently monetizing your content, or you are even remotely interested in being able to do that one day, you’re in the right place.

But let’s back up… what does your work as a creator look like right now? 👇 (Just tap a button to vote.)

Let’s be clear: creator monetization is not straightforward. And I think that the reason that building a creator business feels so overwhelming is because the “creator economy” itself is a gnarly knot to untie.

Creators have been making content for a long time, but the idea of a whole economic ecosystem around creators, brands, influencer marketing, talent managers, etc. as "supply" and "demand" has only become more widespread in the last few years.

Even the players involved are still learning the best ways for everyone to work together to grow and make an honest living.

Our CEO Neal posted something about this on his LinkedIn the other day. His exact words were:

I wonder if the writers of Shrek knew the idea that "ogres are like onions" would impact the cultural zeitgeist as much as it did. Thanks to Shrek we can also say that creator monetization is like an onion... it has layers.

My advice for approaching creator monetization is to NOT take a bite out of the onion. Don’t try to do everything at the same time, all at once. Biting an onion is disgusting, and doing everything all at once will make you burn out fast.

Instead, peel back the layers one by one. Focus on ONE way that you want to grow your business, and start there.

Want to start partnering with brands? Build a media kit to highlight your audience and engagement metrics.

Want to sell products or appointments? Add a product to your Link in Bio, and start posting about it on your socials.

Want to build your community? Collect email subscribers, and send them updates and special offers.

… Are you noticing a theme here? However you want to make money as a creator, you can do it on Beacons. But you don't have to do it all at the same time.

Whatever idea you have, today’s the day to run with it and see what it can grow into. You’ll never know if you don’t go, and you’ll never shine if you don’t glow.

To this end, we’re working on a new monetization feature that will make affiliate sales from your Beacons Link in Bio (to Amazon storefronts, Beacons affiliate products, etc.) more lucrative.

This is a great way to dip your toe into monetization if you’re not sure where to start. Check it out below if you want to be one of the first to use it 👀

Many Beacons creators probably know that affiliate links are a great jumping off point for two things:

Linking to affiliate products is an accessible way to start building income by helping your audience find the products you love
It can also help you build a relationship with a brand and gather conversion data that you can develop into a longer term partnership

That's why we're focused on building a better system for affiliate linking.

Beacons is building a new way of affiliate linking that will improve your conversion attribution and data from your links. This means that your fans & customers will get a better buying experience, and YOU will get more money in your pocket.

We’re looking for creators who currently link to Amazon products from their Link In Bio to participate in an early beta of this feature. Could that be you? 🤩

Joining the beta allows you to:

Get the earliest possible access to the feature
Provide product and design feedback that will affect the outcome of the feature
Help create the best possible feature for ALL Beacons creators

👉 Have Amazon affiliate links and want to join the early beta? Reply here to let me know—I'm finalizing a list to connect with our product team!

Oh and by the way, I wanted to follow up about Smart Reply—you guys LOVED it.

We got an overwhelming amount of excited feedback and interest in the waitlist, which warmed our little software-building hearts. ❤️

We also got some incredibly thoughtful replies from creators giving their input on exactly how Smart Reply increases engagement and conversion.

Shoutout to Brandon at Rice Bowl Media for writing in with these insights. You rock! 🪨

Everybody needs a little help sometimes. Of course, we wish that Beacons was 100% self-explanatory and worked perfectly 100% of the time. 😅 But that kind of perfection just isn’t realistic no matter how hard we strive for it.

That’s why we’re so grateful for our hardworking support team (of just two people—shoutout Kat & Jacky! 💪) who do their best to respond to thousands of your emails and give the best answers to your questions every day.

Now, occasionally we do hear you might get frustrated waiting for a response, or only receiving our automated email with our standard help links.

But did you know that there are actually some things you can do to make it a LOT easier for our team to quickly get you the support you need?

That’s right: writing a good support email that includes all the relevant information can make it so much easier for our team to quickly get you the information you need. It will blow your mind.

Think of us like a newborn baby: we have literally no idea who you are or what your problem is (even though we love you 🫶). So go ahead, overexplain and provide more details than you think you need—we promise it's not too much.

If the team can't easily identify you and look into your issue, that adds to your turnaround time as we have to write you back, as for more details, and then your response is back on the bottom of the pile.

So I'd like to present a guide. 🤓

Top 5 Tips for Writing in to Beacons Support:

Email us from the email address associated with your Beacons account, and include a link to your Beacons page. This is how we identify you! If you’re emailing us from an email address that isn’t linked to your Beacons account, we can’t look you up or help you out.
Include screenshots and screen recordings of exactly what’s going wrong, and tell us as much as you can about what kind of device you’re using. On a Chrome browser on a 13 inch MacBook Pro? Using Firefox on an Android? On cellular data in Austria? All of this can help us identify and more quickly fix your problem.
Tell us what country you’re located in and what country your customer is located in, if your issue pertains to a customer or a sale. If you’re referencing a sale or a customer, please also include their name, email address, date and time of purchase, order number, their device info, etc. We know you may not have ALL of this, but any info you have on hand helps.
Tell us what you’ve already tried! If you can reference our Help Docs and YouTube tutorials and mention that you’ve looked at all available information and still can’t find the specific answer you need, that helps us too (and then we can create more resources!)
Proofread your email and think about whether it would make sense to your grandma. Okay—maybe your grandma won’t understand some of the tech elements—but in general make sure that you’re using complete sentences and specific language that tells the story of your problem so we can follow it and help you out as quickly as possible.

Let’s look at an example:

❌ Hi my page is broken can you help me why it doesn’t work - sent from an email not associated with a Beacons account

✅ Hi! I’m beacons.ai/beacons and I’m having a hard time accessing my account from the Beacons app on my iPhone 15 Pro. I’m on my home WiFi in California, and all my other apps are loading. I’ve checked your status outage page and everything looks fine. Attached is a screenshot or screen recording of the error I’m receiving. Any help or insight you have as to why this may be happening would be appreciated!

With these tips in mind, you’re really doing the most to help us help you - and we’ll be eternally grateful! 🥹

As I write this, I'm at Creator Summit in Atlanta!

A few of us from the Beacons team went to Creator Summit this week to learn more about the creator gaming industry and meet with creators, talent managers, and agencies in the gaming niche.

We mixed and mingled, handed out Beacons digital business cards (catch us in person to get one 👀) and spoke to creators in breakout groups about how to land brand deals—and the new features we're releasing to connect brands & creators.

Shoutout to some of the creators we met, including @pixelvixx, @zunebula, @kaiserine, @ashsaidhi, and @adrenalynnxrush, just to name a few!

My personal takeaways were that gaming creators have AMAZING looking Beacons pages (the designs skills are 🤌) and many are ride or die fans of the Beacons media kits.

I was so excited to hear about how many creators knew how key 🔑 it is to have a media kit to pitch yourself for partnerships!

Going to conference and meeting Beacons creators are some of the most rewarding experiences for me. Thank you to Creator Summit for having us—we had a blast!

Before I sign off, I wanted to give a quick shoutout to BallotReady (a Beacons user!)

BallotReady is an organization that helps U.S. voters access information on what will be on their ballot for upcoming elections.

A lot of voters forget that their ballots have more than just the presidential candidates—and a lot of local offices and measures on the ballot impact our daily lives. BallotReady.org has a goal to create a more informed democracy by preparing voters across the U.S. with fact-checked, nonpartisan information on every race and measure that will appear on their ballots.

As a creator, you can also share this unique link with your audience, so more people can be informed and feel empowered about the local stuff on their ballot. It's an easy and nonpartisan way to be helpful in this election!

Have a great weekend! 😌

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