Media Briefing: Digiday Taps Lauren Lyster on How AI Is Changing Creator Strategy

Digiday brought in Lauren Lyster, VP and Head of Social Media at Go Fish Digital, for its look at how AI visibility is starting to influence creator marketing. Marketers have traditionally evaluated creators based on reach, follower count, engagement, audience fit, and category expertise. Now brands are also paying attention to whether creator content appears in the answers people get from AI platforms.

At Go Fish Digital, clients are already asking how their creator content is showing up across the platforms most commonly cited by AI. Early findings suggest the creators with the biggest audiences aren’t always the ones appearing most often in AI responses.

Key Takeaways

Follower count and engagement don’t predict AI citations. Lauren told Digiday that Go Fish isn’t seeing a clear connection between traditional creator metrics and AI citations. Long-form information is being cited more frequently, while Shorts don’t appear often in Go Fish’s AI citation data.

AI visibility is making its way into creator strategy. Agencies are starting to look at whether creators already appear in AI-generated answers for a category. Some brands are also setting KPIs around discoverability and credibility as they figure out how creator content contributes to their presence in AI.

Category expertise is becoming more important. Digiday found agencies looking more closely at creators who have consistently built expertise in a specific area. That history can give AI platforms more credible, relevant information to draw from when answering questions about a product or category.

The Go Fish Perspective

Brands may need to broaden how they evaluate creator performance. People are increasingly using AI platforms to research products, compare options, and get recommendations. The content creators publish can become part of the information those platforms use when forming an answer.

That makes the substance of creator content increasingly important. Brands should pay attention to how deeply a creator covers their category, whether their content provides useful and accurate information, and how consistently they’ve built expertise around the subject. Digiday found agencies already using some of these signals when choosing creators and developing briefs.

Format matters too. Go Fish’s data is showing more citations from long-form information than Shorts. Longer content can provide more detail about a product, category, or experience, giving AI platforms more information to work with when answering related questions.

For marketers, creator content may have value well beyond the original post or campaign. If that content becomes a source AI platforms rely on, it can continue influencing how a brand or product appears in AI-generated answers over time.

Read the Full Story

Read the full Digiday piece for more on how brands and agencies are incorporating AI visibility into creator strategy, including how it could affect creator selection, briefs, and compensation.

Originally Published by Digiday: Future of Marketing: Brands want creators who can win over humans and machines at once.