Category: Marketing Automation

Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success.
This piece is in collaboration with HubSpot Podcast Network’s Amplifying Voices campaign partnership with The Gathering Spot.
In 2019, Charli D’Amelio shared a video on TikTok doing the Renegade dance. The video blew up and is inarguably her claim to fame. Since then, she’s amassed 150M followers on the app, done brand deals with household names, and her family has an unscripted reality docuseries called The D’Amelio Show.
Thousands of TikTokers followed her lead, did the dance, and attributed it to D’Amelio, but she didn’t create it — Jalaiah Harmon did. Harmon’s erasure from her dance is attributed to racial bias as she’s Black and D’Amelio is White.
Harmon’s experience is just one of thousands, as many Black content creators face inequalities, from receiving credit for trends to late payments to algorithm biases. In this post, we’ll delve deeper into some of these inequalities and share expert advice from Natasha Pierre and Ross Simmonds on overcoming these roadblocks.
Table of Contents

Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators – Key Stats
Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators (+ Expert Thoughts)
How can Black content creators rise above discrepancies? ( + Expert Advice)

Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators — Key Stats

Black influencers in the nano and micro-influencer tiers (under 50k followers) average $27,000 annual compensation. (MSL)
Black macro-influencers (50k+ followers) received an average of over $100,000 compensation from brands. (MSL)
49% of Black influencers reported that their race contributed to an offer below market value from a brand. (MSL)
The pay gap margin between white and Black influencers is 35%. (MSL)
79% of Black influencers feel comfortable posting about diversity issues, but more than half feel they’re negatively impacted by posting about these issues, whereas only 14% of White influencers feel the same way. (MSL)
58.3% of influencers say they’ve been discriminated against as an influencer on any social platform. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
Influencers say that TikTok has the worst discrimination they’ve faced. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators (+ Expert Thoughts)
1. Pay Disparities
Black influencers are paid 35% less than White influencers. Most of the time that means creators aren’t getting paid what they’re worth, and sometimes they’re being paid late. There’s also a lack of pay transparency, so Black creators don’t know what others are getting paid if they’re being shorted and what to negotiate for.
92% of influencers responding to MSL’s Time to Face the Influencer Pay Gap research study said that pay transparency could be the single most crucial factor in eliminating the racial pay gap in the creator economy.
Expert Thoughts
Natasha Pierre hosts The Shine On Podcast and is a content creator. She’s also CEO of Shine With Natasha, where she helps creators build video confidence. She says, “The influencer marketing landscape is growing so much, and it’s still so new, but I still think it’s comical that a brand would be like, ‘We’ll pay you a few hundred bucks to do a million things under the sun.’”
Pierre has received late payments herself: “I was speaking at an event that was supposed to be for women of color, and I got paid months late. And I’m like, isn’t this what we’re trying to avoid here?” She adds that even being considered for opportunities, let alone being able to negotiate and talk about rates, can be challenging.
2. Lack of opportunities.
Antoni Bumba, a Black creator, said that she and her friend (who is White) once sent an email to the same company at the same time to set up a partnership. The brand sent her White friend gifts, and Bumba was told the brand was at capacity for gifting.
Victoria Paris, a White creator and one of Bumba’s friends, shared a video saying that she reaps the benefits of being a White creator, and the root of the issue comes from brands’ PR managers being primarily White and being aware of influencers that look like them and share the same experiences.

@victoriaparis

♬ original sound – Victoria Paris

Paris says people don’t understand the gravity of the situation and just think, “Oh this sucks,” but it’s a significant career obstacle for influencers that don’t look like her. For example, she says she’s been able to save a lot of money to put back into her content and career because she gets free things, but creators of color don’t have the same luxury.
Many Black creators might not know they’re missing out on opportunities because people who offer the opportunities don’t have them on their radar. They won’t know that a brand wants to establish a relationship until they see a sponsored post from another creator on their feed.
Expert Thoughts
Ross Simmonds hosts Create Like the Greats and is an entrepreneur and marketing strategist that helps B2B brands and entrepreneurs unlock new levels of growth. He says, “I think the biggest challenge is that you [Black creators] don’t even see what opportunities you get overseen for…You’ll never know what you didn’t get because of what you look like.”
Pierre seconds this and says a lack of opportunities is one of the biggest discrepancies. With algorithm biases (which we’ll cover below), Black creators will get less engagement because of the bias, so their counterparts are “Just naturally going to be picked over other options.”
3. Algorithm Biases
Algorithm biases are unconfirmed, but Black creators report feeling the effects. Many say their content doesn’t perform as well as other creators, even if it is of the same quality. Some report their content performs worse if they talk about racial equality.
MIT Technology Review says TikTok’s algorithm has errors that disproportionately impact marginalized groups and reached out to TikTok for comment. The business said the issues were created in error and affected content wasn’t actually violating policies.
Casey Fesiler, a University of Colorado, Boulder professor studying technology ethics and online communities, told Technology Review, “Many of these errors would be easy to predict if companies simply thought more about how users would interact with their app.”
Expert Thoughts
Pierre says clients in her program have experienced algorithm bias. She was reviewing a competitor analysis with one of her clients, a Latina creator, who said, “Why is this person growing so much faster? Our content feels so similar; we’re in the same industry…is it because she’s a white woman?” and Pierre responded that, honestly, it probably is.

How can Black content creators rise above discrepancies? ( + Expert Advice)
Black creators are often left to figure out how to make it in the creator economy on their own. Given this, we asked Simmonds and Pierre what they suggest people do to rise above the challenges and achieve the growth they want.
1. Build community with other Black creators.
A great way for Black creators to build themselves up is to find community with other Black creators. You’ll get to know other people with the same experiences, and you can use your different backgrounds to help each other out.
Simmonds says, “The internet is an amazing place to find other people who are creators, and you can create some amazing relationships with people in a similar world as you.” He adds, “There are a lot more people that are Black that are creating things online, so it’s easier to find someone to look up to.”
2. Show up for people in your community.
Pierre says that the simple act of showing up for people in your same groups can make a difference — “We just need to be taking up space and building our own networks and continuing to show up for our communities and advocate for your own communities as well.”
When you build community connections, you can bring people up with you. Simmonds says he enjoys creating a path for others: “I want to be able to create content that helps other creators create great content and helps people see the opportunities and the potential to open doors.”
Pierre says that if she’s asked to be part of a campaign or speaker lineup, she could ask who else is part of it and if the organizers need her to recommend other creators in the category. She says the excitement of being invited or considered can make it easy to forget about the impact of creators’ voices and how they can support others’ careers.
Having a network of creators who support, uplift, and share each other’s content can expose people to new audiences eager to follow people and consume new content.
3. Learn from others and their experiences.
Meeting your first creator milestone can feel like a long and drawn-out process, but learning from others can give you actionable, helpful tips.
Consume content from all different creators and learn what works for them and how you can apply their strategies to your own. You’ll get exposed to new ideas and inputs, and what you learn can help you come up with new and unique stories nobody has told yet.
Simmonds says, “I always try to say that everyone can learn from every creator, even if they have a thousand followers. I get inspired by a random mommy blogger; I get inspired by a random psychologist; I’ll get inspired by a therapist on Instagram who puts up posts that are inspiring; I follow business folks…everyone.”
4. Focus on what you can control.
Black creators sometimes have to focus on what they can control. For instance, while you may want to partner with larger brands, it might not be possible at your current level.
As an example, Pierre notes that small brands struggle to find opportunities just as small creators do: “There are so many small brands that are doing such great things. Of course, smaller brands are going to have less budgets, but when there are opportunities to partner with those smaller brands, I think that’s a way to show how things can be done differently.” By partnering with a smaller brand, you’re building your influence and community in a more attainable way.
Focusing on what you can control also means recognizing when an opportunity doesn’t mean your standards and abilities. Simmonds says, “You have to focus on your circle of control…I can control the fact that I’ll probably decline if I don’t think something isn’t fair…otherwise it becomes a very draining industry and a mental tax that I don’t believe is oftentimes worth paying.”
5. Ask for what you’re worth.
Asking for what you know you’re worth can seem scary because of the potential for rejection.
But you only know if you ask. Simmonds says, “I’ve found that you will be pleasantly surprised if you do ask for what you deserve…they’re either going to say yes or no.” If they say no, they probably aren’t a brand you want to be associated with anyways. “Walk away and be okay with that,” he adds.
Your community networks can also be helpful as you can ask around and see what other people are getting paid for opportunities. Simmonds says he’s asked before: “If I know someone who’s engaged in these organizations or is also working for them, I’m not afraid to send a DM and ask people what they got paid before I give a quote, and I get clarity on what I should be offering.”
Black content creators can still find success and thrive.
The discrepancies that Black creators in the creator economy face can seem like a neverending uphill and discouraging battle.
But, the more people have conversations about these issues and put brands and organizations in check, the more likely they are to be better in the future. Pierre says, “Some [brands] will always be trash..but at least we know who to support and who not to support.”

Are the robots taking over? It’s a question many people wonder as artificial intelligence gains prominence in our daily lives — especially in marketing.

The market for AI in marketing is likely to hit $107.5 billion by 2028, a massive increase from $15.84 billion in 2021. 
What could this mean for marketers and content creators? Is there a place for AI in content creation, and can it benefit marketing creatives? To answer this question, I spoke to several content creators who use AI. 
I also compared their experiences to data from HubSpot’s recent State of AI survey, in which we asked over 1,350 professionals about their experience with AI. Here’s what I found. 

How are Creators and Marketers Using AI? 
According to our survey, 33% of marketers who use AI use it to generate ideas or inspiration for marketing content. 
One way AI can be used for ideas or inspiration is by creating a mood board with tools like Kive.ai. Filmmaker and photographer Mateo Toro recently started using Kive.ai to design mood boards to develop treatments for his film projects. 
A video treatment is a way to convey a project’s concept or story. Many video treatments involve the use of images and visual media found online or in previous works. 
“Video treatments take time. You have to scrub through the video, to take screenshots, and edit for the video treatment,” Toro explained. “[Kive.ai] just makes it so much easier for me to find the video that has a style or tone I’m looking to emulate.”
With Kive.ai, creators can paste the link of a video into the system, and Kive.ai will extract frames from the video as screenshots to import into a board. Toro says the process can save him hours of time. 
“In a video treatment, I could be going through 10, 15, 20 videos to reference,” he said. “You add that up, and it could easily be an hour of time just scrubbing through, screenshotting, and dragging content to a treatment.”

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♬ Blade Runner 2049 – Synthwave Goose

AI can also generate ideas for blog content. For example, HubSpot’s content assistant AI can create a list of blog topic ideas and develop outlines centered around specific concepts. 
Besides inspiration, the second-most common use of AI is writing copy for marketing materials. Our survey found 28% of marketers who are using AI leverage the tool to write materials such as blog posts and emails.
For example, Bethany Anderson, a public information officer for Milton, Florida, says ChatGBT streamlines the writing aspect of her job.
“I love it because ChatGBT is a software that learns,” Anderson explains. 
She says ChatGBT can mimic her writing style, so she’ll sometimes use the tool to write press releases, social media posts, and SEO-friendly blog content. 
Anderson says the tool is handy because writing is a crucial part of her job, but it’s far from the only responsibility she has to tackle daily.
“I am behind the scenes planning events and getting them out to the public,” she says. “So, ChatGBT allows me to get the writing done in a very easy, seamless way so that I can get to the bones of my job — which is outreach.”
Anderson admits she was wary of ChatGBT at first but tested it out during a week that was jam-packed with deadlines. 
“There was this one week a couple of months ago when I had so many deadlines, so many social media calendars due, so many blogs due, and so many bios due — I was drowning,” she recalls. “So I said, ‘I’m going to give it a try.’” 
Days worth of writing assignments could be completed in just a few hours thanks to the assistance of AI, according to Anderson.
Her experience aligns with the findings of our survey — 75% of marketers said generative AI helps them create more content than they would without it.
And 77% agreed generative AI could help create content more efficiently.
“We’re talking about days of your life that you get back,” she said. “And, to me, time is valuable. It’s more valuable than money.”

Will AI Replace Content Creators?
A common concern surrounding the use of AI is whether the technology will replace human marketers and creators. Nima Olumi of Lightyear Strategies says it’s unlikely.
“We use AI to pull a lot of statistics, come up with interesting angles to pitch to companies, and work around certain angles that are marketing and media-friendly,” Olumi said. “I don’t think it’s a complete replacement for writers or thinkers.”
Writing and content creation are subjective fields, according to Olumi, and they still require people to do the necessary critical thinking to decide the kind of content that gets published. 
Ultimately, Olumi predicts a future where AI will assist marketers and creatives in improving their output and producing content in a shorter time.
This makes sense, considering our survey found that 77% of marketers agree that generative AI will help marketers create content more efficiently. 
And 79% agree generative AI can improve the quality of the content they create. 
Olumi encourages professionals to embrace AI and use it to their advantage rather than shy away.
Specifically, he says creators should spend time learning and testing applications like Open.ai and ChatGBT to see their different capabilities. 
“Spend hours asking question after question to see how far you can push the limits of the application to serve your needs,” he said. “You have to feed it context.”
As the presence of AI in marketing continues to grow significantly, you’ll want to take the time to discover how it can best serve your own team’s needs.
Professionals and creatives like Olumi, Anderson, and Toro all found ways to use AI to help them improve the efficiency and quality of their content. 
Instead of worrying whether the robots will take over, find ways to work alongside AI so you and your company can remain competitive in the market and essential to your clients. 

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