The platform expects the unit to reach an annualised run rate of about $100 million in the next fiscal year, according to a source familiar with the plan.

The Microsoft-owned company introduced BrandWorks internally in March 2026. Since then, the team has expanded by roughly 60%, with new hires coming from TikTok, Meta and X.

It now focuses on building higher-performing campaigns for enterprise clients, including SAP, IBM and ServiceNow.

BrandWorks also runs programmes that link advertisers with creators. One of them, Top Voices 360, supports sponsored content partnerships and has generated over $20 million between May 2025 and May 2026.

“We’re developing services that are designed to meet the marketer where they are,” said Alex Josephson, vice president of BrandWorks, who previously built a similar offering called Twitter Next.

LinkedIn is enhancing its focus in B2B advertising, even as it competes with much larger companies in digital ads. Its advertising business brought in $8.2 billion in 2025 and is projected to rise to $9.7 billion in 2026, with a further increase to $11.3 billion expected in 2027.

Even with that growth, LinkedIn is still smaller than Meta and Google in overall ad scale. Still, it has carved out a strong niche, with about 80% of B2B marketing budgets now flowing into search and social platforms.

“We estimate that 80% of B2B budgets go into search and social media, with Google and LinkedIn the primary beneficiaries of those B2B dollars,” said Luke Stillman, managing director at trend advisory firm Madison and Wall.

LinkedIn’s ad footprint is also expanding in relative terms. It accounts for about 3.2% of US digital ad spend, 2.4% in the UK, and less than 2% across markets such as Brazil, France, Canada and Germany.

Video has become an important part of its strategy. The company reports that vertical video uploads rose by 36% in 2025. CEO video posts have also increased by 68% over the past two years.

Younger users are driving some of that transition. LinkedIn says Gen Z is its fastest-growing audience, with higher engagement in video content and creator-led posts.

BrandWorks by LinkedIn also supports BrandLink, a video-focused advertising programme. The company expects BrandLink revenue to nearly triple in the current fiscal year, although it has not disclosed the base figure.

The gap between attention and actual impact is where everything has changed.

Going viral used to be the goal, with one video changing everything including followers, deals, and visibility. I remember when a single post crossing a million views meant you had “arrived”.

That model doesn’t have a solid hold anymore. Today, platforms are flooded with content. You’d see that video has taken over nearly all online activity, with billions of users consuming it weekly and businesses investing heavily in it. 

But more content has not led to more valuable attention. In fact, the opposite is happening, and attention is becoming thinner, faster, and harder to hold.

We now see that virality is easier to achieve, while impact is harder to sustain.

What viral used to mean and what it means now

There was a simple chain:

• Viral reach
• Followers gained
• Influence built
• Money followed

Now, that chain is broken.

A video can reach hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, and still deliver very little:

• Few profile visits
• Minimal follower growth
• No tangible business outcome

This is because most viral content today produces what I would call passive attention. People watch, scroll, and move on without commitment or memory.

Platforms changed policies without informing anyone

The biggest change is technical, as algorithms no longer reward exposure alone but prioritise behaviour:

• How long people watch
• Whether they watch again
• Whether they save or share

Retention has become the clearest signal of value. On short video platforms, strong performance usually requires 60–80% completion rates, depending on length, but that changes everything.

A video that people finish is more valuable than one that briefly explodes. A post that keeps viewers inside a platform is more important than one that simply spreads.

Even more telling, while brands are posting more short videos than ever, engagement and reach in some cases are declining. 

More content is not producing proportional returns.

The problem is attention without intent

This is where virality fails. Short-form content is highly engaging, two out of three consumers say it is the most engaging format online. But engagement is not the same as intention.

People are not necessarily looking to follow, trust, or buy. They are looking to consume quickly.

That is why:

• A video can be watched to completion
• Yet still produce no action

The viewer enjoyed it and that is all.

In practical terms, creators are getting attention without direction.

Small audiences are outperforming big ones

While viral reach struggles to convert, something else is growing: smaller, focused audiences.

Creators with modest followings are building:

• Direct relationships
• Higher trust
• Better conversion rates

It is not unusual now to see a creator with a few thousand followers generate more meaningful income than someone with hundreds of thousands who relies on occasional viral hits.

One has an audience, the other has traffic.

The money has moved

Brands are adjusting as well.

Views alone are no longer enough. The important factor now is:

• Who is watching
• How often they return
• Whether they act

Short-form video still influences buying decisions, over 80% of viewers say it affects what they purchase. But this influence works best when repeated, not when it appears once in a viral spike.

This is why many companies are moving towards:

• Niche creators
• Long-term partnerships
• Community-led marketing

The focus is now on reliability, not even longer reach.

Users have changed too

It is easy to blame algorithms, but the audience has evolved as well. People scroll faster, decide quicker and move on sooner.

In many cases, viewers decide within seconds whether a video is worth their time. 

That behaviour creates a paradox:

• Content is consumed more than ever
• But remembered less

There is also fatigue. With everyone posting, promoting, and selling, users have become more selective. They follow less, trust less but engage more privately than publicly.

As a result, visibility is high, but commitment is low.

Virality still works, but only in context

It would be wrong to say virality is useless.

It still has value when it is part of something larger:

• A clear content direction
• A defined audience
• A system that keeps people returning

Without that, it is just a moment, and a spike without structure fades quickly.

What actually works now

The creators and brands seeing real results are doing a few things differently.

They focus on consistency.
They build repeat viewers, not one-time watchers.
They design content that people save, share, and revisit.

Most importantly, they think beyond the platform:

• Email lists
• Private groups
• Direct communities

Because that is where attention becomes stable.

Hence, going viral has not disappeared, it has simply lost its power.

What’s important now is not how many people see your content once, but how many choose to come back.

Virality is an event.
Growth is a system.

And today, the system always wins.

The report, produced by SquirrelPR, examined how digital news media is performing across 13 African countries, providing insight into audience growth, influence and changing consumption habits.

A panel session titled Winning the Digital Attention War brought experts from media, banking and communications who agreed that the old model of chasing website traffic is under pressure from social media, creators and artificial intelligence.

The session, moderated by Ifeanyi Abraham, PR director, CIG Motors, comprised panellists including Múyiwa Mátuluko, chief executive officer, Techpoint Africa; Rasheed Bolarinwa, head of Brand Marketing and Communications, Polaris Bank; Damilola Bright-Ukwenga, PR and communications professional; and Olufemi Ajasa, online editor, Vanguard Newspaper.

Traffic no longer enough

Mátuluko said media companies should stop trying to be everything to everyone and instead build focused platforms for specific industries.

He said Techpoint is expanding into specialist brands such as finance, energy and agriculture, targeting engaged professional audiences rather than chasing mass numbers.

“We’re taking conversation away from traffic,” he said.

He added that advertisers now care more about credibility and access to the right audience than vanity metrics.

For him, a smaller but trusted niche audience can be more valuable than millions of casual visits.

Brands want conversion, not impressions

Bolarinwa said marketing budgets are now under greater review, with senior executives demanding measurable returns.

He said old benchmarks such as impressions and follower counts are losing importance.

“Nobody’s going to talk about that anymore, conversion, trust and influence.”

He added that brands are already shifting spending toward niche publishers, creators and platforms with stronger communities.

Using Polaris Bank’s digital product launches as an example, he said specialist tech media played a major role in reaching the right market.

Legacy media says journalism still wins

Ajasa defended established publishers, saying strong reporting, community presence and credibility are their biggest strengths.

He said Vanguard still invests in reporters across Nigeria and focuses on solving real audience problems through practical journalism.

He mentioned projects such as flood coverage and cost-of-living reports.

“What we do is journalism, and the fabric of journalism has not changed.”

Ajasa also pushed back against claims that legacy outlets depend on sensational headlines, saying digital operations now combine speed with verification.

“We have built a work system that solves the problem of speed and accuracy, without compromising quality.”

PR industry turns to creators

Bright-Ukwenga said brands now use creators and smaller influencers from the planning stage of campaigns, not as an afterthought.

She said many creators hold stronger trust with followers than larger celebrity influencers.

“The earlier brands begin to look in their direction, the better for that brand, because you would always be in conversations.”

She added that some brands now maintain private circles of trusted creators who can amplify campaigns in a more natural way.

AI changing search, teams and workflows

Artificial intelligence was one of the biggest themes of the session.

Mátuluko said publishers should not panic but adapt quickly.

“AI is not going to replace you. No, it’s basically the person using AI that will replace you.”

He revealed that Techpoint already uses an AI-powered reporter for routine updates, with human editors reviewing output before publication.

Ajasa said AI is also hurting referral traffic from search engines, forcing publishers to build direct audience relationships through newsletters, podcasts and first-party data.

“The search traffic is going down.”

Bolarinwa said AI can improve speed and automate tasks, but originality still matters.

“You can’t compare what I write to what AI will write.”

Warning against dependence on Big Tech

Several speakers warned African media businesses against over-reliance on platforms such as Google, X and TikTok.

Mátuluko said publishers must own direct relationships with audiences through email lists, events, reports, courses and communities.

“We have WhatsApp, we have a newsletter, we have podcasts, but I still want my own audience.”

Bolarinwa added that African companies should begin building stronger home-grown digital platforms.

What RANKED 2027 should track

Panel members at the launch of RANKED 2026 report urged the team to expand future editions to include the creator economy, partnership revenue, events, trust signals and verified analytics.

They also called for stronger measurement of global versus local audiences, warning that percentages alone can distort the scale of a publisher’s reach.

At the same time, 69% worry their content could be used without permission to train those systems. That tells you everything about where we are now, with a combination of mass adoption and serious unease. 

Looking at the fact that the internet has entered a new phase, content that once took hours can now be produced in minutes. Posts, graphics, short videos, product copy, voiceovers, and even basic news summaries can be generated at speed and at low cost.

Now, let’s not focus on whether these tools work, because they clearly do. The focus should be, when everyone can make content quickly, what becomes valuable?

It is not humans versus machines. It is speed versus trust.

That is where many discussions go wrong. They describe this as a conflict between creators and software. It is not.

The split looks like this:

• Speed versus trust
• Volume versus originality
• Cheap output versus clear judgment
• Convenience versus connection

Businesses care about speed, but audiences care about value. Those are not always the same thing.

A company can produce 200 blog posts in a month. But if nobody reads them, shares them, trusts them or remembers them, what was gained?

Where automated content is already winning

Let us be honest about it. These systems are already useful, and in some areas, they are hard to beat.

Routine writing

They can draft:

• Product descriptions
• Marketing emails
• SEO pages
• Customer replies
• Captions
• Basic reports

That saves time but also reduces expenses.

Design support

They can help create:

• Ad variations
• Social media graphics
• Thumbnails
• Mock-ups
• Early concepts

Video production

They can assist with:

• Subtitles
• Dubbing
• Script drafts
• Clip editing
• Basic avatars

This is why adoption has moved so fast, with Gallup data reporting this month that half of US employees now use AI at work, with daily or weekly use reaching record highs in early 2026. 

In short, many people are no longer asking whether to use these tools. They are asking how much of their workflow to hand over.

Where human creators still come tops

Now the other side. There are things software can imitate, but not truly own.

Lived experience

A system can summarise parenting.
A parent can tell you what it felt like at 3am with a crying child.

A system can describe Lagos traffic.
Someone who sat in Third Mainland Bridge traffic for two hours can tell the truth of it.

That’s the important difference between a machine and a human being.

Trust

People still trust people with a track record.

• They trust the reviewer who bought the phone with their own money.
• They trust the journalist who went to the scene.
• They trust the analyst who has been right before.
• They trust the creator whose face and name are attached to their words.

Trust takes time, and it cannot be mass-produced.

Taste and judgement

Many tools can give ten ideas. Very few can tell you which one is wise, timely or worth publishing.

That is human work.

The problem: too much content

This is the part many miss.

When production becomes cheap, supply explodes. The internet fills with more articles, more clips, more advice, more recycled opinions.

That creates three problems:

1. Noise increases

Useful information gets buried under average material.

2. Credibility falls

Audiences become sceptical. They ask: who wrote this? Can I trust it? Is this real?

3. Attention becomes expensive

There are still only 24 hours in a day.

When content supply gets steep, attention becomes the scarce asset.

I think this is the biggest shift of all. We are moving from a world where making content was hard to one where earning attention is hard.

Why human-made work may become more valuable

We have a strange twist here.

With automated content becoming common, authentic work may become premium.

We have seen that when factory-made goods became across-the-board, handmade goods gained status. People paid more for craft, story and identity.

The same may happen online.

If feeds become crowded with generic posts, audiences may value:

• Real reporting
• Strong opinions
• Personal stories
• Original humour
• Recognisable voices
• Deep expertise

In this crowded market, difference is highly necessary.

What platforms are rewarding now

The old formula of posting endlessly is weakening.

Across platforms, stronger results come from:

• Personality-led video
• First-hand knowledge
• Audience retention
• Community interaction
• Useful, memorable content
• Original sources

An academic study published in 2025 also found creator earnings are heavily concentrated on major platforms, with algorithmic systems usually favouring top earners. That means reach alone is an unstable strategy for smaller creators. 

So the smart idea is not to simply “post more”. It is “be worth returning to”.

The winners are not rejecting the tools

The most effective creators I watch are not fighting technology but are using it carefully.

They use it for:

• Research support
• Draft structures
• Editing help
• Translation
• Repackaging content
• Admin tasks

But they keep control of:

• Their ideas
• Their standards
• Their voice
• Their judgement
• Their audience relationship

That balance is indispensable.

Because the tool may help you move faster doesn’t mean it cannot decide what you should stand for.

Who is most at risk? AI Content or Human Creators?

Not every role is equally safe.

The most exposed areas are repetitive, low-value tasks:

• Generic copywriting
• Thin SEO pages
• Template graphics
• Basic summaries
• Content farms

If your work can be described as “more of the same”, it is vulnerable.

If your work depends on trust, insight or taste, the outlook is stronger.

So, what works best?

If the goal is speed:

Automated systems are best.

If the goal is scale:

Automated systems are best.

If the goal is low-cost production:

Automated systems are best.

If the goal is loyalty:

Real creators are best.

If the goal is influence:

Real creators are best.

If the goal is long-term brand value:

Real creators still have the edge.

If the goal is overall performance:

Human creators who use tools well will likely outpace AI content.

That, to me, is the honest answer.

The internet can now generate endless content so that is no longer impressive.

What will always be rare is clarity, original thought, consistency and a real point of view.

People still follow people, and with flooded synthetic output, being real may become the strongest advantage of all.

The streaming company now allows creators to qualify with just three published episodes, 2,000 hours of consumption over the past 30 days, and 1,000 engaged audience members in the same period. 

A year ago, the bar was far higher, with 12 episodes, 10,000 hours of consumption, and at least 2,000 listeners in 30 days. But now, Spotify wants more creators, faster growth, and more video on the platform.

Under the programme, podcasters on Spotify can earn in two main ways. They receive a share of advertising revenue from users on Spotify’s free tier, and video creators are paid directly when premium subscribers watch their shows without ads. 

It is a model designed to reward engagement, not just reach, and it leans heavily on video as the next growth engine.

Spotify says the strategy is already changing how people use the app. “Since launching the program, monthly video podcast consumption on Spotify has nearly doubled,” said Roman Wasenmuller, Spotify’s global head of podcast, during a media briefing. “The average Spotify podcast user streams twice as many video shows per month as they did before the launch.”

YouTube tops the video podcasts space, Netflix owns premium video, and Spotify is trying to sit somewhere between both. Lowering the thresholds brings in smaller and mid-sized creators who may have been locked out before, especially those producing niche or long-tail content.

The company is also rolling out new sponsorship tools in April. These will let creators manage host-read ads more easily, from scheduling and updating placements to tracking performance. The tools will be available through the Spotify for Creators app and Megaphone, its podcast hosting and monetisation service.

Beyond in-app changes, Spotify is opening up its ecosystem. A new application programming interface will allow creators to publish and monetise video podcasts on Spotify directly from third-party hosting platforms. 

At launch, services such as Acast, Audioboom, Libsyn, Omny and Podigee have adopted the API. This is important because it removes limitations. Creators no longer need to rebuild their workflow just to earn on Spotify.

The development is backed by money and scale. Spotify says it has invested more than $10 billion in the podcast industry over the past five years, covering creator payments, infrastructure and tools. 

In the first quarter of 2025 alone, payouts to podcasters reached $100 million. By late 2025, the platform hosted close to 500,000 video podcasts, double the number recorded in mid-2024. About 390 million users streamed video podcasts that year, a 54% rise year on year, with time spent on video more than doubling.

Physical infrastructure is part of the plan too. In January 2026, Spotify opened Sycamore Studios in West Hollywood, a video-first podcast studio that will serve as a base for The Ringer network and be available to selected creators in the partner programme. 

The company already runs studios in Los Angeles’ Arts District, New York, Stockholm and London, offering professional spaces without the cost of private rentals.

In just one year, the platform achieved remarkable growth, generating ₦1.8 billion in revenue, onboarding 112,504 users, and supporting an impressive 13,140 creators.

Beyond direct creator earnings, All Access Fans has paid out ₦25,500,000 in referral bonuses, demonstrating its dedication to fostering community-driven growth.

Founded with a vision to provide a secure and transparent platform for African creators to monetize their global audiences, All Access Fans has become a trusted partner for creators seeking to turn their passions into sustainable careers.

The platform ensures creators can thrive in today’s digital economy with confidence, by eliminating traditional barriers and simplifying monetization.

As the company celebrates its incredible first-year success, plans are already underway for significant technological upgrades.

Despite operating on a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), All Access Fans has achieved extraordinary milestones.

A more robust version of the platform is set to be released before the end of Q1 2025, featuring exciting innovations designed to enhance the creator and subscriber experience. Among these is a new live feature that will enable creators across various disciplines to connect with their fans in unique and meaningful ways.

Speaking on these developments, Ife Omai, chief communications officer, stated:

“It’s truly remarkable that we’ve been able to accomplish so much with a version of All Access Fans that’s still in its MVP stage. This speaks volumes about the potential of our platform and the creators we support. With a more robust version launching soon, we’re taking things to the next level. Our upcoming live feature will open up incredible opportunities for creators to engage with their audiences in exciting ways”

Currently available to creators in Nigeria, Ghana, and select other countries, All Access Fans offers global accessibility for subscribers with no geographic limitations.

Fans from anywhere in the world can connect with their favorite creators seamlessly. As the platform continues to expand, it will roll out to additional African territories throughout the year, solidifying its position as a leader in the continent’s creator economy.

More about All Access Fans
All Access Fans is a cutting-edge platform dedicated to bridging the gap between creators and their audiences, enabling creators to monetize their work while building deeper connections with fans. Since its inception, the platform has been at the forefront of driving innovation and economic empowerment within Africa’s vibrant creative and tech ecosystems.

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