The creative side of content? Absolute joy. The monetisation side? That's where the real headache lives. This year, discovery feels more chaotic than ever, and platform algorithms are moving goalposts weekly. What I'm seeing is a huge shift away from simple one-off brand deals. Those campaigns that were already showing cracks a couple years ago? Well now they're practically non-viable. Brands want relationships, not reach. They care less about audience size and more about whether that audience actually opens their wallets.
The format explosion is what's really changing the game. A single deliverable per partnership doesn't cut it anymore - clients want the same message flattened across video, audio, written, and social. For any solo creator, that means production overhead has skyrocketed while per-piece rates stayed stagnant. It's exhausting.
The creators who are thriving right now treat themselves like a tiny agency. They package the formats, own production end-to-end, and stop relying on platform algorithms for discovery. Diversifying across platforms is smart, but depth on two or three channels beats a shallow presence on six every time.
What's shifted for you so far this year? Has your approach changed?
