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How Alix Earle Took Over TikTok

Make room, Khaby, Charli, and Addison. Alix Earle—and videos about Alix Earle—have infiltrated our FYP.

In the last two weeks, the lifestyle creator has tripled her TikTok following to 3 million, a historic growth spurt even on an app that’s only six years old. 

Earle regularly gets 2–6 million views per post, a feat that has spawned a genre of content all its own: The tag “Alix Earle social growth” has nearly 230 million views on TikTok.

To answer the question it seems everyone is asking: How did she get here?

• The 22-year-old University of Miami student has been consistently creating lifestyle and fashion content on TikTok since 2020. 

• In August of 2022, her get-ready-with-me videos started reaching millions of views.

• Combining what many consider to be stellar product recommendations with confessional-style content (we know about her Accutane prescription and cosmetic surgery), Earle has endeared herself to a loyal and massive audience of young women.

Earle is capitalizing on the opportunity by partnering with the likes of clothing company Whitefox and hair treatment brand K18. Oh, and each of those sponsored posts got views in the millions…in a day.

So how is that paying off? Influencer marketing manager Jessica Liliann estimates Earle makes $40k–70k for one sponsored post. Creator Caleb Simpson, who’s been on TikTok since 2019, told us of Earle, “There's no negativity with her brand, which is the first key for why she can charge so much.” 

Our Take

​​Earle's likability is the secret ingredient to her success. By being honest and upfront, her luxury lifestyle hasn't inspired contempt—but rather respect. Pair that with a following that actively consumes her content in the high-value fashion and beauty sector? And those rates check out.

When it comes to brand deals and rates, it's not just about the number of followers—it's the creator's ability to drive ROI. When you're building an audience that truly trusts you and takes your recommendations to heart, you can ask for (and receive) more.

TikTok Gives Creators Audience Controls

I don’t want to see videos about Paw Patrol just as much as my young cousin doesn’t want to see videos about attachment style in long-term relationships.

TikTok’s newest tool might have a fix for that: The app is rolling out an audience control feature for creators that lets them restrict their video content from viewers under the age of 18.

• FYI: TikTok’s rules against nudity and other content guidelines will still apply to age-restricted material. 

So how does this new feature change things?

Age-gating could allow creators to target their content to more specific audiences—think Babs’s cleaning tips in front of homemakers instead of 12-year-olds.

But…it’s unlikely all use cases for the new feature will be so benign. This could be viewed as TikTok passing off the responsibility of determining what counts as “borderline” adult content to the creator. Other platforms have taken different approaches to defining and identifying adult content with YouTube using AI to moderate and classify its content and Instagram users determining their own minimum age settings. Neither of these strategies appear to be the clear solution.

Our Take

For platforms, this is another attempt to figure out the best means of keeping young users safe online—an unequivocally good thing. 

But for creators, age-gating is complicated—27% of TikTok users are under 18, and age-gating so-called “borderline” content could hamstring your viewership. It can also signal to potential advertisers that you’re not brand-safe. The tl;dr? Not a decision to be made lightly.

Fitness Creators See a Jump in January

It’s “New Year, New Me” season, according to countless marketing emails from my local gym…and YouTube. 

Yoga with Adriene (YWA) videos have taken up two of the top-ten spots on YouTube’s trending page this week.

Zoom out: January is generally seen as a down month for creators as AdSense comes off its December peak—but for fitness creators, it’s a different story. Last year, YWA video views more than doubled during the month of January to 37+ million.

Our Take

Every creator niche has a different content schedule with busy seasons and slow seasons. But one thing that keeps people coming back to fitness creators time and again is their rewatchability. Ask yourself: Is there a video I could make that my audience would watch over and over again?

Can’t stop talking about the latest Paul brother drama? Find your heart racing when someone at happy hour asks why TikTok > IG Reels? Spend all your free time scrolling the YouTube Trending Page? Boy, do we have the job for you.

We’re looking to add a full-time writer to our team here at the Publish Press. You’ll come up with original story ideas, report on and analyze a massive (and still growing) creator industry, and get to learn from some of the best in the biz—our bosses. Apply here.

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