Trust or followers? How creators are coping with social media in the face of algorithm dominance

Followers on social media are no longer the currency everyone wants to hold. In 2025, the algorithm took full control over content distribution, making the number of fans no longer a guarantee of visibility. As Amber Venz Box, CEO of the platform LTK that connects creators with brands, explained: “It was the year when the algorithm took complete control, so the number of followers stopped mattering at all.” This observation is not new to the industry—Jack Conte, CEO of Patreon, has been warning about this phenomenon for years—but in 2025, the entire creator ecosystem had to face it in their own way.

The algorithm has dominated social media—good or bad for creators?

However, the paradox of the creator industry is revealed in the data. Research commissioned by Northwestern University showed that trust in creators increased by 21% year over year, which surprised even Box. “I expected trust to decline because people understand how the industry works now. But it turned out that AI made people start trusting real individuals, knowing they have authentic life experiences,” she said.

This shift in the importance of trust changed the entire dynamics of the creator economy. The platform LTK, which operates on an affiliate marketing model (where creators earn commissions from product recommendations), realized that if relationships between creators and their audiences fragment, it could threaten the entire business model. Soon after this study, another surprising statistic emerged: 97% of marketing directors plan to increase influencer marketing budgets in the coming year, despite the observed decline in the significance of follower counts.

Teen armies and content fragmentation—new social media tactics

As algorithms took over content distribution, creators turned to unconventional solutions. According to Eric Wei, co-founder of Karat Financial, which provides financial services for creators, the latest trend is recruiting armies of teenagers on Discord who earn money by clipping segments from original creators’ content and mass-publishing them on algorithm-driven channels.

“This has been going on for several years, but now it’s scaling up,” Wei explained. “Drake does it. Kai Cenat, one of the most popular streamers on Twitch, does it. They get millions of views doing so.” The logic is simple: if the algorithm controls distribution and popular accounts can reach better visibility, then clips published from new, lesser-known accounts can go viral precisely because they come from small profiles. Both the original creator (through visibility of clips) and the teenage “clippers” (through earnings) benefit—at least in theory.

Sean Atkins, CEO of Dhar Mann Studios, which produces short videos, sees limitations in this approach: “In a world driven by AI and algorithms, where people trust other people more than ever, the question is: how do you do marketing when you basically can’t control it?” Reed Duchscher, founder of the talent agency Night, which represents top creators like Kai Cenat, is more skeptical about scaling clip-cutting. “It’s important to flood social media with more content and be visible,” Duchscher says, “but scaling is difficult because there’s a limited number of people who make money from this, and large budgets bring complications.”

Glenn Ginsburg, president of QYOU Media, notes that clipping is “an evolution of meme content.” Creators are forced to compete in spreading fragments of the same intellectual property. This strategy is only temporarily avoiding being seen as spam because the technique is still fresh enough not to be considered a mass plague.

Niche communities instead of mass reach—new direction for social media

Under the pressure of algorithmic chaos and spam (Merriam-Webster’s word of the year), social media users are moving toward smaller, more niche communities. According to Box, 94% of users say social media has lost its social character, and over half are shifting their time to platforms like Strava, LinkedIn, or Substack—places where they can engage in authentic interactions.

This migration directly impacts creators’ strategies. Duchscher predicts that success will come to creators with well-defined niches. Giants like MrBeast, PewDiePie, or Charli D’Amelio, who built empires with hundreds of millions of followers, will be harder to imitate. Meanwhile, creators like Alix Earle or Outdoor Boys, with millions of followers but not “mega stars” status, demonstrate a new model of success. “Algorithms are now so precise in delivering exactly the content we want,” Duchscher explains, “that it’s much harder for creators to break into every algorithmic niche.”

The creator economy: beyond entertainment

One of the industry’s key mistakes, according to Atkins, is viewing the creator economy solely through the lens of entertainment. “The creator economy today is more than that—it’s like thinking about the internet or artificial intelligence. It will influence absolutely everything,” Atkins says.

His example is telling: Epic Gardening, a YouTube channel dedicated to gardening, has evolved beyond simple content creation. The owner acquired the third-largest seed company in the United States. “This shows how broad the possibilities for creators have become—whether you’re talking about gardens, skyscraper cement, or anything else, there are creators who have become experts and are building real businesses,” he adds.

Although the creator ecosystem is constantly changing, the industry shows remarkable resilience. It has adapted over decades to capricious algorithms and technological shifts. The future may belong to those who build authentic relationships and understand that followers are no longer the measure of success—loyalty, engagement, and real value for the audience are what truly matter.