Benjamin Fredj | Broadkast

Benjamin Fredj

Benjamin Fredj

Brands stopped buying posts. They started giving creators a stake.

Aug 4, 2026

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3 min read

Brands stopped buying posts. They started giving creators a stake.

This week a sunglasses brand made a creator with 50 million followers its Chief Content Officer. A skincare brand gave two TikTok creators real equity, its first outside investment in seven years. A beauty brand replaced its influencer roster with four paid advisers who shape decisions internally as much as they post externally. None of those is a media buy. All three are betting that a creator's judgment is worth more than their audience size. Which changes the first question to settle before your next campaign. Not how many people will see the post, but what you are actually asking this person to do.

Reach is rented. What a creator owns is the real asset.

Jul 30, 2026

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3 min read

Reach is rented. What a creator owns is the real asset.

Netflix keeps signing YouTube creators for millions, and still lets them publish on YouTube. It is not buying the videos. It is buying access to an audience it can never take. Meanwhile paid newsletters have turned into real businesses, and Adobe found that when everyone can produce content at will, standing out comes down to voice, not volume. The pattern is the same everywhere. A follower count sits on a platform nobody controls. A newsletter, a show, a community belongs to the creator. That is the part worth paying for.

The best creator on the wrong channel is still a failure

Jul 28, 2026

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3 min read

The best creator on the wrong channel is still a failure

Most brands pick a channel first then go hunting for creators. But some channels simply do not have enough of the right voices for your buyer. When that happens, better briefs and bigger budgets do not fix it. The real first job is to find the channel where your buyer's trusted creators actually live, then pick the creator. Get that order wrong and even a great creator reaches no one.

Influence is becoming real infrastructure. The question is who runs it.

Jul 27, 2026

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3 min read

Influence is becoming real infrastructure. The question is who runs it.

This week LinkedIn shipped AI tools to build ads, Google gave creators a way to prove their posts rank in search, and the M&A tracker hit a record 70 deals in six months. Influence marketing is quietly turning into infrastructure: tools, measurement, ownership. But a pile of new tools does not tell you which creator to pick or how to run the program. That part still comes down to who is operating it.

Cannes stopped treating creators as a test. It started pricing them like a media channel.

Jul 15, 2026

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3 min read

Cannes stopped treating creators as a test. It started pricing them like a media channel.

Every platform showed up at Cannes with a new AI tool. But the real story was the money. Meta made $10 billion a year just from turning creator posts into ads. Two big deals closed the same week, both companies buying their way into the creator business. Brands are done testing creators to see if they work. They now put them in the budget, next to TV and paid search, and expect the same kind of proof.

LinkedIn tells you the B2B creator revolution is underway.

Jul 7, 2026

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3 min read

LinkedIn tells you the B2B creator revolution is underway.

Linkedin shared major announcements last week at Cannes Lion, the biggest creator economy event in the world. The leading B2B social media clearly stated it will double down on creators this year with new features announcement and a clear strategy north star. The B2B Creators revolution is in march, and you don't want to miss it.

B2B buyers don't fear the wrong product. They fear being blamed for it.

Jun 25, 2026

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3 min read

B2B buyers don't fear the wrong product. They fear being blamed for it.

LinkedIn put a number on the emotion nobody writes into a brief this week: the fear of messing up. A B2B buyer is not really asking "is this the best tool." They are asking "will I look stupid if I pick this." That single shift changes what a creator is for. They are not your megaphone. They are the cover your buyer needs to say yes.

LinkedIn just built the tools. The hard part is still on you.

Jun 22, 2026

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3 min read

LinkedIn just built the tools. The hard part is still on you.

LinkedIn shipped a creator marketplace this week: find a creator, vet them, amplify them, contact them, all inside Campaign Manager. The plumbing is finally here. But the company that grew to $6.6B did it by ignoring follower counts and treating its first campaign as research. The tool was never the bottleneck. The thinking was.

Every platform shipped a new AI tool this week. None of them sell trust.

Jun 12, 2026

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3 min read

Every platform shipped a new AI tool this week. None of them sell trust.

Meta launched an AI sales agent. TikTok turned into a search engine. 71% of creator deals never get a second date. The tooling is louder than ever. The trust is quieter, and it is what closes.

B2B buyers use AI to move fast. They still call a human to be sure.

Jun 9, 2026

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3 min read

B2B buyers use AI to move fast. They still call a human to be sure.

Thought Leader Ads convert 6.9x better than company ads. AI now builds the shortlist on day one. The human is still who closes it. Speed got cheap. Trust got expensive.

B2B creators just got a seat at the grown-ups' table. Now the hard part starts.

May 29, 2026

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3 min read

B2B creators just got a seat at the grown-ups' table. Now the hard part starts.

500 creators are showing up at Cannes Lions. LinkedIn made expertise billable on-platform. YouTube partnerships now last 13.5 months on average.

Influencer marketing stopped being a test. It is now the infrastructure.

May 22, 2026

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2 min read

Influencer marketing stopped being a test. It is now the infrastructure.

LinkedIn is opening thousands of paid creator events. A B2B SaaS company sponsored a manufactured pop band that just sold out NYC. 80% of B2B brands say their influencer budget is going up in 2026. The "is creator marketing even real?" debate ended quietly while everyone was looking elsewhere.

May 15, 2026

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3 min read

Your brand is invisible where your buyers are actually searching.

82% of brands score below 10 out of 100 on TikTok search visibility. Refluenced ran 1,068 brands against 52,649 keywords and found that 99.67% of the search results buyers see come from creators, not brand accounts. The brands winning that surface aren't outspending anyone. They're the ones whose buyers can find them through the people they already trust.

B2B buyers pick their shortlist inside an AI before contacting you.

May 7, 2026

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3 min read

B2B buyers pick their shortlist inside an AI before contacting you.

94% of B2B buyers now use ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini to evaluate and shortlist vendors before talking to a single salesperson. Your sales team enters the conversation in the last 6%. The brands winning aren't the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones the AI will actually name when a buyer asks who to trust.

How LinkedIn wants to become the GEO infrastructure.

Apr 30, 2026

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2 min read

How LinkedIn wants to become the GEO infrastructure.

Every post you publish is either building your brand in AI answers, or your competitor's. 95% of LinkedIn AI citations come from original content, and cited profile pages collapsed from 33.9% to 14.5% in just three months. The brands winning AI visibility aren't the biggest. They're the ones specific enough that an LLM can't quote the idea without naming the source.

Marketing

B2B influencer market just hit $4.1 billion. Your competitors noticed. Have you?

Apr 17, 2026

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2 min read

B2B influencer market just hit $4.1 billion. Your competitors noticed. Have you?

B2B influencer marketing reached heights like never before, up 47% in a single year. LinkedIn-first campaigns generate 3.2x more qualified leads than paid social. And 71% of B2B buyers say a thought leader directly influenced their last purchase. The brands that figured this out 12 months ago are already ahead. Here's the full picture.

Benjamin Fredj