The creator economy is still piping hot: 86% of US marketers worked with influencers last year, per eMarketer. It’s also rapidly evolving, so Marketing Brew held an event, “The Next Phase of Social & Creator Marketing,” to discuss what creator marketers are thinking about in 2026. At the event, marketers from ESPN, Cava, and Anthropologie, along with agency leaders, discussed the need for flexible platform strategies, the importance of courting brand superfans, and, of course, how to make sense of—and take advantage of—AI. Marketing Brew compiled some takeaways from the event below. Crossing that bridge: After the near-shutdown of US TikTok last year, creator marketing stakeholders began realizing the need for having different strategies for different platforms, Maggie Reznikoff, chief client officer at the agency Open Influence, said onstage. “You truly are renting the platform,” she said. “[The platforms] control the algorithm. They control the policies [and] the access to the audience, so we really counsel our clients to, of course, diversify their platform presence and recognize that just because there is success in their strategy, it doesn’t mean that they own the followers. What’s interesting is that influencers and creators are really good at migrating audiences.” Open Influence is now including clauses in its contracts with creators stipulating that if a certain platform’s accessibility is impacted, creators have to pivot to another platform, she said. ESPN is looking to mitigate its reliance on external platforms by enhancing its ESPN app in August, Celia Bouza, ESPN’s VP of multi-platform video, said onstage. It pulled in vertical video content that did well on other platforms into its ESPN app and also enlisted an in-house creator, Omar Raja, for making more content. Continue reading here.—JS | 
