Still, whether the content is marketing or editorial, what attracts an audience remains somewhat universal. And key to that endeavour is finding the right talent.
Morning Brew has intentionally opted to recruit in-house for its talent, pointing to the known culture fit and lower initial investment as rationale, Emery said. It is not opposed to recruiting outside talent, but its first instinct is to look internally.
Noel, for instance, has been with the publisher for five years and is “electric—somebody you remember meeting,” according to Josh Kaplan, founder of the B2B creator agency Smooth Media and a former Morning Brew employee.
“It’s hard to find good talent in the world of B2B creators,” Kaplan said. “So if you happen to have that talent as your director of HR, you probably want to take advantage of it.”
The prospect of recruiting internal talent to serve in roles outside of their stated job description could raise potential issues, according to Liederman. How the employee is compensated, whether they feel comfortable declining to participate, and the effect of the additional workload are all points of concern.
In the case of People Person, Noel receives a share of the revenue she generates, according to Emery, although he declined to offer further details. She also volunteered for the opportunity, rather than being asked to participate, Emery added. She’d also been featured in Morning Brew’s editorial offerings before, answering reader questions for the “Make It Work” advice column.
The new responsibilities do not change the employment relationship between Noel and Morning Brew—she is not “talent,” at least in the contractual sense. And the publisher, which has nearly a decade of experience in working with creators, will use producers to script the show, Emery said.
Company booster
But even with these guardrails in place, the move to cast revenue-side staff as creators underscores a pivotal shift in how companies are navigating the boundary between their employees’ personal and professional lives.
Increasingly, your presence on the internet is tied to your profession, which means both your digital and analog behavior can ultimately reflect on your employer. Look at the Coldplay kiss cam scandal as evidence of how quickly a personal affair becomes a corporate concern. When it comes to the intersection of your personal social presence and its relationship to your job, the distinction between the two is growing thin.
Of course, this line of inquiry can quickly get existential. In a world where value is defined by where you place your attention, every social media post is an act of influence. We have mostly made peace with this reality, in part because such displays have been voluntary up to this point. But this latest evolution in creator behavior is unsettling because it questions how much longer that might be the case.
Are we bound for a future in which employees are expected to be public boosters of their companies? Consider that most of us already are—every time you post on LinkedIn, you are directing your followers’ attention to your employer.
On the extreme end of this spectrum lies Lara Sophie Bothur, a business analyst at Deloitte who became its first “corporate influencer” in 2022. In her role, Bothur acts as an ambassador for Deloitte, articulating its views through her own personal social media.
