Round 2: Smooth Is in Session

In today’s media landscape, the traditional marketing funnel isn’t just broken—it’s done a full 180. With shifting audience behaviors and the rise of creator-led narratives, the way we reach and engage customers demands a new playbook.

Think about it:

• Communications and PR crews definitely know that legacy media just ain’t it these days. This was the podcast election, after all, and creators have never had more power in shaping and driving narratives.

• Artificial intelligence tools (read: Google’s AI Search results) are demolishing the SEO-driven strategies that once earned productive media hits for marketers.

• The capital M Media landscape is noisy and crowded—endless subscription services, endless distractions—making retention marketing pivotal. And who knows retention better than expert creators who painstakingly study average view durations, the art of thumbnail design, and clever storytelling?

In the years after we started Smooth Media in 2021, we were working with segmented marketing departments. There were YouTube-specific marketers, brand marketers, and affiliate marketers. But today, we’re seeing so many more parts of the marketing org jump into the creator world—PR and comms, paid teams, marketers interested in more than just CPM pitches.

It makes sense for all those reasons you just read, plus this: There are no longer boundaries around what’s “creator” media and what’s “other” media—the creator industry touches every single sector in this economy, from top to bottom. Name a niche, and there’s a knowledge creator covering it.

As that reality becomes truer and truer by the day, modern communication is shifting. Creators aren’t just an emerging industry—they’re the means and channels through which today’s comms really happen. They’re making the media, every day.

And from a marketer’s POV: Why wouldn’t you take advantage of the unique scale and reach a creator can offer as someone with a message to get across? Plus platform-native content, human centric storytelling, turnkey production and distribution, and more.

So do all roads lead to creators? We think yes, but we want to test the theory with some very smart friends. So: We’re hosting another round of Smooth Sessions this Thursday. 

We’re bringing together marketers from across the org chart to unpack how creators are driving measurable results—from narrative to performance. You’ll hear from Jacklyn Dallas (tech creator), Jon Silk (CCO at Archetype), and our very own Colin Richardson (head of partnerships at Smooth) about how the smartest teams are building creator strategies that work across functions, get buy-in, and deliver real ROI. And we’ll have bagels and smoothies, as always.

Want to join? RSVP here and come ask our panelists some hard-hitters. See you soon! 💜