Follower count vs. craft. The three things she looks for before hiring a creator. The contract and rights mistakes she sees over and over. And why brands will keep paying humans as AI-generated travel footage gets better.

Every travel brand is now expected to publish authentic creator content everywhere — social, paid, web, email, booking platforms, partner channels. Almost nobody built a content operation designed for that volume. CrowdRiff calls it the creator content supply chain problem.

Abby Yew, Head of Growth for Creators at CrowdRiff, joins That Digital Take to explain how they solved it: a network of more than 900 creators across Canada, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand who have completed over 12,000 creator-led shoots, built on ongoing relationships, fair pay, and perpetual usage rights included from day one. Creators aren't chasing invoices. Brands aren't re-licensing every time they reuse a shoot.

Drawing on more than twenty years in marketing, community and content, including leading marketing at Wattpad and YONDER, Abby breaks down the shift from being paid for your audience to being paid for your work — and what that means for anyone building a content operation right now.

In this episode:

• Why content creation stopped being a creative function and became an operational one
• The shift from paying for audience to paying for work
• Whether follower count still matters
• The three things Abby looks for before hiring a creator
• The contract and usage rights mistakes brands make repeatedly
• Why human creators hold their value as AI footage improves

Guest: Abby Yew, Head of Growth for Creators, CrowdRiff
LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/abby-yew
CrowdRiff Creators: https://crowdriff.com/creators/