Will They Follow? Why Audience Portability Is the Next Creator Advantage

In June, I wrote about what separates creators who convert from those who don't. The answer came down to trust, relevance, and removing friction between "I want this" and "order placed."

That piece asked a simple question: Will their audience buy what they recommend?

After four days at Advertising Week New York, I came away thinking brands need to ask a second question, one that may be even more important over the next few years:

Will their audience follow them somewhere new?

We've spent years measuring creator influence through followers, impressions, engagement rates, and, increasingly, conversions. Those metrics all have value. But as the creator economy matures, I believe we're overlooking another important dimension of influence: Audience Portability.

Audience Portability is a creator's demonstrated ability to bring an engaged community beyond the environment where that relationship originated—and sustain participation across new platforms, formats, and real-world experiences.

It's the difference between an audience that watches and an audience that's willing to move.

From Following a Creator to Becoming Part of Something

One of the most memorable examples at Advertising Week came from Cost n' Mayor, the creators behind 11 to Midnight, an Off-Broadway dance production that grew out of their social media following.

Rather than simply announcing a show and asking followers to buy tickets, they brought their community into the creative process.

They spent roughly a year developing ideas with their theater collaborators, shared the journey on Substack, invited TikTok Live viewers to help shape dances, and let followers vote on the colors of the set.

By the time tickets went on sale, fans weren't being asked to discover something unfamiliar. They were being invited into something they had helped build.

The team also created reasons for audiences to return, developing new roles for guest performers so the experience could continue evolving.

What struck me wasn't simply that social creators had moved into theater. It was how deliberately they brought their audience along.

They weren't relying on the algorithm to deliver an audience for their next venture. They were building a relationship that could extend beyond it.

That's the opportunity behind Audience Portability.

Reach Is Easier to Find. Loyalty Is Harder to Earn.

Part of why this matters now is structural.

As a panel featuring brands including Dove, Upworthy, and solidcore discussed, today's interest-driven feeds increasingly expose consumers to creators they don't actually follow.

A creator can reach millions of people without having a direct relationship with most of them.

That's an important distinction.

An algorithm can introduce someone to a creator. It can repeatedly serve their content. It can even help make them famous.

But exposure doesn't necessarily create loyalty.

And when a creator asks someone to leave the feed, subscribe to a newsletter, attend an event, join a community, or spend money on something unfamiliar, that distinction becomes visible.

If reach can increasingly be rented from the algorithm, loyalty becomes the more valuable asset.

This connects directly to something I explored in The Human Premium.

As AI makes content easier and cheaper to produce, the supply of content will continue to grow. Attention, however, remains finite.

Consumers will have more choices about what to watch, read, and engage with. That makes authentic relationships, credibility, and genuine community increasingly important.

The creators who thrive won't necessarily be those producing the most content or generating the most views.

They may be the ones whose audiences care enough to follow them beyond the original platform.

The Real Test: Will People Actually Show Up?

We've already seen compelling examples of creators extending influence beyond social media.

Emma Chamberlain built a consumer brand through Chamberlain Coffee. Rhett and Link expanded their YouTube entertainment following into paid memberships, live experiences, and a broader entertainment ecosystem.

Keith Lee offers a different illustration. His restaurant reviews have become associated with meaningful attention and customer interest for local businesses, showing how a creator's credibility can influence behavior in the physical world.

These examples represent different forms of audience movement. They don't all prove the same level of portability, and business performance can be influenced by many factors beyond an existing fan base.

But collectively, they point toward a bigger shift.

A creator's value is no longer limited to what happens on their primary social channel.

It can extend into commerce, entertainment, experiences, and communities that exist independently of any one platform.

And the audience doesn't necessarily stop growing when it moves.

A live show or physical experience can introduce a creator to partners, friends, and family members who weren't part of the original following.

Portability can become a source of new reach, not simply a way to retain existing fans.

But a Large Audience Isn't Necessarily a Portable One

Advertising Week also offered an important reality check.

The Sloomoo Institute, an immersive slime experience with locations across the country, shared an example of an event featuring macro creators that generated fewer advance ticket sales than expected.

The business impact came later, after additional creators attended and shared their experiences.

The lesson wasn't that creator marketing failed. It was that audience size alone didn't reliably predict who would take the next step.

And I think that's a distinction brands need to take seriously.

A creator can generate enormous awareness without necessarily motivating their audience to leave the comfort of a familiar platform or take an unfamiliar action.

Conversely, a smaller creator with a deeply connected community may be more effective at getting people to show up, participate, or try something new.

Portability isn't the same as scale.

Nor is it automatic simply because an audience appears highly engaged.

It has to be demonstrated.

How Should Brands Measure an Audience That Moves?

This is where I believe the conversation needs to evolve.

We've become very good at evaluating creators based on what happens within a platform or campaign. We examine views, engagement, demographics, clicks, and sales.

But those numbers don't always tell us whether the creator has built a relationship that can travel.

As marketers, we should be asking additional questions:

• Cross-platform participation: When a creator introduces a new channel, how much of their existing community chooses to engage there?
• Meaningful action: Does the audience subscribe, attend, register, purchase, or participate when invited?
• Repeat engagement: Does the community return after the initial announcement, launch, or event?
• Community involvement: Are followers simply consuming content, or are they contributing ideas, sharing experiences, and advocating for the creator?
• Incremental audience growth: Does moving into a new environment introduce the creator—and potentially the brand—to people beyond the original following?

These aren't yet a standardized industry metric. But they offer a starting point for evaluating Audience Portability as a dimension of creator value.

And they should influence how we think about creator selection.

Imagine two creators.

One consistently generates a million views per video but has little evidence of motivating audiences to engage outside their primary channel.

Another averages 150,000 views but has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to bring people into new experiences, communities, or purchasing environments.

Depending on the campaign objective, the second creator could deliver significantly greater long-term value.

That doesn't make reach irrelevant. It means we need to better understand what that reach is capable of producing.

From Campaign Performance to Long-Term Creator Value

This shift has implications beyond individual creator selection.

It changes how brands should think about partnerships.

If a creator can successfully move an audience between environments, the opportunity extends beyond a single sponsored post.

A partnership might begin with social content, then evolve into community programming, product collaborations, live experiences, or ongoing brand advocacy.

Instacart offered an interesting brand-side illustration at Advertising Week. Its '90s-themed campaign expanded from digital marketing into a Third Eye Blind concert and immersive experience. The team reported approximately 1,200 attendees and 4,000 new platform registrations.

This wasn't strictly an example of creator audience portability. It was an example of a brand giving an audience a reason to move from digital engagement into a physical experience—and connecting that experience to a business outcome.

It's also consistent with something I wrote about in my piece on nostalgia marketing: the strongest nostalgia campaigns aren't simply about remembering the past. They're about creating something people want to experience in the present.

For brands, the broader lesson is that attention becomes more valuable when there's a compelling next step.

And creators with genuine community relationships may be uniquely positioned to help make that transition happen.

The Next Competitive Advantage

A creator whose audience buys what they recommend is incredibly valuable.

But conversion often captures a particular moment: a purchase, a registration, a download, or another defined action.

Audience Portability asks a different question.

Can that creator sustain the relationship when the environment changes?

Will people follow when the platform is different, the format is unfamiliar, or participation requires more effort?

As platforms evolve, algorithms shift, and AI-generated content becomes increasingly abundant, I believe that ability will become a more important consideration in how brands evaluate creators and build partnerships.

Because the most valuable creators may not be those who simply reach the most people.

They may be those who can change what people do—and bring those people along when the destination changes.

Reach tells us who saw it.

Conversion tells us who acted.

Audience Portability tells us whether the relationship can travel.

And that may be one of the most valuable things a creator can bring to a brand.