The State of Content in 2026: Winners, Losers & The New Rules

- These are the things that I think are gonna fall behind in 2026. From a high level, I think this year was really just a lot of fun. In real life events are definitely back. 90% of our lead gen is all through referral, which is basically an extension of your personal brand. Netflix right now is actually licensing podcasts to be on their platform, which is so crazy. Creators who treat their platforms like a small business. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Birds Eye. We're gonna be breaking down my 2025 year-end review. This is everything from like predictions that I have, winners, losers, but please don't come from me. All of these thoughts are just my own. Okay, so excited to get into it from a high level. I think this year was really just a lot of fun. I wanna say that it was a hard year, but a very rewarding year. It was a year that at Sickbird Week grew a ton, which was very, very exciting. It was a year where I feel like it was the most challenging year as a CEO, because I had to actually be a CEO, rather than just a producer at my own company, if that makes any sense. And so I was able to actually kind of like step back and take more of, excuse the pun, but a Birds Eye view of everything, which was really great. I wanna give my top winners of 2025, starting with in real life events. So I find that in real life events are definitely back. And I think we've had a lot of fatigue around like scrolling and everybody is in a phase right now where they wanna be in person. So they wanna be in person at concerts, they wanna be in person at events, they wanna be in person for, let's say, podcast live shows now, and we're seeing this across the board. So every single piece of IP at Sickbird next year is going to have an in real life sort of activation or element to it. I think that's really important. And I actually think it's a better way to live and be. I think us as a society, we get like siloed and sucked into our phones, and it just doesn't create the best community. And I think this in real life push being back is ultimately gonna be a net positive for society. Moving on, what this means for you as a young professional in the media industry or a college student, whatever you are, I would recommend you host or contribute to in real life events and experiences in some way or another. You can bring people together, even if it's 20 people in a room, it's still really, really valuable. A tip would be to start small and slowly build over time. This is something that we're doing at Sickbird on a ground level. The next thing that I think is a winner for 2025 is AI. Now, obviously this is very much like a controversial topic. It's things, especially in the creative industry, but if you wanna speak in fact in reality, like the genie is out of the bottle, this is happening, AI is moving, whether you like it or not. It's more of just a question of what are we gonna do with it, how are we gonna use it as a tool? At Sickbird, we use it every day. I've really moved as an, or trying to be an early adopter of AI technologies, and I've encouraged everyone on my team, especially junior members of my team to learn AI tools, and if they wanna be paid more, it's a great way for them to become experts in something. So I recommend if you're a junior level employee to learn the tools and have that be something that's a value add for you when companies are looking to hire. For us, we actually built out an AI studio this year, which was a lot of fun. I wanna give a big shout out to Golly on our team who is absolutely incredible in creating the studio. She built it basically from the ground up, and we are now selling for every single like brand partnership we sell, around 30 to 40% of that package is using AI content, which is crazy. The next thing that I think is a big winner for 2025 is personal branding. Now, at Sickbird, 80 to 90% of the sales come in through personal connections. We have a few people that hit us up if they find our website, or they find us through SEO of some sort, or just looking up companies to work within the podcasting space. But 90% of our lead gen is all through referral, which is basically an extension of your personal brand. So are people coming to you because they wanna work with you, because they like you, they enjoy your story, they think you have, you know, your talented, whatever that is. So obviously as we're seeing now college students, your Instagram is your resume, your DM is your networking event. So you need to pick platforms that you think are going to be where the industry is moving. And even if you're just posting twice a week, it's great to kind of lean into it a little bit more. You'd be surprised like I've received job offers and stuff through just Instagram DMs. It seems weird and it feels a little bit like confusing at times, but I think leaning into it is obviously the best thing to do. The next thing is my personal favorite, but a winner for 2025 was podcasting. Now people think podcasts are oversaturated, it is. It is oversaturated, I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna sit here and say that it's like a crazy up and coming market. And if you started a podcast, you would be like the, you know, on the cusp. That's not true, but something really exciting that we're exploring is how streamers are getting involved. And this is crazy, I think now more than ever, having your own IP at a low cost is fantastic. And we're noticing that entertainment companies want to be involved and what does that look like. So Netflix right now is actually licensing podcasts to be on their platform, which is so crazy. That is something that they've already done big deals with companies like The Ringer, which is congratulations to them, I'm trying to get on that level as well. And we're noticing that they're really excited about having podcasts on their platform. And I think it's just basically replacing late night. This has been happening for a while, but this shift is getting to be more and more clear given the fact that, you know, these deals have already happened. All right, this is also kind of a hot take for a win in 2025. And it's something that I kind of wanted to gatekeep, but I feel like it's best not to, but Snapchat is still an undervalued platform in my opinion. And this is something that is going to sound weird, especially if you're like me and you're kind of like a millennial. But when you think about the platforms that exist right now, the main ones that pay out based off of performance, so I'm not talking about brand deals that you get outside of the platform. I'm talking about the actual platform itself. So that would be YouTube. And then I think, honestly, for us, even more than YouTube, it's Snapchat. So we make such a substantial amount of ad revenue from working with Snapchat that if you are a creator and you're not utilizing that platform, I think it is a big waste. And I know this because I want to give a quick shout out, Brooke Berry, their head of creator partnerships, actually puts on this thing called snap school, where she'll go to major cities and teach creators how to use Snapchat because there is a high barrier to entry of like how the platform actually works. I will say something that's not good about Snapchat, it's not intuitive in the same way that Instagram as a product is super intuitive. It takes you a second to get used to posting there as a creator. However, when you are used to posting as a creator and you understand the algorithm and you understand the platform, you can make substantial amounts of money, the type of money where it's like this compare your rent, type of money. So I recommend Snapchat heavily to new creators or creators that are looking to monetize directly on platform and not just looking to work exclusively with other brands. The good news is though, Snapchat lets you do both. You can have a brand deal and also monetize off of in platform ads. Moving on, these are things that I'm unsure of in the industry right now, but I'm keeping a close eye so I would say like the winners were very clear. This is like the mid level. I'm not really sure what's next with these and then I'm gonna go into my losers and then prediction. So these are the things like I'm kind of watching closely but I'm not really sure how it's all gonna play out. I would be very curious if anyone has any thoughts. So the first one is remote work. I am torn if this back to in office culture is a good thing if people are gonna hate it. I really don't know. Obviously as someone who runs a remote company, I enjoy that. However, I will say I've broken it down into like a pros and cons list of my views on it. So pros of remote work are obviously you can travel the world and still like operate a multi city company. You can pay people well no matter where they live and what I mean by this is if someone lives in, I don't know, more of a remote part of the world where the average salary is lower and you're still paying them a competitive rate, they're gonna benefit from that and that allows the playing feel to even out a little bit and it allows kind of people to have a little bit more flexibility. Another thing, hiring becomes global, not local. Meaning you can expand your talent pool globally and actually have a lot more opportunity to work with fantastic people, which is great. I know that I've personally benefited from this. And then also people get time back. So they're not commuting an hour, two hours a day and instead they can put that time into other places whether that's just genuinely sleeping, whether that's being with family, kids, whatever, doing a workout class, whatever that is. So the cons of it, I find personally that creative work is done best at times when you're in person with someone you can catch a vibe, you can brainstorm, you can chat and I think remote work you do miss that a little bit. So I have made the effort to do company off sites to try to like combat that. I feel like culture builds faster when you share space with someone. So the actual culture of your team will kind of the morale there. You're going to want to have someone's back when you see them every day. Just naturally I feel like that instinctively will happen. And then people are happier when they feel seen, when they feel appreciated. When you can honestly just look someone in the eye and tell them you did a great job. So I would say overall that's kind of where I'm at now with remote work. It's something that I know people are going back into office. I know like JP Morgan just announced that huge massive office update and people are trying to like push for more time back. But I don't know, I'm of two months of it. I'm like, I think that it has a lot of pros and cons. I'm curious to see kind of where we land. But I also think, and this is kind of a controversial one. It's like do companies just want to have that control back and they're forcing their team to go back into office? Like is that really what it is? Is it a control thing or is it an actual productivity thing? I don't know. Okay. I think conclusion here, hybrid work will probably win. Fully remote companies will need twice the culture infrastructure though to make it happen and to beat out companies that are in office. Tip, if you're in college or early career, be the person who shows up in person. Even if it's optional, you will get ahead further. And last thing here that I'm kind of like unsure about or sort of just of two minds, it's the idea and notion and trend right now of having a work life balance. So what do I mean by that? This has always been a hard one for me as a founder because I see people talking about work life balance, but I just don't think at times in your life that that's super realistic. The way that I like to see it is almost thinking about this and like work cycles or season. So like you'll have a busy season where like you have to focus on work. But then allowing yourself that other season to like maybe prioritize friends and family when needed or when necessary, I think is really healthy. Or if you can think of it as being 100% all in, wherever you are in that moment or wherever you're most needed in that moment. So for me, if I'm most needed as being a CEO, I'm 100% I'm in, like I am a CEO. But if my mom really needs something or family member really needs something, I try to also be 100% present within that moment too. Again, in theory, that sounds great. TBD if we get there and all, which is why I'm kind of like of two minds. But I think it's really healthy to look at your year in terms of like quarters and where you're gonna see ups and downs and just like the natural progression of things. Because if not you sort of let life just like happen to you and you fall victim to whatever your circumstances versus doing that healthy like top of your planning and actually trying to set a goal. So that is my TBD 2026. And then now we get to the losers. I feel like losers are so harsh. Maybe we don't need to necessarily say that. But like these are the things that I think are gonna fall behind in 2026 and really the things that I think based on where we're at in 2025, where I see no sort of success or wins. Rigid workers, people who have a hard time adapting to change, I think it was made very clear in 2025 that change is adamant. So in 2026, anyone who is a knowledge worker that is extremely rigid, I believe will fall behind. I think those people that are not open to adapting and learning new tools and understanding new workflows, definitely they're not gonna see the same success that they were able to maybe back in COVID times. It's just not gonna happen. I think churn rate is a big thing with AI and the speed in which skills, tools and industry knowledge become outdated. You're looking at things that are used to be relevant for 18 to 24 months and that's getting compressed into like a six month timeline. Also we're noticing now algorithms are changing so rapidly and quickly that you need to be able to adapt to whatever is kind of in front of you and whatever new tools are changing. And the last thing, this is extremely, extremely personal. Actually, this is not the last one I have a few more but this is like the last like extremely personal one to me which is the visa process. Now it's painful but we have seen in this new wave of government that the visa process is maybe a little bit more difficult to get and I am coming at this as someone who has had a J1 intern visa in the US. I have had a TN graphic design visa in the US. I have had an E2 investor visa in the US and I have had an O1 skills visa in the US. So I consider myself a visa expert because I've had four visas in the US, three of which I didn't use a lawyer for not because I was like smart or thought I was above it. It was 'cause I couldn't afford one. So I had to figure out what that looked like from Googling, reading government websites, watching E2 videos and basically like writing my own petitions. So when there's a will, there's a way. And if anyone has any questions about the visa process or wants me to make that into like another podcast episode, I would be so happy to do that because people hit me up all the time and ask how the heck did you do this and what was your process. Unfortunately, it is something that is like hyper-specific to your circumstances, but I can be as general as possible. Okay, other things that I think are out this year. I mean, just the term girl boss needs to go. I think no CEO wants to be called girl anything and it's become like attached to multi-level marketing schemes and kind of cringy. And the TikTok to podcast pipeline, I don't think TikTokers need to be making podcasts long form. I think YouTubers have a great pipeline there and I think that's fantastic, but unless people want to see you in long form, I think you stick to TikToking and double down on that. Please don't come to Spotify and Apple, we're good. And then these are my 2026 predictions. I'm really excited about 2026 just as a year in general. I think it's gonna be great. And here are a few things that I think will happen in the creator and business space. So number one, creators who treat their platforms like a small business will dominate. It's basically like that already. They've set up everything, the platforms, the set of everything for you to treat it like a small business. I think if you're not treating it like a small business, you're leaving a lot on the table. So I think that's really how you need to think about it. And what does that mean? That means linking to other platforms, linking to other places, getting email lists, getting wait lists if you wanna launch a new product, just being smart about it. The next is brand social will be, I would say, at least 20 to 40% lead by AI in 2026. My other 2026 prediction, short form content will be saturated, mid form content, eight to 15 minutes will grow. And I truly believe that because people actually want to have a little bit more depth and a little bit more weight in what they're consuming, I think the days of a quick 10 second, 15 second video are over. And I think those are great hooks, but I think in order to sustain an audience, mid form content is where I will be focusing my company on. I think the middle kind of group of creators will shrink, and I think more like premium niches will actually expand. And I think that's gonna be, since every industry is getting more and more and more defined, and every algorithm is getting more and more and more defined, these sort of like premium niches, if you think of like specialty, I don't know if I was to do an example, it would be, you know, you could have a creator that only specializes in Saunas, or a creator that only specializes in certain types of bike shorts, and they're promoting that. Industries will get really, really be really well received, because brands will pay a premium to work with creators like that. Now, the next one, as I said before, live experiences will become the new algorithm. I think that is something that people are craving. We see this with more concerts, having people put stickers over their phones so that they can't capture it and be really in the moment. I think that will be competing directly with the algorithm. I think hybrid work might win here, as we talked about before, I'm up to minds, but I think my prediction is hybrid work will come out on top. And the next thing, I think everyone's gonna be excited by this, and if you're not excited by this, I think that's very telling about who you are as a person. But I think companies will hire fewer people, but pay their best people more. And what do I mean by that? I think if you have less employees, but your budget remains the same, you're willing to pay less employees more to drive and expect a larger result. And then the last two, resumes will matter less, and portfolios will matter more. So the body of work that you create is the thing that people will actually hire you from. I think the school system is honestly super outdated, and that is coming from someone who went to an amazing media production school. I think at this stage, it doesn't really matter what school you went to. I think the body of work and the way that you work with your teammates is really the only thing that people and employers are gonna be looking at in the next five years. And the last thing, I think this is just kind of silly and fun to end it on and hopefully a little bit inspiring for people who wanna make their own content. But I think that people will become more cringy, quote unquote, online, because inherently, people are just caring less. I think people are posting more. They're caring less about what their friends think. They're getting more brave and excited to post things, which is kind of great. And I think everyone needs to lean into the cringe a little bit more. But I appreciate everyone taking their time to go through all of these predictions with me. Excited to hear if you guys agree, if you disagree what your 2026 predictions are. And if you like this episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can follow us @birdsipod and please hit me up directly on Instagram or through email or through GM or however. But we're always looking to hire amazing creatives and we're always looking to work with the best. So please reach out if you or you know someone that is looking for a really, really fun creative job because in 2026, we're gonna be growing a ton. (upbeat music)