Influencer Marketing for Startups: Boost Your Brand Today
If 2025 taught the creator economy anything, it is this: the audience is over the perfectly edited facade. They are choosing creators who sound like actual humans, not paid actors reading from brand-approved scripts.
JoinBrands closed the year with UGC Masterclass Live No. 3: an unfiltered breakdown of what actually mattered in 2025 and the trends that are going to reshape brand performance in 2026. This is not a highlight reel. This is the truth about where the industry is heading, why it is changing, and what brands and creators must do to avoid falling behind before Q1 even begins.
Below is the official recap.
Table of Contents
Overview of the Session
The goal of Masterclass #3 was to deliver a clear and practical summary of the year’s biggest creator trends, platform shifts, and successful content formats. Alex led the conversation, prompting Kayla and Hunter to share their personal experiences, professional learnings, and growth strategies. The session concluded with a live Q&A, open discussion, and the announcement of the new community challenge, #ThankfulFor, introduced in honor of Thanksgiving week.
Key Trends That Defined 2025 – Led by Alex Gettlin
Alex opened the Masterclass with a comprehensive analysis of the major creator and content shifts that shaped the year. His breakdown highlighted the forces that influenced performance across platforms and offered a grounded perspective on where digital creativity is heading.
Authenticity Became the Most Valuable Asset
Creators who embraced real moments, honest storytelling, and low-pressure delivery experienced significantly stronger results. Across platforms, UGC-style videos achieved up to four times higher click-through rates than polished ads. Tutorials, demonstrations, and candid reviews were some of the year’s best-performing formats. Viewers responded to transparency, straightforward communication, and creators who presented solutions clearly without scripted complexity.
Short-Form Video Continued to Dominate
Short-form content saw a 71% year-over-year growth in 2025. Meta reported showing 50 percent more Reels on the same day they were posted, reinforcing the increasing value of fresh, timely uploads. Platforms continued to prioritize newly posted content, giving creators who post frequently more opportunities to enter daily recommendation cycles.
Algorithm Shifts: Reach Down, Engagement Up
TikTok experienced a notable dynamic shift, with overall reach per video decreasing by 47% , while engagement increased by 35%. Although users watched fewer videos overall, they engaged more deeply with content they found meaningful. The average TikTok watch time also dropped from 4.72 seconds to 3.75 seconds, placing heightened importance on strong hooks in the first one to two seconds of a video.
Micro-trends and time-sensitive content delivered up to 50% higher reach than evergreen content, further emphasizing the importance of cultural responsiveness and agile content planning.
4. AI Became the Creator’s Power Tool
Alex highlighted one of the most significant technological trends of the year: the widespread integration of AI into creator workflows. 95% of brands are now using AI, yet notably, 69% do not want AI to replace creator creativity or relationship-building. This indicates a clear industry stance: AI is a support system, not a substitute for human storytelling.
Spotlight on Kayla Ybanez
Kayla, a business and entrepreneurship creator with deep experience in UGC and influencer marketing, shared how JoinBrands played a key role in helping her develop confidence, understand the foundational skills of UGC, and build a sustainable income from home while homeschooling her daughters.
Kayla’s Favorite Trends of 2025
- Unpolished content outperformed perfection. Videos that appeared natural or unfiltered, sometimes even unintentionally dramatic, generated substantial engagement via comments and reactions.
- FaceTime-style videos excelled. Audiences connected strongly with content that felt personal, conversational, and intimate.
- Hook testing became essential. Kayla experimented regularly with various hooks to determine which opened the strongest retention curves.
- Creators acting as the brand’s ideal customer produced high conversions. Performance-style content, lifestyle moments, and scenario-based storytelling outperformed conventional talking-head formats. When creators fully embodied the mindset and style of the brand’s target audience, conversions increased significantly.
Kayla’s Predictions for 2026
Kayla anticipates that authenticity will continue to outperform rehearsed delivery. She predicts:
- Campaign briefs will increasingly be tailored to creators’ natural personalities and strengths.
- Creators who can confidently take on multiple roles, acting, storytelling, and scenario work, will be in higher demand.
- Long-term collaborations and retainer partnerships will continue to rise as brands seek consistent, recognizable creator faces.
- “Podcast-style” confessional content will gain popularity.
- Lighthearted skits, creative transitions, and standout camera angles will become prominent in early 2026.
Spotlight on Hunter Cowan
Hunter, a full-time mom creator specializing in health, beauty, and fitness content, also credits JoinBrands for helping her acquire foundational skills, build confidence, and grow into a full-time income while homeschooling her daughters.
Hunter’s Favorite Trends of 2025
- Authentic, unscripted content delivered the strongest performance. Audiences consistently favored natural energy, relatable humor, and unfiltered storytelling.
- Human-first content resonated across niches. Whether in beauty, fitness, or lifestyle, viewers preferred videos that felt genuine rather than overproduced.
- Real demonstrations built trust. For example, Hunter removes her hair extensions on camera to demonstrate authenticity in beauty content
- Widespread, universally relatable trends worked best. Broad appeal often outperformed niche-specific content
- Light humor remained consistently effective across all demographics.
Where Hunter Believes Creators Are Heading in 2026
Hunter emphasized three priorities for creators entering 2026:
- Stepping outside the comfort zone. Filming in public, showing real-time results, and reducing reliance on heavy scripting will become increasingly important.
- Stronger communication skills. Professionalism and clear communication will influence a creator’s eligibility for campaigns on platforms such as JoinBrands.
- Adaptability. The most successful creators will balance brand needs with their authentic voice while maintaining reliability and consistency.
High-Performance Content Formats for 2026
Alex closed the session by outlining the formats predicted to deliver the strongest results in 2026. These predictions are data-backed and based on observed performance patterns across major platforms.
1. Unboxing Content
Unboxing content continues to be one of the top-performing categories, with 52 percent of consumers making a purchase after watching an unboxing video. These videos maintain a 20 percent conversion rate and are trusted by 80 percent of viewers as much as personal recommendations. Unboxing content remains a leading UGC format and is expected to increase in effectiveness.
2. Tutorials, Educational Content, and Problem-Solution Formats
Short tutorials of 15 to 30 seconds consistently rank among the highest-performing formats. Clear problem-solution storytelling delivers strong conversion rates and achieves approximately 28 percent higher engagement compared to brand-created content.
3. Reaction and Commentary Videos
Reaction-style content currently drives 50 to 60 percent of TikTok’s brand engagement. Viewers rely on authentic reactions to build trust in products, making this one of the fastest-growing areas of UGC heading into the new year.
4. Behind-the-Scenes and Authentic Lifestyle Content
Behind-the-scenes footage and unfiltered lifestyle moments often achieve up to 45 percent more engagement than fully polished posts. Audiences continue to value transparency and want to see creators in real-life contexts.
Community Challenge Announcement: #ThankfulFor
To close the Masterclass, JoinBrands announced the #ThankfulFor community challenge. This initiative encourages creators to share gratitude-driven content, connect on a deeper level with their audiences, and participate in a supportive, community-focused activity leading into the holiday season.
Creator Feedback and Impact
The session received highly positive feedback from creators who attended:
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Watch the Full Recording
The complete breakdown, additional predictions, visual examples, and live Q&A are available in the recorded session.
Watch the full Masterclass here:
About JoinBrands
JoinBrands connects brands with high-performance creators and influencers through an efficient, technology-driven platform designed to eliminate operational chaos. With an emphasis on speed, structure, and creator-quality, JoinBrands enables brands to scale content production and creator collaborations with measurable impact.
Creators can join the platform and access paid collaborations with leading brands by registering here: JoinBrands For Creators
Brands and agencies can start building scalable, creator-powered marketing systems here: JoinBrands For Brands
