Trust is tops for creators
This week at the 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai, one theme kept surfacing in nearly every discussion I heard: content needs a purpose beyond views.
As creators, educators, and media entrepreneurs, we are being pushed—by platforms, by audiences, and by our own consciences—toward impact, not just impressions.
#NewsCreators see this impact when their mission is embedded in trusted journalism values.
In this issue, I’ll share:
- The big trends I saw on stage and in the hallways
- Key messages from top speakers
- What the audience was really worried about
- #NewsCreator takeaways from the panel I joined
The big shift: From followers to impact
The summit framed content creation as a serious economic and cultural force, not a side hustle or a fame game.
Dubai is positioning this event as the world’s largest content creator gathering, and the agenda reflected that ambition, with government, platforms, brands, and creators on the same stages.
A clear shift emerged:
- Away from vanity metrics
- Toward trusted communities, measurable outcomes, and long‑term sustainability
“Content for Good” wasn’t just a slogan. It showed up in sessions about social impact campaigns, education, and using content to drive real‑world behavior—donations, sign‑ups, attendance, and civic participation.
What top speakers kept repeating
Across keynotes and panels, several ideas were remarkably consistent:
- Relationships over reach
The most valuable metric is not the total follower count, but the depth of the relationship: repeat viewing, conversation, and action. - Short‑form is increasingly treated as a discovery funnel that leads into deeper experiences—long‑form, podcasts, courses, newsletters, and communities.
- AI as a production layer, not a replacement
Creators are using AI for scripting, editing, localization, and personalization, while keeping human editorial judgment, ethics, and storytelling at the center. The message was: use AI to free time and extend reach, not to outsource your voice. - Sustainable creator careers
There was a strong focus on diversifying revenue: brand deals, IP, courses, memberships, live experiences, and licensing. The underlying question: how do creators build businesses that survive algorithm changes and platform volatility?
If you want a sense of the official framing and speaker lineup, the summit site is a good starting point:
👉 https://www.1billionsummit.com
👉 Agenda overview: https://www.1billionsummit.com/2026-agenda
Khalid Al Ameri and the value of “enough”
One of the standout voices was Khalid Al Ameri, who pushed back against the obsession with chasing bigger and bigger follower numbers. His argument was simple and powerful:
- A smaller, highly engaged community can be more valuable than a massive, passive audience.
- Real‑world action—showing up, buying, supporting causes, joining events—is the ultimate metric, not just watch time or impressions.
This resonated strongly with the conversations I heard around the venue: experienced creators are tired of living at the mercy of every algorithm tweak.
Nobody is really sure how many of their followers are even human.
Many are actively trying to move from “fame” to function—building ecosystems where content leads to products, services, or initiatives that matter.
What the audience was really saying
In hallway conversations, Q&A sessions, and informal meet‑ups, the creator community in Dubai surfaced a set of recurring concerns:
- Monetization pressure
Many creators feel stuck with big but shallow audiences. The question they kept asking: “How do I turn these views into a real business?” People wanted concrete playbooks for pricing, negotiating brand deals, and packaging their expertise into scalable offers. - Algorithm anxiety and platform dependence
There was a shared fatigue with constantly adapting to platform changes. Creators talked about wanting “ownable” channels—email lists, paid communities, IP, and educational products—that are less vulnerable to a single algorithm change. - Authenticity vs performance
The “Content for Good” narrative clearly resonated, but creators were honest: purpose has to coexist with revenue. The implicit demand to speakers and platforms was: show us how to do both.
News Creator takeaways
In my News Creator panel, I shared in the perspective of journalists, educators, and documentary storytellers who are using mobile tools and creator platforms to build news products and learning experiences.
Emirates News Agency published this story about our session:
Here are the key takeaways I shared and heard reflected back from the room:
News creators are micro‑newsrooms
A solo journalist with a smartphone and a strong niche can now do what used to require a whole newsroom: reporting, producing, publishing, audience engagement, and even distribution partnerships. The challenge is to design workflows that are realistic for one or two people.
Watch the video:
https://www.smartfilmschool.com/courses/news-creator/contents/6975177de07fe
Trust is the “algorithm” for news
For news creators, trust is the core asset. That means:
- Radical transparency about methods and sources
- Explaining how the story was verified
- Using mobile‑first formats (video explainers, live Q&As) to open the reporting process to the audience
From breaking news to “useful news”
The room responded strongly to the idea that news creators should prioritize:
- Service journalism (how this affects your life)
- Local and community stories
- Ongoing explanations and context, not just episodic “breaking” updates
This aligns closely with the work I do in my News Creator Workshops: helping journalists move from just publishing stories to designing repeatable news products that audiences rely on.
Designing news as a product, not just content
We talked about:
- Thinking in series and formats (e.g., a weekly explainer, a recurring “What you need to know this week” vertical)
- Identifying the “minimum viable audience” and serving them deeply
- Building email lists, communities, and courses around a news niche to create sustainable revenue beyond ads and platform payouts
Mobile‑first workflows as the backbone
I emphasized how smartphone‑based workflows empower news creators to Capture, edit, and publish from the field
- Experiment rapidly with format and tone
- Collaborate across borders with minimal gear and costs
This is exactly the space where my work in mobile journalism and training lives, and the questions from the audience made it clear there is strong demand for practical, workflow‑level guidance—not just inspiration.
Why this matters for creators and journalists
The 1 Billion Followers Summit confirmed what many of us already feel in our daily work:
- Scale without purpose is exhausting.
- Purpose without a business model is unsustainable.
The sweet spot—and the next chapter for creators and news innovators alike—is building small, strong, mission‑driven ecosystems around clear value: education, context, service, and community.
As I continue developing News Creator workshops, mobile journalism courses, and documentary projects around preserving cultural heritage, these conversations in Dubai will feed directly into the frameworks and tools I share with journalists, students, and creators around the world.
If you’re interested in:
- Building a news creator workflow
- Turning your beat or niche into a sustainable creator business
- Or integrating mobile journalism into your newsroom or classroom
Feel free to connect with me here.
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