The Influencer Funnel is Dead. Long Live the Creator Flywheel.
Funnel thinking forced creators to pick awareness or conversion. The flywheel lets them do both — and compound.
Sana Kapoor
The ITMA
For a decade we forced creators into media plans that treated them like ad inventory. Pay per post, pick your tier, hope the CPM works out.
That model cracked the moment platforms made short-form the default surface. Attention is non-linear now. A nano creator’s 12-second Reel can out-perform a macro’s glossy 60-second drop — and both can be whitelisted into the same campaign.
The flywheel treats creators like a compound asset: earn affinity, amplify via paid, capture search intent, reinvest into more content. The brands winning 2025 are the ones who instrument this loop, measure it and let creators own a piece of the outcome.
