San Francisco, California Jan 15, 2026 (Issuewire.com) - Tamar Toledano, a San Franciscobased marketing strategist known for helping brands build clarity and long-term trust, believes the creator economy has reached an inflection point. What was once a powerful engine for connection and discovery is now facing skepticism from consumers, regulators, and even marketers themselves. According to Toledano, the issue is not that influencer marketing or user-generated content no longer works, but that it has been overused, poorly governed, and too often stripped of authenticity.
The backlash we are seeing is a direct result of scale without intention, Toledano says. Influencer marketing became easy to deploy, so it was deployed everywhere, often without regard for credibility, alignment, or long-term brand impact.
She points to three forces converging at once: oversaturation, regulatory scrutiny, and a growing consumer awareness of performative authenticity. Social feeds are crowded with sponsored content that looks interchangeable, while disclosure requirements and platform rules are tightening. At the same time, audiences have become far more sophisticated at identifying when enthusiasm is manufactured. People are not anti-creator, Toledano explains. They are anti-feeling manipulated.
According to Tamar Toledano, many brands made the mistake of treating creators and UGC as shortcuts rather than as components of a broader storytelling ecosystem. Posting real people does not automatically make a brand authentic, she says. Authenticity comes from consistency, values, and context. Without that foundation, UGC becomes just another ad format.
This erosion of trust has forced marketers to rethink their approach. Toledano observes a clear shift away from high-volume influencer campaigns toward fewer, deeper relationships and more community-driven narratives. Brands are realizing that reach without resonance is wasted spend, she notes. The goal is not to be seen everywhere. It is to be believed somewhere.
One of the most notable changes, according to Toledano, is the renewed focus on internal employees as brand advocates. In contrast to paid influencers, employees carry lived experience and institutional credibility. Your employees understand your product, your culture, and your customers in a way no external creator ever will, she says. When they speak, it does not feel rented. It feels earned.
Toledano cautions, however, that employee advocacy only works when it is voluntary and supported, not forced. You cannot script belief, she says. Employees need psychological safety, clear guidelines, and leadership trust. Otherwise, advocacy becomes another box to check, and audiences can sense that immediately.
Community-driven storytelling is another area where Toledano sees momentum building. Rather than spotlighting isolated creators, brands are beginning to highlight shared experiences among customers, partners, and employees. Communities create context, she explains. They show how a brand fits into real lives over time, not just in a single post.
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This approach also helps brands navigate regulatory pressure more effectively. By grounding stories in authentic relationships and transparent intent, brands reduce the risk of misleading claims or unclear disclosures. Compliance should not be treated as a constraint, Toledano adds. It should be treated as a forcing function for better storytelling.
She is critical of organizations that respond to the influencer backlash by abandoning creator strategies entirely. That reaction misses the point, Toledano says. The problem was never creators. The problem was how brands used them. In her view, creators still play a valuable role when they are aligned with brand values, given creative freedom, and integrated into long-term narratives rather than transactional campaigns.
Toledano believes the next phase of the creator economy will be smaller, slower, and more intentional. Metrics will shift away from vanity engagement toward indicators of trust, such as retention, repeat interaction, and community participation. Marketing is moving from performance theater back to relationship building, she says. That requires patience, something the industry has not always been good at.
Ultimately, Toledano sees this moment as an opportunity rather than a setback. Backlash forces reflection, she concludes. Brands that learn from this will emerge with stronger voices and deeper credibility. Those that continue to chase shortcuts will find that no amount of content can compensate for a lack of trust.
For marketers willing to rethink influence, the path forward is clear, even if it is less flashy. According to Toledano, The future belongs to brands that stop asking who can speak the loudest for them and start asking who can speak most truthfully.
To learn more visit: https://tamartoledano.com/
Source :Tamar Toledano
This article was originally published by IssueWire. Read the original article here.