Influencer Marketing Blog

The Streaming Brand Using Creators to Rewrite TV (HBBIP #136)

Written by Alex Rawitz | May 26, 2026 3:00:01 PM

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As part of my ongoing journey to make my home liveable, I bought a TV. It was the first television purchase of my life, and my first time as an adult living in a home with a TV.

While I’m still not fully onboard with the whole “sit and stare at screen” thing—yes, it’s ironic given my profession, thank you for pointing that out, I hadn’t noticed—I do have to admit that I have, alas, been using said TV. I don’t watch any serialized shows, but the larger screen has been an overall more conducive viewing experience for movies than my laptop. Plus I get to watch the most successful Knicks season of my cognizant lifetime—a sentence that, as any Knicks fan knows, will surely come back to bite me.

But possibly the biggest benefit of becoming a certified TV-watcher is that I can now participate in the discourse around streaming services: how many of them there are, how expensive they are, how fickle the whims of whomever makes content available can be (who hurt you, whoever you are?). Yes, I can say now that I’m fully informed. I understand that meme. It’s all so true.

I’ve covered some of these streaming services before, from Netflix to Paramount+ to Peacock. Today, as a converted television-owner and occasional watcher, I want to add a particularly unique case to the ranks. So grab some popcorn, get cozy, and tune in as we check out what’s on offer at…

 

The Top Brand of All Time (of the Week): Tubi

Yes, there’s yet another streaming service. So what’s Tubi’s deal, and what sets it apart not only in the ranks of streaming services, but the world of creator marketing?

 

What Is Tubi?

Owned by the Fox Corporation since 2020, Tubi is a free, ad-supported video streaming service with almost a quarter of a million on-demand movies and TV episodes, along with 260 live TV channels. You don’t need a monthly subscription or even a credit card to access Tubi. All you need to do is sit there and watch ads in the midst of your content. Which, you know, used to be the case anyway.

How Is Tubi Performing on Social Media?

When a streaming platform commits to creator marketing, and those creators commit right back, beautiful things can happen. Beautiful things like this graph:

Tubi Creator Count, 2020 - 2025

In 2020, Tubi earned mentions from just 319 global creators. By 2025, that number had increased 16x to 5.2k creators. With particularly sharp gains from 2022 onward, Tubi clearly invested in a sustainable ecosystem of voices. And those voices didn’t stay quiet.

Tubi Post Count, 2020 - 2025

We saw a similar 18x increase for Tubi’s post count, with 2022 once again serving as an inflection point. From there, content volume accelerated sharply into 2024, and again into 2025. This indicates that Tubi creators were doing a whole lot more than sharing campaign-based posts around individual entertainment properties. Instead, it’s evidence of a robust, always-on creation model.

Tubi EMV, 2020 - 2025

Further evidence of that robustness and always-onness can be found by inspecting Tubi’s Earned Media Value (EMV), which expanded roughly 60x during this time period, with a series of huge jumps from year to year. When EMV scales faster than post count, it usually suggests content quality, amplification, and heightened cultural relevance, all of which we can see examples of in Tubi’s post archive and general social profile.



Tubi Impressions, 2020 - 2025

Ho-hum, another 55x improvement, this time in impressions, which leapt from 30.9M to 1.7B impressions. Growth was a little slower between 2022 and 2023 compared to other metrics, but clearly Tubi figured things out by 2025, at which point it was well on its way to becoming a (literal) household name.



Tubi Engagements, 2020 - 2025

But Tubi saved its greatest growth for last: a 115x increase in engagements, meaning that the rate of people interacting with content about the brand is growing faster than the rate of people seeing content about the brand. Pardon the AI-ism, but that’s rare. Seriously: we tend to see engagements flagging behind other metrics, so for Tubi to be doubling up its growth rate here is really astounding.

So where are all these engagements coming from?

Tubi Share of Impressions by Platform, 2025

By an almost-but-not-quite majority, Instagram. That said, we see a pretty balanced picture overall.


Tubi Share of Engagements by Platform, 2025

The picture shifts a bit more toward Instagram when you assess that impressive engagements category. Instagram is the anchor platform, TikTok drives significant momentum, while YouTube/Facebook provide secondary support. Unlike brands that are heavily dependent on a single breakout channel, Tubi’s growth appears diversified.

Now let’s see what that balanced share of platforms looks like at the post and creator level.

Who Are Tubi's Top Creators?

Tubi's creator ecosystem, as measured from May 2025 through April 2026, leans heavily toward pop culture nostalgia, sports, Black entertainment, and the kind of eclectic late-night "what should I watch?" energy that fuels so much streaming content. That said, for as wide as Tubi’s creator ecosystem has become, a small number of power players dominate.

1. Three creators make a huge impact

When it comes to raw EMV output, certain names stand out. Tubi’s highest-volume creator, actor and comedian Kevin Fredericks (@kevonstage) generated $10.6M EMV across 116 posts, operating across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. As a multi-platform entertainer, Kevin’s content mapped neatly onto the Tubi brand: culturally savvy, Black-audience-forward, and heavy on the kind of reactions and recommendations that drive streaming discovery.

Meanwhile, Tubi’s No. 2 creator, Community TV (@communitytv on TikTok), was more straightforward: a clip channel dedicated to cult-favorite TV show Community (as you could guess, reruns are amply available on Tubi). The nostalgic account contributed $8.1M across 107 posts, all via TikTok, making it Tubi’s most prolific single-channel presence.

Rounding out the top three, the owned Instagram and Facebook accounts of the NFL delivered $7.9M EMV across 68 posts, typically sharing highlights and viral moments, especially surrounding March’s Fanatics Flag Football Classic.

 

2. Just like its content library, Tubi’s creator mix reflects its audience

Zooming out, the handles that surface in the data tell a story about who Tubi is speaking to. It’s an audience that spans horror fans (@roomforscream and @horror_hideout91), Black entertainment (Marques Houston on Facebook, Bigg Jah the Sav ($2M), The Q Bang Guy), and sports (@fanatics, @barstoolsports). There’s even a Gen Z layer to the content, with creators like Noah Beck, Paris Berelc, and Asher Angel adding to the youth appeal.

Ultimately, the picture that emerges is of a brand that’s found its people across multiple categories, and built a creator strategy around reaching those people where they already are.

By which, of course, I mean their couches and armchairs. Content catered to my needs, on a large screen, for free, in the comfort of my own home? In this economy? Now I see what this whole ‘TV-watching’ thing is all about.

*All data, unless otherwise specified, stems from CreatorIQ's public-facing brand leaderboards. We will never share performance metrics from a customer's CreatorIQ profile, or any brand's private information.

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