Paul Butler had long dreamed of moving to New York City. So when he finally had the chance to move for work, only to find out a week later that his social marketing position at Amazon was being eliminated, he said it felt like a “rug was pulled out from underneath [him].”
He turned to social media for support. “Follow along so I can still figure out how to live my dreams,” he wrote atop a video showing his emotional response to the news.
Butler had been pursuing content creation prior to Amazon’s October layoffs, building a following of more than 50,000 across Instagram and TikTok with posts that included countdowns to his big move, but the video about his layoff really extended his reach. To date, it has more than 1.3 million views and 100,000 likes on TikTok, plus an additional 65,000 likes on Instagram.
“People obviously resonated with my story,” Butler told us. “That tells me that a lot of people are dealing with a lot of hardships, and they’re either having empathy because they’ve seen my situation or they’re going through something similar.”
Creating while unemployed, Butler said, not only allowed him to make up for some lost income, but also opened the door to new opportunities and even some job interviews.
“There were a ton of people who reached out to make connections for me, which was so kind and generous of them,” he said. “I had people offer to refer me to roles at their companies. I had people offer to review my résumé, cover letter, anything I had…to the point where it was almost overwhelming.”
As layoffs continue to hit the marketing industry for reasons ranging from cost-cutting to mergers and acquisitions, some in the industry are turning to content creation as a professional and financial safety net. A handful have even made full-time careers of it, though marketer-slash-creators told us that it may be more challenging to achieve than some may think.
The new side hustle
In December, Spencer Raap was laid off from his marketing campaign manager role at 10 Roads Express, an enterprise trucking company based in Iowa. Amid his search for a new role, Raap said he began exploring content creation on LinkedIn and Substack to establish his personal brand and help sustain his family.
“You hear that [layoff] news like, ‘Well, this is reality now,’” he told us. “It’s a motivator for me to start to build my own ship a little bit so that I’m not necessarily 100% reliant on a W-2 income.”
It’s a line of thinking that is familiar to others in marketing. Aseeyah Shahid was working as a recruiter and marketing and event coordinator at consulting firm McKinsey when she was laid off in November 2024, and after months of sending out more than 100 applications with no luck, she made the decision to go all-in on her own personal branding consulting business and on content creation.
Being a creator, Shahid told us, had “always been a thought in [her] head, but [she] never did it seriously” until losing her job. Now, she said, LinkedIn is where she makes most of her money, primarily from brand deals shared with her more than 3,000 followers. She told us that she now views having a personal platform, or another form of supplementary income, as a necessity.
“You see all these places laying people off,” she said. “I think people are finally starting to wake up and see that you need something outside of your job.”
In 2025, content creation accounted for about 25% of Shahid’s income, she told us, and she expects it to be closer to 60% this year as she amps up production. Even as she’s grown her income, she said she assumed it would be easier to monetize as a full-time creator before attempting it. According to recent data from marketing platform Manychat, around 75% of creators earn less than $10,000 per year from content.
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“The dream is sold to you,” Sam Ogborn, a marketing strategist and adjunct professor at Miami University who is also a marketing creator, told us. “The likelihood of you being able to sustain yourself on what you’re making from brand deals or even from creator rewards programs, it’s not sustainable…unless you live an extremely frugal lifestyle.”
Of course, there are exceptions. Lifestyle content, while more competitive, could allow for greater monetization opportunities than marketing content, Ogborn acknowledged. In addition to her other roles, Ogborn has, since 2021, posted about everything from campaign takes to the curse of being chronically online to build her personal brand. Since her first year posting, she’s partnered with brands like Canva, Notion, and Hubspot, but said she’s only recently begun “hitting her stride” with brand deals in year five.
Butler said he wasn’t able to earn what he had made at Amazon through monetizing content alone, but it assured him that he could make at least some money off something he enjoyed doing, and could perhaps get to that level eventually. Ultimately, he said, “the dividends that come from it are worth it, whether they’re monetary or not.”
Putting yourself out there
While unemployed, Butler said he wasn’t always consistent with his posting schedule, but made efforts to remain visible or at least post a few times a week. “I still want to build my brand personally,” he said. “I [didn’t] want the fact that I got laid off to inhibit my ability to do that.”
In Shahid’s experience, personal branding is perhaps the most important benefit of creating in between jobs and client work. “Whatever happens, I have something to jump off to,” she said. “I’m not just starting from scratch.”
Shahid said being a creator has also helped push her beyond her comfort zone and expand her network. “I’ve gotten most of my friends this year from LinkedIn and conferences,” she said. “Building a community has been a big, big pro.”
These days, Ogborn said it’s become “more normal than not” for marketers to build a presence online beyond their personal accounts, and said many of her Gen Z marketing students are creators on the side. For those in between jobs, she said, content creation can be a way to showcase their talent and potentially get the attention of a future employer.
“It empowers people to show up with their own unique [marketing] perspective,” she said.
Jessica Bayer, managing partner of corporate affairs and communications at executive search firm DHR Global, told us that as long as content isn’t “off-putting,” which she said often comes down to politics, it can be a meaningful way to boost visibility.
“It shows that you’re up to date and up to speed on what’s going on in the industry,” she said. “And you have an opinion and you have thoughts on how it could be better.”
Bayer said she’s seen an increase in job applicants touting their social media presence, but noted that follower counts don’t matter as much to employers as what the content says about a marketer’s experience and insights. For all you know, Bayer said, those followers could be bots.
“It’s not about numbers and it’s not about volume,” she added. “It’s really about strategy and targeted outreach and then preparing for risks and getting ahead of those.”
Butler has since landed a new marketing job in New York, and he said he shared his experience as a creator in addition to his experience working on professional social media accounts when interviewing.
He recently began posting countdown videos again, this time leading up to his first day of work. And while he’s optimistic about his next chapter, he plans to continue posting content as a side project.
“Companies are less loyal to people, people are less loyal to companies,” Butler said. “It’s nice to know that you can build something of your own in a world that feels very tumultuous.”
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