Chronicle Studios is on a mission to empower content creators with the tools they need to tackle one of the industry’s biggest challenges today: discovery. ScreenMDM Talks caught up with Aaron Sisto and Scott Greenberg, co-founders, about enabling content makers, from start-ups to well-established IPs, to find fandoms, using decades of Hollywood and tech experience and harnessing the capabilities of AI.
Social media has become the “top of funnel for every brand, studio, and creator in the entire world,” Sisto told me in the latest episode of ScreenMDM Talks. “Unless you are getting discovered, unless you’re getting your content to the right audiences on these platforms like YouTube, you’re in many ways irrelevant. That’s the number one challenge that we’ve seen for anyone from an indie creator to a massive studio. How do you get your content discovered? How do you really engage that core fan base? And then ultimately, how do you bring them along for the journey?”
This problem will only get worse as gen AI enables content to be produced cheaper and faster, Sisto explained. “More volume, more speed, means more entropy on these platforms. And that means you’re becoming a needle in the haystack. It’s getting harder and harder for you to stand out and get those views. And so that’s where Chronicle fits in. We started Chronicle to automate this social growth problem to help everyone find their core audience, connect with them, and ultimately, continuously bring them to their channels and platforms.”
With its AI-powered software platform, “we are basically your connection to the fan base at any stage,” Sisto continued. “Scott calls views vanity metrics; fandom is not views, in our opinion. We are helping creators, content creators, and brands across every platform find their core fans, because they’re the ones who want to spend time with the brand and the IP. The discovery problem affects everyone. And if you can capture that fan base, across the social platforms, and make sure your content is reaching the right people, you’ve solved this core problem of discovery, and then everything that comes after becomes a lot easier.”
While Sisto hails from the tech world, Greenberg has a Hollywood background, having co-founded and led Bento Box Entertainment, the FOX Entertainment-owned animation studio behind prime-time hits like Bob’s Burgers and Krapopolis.
“If you think about television, if you had a cable network, you had to get carriage, or if you’re a syndicated TV show, get an affiliate in every major territory at the right time slot,” Greenberg said in the podcast, which you can watch on YouTube below or on Spotify here. “Well, social reaches everybody. Platforms like YouTube, Meta, TikTok, and others are built for what consumers want. Even the best channels might only reach 5% to 10% of your audience. What really made me excited, coming from the entertainment world, is that we can use technology and find your audience. We can say what your total addressable audience is. And Aaron can explain how we do that and why it’s data-driven. We’re going to get you in front of your total audience at the right time slot. Ultimately, the best content rises. What we can do is get you in front of the audience at the right time and give you your best shot. That also helps you optimize your CPM, monetization opportunities, brand integration or sponsorship, or, if your goal is a conversion—drive me to Spotify, to a vertical video [platform]. Or if you’re launching a movie or TV show, launching a paywall, downloading a game, or going to my Amazon store. These are quality views. You can buy views, but this is really about the right audience, the right person, and putting it in front of you organically and inorganically. And that’s a real unlock. So, for a content creator, this is your great opportunity. You can be your own studio and really get in front of your audience. So social becomes your first window.”
The company is using AI to constantly monitor and understand what’s resonating on social video to help creators optimize their channels—from getting the thumbnail right to choosing the optimal duration to playing with shorts as an entry point for new fans.
“Now, you’re still relying on the algorithm, in many cases, and this is the big failure mode, right?” Sisto says. “The thing that we try to get across to everyone is the algorithm doesn’t work for you, it works for the viewer, and ultimately it works for the tech platforms. We have built a system that can go out and search for your core fans and your audience on these platforms by bypassing the algorithms. And we do this through micro-targeting. We’re playing your content in many different formats. We generate multiple variants of thumbnails, we cut them into different lengths, we package them up differently, and we play them for thousands of different, very niche cohorts.”
Ultimately, Sisto says, “social is too complicated to do by hand anymore,” requiring a tech-powered solution that exposes a creator to audiences who might have never been discovered by them.
While circumventing the algorithm, Chronicle Studios is “playing within the system, we’re pulling the same levers,” Greenberg added, “but you’d have to go hire an agency, the best of the best, go do this stuff manually. We’re using automation and machine intelligence. We’re basically giving the entry-level person, the bigger company, the best of the best, faster, and working within the system.”
The result is a net positive for the platforms and the creators, Greenberg said. “We’re enabling people who might try and fail and giving them more success at a lower level, so it creates more ad dollars for them and creates more onboarding. We’re trying to help avoid the spike. These companies have built amazing tools to democratize distribution truly. It’s just hard. There’s more and more content today. We’re giving you the best chance to succeed.”
The ”spike” Greenberg refers to is “that lightning in a bottle effect,” Sisto noted. “For a lot of creators, sometimes they see that viral moment and they still don’t understand why that happened. Why did the algorithm decide to make that video viral, but not my others? It’s hard to recapture because it really is lightning in a bottle. By democratizing access to discovery— discovery being the biggest failure mode for creators and brands out there—we’re giving everyone a shot to organically reach the audience and get a clear signal on whether they’re coming back to your channel and really engaging.”
Greenberg pointed to rising opportunities for successful creators with consumer brands, noting, “You can’t be a brand today without content. And you can’t just do paid without organic content. There are a lot of opportunities for creative people. I’m more bullish on the opportunity to be a creative person and have a business today.”
Sisto added, “If you’re able to create this type of content frequently and you can bring the audience in and grow and keep engaging them, well, now you’re on a different path as a creator. You are creating a micro studio that could be self-sustaining or even grow beyond that. Every creator will have a shot at launching their own business and then growing it into potentially a network, or have multiple product lines that they’re launching over time. We’re already starting to see that with some of the creators that we’ve helped launch, and it’s really promising. And that’s where creators, brands, and content merge. If social is the hub, everyone is there and part of this ecosystem and interacting, there’s tons of synergy there.”
The road ahead for Chronicle Studios includes the launch of its “self-serve” platform open to all creators, arriving in the summer, and continued gains in its enterprise business, working with big studios and more established creators with a more hands-on approach. For example, it partnered with Gabe Hordos, of How to Train Your Dragon fame, on his animated short film series The Old Knight; The Hive Studio for the goth musical comedy The Vampair and teen comedy The Normal MFer YouTube channels; and partnered with illustrator Teo Skaffa on his upcoming YA webtoon Graveheart Keep.
“It’s a super exciting time right now,” Sisto said. “We’re going full speed ahead on both ends of the spectrum—self-serve for indie creators all the way through to massive enterprise contracts, working with some of the biggest MCNs in the world. What has become very apparent is that this is a serious problem. Discovery, audience acquisition, distribution, intelligence, this is a really, really big problem. All of the messaging around the creator economy and the transition of billions of dollars in ad spend to social is contingent on this discovery problem being solved. This core infrastructure layer has to be turnkey. Otherwise, none of that works. There’s no audience acquisition. No one has solved this problem yet. And I think we’re in a pretty unique position to offer this across the board now. That’s driving a lot of the excitement internally. We’re moving very fast. We really do want this to be accessible to anyone.”
A key advantage for Chronicle Studios is the fact that its founders hail from both the tech and entertainment spaces, Greenberg noted. As such, “I couldn’t be more bullish on the opportunity for creators and brands right now. And we’re excited to be working with the social platforms. As they make it better and do what they do, we’re helping them make it more accessible and making everybody make more money and win and make great content. That’s why we’re doing this.”
