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Jess Phillips (00:01.386)
guys welcome back to the social standard podcast my guest today is social media savant Brie Reynolds so Brie is currently the social media manager for Lyft which is doing some really incredible things on threads and Twitter and Instagram and TikTok and all of the socials so we’re excited to talk to her about that and before she was before she landed at Lyft she was also a social media manager at Adobe where she grew their Adobe brand channel from nothing to 200,000 followers in just I believe under two years

And of course she is a LinkedIn influencer herself, which is how we met. So Brie, what’s up and welcome to the show.

Bri Reynolds (00:38.326)
Hi, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the intro. I’m feeling hyped.

Jess Phillips (00:42.434)
Yeah.

Yeah, good. You should feel hyped. You got a good resume, girl. So, and we’re going to dig into it because there are some cool stuff happening with Lyft and you are a big part of that. So I’m excited to talk to you about it. I think our audience is going to love it. Here’s what we’re going to discuss on today’s podcast. We were talking about the power of the social media influencer or sorry, social media manager. We’re talking about you guys becoming the voice and the face of the brand and also how you’re becoming influencers in the B2B and B2B space in your own right. And then finally, we’re going to wrap it up with a little conversation about what it means to be

Bri Reynolds (00:51.106)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (01:13.284)
means to build community in the age of the recommendation algorithm. So are we ready to do this? I’m excited. I know. I think it’s going to be a great conversation. I think our audience is really going to enjoy having your perspective. So before we do that, let’s first start with the why. Why did you get into social media management? What is it about it that was so interesting to you?

Bri Reynolds (01:19.094)
Sounds good. I have so many thoughts on everything. I’m excited.

Bri Reynolds (01:37.066)
was um can I curse on this?

Jess Phillips (01:39.87)
Of course!

Bri Reynolds (01:41.654)
I was that bitch in college that did, I did six internships by the time I graduated. I feel like my classmates, my classmates probably hated me. It’s fine. Anyway, I did like six internships by the time I graduated because, well, my dad kind of started his career from only doing internships. My dad didn’t graduate college and really values like in-person learning. And he’s like director of cultural experience. Yeah.

Jess Phillips (01:50.016)
Okay, I see it.

Jess Phillips (02:06.818)
actual experience. Yeah, I’m with him.

Bri Reynolds (02:10.946)
Um, and so I did a bunch and I did internships in like all sorts of like social media adjacent roles. I did paid, I did content like blog writing, long form. I did social, I did influencer. Um, and I, I feel like I was gravitating towards social cause it’s, I feel like it’s one of the only opportunities to be truly creative and truly yourself and get paid for it in corporate. Um.

especially these days with threads and stuff like that, you’re really being paid to be your authentic self at work. And I feel like that’s such a rarity in a job. So that’s why I really gravitated towards it. And so I was fortunate enough for my last internship to be at Adobe in kind of like a PR adjacent role. And then I had a bunch of those intern coffee chats with the team.

Jess Phillips (02:43.79)
Mmm, interesting.

Bri Reynolds (03:04.174)
and absolutely fell in love with their jobs and who they were and what they did. And they were talking about all this cool stuff they were doing like, oh yeah, we’re flying out to Vegas to do like, shoot a video with Billie Eilish and then like, we’re going on Queerlie to like make some Instagram content. I’m like, okay, I’m writing like an email. That sounds fun. And anyway, I was able to kind of build those relationships with them while I was an intern and then…

Jess Phillips (03:16.138)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (03:32.534)
They thought of me when they had an opening and I was able to lock like an entry level position down before I graduated on their social media team, helping to manage their brand accounts, which is like the ad Adobe account for them.

Jess Phillips (03:39.574)
Nice.

Jess Phillips (03:44.694)
Very cool. Yes, yes, and I’m very familiar with it because Adobe is one of our largest clients and so we actually focus on the Adobe video. So I was really excited that you guys, that you guys had, that you specifically had done the TikTok brand Adobe account because we did the Adobe video TikTok account and we grew it to like half a million followers, 100 million views in nine months. And it was a wild ride. Yeah, so I.

Bri Reynolds (03:53.099)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (04:06.35)
Yes, I believe it. I remember pitching for that when, when the Adobe video team was pitching that. I forgot that you guys were on that.

Jess Phillips (04:14.698)
Really? Yes, yeah, that was us. Yeah, so we’re kind of the, we were the yin to your yang over there and just didn’t know it. Yeah. That’s so cool. Yeah, well, and I think that that’s, that’s a really interesting approach to, you know, to this. The fact that you had so much experience before you got here is something that, professional experience, I should say, is really interesting. Because I think if you look at, if you take a step back,

Bri Reynolds (04:18.531)
to me.

Bri Reynolds (04:22.419)
Oh yeah, you were. That’s amazing. I love that.

Bri Reynolds (04:34.434)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (04:41.866)
I mean, we were talking about this a little bit earlier, but Gen Z, I mean, they’ve grown up on the internet. We all know this. You guys are so, like, the internet is your love language. Like, you know how it operates. It’s not something that you have to, like, study and research and figure out. A new platform pops up and you just, you get it. It’s, I mean, this stuff is made for you, right? So, I think that makes you really powerful. Go ahead.

Bri Reynolds (04:46.804)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (04:51.286)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (05:01.033)
Right.

Yes. And I feel like I agree. I feel like enough, not enough young people are actually acknowledging that is experience in of itself. Like I, I get a lot of students being like, I have no experience. I want to get into this field. I’m like, firstly, there’s some things we can do to build your resume and you should work on that. But also I think like there is an innate marketable skill for our generation to be like,

Jess Phillips (05:15.668)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (05:32.662)
We’ve been the audience that y’all have been screaming at for the last 20 years. And now we’re ready to scream back at those same people. And who knows how to do that best? The people who were on the other side being marketed too. We’ve paid attention to how the internet’s changed and worked. We were there when like Instagram stories started becoming a thing. We were the ones like interacting with brands when like reels popped up, like we’ve been there. So let us.

Jess Phillips (05:45.474)
Exactly.

Bri Reynolds (05:59.598)
take a stab at it. And I think it’s one of the few roles in corporate social. Social is one of the few roles in corporate that I think that youth and lack of experience should be valued because that, like you said, that kind of innate ability to get the internet is something that shouldn’t be ignored and it’s really important for this role.

Jess Phillips (06:12.876)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (06:21.182)
Yeah, oh, I agree. And I think every generation goes through that… Every generation has their own sort of knack.

or like their take on, oh, we were the generation, we’ve been marketed to for X amount of time, so now if you still wanna market, we know how it goes. But there’s something that’s more valuable, I think even so for Gen Z, because it’s not that you just set back idly and have been marketed to. You guys are out there creating your own content, building your own personal brands, your own followings, participating. It’s like, you know, it’s interactive, what you guys are doing. It’s not like I’m sitting on the TV and I’m being, I’m streaming content. That’s not, that’s not it.

Bri Reynolds (06:29.856)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (06:46.688)
Right.

Bri Reynolds (06:57.75)
Totally.

Jess Phillips (06:57.924)
KATHRYN

Right? So there are so many skills. And I think, you know, for me personally, running an agency that focuses on influencer marketing, some of the most valuable conversations we have are when our most junior folks lean into the conversation. Because we have our senior folks who have been around in this space for, you know, over a decade. And so they bring this wonderful sort of past experience of like knowing a little bit, like how things are gonna go down because of how they used to go down. And then when you couple that with this like new flow of information and insight.

that is how you drive ultimate success for a client or for your brand, in my opinion.

Bri Reynolds (07:33.966)
That’s amazing. I’m so happy you guys are valuing those voices too. That’s awesome. That’s so cool.

Jess Phillips (07:38.674)
Yeah, totally. And yeah, and in fact, we’re like, I think half of the people I talk to on the podcast are found by my junior team. Just because they’re, yeah, because they’re so, you know, they’re ingrained in how things are happening. Like, I didn’t know.

Bri Reynolds (07:49.11)
Wow!

Bri Reynolds (07:53.118)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jess Phillips (07:56.286)
Later today, I’m interviewing Santina Rizzi, who runs the real Dr. Miami on TikTok, his account. And he’s like this huge, he’s this huge guy. I mean, who’s like millions and millions of followers. And yes, and I never would have known about that corner of the internet if it wasn’t for my teams.

Bri Reynolds (08:04.8)
Oh.

Bri Reynolds (08:07.926)
Yeah! It rings a bell. That’s so cool.

Bri Reynolds (08:17.97)
Yes, there’s such an untapped, I feel like I want, that’s amazing that you’re doing that because I feel like there’s an untapped corner of social media manager circles of the people managing individual people’s accounts. Like I’m close on LinkedIn, I’m like LinkedIn friends with the social media manager for Tony Robbins, like the motivation of people. But like I wanna meet the team behind Chris Jenner really bad.

Jess Phillips (08:32.63)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (08:39.875)
Oh, that would be an awesome one. Yes.

Bri Reynolds (08:47.318)
And also I’ve heard that the team behind Barbara Corcoran, the shark on shark tank is like, she literally has like 12 social media managers because she values it so much. Yeah, she’s amazing. She’s amazing. And it’s so great to see those type of people value this industry. I feel like a lot of the time, especially in larger tech companies like I have experienced in.

Jess Phillips (08:47.391)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (08:51.806)
Yes. Yeah. Barbara Cochran. Yeah.

Jess Phillips (08:56.69)
Oh, she’s crazy. She has over a million followers on LinkedIn. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I was just talking to her agent the other day. I mean…

Jess Phillips (09:08.523)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (09:13.289)
Mm-hmm.

Bri Reynolds (09:13.386)
I’m fortunate that I’ve had leaders to kind of sell in the value of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, but I’ll be honest that like the higher you get at a company and the more seasoned professionals that you’re collaborating with, I feel like there’s kind of this like patronizing air when the social team is referenced or walks in the room or.

Jess Phillips (09:17.687)
Sure.

Jess Phillips (09:26.122)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (09:33.666)
Sure.

Bri Reynolds (09:37.718)
walks in the zoom or whatever, where it’s kind of like, oh yeah, the social team can just do their cute little post and like, that’ll be good. And I think what we’re, I imagine we’re gonna talk about was like, no, it’s not just a cute little post. We’re the arbiters of your entire brand. We’re like the touch, the first touch point that people have with this entire company. And I’m happy to see that like older, more tenured professionals like the sharks of the world or the Chris Jenner’s who really know their shit, like they are putting bank behind.

Jess Phillips (09:51.594)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (10:03.798)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (10:07.438)
social presence because they understand that even when large corporations can.

Jess Phillips (10:11.422)
Yeah, and I mean, I think for better or for worse, the larger the company is, the slower they move, the harder it is to do anything interesting and social. And that’s sort of been, that’s been my case to them for so long, is like, please, we have seen this time and time again, you have to get on this. You know, it just, it takes a while. They move slowly, but they have, I would say, they have a lot to protect, right? Hundreds of thousands of employees, like lifetime value of brands, all these sort of things. So I understand why they move a little bit slower.

Bri Reynolds (10:19.554)
Yes.

Totally.

Bri Reynolds (10:27.927)
Totally.

Bri Reynolds (10:34.158)
Of course.

Jess Phillips (10:40.63)
But it doesn’t necessarily mean that they should ignore channels that move quickly.

Bri Reynolds (10:46.314)
And my experience is that the root cause of that slowness or fear to step into certain things comes from a sort of self-consciousness or insecurity that they don’t get it. And I feel like rather than raise their hand and just say, hey guys, I literally do not understand what you’re talking about with the CapCut template. I don’t know what that means or like.

Jess Phillips (11:01.964)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (11:12.922)
literally what is threads, like literally what is threads, help me understand. Instead of kind of raising their hand to say that, it’s just kind of like, no, I don’t want to do that because they don’t want to admit that they don’t understand. And that’s why I feel like there’s an opportunity for social teams to kind of, rather than waiting for them to ask those questions, just be proactive and saying like, hey, here’s what a cap cut trend is. I’m sure you already know this because you’re an expert at everything.

Jess Phillips (11:25.77)
Yeah, yeah.

Jess Phillips (11:40.694)
I’m sorry.

Bri Reynolds (11:40.842)
But in case you didn’t know, this is what this means, this is what we’re proposing. And that has really helped us at Lyft. That’s been a mindset shift for me when I got in this role of kind of mansplaining it a little bit. So then they can come alongside you, understand that value initially, and then they don’t have that insecurity of lack of understanding for what you’re trying to do.

Jess Phillips (11:50.218)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (12:02.466)
Totally. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s easy to write something off when you don’t understand it, right? I’ve actually been seeing, and we don’t need to go too far down the strap hole, but I’ve been seeing a lot of that around the buzz with threads. A lot of people saying, oh, don’t worry about it, just chill, you don’t need to be involved on it. And…

You know, it doesn’t matter. And my take on that is like, well, it might matter. And it really depends who your audience is. If your audience is Gen Z, if your brand is built around being culturally relevant and in the mix, you have to be on this. And you have to be on it immediately. It’s not in three weeks. It’s one, two days into the mix, right? That’s it.

And that probably if you joined the second day instead of the first, it’s just because you had some legal stuff that you had to get through. Now, if you are Microsoft, I don’t know, Microsoft printers, I’ll say. Maybe because Microsoft is pretty good on social. But if you’re selling printers, maybe you don’t need to be on there right away. You could have some fun and take some risks. But it doesn’t have to be an immediate strategy. Maybe you focus in on what really works for you and then you figure it out. But I think a lot of people are very quick to dismiss threads as.

not relevant because it maybe isn’t relevant to their core audience. So.

Bri Reynolds (13:15.55)
Yeah, totally. No, I totally agree. I think there’s like a balance. Like you don’t want to think too hard about why you’re doing it or like a strategy. Just, I think you said it well, like if you value cultural relevance at all, which I feel like there’s only a few brands who don’t, then you should be trying it out. I understand not wanting to jump to every platform because that actually like really burns out your social team. And I’m fortunate that our leadership hasn’t been

Jess Phillips (13:41.419)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (13:45.558)
What about Mastodon? What about Spill? What about Pinterest? I’m very fortunate that they haven’t done that and that they’ve let us lead on what platforms we wanna try. But I feel like with these platforms, like threads that already had so much validity coming from Instagram, you already have your handle parked there, just go after it, why not? Repurpose the tweets, you’re already writing tweets. What’s there to lose? Anyway, yeah, totally agree, totally agree.

Jess Phillips (13:48.034)
Great.

Jess Phillips (14:01.99)
Exactly.

Jess Phillips (14:06.119)
Exactly. Yes.

Jess Phillips (14:14.59)
Yeah, I definitely think that’s the case. And so thinking about, so you have sort of been spearheading the Threads app launch for Lyft, correct? So.

Bri Reynolds (14:25.674)
Yeah, yeah. I literally was like in a regal cinema watching Indiana Jones, Dial of Destiny. And I get a slack from my VP like they launched threads one day early because we had prepped for the next day. We had like everything ready for the next day. And then my VP was like, check, check if you can download it. Just let’s just do it. Let’s just go. So then I like

Jess Phillips (14:33.052)
Nice.

Jess Phillips (14:42.134)
Sure.

Bri Reynolds (14:53.798)
I couldn’t tell you what happened in that Indiana Jones movie, missed the ending, but I was spreading my ass off. And just, I think like at first, like for the first couple of hours, I’m like, okay, all right, let’s try this out. But then I saw like all of my colleagues at other brands, just like full sending their personality, doing things that I know from like knowing them offline that they’ve wanted to do and just doing it.

Jess Phillips (14:56.35)
Oh, I’m sure.

Jess Phillips (15:00.874)
I bet you were.

Jess Phillips (15:18.975)
Uh-huh.

Bri Reynolds (15:21.75)
And I’m like, let’s just see how far I can push this before I get that slack. And that was like our quote unquote strategy for like the first two days of just like, let’s see if we can push the envelope, let’s see how people are reacting and use it as a litmus test for the type of voice that we wanna develop here. And the first couple of days were really successful and seemed out to work, it seemed to work really well for us.

Jess Phillips (15:30.271)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (15:48.674)
Awesome, well congratulations. I’m sure it was equal parts stressful and exciting, but it’s fun when you get to try new things. And like, I think I saw a lot of people talk about it. It was like first day of school energy, you know, you’re showing up and it’s like, oh, who’s here? What’s going on? What’s everyone wearing? What’s everyone doing? Ha ha.

Bri Reynolds (15:51.008)
Thank you.

Bri Reynolds (15:56.543)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (16:01.736)
Oh, totally.

Bri Reynolds (16:06.334)
Totally. And I can’t believe now twice in my short career, I have launched a new platform. Like we launched Adobe on TikTok when it was new. And I remember like us talking like there’s when are we going to launch a new platform again? This like never happens. And then, oh, I guess we also at Adobe launched Clubhouse, which ended up dying. But so I guess this is like my third time around.

Jess Phillips (16:13.494)
Right.

Bri Reynolds (16:32.786)
of like completely launching a platform from scratch. And it’s always really fun. Threads in particular feels different because the energy is really positive, which we’re all really happy about. Yeah.

Jess Phillips (16:41.182)
Yes. Yeah, and that’s a huge thing. And I think I want to touch a little bit about one of the things you said about people being themselves. Because I think.

If you look kind of historically at marketing, it’s more about the brand identity. What’s the brand voice? Who’s the brand character? Do we have like a mascot effectively that we’re doing? Have we have created a caricature? Who are we? And you’re saying, okay, actually, no, you’re allowed to be yourself. But what I see in that is that…

talking a little bit more about these social media managers you included in that as being the main characters of social media, right? And that’s because I would assume Lyft when they were interviewing you said, okay, Brie’s voice, her tone of voice, the way she shows up online is exactly the type of personality that we at Lyft have created and you sort of endear that. And because of it, we can interest you to show up as yourself because you are a surrogate for Lyft.

Bri Reynolds (17:40.746)
surrogate, a doula, a midwife. Yeah, I think it’s a lot of that. I also want to add that we don’t always have get the opportunity to be 100% me. Like there’s some things where I see and I’m like, oh my gosh, if this was on my personal, the amount of shade I would throw right now. But like

Jess Phillips (17:42.546)
I do laugh.

Jess Phillips (17:53.282)
Sure.

Bri Reynolds (18:08.758)
reminding myself we’re from the brand. I think it’s like, you know how they talk about how like soft skills can’t be taught, but hard skills can. It’s kind of like that same thinking, like the voice and the tone and energy and the style can’t really be taught. You have to find someone who like fits that, the same energy and vibe of your brand. And then the brand guidelines can be taught. What we do and don’t talk about can be taught. How we describe.

Jess Phillips (18:22.582)
Sure.

Jess Phillips (18:29.418)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (18:36.682)
like our competitors or other things can be taught, but like the innate, like, I don’t know, those brand values, you should, I think I totally agree with what you’re saying. You should try to find a social media manager that authentically fits those, just who they are. Also, it’s really important to find social media managers in your target audience. Like back in the day when I was interviewing for post-grad jobs before I had…

landed Adobe, like I interviewed with quite a few brands who were like, our target audience is like moms in their 30s. I’m like, that’s awesome. I’m not the right social media manager for you because I’m not a part of that community. And so when I see certain brands, like asking for 12 plus years of social experience or 20 years of marketing experience for their social media manager, but are also marketing to Gen Z, I’m like, you kind of have to

pick one. You can’t have an authentic Gen Z voice and then hire someone with 20 years of experience. It just doesn’t work. So that’s why it’s important to like find a social media manager that can speak in the voice of the audience that you’re trying to capture.

Jess Phillips (19:49.706)
Yeah, 100%. I think that’s right. And I think that’s also why we’re seeing a lot of social media managers, especially with sort of short form video taking off and TikTok taking off. We’re seeing a lot of social media managers be cast as not just a social media manager, but as a face of the brand, right? Or maybe multiple faces. And I know that there’s a little bit of like…

Bri Reynolds (20:03.477)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (20:07.018)
Yeah, totally.

Jess Phillips (20:14.134)
Not saltiness, but like there’s a little bit of like, ah, like don’t push someone into this role. But if you’re hired knowing that this is what the company wants and expects out of you, then I think it’s great all day long.

Bri Reynolds (20:26.386)
Yeah, that is definitely a tricky situation. I wonder, I have also thought about this issue too. I don’t show up on the brands not because I don’t want to, but because we hire amazing agencies to make content way better than I could make it. So luckily they show up on the channel. But yeah, that is such an interesting conversation right now. I remember, I feel like this was peak pandemic.

Jess Phillips (20:36.726)
Sure.

Jess Phillips (20:45.474)
Sure.

Bri Reynolds (20:54.546)
I forget the specific brand, but they were hiring, it was kind of like a stunty move. They were hiring a chief TikTok officer. I don’t know if you remember that. And then they’re like, yes, and they’re like, qualifications. You have to be an influencer with over 500,000 followers or whatever, whatever. But then you’ll kind of see on LinkedIn, a lot of the corporate social media managers are like, I’m a social media manager and I have 400 followers on my Instagram. It’s like…

Jess Phillips (21:01.194)
Yes. Several, several brands have done that. Yes.

Jess Phillips (21:21.964)
Mm-hmm.

Bri Reynolds (21:23.77)
I’m curious how that will continue to go, because I think there is value in the social media managers who choose to be content creators to show off that they have those audience building skills. But I’m also kind of like speaking through a logo is so different than like speaking as Bri or as like an individual person. And I feel like that should be valued in its own way too. So it’s interesting. I feel like it depends on the brand too.

Jess Phillips (21:39.254)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (21:45.318)
Oh absolutely, yeah.

Bri Reynolds (21:49.163)
like where you lean into one or the other. But that’ll be interesting to see how that develops.

Jess Phillips (21:49.354)
It does. Well, I agree. And I think we’ve sort of seen it pan out with influencers generally, though, because you started, you have influencers on maybe Snapchat and Instagram and YouTube, right? So you’ve got right there, in the old days, it was like photos, long form. And then Snapchat was more messaging. And then,

Bri Reynolds (22:07.179)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (22:11.314)
Now you have short form, you have live. So it’s like you have all these additional, you know, you have just text base. So you have all of these different styles of communication. And it, to me, makes sense that you would not hire an influencer who is an influencer on Twitter to do a go live with me on Instagram for your account, because that’s a different skillset. So to me, the sort of next wave is, all right, I have several social media managers, and each one of them has a different. So this is strategy, you’re written, you’re short form.

Bri Reynolds (22:16.332)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (22:21.739)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (22:30.806)
That’s true.

Jess Phillips (22:41.288)
your long form and then everyone kind of creates content in that way and that’s something that we do actually the social centers is be and we’ve called it a few different a few different names but I think right now we’re calling a creator recruiter but effectively it’s a casting thing and it will go through and we will cast different types of creators whether or not they have followers or not for roles at brands because they need to fit and brands need to fill certain slots right

Bri Reynolds (22:54.869)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (23:01.048)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (23:06.07)
Right, right. I totally agree. I feel like that is the evolution of a social team for sure. I mean, it’s kind of like, similarly internally, you wouldn’t bring your email or push marketing team to help you with a commercial ad campaign. Like you would never do that. They have the specialties and specifications for their specific industry. So why are we asking?

Jess Phillips (23:24.715)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (23:30.406)
Exactly.

Bri Reynolds (23:33.894)
a social media manager to do a video and a tweet and a thread and a live and a Snapchat story and an Instagram story because it’s like it’s so it’s such different creative styles. Yeah. So I’m really happy. I’ve seen teams evolve that way as like as people are posting their open positions or talking about how their teams growing.

Jess Phillips (23:45.306)
Yeah, it’s a failed approach, right?

Jess Phillips (23:53.119)
Nice.

Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (23:57.598)
A team that comes to mind that does that, I wonder if they’d be interesting to have on the podcast is I saw that Square was doing that earlier this year. They had like, they were posting a bunch of open roles, like one specifically for YouTube, for Instagram, for Twitter. So I think that is definitely the best in class. More teams will get there eventually.

Jess Phillips (24:01.74)
Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Jess Phillips (24:17.514)
Yeah, oh, for sure. And they will, and I think they have to anyway, because if you look at how search is just converging with social, those two teams are gonna have to come together internally at businesses as well. And I think that will just broaden the horizons of everyone, right? That’s interesting. Now for a Lyft, when you…

Bri Reynolds (24:24.386)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (24:28.322)
Totally.

Bri Reynolds (24:32.394)
Yeah, totally for sure.

Jess Phillips (24:37.366)
When you were interviewing with Lyft, how did that process go? Did they talk about you being the voice on social? Did they talk about you being in front of the camera, behind the camera? How was that process at that time?

Bri Reynolds (24:48.406)
Yeah, we didn’t discuss a bunch about on camera, but we definitely went into voice and it was helpful to have a portfolio of content that I had written for Adobe. Also at Adobe, and I did this also at Lyft, but I launched our community management program, which was the formalization of commenting from the brand handle, making sure we’re measuring it.

Jess Phillips (25:00.843)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (25:15.582)
doing it at high volume, that sort of stuff. I had launched that at Adobe. So it was great to show off the comments there to be like, I can do this on the fly and I can do this without preparation. And like, here’s like 400 comments in the last three months to prove it. That was super helpful. So yeah, definitely talked a lot about voice and they gave me a rundown on like the broad description of our voice.

in an interview so that was helpful. But yeah, we definitely did talk about that. And it’s always helpful for social media managers to keep those portfolios of stuff that they can put their like handprint on say, I this is literally me talking from the brand account and use that to inform their next job for sure. Super helpful.

Jess Phillips (26:04.094)
Yeah, and it’s great for brands to think about, like, ask that of your social media manager. If they’re going to be doing a threads, a Twitter, a LinkedIn, a written portfolio, makes sense, right? Same for video content. If you’re gonna be doing a TikTok or a YouTube channel management program. So I can definitely see that. I mean, do you think, you know, and I know that you just, we talked about how you, Lyft’s approach is that they hire an agency to do a lot of content for their TikTok account. Do you?

Bri Reynolds (26:15.263)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (26:21.259)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (26:34.006)
think that Lyft will continue to do that? Or do you think that they have plans to sort of cast people themselves internally and build that out?

Bri Reynolds (26:42.366)
Yeah, I think the future is a combination of both. We’re really excited with the partners that we have right now, but I also think that, and we’ve learned this from threads, but we’ve also known it before threads, that breaking the fourth wall is so interesting to our audience. It’s interesting to, oh, sorry, what’d you say? What do you mean by that?

Jess Phillips (26:58.882)
What do you mean by that?

Jess Phillips (27:04.246)
the fourth, like what do you mean by breaking the fourth wall?

Bri Reynolds (27:09.086)
Yeah, breaking the fourth wall in the sense of showing like what’s behind the curtain, showing like how the sausage is made, being able, I think on threads we’re seeing a lot of social media managers, myself included, being like, my boss is gonna love me for saying this or like me, a social media manager, just asking you to like this thread or something like that. Or like, I posted a funny reply the other day where someone

Jess Phillips (27:16.034)
Got it.

Jess Phillips (27:25.441)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (27:38.082)
someone was like, silence brand. And then I replied back, I literally can’t, it’s my literal job. So stuff like that where you’re kind of like exposing what you do has been really successful for us, not just on threads, but on other platforms. And so with that, I think that’s where we wanna cast some more internal talent. And that’s what we’re thinking about right now. But I do wanna give like control over the creative experts.

Jess Phillips (27:47.479)
Sure.

Jess Phillips (27:59.234)
Hmm, yeah.

Bri Reynolds (28:06.982)
And that’s often externally who know how to do this really well. But then also figuring out where do, do we want to have our head of product show up on tick tock? We’ve, we’ve seen this with brands like Chili’s who put executives on the platform, although that specific stunt was like a fake executive, it was cute. But anyway, do we want our CEO to be on tick tock? Do we want him to be able to address some of the concerns and questions people have? And I think that’s where brands can really bring.

Jess Phillips (28:18.911)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (28:28.63)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (28:34.634)
a new value to their audiences, like showing that.

Jess Phillips (28:35.806)
Well, and Zuckerberg and Moseri are showing up in social in a way that they haven’t before either and so I think it paves a really nice path for you to be like, oh CEO, don’t you want to be like Mark Zuckerberg? Here’s what he’s doing. It’s a little bit easier of a sell job, I think.

Bri Reynolds (28:39.434)
Yes, yes, the series is great.

Bri Reynolds (28:50.322)
Yeah, right? Or first! Oh, totally. And the TikTok CEO was literally on TikTok during the freaking trial. The government trial. If he can be TikTok-ing during like…

Jess Phillips (28:57.729)
Yes.

Yes, yeah. Well, he’s just trying to stay. He’s just trying to stay in the US. So that’s the survival tactic in my opinion. But yes. Yeah, there definitely is. And I think we’re even seeing that. I don’t want to transition too much here, but even in platforms like LinkedIn understand that, right? Because they are now allowing, they would allow like Lyft to boost your personal LinkedIn.

Bri Reynolds (29:08.449)
True, true, true. But yeah, there’s lots of opportunities.

Jess Phillips (29:25.854)
as like an ad or just to kind of collab it because they understand that employees have voices and that there’s a lot of value there.

Bri Reynolds (29:29.08)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (29:33.706)
Yeah, for sure. The whitelisting on LinkedIn is really cool. I just discovered that recently and we’d been doing that on TikTok for like brand efforts but it’s interesting to come at that from like an employer branding perspective of like, can we highlight the voices that are known to be attached with our company, executive or otherwise? But yeah, it’s really interesting.

Jess Phillips (29:40.256)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (29:49.45)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (29:59.142)
Exactly. Yeah, well, I think it’s important because not everyone is going to like if you’re not targeting Gen Z or maybe like younger Millennials your brand voice is not as strong in a lot of ways Right. So you need some way to humanize your brand and you can humanize them through employees to experts through influencers

Bri Reynolds (30:13.482)
Right, right, right.

Bri Reynolds (30:18.424)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (30:23.474)
and just by putting other people, associating people with your brand. So I mean, I think the B2C brands and the Gen Z space are still killing it on all of these fronts. But a lot of other companies are really struggling. And people just don’t necessarily care what Perk Plus has to say, maybe. Maybe that’s a bad example. But.

Bri Reynolds (30:28.267)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (30:44.99)
Yeah, and what astounds me about that is like, and I’m trying to think of it from an outsider’s perspective, but what I imagine is happening is that the folks at the top who kind of make those audience and tone of voice decisions are kind of like, oh, we don’t want to talk to Gen Z, we’re a printer company, like you were using that example. But I’m like, guys, the oldest Gen Z is almost 27. That’s not like a 12-year-old kid.

Jess Phillips (31:03.234)
Sure.

Jess Phillips (31:09.182)
Yeah, that’s true. Exactly.

Bri Reynolds (31:11.498)
like a 27 year old is buying a printer or a fridge or an HVAC unit or whatever, like speaking to Gen Z has become almost like an imperative if you’re trying to capture any sort of like active consumer audience. I’m 25, I would consider myself to be like an older Gen Z, but and now the youngest Gen Z is already like 12 or 13, so it’s not like a literal child that you’re

Jess Phillips (31:26.314)
Yeah, that’s true.

Bri Reynolds (31:41.45)
are like, oh, we don’t want to touch Gen Z because we’re a printer company. But it’s like, well, if you’re interested in marketing to like a 27 year old who owns a home, you kind of have to speak to Gen Z. It’s really

Jess Phillips (31:51.198)
Yeah, totally. Totally. And I do think some even like banks and things like that, it’s like they want to have, you don’t want your bank to be posting memes on Twitter. What you want from your bank is like stability and like honestly dryness and just like reliability. And so that tone of voice is maybe not something you want to engage with, I guess, like on social. Whereas somebody who works at the bank who’s talking about like a really cool thing that they’re doing might actually be interesting, right?

Bri Reynolds (32:01.451)
Right.

Bri Reynolds (32:08.333)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (32:11.981)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (32:21.512)
That’s true. Yes. I feel like a brand who actually finds that balance perfectly is Lemonade Insurance. It’s like this very progressive insurance company that is kind of like breaking the mold. And they do a great job of like, we’re gonna speak to you in a way you understand, but not be like, slay queen, mama, hunty, princess. Like, yeah, they’re very just like casual.

Jess Phillips (32:29.208)
Oh, yes.

Jess Phillips (32:41.655)
Yes, exactly, bestie.

Bri Reynolds (32:47.158)
without like being too informal. But anyway, yeah, I totally agree. That’s where it comes really handy to know those internal voices so you can speak through them.

Jess Phillips (32:50.655)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (32:54.858)
Yes, definitely. It’s interesting. It’s interesting times. I mean, humanizing brands, no matter how you do it, is sort of the way to market to people in 2023 and beyond. Right? OK. So I would say my take away from this section of the podcast is that you don’t just have to put

Bri Reynolds (33:04.075)
Yep.

Agreed.

Jess Phillips (33:17.314)
creators and influencers in front of the camera, right? To have social media managers as the main character. You guys have done it really interesting, in an interesting way, still from the Lyft account, but mixing in like the breeze of the world, right? And your tone of voice and all that sort of stuff. And then also how interesting is it that you guys are using an agency to then create a bunch of content for your TikTok account in terms of video that works really well there. And you’re seeing great success doing that.

Bri Reynolds (33:30.53)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (33:47.268)
it seems like there are a lot of different ways to kind of skin the cat. But for Lyft, it’s like content entertainment on TikTok, brand personality on our tone of voice and like, and that sort of style stuff on threads and Twitter and elsewhere.

Bri Reynolds (33:50.594)
for sure.

Bri Reynolds (34:04.17)
Yeah, yep, I would say that captures it for sure. Just leaning into whatever works for your audience. There’s so many ways to go about it, but just always prioritizing what they react to best. Sometimes that means your internal folks and sometimes it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t mean your internal folks, making sure that you have a really tight relationship with those people that you can inform and dispel that knowledge of how you’re doing it so it feels like one unified voice.

Jess Phillips (34:09.932)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (34:30.922)
Yes, totally. One unified voice is an important one, because people don’t care that it’s 600 people putting all this stuff together. It looks like it can and should look like one brand in one company.

Bri Reynolds (34:37.898)
Yeah, yeah, I’d love to.

Bri Reynolds (34:42.325)
I agree.

Jess Phillips (34:43.29)
Alright, so I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about social media managers becoming influencers in their own right, both B2C and B2B, because I think both are really important. So one example that I will pull up, if you have seen, was a couple months back in December, I think of 2022, the Away, the luggage company, took a bunch of social media influencers on a trip.

like a weekend away, right with away. And that was really interesting. It was the first time I had ever seen them do anything like that. And it wasn’t just a way, they also lumped in like Shake Shack to provide amazing snacks there. They had say, I think for some like sunscreen, they had getaway to kind of keep, said put your phones up, we’re getting away, we’re doing this. So they involved other brands and took social media managers out. And it was some of the top performing content, honestly, on their TikTok account. I kind of couldn’t believe it.

Bri Reynolds (35:09.364)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (35:35.972)
195,000 views is what it got where it normally, their stuff only gets like a few thousand views. And then also 729 comments, which were insane because it was brands. It was like mostly brands coming in and saying, hey, we’ll do this next time. We’ll bring this, we’ll bring this, we’ll do this. And it felt like, it felt like people, right? It was like, it was really interesting. It was very cool.

Bri Reynolds (35:47.623)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (35:56.034)
know. It was so cool. It was amazing. And I agree, it was the first time I had seen that too. I was gonna reference that example earlier. I’m so glad you brought it up. But yeah, I remember seeing that and they had all the brand folks there and like, they zoomed in on each of the social media managers faces and said their brand and it was so cute. And I feel like there is definitely an opportunity to lean into that because I think

If anything that we’ve learned from TikTok is like, TikTok, the best performing videos are kind of either exposing the truth about something in a positive or negative way, or like sharing vulnerability and authenticity. And I feel like that’s another example of that breaking the fourth wall idea. Like you are kind of showing who’s behind the curtain in a way that feels fun and feels just like a bunch of friends hanging out, which

Jess Phillips (36:40.694)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (36:44.801)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (36:49.346)
the TikTok audience is very familiar with. So I feel like, oh, it was just like the perfect example and I hope there can be more like that. And I want a fucking invite and I don’t know who that is. I’m like, I know maybe it’s not. I’m like, maybe we’re not as cool or trendy as like away, but like I can still give some fucking Lyft credits. Like, let’s go. I don’t know how helpful that would have been in the mountains, but anyway.

Jess Phillips (36:58.914)
That’s right. So away, away. You need to get, get out. Well, you could, you could do a lot.

Jess Phillips (37:10.27)
Hahaha

Jess Phillips (37:15.106)
But you never know. I mean, everyone’s got to get from the airport to somewhere at some point, right? So that I think it could be very helpful. I just thought that was such an interesting… And for our audience who doesn’t understand, it was literally like, I mean, Microsoft 365 was commenting there. Lululemon was commenting there. It wasn’t just brands that were on the come up and were just trying to get some exposure in the comments. I mean, United Airlines commented. It was… I mean, we’re talking big brands, small brands. And…

Bri Reynolds (37:18.906)
Exactly, exactly.

Thank you.

Jess Phillips (37:45.438)
It was just so interesting, because to me it felt like it was all these social media managers commenting and they’re all watching. And so it’s like a way is showing that they understand how social media works in a lot of ways. They’re pulling up who they think are potential people who their audience may aspire to be like in terms of a professional capacity. And then they’re also just literally setting the stage for brand collabs.

Bri Reynolds (38:09.527)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (38:13.918)
like brand to brand collapse, which is wild.

Bri Reynolds (38:14.538)
Yes. And that is what Threads feels like right now to me. Like not in a physical IRL activation way, but like I’ve been having so much fun commenting from Lyft on like brands that we normally like wouldn’t have a reason to engage with. Like my favorite, my favorite like go-to drink right now is from this regional like

Jess Phillips (38:19.178)
Yes, exactly right.

Jess Phillips (38:32.394)
Yes. Right.

Bri Reynolds (38:41.61)
smoothie place called Tropical Smoothie Cafe. It’s like only in the south and the east coast. And I saw them starting to thread and I’m like commenting on all their shit. I’m like, me, the social media manager loves the island punch smoothie, go off queen. And then I’m like commenting on like random stuff like Slim Jim or Hilton or whatever. It’s like so fun. And I do have the privilege of knowing like so many of these.

Jess Phillips (38:46.026)
Yeah, I know it.

Jess Phillips (39:02.334)
Yes, or Ritz cracker, right?

Bri Reynolds (39:11.334)
social media managers individually or like after I started commenting on all the tropical smoothie cafe stuff the social media manager like from that brand I connected with her and like dm’d her on linkedin I’m like hi do you want to like be friends for real it’s like me it’s me but yeah

Jess Phillips (39:23.819)
Hahaha

Jess Phillips (39:27.614)
Yeah, but I mean, that’s like, you guys are fostering business relationships, right? You can think about how like, if your audience goes wild for you guys talking to each other, that sets the stage perfectly for a brand clap, right?

Bri Reynolds (39:34.306)
For sure.

Bri Reynolds (39:43.47)
Oh, for sure. I can’t share who we’re doing that with, but there is a very, very popular brand on threads that we started commenting and then our like team started DMing offline and we’re pursuing a formal like collab with them this year and it’s going to be iconic because literally because of threads, because of just like, you get on the right people’s radar and that’s where you have to remember it’s literally individual people seeing other individual people’s content and that’s where the connections can really happen.

Jess Phillips (39:47.158)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (39:59.458)
There you go. Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (40:13.078)
But it’s so fun. It’s so fun.

Jess Phillips (40:13.246)
Yeah, oh, absolutely. But it’s a breeding ground for all sorts of things, right? There’s that. I mean, there’s the fact that I’m sure that if you guys are doing a really good job of doing interesting things and interacting with people, that’s a pipeline for potential employees to discover people who are doing interesting and cool things. You could get hired there. I mean, there’s so much that could actually happen. And that’s, you know.

Bri Reynolds (40:28.736)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (40:35.894)
How did you put it earlier that you guys were, like that social media managers are, the phrase I always go to are the front door to the brand. But the arbiters of the brand, yeah.

Bri Reynolds (40:43.486)
Yeah, the arbiters of the brand, like we are. Yeah. And that’s why it’s important for product teams for C-suite level leaders. I had Adobe, we had a full like brand voice team. Um, it’s important for those people to be connecting with your social media managers, um, acknowledge the pain points they have and build a relationship with them because those people are the ones like.

Jess Phillips (40:53.154)
Exactly.

Bri Reynolds (41:10.13)
executing on your vision that you’ve had. Sure, your voice shows up in the emails and the push notifications and the in-person events, but like the first informal touch point that people have is arguably social and that’s where all of your ideas are executed on and that’s why it’s important to not ice that team out or patronize them for posting silly little memes. Like what we’re doing is genuinely important and it’s important to…

Jess Phillips (41:21.898)
Yeah. Yes.

Bri Reynolds (41:36.354)
have collaborative relationships with the leadership internally. So then you’re doing it the right way and everyone feels involved.

Jess Phillips (41:38.078)
Yeah, absolutely.

Well, and you know, I don’t know if you would remember, but there would be like CEOs would go like undercover and they would be like, maybe be like a Lyft driver, right? I think you guys have done that. Or if you’re like Sam Walton, you could go to a Walmart store and pretend to be a customer or be a diner at a restaurant. And you get the experience of being a customer and you interact with people. And that knowledge then informs how you maybe create an ad campaign or change a product or any of that sort of stuff. And you have it all here and it’s all trackable and it all funnels up through the social team.

Bri Reynolds (41:49.56)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (42:12.72)
So, I mean, there’s…

Bri Reynolds (42:13.77)
Yeah, it surprises me the lack of desire, oftentimes from internal teams, like when a product is launching and this isn’t explicitly like referencing Lyft, but at my experience at Adobe or when I was interning, like, why aren’t we pulsing the social team? You know, people are talking about this, but I can’t proactively give you insights for a product I don’t know is coming. And so that’s why you as the product team or the leaders need to inform us.

Jess Phillips (42:24.747)
Sure.

Bri Reynolds (42:41.346)
So then if I, and we’re doing a much better job at that at Lyft recently, I have a really great relationship with our product team recently. And they can be like, hey, in about eight months from now, we might wanna try this. I’m like, great. So now as I am like going through threads and Twitter, I can start a bank of proof points for that new feature or product. That’s where we are really valuable for them. And oftentimes I don’t think leadership truly understands that value.

Jess Phillips (42:59.446)
Right. Yes.

Jess Phillips (43:07.83)
Sure, or maybe they just don’t know that it’s even possible, right?

Bri Reynolds (43:10.663)
Yes, yes, that is true. Yep.

Jess Phillips (43:12.574)
Yeah, I mean, I think half of the job for the social team, I think, at this day and age is self-advocacy. You have to go out there and kind of fight. You’ve got to have the leader of social in place that can go out and really effectively communicate to leadership and to the rest of the team and build relationships to say, okay, great, how you’ve done it with the product team, great, now they know, because they didn’t know before, they had no idea. But you’re able to bring that insight into the…

Bri Reynolds (43:19.179)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (43:29.506)
Totally.

Bri Reynolds (43:34.422)
That’s so true. Yeah.

Jess Phillips (43:38.802)
into the fold. And I think that that’s super powerful and super important. And I also think that you guys, not only on the B2C stuff, I mean, like, you’re B2B influencers too. I mean, look at you. You have 10,000 followers on LinkedIn, right? And that, you know, we talk about this a lot because we have a B2B influencer division as well at the social standard. And the difference between B2B and B2C is massive and also not at all. But the one thing I would say I would caution people is on LinkedIn, 10,000 followers in your world is big.

But because people don’t have a million followers on LinkedIn. They do, but not that big. And the engagement is what you’re looking at. And I think you look at some of the posts where you.

Bri Reynolds (44:08.821)
Right.

Jess Phillips (44:16.458)
you’ll pop off something and people come back and it’s 25 to 300 people are commenting. And that’s significant if you’re trying to reach social media managers. If I am Slack or Canva or any of these softwares that would be relevant to your market, to your cohort, I want to be talking to you guys and I want to be in there and I want to be

Bri Reynolds (44:34.337)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (44:37.546)
gifting you guys stuff and taking you on trips and doing all this because if you could, let’s say you didn’t have Slack, right? Let’s say you use something else. And if Slack courts you and you were in love with Slack and you were able to sell in Slack to Lyft, that is a huge account for Slack. Huge, you’re talking millions of dollars, right? So there’s a lot of power in that.

Bri Reynolds (44:53.804)
Yes.

Yes, that’s just I’ve never thought of it that way. Like I think you’re completely reframing it for me. This is like, I totally agree. I’ve never even like up until probably like six months ago. I was flying without a strategy and just vibing and I love talking about work. I love talking about work. So I’m like, okay, cool. People want to hear me talk about this. This is cool. And then once I started connecting with the larger creators who are like, no, this is like a

Jess Phillips (45:15.018)
Yeah, sure.

Bri Reynolds (45:24.842)
pipeline for brand partnerships, also like for collaborations between other brands and ours. And yeah, I think that the way you just described it is really helpful and a reason for more people my age to get on LinkedIn, because we are like a marketable funnel for these larger companies. And when I like, I often talk about Airtable a lot on my platform, which is like an example of like one of those softwares that I love.

Jess Phillips (45:38.759)
Oh, absolutely.

Jess Phillips (45:48.854)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (45:53.278)
I just do that organically because I fucking love Airtable. But like we’ve talked like offline of like, do we wanna do like a collaborative like workshop? Do we want to like make some video content together? Like that’s where there’s so many opportunities for LinkedIn creators to do more of that. So yeah, that’s such a healthy way to describe it. Yeah.

Jess Phillips (45:56.51)
Yep.

Jess Phillips (46:03.607)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (46:12.478)
Yeah, to be experts, right? Yeah, and I think I really think that it’s impactful and very, very meaningful. And so I think we’re going to start to see more of that. And I think that the possibilities really are endless. I mean, so many people I know on LinkedIn just keynote a lot.

Bri Reynolds (46:24.299)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (46:29.534)
You know, and that’s something too, because if you’re thinking about like social media week in New York, well, if I’m running that event, I probably wanna talk to some of the top social media managers and top social media minds and get them to come in and talk, and that’s how you sell tickets and events and all that sort of stuff. So, there’s a lot, I think there’s a lot to be said and a lot to be done in that space. And we’re just sort of on the cusp of it, which I get really excited about. I just think it’s so, I think it’s so cool.

Bri Reynolds (46:30.015)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bri Reynolds (46:53.878)
Totally. Well, I mean, the stat that I always share and I don’t know how, when this has, if this has been updated, but the stat that I always like is that under 3% of LinkedIn users post at all. So like, it’s kind of like, you know how when a new platform pops up, you’re always like, oh, I wish I could have told my old self to just start posting on TikTok and now I could have been Addison Rae or something.

Jess Phillips (46:59.51)
Sure.

Jess Phillips (47:07.623)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (47:15.87)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (47:22.27)
You always have that very delusional dream that you tell yourself. But anyway, LinkedIn is that place for people and they don’t realize it. Like literally under 3% of people are posting, go after it, go get it. Maybe it won’t, it’s maybe probably not as liquid as like a TikTok or an Instagram influencer audience, but there is value. What I’ve, what I tell people is like, especially people who don’t get LinkedIn are often like,

Jess Phillips (47:23.95)
Yes. Sure.

It is. Yes, it is. 100%.

Jess Phillips (47:34.535)
Exactly. Yeah.

Jess Phillips (47:43.371)
Sure.

Bri Reynolds (47:51.382)
Why are you posting on LinkedIn? Are you looking for a job? Are you like trying to slide into some DMS? And I’m like, no, I I’m, I’m posting on LinkedIn to further my presence within my company because I get now instead of waiting for that next project to come, that is like perfectly in my strong suit. Now I’m posting about it whenever I want. And I have the right people internally knowing what I can do rather than waiting for that project to prove it to them. I’m talking about it.

Jess Phillips (48:02.218)
Yes, exactly.

Jess Phillips (48:18.758)
Exactly.

Bri Reynolds (48:19.978)
and having that thought leadership regardless of what I’m doing at the company. And that’s where it’s been really valuable for me.

Jess Phillips (48:23.998)
Yeah. So, that’s interesting because I hadn’t thought about it necessarily as a way to do things internally at your current company. But I guess that does make a lot of sense, right?

Bri Reynolds (48:32.764)
especially for younger people.

Jess Phillips (48:34.366)
Yeah, well, and as you mentioned, I mean, Gen Z, the older side range of Gen Z is at 27. And I think that’s also why we’re starting to see some of the, we’re not going away from authenticity, but people are starting to like, aspiration is starting to creep back in because personal brands are a big deal, right? And you think about even, you can see it within the social media manager communities, whether it’s on LinkedIn, or I know you guys like to, I see a lot of stuff on TikTok or like even Discord, but there are all of these little communities where you guys are sharing and creating,

Bri Reynolds (48:48.942)
Yeah

Bri Reynolds (49:00.523)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (49:04.4)
sort of the leader and it’s like the career professional aspiration. I want to do the job that Brie has. Like I’m gonna follow her, I’m gonna pay attention to what she’s doing, you know, all these things. And so you build this personal brand which is the ethos I feel like of the, will be the ethos of like the mid to late 20, you know, 20s basically. And Gen Z loves a good personal brand. So, right?

Bri Reynolds (49:22.818)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (49:28.538)
Oh yeah, totally. And I feel like, I often feel like people my age are intimidated by that phrase because they feel like it involves some like PowerPoint that you have to make for yourself and it’s like, it’s really like not that hard. Like the way that my friend Ronnie at Adobe had described personal branding to me was like, your personal brand is the three things that people think about you when they hear your name and just go after it with that.

Jess Phillips (49:44.471)
Right.

Jess Phillips (49:56.119)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (49:58.486)
with that angle. Don’t worry about like your like five year, 10 year plan. Don’t worry about a posting strategy. Don’t worry about your stupid brand colors or anything like that. Like focus on what are the three things people want to remember your name for right now. And that’s what I lean through. And I hope that shows up in my content, but you just wanna be top of mind for the right people, both internally at your company and externally. It’s as simple as that.

Jess Phillips (49:59.362)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (50:09.534)
Right?

Jess Phillips (50:26.294)
Yeah, exactly.

Bri Reynolds (50:27.274)
and just go start fucking posting. There’s literally less than 3% of us. Go get it.

Jess Phillips (50:30.082)
I know. Exactly. And I see it all the time, even on some of my posts that don’t get very much engagement. I still see, you can still see the impression numbers. And so you can, you know, at least you have like, you have a good, you have a good idea. And another thing that’s pretty common with B2B influencers that from my conversations, and even my own personal experience, not that I’m an influencer yet, but like just knowing from posting, right? Is that you get.

Bri Reynolds (50:39.895)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (50:55.954)
a lot, they get a lot of leads and interesting things happening for people that never even engaged with their content. So people are watching, they’re lurking, LinkedIn’s full of lurkers that are just sort of not sure what to do, it’s like, hey, I’m here, but I don’t want to like it, I don’t know, so I’m just going to read it and move on. Right?

Bri Reynolds (51:02.782)
Yes, totally.

Bri Reynolds (51:13.67)
Yes, totally.

Jess Phillips (51:14.794)
But that’s fine, that’s fine, because if that ends up turning into a job opportunity, an internal project, a new business lead, those are all good things. Those are all good things that can come from LinkedIn when you’re posting, so I encourage everyone also to get out and go do it, because you really have nothing to lose. I mean, what’s the end of the day? What’s the worst? You delete everything, right? If you don’t like it, pssh.

Bri Reynolds (51:35.114)
Yeah, yeah. And if it helps you, if you feel self-conscious, block people that you need to block, that you feel self-conscious about. Just do what you gotta do and speak your shit. You have, you have some, everyone has something valuable to say and stories to share, like, don’t compare yourself to the super creators on the app, like, you have your own thing that you can find if you’re talking about. It’s not too late.

Jess Phillips (51:42.238)
Yeah, totally.

Jess Phillips (51:48.694)
Yeah, 100%.

Jess Phillips (51:58.778)
Exactly. Yes. 100%. And I even encourage like our employees too. I say, Hey, we have actually a Slack channel. Or I say, drop your LinkedIn post here. And we will all go out and like it, you know, because you want to feel, you want to feel good. Like it’s not, you don’t want to, nobody wants to post something and then just have it like crickets. Right. Um,

Bri Reynolds (52:07.859)
Oh cute! Aww!

Bri Reynolds (52:15.919)
Aww, I love that! That’s so cute.

Jess Phillips (52:17.938)
Yeah, so we said we’ll support internally and then that helps, you know, all the things. So I think that’s a good strategy, honestly, for most companies. If you need one, that’s my advice. So, okay, so here is, let’s see, I want to get back to B2C influencers a little bit. Like, do you think…

Bri Reynolds (52:23.341)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (52:39.306)
Do you think that social media, people who go for the social media manager role, do you think that they ultimately want to become creators themselves in their own rights or do you think that a lot of them like to be behind the scenes doing?

Bri Reynolds (52:52.714)
I think a lot of us like to be behind the scenes for sure. I, especially I think at the larger brands, I feel like smaller brands maybe have that intersection more or I feel like where those types of social media managers that are also creators, where they show up is like in freelancing. Like a lot of people who maybe have their own large presence but then as a supplement to their.

Jess Phillips (53:06.594)
sure.

Jess Phillips (53:14.722)
Uh-huh, absolutely. That makes sense.

Bri Reynolds (53:20.078)
creator income will freelance for a specific brand. I’ve heard of CEOs wanting to hire comedy Twitter writers. I’ve heard of like brands wanting to hire a TikToker to be an internal embed for like six months, just to capture content during a busy season or whatever. So I feel like that’s where those types of creators really show up in the corporate social media space. But I feel like, at least in the dialogue I’m having with

Jess Phillips (53:28.086)
Yep.

Jess Phillips (53:35.628)
Yes.

Totally.

Bri Reynolds (53:47.986)
my colleagues at other large brands, were all kind of like, I’m just trying to do cool shit over here and I don’t necessarily want people to like be hating on me personally. Like it’s also such a different mentality you have to be in because receiving a hate comment from Lyft is so different than someone being like, Bri, you are bad. Like you personally are bad and I don’t like you. Like that is a total different like mental game you have to play when you have your own audience.

Jess Phillips (53:59.254)
Sure.

Jess Phillips (54:10.207)
Right.

Yeah, that’s true.

Bri Reynolds (54:17.762)
that I feel like we shouldn’t put that pressure on social media managers to be willing to do both. So I guess those are my thoughts there, but maybe that will change as like more positive platforms like threads start coming up where it’s like less of a toxic space. But yeah.

Jess Phillips (54:21.363)
Yeah, that makes sense.

Jess Phillips (54:27.03)
Hmm

Jess Phillips (54:33.406)
Yeah, that’s true. Huh. That makes sense. Well, and I’ve noticed some brands have their social media manners signed like a tweet or a post or something along those. OK, so tell me why. Why do you hate that? Because I know some people say, hey, this is a way for me to feel like who humanized the brand, effectively.

Bri Reynolds (54:45.34)
Yes, I hate that.

Bri Reynolds (54:49.623)
Well, they do not.

Bri Reynolds (54:53.802)
Yeah, I feel like there’s such a, I don’t know, I feel like there’s a difference between like taking a peek behind the curtain and then like boner killer for like who you’re talking to. Like when, when people sign off on tweets, it’s usually in that customer management or like, um, what’s, what am I thinking? What’s the term I’m thinking? Yes. Customer service. And so I kind of get that. But I see brands.

Jess Phillips (55:05.419)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (55:11.102)
Mmm, got you. That makes sense. Customer service, yeah.

Bri Reynolds (55:23.166)
I love the team over at Canva. I really, I know them and I love them, but they do this on community management where it could be like, oh, we love your design, XOXO Bob or something like that. Like I think there is a great place to just keep it at the brand because that’s where that magic is. Like at Disney, there’s a reason you don’t know who’s behind the mouse suit because you want to be interacting with the mouse. You don’t want to be interacting with.

Jess Phillips (55:29.259)
Okay.

Jess Phillips (55:33.866)
Hmm, yeah.

Jess Phillips (55:47.466)
Right. Ha ha.

Bri Reynolds (55:47.798)
Catherine behind the Minnie Mouse costume. Like you want to be interacting with Minnie. So we don’t know who that person is. So I think like similarly, that’s how brands should lean into like with the brand account. Like people want to be interacting with Lyft. They don’t really care about me, Bri. They want to, they think it’s cool that they’re like hearing from Lyft. I think someone on threads this week said like, I love all the brands energy on this app. It feels like we’re in like one giant group text.

Jess Phillips (55:52.795)
Yeah, yeah, totally. You’re right. Yeah.

Jess Phillips (56:06.167)
Sure.

Bri Reynolds (56:17.206)
with my favorite brands and I felt like that was really cool. And that’s where I think we should kind of keep the magic.

Jess Phillips (56:24.19)
Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. I think that, again, I think it’s gonna always sort of depend on your brand and your strategy and how you show up, but I love the idea of keeping the magic. I think that that’s really, that is really interesting. That’s a good point. And then sort of, I’ll take this into community management a little bit here as well. So, you know, you just mentioned it a little bit, but how do you, is community something that you are actively trying to build on Lyft social platforms?

Bri Reynolds (56:34.386)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bri Reynolds (56:41.409)
Yeah.

Jess Phillips (56:54.445)
recommendation algorithms play into that.

Bri Reynolds (56:58.526)
Yeah, I mean, community is that word that’s thrown around a lot in like internal big strategy decks, like goal number one, build community. We actually don’t have build community as our main social goals. We’ve like removed that language because it’s not measurable and it also kind of, I mean, arguably it’s not measurable. You could argue that you can measure it in some way with follower count, but I don’t think followers are indicative of like a healthy community.

Jess Phillips (57:08.823)
Sure.

Jess Phillips (57:12.968)
Okay.

Jess Phillips (57:18.018)
Sure.

Jess Phillips (57:21.954)
sure.

Jess Phillips (57:28.05)
Yeah, I agree.

Bri Reynolds (57:28.234)
Um, but anyway, we’ve kind of taken that off because it’s also kind of like a no shit. It’s kind of like, if you put on your social goals, like we want to make cool content, that’s our goal. Like, Oh, like, yeah, we want to be doing that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, so I think like the way that I’m approaching it is prioritizing community building through that community management lens, um, which

Jess Phillips (57:33.819)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (57:41.798)
That’s so different than everyone else, right?

Bri Reynolds (57:56.63)
we define at Lyft as showing up in positive mentions of Lyft from the Lyft brand handle. So maybe that’s someone being like, meet Marissa, my amazing driver from the weekend. She had like a pride themed Lyft and it was amazing. Like we should be showing up as Lyft in the comments being like, we love Marissa and maybe we repost that content or what I’ve worked to build over the last quarter is.

having a pipeline so we can drop ride credits in people’s accounts. So like there was an example on TikTok where an influencer was like, the Uber was way too expensive. And so I had to walk home from a bottomless brunch, like practically blacked out. And so we commented from Lyft being like, you should never have to walk home from a bottomless brunch. Like if Uber was too expensive, here’s $400 in Lyft credits or whatever. That’s what we wanna do more of that.

Jess Phillips (58:26.656)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (58:49.29)
Wow. Yeah, that’s a huge one.

Bri Reynolds (58:52.13)
We’re actually doing something super fun with that today that I’ll send you, but oh my gosh, the internet is about to love what we’re doing today with that, we’re like surprising, we’re surprising an individual writer with a really, really big gift. But anyway, I’ll send it to you. But so I think that’s where the community happens. Like, I feel like we don’t have to overthink it. Build like relationships with your individual like audience members. Also a really, sorry, I’m like ranting on this, but I think it’s really fun.

Jess Phillips (58:59.33)
Oh wow, well I’m excited.

Jess Phillips (59:09.202)
Yeah, that’s exciting. Yeah, totally.

Jess Phillips (59:19.998)
No, it’s fine.

Bri Reynolds (59:22.738)
Another really fun thing I like to do is when it’s those same commenters kind of like hyping you up over and over again, follow them back, engage on their stuff. Like, that’s what you would do if you were an influencer or a friend. Like, if there’s someone who’s always kind of hyping your posts up, you would give the love back on stuff that isn’t even related to you. So that’s what I’ve started doing. And I think the reception.

Jess Phillips (59:29.174)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Jess Phillips (59:36.211)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Phillips (59:44.098)
Totally. I think that is the new surprise and delight. Like the, what you just, what you just sort of laid out there is the new version of surprise and delight, right? For customers. It’s like following back is huge. People love that. That feels so good. And then also going in and just gifting people stuff randomly is so awesome. And what I like about that is you, it almost, it’s like you have a decentralized view on community where your community is everywhere and you’re going to meet them where they’re at instead of trying to pull it all in and own it in one spot.

Bri Reynolds (59:54.079)
Yeah.

Bri Reynolds (01:00:07.819)
Yes.

Yeah.

I love that. I think that’s exactly right. That’s the right approach. Yeah. I love that.

Jess Phillips (01:00:16.734)
Yeah, I think that’s interesting. And I think it flows really well with the sort of entertainment mode that social media is going into, right? Because you don’t have to worry about everything being right here on Lyft. You can just go through all the corners of the internet and find people and sort of connect with them. So.

Bri Reynolds (01:00:30.166)
Totally. Oh my gosh, we have so much fun stuff planned. Like I’m working with our TikTok agency. We’re thinking of like, how do we show up in those super niche events that people have, you know? Like there’s an olive oil festival in like Arkansas. How can we like as Lyft, like kind of show up for that super niche community?

Jess Phillips (01:00:42.015)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (01:00:48.523)
Yes.

Jess Phillips (01:00:54.057)
Mm-hmm.

Bri Reynolds (01:00:55.07)
in that way or like we’re experimenting on threads like talking about Disney adults because we have these like Disney yeah the minivan we have these like themed lifts at Disney World and it’s like Disney adults is such like a buzzword right now and like a niche community within the internet so like how do we tap those and find our way in to talk to those people because whether you’re a part of that community or you’re outside watching it it’s so interesting to like see how a brand can

Jess Phillips (01:01:00.926)
Yes, I saw the minivan, right?

Jess Phillips (01:01:17.534)
Yes.

Bri Reynolds (01:01:23.714)
show up for those people. So definitely more of that to come for sure.

Jess Phillips (01:01:26.494)
Oh yeah. Oh definitely. I mean the internet is nothing besides a collection of niches at the moment, right? So knowing those and how to get in there is definitely important.

Bri Reynolds (01:01:32.17)
Yes, right.

Bri Reynolds (01:01:37.526)
Totally, it’s totally changed in that way. I think for the better, but I love it. I think you’re totally right, like a collection of niches. That’s so cool. Sorry, my cat is like hunting a fly and screaming in the corner. Yeah, exactly.

Jess Phillips (01:01:46.354)
Yeah, absolutely. Cool.

Jess Phillips (01:01:51.274)
Look, you gotta eat, right? So, too funny. Well, Bri, this was such an interesting conversation. I had so much fun. I really appreciate you coming on and I hope that we can do it again soon.

Bri Reynolds (01:02:02.934)
Yeah, and I want to meet in person. Let’s do that.

Jess Phillips (01:02:04.958)
Yes, please, we have to. We’re in Nashville, so we’ve got to do that for sure. Cool. All right. Yes. Yeah, absolutely, we’ll do it again soon.

Bri Reynolds (01:02:08.65)
Yeah, let’s do that. Well, thank you so much for having me. This was fun.

Sounds good.