Lia is a top expert in the creator economy and we get into an array of interesting topics include how to cast the talent as the face of your social channels, what we can learn from buzzfeeds early mistakes in managing internal personal brands, why podcast MCNs are coming back and if companies should sponsor personal branding instead of MBAs! This is a great episode for both B2B & B2C brands!

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Transcript

Jessica Phillips (00:07.246)
What’s up, guys? Welcome back to the Social Standard podcast. My guest today is Leah Haberman. She is a well-known voice in the creator economy. If you don’t follow her newsletter, you’ve got to do it. It’s called In Case You Missed It. And it’s Buffer actually listed it, I think, as one of the top newsletters to follow in 2023. So she’s here. She also is a really interesting person for this conversation, just because she is an instructor at UCLA Extension, where she teaches creator economy, influencer marketing to all of the up-and-coming Gen Zers that will probably

working for a lot of the brands and agencies that listen to this podcast. And of course, she is a consultant and advisor for a lot of brands in terms of marketing and strategy. So Leah, welcome. Wonderful to have you. Thank you. We’re going to be working for those Gen Z kids, by the way. We are. We are absolutely going to work. And probably the person who knows that best is Jake. So, Jake, do you want to introduce yourself as well? Oh, hi. I’m Jake. I’m VP of the social standard. I oversee all of our accounts activity campaigns from sort of end to end.

with specifically some of our higher level larger dollar accounts. Adobe, Zendesk, just to name a few. And I manage the accounts team. So I’m a…

Gosh, speaking of one day working for Gen Z, I’m a 12 year veteran of influencer marketing starting at full screen in 2012. And so I’ve been, I’ve run the gauntlet. Yeah. Cool, full screen, I remember that name. Sure, very much so. Yeah, no, exactly. Yes, it was a name. And MCNs were a thing and you probably have some perspective on the.

what value they represented then, and if they will have any value moving forward. I think that we are going to see, sorry to jump right into this, but I think we are gonna see a video podcast, MCN resurgence, like it’s kind of like the MCN 2.0 with video podcasts and podcasting. I mean, we already see, there’s a lot of podcasts. Dear Media Studios, right? Exactly, Dear Media, so we’re already seeing that,

Jessica Phillips (02:18.undefined)
the Alex Cooper news with her company that she’s going to be launching trending. Isn’t that so interesting? Fascinating. I don’t know if our audience will know about it. Do you want to give a little synopsis on what’s going on there? Yeah, so Alex Cooper who hosts the Call Me Daddy podcast. She was at Barstool Sports. There was a whole big falling out there. She left and took her IP effectively with her. Smart, very smart. And now another smart move where she’s essentially launching a media company

Jessica Phillips (02:48.68)
podcast series, kind of like a Dear Media, like a version of that. And I think, you know, I was reading an article, like she just announced this recently, and so there was an article about it, and they were saying, I think she’s like 27 or something. She’s a millennial, but it’s very much aimed at Gen Z, and I think it’s just- Her style has always, in my opinion, been more Gen Z, versus millennial based, right? In terms of like the way that she just talks to her audience, and she has a lot of that like,

Not cringe-worthy in a bad way, but like that kind of like oh, I don’t know. I don’t know can we say this? Yeah, that feels that authenticity. I think rolls really well with Gen Z. Yeah Absolutely, you know I heard something recently where we’re not supposed to like categorize people as like Gen Z or Millennials or whatever. I was thinking that on the way over here. I mean I heard a theory of I mean I forget Where or I read it, but just the sort of arbitrariness of assigning, you know generations I mean basically

a younger generation.

bears certain collective characteristics, that doesn’t necessarily mean that their predecessors or their antecedents don’t also have those characteristics just to a lesser extent. It’s basically, every generation kind of exists on a spectrum. But it’s more about the cultural pressures, cultural, political, societal pressures, how they come about with each generation. I think that to me is why you would. It’s not that they’re just totally different people. No, right. I mean, it’s effectively marketing

Yes, exactly. But anyways, back to Alex. I just think it’s fascinating and I think it’s really smart. And it’s another example of somebody who really started as a creator, now deciding, like, I’m not going to work for other people. I’m essentially going to build my own empire and go up against traditional, whether it’s media businesses, whether it’s food and bev, whatever it is. I’ve always seen creators and the people that I’ve worked with.

Jessica Phillips (04:51.512)
and a lot of the people that I’ve taught are incredibly entrepreneurial. And so they’re creators, but they’re also entrepreneurs and business people and founders. And so I just love any time I see a creator essentially owning their own method of creation, distribution, revenue stream, I just love it. So it’s like a success story. It’s an interesting launch to what I hope is a success story for her and for her new media company.

I think you’ve seen a lot of that, even with traditional celebrities, like Reese Witherspoon. I think Tim McGraw is doing something with Down Home in Nashville that’s coming out pretty soon. These guys build these media empires or these big brands around themselves, and there’s no reason that creators can’t and shouldn’t do that. Mr. Beast is obviously the quintessential example of someone who’s done a phenomenal job on that in his light years ahead. But I think as he sets the stage for those people, it really creates a path.

Jessica Phillips (05:51.152)
a little easier every time somebody pushes the line back a little bit for you. It’s a good example too for creators to look at. Like I would say, like you said, Mr. Beast, Emma Chamberlain for example, who’s a great example, I think, and it just, it gives people a path. I think, like you said, at the beginning, they were really having to forge, like, how do you do this? How do you build a business? And yes, we have to acknowledge that some of the bigger creators like Emma Chamberlain, like Mr. Beast,

you know, agents and managers, more akin to like what a celebrity would have. So a celebrity has a whole machine around them that will help them launch a company. Creators really have had to go at it more alone. The bigger creators had a little help, but still they were forging a path in a way that had not been done before. And so I think that gave younger people, students, certainly the people in my class, a model to look at. It’s a working model that they can follow, kind of a roadmap to success.

in the cases of a lot of those creators also intentional, I mean, they sort of, they tend to eschew some of those more traditional pathways simply because they came up doing it on their own and that’s kind of the only way that they are accustomed to doing it. Yes, so this is an interesting thing because I asked one of the trends that I’ve seen recently or we’ve talked about in 2023 is hiring creators in-house. So brands are hiring TikTokers to run their TikTok channels, they’re hiring people in-house.

we’re seeing creators in residence. I don’t know if you saw the LA Public Library hiring a creator in residence. I saw it in your newsletter and it is something that, I mean those are relationships that we have facilitated at the social standard for brands, even with people in this very room. That’s right. So I find that fascinating. Against that backdrop, in my class two weeks ago, I was asked, you know, we were talking about this trend and I had Lindsay Gamble, who is another, was also on the insider list

Creator Economy experts follow. Brilliant guy. He’s been a frequent speaker in my class talking about trends, and we were talking about this trend of creators in house, creators in residence, and I asked the students, so who’s interested? In this particular group, not one person raised their hand. There’s one student in my class who’s taken multiple classes with me. She’s an AR creator. Brilliant. She works with Meta. She works with Snapchat. She works with TikTok, creating filters. She’s worked with major brands.

Jessica Phillips (08:21.032)
And she said, I want the Frida. Like, I was curious because it’s a trend that we’re seeing. And so it’s interesting being in class because it always kind of brings things back a little bit into perspective, where you can look at kind of bigger industry trends and say, oh, this is what’s going to happen. And then you talk to 27 students, and you’re like, all right, who’s interested in this? Who wants to work in-house and not one person raises their hand? And it’s a little bit of a reality check for me that it might be an industry trend,

away with this, it is interesting to talk to students. And these students, and I asked her in particular, because she said she wasn’t interested, the freedom. She loves the freedom to set her own schedule. And it kind of goes back to a little bit about what you were saying of these are people who started as creators, as they’re essentially entrepreneurs, like self-employed people. And so not everybody wants to go in-house. I’m Gen X. So I look at going in-house as like, oh, it’s the ultimate safety net.

stability and safety of a paycheck. For somebody that’s come up and only made money so far as a creator, like for some people there’s just no appeal or value to going in a house. And it was just interesting for me. It was a little eye opening that like, oh, they’re not all embracing this. And I think sometimes it’s good for my generational perspective to hear what the students are thinking. Cause it kind of reminds me like, okay, what I look at and through my lens, what might be a good deal,

is completely different to somebody who’s 21, 22, and a full-time creator. I think you’re also a little bit on the idealist. Like, you live in an ideal. In an ideal world, I would be, if I’m a student, I would be a creator and an influencer and running my own thing. Of course, that’s ideal. Wouldn’t everyone love to do that? But I think if you sort of overlay statistics on small businesses in the United States, and a number of people who are actually not risk enough to do it, number one, you have to have the confidence to do it. And number two, you’re not really successful.

often. Most startups fail, right? Most small businesses fail and so I think that there is probably a gap there between what they want to do and what they will do. Yes. That would be my only push because, but I do think it’s right to look at it. I mean yeah, you’re absolutely right that the people who end up making it and I like off the top of my head I don’t know the numbers but you know I know the statistics come out of like the people who make over a hundred thousand dollars a year as a creator, it’s a very small portion of people. Oh yeah,

Jessica Phillips (10:50.992)
like, was it 1 in 12 or 12%, I can’t remember. That’s how many people actually do it. It’s really small. Yeah. Which is why it’s a side hustle.

in a lot of ways. For a lot of people, yeah. Which is also what I think brings us sort of back to that social media managers as these important figures. Because they have figured out how to be a creator, and they do know how to make content, and they can do it for brands. And social media managers have become influencers in their own right. I mean, just look at the, for me, I see it all the time on LinkedIn. It’s like the conversations that are happening there with the social, and it’s not just social media managers, anyone in the social space, talk about tips and tricks, and they’re sharing good things,

Rachel Carton’s discord community so I get on there and I got to see what people are talking about and it’s really interesting because I Think that is a really nice path for a lot of people who want to have the stability and actually like a constant paycheck But still want to pursue creative initiatives on their own right and we’ve even had that historically at the social standard right our creative director For a while was a an influencer and he was in the fitness space and he was you know We were obviously paying him to do things for brands, but on the side he was doing his own stuff Yeah That idea of like I think the social media manager as like the main

character. Yeah that was her. Yeah that has become a thing and it’s something that I have seen I mean throughout kind of the span of my career the amount of power that a social media manager has I think has always been underestimated just in being like the front door to your brand and I think social media managers you know you and I have talked about this but it’s like they’ve got a sense of humor they’ve got a perspective and I think sometimes the

about the brand. Like you can have a playbook, you can have brand guidelines, but it is a good social media manager who is really creative, really talented, and is able to bring their voice to everything that they’re putting online is amazing. And I almost feel like accounts should be signed by social media managers so that you know, and you could follow somebody around like, oh, this person went from, I mean.

Jessica Phillips (12:53.91)
McDonald’s to Coca-Cola to Domino’s for example. And yeah, I completely agree. And Rachel Carton also I have to just chime in that also love her newsletter. We also get, we often get mentioned in the same conversations. But I think yeah, what she does is just is excellent and so valuable for social managers. That’s right. And Rachel, if you’re listening, we need you to come on the podcast. One thing that Jess and I talked about was sort of the earlier iteration of this

where you had a lot of publishers who basically elevated social media managers or elevated editorial staff into on-camera talent, particularly during the height of the pivot to video boom.

that publishers were adopting. You said Buzzfeed, Bon Appetit. Buzzfeed, Bon Appetit, Refinery29. I mean, these were all companies that either had vast creator networks of whose IP they sometimes had stakes in or had just sort of elevated people that were otherwise editorial staff into on-camera talent. And now a lot of those, I mean, whether it’s Molly Boz or Alex Delaney, Refinery29, I believe the woman’s name

I think.

Yes. Yeah. Oh, I remember. Yes, her videos. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All of whom have now basically spun off into being independent content creators and influencers in their own right. So I think there is probably among your students a wariness to adopt that sort of relationship with a brand. Because unlike a publisher, you are

Jessica Phillips (14:40.668)
interest and point of view for many years thereafter and you know that might damage or not even damage but certainly make an you know impress upon your own personal brand to an extent that say working for a publisher might not right I mean if you’re working for say McDonald’s for two years versus Bon Appetit you know via Bon Appetit you’re going to be associated with any

Jessica Phillips (15:10.448)
and cuisines, whereas working for McDonald’s, you’re probably working on exactly the same. But it’s probably more of a style that you’re associated with McDonald’s, right? Whereas with the publisher, it is their brand and what their content. The interesting thing, so there’s so many, I have so many thoughts around this, and one of them is that the fitness industry, a little bit like the publishing industry or media, fitness has been really good at kind of growing their own in-house influences. You look at Peloton, yeah, Peloton, and just what they have done

their own, like essentially nurturing kind of their own creatives and turning them into influencers I think has been amazing. And I think the fitness industry has always been really good at either producing their own talent, you know, going out and partnering with talent, like thinking of Gymshark, or influencers themselves launching their own fitness companies. I think fitness is like maybe one of the best examples of creators integrated at kind of every level.

you know, all around. It helps that they happen to be hot by default. They’re very, I mean, they’re aesthetically, conventionally attractive, which, yes, helps putting them on camera, but I think, you know, you can have a hot person. A hot person does not necessarily translate to a great creator, a great influencer. They’re not necessarily relatable or… But they’re probably, they’re mad. They’re adding immediate value to their audience through their workouts and their lifestyle, and they’re very aspirational, and so it sort of ladders up,

hey I want to be like this person, they show you how to become like them. You can do my workouts, you can wear my clothes, you can take my supplements. To me that makes it a very easy roadmap and a very easy path. With the Peloton example, I sort of somewhat ironically bring up the attractiveness factor because I almost think of that as like a like a sort of digital reality show analog a little bit wherein you have these, you collect all these sort of

into one space and you have the core product, but then across social channels, you effectively have an extension of that experience across, you know. They’re characters. Right, exactly. They’re characters within a little universe. Yeah. And it’s interesting, because Pelotons actually moved away from that. Yeah. If you saw earlier this year, they’re kind of moving away from that. Is that the right thing to do? I don’t, you know, clearly, like I don’t know what their long-term vision is, so it’s hard to say.

Jessica Phillips (17:40.108)
or the wrong move from based on what I know of the fitness industry it’s like I’m curious to see how that works out for them you know hope for the best but yeah moving away from that talent that you’ve nurtured and built you know other companies would kill to have that kind of that stable of characters in their arsenal which leads me back to what you were saying about publishing and a lot of those companies especially BuzzFeed in particular I don’t know if

when a lot of personalities left Buzzfeed, Buzzfeed was very smart and very early on, harnessing their in-house editors to become talent, to become on-camera talent, turning them into influencers, but then had fairly restrictive policies around what they could do or other things that they could do, and then you got all those why I’m leaving Buzzfeed videos. So it was like, it was interesting because I think they had like, they were halfway there. They had 50% of the idea of like,

harness these people and turn them into in-house creators, but then it kind of turned on them because I think they tried to put too many guard rails and restraints on what these people could do. Yes. And it backfired. Right, and they also retained ownership to the extent that they were spinning them off into.

standalone channels, BuzzFeed I believe was retaining ownership of, you know. But that I think is a smart thing though, right? Right, yeah. Yeah, and it’s like if you look at the WWE model, that’s basically what they do too, right? I mean those guys are the OG in terms of like creating characters and monetizing them and personalities and all that. That’s what they did. They always own everything around it, which you know now I think when you insert things like NIL rights and all this and I think we’re sort of decoupling a little bit, but if I’m a brand I’m actually looking at the BuzzFeed model and saying what are the learnings from this?

and you hire three social media creators to come on and be the face and the voice and the personality of your brand, what do you do when they leave? You find new people. Respectfully, I disagree. I don’t think that you should try and control ownership. Ownership meaning that they post on the brand’s channel. So you’re building up your audience on there so you don’t lose that audience when they leave. Now what you do with it is a totally different conversation. But I think it’s, you know, whereas with when you part…

Jessica Phillips (19:56.12)
and with creators, you borrow their audience for a minute. Here, you’re actually building an audience for your brand. Whether that’s the right strategy or the wrong strategy, I don’t know that it matters. But to me, I’m thinking if I’m a brand, that’s how I’m approaching it from a business mindset. Right? Yeah, I think even social managers, I think, not only are creators not platform loyal anymore because of the volatility and all the changes we’ve seen. I think Gen Z, and again, I don’t want to lump them all together.

but young people in general have less of a corporate loyalty because it’s not returned, because there’s no, there’s nothing in it for me if I’m a young person and I’m joining a company, this is not, I’m not staying there for 30 years. And so I think that concept of borrowing a creator for your campaigns is gonna be similar to you’re borrowing somebody for your social channels and when they walk away, you’ve gotta find somebody new who’s gonna bring a different flavor.

But you, I don’t think, and if I was a young person or I was advising a young person, I would say, yeah, like you retained all your IP. You do not make any of your social handles reflective of the company that you work for because then you may not be able to change that later or make sure that the company doesn’t own those channels. I think it’s really, we have gotten to that stage where every single person from an intern to a social media manager to the CEO is their own brand.

And so brand, you know, corporate brand is kind of less relevant and there’s less loyalty there. And so I think it’s really every individual for themselves is the way that we are moving right now. Gosh, but I hope not in a lot of ways too because I feel like that’s where you start to get really junky products that you can’t.

You can’t control for quality on because people if no one’s loyal to you Why do you build anything of sustenance and people are gonna be loyal to? the creator who launched this company or they’re gonna be loyal to The founder and their story Yes And I think that’s why we’ve seen so many DTC like entrepreneurs and founders come in come in front of the camera and they’ve had A lot of success to you. I think I had and they’ve also inherited a lot of liability Yes, you know like liver King or Great Jones. Yeah or any

Jessica Phillips (22:19.697)
What was the other one?

another one of those DTC. Tart. Tart, yeah. Yeah, yeah, there’s been a lot of drama around the Tart CEO too, yeah, that’s right. But to sort of piggyback on my earlier diatribe about generations, I do also think that this, the discrepancy in attitude then versus now sort of speaks to not just obviously the preeminence of the youngest generation, but the whole culture kind of evolving along with them. That BuzzFeed, those BuzzFeed incidences

took place in a very specific context which was the sort of pivot to video, right, wherein a lot of these publishers were simply, you know, vastly overvaluing the

that legacy content, those video libraries, as if they were going to have enormous ancillary downstream value, of course that didn’t pan out and it cost them, one, those relationships, and two, reputation. So, per your point, I’d like to think that brands and publishers, but also brands who will be hopefully adopting this practice as well

more savvier now about what they need to actually codify and retain from these creators. Yeah, I would say treat them as an asset, not a liability. And I would also recommend, there was an article written in 1997 in Fast Company by this guy called Tom Peters called The Brand Called You. Everybody should read that. It was in 1997. I’d say essentially this guy predicted, I mean, social didn’t exist, so he wasn’t able to necessarily bake in the idea that we’d have this distribution channel.

Jessica Phillips (24:04.344)
for speaking for ourselves. But it essentially foretold this idea that every single person at every single level in the company is essentially going to become their own brand and how you should think about that and nurture that and protect that for yourself. And it’s something I have my students read every semester. That’s a great read. I’m going to check that out. And I think that makes sense, too, because the reality is I wonder, I sort of have this theory that where the US is going is much more towards smaller businesses. Because I think if you look across the board,

any larger entity, employees just don’t care about doing their job or customer service or anything and they don’t care because it is more about like them and what they’re doing in their personal brand. So to me what I hope is that this then spawns a whole bunch of small businesses and a whole bunch of like personal brands do that and then people get to do really interesting things and then you don’t have to worry so much about risk right because if it’s really if it’s you and your you know whatever a hundred employees that’s a lot less risky of a situation to have somebody come on and do social media and be the

the CEO of Procter and Gamble, right? Like, you know, they’re looking at like thousands and thousands of employees. And so there’s a lot of legal stuff and you get sort of wrapped up in all of this. So I sort of think this is a time for small businesses, I guess is where I’m going with that, which I think ladders up to creators. Yeah, I mean, I would say to me, it’s kind of like we’re into like a barbell era where it’s like a lot of small businesses and then a lot of giant businesses that are gobbling everything up. Yeah. So it’s kind of, we’re seeing things at both extremes

I think there’s ways to make it work at both extremes. And I am a corporate girl. I love large companies. I’ve worked for very large companies. And I think you have your gems in there. You have your superstars in those companies that are doing amazing work. But to go back to like.

the idea of labeling a social channel and kind of crediting it to who is running the social channel. Like, I think it’s interesting, and I think a social media manager should get, at least if their voice is on there, should get at least a byline in a way, in the same way that you know who’s the CEO at this company or who’s the CMO at this company. They’ve got a lot of visibility. Again, everyone has a brand. And so if you’re a social media manager, part of your brand is that visibility running the social channels.

Jessica Phillips (26:26.68)
To me that’s like I think also speaks to like your recruitment of like what you’re looking for an employee and just making sure You just have to be that much more cautious that you’re hiring the right person and hiring somebody that can get on board and can work With you while still allowing them to bring their personality and flavor To the job because that is what’s gonna set you apart from somebody else that is either using AI or you know has such a like heavy-handed Playbook that it just it sounds so corporate

It’s white noise. It just gets tuned out by people. Yeah. Which is exactly why you needed an influencer marketing agency to act as the intermediary for that hire. Exactly. But for casting, all the specialties of casting that the influencer marketing agencies and us in particular are so good at, because you have to find the right person, right? And it’s hard to do that. Do you guys have a name for that? Because I was thinking about that. And a lot of what influencer marketing agencies do is a version of casting. And I almost feel like it’s now because every company

to find creators and influencers and the importance of finding the right person, I feel like that kind of concept of casting is even more important than it has been previously. Like we’re not just looking at numbers, we’re not just looking at engagement rate, we’re looking at like so many different factors and so what do you call that? I think of it as being a creator recruiter. Creator recruiter. Okay. Because you are, because you know, much, I mean the

I mean, the workflow for influencer marketing is not all that different than the workflow from recruiting, period. But in this case, in particular, when you’re looking to establish a longer term relationship, you are effectively acting in the same modality as say a contracting or outsourcing agency.

you’re managing that person’s payroll and paperwork, you’re prospecting that person, you’re facilitating all of the interviews, but they are not going to be working within your organization to the same extent that would be a full-time employee. They’re going to have many similar obligations that would differentiate them from an influencer, from a pure influencer, per se. But they’re still an employee.

Jessica Phillips (28:46.981)
moreover

when if you work for an agency like ours that can sort of vet and prospect those people, the liability shouldn’t ultimately be any greater. The exposure, of course, but the liability isn’t ultimately any greater than hiring a regular old person off the street in my opinion. Right. It’s interesting that you bring up liability, because I gave a talk. I was at a conference up in Seattle, and I was talking about influencer marketing. And it was a lot of comms people, HR people.

and somebody brought up, you know, like they actually brought up the Kanye example, and they were like, you know, for people who are kind of like wary, and like to me, I was like, listen, the Kanye example is something completely different. Like that’s really its own special situation, and that is like, you know. You’d have to be living under a rock not to appreciate the liability. Yeah, and it’s just like a completely, there’s so much complexity around that situation, but I do think, you know, I think that sometimes maybe people that haven’t worked with influencers

creators are not that familiar with the industry don’t even understand how much vetting goes into it and you know my thing is like listen you would have had so many extensive conversations and you know who you’re getting into a partnership with and for example like if you’re hiring a comedian a comedian is probably gonna say something off the cuff but like if you’re a risk-averse company then don’t hire that person but you should have somebody that is like vetting for that and really digging deep into and so it’s not

just a whim. It’s not just we’re gonna hire this celebrity and then freak out when they implode and something goes wrong. It’s like no you would have like looked into every you would have I don’t think people on the outside don’t realize how far you know influencer or creator recruiters dig into years worth of feed scrolling comments yeah like every single you know Google search like everything you’re looking into every aspect and then you’re making a

Jessica Phillips (30:49.148)
this person entirely great we’re gonna hire them or this person there’s something questionable and if we end up hiring them and then shit hits the fan you know excuse my French like you had a sense and so you should anticipate that you have a plan in place for like we know that there was a problem with this so we’re gonna anticipate for that and if anything goes wrong here’s our response to that situation but you know I don’t think that the you know people in corporate America necessarily appreciate like

on a whim. This is like due diligence has been done. Correct. Yeah and I think that that’s why I mean at least where the to the extent that there is this tremendous demand where the supply side is I don’t think that anybody but an influencer marketing agency is necessarily equipped to you know to fill that void. You’re not gonna go through a you know a traditional contracting or

Jessica Phillips (31:48.728)
your own HR department to do that, but perhaps at the last stages, when it comes to actually figuring out the legal P’s and Q’s, I do think that, from my point, to the extent that the workflow is very similar, really only an influencer marketing agency is probably going to be equipped to facilitate that for you. And we have done it. Yeah, and it’s only getting more popular. I’m speaking from some experience. Yeah.

Yeah, and you’re actually the one that does most of it. So yes. Yeah. Yeah I think I don’t know just that the whole idea of like creator recruiter Like I said, our influence over again or like I just think that that’s You know on the on the kind of internal Working side something that is going to become more and more important. I think people are gonna like specialize in You know not only vetting people but also sourcing people like understanding somebody Before they get really big

I’m thinking like of Remy Bader. I don’t know if you guys thought, I love Remy Bader and followed her years ago. And you could just tell, like there was a spark there. And there are sometimes, you know, some creators get popular because they have some sort of like, there’s an external factor. They collaborate with somebody, they get hired by a certain company. Some people it’s just kind of like really hard work. And then some people just have kind of like a star quality in the same way that there are certain actors that just like pop on screen. And you see certain creators that like

on you’re just like oh my gosh this person is lights up the camera like they’re just magical yeah and I felt like she was one of those people and somebody who like it takes a special talent to be able to spot those people and be able to distinguish between them and somebody else that’s putting out similar content but just doesn’t have that presence yeah that they have I think I think that’s right and I think we saw a big shift in terms of that when Instagram started incorporating video a lot more and it was like the types of

wanted to do a story were much different than the types that we’re just doing in feed because we found so many influencers who were great at like still posts just fell so flat in video and they couldn’t be video creators and it’s a totally different thing and we’ve done actually quite a bit of research into it to see like you know people in front of the camera really do like that is that is the goal if you want to move the needle on sales you need somebody who’s gonna be really great and in front of the camera yeah and those people to piggyback on that those people might not be able to do live that’s right video which is a completely different thing and I think

Jessica Phillips (34:18.288)
A lot of people are like, how do we crack the live code? And it’s like, it’s not as easy. I don’t think you can just, creators are not interchangeable in that way that, like you said, somebody that does a feed, like a polished photo, is different than somebody that does story, like produce stories or reels, is different than somebody that does live. And those are different talents. And you can try and nurture those. But people are not interchangeable. And everybody kind of brings their own thing to it. So I think that’s interesting too. Yeah, I agree. And why you’re looking for a new creator. So it’s like, if you’re, you know,

If you’re the brand, you’ve got to say, where do you want to be? What’s your most important platform? What’s the type of content that’s there? And that’s how you ladder up to the type of person that you ultimately need to hire. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I think it’s super interesting. And I do think that it makes me wonder, because I do a lot of the social media for the social standard, because I feel like it is the way. That’s the presence that we kind of, that’s how we show up in the digital world. And so to me, it’s a little scary. Not scary, but a little bit to say, am I OK with someone else?

the face of my agency, right? And the answer right now is no, eventually, yes, of course. But I think a lot of brands are going to be doing the exact same thing. But it’s a very exciting time, I think, to be doing this sort of stuff. And social media managers are getting their due at this point. And they’re about to become the next level of celebrity, I think. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, they’ll be the peloton of, you know.

a BTC. A business world. Right, exactly. Yeah, but you know you think about brands and it’s like they have a really, if they can build a digital presence in a world and a brand that is really cool and fun and talented and social and gives them a lot of runway to do a lot of interesting things, that’s a huge recruitment tool. Because people will be lining up to be, let’s say Taco Bell for example, maybe they’ll be lining up to be on the social team at Taco Bell. I know I follow someone who is in Nashville and does social media for Lyft and she just posted like, hey it’s the time.

work for me like I’m expanding my brief on LinkedIn yes yeah certain people just stand out yeah exactly and so you know she’s posting about you know hey come work for me this is a time and it’s like if that is really a golden opportunity brands are gonna be able to get top talent at better rates especially if they’re flexible in terms of what you can do and if they do things like bylines right and you can set it up and you can learn from reality TV and you can create your cast and what was the show what was the show

Jessica Phillips (36:40.216)
like mini season was a new main character it started out with Matthew McConaughey. Oh True Detective. Yeah like True Detective stuff like that’s kind of an interesting way to learn right. Yeah I was thinking you were gonna say White Lotus which oh yeah I mean you know there’s Jennifer Coolidge’s character yeah it was like recurring but other than that it was like a new cast each time and kind of yeah you brought people in and it’s like if people are sort of you sort of condition people to understand that this is a limited time thing then that gets excited it’s almost like you know how Lululemon

started that whole like flash that where it’s limited amounts of product drop you take that and you apply it to social media and to social media managers and that could create a really interesting chemistry it’s like fresh blood fresh faces people are excited who’s gonna be the next person like I think it’s marketers we get recruited I feel like it let recruiters are gonna be like cringing like oh my god you mean I have to hire somebody new every year like that you know anthology series you should you should take an anthology approach

sense of like wanting to hop around and get different opportunities. Yeah, well and it suits how, I don’t know if we’re calling them Gen Z or the younger generation, it suits how they hop anyway. I mean I think most of the time when we hire someone who is 25 and younger, my assumption is that they will be with us no more than a year and a half before they want to try something else and I think that’s fine and we encourage it, we want to help them do that. But I think that ladders up really nicely with social media stuff too. Yeah.

like anthology social media management. That’s right. Yeah. We’re launching it today. Anthology social. Yeah. Hey, there you go. Yeah. I think that also speaks to just sort of a larger cultural trend, which for better or for worse is that it seems like younger people are just generally more accustomed to gig work. Right? I mean, across industries. Yeah.

corporate America has kind of forced that on them. Correct, yes, that’s the worst versus the better. Foisted it on them, but like, yeah, like the environment has been set up. It’s not like these people are rejecting stability, rejecting good paying jobs. They’re just, there are a lot of layoffs. There are not that many good paying jobs. You’ve got to kind of really work your way up. When loyalty has not extended, it’s not returned. Right. Yeah.

Jessica Phillips (39:05.054)
Yeah, and I think that has also facilitated the other thing we’re talking about, which is needing to be much more outward facing with your career. In other words, needing to project your personal brand, your value, your skill set across platforms to be kind of forever selling yourself.

that I get right now actually. So I consult with different companies. And I would say the number one request that I get from companies is to come in, and organizations too, is to come in and help their employees develop their personal brands. And I think that there’s a sense that it’s good for the company, it’s good for the employee, and it helps with retention,

in your future and your success. But I think it’s- So we don’t sponsor MBAs anymore, we sponsor personal branding sessions. Right. Yes, exactly. Well, it’s sort of an interesting, it’s almost sort of an interesting corollary to the massive consulting industrial complex that exists across corporate America, which is basically built to identify highly productive internal stars. You are now basically being asked

to sort of prospect and nurture people that can be outwardly facing stars to some extent. And companies, I think, are increasingly seeing as much value to that person, to the person that can be sort of the public face of the company outside of what was, I mean, that was traditionally the CEO’s role, really, up and down the organization. Yep. 100%.

quote, like a rising tide lifts all ships. And that’s essentially what we’re looking at. It’s like, it’s good for, you want your CEO to be very visible for a long time. That was the primary role in the company, was with the CEO. And now it’s, listen, if your social media manager gets famous and is interviewed, if you’re, you know, whoever it is within the company, it’s good for, I guess, as long as it’s positive coverage. It’s good for the company. And, you know, and other organizations,

Jessica Phillips (41:34.928)
that have reached out to me and are just, they’re concerned for their members and they’re like, listen, this is important. This idea of personal brand, and we’re all brands, is really important and this is how you’re gonna get jobs, this is how you’re gonna network, this is how you’re gonna get opportunities, this is how we’re gonna have more leverage in negotiations if you have a strong personal brand. And so I think, whether it’s an institution, a trade organization, corporate level,

right now in that idea of we are all we’ve got a thousand like little mini personal brands walking around and clearly some are gonna pop more than others you’ve got some people who are just inherently talented at brand building but everybody should have that idea and there’s you know a lot of statistics out there I mean even just for recruitment anybody who’s thinking about like my neck my first job my next job my promotion I mean the first place people are going to look I think it’s like 98 percent of recruiters

social media. And if you have a presence that’s great, you want to take control of that presence. If you don’t have a presence that equally speaks volumes. Whether you know there’s a concern, 50% of recruiters you know will not go through with somebody if they can’t find any digital footprint. Because that’s a concern of like why are you not online? Are you hiding something? Are you not technologically literate? Like are you not proficient in these platforms and you know

It’s like, whether you show up or you don’t, it’s saying something about you. And I think just taking control of your personal narrative and owning that and shaping what you’re saying about yourself so that it creates the perception within other people, super important. Yeah, well.

I don’t know. I’d say it’s because real Gs move in silence. Yeah. That’s kind of what I was thinking. That might be for the top layer of people, right? Right. And there are going to be some people who are in professions, maybe secrecy is something. Not secrecy, but having a little caution is something that you want versus someone being creative. And the thing that I wonder about for anyone who is in college and kind of above, maybe less than, younger than 30, is how much?

Jessica Phillips (43:47.414)
How much do you feel comfortable then sharing on your personal?

Like, you know, does it, because it all is guarded. Like, do you know, is there, where’s the new platform coming up that is like totally encrypted? And you know, 100% just for personal. So this is for you and your friends only, and no one else has access to it. Because I know, I know, where’s it, about a year ago I went through my Facebook and just really cleaned house. Because I was like, I don’t think, I know we started to do more press, and I was like, I don’t really need these photos floating around of me in college doing like college-y things. I just don’t really need that out there. But screenshots live forever. They do.

They do, but I’m not a big enough deal that someone’s going to go on a screenshot on my Facebook. So I figure, we’ll get ahead of it while we can. But yeah, screenshots do live forever. But still, there’s got to be, for me, I think about what’s the line between personal and professional? Because as we, I think we were talking about this earlier, we just launched a B2B influencer division off of some really interesting case studies and clients that we have. And so LinkedIn, to me, is that darling of B2B right now. Twitter is very chaotic, but LinkedIn feels very clean and safe and feels like Facebook for professional.

you’ve got all these other channels where it’s like, TikTok is just, it’s a different game. And we even see, there are politicians twerking and doing things and you’re like, wait a minute, we don’t wanna do that. I think you have to be, bring your real kind of authentic personality to TikTok in a way that LinkedIn is a very curated professional image of yourself. So it’s kind of, with LinkedIn, I feel like the guardrails come built in where you’re not gonna post the photos that are gonna embarrass you later

a platform that encourages that, I would say, you know, look at Snapchat. I think a lot of teenagers watch Snapchat. When you talk about encrypted, you know, the whole idea of like, especially on Snapchat, it moved from way back in the day. And I was a huge fan of Snapchat early on, but it had much more outwardly facing feeds, like stories that anybody could, you know, your public stories. Then it kind of pivoted to now it’s really much more of a messaging platform, like a teen to teen or group chats or whatever. But like there is that built in, you know, if somebody takes a screenshot, you get a

Jessica Phillips (45:51.473)
So I feel like

for, you know, certainly they’re not necessarily working now because a lot of people are just, you know, a lot of teens are on Snapchat. But I think there already is that perception of if I share something on Snapchat, it is private, it is personal, it is something that’s kept within this small group or just between me and one other person. And if they screenshot it, well, you know, yeah, there is one photo floating around, but maybe I’m not sharing photos with that person anymore and I’ll be more cautious moving forward. So I think it’s already built in. Like I think for us,

already in the professional workforce, it’s like, oh, I better go back and see, did I share anything that could potentially embarrass me? I think for Gen Z, there’s already, teenagers, more so than Gen Z, really for teenagers, there’s already that perception that my mom’s posted embarrassing photos of me on Facebook. I already have a digital footprint based on the embarrassing stuff my parents have shared. I’m going to keep this much more private and between me and my very core friend group. And I feel like that’s what, they’re using Snapchat for that.

transition, you know, it’s hard to predict, but I’m curious to see like how does Snapchat grow with the team, huge team user base that they have right now, like into their 20s? Does it take, make the journey with them and change the way that… Well it could, I think, you know, based on that could be the Facebook for this cohort of people, right, for this generation, because I do think that’s right, and I’m sure that they could figure out something where you aren’t allowed to screenshot, maybe there’s a way they block it or it goes

Jessica Phillips (47:24.184)
that’s really interesting and it really ladders up nicely with I think the trend that we’ve seen going into DMs and like what I what I have read they call it’s dark social right where you don’t really know what’s going on but look at like look at what Instagram is doing in the DM space you know look at LinkedIn and they started doing company DMs they started doing thought leadership ads like a whole bunch of things but inboxes are they’re such garbage like garbage sites like I feel like some days I just can like all I can do to get through my inbox yeah you know because AI has just ruined this for everything and everyone’s subscribing to a million different newsletters

and it’s overwhelming and so where do you go to actually communicate and they don’t want to do it on SMS you know they want to do it on whatsapp they want to do on snapchat as a newsletter writer I apologize and I am very cognizant of that fact that like well you know there is so much to read and there are so many emails and it’s funny we brought up Rachel Carton earlier and you know this is something I know like I’ve been a professional in this industry a long time and Rachel we were talking about that and you know she was saying

show up on the platform where people are and start talking to them there versus pushing them to your newsletter. And I think, you know, even though I know this, and this is just kind of like, you know, best practices, I feel like I was falling into that trap. I would say even six months ago, I was falling into that trap of like, Instagram, go read my newsletter. Twitter, go read my newsletter. LinkedIn, go read my newsletter. And really showing up where people are. And so, you know, and again, sometimes it just takes somebody saying something

and realize like no show up on the platforms where people are at and surface them on that platform. Yeah and so that’s where you know I decided to start uploading my newsletter to LinkedIn so if you’re on LinkedIn you don’t have to open your email you’re gonna get it right there. That’s what I love. If you’re on Twitter I do a Twitter thread now if you’re on Instagram I do a recap of the top stories you don’t even have to click through. I love it if people click through you know and that’s great helps my open rate for example but if they don’t they’re still following me and engaging with me on

on that platform and it’s up to me then, in the same way that is if I was a company, it’s up to me to kind of figure out how do I monetize this, how do I capitalize on this, on this platform. And I think probably my pet peeve of people that do, whether it’s newsletters or whether it’s social, creators and brands is trying to drive, thinking of social just as amplification to drive traffic back to a website or some sort of owned property. It’s not always gonna work.

Jessica Phillips (49:52.624)
operated properties, but you’re not always going to be able to drive traffic back. You’ve got to figure out what to do with those people that you have on these platforms. Yeah, totally. I think that’s 100%, right? And I think we’re even kind of going back to that whole don’t just convert. We got so focused on conversions for so, so long. And I think brands just sort of need to take a step back and remember, how do we use this for top of funnel all the way down to very bottom? I think I’ve seen a lot of online conversations about, don’t influencers

And we still have that conversation, too, to say, look, at the end of the day, they’re creating content, which is something you have to pay them for. And then do they return? Yeah, so it’s a whole package. Let’s not look at them as just like, convert, because there are a handful of people who, for every brand, it’s more than a handful. But there are people who are going to convert really, really well for you. But if you look at strategies like Bloom Nutrition, for example, or Athletic Greens, part of their strategy is they are everywhere all the time. It’s not just that they work with these 20 influencers that drive all their sales. That is like a misnomer.

Show up where they’re at, be constant, be vigilant, and people are going to buy because you’re everywhere all the time. Yes. And I would say even beyond the feed, like being everywhere, I think there are like 37 different ways that you can work with creators. Yeah. And I think it’s just incumbent on you as a brand, or as a marketer, as an agency to figure out what can we do with these people beyond just showing up in the feed. And there is so much more you can do, so many more integrations that you can have.

And it just makes you stronger. It makes the relationship stronger. It builds your credibility. It builds trust with the audience. There’s just so much more that you can do. And I think we’re just kind of at the tip of the iceberg right now in terms of what we’re able to do as an industry. OK, so I want to switch gears a little bit and talk more about B2B influencers and what you’re seeing in that space. Because again, even though your audience is more creators and B2C brands, you yourself are a B2B influencer. And you’re in that world that I think I’m also in the LinkedIn community, where we’re all figuring this thing out.

So what are you seeing in the B2B world, and what do you think brands and even people who are kind of becoming influencers can and should learn from the B2C space? Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting that you say that I’m a B2B influencer. It’s funny, I don’t think of myself in that capacity, but like I guess everybody on LinkedIn is essentially. You have two people here that are being influenced by your newsletter regularly, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean. Makes me feel so powerful. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean.

Jessica Phillips (52:22.224)
to the contrary, you’re sitting with two subscribers. Right, right. I’m going to rule the world, two people at a time. I’ll just keep meeting two more people, two more people. But I mean, I guess us being on LinkedIn, I think we’re almost all, whether it’s for our own companies or on behalf of another company, yeah, we’re all advocating. And I think there were some early examples. You and I talked about this a little bit earlier. But one of the best examples that I think unintentionally

influencer is Taylor Loren who is a social strategist not Taylor Loren’s the journalist yeah no there’s another one Taylor Loren’s a journalist who covers the creator space right no I know Taylor Loren who is a social strategist and I would say one of the original B2B influencers she worked for later the social scheduling company and very early on right from the beginning and she was

out about Later, she was a very early, I would say, you know, essentially she was a business influencer. Like she was on Instagram, she was on LinkedIn, she was on Twitter. I became aware of her because she was sharing her thought leadership all the time. And then it made me interested, like, oh, who’s she talking for? Like who is Taylor, you know, in collaboration with essentially? And she worked at Later. It made me check out Later. It made me aware of Later’s products. I then recommended Later to different people.

based on the fact that Taylor worked there and I was so impressed with you know her the way that she talked about social and the advice that she was giving and sometimes it wasn’t blatant she wouldn’t say like you know go like sign up for later but it was like and not to endorse them or anything like I have no there’s I have no stake in this but it was just like the way that she talked about it and the way that she covered the events that they were doing just in a very natural way that is the way a B2C influencer would be like you know it’s.

placement more than kind of product marketing essentially and I felt like Taylor did a really good job of that I mean everybody should you know go back and check out she then went on to work for some different brands and I think now she’s working for herself but to me she was like gosh I’m thinking and this is like dating myself but like 2014 2015 maybe when she worked for later and she worked for them for a few years and it just she to me was one of the first

Jessica Phillips (54:52.104)
really well in a way that wasn’t, you’re not, it’s not sell, sell. You’re not hitting your audience over the head with it, but you’re just integrating it in a way of, this is how I’m using it, here’s how it’s helping me in my daily life, here’s how I’m able to like, you know, go to these great events and put on these great events and, you know, the people that she worked with and who she was aligning herself with through later and who later was able to align themselves with through her. And it was just one of the best examples to me. Like that was somebody who got it very early.

on and I think the company benefited greatly from her as kind of like a face or voice for the company. I think we’re going to see that, you know, she ended up leaving. I don’t know that they’ve necessarily replaced her in having like, there’s nobody I associate with the company now that’s like, like the presence that she had. But I think that we’re going to see that with companies that realize the benefit of having these, you know, whoever your employee tapping into your employees. And I always say that when I work with companies, you know, before we go out and look for influencers

or creators, let’s look internally just at who you have as your internal talent or business partners or whatever it is, whoever is working for you already. Can we tap into those people? Let’s look at them first before we go out and hire externally. And a lot of times you will have these superstars and I think the people that are going to excel and the companies that are going to benefit from it are people that are able to integrate this. Like I said, it’s product placement and the integration is so subtle but effective that

affiliation the social proof that you’re able to get by having these people represent your company I think is going to be super effective and the companies that jump on this are going to be able to really See a lot of success through that type of marketing. Yeah, I think so and I mean it’s if it’s any indication I mean LinkedIn launched their thought leader ads. Yes, which allows you to highlight, you know employees and their voices And I think that’s interesting because it is something that companies have tried to figure out for a long time and this gives them a path

It makes a lot of sense. And I think we’ve had these discussions internally as well. Our CRO, Dylan, has almost 28,000 followers on LinkedIn. It’s like, oh my gosh, we had no idea. You know? So there’s a lot of those things where you do have to kind of look at that stuff. But I wonder if, and this is pure speculation and who knows in the next five years, when this if and when, which I believe this will become a big trend, then as an employee, do you get representation for your following

Jessica Phillips (57:21.624)
that, how does that ladder up with your employer? And like when you hire someone, are you hiring someone that says, I’ve got 100,000 followers on LinkedIn, is it written into your contract that you’re going to post a certain amount of times, or you’re going to do a certain amount of things with a brand, just like we would if we were sending an influencer on like a PR trip or an experiential event? Or for that matter, hiring an influencer or a celebrity for a…

a honorarium position on your board or at a C level executive position. I actually think per your point about LinkedIn being the kind of 800 pound gorilla, do you ..

Do you see B2B creators migrating to other platforms as well? Because to the extent that we’re prospecting a lot of these people on LinkedIn, they do in some cases have ancillary presences on other channels. And I guess it never made sense to me why they don’t build those out even further because the reality is during their workday, people are spending as much time on TikTok and Instagram as they surely are on LinkedIn. So do you see sort of a,

a growing contingent, or at least would you advise, advise B2B influencers to make a pivot and build out their presences on other platforms? I think as much as chaotic as Twitter is, I still think that there are a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of B2B creators and influencers on Twitter. Many of them shouldn’t be. I’m, maybe, I’m a long time Twitter user, I’ve never given up a platform, I can’t. I’m a diehard, I love it.

I’ve always been anti Twitter until recently and now all of a sudden I’m actually really bullish on Twitter Yeah, until they unplug Twitter I will be there till the very last day when the last tweet is sent and there was a while there for the past six Months that was like is this it is this my last tweet ever and in the same way you thought about like your first tweet You know There’s all those tools where you can find your first tweet ever and I’m like What do you say when you know, it’s your last tweet ever? I will be there till the end I do think a lot of people are on Twitter

Jessica Phillips (59:37.824)
a new CEO, like let’s see if she’s able to turn it around and what she’s able to do with that. I do think a lot of people are on Twitter. The people that I see on LinkedIn typically are also on Twitter. Some of them are launching newsletters. I think it’s tricky. I mean I think at this level like we know that anybody in the like kind of C-suite probably already has an agency that’s helping them with their LinkedIn. Probably also has an agency that’s gonna be helping them with their newsletter if they put one out because they’re busy whatever it is.

is doing, running the company, raising funds, whatever it is, and so they don’t necessarily have the time to do that. The other place that I’m seeing people show up, a lot on Discord. So a lot of the, I would say, entrepreneur creators, or creators that help other creators understand the business, I’m thinking of Colin and Samir, John Ushai, all of these people have recently launched Discord servers. I have a hard time wrapping my head.

the conversation sometimes just goes so quickly. And I think it’s just a matter of being used to it. I’m used to Twitter and I can look at TweetDeck and follow multiple lists and columns of conversations going on. I think it’s just Discord, I’m newer to Discord and so catching up on Discord just kind of makes my brain, I need to adjust my brain. But I’m seeing so many business creators get on Discord and run Discord servers that I think that that’s the place. Like who knows?

management, right? That’s what it seems to be like. And I talked to Colin and Samir, and they were like, that was the one big tip, is like, go into it very intentionally, but also have a plan for who is your moderator or community manager that is going to help you manage this. And so who knows if that lasts, but I would say if there was any trend that I saw this year, like Discord previously, I think, was very much considered for gamers. I think Discord has done an amazing job this year at recruiting other types of creators and other types of users to their platform.

and being the place that I’m seeing a lot of business creators. But do you see business creators who are like solopreneurs who are monetizing their following and their expertise or do you see, have you seen any brands get on Discord in a way that is like B2B brands, obviously B2C brands have done it, but like I wonder if B2B brands would have success there or not, right? Probably not. I think the way that you could potentially have success is if you had a creator kind of as the face of it.

Jessica Phillips (01:02:07.604)
And you thought about it a little bit like Facebook groups. And I have to give a nod to Facebook groups, because I’m a big fan. As a product, the interface of the UX of Facebook groups, I think, is excellent. And it’s probably the best thing that Facebook has going for it is groups. And if you find, and that’s where I think you could have B2C or B2B, the way that you use Facebook groups and you think about, you don’t want it just to be a broad promotional channel. It’s different. You can’t go into it just thinking, we’re going to promote ourselves.

company every day. But if there’s like a small kind of, you can find a way to niche down and figure out a subset of your customers. Like power users basically. Power users and thinking about the problems that they have and like is this a space for us to talk about, I don’t know, widgets and nuts and bolts and whatever it is that you’re selling and kind of answer those problems and be a channel for these people or people within this industry to talk. I think that you could probably take that over

Discord, I think it depends on your audience. And I think whether or not, you know, is your audience on Discord, are they willing to join Discord, to join your Discord server? That’s a different question. So I think you have to look at like, okay, who are our power users? And would they go there? Or are we better served with a Facebook group? Or what I’m seeing also Geneva. I don’t know if you’re on Geneva, which is kind of a, it’s marketing itself, essentially as a small communities for women, but also a lot of business women.

and founders and more right now I think B2C, but like.

I think the potential is there too and I’m seeing Geneva thrown more and more into those conversations. So that’s something that I’ve been kind of interested in exploring and hearing more about. Certainly not saying like I’m not an expert but I am curious enough influential people have been talking about it that I’m like oh this is worth checking out and learning more about. Yeah I mean I think that makes sense and I agree with your synopsis I think realistically Discord has some potential for different use cases.

Jessica Phillips (01:04:14.252)
Even if you’re a B2B marketer, it’s probably not a priority for you. Really, it’s like we got to look at, I think we have to look at LinkedIn and Twitter, and then depending on the type of content and the type of product and business you are, YouTube can be helpful for tutorials and informational things and things like that. I actually, I agree that a lot of people are on, there are certain businesses that make sense. Like if I’m Slack, for example, heck yeah, heck yes I’m on TikTok, because all of the younger people who are going to want to use that at your company are there and they’re being entertained and they can talk about that stuff.

they don’t necessarily, they have a certain way that they speak and they speak that way across all platforms. It may change, like the medium may change a little bit, but like I see social media managers on LinkedIn talking about the same things that they’re talking about on, um…

TikTok. It’s just the form of content. It’s a little different. And I have to say, by the way, I love Slack. I have a private Slack channel for my paying subscribers of my newsletter. And I love it. I am, I don’t know. I just like, there are certain- But Discord is Slack. But at a different, you know what I mean? I think of Discord as being a…

as being sort of the spawn of Slack and Clubhouse. Yeah, yeah, exactly, because you have a few other, but you can do video, or you can do audio messages on Slack as well. Yeah, but I feel like people don’t use audio. Yeah, they probably don’t use it. As much, I actually like that, that I don’t have to talk, I can just type. To me, it’s kind of like, it’s another version of Twitter or LinkedIn. Like, that’s why I ended up choosing Slack, just because I was like, okay, I can like, it’s what I excel at, I’m better written

than I am, I think, verbal. And so I’m just more comfortable being able to think about my, formulate these thoughts. We have these Q&As or AMAs every week. And so being able to just answer questions in a very, I think what I like about Slack is just it’s very linear. And it’s just the way that my mind works. And so I’m able to follow those threads. And it makes sense to me. And so, yeah. I mean, I’m very interested in what Slack

Jessica Phillips (01:06:16.244)
I’m also interested in, you know, Notion. Yes, I was thinking a lot about Notion when we were talking about community and power users. Because I thought, wow, Discord is probably a really great place for brands like that to get feedback from power users and to do and to test and do interesting things. Yeah, and I’ve always been really interested in what Notion does with, they work with JT Barnett, who’s a TikToker, he was a former athlete turned TikToker influencer. He now consults for brands and helping connect them with TikTokers and figure out their TikTok

strategy. But I, you know, when we talked about the example of like there’s 37 things you can do with a creator, don’t just stick to feed endorsements. To me, Notion and the way that they work with JT Barnett has been kind of like a stellar example of how you want to work with a business creator. He hosts events for them. He hosts events that they sponsor. He sells, you know, Notion

There’s just so many different ways. And I’m just, if you need a good example of how a SaaS company is working with a business creator and the different ways that they can do it, just start looking at his TikTok and Instagram feeds, looking at his stories. Well, people are fanatical about Notion, though. That’s the thing that they have going for them. Because they have a whole big power user segment, and they don’t pay them. They are just happy to be part of it, because they love the product so much. Which kind of goes back to, I think,

loyalty issues that we were talking about earlier, where people aren’t loyal, but when you find loyalty, and when you deliver a good quality product, so much better. You get a lot of things for free. And that, I mean, they baked that in. We must have read the same article about kind of like their origin story, and essentially like, yeah, how they, their initial growth was like from these power users, and you know, I mean, that’s propelled everything, right? Like your power users are always, whatever kind of business you are, like your power users are gonna be the thing

like, drive word of mouth and social proof and all those other good things. And like you said, get a lot of stuff for free. Just in terms of the promotion. There is a fascinating New Yorker article from probably…

Jessica Phillips (01:08:27.306)
10 years ago about Soylent and the extent to which before when it was, you know, initially just a mix, the extent to which they really embraced their power users who were concocting sort of all of their own, you know, hacks and recipes and they held like a, it was, you know, effectively like a Soylent enthusiast meet and greet somewhere where, you know, everybody kind of traded

traded tips and tricks and unfortunately in their case they had to pivot from that to selling pre-packaged bottles because unfortunately encouraging people to concoct their own Soylent at home was not very good for their bottom line. So yes, power users giveth and power users taketh away. But if you can co-opt that momentum.

Yeah, it’s a general. And that’s the power of the internet, is you can find your niche, and you can find your people, and they can connect, and you can build a community really quickly. Yeah. So.

Great point. Yeah. Well, I think with that we’ll wrap it but Leah it was great to have you Jake. Thanks for joining Oh, yes. Thank you. I thank you so much for having me especially in this beautiful space. I love it Usually I’m on a zoom or Riverside. I know it’s nice to do something. It’s nice to do something in person It is and it’s gorgeous. Yeah. Well, thank you. It was a great conversation and I hope we can do it again soon Thank you