Marketing for the now the marketing for the now marketing for the now marketing for the now 10 minutes, 12 remarkable guests for two hours answering a singular important question: are you ready gary? What do you think happy tuesday? Are you ready for marketing for the now gary? I'm always ready for everything you are always ready. We've got a pretty cool lineup of creators and brands today, uh and our question is what's the latest for creators and communities. So please join the conversation marketing for the now we're going to kick things off with stacy taffet she's. The vp of marketing for frito-lay stacy has been at pepsico for 13 years and is an absolute rock star in her role.

She's running the largest brands in the snack portfolio, some of my favorites, including leis and doritos cheetos, ruffles and fritos - are there any other snacks is my question and one other very important thing gary that you should know is that she happens to be a jets fan. I love her welcome stacy, it's so painful stace, you telling me how are things yeah things are good. How are you gary it's good to be here? It's great to see you thank you for being on. So look.

Obviously, the brands that you're sitting on top of are so iconic have so much popular culture. References brands that show up in super bowls and you know - are in every aisle of every c store or supermarket. So i guess you know knowing that the products also do an incredible job, skewing young versus other brands, not that i don't see tons of people in their 80s eating chips, but you know, i think this is a great way to kick it off. What is what is your point of view on where the opportunity is for creators and and what's the impact of communities on brands like the ones that you work on yeah, i mean, i think you know we started even just talking about being a sports fan.

I think you know fandom and creating fandom around brands is really what we're we're setting out to do now and a big part of fandom is creating communities both in the digital world and and in you know, in the real world as well um and stoking that Fandom and nurturing that fandom, and so you know when i thought about the question about creators and building communities, there were sort of three three principles that came to mind and i can share a little bit about doritos and cheetos, because those tend to be the brands That skew younger and um, we have some good examples uh for, but the the first one for me around this idea of creating community is you know the way we the way we do? Marketing has evolved right from the legacy way where it was about distributing the consumer. Experience like we'll tell you how you should engage with your brands right to now a world where we're participating, we're encouraging people to participate. In that experience and the experience of our brand and we can build communities around those experiences so um, you know a couple, a couple: examples that that we've recently done that - i think, illustrate this one. You know one of the the business problems we uh.

We were trying to solve was um, you know, keeping reminding everybody on the doritos brand about how awesome and timeless nacho cheese is right when you taste nacho cheese doritos. I don't know if you have in a while um you're going to be reminded that it's the world's most perfect food and so in the old world we would have. Just you know told you that we might, you know remind you how great it is that that nacho cheese doritos exist, but we what we did just this past summer was we decided to create a job called the nacho cheese, flavor confirmer, which is inviting someone to Taste, nacho cheese, it's a real job, we're paying them to taste, nacho cheese doritos every day and tell us that it's still awesome and the way that we hired for that is. We invited people on tik tok to do an interview.

It was a duet and tell us why they deserve the job so much so we really built this community around the love of this brand and this product um, and it was a huge success and our flavor confirmer is being paid uh every day, uh that he Tastes, a nacho cheese, dorito um and then was it a uh. Was it a um? Was it a challenging decision on who got the head nod? Was it there's some real love, there's a real love and some real creativity and the creators came out in full force and uh in showing us how much they they love the brand. So what about? What about stacy, the human being like what creators yeah influencers or communities, reddit, 4chan, discords, uh, uh, or even like a text group of like 13 friends or moms, or professionals or linkedin groups or facebook groups like what about you, the human outside of like the uni? You know the hat you put on when you're running these big global brands. What strikes you? What gets you? What catches your attention, just in general, yeah like if you if i asked you what's fun about this another 10-minute, hangout yeah and i'm trying to bring as much value i'm reading the comments from frosty reel and grandmaster uv and william mcconnell, and i'm i'm listening.

But i'm also thinking what will bring the most value and sometimes when you take a very successful operator in marketing and you spin it from like hey. This is how you're thinking about as you should be doritos or frito, but, like hey, take a quick step back and be retrospective, like what have you noticed has worked on you. What brand did you buy because of a creator or an influencer, or what's your go-to community like? Is there a facebook group around a passion? I think sometimes it's a good. It's a good insight.

Yeah, i am i i there are. There are definitely a lot. I mean i am a big, i'm a big sports fan. I love music, you know so i do.

I pay attention to a lot of creators across facebook and tik tok and instagram around. You know those those types of lifestyle communities, and what really gets me excited, though, is when there's a crossover between a conversation on a digital platform and what's happening in the real world. So you know one of the in addition to what i just talked about. I also really like i'm very into the foodie space and the culinary space and and recipes both as a fan and a you know at home, aspiring cook, but also in my job, and you know what i love is.

When you know we can people can get together around, you know, ideas for how to make their cooking more interesting or ideas for how to explore new recipes and talk about it online in any of the communities, but then also go and actually experience it. And you know i've even had an experience where you know i've been part of a community online and then we go and go out to dinner together and you and you bridge that world between um, you know what's happening and then you get out of it. And i i love that and i think the real world really matters and it matters consumers what what's the like raw kind of like tactical, your point of view - and this might even be like challenging for you to answer, but i'm curious to see where you go. What is like the best way for a creator, that's in love with doritos, or what do i have your blue bottle, coffee or nike like what's the best way for a creator, who's watching right now, because we have a lot of them yeah to get a brand Deal or work with a big fortune, 500 brand, not maybe an emerging brand, any tips or anything you've seen that's worked yeah, i um well, i know emily's gon na be on right and we we definitely and uh engaged with her in our doritos logo um and There have been other examples too, where we've we've seen some creators out there and we've.

You know done some partnerships um. I would say something that really breaks through that's fresh that hasn't been done before um and then you know that that integrates the brand. I think in a really authentic way. You know i i don't know if anybody saw this during the earlier in the in the summer.

Um there's pretty awesome athlete her name's, christina clemens um and she qualified for the olympics wearing doritos earrings um, and it was. It was totally sort of came up out of nowhere, but we quickly, you know we actually did a sponsorship deal with her. We created a bag with her face on it. We we sent her gold earrings that she could wear, because it was just such a beautiful natural sort of integration with with the brand.

So so it's about it's about cleverly hacking right! It's not about it's, not about finding you on linkedin and spamming. You and saying give me a deal: it's more actually vader nation. Could you just find steve's son then i just want her to be overwhelmed and text me later tomorrow and be like why'd. You do this to me, but to your point, like you know it's, how do you hack the attention to them for you guys to almost have to or be excited to lean in we want to.

We want to right, we want to. We want to be out there creating with with creators so for creators creators who are frustrated that there's agencies, whether vayner, whether gallery media group, whether dba, whether all these places out there are the gatekeepers one of the ways to do it is if you love a Brand one of the biggest mistakes i think creators make - and i think this is where you're going is, if you love a brand and want to do something with them. Well then, just start doing things with the brand for free because it's going to catch their attention, whereas a lot of creators and influencers see that as like doing something for free and not getting compensated. But if you actually admire or love a brand.

I was gon na say: do it with the brands you love like? Have it be real? Have it be authentic if a brand means something to you play with it, and the brand's gon na notice we're out there looking and again wanting to nurturing that fandom and, and you can be a big part of it stacy. Thank you for being on continued success. Thanks gary next, we welcome arlen hamilton arlen is the founding founder and managing partner of backstage capital, a venture capital firm, dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high potential founders, who are people of color women and and or lgbt? Having raised 20 million and invested in nearly 200 startup companies welcome arlen. Thank you.

Hey gary, hey, arlen! How are you i'm doing? Well, how are you it's great to see you does it? Do you still pinch yourself when you think about you know how much impact that when i hear those numbers you know forget about, like you know, i you you know, i'm a fan of yours and i've known you a long time forget about all the awesome stuff. Like i still get pumped every time, i see an influencer reading your book on instagram and all that cool stuff and we're humans. We like that, but what about like, when you hear something like over 200 businesses being funded because of what you created? Does it still kind of like feel nice, it does and it's it's probably the only metric. That's still, i can just get you going yeah yeah, because it makes sense.

I know how much work goes into it and has gone into it and how many people are involved. But, like you, can't quantify someone writing to you and saying hey. You did this two years ago and x, y z, hat, that's everything yeah all right. We don't have a lot of time and you you put out so much great content, everybody who's watching.

You see her handle right on the screen. I couldn't recommend more. You know how much i believe in tenacity and just a lot of things. Arlene captures a lot of things i believe, and it's why i've been a supporter of front facing and behind the scenes, but um i want to get.

I want to get this. I want to get your thoughts on this because you know, obviously you do this incredible work that i think is altruistic, but then i also think you have a lot of great strategy around something this narrow. So i'm just curious where you are in the scheme of things on what you see for creators and communities. You know we've seen you know the discords, the reddits, you know, there's a the robin hood stuff.

We've seen communities really gain a lot of momentum and then obviously craters is like the new slang term for influencers and we've seen that as well. Just curious, you see so many startups you're so in the ecosystem. What are your observations for the state of the union of those two things in our society? Yeah, i think, maybe i'll be a little different than a lot of your guests, but not in a bad way, i'm kind of old school. I guess because i don't know if it's my age or if it's just like my my predilection for like uh being a creature of habit, but i don't i don't jump on new things um.

You know my brother had to drag me into tick tock to kind of understand it, but i have twitter and instagram and i just go really deep in those places, and so you know i know how to use them. I know what things will resonate on each platform. You've got the context down. I'm sorry, you've got the context of those distributions down yeah, definitely and then the context of me right.

So i've been in addition to backstage, which has been the last part of the decade of my life another decade. Prior to that, i had a blog called your daily lesbian moment, which had 50 000 people from all over the world who came to this blog every day to read a little blog post that i would put up, and so i just i studied it. I was definitely broke at the time. You know i didn't have any resources, but i would study their behavior and hey okay.

What what you would read the comments that was a lot of people forget blog world. You know when we would post back then the comments would live on our site. I'd read the comments and then the comments came alive, because sometimes people would meet their friends there. They would meet um dates there.

Some people got married after a while, like it was a whole thing and, and you know i would it would take longer than it does today, but eventually, three or four years later, somebody would walk up to me and say something that you know. So i read you: what did you? What did you learn about communities during that time, because it sounds like very similar to me by the way, yeah library, wine, library, tv, my i lived in the comments on winelibrarytv.com. You would embed your youtube video on your wordpress and then have the comments that i would live in there and read, and i think a lot of my skills were formed in there. It sounds like we have some similarities there.

What um? What did you learn? Uh? I learned that it's where i uh funny enough picked up the authenticity, how how much that spreads and how important that is and how like valuable it is right. I mean even my shirt right now is my shirt. It says be yourself so that the people looking for you can find you. I said this maybe three years ago at south by and it kind of picked up, but it's where i mean this whole past.

You know 20, 18, 20 years. That's where i've picked that up, because no matter what i was going through, whether if i was in good times or bad times and both have happened in public right, no matter what i was going through. You had that that instant kind of connection - and if you were honest about, if i was honest about it, good and bad and celebrated and kind of you know commiserated all of that. Somebody in the audience was feeling the same thing, and they remember that kind of thing and that's carried out with me.

What about you on the consuming side, what kind of creators tend to catch your attention? Is it in a style of content? Is it besides? Subject matter, which would be obviously incredibly obvious, is there anything you know that stands out for you in the influencer creator community these days i like really clever people who have you? May you know you may notice? Oh okay, their camera, isn't that expensive or they're using their phone or whatever, but they are just being so. They have such initiative and they're just being so clever in how they use the tools at hand that, and that can mean they have a lot of equipment. They have a lot of things, but whatever it is it it, it punches above the weight of what they have, and so i love being able to notice that, and i love things that are they teach me something, of course, if they make me, laugh they're, you Know you have my heart, but if something you know like in a in a really fast way - and i can just like well - i didn't think of it like that. Before do you? Do you go from seeing a tweet or in your instagram feed, because it sounds like those two places you're more native to are? Is it common for you to see something you liked it intuitively to your point whether it is laugh? I love that i agree or oh, that's, that's a clever take on something i've been thinking.

One way that club will you find yourself going down a rabbit hole and then, like oh johnny or susan, got my attention for a second and then 15 minutes later you've like consumed 7, 12, 15, and now you decide. Oh, was that a one-off, and i only like that one piece of content, or am i about this person? No, i go into the vortex hard. I go. You know you talk about going deep into comments, and not only that.

That's how i get a lot of the inspiration or i i connect with people, so you know i may uh chacho on my team on backstage team. He became my chief of staff and and on the partner track now, because i consumed his content on twitter. You know when he didn't know. I was looking at it when he didn't know that that a tweet that he did two years prior to the one that he sent to me was gon na resonate and say.

Oh, this tells me one more piece of the puzzle. Another thing i like to do is on twitter and and some sometimes on instagram. Is i like to look at what people liked? That tells me a lot about them right. I agree yeah and especially, if it's someone i'm like okay, do i want them to work with me? Do i want them to you know, do i want to invest in them now i have a new company.

Do i want to hire them for the new company that sort of thing? I love that? What about the um? What about the frameworks around community, how much or how little or what's a deep or maybe even a hot, take on things like discord: reddit like the containers of community, any thoughts because again you're looking at so many startups as well. Do we are we seeing an evolution of community? Yes, we are, i mean so many people have opinion uh, but by the way you can stop right there we can add the whole show yeah. Thank you for having me um have opinion of the facebook's. You know the kind of the the gentleman the establishments yep yeah and i i'll tell you the reason.

I don't go to a lot of places, uh not to say that instagram and twitter are safer, but i just it's it's difficult. Sometimes you know to read some of the comments and some of the things it's it's it's a tough uh balance um. So what i think could be what i look for and what i think is interesting are two things. One is one.

Are companies startups that are there to help make those current experiences safer and more pleasant? They don't have to be without critique, they don't have to be without edge, but just simply, you feel like you're not going to be called every racist name in the book. When you walk down the street and then the other one is, are the ones that are just more niche that are just like better that are interesting, um that are maybe being built around uh. You know some of the some of the things that are coming. Your way like i've like, for instance, i i own a couple of nfts i'll, tell you one of the nfts i own is garyvee gifting me an nft, so that's my foray into it, but then there's i'm able to look at companies that are building around.

You know the nft community so whereas i may not be like oh, i got to get an nft tomorrow. That's my thing i'll leave that to chacho, because that's what he wants um on my brother um. I look at it. Oh that's! It's really like your.

Your discord for, for me friends like i read your discord, but i didn't i you know i was like. I don't know how to get an nfg. I was over there gas. What is get somebody has.

Why are they farting in this house everybody's so excited about gas or upset about it, but i i read what was happening yes consuming yeah and that - and you know - and i saw the all the phases of it, including you know i i studied. I was like this is so predictable because ever there's some people who are like. Ah man - i don't like this, you know this is a scam and i'm like. First of all, like i don't know something happened when you had like a week or something delay, and then in that week the price that they bought went up, and so they got like they made a fortune made money off of the first week.

So i said: oh okay there's something here and it was the comments that helped me understand the context. Yes, what's happening same for me, arlen you're, you're, a real gem. Please everybody get to know this woman, no matter what you do, thanks for being on we'll talk soon. Thank you.

Thanks arlen next up, we welcome blake gray, he's a creator, a model and an actor blake came into the creator scene in 2015 and has since become one of the four front creators on tick tock, with over 10 million. Followers he's also partnered up with some pretty big brands, including aloe paxsun, mlb revolve and prada welcome. Blake. Thank you.

Thank you. What's up man, how are you i'm well blake? How are you doing good a little nervous? My first ever live interview, so i appreciate you having me on man, you're gon na crush my man so blake. Why don't you um? Here's a good one. You know you're in such an interesting spot for a lot of people that are watching you're super young you're at the forefront winning on the platform, that's kind of winning the day, 10 million, plus on on um on tick tock right.

Even looking at your you know, creator model actor. That's super awesome like like there's a lot of blessings in that right. You didn't get. You didn't do much to be born attractive right like what why don't you educate everybody, because you're in it right, i i know enough about you, we've interacted in the past.

Why don't you give everybody a real view of like what are people that are perceptionally winning on tick tock struggling with what is awesome and what's a struggle from the perspective of not only you, though, you're more than welcome to go there, but you get to interact With a lot of people like you and you might be able to give people a little bit of a view under the hood of what's working and what's challenging um yeah, so i mean i uh. I started about five years ago and it kind of just happened by accident. I was just playing baseball doing my thing at school and um being a creator. It definitely is fun.

It has its ups and downs um. You know it's it's hard being a kid nowadays. Uh, especially having such a big following, i think that's what's the hardest thing about being a creator, i can't really go to an amusement park or go to a movie and enjoy it um. I feel like that's one of the and where are you, where are you in that cycle of your life? Do you feel because you're, so how old are you i'm only 20.

right so and i love that you said i'm only like i'm you're only 20 years old. So for me, as somebody else who has 10 million followers on tick tock, you know i'm a grown man, i'm 45 years old and i can't do those things either, but but because i'm at 45 and like not 20, i believe it is easier for me to Just only filter that as complete gratitude like i'm so flattered every time there is no other, even when they bother me with even the things that i'm most protective of. I still don't know how to see that attention as anything, but i can't believe this is happening. Yeah and, of course, being 20 there's a lot that comes along with that.

You know especially going from 15 to 20 going through this process when you're dating someone when you weren't, like all the things that come along with it, and then everything else are you? Do you think you're taking it for granted uh? Do you think it's cool? Are you in that phase where you're like like? Do you think? Sometimes you lose perspective, or are you so grateful, but it's just you can't function like where are you at with it? Right now and i'm sure it's ebbed and flowed, you know i mean, since i've been doing it for so long. I still remember the first time somebody ever came up to me and it was literally the most surreal feeling i've ever had in my life. I still just don't understand why people come up to me. It blows my mind, i'm so grateful and blessed um.

So yeah i know i'm i don't take it for granted at all. You know uh. I wouldn't be here without all my followers and my fans, but do you, but at the same token, if you're on a date or you're hanging with your boys, is there a struggle there with it or or is it more of a fear of like everything, you're Doing is being watched, i think now it's more well back. Then it was more of a struggle because growing up in houston, texas, this is so new, especially five years ago.

A lot of my friends and family didn't even know how to act. I think i was more worried about what my family and friends thought of it rather than yeah, so i mean i was always just so like wow. This is so cool, but my friends and family they were just like what is going on. Why do they want it especially five years ago? It's so new um, but yeah? No, i i definitely don't take it for granted, and now my family and friends definitely see what is going on and they're very happy for me so like how should brands there's a lot of marketers on here, a lot of cmos a lot of marketers? How? What do brands do wrong with big influencers like how do they get it wrong? It's not necessarily that they're doing anything wrong.

I think this comes more than the creative aspect since i'm like, but real quick, because i can tell you're such a sweet dude. This will actually help you're welcome you just this um. This will help you like this will really help them if they hear it from you. So, like i sit in the middle with my company and i'm like guys, you can't tell blake got 10 million followers because he knows his audience.

Let like you, get to choose if you're gon na do something with blake, but let him do what he wants to do. Thank you. Yes, that's exactly what i was about to say. I love it when brands give me uh, you know the creative and they're like yeah.

You know your audience best do do whatever you think is gon na do great for the brand, and i think that's what i see does best on my channel when i work with brands is when they give me the creative, and they say you just completely - can Do something that you know they'll like versus feeding you lines exactly exactly, i think also. I don't necessarily i'm not gon na work with somebody that i don't believe in or take pride in, i'm not gon na promote something that i don't know anything about, or i'm not happy with um. So that's another reason why it's good to work with brands that fit with you know my talk to me about talk to me about collaborations. You know when you get to this level or on the way, from zero to 10 million um.

How important was it to do other things with other creators so that you could get awareness in their community and they could get awareness from your community? How do you think about collaborations uh, i think they're great, obviously being in quarantine for the past two years and covet and everything it hasn't really been aced, it's been very hard to collab with people but um tick, tock having the duet and stitch thing. It's easy to collab with people without even being with people i'll go and duet somebody, and it's pretty much me essentially collabing with them. I don't have to go meet up with them or anything um, but five years ago, when i was first getting started, collabing was so important. I would have to fly somewhere.

Yeah fly somewhere. You know i even like i'm not sure, i'm not sure. 16 year old you going to your parents being like yo, i got to fly to la to do this dance with ricky was going to be the easiest thing to sell right, yeah, no, not at all um, even like this right now we're collabing. You know this is 100 right.

This is great like what uh, what's your biggest ambition right now, obviously, that will change at 25 and 30 and 35 and 40., but right now, as a 20 year old dude, with this momentum and these blessings do you want to. I see actor like do. You want to be a superhero in a movie. Do you want to like you want to become a big actor? Is the modeling thing more fun like? Is that, like you know a thing that just is epic? Is it more on the creator side like if i said next three four years, what would be one epic thing you'd like to accomplish what stands out you know, being a superhero would be sick, um, which superhero would, if, if i said good news, i'm a genie From the future, you're gon na be one of the actors that gets to be a superhero in a superhero movie, which one would you want to be? That's that's right.

Now, yeah, okay iron man, hands down yeah. You can't go wrong with iron man or captain america. Those two are my favorite yeah. You think you can get your muscles up for captain america.

I know i need to bulk up a little bit uh like any any final thought, any emerging platform or app that people might not know about anything brewing in the in the kids land that people should keep an eye out, maybe get a first read. You never know i mean tick. Tock came out of nowhere man, you know as a creator, i'm always looking for the next big app, that's going to blow up like tick, tock yep, but nothing right now of choice. No, i haven't seen anything right now now like thanks for being on the show brother.

Thank you so much man appreciate it. That was awesome. Thank you, blake and thank you gary. Thank you.

Next time have a great day you too next up. We welcome ryan harwood. He's the ceo of gallery media group thanks for joining ryan guess what today we are going to be chatting with christina, better known as tinx the breakthrough star behind the at its meetings. Accounts tinks is an la based, st sanford grad, otherwise known as tick tock's.

Big sister, in less than a year, she's gained over a million followers on her platforms and has partnered with great brands, including chipotle, skims, bmw mini cooper and the real real and more welcome ryan and hi hey tanks. Welcome welcome thanks for joining me thanks for having me absolutely so, first off you're you're on fire, so i just got to say that right now and before we start, can we just talk for a second about gwyneth um? You know that was yeah. That was honestly. The coolest collab ever i, i still can't believe it's real um she's been an idol of mine forever and i mean let's face it: she's the og rich mom.

So it's pretty cool that she um collabed with me in that way, she's so funny, so smart um. So warm so it was a really a dream. Come true and a dream come true to see her hold minnie mike. So it was it's a good day.

I love it for the audience. If you don't know what i'm talking about go to, tynx's instagram account check out her most recent post. It is awesome how that collab came together, so just wanted to get that out of the way, because it's so recent but um, you know i love origin stories. Tell me in a nutshell, how you became a creator, was it purposeful or was it by accident a little bit of both honestly before i was doing um before i was a creator.

I was a writer and a consultant, and i always thought of myself as kind of a behind the scenes. Uh creative, you know never never wanted to be in front of the camera and then quarantine hit, and i was like i have literally nothing to lose and i'm enjoying consuming tick-tock content. So much i might as well give it a go myself and as soon as i made my first video, i realized this is what i was supposed to do so in a way all of my work before this has prepared me for it, but um how it Happened was kind of a happy accident makes sense. You know we have a lot of brand marketers and chief marketing officers on the call - and you know they're they're, creating their own organic presence on these platforms.

What are some tips that you can give brands that are also trying to nurture a community, the way that you've nurtured your own community and built your own audience? I think finding true fans, like i think, finding that whoever is championing your brand naturally um is so important and really fostering relationships with those people, because every brand has super fans um, and i think that they're kind of the backbone of the fandom - and they are Really the ones who start the little movements and who make the organic content so finding finding out who those people are and and and forming meaningful relationships with them is, is so important. How do you think of when you're creating content for instagram versus tick tock? Do you think differently, or is it similar? How do you think about that? You know it is. It is a slightly different audience um. I think that they respond to slightly different things.

Um. I think my audience on instagram, for me personally, is a little bit older and on tick, tock excuse a little bit younger and the the type of content. I think we're just trained to view the two we've been trained to view them differently, like on tick tock. It's all about the hook right.

So when i'm thinking about tick tock, i think in the first three seconds am i grasping their attention, whereas on instagram i know that those those uh followers are a little bit more engaged a little bit more patient. You know they have the they'll watch something the whole way through um, so it is different. I think that's just down to the nature of both of the apps and the way that people digest and consume the content on each yep and and when you know you, you get an incredible amount of engagement on your on your posts, which is just awesome. It means that you really truly have a cult-like following so to say, but how do you determine how any of those comments you're actually going to respond to and engage with on each of the platforms like at? What point do you have to be like? I can't you know it's it's a lot to keep up with.

I think um. I think where i'm most active is actually my dms, because i give a lot of advice and a lot of especially women write into me and that's where i really try to spend at least 30 minutes or an hour a day just going through my dms and Responding to them, because you know it takes a lot to write me and if you're reaching out and you and you need help or advice like i take my responsibility and my platform very seriously. So that's where i spend the majority of my time. The tick tock comment section it's: it can be a little wild in there.

It can get really crazy. So i i tend to cut myself off. You know usually i'll i'll, just scan the comments and just see the general um consensus on my post, but you know i i always say this to my followers. Like that's ego, that's ultimately, when you're reading the comments, like that's your ego, looking for a stroke, but ultimately you end up sometimes getting hit, so you've got to cut yourself off and just just do a scan here and there like take the pulse of of your Followers and uh and move on because it can get a little.

It can get a little wild dicey. I feel you have. You ever had an instance where your audience just fully pushed back on a piece of content that you did. I you know yeah, i mean sure i've had flops and i've i've taken missteps, but i think for me i i'm always so honest with my followers and i'm i'm coming to this creator role so late in life that i and i'm so new to it.

That i i tell them like guys, i'm gon na make mistakes i'm going to make missteps, but i want you to know that i'm super self-aware and i'm happy to course correct and also i'm it's it's good for me to fail in public. Because then i can say, i'm sorry or i can, you know, explain what went wrong to them and i feel like i'm kind of growing with them, and i think that the age of like the perfect creator or the perfect influencer is over and what people respond To now is humility, humility and, and personal growth and um, and someone who's willing to change and to be to be influenced themselves so um yeah i've definitely had flops. I've definitely screwed up before and i'm sure i will again, but i it's you know it's not a a zero-sum game. It's it's! It's a an evolving process.

Yeah! You know, i think one thing that brands could really take away from the way creators do things. Is you guys collaborate a lot with other humans with other influencers and i don't think brands collab with other brands enough right? Obviously they do pay partnerships with influencers, but i think they can collab together. So i'm curious from your perspective. How does collaborating with other creators contribute to your creative process? How do you think about that? I learn so much from my from other creators, like i lean on my creator, friends more than anybody else now um, and i think it's just it's.

It's such an incredible uh way to to push yourself and to go outside of your comfort zone and to learn how other creators do things even logistically, just like collabing with someone and seeing how they film or seeing their process and and how they edit it's it's. It's so incredible and i think you're right, i think brands should collab more. I think that audiences really love when they feel like worlds are colliding because they're on the other side of the screen, right and they're, watching us and the response that i get when i collab with other people. It's just like it's crazy and, like you see it on tv, sometimes when you know different, shows, will kind of have a world crossover.

People love that and that's the way that i think about the content too, like i'm a character to them, and so, if i can take bring another character from tic toc into my content or vice versa. It's just it's thrilling and it's exciting and it's it's a win-win all around win for me when, for the other creator win for the audience, because it's interesting so um yeah, i think more brand collabs would be really fun. People get a kick out of that. Is there one creator out there that you would love to collab with well now that i've collabed with gwyneth, i mean that was that's.

That's me done for a little bit um, but you know there's there's so many people that i that i want to collab with. So many incredible creators that i'm just i'm so lucky to know and that are so cool and um i i can't wait to meet more of them. They're just they're the most interesting, exciting people and um, and i'm lucky to be a part of the community awesome. You know to that point on that question: gallery media group, the company that i run helped tinder make the diplo date happen and we're very happy and proud of that.

So i'm asking you as someone that's deep in the community and in dating advice who's. The next date we should try to make happen within the tick tock community. Oh well, you should probably set me up with harry styles. Next, oh, my god is that is that too much i just i.

I think that i am a good person to go on a date with so at least you know it's fun and entertaining and - and i can edit videos well so i don't know, i love it. Quick speed round of questions to get to know you salty or sweet sweet, disney, plus or netflix netflix summer or winter, winter, 80s or 90s, music, 90s almond milk or oat milk, coconut milk, nba or nfl uh, nba last one friends or seinfeld seinfeld tanks. Thank you. So much for joining us.

We appreciate you having me so much fun, bye, guys, awesome thanks, tinx, all right! Next up ryan, you have a gaggle coming on we're going to be chatting with nate wyatt ozra mian, aisha, meon uh nate is a multi-hyphenate content. Creator, actor and recording artist. Nate has amassed a following over 8 million loyal fans across numerous social media platforms and at 20 years old, the mian twins became overnight sensations on youtube and tick. Tock, less than a year ago now, boasting over 8 million followers originally from new york, the pakistani albanian duo started their youtube channel when they were 13 posting beauty, tutorials, twin challenges and vlogs.

Welcome everyone hi thank you for having us yeah. Thank you. Absolutely thanks for coming on guys we're excited to have you um, so triple triple threat, mate, creator, actor and recording artist. I love it.

You're a swiss army knife yeah tell me: were you a creator before you became an actor recording artist or was it vice versa? How did that all evolve? Yeah, so um i've been singing. Since i was a kid, i got into acting uh right after high school when i was 19 years old and i didn't have a follow-up. So i'm from ohio - and i moved out to la right after high school um, not having a social platform kind of coming out and was gon na do the whole. You know acting route, get a job um.

What not and you know just pay my dues and you know, get it like everyone else has like in the you know, acting community and whatnot um, and then i got out here and i was on social media because it was a way it was my form Of like entertainment at the time because, like i control social media, you know i can't control when i have an audition when i book something et cetera so um. You know. I was also just on social media when i got out here for fun and it kind of took like a path of its own. I, like i, tell people, i think social media uh.

You know it's preparation, but it's also a little bit of luck. So it kind of just happens: um and yeah - that's kind of how i got it to it. So i was i yeah. I was an actor and a musician uh before i was a creator.

Yeah makes sense. Awesome, um, aisha, i'm gon na. Ask you a question here, so how do you think about when you're creating content? How do you authentically engage your audience in a way that is like truly you? How do you think about that um? I just think like really important to make sure you're staying true to yourself, especially when it comes to making content. It could be very easy to start wanting to like make content specifically just because you know that let's say it's performing well for someone else or this or that, and i think that it's very easy to notice when your fan base can be a change in the Way that you're acting based on you know, if you see a technique working for another creator and that like starts to change the way that you uh make your content um.

So i think it's just really important to like stay true to what you began with, and you know just staying true like your true intention on social media, because it's very easy to see that, from like a fan perspective like see a change in the creator or The way that they're creating their content or the way that they interact with the fans so just kind of staying true to yourself and it's easy to get lost in it, but always bringing that back down. That's right, i love it and azra. How is the? How has the rise of tick tock impacted your career trajectory and goals as a content creator? Oh my gosh um. I mean it's changed our life so much like.

Just two years ago we were living in new york going to college for like marketing and business and now we're living in la and doing content as our full-time job. So i would say that definitely, like you know, doing social media and doing what we do now. It it i feel, like it's still not taken as seriously as it should be. Some people still look at it, look at it as just them making content and it's not a real job, but from our end, they don't like people like fans, don't see the work that goes behind it and the meetings that we're in the brands we're talking to And that one tick tock can sometimes take us a few weeks to film because we're going back and forth with the brand.

So i just wanted to be taken more seriously and it's just definitely changed. I feel like the outlook. Um has changed a little bit and i think people are starting to see that um, but i mean just doing tic tac in general has changed our life so much like just two years ago, even a year ago, like we just moved out here, we were so Fresh, so it's just crazy to see how social media can now be such a. You know it's a big part of everyone's life, but can be such a big job, especially for us, because we're only 20 years old like and our life has changed so much from it.

So i mean big talk and social media in general has just changed the game for sure yeah, hey nate. You know we have a lot of senior marketers watching the show chief marketing officers brand managers, the people that are dying to collaborate with all three of you. Yeah, we're always trying to educate them and and tell them how to approach you guys in the way that's going to allow them to unlock the greatest value for their brand, but also allow you to really be a creator. So i'm curious from your perspective.

How do you prefer brands to engage you, meaning like process wise? Do you prefer them to kind of lead the creative direction a little bit, or do you prefer to have explicit direction like do this like? How should they approach you to get the most out of you and your audience yeah? So i think, with a brand um how to approach us is, they can have some direction a little bit, but also let us like um chime in on that and give our creative perspective on what we think will work because, obviously, like we know exactly what's going To work with our audience um, so i wouldn't say just give us all the creative freedom, i would say, give us like little points that they want us to hit, but then give us also some creative uh freedom to like hit those um in a way. That'll help our like in a way, that'll work with our audience, because we know what so yeah yeah i mean. What i like to always say is is let them tell the story the way they tell stories all the time and let the br let them make the brand the hero of the story, but stop trying to force the brand in the first two seconds and make It so obvious that it's an ad like tell the story, and then let them figure out how to make the brand the hero and that story is that a good way to think about it. 100 yeah awesome and you know, for all three of you.

Do you guys have like a high-performing brand partnership in mind that maybe you could tell us like why you thought it was successful like why it actually worked um? I would go first. I would quickly say um. I just think in general, we do post a lot of lifestyle, slash beauty, content, so a lot of people that do watch us are looking at that. So when we work with, let's say make a brand specifically, we notice that our audience tends to engage with it.

A lot because they already follow us because of our makeup content or lifestyle content, so working with the brand that we usually uh kind of revolve. Our content around tends to perform super well whereas like if we were to work with, let's say a video game app or anything, that's really outside of our bubble might not be perceived as well, so just anything that we can generally base our content around yeah, i Mean i would say i mean i did a giorgio armani uh uh cologne, collab and when you think of that, you wouldn't think when you think of a collab or like a commercial with a clone company, you wouldn't think like really funny or comedy um. But i i did that i put my own twist on it and i made kind of like a funny skit with the collab and it got almost like a million likes and it got millions of views and i it got way more than if i just made Like a a basic like cologne like commercial type deal, you know what i mean um, i made it funny, it made it. I showed personality and it did way better than you know.

I like i thought i would yeah. I love that so we gallery media group was the one that did that with you guys, and i agree with you. It's actually one that we go to the well and use as an example. A bunch of you guys that were in that did an incredible job of doing just that telling a story and then making the product included in this story as opposed to making a straight ad.

So i agree with you that was a great one um. What do you guys think will be needed in the future to keep audiences engaged as the creator ecosystem just continues to grow at such a rapid rate? Do you think that there's going to be anything, that's needed there um? Well, i think when it comes to like um social media in general, it's always changing and trends are always changing and i feel like, as you know, on the creative end, it's so important for us to keep up with trends, and you know what people are still Engaging with because, like apps, die out, you know super quick and trends change and even like really good, like a youtuber, for example, or even a tick talker. You know there could be something that's working for them at a time, but then, let's say a year from now that you know their style. I guess you can say, isn't what's working and you know if they continue with that they're going to slowly like i don't want to say but like fall off.

But that's when you kind of have to like you know, take a little change in what you're doing and you know, try something new and i think it's always so important, especially for us like on our end and for the brand's end, to really track these trends And track what's changing, so we can, you know, follow it and still stay relevant. If that makes sense, makes complete sense. Well guys, thank you so very much for joining us. I know this went too quick.

I have so many more questions for you, but you are awesome and hope you get to uh meet in person soon. Yes, so much thanks everybody! Next, we welcome gabby fenton. Thank you ryan. Next, we welcome gabby fenton.

She just joined us as the head of vayner lattam and we like to call her la reina, the queen, because she's amazing amazing, thank you. Gabby is going to be chatting with the wonderful kim farrell from tick tock she's, the director of marketing in latin america. Just a couple words on kim uh kim has over 2 10 years of experience in consumer marketing. Having worked most of her career for google in both the united states and sao paulo brazil and she's led a lot of exciting campaigns for events like the world cup and the olympics.

And interestingly, her life motto is actually a quote from one of the guests on our show today: um and actually her favorite tick, tock creator, tinks you're, not too old, and it's not too late. Welcome, gabby and kim. Thank you for having me and yes, i was so excited to see tinks here i am like a huge fan girl. I'm a tank stand forever for life, so that was an amazing question.

I feel like i've. I've met her in some way now, so i'm very excited about it from the backstage exactly and of course, she can say that, because she's 20 something right, it's never too late and you're, never too old. Of course, if you're 20 thanks come on, please hello kim. Welcome and thank you so much for doing this because, if you didn't say yes, i would have never said yes to being on the marketing for the now andreas that i would only do with you i'm here.

So thank you so very much kim and uh nissan. You have the coolest job in the planet. I really feel like. I knew i think um.

I think we're at this moment of you know we're here to talk about creators and community and i think, there's really no better place than than at tick. Tock, uh and and the moment that we're living kind of you know as a brand and as a as a society uh in terms of you know, content creation. So it's amazing and you're my client. So that makes me the second, the second coolest person in the world right.

Yes, i'm your your first client uh in vladim and i'm you're, my first client in laram. How cool can i be that i have like my first client in latin america?.