Dayna Castillo - Your Friend on The Internet, and the Importance of Understanding Internet Culture
"Terminally online" is how Dayna describes her line of work. And we love that!
Dayna Castillo is a digital marketer, and her formal title at the Narrative Group is Senior Manager of Trends and Youth Culture (pretty cool huh?). In a way, she's in charge of keeping her finger on the pulse of internet culture and assisting clients in understanding and capitalizing on the latest trends sweeping social media and the web. From managing social media accounts, to recently winning a Webby, We'd say Dayna is an expert in her field, because she does know her S***!
Sit back, and enjoy story time with Dayna as she recounts her journey through digital marketing and internet culture.
in|flow
📸 Connect on Instagram
🎵 Connect on TikTok
🎥 Connect on Youtube
⛵️ Visit our website!
Transcript
Hey everyone.
Speaker:And welcome back to the rise and flow podcast.
Speaker:Hosted by Ray Khan and Gabe Strada.
Speaker:I think fault law group, a law firm, dedicated creators artists
Speaker:and small business owners.
Speaker:This podcast is all about sharing the stories and journeys of different
Speaker:creative disruptors in varying industries to showcase the rising
Speaker:tide of individual pioneers and our new fractionalized creator economy.
Speaker:On today's episode, we're talking digital marketing and social media
Speaker:trends with our special guest.
Speaker:Dana Castillo.
Speaker:Dana is the senior manager of trends and youth culture at the narrative group.
Speaker:I pretty dope title.
Speaker:If you asked me and shares with us a little bit about her roles and
Speaker:responsibilities, as well as her journey through the internet, as a digital
Speaker:marketer and recent Webby award winner.
Speaker:I'm really excited to share this podcast with y'all.
Speaker:Dana truly is this an awesome individual and on many of our one-on-one calls
Speaker:she's usually giving us a master class on all things digital marketing and social
Speaker:media marketing when we're supposed to be giving her legal advice but
Speaker:anyway we hope you like it and without much further ado let's dive into it.
Speaker:Dana, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker:We really appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker:Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker:I've been looking forward to this for a while now.
Speaker:We know we talked about this for a minute, and it's been a lot of hoops and obstacles
Speaker:to get the schedule, because we're all busy people, but thank you so much for
Speaker:taking time out of your busy schedule to jump on a call with us and our audience
Speaker:and yeah, want to jump right into it.
Speaker:We know, but I don't know if our audience are aware.
Speaker:You just won a Webby, right?
Speaker:So, I did.
Speaker:If you take a chance, can you explain what a Webby is, and what category you won your
Speaker:Webby in, and a little background on how.
Speaker:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:Well, first of all, happy to be here, you guys.
Speaker:I've been totally looking forward to being on your podcast since you
Speaker:guys announced that you had one.
Speaker:So I recently won a Webby.
Speaker:It is back here.
Speaker:My webby next to my Wall E.
Speaker:So I want a webby for people's voice in the social media category.
Speaker:And I won it with Tumblr for running their socials through the end of 2022 and
Speaker:essentially clapping back at Elon Musk in the funniest way possible, and it was
Speaker:voted on by users, so it wasn't just that their voting panel Decided it was funny.
Speaker:It was kind of like all of the internet decided it was funny.
Speaker:So it's a really big deal.
Speaker:I like to say that it's the equivalent of winning like a Grammy.
Speaker:If it was in music, it's kind of like the Grammy of the internet is the Webby.
Speaker:So really excited.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:And how did you, like, how did you even get notified?
Speaker:Like, how does that process even happen?
Speaker:So it's a self nomination process.
Speaker:It was actually submitted by Tumblr who I was working with as a freelance
Speaker:client at the time submitted the entry and we were up against Stephen
Speaker:Colbert, like the late show Trevor Noah.
Speaker:So it was really, A big deal to even be nominated and being next to these
Speaker:amazing comedians, but to win in a comedy category next to those nominees is just.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:Unbelievable.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:That's so cool.
Speaker:Congratulations to that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like a big congratulations.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And that's one of the things that, I mean, we know about you and we
Speaker:always chat every time we, we jump on a call, we talk about this because
Speaker:you're like queen of the internet.
Speaker:I mean, you know, Every trend, everything that's going on.
Speaker:How did you kind of get into that space?
Speaker:Like, how did you make that a job?
Speaker:So it's, it's been a long time coming.
Speaker:Actually, I have always been a terminally online person.
Speaker:I've been on the internet since I was in high school
Speaker:which is many moons ago for me.
Speaker:My space in its heyday, just being terminally online and just knowing.
Speaker:every facet of the internet as it's happening, but then also it's just
Speaker:grown ever since I was like a teenager.
Speaker:And when I was coming up, the internet as a job like this didn't even really exist.
Speaker:Even with what I do now with, which is a lot of, I specialize in digital
Speaker:marketing and I primarily focus on Gen Z trends and Gen Z subcultures and
Speaker:trend spotting within the digital space.
Speaker:This job didn't exist like four or five years ago.
Speaker:So it's really just that.
Speaker:I've been online for my entire life.
Speaker:I've been paying attention in a really obscure and like almost annoying way,
Speaker:I don't want to say that like the internet is annoying, but like the
Speaker:terminally online, just like deep in the ether of the internet is not
Speaker:something that everyone is able to do.
Speaker:And it's almost just having an encyclopedic knowledge of.
Speaker:What's trending on the internet now and what's previously trended before
Speaker:and just using all of the information that I have to predict what's going to
Speaker:happen in the future, but then also.
Speaker:Pay attention to trends that are currently happening, and figure out the longevity
Speaker:of them, what's happening, what's happened before, and just like, I don't
Speaker:know, just be, I'm just on the internet.
Speaker:I, I like to position myself as like, Dana, your friend on the internet.
Speaker:Yeah, that's how I usually describe you as well.
Speaker:And as you know, we have office hours with our monthly subscribers like every week.
Speaker:Today we were literally talking to them and we brought you
Speaker:up because Vanessa was on.
Speaker:Who's also into, she's in web design and marketing as well.
Speaker:And we were just like, Hey, guess who we're jumping on a podcast with later?
Speaker:I'm saying Dana.
Speaker:And there's other people on the call and we were trying to
Speaker:explain to them what you do.
Speaker:I always go with the terminally online situation.
Speaker:Like she's just, that's what she says her title is.
Speaker:But in a more formal sense, what is your title and what is the
Speaker:roles and responsibilities that you're taking on for your clients
Speaker:or that the work you're doing?
Speaker:Just for people who are interested in the digital marketing space, or people
Speaker:want to get into it, or just curious about what you're up to we'd love to
Speaker:know more, a little bit more about that.
Speaker:Yeah, so I currently work with an agency.
Speaker:I work with the Narrative Group, which is a subdivision of a global
Speaker:marketing agency called We Are Social.
Speaker:I primarily work within their entertainment division, but I do work
Speaker:with like multiple clients with them.
Speaker:I'm their Senior Manager of Trends and Youth Culture, which is an unusual title.
Speaker:It doesn't really exist in too many spaces outside of our own agency.
Speaker:And what that means is I'm really just in charge of trend spotting.
Speaker:Keeping an eye out for those terminally online things and then figuring out how it
Speaker:applies to the brands that we work with.
Speaker:And previous to that, I did my, I had my own business called Dana
Speaker:does and I was freelance for about three years when I got, I was really
Speaker:serious about it for three years.
Speaker:But even before that I was doing digital marketing in a, Less serious way with
Speaker:more casual clients with my friend's bands and my friend's record labels and
Speaker:things like that really just cutting my teeth in marketing and taking Anything
Speaker:I could that sounded interesting that anyone would allow me to play with.
Speaker:So that's actually how I got my start, was just kind of right place, right time.
Speaker:With the combination of just being a terminally online person, plus
Speaker:having a small business that was like, we don't care what you do.
Speaker:Like, oh, are people going to see this?
Speaker:Great, yeah, do whatever and really just turn that into a career, and looking back,
Speaker:that was like seven or eight years ago, and it was really just trial and error,
Speaker:and now it's It's a full blown career, and it's kind of my favorite thing ever.
Speaker:That's so cool.
Speaker:And, and the one thing, like, you gotta remember, too, is that, I mean, you know,
Speaker:the, the whole terminally on, you know, on the internet thing, I mean, in reality,
Speaker:I mean, and hear me out here, you're actually a popular culture historian.
Speaker:That's really what it comes down to, because, look, what, what
Speaker:happens, and look, I, I've I studied history for undergrad.
Speaker:That was my thing.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And one of the, the angles and one of the views to look at history
Speaker:is actually through pop culture because it's, it's almost raw.
Speaker:It's unfiltered.
Speaker:It's the people's history.
Speaker:And you could go back to like, you know, NWA is like, you know, fuck the
Speaker:police or like, you know, I don't know, strange fruit or something, you know,
Speaker:like all these, these popular culture songs that we're talking about, what
Speaker:was currently happening in just society.
Speaker:That's kind of the same thing.
Speaker:It just shifted from, you know, kind of just the records to now online.
Speaker:So, I see you more as a popular culture historian.
Speaker:That's going to be how I'm going to describe you from now on.
Speaker:I mean, yeah, totally.
Speaker:I like to think of it in more serious terms because it is really
Speaker:Easy to discount pop culture as being like trendy or not serious.
Speaker:But yeah, I like to think of it as cultural anthropology because it is
Speaker:really a language of how people are interacting with each other and how people
Speaker:are communicating and just the ease and quickness to have new ideas and spread
Speaker:them and get them out really quickly.
Speaker:Memes count, like memes count as Language and it's very current
Speaker:and it's easily accessible.
Speaker:It's accessible to anyone.
Speaker:And it's such an easier and faster way to get knowledge across.
Speaker:Whereas before there were higher barriers to entry.
Speaker:If you're trying to write a book or write an album, like anybody can make memes and
Speaker:have an opinion and spread it quickly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And powerful.
Speaker:And I mean, tying all of that in like how important it is, but
Speaker:also that you love it, right?
Speaker:Just think back, like, we're, you know, especially like our generation, right?
Speaker:Like people born from like 1984 to like 1995.
Speaker:Like it's a, I forgot what they call, we talked about this a couple
Speaker:times, but there's a certain label for that generation where we grew up.
Speaker:In a world kind of like before the Internet as children, and we grew up with
Speaker:the developing technologies over time and, you know, having our parents who
Speaker:never grew up with that, like that type of technology and like make fun of us if
Speaker:we were like, like on the Internet too much or like on the computer too much.
Speaker:And like, you know, that's not gonna help you get a job in the real world.
Speaker:You should be studying and things like that.
Speaker:But here we are, where people, like, kids want to be YouTube stars now, because now
Speaker:you can actually make more money being a YouTube star than going and getting
Speaker:themselves in a bunch of debt, become a doctor, whatever it may be, right?
Speaker:And that's a legitimate career, because it's still an entertaining career.
Speaker:It's educational based sometimes.
Speaker:And yeah, and also the fact that you love what you do is really exciting as
Speaker:well because you know, I was that nerd as well who was like always on the computer
Speaker:and trying to figure out things and just like on the internet, so I'm like
Speaker:bravo to that I mean, thank you so much.
Speaker:I I read an article recently.
Speaker:I might have seen a tiktok But I might have read an article that said that more
Speaker:children are interested in being content creators than astronauts when they
Speaker:grow up and that's, that's crazy to me.
Speaker:And then another statistic I saw said that Gen Z is more likely to hope Mr.
Speaker:Beast.
Speaker:We'll show up and pay their debts then winning the lottery.
Speaker:It's probably more realistic, probably more realistic.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, but I mean, speaking of, of kind of that, that shift, right.
Speaker:In, in just culture in general, right.
Speaker:Like for, for the internet and all that, like, how have you seen
Speaker:the internet and social media kind of just, Change the landscape of
Speaker:businesses just in general, right?
Speaker:Whether it's small or like these huge corporations what have you noticed
Speaker:kind of in the last five years?
Speaker:Let's say as far as like,
Speaker:Well, even kicking it back a little bit farther before five years, so when I, when
Speaker:I first started my like marketing journey was right at the time when businesses
Speaker:started joining Instagram, because if you can imagine, there was a time before
Speaker:social media when brands didn't care.
Speaker:There were no brands.
Speaker:There were, there were maybe brands and they didn't know how to navigate
Speaker:the space, especially large businesses, even down to like small businesses.
Speaker:And there was a moment 2015, 2016, when brands hopped on, it was primarily
Speaker:Instagram, but then also Twitter.
Speaker:That's where you also started to see the rise of brands doing the like.
Speaker:Sassy Twitter thing.
Speaker:But Between then and now there's been such an emphasis on digital marketing
Speaker:within the social media space that comes from this like very formal and very
Speaker:serious part of the business that's coming from very straightforward advertising.
Speaker:It's coming from print ads, it's coming from commercials, from these
Speaker:very like rigid marketing strategies.
Speaker:But then as social media within The marketing space evolved.
Speaker:It just was able to become so much more fun and more less,
Speaker:less serious and more fun.
Speaker:Because these platforms and these strategies within these platforms
Speaker:are constantly evolving and they move so incredibly quickly that these
Speaker:previous campaigns that would be built out and would take like hundreds of
Speaker:people and thousands of dollars to execute on these major campaigns.
Speaker:Are, are just being cut down to like tiny short little videos at this point
Speaker:that shouldn't feel like an ad, that should feel like a person made it,
Speaker:made it themselves and it's really kind of leveled the playing fields a
Speaker:bit from large scale brands down to small businesses because Everyone has
Speaker:a phone and everyone can shoot a video.
Speaker:So like everyone can support their own business.
Speaker:So like you don't need the big ad spend behind it to have a, like,
Speaker:have a video, have a viral moment.
Speaker:Yeah, and you know, I was gonna tie it in because a lot of our audience are
Speaker:small business owners, small creators, and it's the same trends, right?
Speaker:We're talking about these trends that are happening on TikTok
Speaker:or on YouTube or Instagram.
Speaker:It's the same trends that bigger clients of yours or, you know, a small
Speaker:creator can hop on and take advantage of and engage sometimes in this kind
Speaker:of like, this bigger pop culture conversation and be a part of the joke.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:I think that's the cool part about trends a lot of times is
Speaker:like, Oh, you're in on the joke.
Speaker:And everyone who doesn't get it, they're not cool.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like they're, it's like this is a club for every trend.
Speaker:It's like, Hey, this is what the cool kids are doing right now.
Speaker:And who's not, like, if you're not up to date on these trends, then it could
Speaker:be a detriment or a missed opportunity.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So I think it's important for.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Bigger brands and like companies and stuff, obviously to like participate
Speaker:in the trends, but even if you're like a smaller creator, and obviously
Speaker:this is what this is not trying to become trends because like everyone's
Speaker:engaging in it, but it's, it's fun.
Speaker:And two, it can like humanize you with your audience.
Speaker:Just by participating in a trend right so I think that's what's really cool
Speaker:about what we're seeing happening because it's kind of like I don't know.
Speaker:It's just fun I guess my only question here is what have been some of your
Speaker:favorite recent trends that if you have any over the past like I'll give
Speaker:you like the year, because I feel like there's so much that happens, so.
Speaker:Oh, man.
Speaker:I have so many things to say about that.
Speaker:Yeah, I just kind of rambled.
Speaker:No, it's okay.
Speaker:So let me start with the part where you said Leveling the playing
Speaker:field and humanizing brands.
Speaker:So there's actually a benefit to being a smaller creator in
Speaker:the short form video landscape.
Speaker:So in your, in your tech talks and your reels, is that smaller
Speaker:brands are actually able to.
Speaker:Hop on these trends faster and in a more human way than larger brands,
Speaker:because there's typically rounds of clearances that brands have
Speaker:to go through to use the trend.
Speaker:Where did it come from?
Speaker:Who did it first?
Speaker:Is it brand safe?
Speaker:Can it pass legal?
Speaker:Is it using a trending audio?
Speaker:Do you have Barbie cap cut dogs dancing on your thing?
Speaker:Can you use that IP?
Speaker:Like there's all of these challenges coming from larger brands.
Speaker:because it's always at a risk.
Speaker:There's always a risk of brand perception changing within the
Speaker:audience because you like did something stupid on Tik TOK, right?
Speaker:But if you're a smaller creator, if you're a smaller business, you have, you
Speaker:don't have these, these hurdles to jump through because as a small business and
Speaker:as a smaller creator, you can individually decide if it's a brand risk to use.
Speaker:Barbie dogs.
Speaker:I don't know why that's the one that I was like, that's the one the barbie
Speaker:dogs when they're dancing the ice spice You can choose to feature barbie dogs
Speaker:and ice spice on your channel as it relates to You and your small business
Speaker:and you can do that without having to jump over any hurdles And be so much
Speaker:more immediate on those trends where a larger brand, it can take days or even
Speaker:sometimes weeks to get all of those clearances to get your content live.
Speaker:And by that time something else has already happened and Barbie
Speaker:dogs aren't current anymore.
Speaker:This leads me to, a week ago, I saw a brand, not anyone that I work with,
Speaker:and not anyone that I would name, but I saw a food brand do a corn song
Speaker:trend, and I just was appalled, like, it, it was offensive to me in every
Speaker:part of my social media presence, just, I was like, gross, how dare you.
Speaker:How dare you try to serve me a corn, a corn kid video right now.
Speaker:That's the song that popped into my head when Ray was talking, like you
Speaker:were saying, like trends of the year.
Speaker:And I'm like, yeah, the corn song.
Speaker:That's like, it was last year.
Speaker:Oh, that was last year.
Speaker:See last year.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And for me, so, to answer the question of what's my favorite trend of the year.
Speaker:I, because I'm so up close with the internet at all times, my sense of
Speaker:trend cycle is very, very skewed compared to the average person.
Speaker:So there's trends that happened five days ago.
Speaker:I feel are, are oversaturated.
Speaker:I'm sick of hearing about it, but, but it's still emerging.
Speaker:I've, I'm just so embedded and so close to it and have done like
Speaker:the deep research as far as what started this, where did it come from?
Speaker:Who started it?
Speaker:What are the byproducts of it?
Speaker:How, what are the crowd reactions to this piece of content?
Speaker:I've, I've already done all of this research and I'm sick of it.
Speaker:But it still is very, very emerging and still can be possible for like
Speaker:brands and small businesses to hop on.
Speaker:But honestly, like I couldn't tell you what happened two weeks ago.
Speaker:It's total sense.
Speaker:So is there, what would you recommend?
Speaker:Like, let's say for, you know, a small business kind of trying
Speaker:to stay up on the trends.
Speaker:There's so many different places to look, you know, obviously there's
Speaker:all these like TikTok experts on like, Oh, like trends and grow.
Speaker:There's spreadsheets, there's Google page.
Speaker:I mean, there's so much stuff.
Speaker:Like, what are some of the, like, if you had to, to, to give like
Speaker:three pieces of advice, like to a small business, trying to grow on
Speaker:social media, what would you say?
Speaker:Yes, so this is like the question.
Speaker:This is like the number one question that I get asked from a small business
Speaker:standpoint is like, how do I do it with my socials and there isn't a single answer.
Speaker:There isn't there isn't a one size fits all answer.
Speaker:But really, it comes down to setting goals that are are reasonable and attainable
Speaker:for an individual's small business or or smaller content creators page the
Speaker:best way to find content to replicate and like the best way to find trends
Speaker:to hop onto is it's really just a good idea to be A conscious consumer when you
Speaker:are online and what, what do you like?
Speaker:What, what, what do you like?
Speaker:What trends are you seeing?
Speaker:And then just put your own lens onto like your own lens and
Speaker:your filter onto the content.
Speaker:That you're already consuming and figuring out how you can kind
Speaker:of put your own twist onto it.
Speaker:So There is a little bit of like trend searching But if you're if you're already
Speaker:online, it's going to be coming to you kind of organically and then when it comes
Speaker:to how much how much content when should I post like people will ask me what's
Speaker:the best time of day to post content?
Speaker:But they haven't even made anything to post and I'm like, well, let's make
Speaker:something first and then, and then we can get it up and we can get it out
Speaker:and it's way more important to just have content going live consistently.
Speaker:And once you have a little bit of consistency, then you can
Speaker:go back and audit and say, Oh, I posted this in the morning.
Speaker:I posted this in the evening and figure out variables from there.
Speaker:But if you're hung up on what time of day to post and you're not
Speaker:posting anything, that's not working.
Speaker:Like that's, that's not going to get you anything if you're not even trying.
Speaker:So it's, it's really best to put the content out on a schedule that makes
Speaker:sense for you and what's achievable.
Speaker:Maybe it's twice a week, maybe it's twice a day, but setting yourself
Speaker:up for success and figuring out what's doable and what's achievable.
Speaker:And then going back and auditing what worked and what didn't.
Speaker:And then you can get into the nitty gritty of time of day or
Speaker:like weekend or not weekend.
Speaker:I like to say daytime.
Speaker:Like that's my, that's my stock response.
Speaker:They're like, what time of day?
Speaker:Daytime.
Speaker:I'm sure they love that.
Speaker:I mean, I like that, but I love the part about the conscious consumerism
Speaker:because Obviously, like if people are listening and we're like, Oh,
Speaker:you gotta be up on the trends.
Speaker:You should be, you should scroll on your feed more.
Speaker:I don't think that's like the best thing, advice to give anyone,
Speaker:especially nowadays, especially myself.
Speaker:But it's really that conscious consumerism, right?
Speaker:Cause I mean, I'm sure I'm not alone when I'm, I open up my tick tock feed,
Speaker:I'm like, I'm doing research for trends.
Speaker:And next thing you know, it's like two hours later and I
Speaker:haven't clocked a single thing.
Speaker:And I'm just like, I'm just like a zombie, you know, going through the app.
Speaker:I think we've talked about this plenty of times and I think it's
Speaker:the struggle of like being conscious about it and understanding, like.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:If I am seeing a sound more than once, how many times?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And like, Oh, like, let me see when this sound was originally posted
Speaker:and let me see the top, you know, the top six videos for this sound.
Speaker:When were they posted?
Speaker:And if it's fairly recent, I'm like, Oh, this is a trending thing.
Speaker:And I'm going to jump on this right now.
Speaker:And like, at least for inflow, right.
Speaker:And like maybe make content, maybe this is a trend.
Speaker:If it makes sense.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I think that's like one thing.
Speaker:You know, putting that into your own consumerism and looking into it that
Speaker:way and knowing like, all right, this is my time to do the research for the
Speaker:social media aspect of our business.
Speaker:Not just, Oh, this is Ray scrolling.
Speaker:TikTok for like reprieve in a socially awkward situation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:As soon as I get one of those little, like.
Speaker:Do, do, do like the little song.
Speaker:It's like, you've been scrolling too long.
Speaker:I'm like, you showed up.
Speaker:You don't tell me what to do.
Speaker:I'll keep scrolling if I want . But yeah, no, I, I agree with Ray.
Speaker:I mean, I think I with you because yeah, I mean, you, you have to
Speaker:be a consumer of social media in order to know what's gonna work.
Speaker:For your business, right?
Speaker:Yeah, totally.
Speaker:I actually have a really good tip for that because you're
Speaker:going to scroll anyway, right?
Speaker:Like you're already doing it.
Speaker:You're already consuming media, like whether you like it or not, because we
Speaker:all just open and scroll, like, like you said, when you're like, I'm a little
Speaker:bit uncomfortable, open and scroll.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:But there's a really easy way to just kind of bank that for
Speaker:later because TikTok, Instagram.
Speaker:They all have, yeah Twitter, X, whatever we're calling.
Speaker:I can't not call it Twitter, so, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter all
Speaker:have, like, save and bookmark features.
Speaker:And you don't even have to figure out why you like something in the moment,
Speaker:if you're just doing your scroll, if you're just, Hang it out online, and
Speaker:you're not thinking about it too much.
Speaker:If you see something you like, put it in a bookmark.
Speaker:Like, throw it in the folder, and then you can come back later when
Speaker:you're in a more analytic mindset, and you can look at all of these things
Speaker:together and say, Okay, here's...
Speaker:10 TikToks that I bookmarked in the last couple of days.
Speaker:Like, what do I like about all of them?
Speaker:Is it a sound?
Speaker:Is it the way that it's filmed?
Speaker:Like, what do I like about it?
Speaker:And then how can I use that more distilled version to influence the
Speaker:content that you're making as a creator or for your small business?
Speaker:So which kind of follows?
Speaker:I want to follow up with that and ask you.
Speaker:So, you know, you mentioned you know, starting off with like
Speaker:your personal brand, right?
Speaker:And all that.
Speaker:Can you tell us a little bit about that and about your journey?
Speaker:With that and starting your your personal brand and then how it evolved from there.
Speaker:Yeah for sure.
Speaker:So i've been doing i've been doing stuff on the internet, for like seven or
Speaker:eight years now in different capacities with different businesses in 2019, I
Speaker:had like my first Corporate marketing job in an office and like looking back.
Speaker:It was so Unserious, but like I definitely had to wear a
Speaker:nice shirt and go to a place.
Speaker:So that was my first like corporate marketing experience and I did
Speaker:that for about a for about a year in 2019 2020 happened.
Speaker:I was furloughed immediately and because I just have this personality
Speaker:type where I Can't sit still.
Speaker:I, I am not the type of person to enjoy having time off.
Speaker:So as soon as I was furloughed, I hung out for a couple of weeks.
Speaker:And then I was like, well, better get started doing something else.
Speaker:So around that time a lot, I have a lot of friends and bands.
Speaker:And around that time, everyone figured out that they couldn't tour in the,
Speaker:in the near future because of COVID.
Speaker:So I had a lot of friends, bands.
Speaker:come to me and say, Hey, we need to figure out how to make money.
Speaker:Like we're not, we're not touring.
Speaker:What can we do?
Speaker:And for some people it was starting record labels or releasing their own
Speaker:music and anything that they had planned.
Speaker:For the rest of the year, they, they had albums releasing
Speaker:that they couldn't tour on.
Speaker:So I helped those guys out and really just started figuring out like how to
Speaker:make money as a small business doing marketing and just doing it on my own.
Speaker:So shout out to all those guys.
Speaker:Like they really helped me get started in my own personal freelance business.
Speaker:And from there I started working with local businesses,
Speaker:which are really beneficial.
Speaker:Like if you're.
Speaker:If you're into marketing at all and like you really want to like get started
Speaker:in it is to look for someone A small business or like someone that you might
Speaker:know that you can assist with running their brand on socials is a great place
Speaker:to start even if you're not going to make a ton of money doing it It's it's
Speaker:a great way to just figure stuff out because almost always they're they're
Speaker:They'll be They're just looking for more Like, feed in the door, more foot
Speaker:traffic, more, more sales, more something.
Speaker:And if you can help with that, even just a little bit, they're usually grateful.
Speaker:So I went from working with bands to working with small businesses.
Speaker:And then I got a big break.
Speaker:A friend of a friend connected me to Tumblr and that's where my, like.
Speaker:My, my big break was, it's where I really got to like, work on an account
Speaker:that's in the millions with millions of account followers and really like, was
Speaker:a stepping stone to where I am today.
Speaker:But yeah, it's, it was really a journey to figure out what I wanted to do and
Speaker:was really just like, Not to glamorize grind culture, but like it was something
Speaker:that I really wanted and it was something that I knew that I was good at and I
Speaker:just had to kind of make it happen and find my footing and, and get it going
Speaker:and then meeting, meeting up with you guys was totally part of that process
Speaker:because I was ready to get serious.
Speaker:I was like, I'm starting to work with people that are outside
Speaker:of my immediate friend circle.
Speaker:We're starting to hit friend of a friend.
Speaker:I had, I had one client that the honey, when the honeymoon period was
Speaker:over, it started to get kind of sour.
Speaker:And I was like, Oh my God, I, I need, I need to form an LLC.
Speaker:I need contracts.
Speaker:I need better contracts just to protect myself, but then also to
Speaker:legitimize my business just in general.
Speaker:Take that next step.
Speaker:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:Like very obvious next step and getting just like LLC forms getting
Speaker:even like contract review for not just for clients, but when I started
Speaker:to hire within my own business was totally a game changer for me.
Speaker:And just knowing that you guys had my back for that step of it was just so.
Speaker:It just put my mind at ease so much, like knowing that I had you guys in my corner.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker:I mean, I was gonna, I was just thinking, I think as a service provider yourself
Speaker:and service providers ourselves, I think just like anyone who's a service
Speaker:provider, we're not in the business of like really providing a service.
Speaker:I feel like we're more in the business of empowering others.
Speaker:And I feel like if you switch that mindset and knowing that You know, when the,
Speaker:you know, the work you're doing, right.
Speaker:Or if you're say you were a digital marketing coach, being able to step in
Speaker:and tell people like, Hey, this is how you utilize trends in your business.
Speaker:And so you'd be smart about it.
Speaker:You're empowering them to do that and it leaves them better off.
Speaker:And I think a lot of people forget about that.
Speaker:I think a lot of people think they're just getting paid to paint someone's house.
Speaker:But in like, I don't know, just like the gratitude aspect of it, of knowing
Speaker:like, Oh no, like what I'm actually doing is I'm painting someone's house.
Speaker:So in a certain way, and that only I could do it, that will allow them to, you know,
Speaker:I don't know, you know, this is going to be their, their first child's bedroom.
Speaker:So I don't know where I'm going with this analogy.
Speaker:I know exactly where you're going.
Speaker:You're not selling a service, you're selling features and benefits.
Speaker:Yes, you're not getting you're not getting a freshly painted house.
Speaker:You're getting the best looking house on the block.
Speaker:Yes, exactly.
Speaker:That's what it is.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I
Speaker:know a little bit there.
Speaker:So yeah, I mean, I think that's Well, a lot of people fall short,
Speaker:especially, you know, when people are like, Oh, I'm a social media manager.
Speaker:Now, let me just like manage your socials.
Speaker:Well, yes, you're managing social, but most businesses and most business
Speaker:owners don't want to manage folks.
Speaker:A lot of people are like afraid of that, especially your local barbers and your
Speaker:local tattoo artists and stuff like that.
Speaker:You know, like.
Speaker:They have their craft, and they're good at that, and they're told they should be on,
Speaker:you know, social media, and they should be on social media, but that's where
Speaker:you come in as a social media manager, to alleviate that for them, and empower
Speaker:them to do what they like to do, and what they want to do, and get more feet in the
Speaker:door, and make more money at the end of the day, while also being able to employ
Speaker:you, and, you know, utilize your services.
Speaker:So, I think it's, it's a lot, like, that's a scenario, just the way you
Speaker:mentioned, like, Us being able to talk about your contracts and make you feel
Speaker:good about utilizing your contracts and your independent contractor agreements
Speaker:of like bringing people on to help you.
Speaker:I feel like at the day, you're looking at yourself, not just as a solo
Speaker:entrepreneur, like a solo person, like in a bubble, but you're, you're
Speaker:bigger, like bigger than yourself.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I always preach about that to a lot of our smaller creators or solo
Speaker:creators who are businesses, but.
Speaker:They minimize what they're doing, but at the end of the day they are doing some
Speaker:really incredible things and They should know that and treat it that way because
Speaker:that's how you eventually grow, right?
Speaker:So yeah, absolutely and there's something to be said that you touched
Speaker:on just a little bit, but it's Knowing it's knowing when you need help.
Speaker:You didn't say that word for word, but it's it's Knowing that you might
Speaker:have a deficit in certain areas.
Speaker:So like when I got to the point of knowing for my business that I needed to start
Speaker:forming LLC and I started needing to get documents in place, I started to research,
Speaker:I started to read about it because I'm like, Big girl boss doing my like doing
Speaker:it all by myself and there's a certain point where you're like, no, I need help
Speaker:and Knowing when to tap in and knowing that like it's gonna take a little bit
Speaker:of time It's gonna take a little bit of money, but it's freeing up the mental
Speaker:Stress and then also freeing up the time that I would have been spending to like
Speaker:figure it all out that that's One scenario from like me to you guys, but then
Speaker:that's also another scenario for small businesses to marketing professionals.
Speaker:So like the barber example that you're using, they can be amazing at cutting
Speaker:hair and like they can be an amazing tattoo artist or an amazing like person
Speaker:within that's in that field, but then asking them to do something else like.
Speaker:learning how to market.
Speaker:Like that's, that's a whole different job.
Speaker:That's a whole different career.
Speaker:So like you shouldn't expect your, your barber to be like an A plus marketer.
Speaker:And for someone like myself, all I see all day is marketing.
Speaker:I don't see any haircuts all day.
Speaker:So when I look at a business like that, I'm like, Oh, you
Speaker:just need to fix a, B and C.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:Boom, done.
Speaker:Why aren't you doing that?
Speaker:And.
Speaker:And to explain that to them would be like you guys trying to explain
Speaker:how to file my own LLC and I, well, you just got, you just got to go,
Speaker:you just got to file the paperwork.
Speaker:And I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking.
Speaker:No, absolutely.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:And that's a great point.
Speaker:You know, when, when it comes to most businesses, I think, right,
Speaker:that's what they want to focus on.
Speaker:And I think that that's one of the things we always kind of.
Speaker:You know, just tell our clients, right?
Speaker:It's like, look, we want you to take care of what you're good at.
Speaker:You know, focus on your craft.
Speaker:Let us take care of all the boring stuff, like all the legal, boring stuff, right?
Speaker:Which I guess it's Fame to be said about what you do, right?
Speaker:It's like let let me do that for you Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:There is a little bit of a misconception though when it comes to marketing and
Speaker:specifically in social media marketing is because everybody has it Everybody
Speaker:has social media and like it's kind of a running joke in the marketing industry.
Speaker:That's like Oh, yeah, my cousin has an instagram.
Speaker:He'll do it but it's so much more than that and it's like I shouldn't
Speaker:be filing my own legal documents and I also shouldn't be cutting my own hair.
Speaker:I'll just do marketing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's, it's also the, you know, the, the growing pains, right?
Speaker:Like I think for everyone and trying to readjust, readjust business and trying to
Speaker:figure out kind of what fits you know, I mean, obviously we've done that so you.
Speaker:You had a project, right, that Dana does, right?
Speaker:Or you have a project.
Speaker:Would you mind telling us a little bit about that and just kind of how that.
Speaker:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:So, so I was running my own freelance business clearing six figures
Speaker:after three years, just on my own.
Speaker:And I had my roster of clients.
Speaker:At the time I was established as an LLC upgraded to an S corp.
Speaker:I had two contractors.
Speaker:That I employed on a regular basis who were helping me do my like day to day
Speaker:handling the really like Grindy stuff that I didn't I didn't have the time to work
Speaker:on And so I finally reached this place where I was like I have solid clients.
Speaker:What's the next step?
Speaker:Like what what is the next step for me where I can start?
Speaker:you know getting another stream of income and everyone talks about like
Speaker:Passive income and, and all of these different ways that you can make money.
Speaker:So I, I looked at the marketing space and I looked at my skillset
Speaker:and I looked at the, the types of clients that I normally have, which
Speaker:are these small businesses especially like in the alternative space, like.
Speaker:I'm an alternative person.
Speaker:I have green hair and tattoos and posters and whatnot.
Speaker:Like I am an alternative person myself.
Speaker:So my clientele is very alternative as well.
Speaker:So I was thinking like, what can I do to this community of
Speaker:people that I already have?
Speaker:So the next logical step for me was I'm going to go into coaching.
Speaker:Like I, I really believe in education of Teaching people how to do things instead
Speaker:of me just doing it for them, especially At varying price points not everyone can
Speaker:can afford my day rate or my project rate so to really help out my friends that
Speaker:would honestly like call me and I would talk to them anyway But like put that into
Speaker:a more structured scenario where I could Begin coaching and make income from that.
Speaker:So I spent the better part of like nine months or so, like six to
Speaker:nine months doing everything that I thought I was supposed to be doing.
Speaker:So I did a ton of market research.
Speaker:I looked at all types of coaches, what they were doing how they set up
Speaker:their courses, what are they selling, how do they, how do they price?
Speaker:How do they price tier the things that they're selling?
Speaker:They have coaching courses.
Speaker:They have like all of these things.
Speaker:So I did a ton of research.
Speaker:Like I really, I signed, oh my God, I signed up for like 20 different courses
Speaker:just to see what other people were doing.
Speaker:And like, who's running a Facebook group?
Speaker:Who's running a discord server?
Speaker:Like who's doing what being a conscious consumer.
Speaker:What parts do I like?
Speaker:What parts can I take for my business that I can like mirror off of
Speaker:and I, it was, it was all of this research and then I was like, okay,
Speaker:well how do we set this all up?
Speaker:And I taught myself how to do drip email campaigns for different,
Speaker:different parts of the journey of people's purchasing process.
Speaker:And I started writing eBooks.
Speaker:I wrote three eBooks that are just like chillin on my hard drive and I did all of
Speaker:the things that I thought I was supposed to do to like get myself to the next
Speaker:step and it was something that I really thought I wanted like I, I spent so much
Speaker:time on this and I learned things and I made things and then when it was time
Speaker:for me to launch, I had Three ebooks, I had consulting similar to, like, one off
Speaker:consulting similar to what you guys do for office hours, where it's like, I can, I
Speaker:can sell my time to people individually if they've signed up for this membership, and
Speaker:I had it all set up, and I was like, okay.
Speaker:I am so ready.
Speaker:I will never be more ready than I am in this moment.
Speaker:And my plan was to soft launch, soft launch to a group of friends that I
Speaker:have, small business owner friends that I have, and then open it up to paid.
Speaker:Because I was like, if these 10 people that are in my circle of friends that
Speaker:I know and I trust and I know will give me honest feedback about what
Speaker:I'm doing, If I can't trust these 10 people to, like, help me out, then
Speaker:how can I expect there to be a, a want for this within the general public?
Speaker:So, I soft launched to crickets, and it was, I was so disappointed
Speaker:It, it was what I thought I wanted.
Speaker:I spent so much time on this building it up, and I soft launched
Speaker:to nothing, and not to say that my friends weren't interested, but it
Speaker:was really the realization that like, They're small business owners and
Speaker:they do not have time to take the courses that I was offering to them.
Speaker:Like they had time for like a one off, like one off phone call.
Speaker:Let's talk shop.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Like that's still a service that I provide.
Speaker:Like if someone wants to book an hour of my time, that's
Speaker:something that is totally doable.
Speaker:But the idea of small business owners actively signing up to do this when
Speaker:they're really just trying to run their business and aren't at a place to scale.
Speaker:They don't need my services yet, so it didn't make sense for them to be active
Speaker:and engaging within the, like, Discord community that I had built for them.
Speaker:And it was crazy.
Speaker:It was such a big eye opener.
Speaker:Like, I, I, I just made all these plans.
Speaker:I made all these plans for what I thought it wanted, what I wanted it to be, and
Speaker:then it happened, and then it just didn't.
Speaker:It was so crazy.
Speaker:Yeah, it was wild.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and I, I guess to follow up on that, I mean, you know, I mean, that
Speaker:that's, that's not uncommon, right?
Speaker:I mean, that, that happens all the time, different businesses, different ideas,
Speaker:and they, you know, some fizzle out some, you know, never see the full potential.
Speaker:Some might get, you know, put away for a little bit and maybe they'll come back.
Speaker:What would you say?
Speaker:Was your, your kind of your biggest learning takeaway from,
Speaker:from that whole experience kind of maybe even going forward.
Speaker:So the biggest learning experience was like, you can
Speaker:expect every idea to be a winner.
Speaker:And, and I'm just this type of, I'm the type of person where I'm
Speaker:always thinking of something new.
Speaker:And I always have like a new venture that I want to pursue, but it's okay to fail.
Speaker:Like really the biggest part of this is that like, I've hit so
Speaker:many wins that it was really just like a learning experience for me
Speaker:personally to have one that didn't win.
Speaker:Like I, I have such a toot toot to like my own horn, but I have, I've had a really
Speaker:great streak of like having good ideas and like executing on them in a way that makes
Speaker:sense to move me to the next step of where I want to be personally and in my career.
Speaker:And that one just didn't do what I expected it to.
Speaker:But hindsight, I learned so much about this like, like the coaching process
Speaker:and the internal workings of how to build gated content and how to build,
Speaker:how to set up a bones for a community, even if the community Didn't show up
Speaker:in the way that I expected, but then there's also an element of maybe I just
Speaker:like, maybe that just wasn't the thing I needed at that moment because within the
Speaker:few weeks of me figuring out like, Oh, Hey, they're not doing what I expected.
Speaker:This isn't, this isn't doing what I, what I wanted was when my client with
Speaker:Tumblr started having viral moments.
Speaker:Like we, we started popping off and I, This is what I won my Webby for
Speaker:was I just had a really intense six weeks of spending 10 hours a day on
Speaker:Twitter, just talking shit to Elon Musk.
Speaker:And I was like, Oh my God, like, had I, had I gone through with this developing
Speaker:this community, I would have had to let them down to be like, yo, I got to
Speaker:go be on Twitter with my like client.
Speaker:So, it, it was, it was the type of thing where like, I didn't
Speaker:know what I needed in the moment.
Speaker:And it, it was really just a big learning experience.
Speaker:I also realized that something that I personally need to build into different
Speaker:aspects of my business is being able to accommodate like busy times and
Speaker:slow times, and also that The initial plans that I had weren't scalable.
Speaker:So with the way that I had Dana does the community set up it, I could only have
Speaker:taken like 25 to 30 clients and been able to give them the attention that
Speaker:they needed and also be able to generate revenue in the way that I had expected.
Speaker:And I like the math just wasn't mapping.
Speaker:And I didn't realize that until I.
Speaker:Found that I didn't have enough time to dedicate to this project anymore.
Speaker:So, like, there was no scale monetarily, but then there was no scale as
Speaker:far as, like, workload for myself.
Speaker:Like, when would I even, if that had gone on, like, when would I
Speaker:have even taken, like, a vacation?
Speaker:Yeah, right.
Speaker:And I mean, just thank you for sharing all of that.
Speaker:You know, a lot of times on the show or not.
Speaker:I got calling it the show.
Speaker:We have seven.
Speaker:It's a show.
Speaker:But yeah, yeah, yeah, I shouldn't I shouldn't down talk.
Speaker:But yeah, I mean, most of times we're always hearing about
Speaker:the success stories, right?
Speaker:And I think it's important for a lot of Our audience members to hear that,
Speaker:Hey, not every, and this is something I always talk to our clients all the time
Speaker:too, because, you know, you're not the only one and, you know, we've been there
Speaker:too, where if you're a creator, it's just inherent, you're going to fail.
Speaker:There's going to be failures, right?
Speaker:Like think about your favorite music artists, not everything
Speaker:they've released is a banger, right?
Speaker:Like there's a lot of songs that your favorite music artists and
Speaker:some of the most accomplished music artists, like musicians.
Speaker:They have some bad songs out there, you know, that just like,
Speaker:or maybe this is not your favorite or just like, Oh, so just not good.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Like you can't, no one, no artist has, everything is a perfect masterpiece.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like not everything DaVinci did was Mona Lisa.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:He didn't do Mona Lisa, right?
Speaker:Yeah, making sure I didn't mess that one up.
Speaker:But yeah, like not every and that's the thing.
Speaker:Like if you're going to create, if even from creating a course, create a new
Speaker:business model, creating a new stream of income or literally just creating
Speaker:an Instagram post or creating, like spending a day to make a YouTube video
Speaker:and then you post it and you get 30 views and you feel terrible about it.
Speaker:It's just inherent, right?
Speaker:Like, guess what?
Speaker:Mr.
Speaker:Beast gets millions of views now, but also you weren't there when you
Speaker:saw him when he was like failing every day for years straight and not
Speaker:meeting what his expectations were.
Speaker:So it's just like, that's just natural to have those failures.
Speaker:Even us, like launching, like we got extremely lucky when we said, Oh,
Speaker:we're going to do a subscription model.
Speaker:And we had no idea it was going to work.
Speaker:And, you know, we just kind of put a number on it and we just knew like,
Speaker:Hey, Like I was prepared for the mindset where it's like, all right, 85% or
Speaker:above, this is not gonna work, but maybe that 15% we can make it work.
Speaker:Or if it doesn't, we could switch course and figure out a system that does work.
Speaker:But you know, you don't know that until you actually take the risk.
Speaker:And most of the times when you're creating things from a social
Speaker:media post, Like it's most time.
Speaker:It's probably not gonna stick, but you won't know what sticks unless
Speaker:you're still making and doing those what we call iterations, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And again, it goes back to kind of what you're pointing out, right?
Speaker:If if that door hadn't kind of shut, this other door wouldn't have opened.
Speaker:And, you know, obviously you got your your Webby.
Speaker:So it's like the universe almost paying you back for, you know,
Speaker:for the work that you did.
Speaker:And I mean, I think that's that it goes back to, like you said, right?
Speaker:I know you don't like the whole grind, the grind mentality, but I mean, it
Speaker:is, that's, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker:You just got to show up and they'll pay.
Speaker:It's, you know, they'll pay back.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And like, maybe not necessarily grind, like sunup to sundown, but like grind in
Speaker:a sense of knowing that it's okay to fail a little bit and then to just like get up
Speaker:and keep going with rest and reflection is what we're doing in 2023, like Yeah, rest,
Speaker:reflect, and then, you know, keep at it.
Speaker:And like you mentioned about like, musicians putting out music and maybe
Speaker:it's, maybe it's like, not their best.
Speaker:They wouldn't have put that out if they didn't think it was good.
Speaker:It's just crowd reception.
Speaker:Like, the crowd wasn't receiving it the way that they had intended.
Speaker:There's a bunch of songs they didn't put on the album.
Speaker:Yeah, there's ones that they didn't put on the album.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:That's like, yeah.
Speaker:And, and maybe it's like the right timing and concept, you know, I, you know,
Speaker:that song, what's that, that I want to push you around, you know, yeah, sure.
Speaker:It was a banger in the nineties, but right now it's like, you know, probably just top
Speaker:of the pop culture charts because of the Barbie song, you know, and it's just like,
Speaker:yeah, for timing, you know, it's all.
Speaker:I have the best example of this.
Speaker:I'm like, sorry, I'm googling it just so I have my facts correct.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Okay, have you ever seen Speed Racer 2008?
Speaker:The Speed Racer movie that came out in 2008.
Speaker:Oh no, I have not.
Speaker:I think I saw it at the movies once and that was it.
Speaker:Okay, so, it was, it, when it came out in 2008, it tanked.
Speaker:It was like, so poorly received people absolutely hated it.
Speaker:So, it was, if you go back, if you watch it now, it is spectacular.
Speaker:It is beautiful, and the crowd just like, wasn't able to
Speaker:receive it when it came out.
Speaker:So, it was directed by the Wachowski sisters, who did The Matrix.
Speaker:It's made this insane visual adaptation of the Speed Racer
Speaker:cartoon and it is Beautiful.
Speaker:And it's like, it's so good now, but when it came out, everybody hated it.
Speaker:And really, it's just kind of like maybe your audience isn't ready to receive.
Speaker:Maybe they're not picking up where you're putting down.
Speaker:Like maybe they're not ready to receive the information, the course, the whatever,
Speaker:whatever the thing is that you made.
Speaker:Maybe they're just not ready for it, but that doesn't mean
Speaker:that you shouldn't keep going.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's like, it's like Marty McFly, you know, at the, at the dance, you know,
Speaker:it's like, you know, what does he say?
Speaker:He's like, yeah, your kids are going to love this, but your
Speaker:kids are going to love it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Or like as a star Wars geek, the prequels, right.
Speaker:It's like, yeah, everyone hated the prequels and now everyone loves them.
Speaker:And like, yeah, but no, absolutely.
Speaker:Timing context.
Speaker:And I think that's just, Just part of social media, right?
Speaker:Part of the internet, part of popular culture is that it's, you can't,
Speaker:you can't push it, you can't shove something in someone's face and
Speaker:tell them to like it, it has to be organic, it has to kind of blow with.
Speaker:With popular culture and that's what makes I think popular culture so great and I
Speaker:honestly for me It's it's I'm I'm with you on it's one of my favorite things.
Speaker:I just love consuming Everything pop culture.
Speaker:Yeah Yes, absolutely And then you you you just said it right now is like the
Speaker:singular that making the singular thing and putting it out And then, like, just
Speaker:doing one, I totally recommend, like, just to bring it back to, like, digital
Speaker:marketing and, like, social media, and just, like, the common questions that
Speaker:people get asked, that, that people ask me, one of them is, like, how much,
Speaker:like, how much content should I put out?
Speaker:And.
Speaker:You can't just do one thing.
Speaker:You can't just put out one post and like, expect it to change everything.
Speaker:Yeah, the answer is more, right?
Speaker:The answer is more.
Speaker:The answer is that like, the internet is a slot machine.
Speaker:And you just gotta like, keep, keep putting effort into it
Speaker:and eventually it'll pay off.
Speaker:Like, no one You're giving yourself chances, right?
Speaker:You're just buying Yeah.
Speaker:Every time you post something, every time you create A new thing.
Speaker:It's a new lottery ticket, right?
Speaker:Or it's like exactly iterations.
Speaker:Another chance at luck, right?
Speaker:Because as we just mentioned, there's so many things outside of our control, right?
Speaker:We can't exactly perceive.
Speaker:We can't control how the tick tock algorithm is going to place it.
Speaker:We can't control what SEO words are trending or like top ranked that month.
Speaker:There's a lot of things outside of our control and like, especially when
Speaker:we're doing marketing or just being a creator in general and creating something
Speaker:special for other people that it might not even get in front of them sometimes,
Speaker:because once again, things outside of your control and just because it doesn't
Speaker:perform well, or it's not well received, that's criticism on the product and what
Speaker:you created, not you personally, right?
Speaker:So absolutely.
Speaker:When you create something and it doesn't do well, or it doesn't meet spec, or
Speaker:it doesn't meet you know, what you expected of it, it's not you failing,
Speaker:it's that didn't do well, right?
Speaker:It's like, maybe I made a failure, but I am not a failure kind of situation.
Speaker:I think that's a big thing that a lot of people need to clock sometimes.
Speaker:I think a lot of people identify too much with what they create.
Speaker:And sometimes they blur the lines between themselves and their self
Speaker:value to how things are being received out from what they're putting out
Speaker:to the internet and to the world.
Speaker:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker:And, and just because one thing doesn't do what are you expected to,
Speaker:whether it's like a business venture or a singular piece of content, you
Speaker:just gotta keep, like, keep going and keep doing it because everything,
Speaker:you're gonna learn from everything, whether it's like a post or a project.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:Whatever part did work and whatever, what part didn't work, you can
Speaker:always move into something else.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And I think that's, that's great advice just in general, right?
Speaker:Just to kind of, I guess if you had to summarize like, you know, just one solid
Speaker:piece of advice for for a business, what would you kind of say to, to a
Speaker:business that's listening right now?
Speaker:They're like, we want to learn how to grow.
Speaker:We want to learn how to.
Speaker:Tap in.
Speaker:YOLO.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:YOLO.
Speaker:And I, I, you kind of just explained it, but I was going to just put a word for it.
Speaker:It's like that real, real resiliency, right?
Speaker:Just like being resilient.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And keep moving forward and, you know, don't put too much
Speaker:weight on what you're doing.
Speaker:YOLO, and keep, keep moving forward, keep creating, and you
Speaker:never know, you never know when that lottery ticket will hit, so.
Speaker:Yeah, and also, it's not so serious.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like, the, the, the internet is fun, and if you're a small business or a small
Speaker:creator, like, You essentially should really enjoy what you're doing, and if,
Speaker:if parts of it get too, too serious, or start weighing on your mind too much,
Speaker:like, it's not so serious, and YOLO, like.
Speaker:If it works, it works.
Speaker:If it doesn't, go do something else.
Speaker:Do you have anything on the pipeline, like, coming down the pipeline, creator
Speaker:wise, that you're looking forward to, or in the works of maybe doing one day?
Speaker:Always like to know what people are looking forward to, because I know, if
Speaker:you're like us there's always something else out there that you're chasing, so.
Speaker:So always yes.
Speaker:So actually, probably this week, maybe tomorrow, maybe end of
Speaker:the week, but very, very soon.
Speaker:I'm planning on launching a substack newsletter with a handful of creators with
Speaker:With peers in the industry that I have it's gonna, it's called silence brand.
Speaker:It is a sub stack written by unhinged marketing professionals
Speaker:within the brand space.
Speaker:So a lot of the people that you see that write funny things on behalf
Speaker:of brands on Twitter we've all kind of gathered together and ganged up
Speaker:to kind of get our own opinions put out into the world because there's A
Speaker:lot of differing opinions right now about what marketing should be that it
Speaker:should be serious and that it should be very professional and very, I just
Speaker:imagine everyone in college shirts.
Speaker:Like, there's, there's a lot of like differing opinions, especially
Speaker:being projected at like mid to senior level marketing professionals
Speaker:about what Gen Z wants and what.
Speaker:Is considered professional marketing and coming from a place of memes and
Speaker:shit posting and knowing that like the internet is a very fun place
Speaker:and, and that organic will win you tons of business more than anything.
Speaker:polished and shiny will.
Speaker:We're, we're looking to put our own opinion out there because it isn't
Speaker:really well represented at this point.
Speaker:You can find it at silencebrand.
Speaker:substack.
Speaker:com, I think.
Speaker:We'll link it.
Speaker:Yeah, link it.
Speaker:But I'm so excited.
Speaker:I'm so excited to be part of creating a platform to get these voices out
Speaker:there because it's not something that is properly represented right now.
Speaker:And, and it's also part of our audience for this is also to Encourage younger
Speaker:marketing professionals that are just coming up that are maybe seeing this
Speaker:advice that says Don't talk about Duolingo and don't talk about Wendy's
Speaker:when you're interviewing because you'll never be taken seriously like I love
Speaker:both of those and I love all of the other and Unhinged brands on the internet.
Speaker:So like let's celebrate them let's get those voices out there and like let's
Speaker:encourage the next generation of marketing professionals to Just to let them know
Speaker:that it's okay to take risks and be funny and it's not so serious and YOLO
Speaker:and just make good content, whatever.
Speaker:Love it.
Speaker:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker:I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker:Well, thank you so much, Dana.
Speaker:I mean, it's, it's always, honestly, you're probably one of my favorite
Speaker:people to like chat with just because we learned so much from you.
Speaker:Number one, there's so much insight, especially because We're so
Speaker:involved in just that space, right?
Speaker:Especially social media.
Speaker:So I really appreciate you taking the time out and I know you're super busy.
Speaker:So thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we'll link all your your, your website and anywhere you want
Speaker:people to contact you or follow you.
Speaker:And obviously the sub stack link as well in the show notes.
Speaker:Is there any other, you know, I don't know if you were just any other
Speaker:ways you want people, if they want to follow along how they can or.
Speaker:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:It's I've been meaning to book an episode with you guys for quite a while.
Speaker:And I'm really happy that this is finally happening.
Speaker:I'm so excited to just be here with you guys.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:We're excited to have this and this is really was a treat for everyone.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:Thank you, Dana.
