why is everyone hiring a social media person

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

good morning good morning good morning probably wondering like taylor why why are you so early why are you so early listen uh have some thoughts and I love going live by myself um I probably could have done this tomorrow um but oh I have a breakfast tomorrow that's why I can't do it actually let me text that guy right now so I have some thoughts and things and uh what am I talking about I'm gonna talk about it I think it's been interesting um so I'm actually gonna put this in my newsletter for this week, but it's fascinating that there's a trend happening. There's a trend happening.

I called one of the trends about community, but the more that I am going down this rabbit hole of building community for Torque, the more I realize the importance of really good content. And I think that's, and so I called the community building Earlier this year, I've seen some crazy salaries from Notion hiring head of communities, which I think obviously is the next generation of marketing. But I think what's interesting right now is everybody's hiring... um everybody's hiring these like social media people so I want to talk about today I have some friends I have some friends coming on I'm super excited um I have I have friends I have one friend coming on in fourteen minutes it's gonna be great it's me great conversation but please say hey we'd love to hear from you again I know we're super early super random it's okay um uh I have a meeting um at uh at nine o'clock central I have to go to um but I'm gonna be here yapping and so Kind of some thoughts.

I think there's a huge shift right now for personal brand development and companies having more of a brand on social media. I was listening to a podcast. I was listening to an interview the other day. um and we've heard it and um you know we've you know we've heard it before but it's not social media anymore it's not right so it's good to see you richie it's good to see you it's good to see you all this morning um uh it's not it's not social media anymore trey what's going on dude it's good to see you uh again I have some guests showing up here soon it's gonna be a good one um is this influencers becoming the face of brain I so I think it's many different layers I'm glad you brought this up um also it's funny emmett uh your boy aaron um d to c guy he just got head of uh chief content officer and it's literally everything I'm doing I sent it to somebody on my team emmett I was like, well, at least we're doing exactly what this guy's doing.

So I think it's a few things. I think people are realizing that having somebody as the face of their brand helps. There is a reason why American Eagle has Travis Kelsey. There is a reason whether whatever your thoughts are on the ad, there is a reason why American Eagle has Sidney Sweeney. Um, there's a reason why you have, what, what, what are some other brands with some people in it? Right. So like there, so yes, I, I do think that, but I also think so. Anthropic just had a post up. I'm going to put my newsletter. Anthropic had a post up for a social media lead, social strategist.

Uh, you saw the PayPal role. I don't know if y'all saw the PayPal role, but PayPal is hiring a chief social strategist to the CEO, which I think is a fascinating role. I'm gonna talk about it here in a second. And then I saw last night a founder I follow for a fashion company. He is looking to hire a personal social person. and the more I get into this thing the more I am so bullish um on the fact of I I I'm gonna go this far and again I have some guests coming on I have a guest coming on in twelve minutes um uh her name is julia um it's actually the sister she's she's amazing I'm gonna get her to give her a background but anyways basically um I think companies realize that what is being spoken about them, brand, that's what brand is, right?

How are people speaking about you behind closed doors away from you? That's brand. It's built on social. Now, one of the things I put in my newsletter is you're probably seeing like, hey, like...

uh why are you um why why is somebody hiring a chief social strategist for anthropic like they're a big company everybody knows who anthropic is because at the end of the day I think your that brand is needs to be built on social right if I was anthropic like dude I I don't know if you've seen some of these brands I follow one coffee shop up in brooklyn they have like an entire show like a short skit show like and the whole the whole gist of it is like making fun of brooklyn and like the people who order coffee and stuff I watch it all

the time right so again like I think brands need creative ways to to develop strategy um through content um where people uh endear themselves to the brand but going back to emmett's comment about influencers I think that's one of the many things right it what it seems like in these hires I'm talking about is basically people being hired to support the brand of a person right now I I I have a person that helps me post on tick tock and youtube shorts I still control all things on linkedin all things on x I do all the community management I know a lot of brands do

like community management like like like basically use that for a consulting company like all things on torque usually it's angelo if somebody comments to you from torque it's usually angelo um and so I I think I think it's a fascinating trend but I think we're gonna see this more and more and the more I get into this thing at torque and community building the more I realize the power of engaging with every single person every single person on social and uh and having a fun engaging brand um clark clark's one of my other guests that's coming up uh here in a little bit I'm pumped

about that um that sounds scary there aaron francis did this I did not notice I did not know aaron francis um offshored not offshored but um gave up uh Um, yeah, I mean, listen, I, I think it's something, I mean, even Gary Vaynerchuk says all the time that he still owns the content, but again, I'm not talking about even owning the content.

I'm talking about why I think people are hiring people to run their brands. Um, and I will tell you, it is a crazy, crazy, important hire. It is a crate, like, like to think about like just to basically hire somebody to take over my brands would be basically to hire a clone of me. Um, which I think is, which is a very scary thing to do. They need to talk like me. It's like the jungle book, talk like me, walk like me, whatever. Um, so I think that's, what's going to have to happen. Uh, yeah. Trey right here. Right. Believe it or not. People watch content, dude.

There are stats that YouTube has now passed Netflix and like total hours watched or something. like and there's there you know there's there's there's watch time on uh there's watch time on tick tock that it surpasses every other app right like you know it's interesting I was listening to a marketing podcast um and my next guest is on in eight minutes so it's gonna be a good conversation y'all y'all keep hanging with me while I keep yapping um I was I was listening to a conversation um And that... I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot what I was going to say. Oh, TV shows.

Yeah. I absolutely think so. Like, I've had ideas and Jason can test this. Like, I want to do... We're not doing a tenth of what I want to do at Torque, right? Like, I want to have... know social shows I you know I think it would be hilarious to have like some sort of like you know skit on like making fun of recruiters and just how we do things as a little tongue-in-cheek right because we're recruiting firm like it would be funny it would endear us to the audience right like lean into kind of that recruiter narrative um you know obviously we do the resume reviews which is a social show We have guidance counselor, two point.

Oh, we have tech commute. We have all of these things, but it's viewing yourself as a media company. Oh, Emmett. No, he did that planet scale, made a course. It was like, oh, gotcha. Yeah. I think you're going to see less of this and more of what's happening now. I do think hiring somebody to basically be the brand, I think, can work. But I also think you're going to see a push in building... think you're going to see a push in building the brands for people in the business um which is happening right now which is which is happening right now um yeah I mean prime example right I'll take my favorite streamers over tv show any day a hundred percent right I mean this is this is this is exactly what we're talking about right like literally last night when I had a moment of quiet after the kids went down my wife was packing um for a photo shoot she's on I turned on like one of my favorite business vloggers, Daniel Dalen.

And I just like watch his latest vlog on TV. I didn't watch Netflix, right? Prime example, like our user behaviors changed. And you know, if you're still not focusing on that, um, uh, you know, it's, uh, I think you're going to miss out. Yeah. Jason, what Jason said, you should hear some of the stuff we want to do. Then we realize we can't. Yeah. I mean, listen, we, we are, we are brainstorming a ton of ideas. Um, but I, but like, like I said, Oh, I remember I was going to say, sorry, I'm all over the place five minutes before our next guest. pops up.

Um, basically, uh, Why do I keep forgetting? This is really difficult. I don't know why I keep forgetting this. Why do I keep forgetting this? I don't know. Anyways, Jason comes in here. I think we will see the hype. I've wanted to say this thing twice now, and I haven't. I think we will see the hype die. These cycles happen. It was a blip. People want to hit it while it's relevant. So I think I disagree. I think depending on what you're saying for hype, right? For me, I think when it comes to this stuff, I think it's the sponsorship of the influencers, right? is a fad.

I don't think people building your personal brand is a fad. That is, in my opinion, a core fundamental part of business that needs to happen. And I firmly think, like, here's the deal, right? So prime example, PayPal CEO, PayPal CEO hires a brand strategist. I will tell you this. If I was in that role, for him I would immediately give him a vlog immediately right I would follow him around I would gary v gary v it up building public vlog um I would get him involved with like a podcast a professionally done podcast that is you know very very good with all well I I see the comments here I'm actually uh I'm actually taking a break from caffeine for a week starting today so that's why I'm short-circuiting a little bit um so yeah I mean they're they're a thing I would do but again at the end of the day there she is what's up hello how are you what up girl Doing good.

Doing good. I was listening to you for the last ten minutes. Yeah, we're talking about PayPal CEO. PayPal CEO, higher content strategist. What are your thoughts on this? Also, actually, real quick, give yourself a background. Some people know you. Julia, I work with Julia's brother. So, and then Julia and I become friends now. But give people a quick background about you. Amazing. I am a LinkedIn addict. No, I'm kidding. I've been working in tech marketing for almost ten years now, mostly in product marketing, mostly in zero to one functions. So like growing when there's basically no marketing muscle whatsoever. And I've recently gone off the corporate world just over a month ago to start my own agency that's focused exactly on this topic.

That is personal branding and also B to B branding, which a lot of the times are very close together. And based on what you said, I think before, the whole concept of having a face to a brand is old, right? It's something that's been happening for ages in the B to C world. It's something that's very common, but obviously I understand the aversion. I've worked in agency for super long, and I remember, you know, ten years ago, we were pitching this to a customer saying, like, hey, a client, you know, you should have a person as the face of an alcohol brand. And we're like, you should have someone as the face of this brand.

Like, they should be the one that everyone relates to, the one that goes to the parties, the ones that has the skits. And it's so much more relatable. And exactly that, we implemented it. And then we also live through all the consequences of it, right? What happens when this person quits? What happens when this person maybe does something terrible on their own personal social media accounts and is the brand liable? Like, so we live through all of that and we know that it's hard. Like the results are real, but it is, there's a lot of risk associated to it. And aversion of brands not wanting to go down that route.

Yeah. Uh, what else? Talk to me about, so, but, but like, like, what do you tell them? Like, like in your experience, like, I just, I mean, I think you're going to get more ROI if, if you hire a person. I mean, they have to know the business though, too. Right. I think like, I think there's a reason why you like small. sponsor streamer shows or sponsor influencers. I think the real value is having a following and actually knowing how to business execute. But like, what do you tell folks who are worried about hiring people to be a face of their brand, especially in the B to B world?

I think, I think you have to like, you can mitigate the risk in so many ways. And obviously the number one comes from like hiring properly, right. Doing like a great screening, doing a lot of projects, maybe working with that person on like a freelance role or like a content creation role first to see how you like, how you jive, how things work, get them creating content is maybe is for the brand first. It is a lot of trust, just like any role you hire. But then that's the extra level of trust that you mentioned, which is like, when you hire someone to kind of like be you on the internet, right?

Like ghostwriters and things like that. That's another other real... That's another layer. And it's also just as scary because it is your own brand. But what you mentioned before, Taylor, which I thought was really interesting, is like, I want to find a clone of me. And I think that's not the case for that many people. Because I think when you work in brand, you probably have an understanding of your own brand that's quite present. But when you don't, and you're a CEO, and you're focused on a lot of other things, you probably haven't got a very well-defined like... What is my brand? And I feel like when you hire a person, part of that person's job is to help you really get to grasps with that and be able to replicate that.

So I think there's that interesting. But I think it's interesting because I'm writing this in the newsletter is like, so George Heaton, he's out of London, twenty four seven represent fashion, just one hundred million dollar business. he is chronically also I just saw your linkedin addict on your name tag that is fantastic um uh I mean he's very active I don't even know how he does what he does because he's like running this fashion business he's traveling all the time going to activations doing drops you know And he literally tweeted yesterday. That's kind of what stunted this show because I was like, obviously, your chatter, what I saw, blah.

And then I was like, on my timeline, there's this guy hiring a social media strategist. So I think there's different levels, but I still think like George is very out there. He's got a vibe. So he's got to go out and hire a person. who is his vibe and most of his brand is built towards like middle-aged dude entrepreneurs that are going to want to build their own brand. It's a tough, it's, it's definitely really hard, but I, and I think the more defined you have your brand, the more defined you have your like work streams, all of that. Like it's a double-edged sword. It's great.

But at the same time, you bring somebody on that person's going to want to, you know, innovate. They're going to want to do the things that you're bringing you angle, which is hard to deal with because it is your brand is your ego. It's your personality. It's like all wrapped into one. Um, but I do think just like any person who's, who's like super healthy or like likes to work out, for example, you'll know that you can only go so far by yourself. Sometimes you do need a personal trainer. Um, so I always like to get that role to like a social strategist to having a personal trainer at the gym.

Like they're not doing it for you, but they're really making sure that you're getting on time. You're seeing the things that you might miss because you know, like, you know, when you create content, there's stuff all the time. Yeah. have to pay attention to so much all the time that sometimes you're just overwhelmed like you do get like burnt out from content creation like making videos and then being on camera all the time is exhausting so I think having a person with you that's able to kind of like motivate you able to like get you like you know uh aligned is like the best thing that could happen when you have that like good pairing I'm putting this in my email newsletter tomorrow and I'm curious to your thoughts I think The PayPal CEO hiring a social strategist for the CEO is actually going to impact the brand of PayPal more than PayPal just doing PayPal and traditional marketing stuff.

I think so, because I mean, that tends to happen on both sides. I think when you're a brand that's that large that, you know, people already kind of know they have a preconceived idea of what you do. It's harder to innovate and it's easier to reach other people through the thought leadership of a CEO. A lot of times from a human being that's inside PayPal, because it's a brand that people still don't have a huge association with. I can't even tell you the name of the PayPal CEO in my head right now. I feel like if you change that, that's a whole new channel of interest for what PayPal is doing.

And I'm sure they're doing a hell of a lot of innovative stuff. Like they were the leaders when it comes to financing and tech and all of that. But it's hidden behind like they did this ages ago. You know, people who were there have gone. The PayPal mafia has moved on and done a bunch of stuff. Yep. How do we move that on? And it's the same thing for when you're an early stage startup, leaning on your people is easier because it's much cheaper than buying ads. So if you've got interesting people- Say it one more time. Say it one more time. Say it one more time.

Ads are expensive. And they're getting more expensive. And they're getting more expensive. And they're getting more expensive, a hundred percent. And also like, when's the last time you've seen, and it's also like the same thing on LinkedIn. Good example is when you're scrolling through, whenever you see brand content, it's always an ad. You don't see organic brand content because a lot of the times LinkedIn is like taking that out because they know the first people that are going to pay for ads are the companies. Aren't the people they're going to, you know, stuff make sure that you don't get views so you have to pay to get viewed for your brand account and I'm like well that's an example in which you shouldn't be investing your money elsewhere or changing your strategy for your brand accounts but you actually have more interesting content that people want to engage with that you don't need to like stuff down their throats so what I'm curious so I I think you said you were listening like kind of what I would do with the paypal ceo I would Gary V it up, log it up.

I'd probably run an immediate podcast, trying to get other interesting business leaders. Cause you're gonna be able to pull from a lot deeper wells of people being the PayPal CEO. What else, what would you do to start? Like what would be your first like, I mean, they have like unlimited budgets. So I think, right. That's what I'm saying. Like, what would you do? First thing I do is I try to get like a, uh, like a partnership with Netflix. Like let's, let's, you know, let's behind the scenes this up and pull out like a whole interesting. How did we make Formula One cool in the US?

In Europe, it was already a top thing. Now it's a hot shot in the US because they did Stripe. Why can't we do that for PayPal? Why can't we do that for everything? Now it's all about Stripe. If you have unlimited budget, you can definitely talk about it. There's so much interesting stuff that came out of PayPal. So much interesting stuff. Here's another thing you can do. You can have a documentary just for PayPal. You would call it the PayPal Mafia. I would watch that. You kidding me? I would watch that. It would be like a three-part series. You would drop it. I would argue you don't need Netflix, but sure, if you want to go pull that and you can secure it, great.

I think you hire just a very cinematic video team. But then the CEO should have his own story. Yeah, yeah. But I think the distribution, the problem with the thing is like, yes, PayPal can do it. But I think PayPal has such like a brand recognition right now that it's not out of the box and cool. That if you do not partner with a brand that is going to be so hard to rip them out of that. Talk about that real quick. Talk about that real quick. Talk about that real quick. Talk about why it's so important to partner with cool brands if you're not cool.

Yeah, because they make you cool by association, just like anybody. I know that was kind of a softball question. You're the average of the five people you spend most time with. That's the same for brands. Brands are people. They're just groups of people. So if you associate yourself and you're constantly doing partnerships, co-collaborating content with brands that you think are cooler than you. Look, I always love to reference this brand that I think is doing incredible things. TLDB, they're like an AI meeting recorder. And Ian, which is one of their content creators, literally was like talking about this on a podcast. And he said, the CEO gave me one brief and it's make a good video.

He didn't say pitch the product. He didn't say anything. He's like, make good videos. I want good videos. And this guy is a genius content creator, was making the most incredible skits ever about the problems of communication within tech companies, which is exactly obviously the problem that also the company solves, right? AI meeting transcription at the end of the day is like to do that. And the videos are so, so, so good. And it went viral so many times that like right after they built up that community of people that are interested in, you know, understand the niche of like issues of communication when you work remote and all of that.

Yeah. Then they were like, okay, now pitch the product. And he said, the CEO didn't tell me how, didn't tell me what keywords to use. He just trusted me to go and pitch the product in a way that my audience would respond to because I know my audience better than everybody else. I'm like, that is the dream. And that's how most people should be operating. Like if you hire a person to make content for you, let them make content for you. Preach. Preach. Eight minutes. Let me think. What else? Why do you... So LinkedIn. Obviously, I talk about LinkedIn a lot. Right. Talk about from job search.

You are very good at this thing. Why convince people why they should be on LinkedIn right now? Why should they be? I think everyone is on LinkedIn. They're just not creating content on LinkedIn. I think the number one thing I always say is it's the easiest platform to get any reach out of whatsoever because it operates similarly to TikTok in a way that your following is not, it doesn't impact your reach. So I've seen thousands of people that have like less than two hundred followers become viral on TikTok over something that they said that was interesting. So I think it's like, number one, don't be scared of your hot takes.

Like don't dilute yourself down. I understand. Obviously you have to be understand the context that you're in. And if you work for, you know, a big multinational company and there are a lot of restraints on you, there are ways around that. And one of them is like, you know, sharing it, your views are your own, but all of that. But I feel like people need to not be scared of just, telling it how it is. And I think that that's at least my philosophy when it comes to LinkedIn and my philosophy when it comes to communicating anywhere, podcasts, whatever, is don't be scared of talking to others in corporate like you're talking to your friends.

Because at the end of the day, we don't need to sugarcoat everything all the time. We can be very direct. Even within marketing applications, people just need to know what you do and how you're going to put them. And people just love to fluff that up with buzzwords and everything all the time. And I feel like to cut through all of that is to just be direct. Yeah, like I think it's a nuance, right? Because, like, listen, like, I've developed my voice. I've kind of said in circles, like, I'm like the Gary Vee of, like, the recruiting world. Like, nothing works. You need to do things differently.

Let's flip it on its head. But, like, you have to know your audience because what I don't want you all to do is hear what Julie and I are saying, get on there and start ranting and being super negative because there's a difference between, like, being authentic and having a very clear, direct communication and being negative, right? And so I just the last thing we want you to do is like tag us in a post and you just like go off on something. It's like, no, it's not. It's not exactly what we're saying. But I do think I was listening to a podcast the other day about how we as a culture have been almost neutered in a way from having an opinion.

right and so like one of the things that that that I attribute to me kind of cutting through the noise in the staffing world for so long has been I curse I make fun of the industry I'm super direct like I call it like it is and I can't tell you the amount of times I've spoken and julie I'm sure you're the same way where people come up to you and they're just like Yes. I'm just allergic to buzzwords. That's my issue. I can't buzzwords. Buzzwords make me nervous. And they say nothing. That, for me, I don't like it. And I understand that the SaaS world is complex.

Platforms are super nuanced. They do a million things. but there is one thing that you're going to be known for and it's okay to be known for that one thing. Like you don't have to be so buzzword and so generic that people can associate any meaning to what you're saying. Cause that kind of like does the same. It's the same. It's an issue that you can't be understood. And that's why I think it's like through a, like the neutering, it's like a fear, like we're, we're scared. So we use these buzzwords that don't actually mean anything or can be interpreted in a million different ways instead of just saying, this is what we do.

Like we were CRM or we help you organize your contact, but this is our, our added value. Like, But I love it because there's a huge movement now. And I think it's going towards that. It's just like going towards being more authentic and just understand that all of us are living in this like crazy tech world. And we all feel the same way about it. Like we all know sometimes it feels a little weird. Sometimes it feels like we're making things up that don't really need to exist. And I like it when people start being honest about it. And I think that's how we're all going to move forward and actually start creating tech that people really do want and do need.

Absolutely. Last questions. We wrap up and then my guy Clark sells coming up. We're doing, I tried something fun today. And I may actually do more of this stuff is why do you think content community go hand in hand? Why do I think content and community go hand in hand? Community is the way I think it's a community is the way for you to create better content. I think from a content perspective, like your community is like your voice on the ground. It's the ears. It's like where you understand the pain points that people are coming from. They're like almost like your customers. They're their customers that like you, but they're around you for a reason.

They're the ones that like keep coming back. And that for me is like the biggest driver and inspiration for you to create better content online. to like bring other people into the community because that's like they share your values sure um give you ideas so and like it's so much more fun to create content when you have a community um that I think when you're just creating content to the void and kind of like not really engaging in any way you're just becoming a newspaper right and why do you think companies should be community content first moving forward Because I think people love to use the community like buzzword and throw it around everywhere.

Like we should have community and nobody really defines what it really is. It's hard to define. That's actually my newsletter tomorrow. It's super hard to define. But at the end of the day, it depends obviously on the business model or how. A lot of the times community for a SaaS will be your customers and the people who love your product. But you have to give them a reason to hang around. Love for the product isn't enough. And I think that's the hard part of having a community. You have to engage them. It's like having a friend group. You can't just have a friend group that you never go out with, you never talk to, you never have dinner with, you never have side quests with.

You don't sit with your friends and only talk about your friendship. You talk about other things. And I think finding those tangents of things to talk about to your community that aren't just solely related to your product is what's really hard to find ROI on, but is what keeps them around. And keeping them around and keeping their attention is what's going to help you then get referred or get new customers. Um, but it's tough. It's a vibe. That's a vibe. Cool. But when you do it right, it's fun. And congrats to you, Taylor, because the tour community has changed insanely over the last couple of years and probably thanks to you.

So, yeah. Well, thank you, girl. I appreciate it. Have a good one. Thank you for doing this. I literally texted Julia like yesterday. I was like, Hey, can you just, you know, like, sure. So thank you, my friend. I appreciate you. See you girl. And next up in the corner. I don't know how to follow that up. She's fucking badass. She's great. I mean, bad middle-aged white guy. Let's go. Let's talk about branding. Actually, for the record, you look great, man. I just want to say, Give Flowers, you're tan, you're fit. What's the Katy Perry song? Tone, tan, fit, and ready. That's Clark. I stepped out of my comfort zone this morning.

I did the psycho thing of this whole CrossFit thing. I walked into a CrossFit gym. Did you really? I did, and let me tell you, that kicked my ass. Oh, it's awful. It's awful. It was cool. Yeah. awesome I love it all right so um shout out to clark for getting back to me again I think I may I think I may do this um mainly because I think I might do this more um one I love moderating different folks um I think guidance counselor two point was fun I love it but I'm always looking for different ways to innovate um and also too I'm glad the link worked so I figured out how to do it in my notion calendar where like I can populate it and like you could just jump in so that was great love that um All right, man, Clark, content.

Everyone's hiring for it. People want it. I don't think some people understand the importance of it. Just kind of yap for a little bit. Your thoughts. So here's the thing. I want to double back off Julia. And I'm in this program, like I'm in this like stage of life where we are relaunching content. ourselves, company, brands, like I've given my brand to everybody else for the last fifteen years, right? And I've sort of sat in the background of it to my own demise. Maybe, I don't know, doesn't really matter. And so when we, as we launch unspecified, I joined a program by the guy, Matt Gray, who you may have seen.

I mean, he makes content, runs a thing called Founder OS. And the thing that has become painfully clear for me is how wrong everybody has it meaning the blend of like one's personal brand and the company aren't like one in the same like gary's v personal brand is not vayner no They are separate. He does his thing, and Vayner does theirs, and the volume of Gary is way the fuck up here, and the volume of Vayner is way down here. You know Gary because of Gary and all of his posting, and Vayner is sort of like the lamp in the background. I agree. Is that bad?

No, I think it's the right way because you can't have... Gary is Gary. Gary is not Vayner. Vayner is an entity. Right. You know what I mean? Yes, he's one and the same, but that line between, I think it's blurred. Taylor is Taylor. Taylor is not Tork. Taylor will go do Taylor things or Tork... They support one another. You work for them. It has to work together. And I think that that's where... Things get wrong. I mean, somebody in chat was talking about how Sentry bought Syntax. And having been part of acquisitions and things like that, it was like, hey, we're going to buy the cool kids with the hoodies so that we look like we're cool and we have hoodies.

And there's some truth to that. I didn't know who Sentry was. Right. So you got the marketing benefit, right? Yeah. But then we like confuse like marketing and corporate this versus personal brand and like personal brand does. And, you know, we and we confuse company size like. My company is micro. Apple is huge. Tim Cook, while synonymous with Apple, is the CEO. But the two things are completely different. The Apple brand is on point. It is its own thing. It is not driven by Tim. Tim is not driving it. Tim is Tim. And so... yeah jason goes you know how do how do we deal with companies that frown you from having your own identity like people having to censor their content nothing nothing I'm seeing just in general maybe it's not the right fit.

Like, like just like we're talking about creating content, which mind you, I want everybody here to go subscribe to all my shit because it's really hard and it, it sucks. And it's very hard. Do you have a link? Uh, do you, would you start and create a banner? What's the, what's, do you have a link you can throw up? Just go, just go to YouTube and go subscribe to Clark style. Okay. Um, it's a, it's, it's a, um, You know, yes, there you go. Go do it. It's one of those things where like, um, not all companies get it. And so if you're trying to change that culture, maybe it's not the right fit.

Yeah. You're not going to be able to, right. Like you preach, like you got to be part of the community. Are you going to take somebody who doesn't know how to authentically be part of the community and like shove them in there? No. And how many companies get that? None. And how many companies are abusing the word community for a sales channel and making people a product? Look, this is why fucking that conference doesn't exist. Because all of these smaller companies who were paying the independent producer wanted to have their own thing so that they could control the narrative, control the thing, create the community, which all it was as a sales channel, because you're a product, you're going to pay a ticket.

You're paying your thing. They're controlling it. They have you. And, and they're just placating like it's a community, but where are they the rest of the time? It was fucking selling to you. Like they're not, they're not doing anything that the community would like, look at what you and Jason and the rest of your team are doing. You're authentically involved. How many companies can you actually say are actually doing that? Uh, not many yeah not many they're doing things they have a discord that's a support channel But let's call it what it is. It is not a community. It is not where people are trying to connect sideways or do a thing.

Does it happen? Sure. Is it intentional? Fuck no. It's just a fucking sales thing. It's a support thing that's driven by a this and a that and the other. And I know this and I can say this shit now because I'm not worried about sponsorships. Happens too fucking much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Let me ask you this then. does every company I love it this morning yeah yeah yeah this is this is my this is my first day without coffee so doing this for seven days I always try to do this every once a quarter just to check myself um do you think I saw a tweet the other day that not every company needs to build community and I immediately in my mind was like see I disagree you could be a lawnmower company figure out how to build community with lawnmower people But you really need to quantify what that means.

I mean, let's take the lawnmower company. Is it beneficial to you to have a personal brand as a lawnmowing company to get more leads and not have to do sales and marketing? Absolutely. You see it on YouTube. I mean, I watch this stupid shit on Instagram of the guy who's cleaning up the old lady's yard for free because the grass is eight feet tall. I don't know how he's going to take his mower through that. His mower is not going to make it. And then it does. And you're like, this is the best thing ever. But is he ever going to get my sale? No.

Is that bad? No. Is he going to get sales around him? Yeah. Is that a community? No. It's entertainment. Does a lawnmower company need it? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. It sort of depends on what they're trying to do as part of the community. Let's answer the question, what is a community? If you're going to play, taking the lawnmower example, and you want to be part of the community, you're hyper-local. So why don't you work inside of the community to beautify it or whatever the right word is, and you become the guy who's teaching, not you're teaching Clark, hey, here's how to get the lines in the grass, and I'm going to get all the neighbors, and I'm not looking to get to mow your lawn.

I'm looking to get a drone shot of the entire neighborhood that's got nothing but lines in the grass. It's just, it's different and you sort of have to put the context around where you play and numbers aren't necessarily like the thing right you don't need five hundred million instagram followers when you service three cities in your state no no you know what I finally realized I finally realized why gary vee says he loves starting over he would love to start over you just get rid of the riffraff like the more I kind of get in this community thing like I don't really care yes it is it is a great signal to say we grew the discord basically from nothing to five thousand members But for me, do I really care that's at five thousand?

No, I care that the the active numbers continue to rise. But at the end of the day, I just I just want people just to be happy and to connect with people. Are are my sort of like. are we doing good at that conference was, are companies getting created? Are people getting jobs? How many people are engaged in Slack? Fuck the ticket sales. Ticket sales were a means of paying the bills. But if you weren't engaging in Slack and you weren't talking to one another or you were looking at your shoes or the hallway wasn't packed, if that stuff didn't happen, then I failed. Flat out, I failed.

and I think that that's uh you know I look at what we're doing on youtube and I just go how many comments are there how many people who are in the comments are talking to other people who are in the comments and I don't have a lot of I don't have a lot there's only two hundred some people it's who are there hard youtube's so hard in hindsight I wish I started with youtube but But if people aren't commenting, then I go, well, did I not spark some creativity? Did I not get somebody, I don't want to say riled up, but how do I get you to be a participant in the thing?

Because if I'm just sitting here yapping, well, fuck it, I might as well go sell a course, right? Yeah. I want to pull it back to folks like the CEO of PayPal hiring a social strategist. Obviously, the founder I saw on the fashion side of things hiring a social strategist. Do you have Anthropic? This is literally my newsletter. I kind of did this to validate my newsletter tomorrow. Then you have Anthropic hiring a social media strategist. Do you... What are your thoughts? We started talking about Gary, then we got distracted, so I kind of want to bring it back. The thing, when I hear that title, what I hear is I want to have somebody on my staff that understands how to get the best reach in play in social media.

I don't hear, I want somebody to sling my content, but let's be clear, as somebody who's trying to grow an audience and entertain and educate and all that, it is, it is a game. Like this is, there is how you post when you post, when you, when you first comment back, what, you know, are you using a, a real and a, uh, uh, what's the, the slider thing? Uh, uh, whatever, whatever, when they go side to side sliders. Yeah. Um, but like, There there's a level of, of time, money, and effort. And there has to be, you know, you want there to be a return and you can look at your reach numbers and you could see like, there's, I have videos that YouTube's been like, you, you get two hundred people and I have other videos like you get fifty thousand.

And if you blow that chance. Because there's science to say, science is loose. There's best practices to catch somebody. Yeah, carousel. Thanks, Nick. There's, you know, what are you doing in the first seven seconds? What are you doing in the first minute? And so I hear social media strategists and I hear, how do I help? Clark, become good at their personal brand, that we're getting the highest ROI for that time and effort. And that comes with coaching and all the other stuff. Now, is that true? I don't know if that's the way they do it, but I know plenty of companies that have that individual who's like, this is what's happening in social media today because it's changing.

I mean, just a few weeks ago, Instagram started indexing their content. uh into the search engines and that like changed the whole game for instagram so if you weren't playing in it now you sort of want to play in it because now you get more reach well what does that mean and we all know inside of tiktok inside of instagram inside of linkedin they're all different so but but the same strategy doesn't work this is a good move to start doing this if I could pay for somebody to be on staff to say, look, this is the game of these. And here's, here's how we're going to like you make you, but I want to help you be productive in that platform.

I would hire that person in a heartbeat. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like you ain't a football player without a series of coaches. Why? Like I asked people for feedback on my, uh youtube video all the time yeah you know yeah I don't know how you now if you're gonna hire somebody to like be the brand now we have now we have another problem because now you like why does somebody care about like simon siddiq's got this book uh know your why or start your why it starts with why yeah Yeah. And so if your why legitimately isn't attached to the why of the company, then how are you going to be in the community and have a personal brand?

It doesn't make any sense. So it's interesting. Emmett said, isn't that just a marketing person? And I guess what you're talking about is like, so this is kind of a not an argument not not at all but like this is kind of like even some conversations I'm having at torque like I chat gpt'd like what do you define as marketing there's like ai baby I'm an ai engineer now I'm a prompt engineer um and it came up so last year they they they literally came up with like thirteen areas In my mind, there is a reason why you are seeing chief community officer roles, but also chief content officer roles.

If there's so much... involved when it comes to content that it needs to be its own thing yes does that fall under the marketing umbrella yes but that thing is so I mean we're talking about you can make the argument that it doesn't you could make the argument that they are side they are side by side because marketing is really the act I mean I'm not a marketing person but Marketing is the act of trying to make sales on a return. Like you have ROI and numbers that you have to hit and ad placements and this in partnerships with people, whatnot. That is completely different than I'm going to write content and play in social media.

Should the two work together? Yeah, totally. But we can just draw the same corollary to DevRel. Like is DevRel in engineering or is it in marketing or is it in sales? And depending upon the company, you get a different... You're right. Yeah, I said engineering. You get a different answer. What does the DevRel person think that they're part of? Ninety-nine percent of the time, they think they're part of engineering. And ninety-nine percent of the time, they're not fucking in engineering. How misaligned is the staff that's doing shit to where your paycheck's fucking coming from? I will tell you this. I... Now that I'm in it with this community thing, I will just, what else do you want me to spill the beans on?

I will just say this. I understand why dev rel teams get cut. Fuck. Yeah, I understand now how many dev rel people haven't done any product engineering. Yeah. How are you going to stand in front of a bunch of engineers and you ain't never shipped any code to the production now? And same Nick. I mean, literally I have to bounce. I'm going to, I got to bounce in like three minutes to get ready for, cause I got to go to the bathroom and get ready for this an hour leadership meeting I'm about to have. Literally, my PowerPoint site was like, there's a ton of people.

It's literally, I touch all four areas of the business. When I present, it's like, here's what I'm doing with marketing. Here's what I'm doing with product. Here's what I'm doing with sales. Here's what I'm doing with recruiting. Because to be a community-first organization, you should be everywhere within the organization. Right. And that also says that you need to be your company needs to align you. It is a mission model. It's obviously tactical, but it's not going to go anywhere unless you are mission-minded. Which, you know, I'm going to go out on a limb here and I'm going to say that Taylor probably has ADHD and no.

Yeah. I'll probably get diagnosed a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And, and mission minded organizations do mission, mission minded organizations. Areas of work, like what you're doing, fit really well with your archetype. Yeah. Because you know what you're working towards. You have a reason for existence and where you're going forward and you can draw those lines. By the way, I'm the same way. you can draw those lines of how it relates to all those different parts in the organization versus like, I need to just have my sales number met and I'm going to, you know, fuck with the algorithm and do the thing and do that.

So no, no real surprise there. Yeah. I love it. Any last thoughts, Clark, as we wrap up on this topic? Well, I'm going to preach what you preach, which is people need to make content. I look, you look around, you said drop the negativity earlier, bang on. I look around and I see a lot of like, it's time to sort of make social fun again, but that means you need to come with your authentic self and participate in and contribute instead of like retweeting the fodder that nobody really gives a shit about right if you want it to change and you want to be part of it then authentically be part of it if you want to stand out in this ai world right don't freaking use fucking ai like like don't just have it create you a hundred posts and put it out there like if you're going to create the hundred great but at least put your own like thing to it so that it's you yep yep yeah absolutely absolutely awesome All right, y'all.

This was good. This was good. Can we just one time, can we get the after hours to go? Because you just friend-zoned my ass for fifteen minutes all these times, and we don't. Well, for the record, you got twenty-one minutes, so relax. So, yeah, we need to make that happen. We need to make that happen. All right, y'all. Appreciate you. Clark's down, so I can say bye to you backstage. Y'all have a good one. I hope you enjoyed this. A little different this morning. And if you're interested, I'm putting out my newsletter tomorrow. Go check it out on Substack. Y'all have a good one. Peace.

See ya.