[Music] Well, welcome everyone to On the

Offense, our bionly podcast series on all things marketing and communications.

Before we get into the meat of things, I just want to ask a very important question. Jeff, do you like my summer shirt?

I do very much. I like it a lot. Yeah. Are you an influencer? Uh, I have an I am an influencer of

myself and that's Okay. Okay. Of one. I was influenced via a Facebook

ad, I want to say, to buy this shirt. I clicked the shirt showed up a few uh

days later and uh Jean, my my wife, looked at me and said, "That's a

gorgeous shirt, but you really can only wear it in the summer." And so I just

and I said, "All right, how about if I wear it for the next podcast?" And so

because this just happened in the in the last few days. So here here's my summer shirt.

Well, technically is this your last summer podcast with Labor Day coming up?

Well, not technically, but but I think in people's minds to me to me the end of

summer is Labor Day. Exactly. Right. Yeah. And it's like the white pants debate, right? It's like blue shirt

equivalent to a white pant, right? That is a real big debate right now. I think people have kind of moved away from that

idea that white pants can't be more traditional. They have whenever I want.

Exactly. California. Hey, you live in California. Yeah. Depends on new year and or

traditional you are, but as far as I'm concerned is good all year round. Um, the other comment I'll make before we

get into this is Jeff, what is the most important number for this podcast and

for this day? The number is eight. Do you know why? And that's not because

August is the eighth month. The number eight,

the reason number eight is the number of the day is because as of today, there are only eight days left.

Look, ball. Eight days. Jeff. Wow. Wow. I wasn't going to guess that, right? I was going to go back to my childhood.

That was Willie Starel's number. Willie Starel when I was growing up. Absolutely. So, um, question for you

since this is our last podcast before college football. Who is, and I'm

putting you on the spot, but this is an easy one for you because of your alma mater and your ranking. Who is your call

for the national championship winner for this season? Well, it's definitely Southern Cow. No,

we are Penn State. We are Penn State. It's our time. We've got a fantastic

roster of folks. It's our time to shine. I think it might be. This might be the

Nitney Lions year. It uh if you go by the polls, it will not be SC's year.

We're not even in the top 25. I saw I saw very rare for us not sad.

religious. We're gonna have to sneak up on folks for sure. I have no idea who's going to

win the national championship. Um, we'll see. We'll see. I'm gonna say Georgia.

Go. Go Dogs. Clem. Maybe Clem. I'm gonna Clemson. Everyone's kind of forgotten

about Clemson for the past few years, but they're in the top five. I think something may be going on there. So, I'm

going to go with Clemson. So, our last podcast leveraged the and and this is

the word that you guys put in our newsletter. Virality. Virality. Virality.

I actually looked it up. The degree to which something goes viral.

You leveraged that quality of what is now and forever will be known as cold

plate gate as the foundation for what I thought was a really wholesome discussion on social media. uh we talked

a lot about the differences among the many social platforms out there. We also talked a lot about the you know I mean

really the critical need to first understand what your social strategy

even is. you know, is it focus focused more on engagement? Is it focused more on acquisition before formulating your

content? Not to mention where to put it, right? Where to place talked a lot. I thought that was a good

discussion. And then and now I'm going to start to bridge into today. At one point in the discussion, the topic of

influencers came up and we stopped ourselves and said, you know what, we should do an entirely separate podcast

just on the topic of influencers. Um, and today we are fulfilling that

promise with a podcast that will be about all things influencers.

uh as essentially kind of a kind of sort of as a part two if you will to that

social media podcast. So it is an understatement

an understatement to suggest that I am excited about not only this topic but

more so uh because of who our guests are

and um so we are going to ask them to introduce themselves but I suppose in

the interest of full transparency um I should uh point out that these two

guests have something very important in common. Not only are they sisters,

hopefully you can see some of the there, but they are also my daughters. Yeah.

[Applause] Like I said in the blooper that may or may not be on this. Yay for me. So, um,

Caroline, who normally is our producer for these podcasts, we call her Gellman.

Uh, but today you're going to be Caroline. So, okay. I I should point out that

both of these guests are legitimate experts when it comes to

the topic of influencers. So, um, I think this is going to be a great discussion. Um, really looking forward

to it. Influencers are a fascinating and important topic within marketing and

communications. Uh, and these two folks, Jeff and I know a little bit about it here and there, but these two folks know

a lot about it. So, Caroline, why don't we start with you? Okay. Hi, everybody. My name is

Caroline. Um, in my day job, I work as a virtual tasting event coordinator

wearing a million hats for a couple wineries. Um, but in my off time, I am

chronically online. So, I have made content. I consume content. I have ADHD.

So, I constantly have some kind of input coming at me. Whether it's Tik Tok,

YouTube, TV shows, it doesn't matter. You name it, I am a consumer of it. So,

um I'm a Pisces and I'm really excited.

Oh, no wonder. I love that. No wonder we get along. No clue. water signs.

What anyone's talking about? That's me. I know. I'm a Pisces. That's all I know. All right. So, Joselyn Elmore, it says

your name in the bottom, but tell us about yourself. Yes. So, um I am the younger sister. Um

I have about six years, five, six years experience working in the public relations agency world as I know Jeff

and John both understand very well. Um I have been working at two different agencies. So have different experience

across national PR, hyperlocal PR, trade PR, um many many industries. Fitness,

wellness, telecom, food and beverage is something that I've really um found a niche in recently. Um but traditional PR

is my name of the game. So earned media relations is my bread and butter. Um, I'm a senior media relations manager

right now and senior account executive at McKeman Communications, a boutique PR

firm here in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I live. Um, and I think the conversation around influencers is very

interesting to me right now. Um, because really in the industry of earned media,

we are seeing such a shift of blurring the lines between earned media and what

we know that to be and influencers. A lot of these journalists, reporters are actually becoming influencers in and of

themselves. And so within the agency world, we're having really fascinating conversations with our clients where

we're coaching them of, hey, that broadcast segment is great, but what we really want them to do is post it online

and then post it on their social media because these reporters have actually sometimes more followers on social media

than they do viewership from a broadcast standpoint. So, it's really really interesting and something that we talk

about every single day in the agency world. Um, but similar to Caroline, I'm also chronically online and um I also

have been starting to do some of my own content creation um here in Raleigh. So,

really focusing on working with a lot of the local businesses, the new restaurants coming to town and

showcasing them um through my own platform. So, it's it's a very topical

um topic that I am excited to speak on today. I don't even know what to say. I don't

even know what to say to any of that. These are young, smart, accomplished women. Jeff, we are out of our league on

this podcast. Clearly, we should just hang up and let them run with it without us. So,

Caroline and I could easily have a 4hour podcast. So, so easily. So, so I looked up I had some

fun in preparing for this podcast. I looked up and I'm not going to be telling you guys

anything you probably don't already know, but I I looked up just for fun. Who is the biggest influencer on on at

least on Instagram? Okay, that just happened to be the thing that was easy

easiest. That's a crazy question. I and Oh, yeah. Go ahead.

I was just going to say I maybe you weren't finished asking the question, but it's interesting the way that you

phrased it. Who is the biggest influencer? Because are you just talking about followers?

Yes. Yes. That was my question. That to me is a completely different question than the biggest influencer,

right? Which is like part of this whole conversation is like what really makes an influencer? Is it follower count or

is it really the engagement and the community that influence? Yeah, I was gonna say like biggest

influencers, at least this article uh measured that by followers, but I have

the same question. Does that is that really what makes you the biggest influencer? Right. Can you take a guess?

Answer by Oh, yeah. Take a guess. Who Who has the most followers on Instagram? We'll put it that way.

I know it was Selena Gomez. That's what I was going to say. It was Selena Gomez at one point. She used to

have the most followers, but I don't know if that's the case anymore. Instagram specifically is a really

important Instagram. Is it not still

influencers on Instagram at least in terms of numbers of followers tend to be celebrities, athletes

who were and then they just went on Insta, right? Yeah. Can you tell us how many followers it

is? I just know that it's more than a billion. More than a billion for God's sakes.

Billion with a B. Nope. Ath. Former athlete. Okay. My guess is Selena. Former

athlete. Current athlete. Current athlete. What?

Current athlete. Um I think I think he's still Oh, Billy. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Is it like Cristiano Ronaldo or something? That's what I was going to say is it's a Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ronaldo. More than a billion. And that's

Oh, okay. Apparently that's across all social channels, not just Instagram, but

okay. Okay. Okay. More than a billion. And then so you have people like that who are out there.

But there's also influencers who unlike celebrities and athletes first made

their name on social. They weren't already famous by virtue of having done something else.

Okay. All right. You ready for that? Now maybe this is Instagram only. Um, but

who is the who has the most followers? I think it's just Instagram of of an

influencer among the influencers who was not already famous for another.

It's gotty. Well, I don't know because I feel like

there are some influencers that you and I might not be their target audience,

but it might be like a um like a Mr. Beast.

Like it might be Mr. Beast. Yeah. Or like the Paul Brothers or something.

Mr. Beast, which is a hilarious name by the way. In fact, I think Jeff, that might be your new nickname. Mr. Beast.

I love Mr. Beast. You know, in fact, they they called me that when I was in high school. Mr. Beast

to you. Um, all right. So, Mr. Beast is is up there. I not sure I can say that

with a straight face. He's up there high on the list, but this person is not Mr. Beast. It's not Ms. Beast or Mrs. Beast.

It's a person in beauty and fashion. Beauty and Fashion. I'm like, who?

No. like Martha or like a Kardashian. I mean, bigger than Mr. Beast

from for any other reason than by being an influencer. How many followers does this person

have? 37.8 million,

which is a lot, but it ain't a billion.

So, it is a woman. You're No, you're gonna need to tell us.

I Yeah, I think you're going to need to tell us. Yeah, Addison Ray.

Oh, see that makes sense. Yeah, cuz so there's Okay, there's there's

when Tik Tok became what it is. There were two creators that really were like

the breakout like everyone knew them. One of which is Charlie Dio who has gone

on to create her own entire her and her family have created their whole own enterprise. Um and then there

was Addison Ray who uh has gone on to be an incredibly successful uh musician. So

musician and and a million other things. A million other things. So I mean that

makes total sense. She's one of the biggest names in the world right now. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, you know, 40

almost 40 million. I can't believe that, Addison. I mean, that does make sense. Addison Ray, how many does Mr. Beast have?

I don't know. I'm afraid to ask you. No idea. And you know what's so crazy is is I

think Addison is younger than me. Is that true? She is.

Yeah, I think she is by two years if I'm not mistaken.

So yeah, like think about that. That's crazy level of knowledge is just

think about that. Yeah. So she was born in October 2000. So she's 24

and she's the biggest name. That's crazy. on Instagram that wasn't famous prior.

So this all happened. She started Tik Tok in in 2020. So

no, she was on musically. She started in 20 2019.

That's crazy. They talk about these people, Jeff, like we like we talk about Willie Starel. That's right. That's right.

I want on the Hill with Will. Maybe maybe they should have influencer trading cards like baseball players.

Not a bad idea. I guess that's about being famous for being famous. That's right. So, all right. So, let's

take a step back. What What is an influencer?

I mean, I suppose maybe what isn't an influence? What is an influencer? Caroline, you the other day that the

answer is is is perhaps more broad than some might think. What

Yeah. In general, what is an influencer? To me, an influencer doesn't I think um

I think the definition in my head is different between what my definition is and what I think probably everybody

else's definition is. Um an influencer I think broadly is more of an umbrella

term for content creator. You know, somebody who puts their life online,

somebody who posts a lot online. Maybe they would be called an influencer. um maybe in traditional media. Um but I

think that's being that's changing now as content creator tends to be the more

uh acceptable term. Um but to me an influencer is really uh much bo more

boiled down um to be somebody who has a lot of influence. Period. End of story.

Whether or not they have millions and millions of followers. Now obviously if you have those millions of followers any

kind of preference from you kind of creates an influence right from your

followers. So they do tend to be handinhand with the followers. However, there can be content creators that are

much smaller on the follower count that can also have a higher um oh what is it

called? Um almost like a rate of exchange. So they might have less followers, but the people the the ratio

in which they interact with you and buy the things that you buy and interact with your preferences might be a whole

lot more than somebody with, let's say, a million followers. So, it kind of

depends on who that content creator is, the type of content they make. Um, do

they make it consistently, how often are they interacting with their with their uh audience? You know, do they do live

streams? Are they interacting real time? Um, so it kind of it's quite convoluted,

but um I'd say you don't have to have followers to be an influencer.

[Music] Yeah. And to add on to that, I think content creator, like I think Caroline,

are you saying too like content creator to you is that umbrella and then underneath that, which is like somewhat

of a newer term in the last couple of years, and then underneath that, what has happened is you've got the category

of influencers, and then you've got actually multiple different kinds of content creators where content creator

could be somebody like kind of what I'm doing out in my neighborhood is going out and showing the businesses, trying

to influence people to go try that new restaurant or you know buy this new

product or whatever it is. But in addition to that now we're seeing like especially um in like PR and marketing

agency world like we work with a lot of content creators for UGC in particular

for our clients. So that's that user generated content. So some people are

actually making an entire career and replacing their

salary, their 9-to-five salary job with UGC content creation. So they themselves

are not like their person is not actually in any of the videos in any of

the content that they're making. It is literally just focusing on I don't know why I have a shoe on my desk, but

they're making videos and content of the shoe and then they're able to sell the

usage rights of that content back to the brand and the brand is able to use that

content for their advertising and marketing. And so, um, and obviously when you think about a styled shoot for

an advertising campaign, that's going to have a completely different impact on a consumer than it would, you know, um,

kind of showing it in a um, in somebody's life and and showing it in

more an authentic way. Um, you know, how to use this product in your in your

day-to-day life, how to make, you know, style these shoes with everyday outfits. So it's it's really like this whole area

of UGC has come about in the last five years or you know probably longer than that but just in terms of how brands are

really like leveraging that has kind of exploded. And so I think that's also

another consideration that you have when you're trying to define what an influencer is.

Yeah. If I'm I'm taking notes. I'm I'm taking notes in my head. I'm taking notes. UC I'm I'm sorry. I I

usergenerated content and Yes, Mr. Beast. I'm taking notes.

Okay. I saw something when I was doing my research, not probably as extensive as John's, but I saw an influencer who was

asked, "How much did you make last year from your work as an influencer?"

This woman made $4 million by doing nothing but looking stylish and

interacting with brands who were selling her who were giving her clothes. That's incredible.

That's not even the tip of the iceberg. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure that's not even the tip of the iceberg.

I'm just maybe continuing off of you, Joss. Under the same umbrella of content creators, then you have people that are

just plain showing their life. Yeah. So, they are they're just showing

their day. They're they're setting up their camera first thing in the morning. They're filming themselves getting getting out of bed, getting ready,

making their breakfast in the morning. The person who comes to mind is Alex Earl. She is arguably one of the most

successful versions of this. Um, and essentially she started in college. She

was just filming her, you know, going out, get, you know, uh, going out makeup, you know, how to get ready to go

out. So almost like appealing to like um

probably women um 18 to 25 roughly um

that were all in college around the same time as her have now followed her

through college, out of college. She's now dating a famous NFL player. Um

Carl's Jr. just did a huge campaign with her where she does the like iconic

burger bite, right? um view, right? Um and and she I

mean just off that one campaign probably made I don't have that stat so please

take it with a grain of salt but she probably made 10 million just off that one campaign.

Wow. So these people are really pulling their

weight. There is a huge industry here. Um, especially and now think of it from

a brand perspective going back to UGC. You can get that type of content, the

content that's going to work for your brand because it's coming from an authentic viewpoint, but you don't have

to sign off on who that person is who made the content. You're not because it

doesn't include their face. It's usually their hands holding the product or whatever. Um, or just the product

itself. So, it's a win-win for both content creator and companies if you

think about it. That's why almost they're willing to pay for it because they don't they they just get to cut out

all the middlemen. So, that's crazy. I think the like I said, we could go on

about this for hours. Yeah. So,

fascinating area. You wonder why we we decided on the spot correctly, I might add, that we should do a separate

podcast on influencers. So, let's talk let's talk cash. Let's talk let's talk

cash. Okay. Said, "Oh my god, four million. You're saying ah 10 million, Carl Jr.?" I mean,

I I was going I actually have a list of questions in front of me. One of them was, "Well, how much can an influencer

make? Sounds like four million is the tip of the iceberg, but like how does this happen?" Like you say, Jeff, well,

all person's doing is looking stylish. But obviously they somehow built up enough credibility, followers, etc.

to the point where I suppose companies are sending that person those things to

wear. How do you go from unknown completely to the point where people are

sending you stuff and paying you? How does I mean I is it just literally one

step at a time? Yeah, it I mean it snowballs like it's I think when you so

obviously like there are many categories of whatever you want to call them. We'll

say content creators because it is all-encompassing of all of those different kinds that we were talking about. You have nano influencers who

probably have less than 10,000 followers. You have micro influencers

that probably have 10 to 100,000 followers. You have macro and then you have mega influencers which are usually

over a million two million followers. So brands are really interestingly less

interested these days in working all of the time with the mega the macro

influencers. I mean, yes, do they want to? Absolutely. But there's actually becoming kind of an issue with how much

these larger influencers, content creators are charging versus the um you

know, the ROI for the brand. So, a lot of brands are actually starting to target more of these nano micro

influencers and content creators and just reaching out and saying, "Hey, can

we send you some product?" and they will have the opportunity and you know these

these smaller creators are looking to build their following and so they're going to accept you know opportunities

for trade we call it trade um partnerships versus a paid partnership

and so these brands are actually getting much more authentic content to their

target audience um you know that they're really trying to get in front of with these smaller creators. So it starts

with that where brands will start to offer product and it will usually start

with trade and then once a content creator gets to a certain threshold they can probably start um really start

pushing back and asking for paid opportunities. Um and and then also

interestingly kind of you know aside from that there's also this whole category of affiliate marketing as well.

So, not necessarily or paid, but there's kind of this gray

area where essentially you'll either have a code or a unique link or

something like that where you didn't get paid to do this, but if you post about

this jacket that I'm wearing and I have an affiliate link, my followers will

click that link or use that code and I get a commission of how much the brand makes off of my unique link or

code. So, there's there's a lot of different ways for content creators to be making money in the space, but it's

it's really accessible and you don't have to have that many followers to

start doing it, which is so interesting. I can actually speak to that. Um, I was

doing social media quite seriously um a few years ago and I can that it was the

exact same thing that happened to me. And Jeeoff, to your point, it was kind of accidental. It was it was a bit like,

you know what, I just I'm gonna start doing this because this is fun for me and and I love, you know, sharing my

creativity and trying to, you know, just trying to be a bit more authentically me. And then people started following

along and asking me about where well, where did you get this? And it's speaks to the and I'm sure we're gonna get to

it a whole conversation about authenticity and how that ties into your

ability to influence people. Yeah. Right. Um but just speaking to this

point, brands just started Well, first of all, I have my email address in my

bio on all of my platforms. So that so brands who come across my content um

whether it's their social media manager who's like their job is to scroll through and look for people with email

addresses um that are maybe creating traction or or have a sound or one video

go super viral or something like that. That's how a lot of brands tend to find you. Um, and also think about it too.

Some of these brands have well teams doing it and also AI just kind of like

searching for people who might be trending or or have videos trending and have those emails sent out. So, you do

nowadays have to be quite vigilant with your inbox to make sure an

opportunity that's coming in isn't a false opportunity or whatever. But it

does, at least with me, it started with trade. So it was, "Hey, we'll send you this if you wouldn't mind posting this,

this, and this." You can do either. I had people s reach out and just with no

strings attached. We just want to see if you like it, enjoy it. Um, and then from

there, um, what I've been instructed to do or what I see other people do is once

they get to that point where they're they're starting to get so many that it's like, okay, I don't know how to

respond to everyone and and and um keep every

route different. Um, so you create what's called a rate card or something

that you can almost like a model does with their uh comp card. So, you create

kind of a here are my most viral videos, here's how many followers I have, and then your engagement rate. And this is

the point that I think and Joselyn you can correct me if I'm wrong that I've gotten the most feedback on is when your

engagement rate is high that means the ratio of your however many followers you

have the ratio of people who are interacting and and almost like

conversing with you through the internet right commenting liking resharing following they're interacting with you

frequently When that engagement rate is high, that tells the brand that this person is

someone who will get results. People will watch and they'll buy and they'll

interact. Um, so that's why you can have influencers like me who had about 40K,

right, um, be getting these opportunities because I had a high engagement rate.

Yeah. So, which is where Caroline was probably more valuable to a lot of brands than an

Addison Ray because once you get so big that engagement rate, you can't keep up

with that same level of community. And there's kind of a sweet spot, right,

between maybe the macro micro level of content creators where brands are able

to see that high engagement rate where, you know, guys, similar to like when I'm

reporting on earned media hits, sometimes it's not how many viewers they had, you know, the estimated audience

reach. It's sometimes the, you know, who actually was the audience, like how

valuable is this from from an action standpoint. So, they don't want to just see how many views your post got. They

want to see how many comments, how many saves, how many shares, how many people put it on their story, how many people

actually went through your link and bio and pressed buy on a product. So, it's it's showing that that person actually

has a community that people care about and trust this person versus again those larger mega influencers sometimes will

then shift into this space where it's almost like a parasocial relationship where they are a face, they are a brand,

they post, but they don't necessarily interact back with their audience and with that community. So there's this

weird like sweet spot in all of like bigger is not always better,

right? Wow. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. You become mega brand

and oh this person's associated with everything, but you're a little what what did you micro

influencers or nano influencers? Oh, this person's very specialized and

this is brand new. This must be a really great idea. So I I get that. I get that.

Yeah. So, what I mean, boy, this is fascinating. What What makes a good influencer? Is it back to

your comment about authenticity, Caroline? I think I think it's authenticity that

you talked about and I think it's the community that I that number of followers.

Yeah. I think it's those two things to me like it's it's that authenticity and

then from there that creates the community that's happening. Um, and

within a community, like even if you think about your neighborhood, you know, Facebook group, that's a

community that there's a level of trust within that. And I think trust is the

underlying just issue of today's day and age. Like whether you're thinking about

traditional media or you're thinking about new media, like there is a inherent lack of trust. And so people

are looking for those smaller communities that relate to them and that

they can really um and so in order to do that you need to see that somebody is

being authentic. And so like it's just interesting with influencers I think consumers influencers have been around

at this point and have been you know coined term for however many years. I think there is kind of this consumer

fatigue happening with influencers where if you get too big, if you feel like you lose that authenticity, people lose

trust in you and it it's it's really people are questioning a lot of what's

going on in the influencer space in terms of, you know, what's ethical.

It It's really fascinating. Um really really fascinating. I think um

something you guys have even talked about on the podcast before is or and maybe that we've discussed behind the

scenes is like people care about oh well cold cold play cold playgate perfect

example people care about who the people behind the the name is the CEO we care

about who you are as a person it's not about or that's the shift that we're

seeing in consumers these days is um We want to know who you are. We want to

know who what your values are and does that relate to me as the consumer because if it doesn't, I'm not going to

watch you. There's a million other people out there that do look at me and do do the things I do and buy the things

I do. And so those are the people I'm going to dive into, right? Um

for me, it's authenticity um is really interesting. Um because you have to to

Jeff's point, it feels like from an outsider, it feels like these people are just putting on cute clothes and posting

a video of it and then building a million followers. The difference is you have the the behind the scenes work of

putting content out on every platform consistently.

um where it's quality content, where it's high quality, meaning like just the

visuals itself, the the quality of the file of the content. Um you know, how

good how crisp is your audio quality? Um all of these things go into it. Um it

takes a lot of time. These are people working really hard to not only build

that audience, but support it, create a community. So, like I spoke about earlier, these people aren't just

clocking into for a 9 to5. They might be clocking into a real 9 to5 at the same

time coming home and then they're on live stream all night long trying to get

to know the people on the other side of the camera. Um, and then those are the

people that tend to see that exponential rise. Um, but it's it's interesting that

we see it like what exactly is going on here? Like what

amount of effort is going in? My the perfect person that comes to my mind, Joselyn, is Britney Broki.

Love her. Completely accidental. She posted this hilarious video of her trying kombucha

this one time and it tasted like just horrible in her mind. Or maybe not. and

she went back and forth and it blew up overnight. She was an instant internet

celebrity and since then I probably I don't know probably 2020 or so she has

grown and this is just her posting absolutely nonsense like just like silly

she's a she's a comedian she can sing she's an actress all of it goes into it but she was able to make a full-time

community and position out of it if you will she has podcast shows she's working with celebrities she does red carpet

interviews. She's doing all of these things that are to her brand,

but that required all of that groundwork with her followers um building that

authenticity to even show that this is somebody we want to support in the first place. So, it is incremental um and it does

take a while in some cases, but then comes back to virality, the tricky algorithm, right? At any moment, your

video could be the one that was picked up and it was sent off. And now you have

an opportunity. Do I keep it up? Do I keep posting? Do I put in that work and put in that authenticity to make

something of it? Or is it your 15 minutes? It's kind of

Yeah. I wonder the person who first posted the Coldplay thing to I believe Tik Tok.

I wonder if if they've done anything about that or that was that was it. I don't know.

Yeah. Right. I mean, I'm sure they have. I'm sure they have. Just the first thing that

comes to my mind is during Taylor Swift's era's tour, there would be content creators that ha that built a

live stream so that people could watch her concert through her live stream. So

now every time there's a Taylor concert, I go back to the same influencer who

has, oh wow, 50,000 people sitting there watching, sending her gifts, sending her money to

keep her doing this. So now she's an influencer just by creating a place for

people to watch things. Yeah. So it it's fascinating how quickly this could happen, but also how much work it

takes to sustain it. Mhm. So, and then you have to be the right person again to Joselyn's point,

morally, ethically, all of the things for your audience. So,

utterly fascinating. So, so I think it was Jos. I think you were I think it was

you who I'm interested if you if you're a you're in on a in a in a marketing team

or a communications team for a company and it doesn't matter if it's a B TOC, B2B, what industry, whatever you're and

the your boss comes to you and says, "We we need an influencer strategy. Find us find us a group of influencers

that we can consider aligning ourselves to." that person you're a social media man

and Justin you you referenced it maybe it's just searching for them but how does that happen like how do you how do

you find let's I don't know let's say you're uh a local restaurant

you are a local restaurant in Raleigh North Carolina and uh let's say you're the best coffee house brand new coffee

house in Raleigh right how do they go about how does the social

media manager for that brand new coffee house. Go out and find an influencer to

align the new coffee house with. Well, it's very interesting you say that because part of the benefits of working

with a small agency, if you if you will, um is that we do this every day and that

there is a group of content creators within any size city. um that we

actually have similar to media relationships and a media list that you have, we have an influencer list and we

have them segmented by their niche. So, okay, we have a new food and beverage client coming on. They're going to be

the new top coffee house opening in Raleigh. Okay, we're going to look at our food and beverage influencers here.

benefit of working with us is that we've done many campaigns with these

influencers previously. So we have relationships with them um with their managers with whatever. So that is a

benefit of working with an agency first and foremost and second I think would be what I mentioned is their niche. So

every content creator has a niche whether it's obvious or not. Um I think that's a really big piece of how brands

decide to work with who. Some people are the fashion, style, beauty influencers

that you might think of when you hear the word influencer, but there are lifestyle content creators just showing

their everyday life. There are mommy bloggers um that build really trusted communities actually very very valuable

segment for brands to tap into. Um there are food and beverage there are foodie

like almost critics at this point. that's kind of the new food critic is a

foodie influencer. Um that can make your restaurant explode overnight. Um so it's just it it really

starts there with we already have an existing list. It's not like we're starting from ground zero. Um and then

we'll kind of go through and decide who we're going to, you know, target based on their segment and their niche based

on, you know, our client. And then really from there we look at that engagement rate. like we don't want to

see number of followers. We want to see a high engagement rate because if we're going to recommend a partnership with

this content creator for our client, we want to make sure that it's not just vanity metrics that we're looking at.

There's actual ROI involved. And so, um, you know, with grand openings

especially, um, we really do a lot of

oneoff partnership posts talking about the grand opening. um promoting that.

But then we will oftentimes recommend a more long-term partnership. So oftentimes with content creators um and

um you know how they work with different marketing agencies is they will do a one-off opportunity or a long-term

opportunity where there's kind of an expectation that you're going to post about this new coffee house once or

twice a month. Um and kind of what that means and whether it's paid or it's just a trade. It just kind of depends on the

client's budget and which types of influencers if they want to stay in more of that nano space which you can usually

get away with trade or if you're going to go into that micro macro space which you usually will have to pay them. Um

and even you know in smaller you know small to mediumsiz markets like the

triangle you know those micro influencers are getting paid sometimes

two grand for one post. Yeah. So, it's I mean it's a whole it's

a whole world and they're invaluable to these new restaurants opening um in

terms of introducing a brand to an entire community. Um

that's amazing. And you you mentioned earlier honey um I I can Jeff Mr. Beast

can I call him honey? Can I do that? H that's fine. Just don't call me honey. I will not call you honey.

Um, you mentioned earlier, you know, no different than a local medialist, right?

You earlier that some of those people might be one and the same. Yes. A local,

right? Yeah. I think another another thing off of that is different than a a segment on

the news. Content is evergreen. So, it's not like if you didn't see it on the news, you

missed it. With content, it can come back through your algorithm a month

later. It is evergreen. It's constantly getting new views, new comments, new

interactions. So, that brand, that coffee shop is getting way much way more

interaction and views than a new segment would, if you will. So, right. Well, and that's what I'm kind of

saying. Oh, go ahead. I was just going to like kind of echo her of that's what I was saying of, you know, when we're working

on reporting for a client, when we are reporting on a broadcast segment, we um

we really really emphasize to them the value of when that content gets maximized. So, we're in a digital world.

We don't want it to just air on broadcast. We know how that has how that

has been shifting and moving in recent years. So, we want to see it go online and we want to see the news station also

post it on their social media which then the brands can repost on their social media and maximize it even further. So,

it just it keeps the content alive like Caroline was saying 100%. I I was I was thinking about this. You

know, you're talking about the positive impact, the credibility of these influencers. I I think some of this

these influencers have poisoned my impression of certain brands. You know, if you think about the old rumor about

the the finger being found in Wendy's Chili. Yes. or uh uh the the two women taking a

bath in a sink at a uh Kentucky Fried Chicken or

I I mean Food Lion in the in the East that they were taking lunch meats that had passed their expiration and soaking

them in bleach so they could sell them beyond the expiration date. You're going

to have all those things that are and you know it turns out the the finger and the chili that wasn't true. But now when

I go to Wendy's and I think about ordering the chili, I I say, "Can I get it without the finger?"

Yeah. Is that an extra charge to get the finger? It's so interesting you bring that up because we are talking about that all

the time. That's actually online reputation management is one of the uh

our top services right now. Um, and it's not surprising of kind of when you look

at what's going on in the world and all the trust conversations that I had just brought up earlier. Um, we

we do a lot of that and we um coach our clients through, you know, what is the

process when you and the constant monitoring of your social platforms, of

your Google reviews, your Yelp reviews. How are you interacting with them? How are you taking those conversations

offline trying to rebuild the trust and that constant monitoring of their

platforms is crisis communications? It is reputation management and protecting

of the reputation because when one thing goes viral, it

like you said Jeff can change somebody's perception of a brand forever possibly.

Um, and so I think that is just it's and the last thing I'll say about that is

the reason why we're talking about it so much right now and I'm actually going to a conference next month with the

Institute of Crisis Management um to get certified in this is because

it is really being impacted by AI and when you uh Google something I'm

sure you'll see Gemini AI summary um and

that is actually in that is being pulled that information is being pulled from the internet everywhere. So if you were

to Google, you know, Wendy's Chile Jeff AI Gemini might give you something about

that incident, right? And so the more that we can minimize those conversations

happening online, catch them early, take conversations offline and get to the bottom of things and

build that trust back with that that poster in the brand, the more that we can minimize that the impact of AI

spreading false information. Um it's just it's so interesting and it's almost

like it's you know uh it's all happening so fast you can barely keep up with it. So um yeah

then you have an opportunity then you have an opportunity by doing that by being that proactive by taking the

conversation offline now you have an opportunity for that same poster to now go back online and talk about how

positive the customer service was. Oh my gosh, they went out of their way to take

care of me. Look at all of this stuff they sent me. Da da da da da da da. Showing how the brand cares, therefore

turning it all around and making it exponentially more positive. It it truly

it's it's we called it the monster of social media on the last episode. It's

also a magician. It's also a magician. It'll also it can also change in an instant. So

yeah, that's why we have to be so proactive with all of that. You know what I'm going to say, Jeff? Turning chicken, you know what, into

chicken, right? Yes. So, all right. U

favorite influencers. Let's go around. Let's go over way to kind of cap this off. Um, I'm assuming you're going to

say, and and we talked about this Caroline the other day that, uh, a podcaster

is an influencer, too, right? they% um uh and by the way uh I don't want to

focus this on my new book but uh I was um I really don't but I was looking up

as I together the marketing plan and and the general advice for when you put a

book out now it's all about the podcasts you what you want oh yeah

get onto podcasts so I was thinking about what are some of my favorite podcasts and and I'm not a huge podcast

person, but I I'm just very picky about where I spend the time. But I I do have two. And the first is one that the two

of you introduced me to, which is my favorite murder. Oh, yes.

Karen in Georgia. Karen in Georgia. Outstanding. Outstanding. And the second

thing, the second one for me, it's just because I'm such a sportnut, is Bill Simmons. Um, you guys may not I don't

know, Jeff. Oh, I do. My husband. Oh, because of Ro is a is a is a very proud Bostononian.

Huge Boston sports fan. ESPN personality. Huge number of followers. Has written

best-selling books. He's really funny. He's very irreverent. Um I'm a fan of

his podcast. Mr. I won't say it. Mr. Beast. Mr. Jeff. Favorite.

Yeah. I've got an unusual one for you guys. I've got an unusual one because this really just happened recently and

this doesn't I hope this doesn't reflect on my politics or anything else, but I got to tell you that the stuff that

Gavin Newsome has been posting um that you know take aim at the Trump overnight

posts is incredibly creative and incisive and effective. Um,

I saw something out there that said, you know, everybody speculates he's going to run for president and like a month ago

he was like sixth in the polls with a tiny little number. Now he's second.

He's leapfrogged all these other people. The only person in front of him on the Democratic side is Kla Harris. And why?

I mean, these posts are hysterical and they're effective. And I think

that's amazing. you know that he or his people had the wherewithal not to try to make some sort of intellectual art

argument but kind of use that same style to just show how absurd some of this stuff is. And again, don't judge my

politics, but I I just think it's it's it's brilliant. Brilliant. What is the name of that podcast?

Um, honestly, I don't I don't know. I mean, he he posts thing out there on Instagram and anything else. So, uh,

Jeff, you like Jeff, you like Conan's podcast, too, right? I love them. I love them.

Oh, yeah. And you know what? Again, it's cuz he's irreverent. He doesn't he doesn't have any demarcation between what's

acceptable and what's not acceptable. He's out there. And I love that sort of sense of humor, not only in comedy, but

also in real life. You know, if you can bring that irreverence, Yeah. you're number one in my book. Is that

what it's called? Conan needs a friend. Well, he's got Conan needs a friend. Um

there's one where Conan travels around the world. So, um um but Conan needs a

friend's a really good one. I love it. Jos, I'm curious about yours.

Yeah, Jos, you know mine. I know yours. I already know one of them that you're gonna say because I was

going to say the same one, but I'm interested in like I don't know if you had to give us top a top three.

I'll have to think about top three. Top one is easy for me. It's Britney Broki, exactly who Caroline mentioned earlier.

She is hilarious to me. She is the influencer that doesn't feel like an

influencer. And I think that's why I love her, right? because like I am an elder Gen Z and I grew up with a

phone in my hand essentially starting in middle school and so I'm probably in

that group of people and Caroline too where we just have a little bit of fatigue from influencers that feel

salesy that feel like it's constant ads and brand deals. Um, I think that's

where Britney just like creates that community so well is she's so authentically herself. She's from Texas,

so there's that connection as well. Um, and she's just she just she doesn't lose

her personality in all of it. And I just I see that a lot with a lot of

content creators where the bigger they get, the more diluted their personality is, the reason why you liked them in the

first place. and you you just you look for those comfort creators at the end of the day that just make you laugh after a

long day of work or just talk about something new that you wanted to learn about. Like those are the kinds of

people that I'm looking for online these days. It's less of look at me and my lavish lifestyle.

My favorite influencers I have to I mean Britney is at the top of my list. She was a if we're thinking about the

categories of influencer, right? She's my favorite macro mega influencer by

far. Her podcast um The Broki Report is

arguably arguably one of the best things to hit

YouTube since it began. Um and that's super biased of me. I understand. But

it's educational. It's um competent. She is she's so intelligent.

Um, I it's so easy to see, not to say, not

to think that I'm intelligent or anything, but it's almost like I can see myself in her. You know what I mean? The

same thing to Jos. We're in the same age range. She went to college in the South. She grew up in the South. She she has

the same type of humor. It's there's an interesting the zelennial, if you will,

Gen Z, older Gen Z. Um there's a a really interesting

microclimate that we're we were that we grew up in. Everyone around this age

just and it's interesting it's just between me and Buzz, our our little brother for our viewers. Um it's just

about 97 to 2002 that this it's this weird microcosm of like everybody kind

of understands the same uh maybe pop culture references, right?

So, she's just one of those people that has everything all put together and um I

wish her nothing but the best. I I want to see her continue to get her own Ellen show, if you will. You

know, I I just want to see her be that successful. Um on more of a like micro

influencer, it's he's not micro. I think he might actually have over a million followers, but Hunter Kayami, I believe,

uh Kayami. Um he is someone I actually got to speak on a another panel with

about mental health. Um he is one of those people that I look for personally

um who maybe has a little bit more activism um on his profile and kind of

talking about the hard topics um and kind of just being a leader in that

space. um creating space for topics that maybe um go a little bit under the rug

on traditional social media um as it tends to kind of be a little bit more of a upbeat place. Um at least from my

feed. Um and uh then on the micro influencer side, I would have to say

Joselyn Elmore is my favorite. Um, I was

eat and like seriously like me not tooting her horn or anything, but like even if I

wasn't your like I love your videos that it's again, here's the thing

about just posting whatever's going on in your life. It encourages people who have the same type of life because

Joselyn postes thing posts things about the nine to uh my my 5 to9 after my 9

to5. So, she works a full 9-to-f5 and then she shows herself closing the computer, finishing up the laundry,

cleaning up the kitchen, taking the dogs out. It just feels relatable. So, like,

yeah, of course I want to interact with that because it is something that I can see myself doing. And again, it gets to,

to Joselyn's point, it gets to the point where we're fatigued with, look how beautiful and lavish my life is.

Yeah. Um, I just want to see I want to create community, interact with people that are like me. Um,

and with with the last thing I'll say is with society being so online, we've lost

this um idea of a third location. So, we have home and we have work, right? But

we've lost this idea of a third location that maybe you would find your community. And I feel like it's coming

back now more after COVID, but there was a a shift of we have to find our entire

community online. Um, and social media is almost our adaptation of of trying to

find that third space to find people that I can relate to in my opinion. So,

yeah. Wow. Wow. Well, thanks for the shout out. No, it's really Yeah, girl. well and your content is

very good. So, all right, you guys are going to give advice. Last question. 30

30 seconds or less um or two or three sentences. Bottom line,

you're giving advice to a CMO or a head of communications how best to leverage,

I suppose, the art and science of influencing What do you tell them?

So, I might suggest now I might suggest Joselyn goes first and gives the professional answer, but my answer would

be to say don't be afraid to be silly. Please, for the love of God, don't be

afraid because if you can lean into these trends and these dances or these

silly like what trends, trending sounds. Yeah.

Pranks, trends, sounds. If you can play into that, your brand

is more marketkedly ahead of everyone else. You're giving in advice to the

influencers themselves, right? To this no to if I'm talking to the CEO, the CMO, I want you

Oh, be silly. Oh, interesting. I want you to be to because I, like I

said, I want to know who's running this company. Why should I care? Who are you? Are you funny? Are you silly? And then

if so, if you're playing in, I know you don't take yourself too seriously. And that's what I like to see. You're still

serious about your business. Use a strategy, right? That's what your social media managers are doing. Use a strategy

to pull it all the point it back to your product or your service or whatever you're selling. But don't be afraid to

use the trends because it doesn't need to be 100%

highbrow professional at all times. Yeah. Okay. I think that's I I love that. I love

that authenticity. Yeah. 100%. People are bored of seeing

the same old same old. Um I would say my very short advice is

know what your goals are before you start anything because I think what we see a lot of times and I know Jeff and

John you understand like a lot of people come to you asking for help of I need marketing and I need marketing PR help.

What does that mean to you? What are your goals at this point? Why why do you need that help? Why? Like, do you want more followers?

Do you want more sales? Do you want more brand loyalty? Because those are three wildly different influencer strategies.

Um, and PR strategies, whatever, however you want to, whatever services they're looking for. And so it is amazing how

many times we have to go back and say let's actually dedicate this conversation to trying to figure out

what your goals are and then we can start and make our recommendations because otherwise you are driving with

your headlights turned off um and you're not go anywhere good. So um and and also

it's really hard to report on a campaign when you didn't set goals to begin with. So good point. I think that creates your

road map. It tells you where you need to go, what kind of content creators you need to work with, what that campaign is

going to look like, and then how to understand if it was successful at the end of the day. I mean, I hired we you

you're both hired. You're both hired. Oh, absolutely. I mean, they're your I guess our secret weapon.

I mean, maybe we have a reason why our business model will work. Maybe not so secret anymore. and and

part of the network baby. And as as we move toward uh concluding remarks here, I I I was going to say

this anyway, but I maybe to that point, Jeff, we are seeing more and more

traction on this podcast. Um in terms of people

we are reaching, our numbers are fairly consistently and fairly dramatically

climbing as we go. This is what 20th podcast whatever it is

19th. Thank you. Thank you to everyone out there who is listening and watching. Um

this is exactly the kind of conversation whether they are my daughters or not

that um I find personally fascinating. Um this has been a great conversation. I

would I I strongly suspect, Jeff, that people are going to respond to this

conversation very positively. Jeff, anything you want to say to close us? No, I I I think you're right, John, and

I love it when we can have these conversations where I actually learn something and I think I'll learn a lot through this discussion today. And I

also learned that my my new um podcast on modern interpretive dance will

probably not do very much for me. The absurdity the absurdity.

I I would watch I would watch subscribe.

Yeah. No, you all scare me. You all scare me.

Any closing comments? Um Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say

like with all of this, the reason that I'm going to this conference, the reason that podcasts like this are so important

is this is changing at light speed all of the time. And it's just really

important for marketing and comms people to just not think that it is it's always

going to be the way that it has been for them. And what's worked in the past is not always going to work for you tomorrow or next month or next year. So,

I think just constant learning, constant conversations, um, just helps us all learn from each

other and just get better. 100%. Caroline, stay on your toes, keep trying to better

yourself, and better your community, and it'll all fall into place.

Yeah. Yeah. And I love that both of you have counseledled Jeff and I

in private over the first year of our agency about the importance of authenticity, right? And building trust

and and you know we we have designed this podcast to be authentic. We're

we'll have fun. How do you like my summer shirt? I mean marketing and communication

which is serious stuff, right? This is our business, but we try to have fun with it. We try

to be authentic. We are authentic. We're not afraid to be authentic, right?

You're giving people a chance to get to know you. That That's right. I think so.

Um, so anyway, girls, thank you so so much. Thanks for having us.

Terrific. I must have done something right along the way, Jeff. Right. You sure did.

My goodness. My goodness. Um Jeff, do you want to do our short and sweet

commercial on our social channels? Yeah. Well, first let me just say um like I said earlier,

Joselyn and Caroline are the personification why our business model works because we've got these people out

there in the field who we've worked with who are experts who've had their own records of success, but we'd still like

to have a beer with them. And I think this shows you why our model is powerful

and why it can be of benefit to all of you out there. So, hope you got something from that. Now, with regard to

our agency itself, hey, we're posting all of these podcasts to all of the major social networks. Um, please visit

them. You can pretty much pick out any one and you'll see clients first marketing and communications represented

well. So, again, for me, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all those who are watching us and tune in

again soon. John, I'll give you the last word. I I not sure what I can say to add to

this. If I go much further here, I'm going to tear up and so I'm I'm I'm already in I'm already in danger of

losing it here because I'm so proud. Um, thank you girls so much. And Mr. Beast,

thank you. Thank you, John. I'm tearing up, but it's just because of what I ate last night. That's the problem.

Have a great day, everybody. We'll see you out there. Love you all.

Yay for me. Yay for me. Yay for me. And yay for me. Please keep that in.

Hey, that is being recorded. John, you got that in. What? I think so. Yeah, it's the new jingle. It's the new

podcast. I like it. I like it. Yeah. The the the theme of today's podcast is yay for me.

Okay. Yay for me, too. Yeah. This is a this is going to be a blooper. This is going to be a blooper.