Digital Native Creatives Talk Shop, Compare Notes on Social Media Platforms

Welcome to Strictly Business, Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety. Today's episode features highlights from two lively and informative panels that Variety hosted on September twenty fifth at our annual

Here's the panel, so let's do a little introduction. Nicole Bayer host Why Don't You Date Me?

Who?

This is their podcast?

Aaron Foster, Sarah Foster, EP Nobody Wants This and host of the World's First podcast, Thanks Sarah.

Thanks.

Aaron Fosser, creator, writer and EP of Nobody Wants This and host the World's First Put Put Jake Shane, host of Therapists, Benito Skinner, creator writer, EP actor Compensating and host Ride. And Matt Rogers He Does Like Everything Also, and hosts of Last Say Them All.

Chapter, Makeup Artists, costume designer, influencer or host Lost Carter Recess.

Hi, everybody. I want to start off with just asking about the platforms, the apps that you guys are scrolling the most. I want to know where are you looking for stories? What are you enjoying the most?

I love Instagram. I love it so much. Give me pictures, give me videos. I'm happy.

What about you, Sarah?

Oh?

Yeah, I mean I think Instagram obviously is the place that I am the most. It moves the needle the most. I think for our businesses. It's football season, so I'm on YouTube a lot.

No, you go on Twitter a lot too.

Yeah, but I don't know the algorithm is.

I'm so curious to see what the I mean, Nicole, you're much younger than us two, but we're like the young people think of us saying Instagram because I do think it makes us seem old, because Instagram is like millennials, and it is the only platform I look at. And then when I'm feeling like really disgusting and dirty, I'll go on the Daily Mail just to like feel really

Also read the Daily Mail, but only on like the Snapchat daily mail app.

Yeah, honestly, I think darker.

It's awesome.

I guarantee you Aaron does not have a same.

No, they pick out the they pick out the best stories.

You.

He just read you so much.

I don't even have Snapchat.

It's amazing, and I read the ones I'm most interested in, but I use TikTok the most probably or sometimes Twitter. I just think it's interesting. I like all the charte accounts that talk about different pop girls. Yeah, so same.

I feel like Instagram was my first love.

I love it so much so that and then I'm on TikTok a lot, I would say.

And then I don't even go near Twitter because I can't hate myself more. Yeah, deeply Instagram, I'm the same. And also I'm gonna give like a millennial answer too. I guess an aging millennial answer here, like the end Dell Sleep app is everything, like all sorts of soundscapes.

And I'm a YouTube person too. I will just refresh the YouTube.

I think I'm part of the problem, like not watching TV because I will just refresh YouTube and that's the day.

Well, yeah, do any of you watch TV? Yeah?

I watched over compensating Sason, one of them run, I did it. I saw on Instagram the new trailer where nobody wants this today?

I'm better.

Hello.

Obviously all of you are on multiple platforms. How do you decide what goes to what platform?

Length of the clip.

Well, I was just wondering how many platforms there are, like where does it go? Because I don't really know.

I couldn't think of anything besides Instagram for the app question.

So I don't know, I like.

Don't utilize or sorry you go you first.

I would way rather hear from you about platforms because I really.

Am for Instagram, it usually is just photos. I don't really sometimes all do videos, but most I really just kind of do the distinction. Well, if it's a photo, I'll do Instagram. If it's a video, I'll do TikTok. And that's really just as simple as it is for me.

It's a really scientific method.

I feel like we have this conversation all the time is how best to utilize social.

Media to our advantage?

Right, we have a fashion brand, we have a podcast, we have you know stuff.

But the truth is we don't do a good job with it.

We don't have social media managers. Anything you see is just us like all right, like let's put it out there, but we don't.

And of course Instagram for favorite daughter.

No, I don't think we do a very good job on actually like utilizing. I think we have ten people watching on YouTube.

Of our podcast.

Like that's not a joke.

Like I do this like really cool trick where I post the same thing on Instagram and TikTok, so I don't have to think.

And apparently if you post it on LinkedIn, you're only supposed to do it once a week.

LinkedIn is not trying to see a bunch of posts.

I've never had a real job. I don't know what LinkedIn is.

LinkedIn is such a mystreet to me?

Oh no, I went from Lane Bryant to the TV.

You guys can be batting.

LinkedIn is actually thriving, though i'd actually descriving. It's not like Facebook, like with where you're like, oh, who's on there, my aunt?

No, it's like LinkedIn.

I'm building another business right now and I have single handedly put all the pieces together through LinkedIn.

Where do you see your storytelling going? Someone says to you, whatever you want to do, it's greenlit. You have all the money in the world. What story would you tell and how would you tell it?

Well, mine definitely wouldn't be about myself.

I think that that's one thing I'm like done with is I feel like that's like out there already.

And I do think that that's one thing that is a little bit of a bummer of when you tend to pop off as a like a an Instagram not Instagram, a podcast situation or that type of deal is because they're like, oh, we love you, we want more of you, and it's kind of like you got me girl, like i'd be I can't say another thing. You ask me who I follow, and I'm like, what have I not already said? You know, I would love to do something that was very different from me, so and I plan to.

I really want to tell.

More relationship stories from different perspectives and kind of I don't know if you guys feel this way, but I think when one thing really takes off, it makes you feel like you not in a way to chase something, but that you want to prove to yourself you could do it again, you know, on purpose instead it's not a fluke. And so I have that for sure in my head.

But I feel like for us, like through our production company, we've always been like what's our flea bag? You know, like Aaron's like Phoebe waller Bridge, and we're kind of like I think we've spent a lot of our lives sort of resisting maybe who we are a lot and trying fighting to be taken seriously, and you know, I fought to be taken seriously as an actress for so long it never really happened.

And it could still. It could still happen.

But we talk about this all the time, like we're living in such hustle culture, right, It's like when is enough enough? It's like you got to have the podcast, you gotta have the brand. Oh you didn't sell any shows.

That's bad, you know.

It's just like it's like when when can you actually sit back and go okay, like I want to I want to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Like it's all literally what.

I was going to say, I was gonna say.

It just made me think that something that people don't talk about enough is that work life.

Balance is really important to me.

Yeah, and I only like to work with other people who respect work life balance. And when you go home and you're in bed with your partner by yourself watching TV, I have a baby at home, and it's really shaken up what I prioritize. And there's this culture of bragging on how little sleep you got or responding to everything

Nicole, what's your project? What's that dream project?

My dream project obviously centered around myself. I love who I am. I think I'm fun. My best friend is to shar Zameida and we work together a lot. So I think a dream would be show or like a movie that we have written or created and we get to, you know, be in charge of it.

I like telling love stories. I also love interviewing people about love.

Jake.

I think my dream would be to like write a show similar to you about myself and see where that goes. Meet like a definitely a comedy, dream coast star, dream coastar. I would love to do like improv alongside like Meg's altar. I think that would be awesome.

Time's up, Thank you guys.

Next up, we'll hear from ziem's Jack Perry and John Stamos. Stamos is a multi hyphenate who will, of course forever be a pop culture icon for his long run on ABC's nineteen ninety sitcom Full House. As such, Stamos was the perfect pitch man to star in a cheeky Super Bowl ad this year that was taken out by ZEEM to tout its broad offering of local TV station streaming signals. Stamos was impressed by the company and Perry's track record as a broadcast and technology pioneer. Stamos now serves as

I met Jack and got introduced at ZEEM when they had me do Super Bowl a couple of years ago. I did a thing where I was saying we don't need We don't need gimmicks. Zem works so well by itself. And I'm sort of walking through and there's fire and I'm in a pool, and like, I'm not trying to pander, but I was really pandering. And then after I got to know Jack on that shoot, I said, let's.

Do something else.

We did like an eight minute sort of a sort of a Christopher guest style, a little ten minute thing about the two of us in zee.

A little mockumentary.

Actually, that's right, Jack, it's at the table for us about what zeem is and the two major polls of your business.

Sure. So I started Zeem in two thousand and nine after I had sold my prior company, which wrote the authentication technology that sits between the satellite companies and the networks and all the local affiliates and really just make sure you get the right local channels. And so I thought looked at that and thought, well, streaming is next.

Yeah, in two thousand and nine, not many of us were saying streaming is next. We were just trying to figure out how to work YouTube well.

And I learned the value of local there. And that's where John and I really bonded in the beginning is everybody is somewhere, they're from somewhere, they're going somewhere. There's things happening somewhere. So local news just made sense to lean in on that, and so we wrote the backbone to start streaming. We literally had no idea what the

That sounds simple, but it is not.

No, it's not.

And you know, I when they asked me to the commercial, I was like, what is this, zeam. I don't get it, you know, And it took me a while to sort of understand it. Just talking like that. It's sort of broad right now. We have an app on the phone and he has we broadcast local news and sports from all over the country. So if you want to see what's going on, in you know, your hometown, whatever, you go there, and then we're doing some you know, original programming.

You know, local is the one constant no matter what business models rise up, you're always going to need local news, weather, sports. So on that side, we're just going to make a brain dead simple to get all your local channels. And I don't care if it's the CTV companies or the streamers. You want local come to us, We'll make it inexpensive and easy from there, that's where we're starting to build on the local original content side of things. We're pushing

You think nothing's on folks ice fishing right there? Is that something you kind of did to see if you could do it?

In part?

Yes, But we also you know, as John and I started more about the content opportunity, it was clear to us live is the next great frontier and the more we can do live the better, and so we've got destination. John is leading on Destination Music.

We have a studio in New York as well, on close to Times Square that we go in there on tour with the Beach Boys couple months ago, and I grabbed a few of the guys. I said, that's going to the studio. We flipped the switch and then we went on for an hour and just played acoustically, and you know, it was really a special thing. So there's so much going on with ZEEM.

It is complicated.

It's hard to wrap your head around. But I think there's so much opportunity there, especially as a creator and have a lot of creative friends over signing deals with people. There's a young comic that who I love, and we're going to do a live talk show with him and a late night talk show. We're doing Destination comedy. He's got a van to a three sixty van that goes live. We're doing music, and we're doing comedy and fishing in a hole somewhere.

Can you sketch out those specifically, what you did with the Destination Comedy event, Explain why you did it and what you hoped it would represent for your capabilities.

So I wanted to push the envelope on the technology. I wanted to get creative folks involved that had a network of their own that could then tell their friends to tune in and their contacts tune in. And I wanted to try to live stream for five straight days twenty four to seven. And I said, when you go to bed at night, park the van so it can see a logo of any kind. I don't care what it is. It could be a Marriott.

Logo, it'd be Adidas for YouTube.

The next time we'll have it pointed out Adidas shoes. Because if you look at well, you know we have an ad technology that you know, since John came out of the Flaming Pool and our Super Bowl commercial, we've done maybe seven billion ads that we've inserted into streams. We know that the advertising community is saying, hey, there's got to be something more, not just dynamic ad insertion, but what are the live branding opportunities we can participate in.

Is there a world John where a touring comedian could monetize a.

Tour that, yes, that's a good question. What I always chipped these guys with and girls is that he invented the technology called ads Sync that places ads throughout the day and all these local markets, so if a comic or a musician is going to be playing. We did it with the Beach Boys just to test out with a QR code, and we sold a lot of tickets at Jones Beach I think it was. But he went and got ten seconds here, fifteen seconds here that were

So one of the things we did with Jeff Ross was we created one thirty second spot because he's done the take a Banana for the Ride tour on Broadway and so we took it. We said, just shoot a fun ad, send it to us. And I'm sure everyone here is familiar with the dreaded slate We'll be back in a moment, you know, enjoy this moment or whatever. That's because the ad wasn't sold, and so what we did in the case there was our ad Sync technology

That feels like failure, honestly.

Right, So we wrote something that very quickly said all right, grab the Jeff Ross ad. Take it from a thirty to or fifteen or fifteen down to six seconds, and then we placed it in there as well, and that actually proved very effective at increasing the fill rates for those ads, and you wouldn't see the slates.

With your more original efforts. Are you actively trying to promote the Zeen brand or are you looking at like social as the kind of the vehicle to get your content out.

I mean, that's a nice inflection point that we're at today, is you kind of get the social piece for free.

Right, What do you think that a service like this can do in terms of just putting a spotlight on talent that may be very far away from New York or LA or Chicago comedy clubs or or any kind of performers. Do you feel like this could be a vehicle for discovery of talent?

Yeah? Absolutely, I've been finding so many talented people on Instagram. In fact, we replaced one of the drummers in The Beach Boys a couple of years ago. I found the guy on Instagram. And you know, I have no problem at dming someone saying I'm a fan. I really like what you're doing, and I have.

To believe people are like, this is not Jon. Times they alway.

Takes a minute to convince them, no, I really am John's Damen. Yeah.

That was with the Beach Boy guy. I DM him and said, hey, what are you doing this summer? You know? And he says, is this really you? And I filled my face time I said, we're looking for a drummer for the Beach Boys. Oh, you know, we're crazy. So I find more probably online than I do out in the world. But the talent is so incredible, and to reach out to someone and go, hey, you want to come over here and play in our sandbox and see

And it seems like all your skills and your connections are coming into play in terms of being creative.

Well one hundred percent. Yeah, we've met with a lot of the creative friends and also people in the business. Went over to Netflix and talk to them about what we're doing live and if we could be part of what they're doing. And we've met with a lot of agents and a lot of management companies, and everybody's very interesting. It's just they got it to figure out how can I fit into this world? And the more we get out there and pitch it, the more people are coming around going what about this?

What about that?

Well, the architecture of monetization, I'm sure helps helps with those conversations.

Let's close by a little crystal.

Ball gazing, all right, John, chief Innovation Officer, pressures on what's exciting you? What in the future is like, what in the near future are you excited to get your arms around and start playing with.

One of the first things I said to him was like, I would love to see ZEEM as your home channel you turn on the TV instead of LG or whatever. You know, Apple, it will be it will be Zee and it would it would. I want something that would curate what I watch, what my wife watches, what I watch with our kids, and not have to pit there for twenty minutes on every platform and try to figure out how you do it and like a half hours gone by, and the hell, I'll just go to.

Sleep, wind up watching Full House three runs. I do that a lot.

But it would would just to have a link and it would just go hit the show, go to Netflix, go to Apple. And I don't think anybody's doing that. So that's my dream is to see it be your home screen and your place where you start in the morning and a place where you end it night.

There is still an enormous opportunity in navigation.

I will will watch ZEM to see how how you guys tackle That sounds good.

Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review at the podcast platform of your choice.

We love to hear from listeners.

Please go to Variety dot com and sign up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business s