Black Tech Green Money: Nicky Saunders, Content Strategist at Deeper Than The Brand

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I mean, it could be a few things like that. That's such a broad questions, Like, it could be.

The timing, It could be anything from you didn't have the right hook.

It could be the algorithm.

There's a lot of things like it's I always look at when I post and it goes flat, I look at me first.

Yeah right.

I think it's easier to control what I post and what I put out and what I create instead of going ah, the algorithm is doing what it does.

I was like, because I can't.

I feel like that's a cop out when other people numbers are clearly are doing Okay, I'm just feeling a certain kind of way because no one's listening to me at this moment.

But then I have, like I look at it from a standpoint of all right, visually, how does it look? You know, what was the first three seconds? Did? I? Uh? I keep their attention?

Because depending on the platforms, if you get them to listen through the whole way through, like that could be a thing.

So it's it's just it's a lot of things. It's a lot of things.

Our pictures on Instagram.

Dad, No, No, it's just you feel me like you got to put it extra loving it, So you may have to put like some music, feel me. You may have to make it into a carousel, so you may have to say extra stories. You may have to be a little bit more intentionals with the captions and make it a little bit longer. What happens is what the days of I post a picture and I say one sentence. Now that's dead, let's just stop it. It doesn't even work. But the more that they add features, we have to

Pictures on top of your pictures.

So you look at, let's say, the different features that are inside of Instagram, and you use them, it probably better you reach for your post.

And so what I learned, and this is a year ago or more, what Instagram does is they count swipes through your photo gallery as engagement. And so what I wonder if because I actually enjoyed these particular types of posts where there it's a gallery and like none of the yotos match, like they just you know, maybe one is a quote, another one is me eating, the next one is you know, something random. I actually enjoy though, so tell like, what is that about? Why are people

So sometimes they follow a theme, right, Sometimes they could be super just randomness, but it really gives you a sense of personality of the person who's posting it or the brand who's posting it, right, And so that's not necessarily normal in the way that we normally post that.

Now it's starting to be attractive.

So when we're seeing, Okay, I have a picture of me at the park, but then I have a funny meme on the next one, and then I have a deep quote, It's like I'm fully truly understanding who you are as a person, rather than the thirty second sixty second videos, ninety second videos that can be kind of like staged and scripted. So sometimes we don't necessarily get your full personality unless it's those types of posts or

So I'm gonna ask a question. I'm gonna go the long way around to ask this question because I think this is important context. So we talk a lot about how educational institutions don't teach financial literacy, and a lot of them do now they're increasingly teaching financial literacy. And I say that, you say this when we talk about entrepreneurs and people who are trying to build businesses. Don't post the struggle, but they post the highlights, so you

You know what I mean, right, But the Tyresse cry worked good or bad? It worked?

You feel mean?

So but I say that because I think now in the season that we're in, the day in the life is starting to get more play, then I fully got it together, right. And those people who are actually taking advantage of that is like gen Z and Jena, like Alpha, like they're really going into day one of trying to create a billion dollar brand, right, and they show everything about it, good or bad. Those people who can't do that,

The highlight bils.

We want the actual things that work or that doesn't work, or I want to feel like I'm not alone anymore, right, And so those people who are showing, hey, this is how I.

Do this, I don't know if it's right. I don't know if it's like, but I'm going to do it anyways.

It builds community, and so those brands are starting to get more and more traction because it's community centered, it's for the people. Whereas, yes, the ones that only show the highlights are great, cool. You can look at it more like as these are goals. I want to get there, but I feel disconnected because you're already there and I'm not. So I could look at you kind of like I look at it more of like we do.

The vision boards, so I could post.

Your brand, your content on my vision board, but I don't, like, I don't truly feel connected until I am there. Where people who are posting about Okay I made ten dollars today, Okay, I made three thousand dollars today, Okay it went back to like four. Like, those are starting to get a little bit more attraction. It's still not of the masses

Yeah, I like that. So I asked Maddy, what are the same question? And I'm gonna ask it to you too. Like you know, I live in Teed, Ohio. I live in a place it's not like an LA in New York and Chicago where there's always like beautiful stuff to pose and my life is amazing. I'm walking in this place and I'm walking in that place and got the

You just document what you do.

So meaning I'm an introvert, so nine out of ten times i'm in this area, I'm in front of computer screens and that's it. The crazy thing is, I think my life is boring, but other people don't.

Right, your life sounds like my life. I'm sitting right here eight hours a day in.

The fjority of the time, but you're doing things that people wish they could, like you feel what I'm saying. So creating a podcast, creating any type of content, people are like, yo, show me how right? Or how do I create it? How do I have interviews like you?

How do I ask? How do you prepare? How?

Like we take for granted what we do every single day because we do it every day and it's super easy. But if we was to start documenting it and showing that simple, simple format, do it on stories, see how it does right? Because we as humans need to build momentum. I need to know this works before I really put all my energy to it, right, and so put in stories. See like day in the life. Okay, boom, I'm walking

And how I'm feeling. And they're like, oh, you have a routine.

I'm like, yeah, right, okay, Like, okay, I went, I went to the suna and cold plunge.

You do that? I was like, yo, I talk about content and AI all the time. Y'all concerned about when I go to the sauna and cold plunge. That's crazy.

Ye.

So it's it's interesting to see that what we think is not important, like it really is important to people because there's a sense of your expertise and who you are. And so you can show one only and then people feel disconnected. So if you show both, Yo, I'm on the I'm on the the journey of making my company over six figures, right.

But in the meantime, I gotta call my mom right, make sure she's good.

I gotta go and Instacart messed up, so I gotta go to the joint over there and make yourself normal. This is where storytelling comes in, and storytelling is the key part of any brand if we pay attention to anything right now, the ones that are killing it know how to tell stories. This is why Nike has been what they have because they know how to tell stories. They're not selling shoes, they sell stories. Apples sell stories.

A relatable story?

And so my boring life is going to be turning into a story that can relate to somebody who lives in Oklahoma right chilling in the crib, who may only have a one bedroom at the time, but can see like yo, it's not about the space, it's about the story that you tell.

So you caught a break working with Eric Thomas legendary et where when you started working with him? What were the what were those numbers?

Like three hundred k at the time.

That's Instagram YouTube? What was that?

Yeah? Instagram?

Uh, Facebook was about two hundred and something YouTube. I don't nowhere near a million at the time, but yeah, those those were what I was working with.

And when you do did you stop working or when? Where? Where did we go? How did Nicky grow this?

I mean, we're still working with E. I love E. I'm not going nowhere. I'm one of those loyal people like.

I have my own stuff, but he's he's family. I'm always going gonna make sure that he's good. Where are we at now, that's why we're still rocking.

Where we at now on numbers?

Uh, over two million, two point two on Instagram, about to hit one point five on YouTube, and we at one point nine Facebook.

Be acting crazy.

We're literally at two million with Facebook, but like one point nine mil right now.

Yeah, this is what's so interesting to me because you know he obviously he's dynamic, obviously. Yeah, but there's a lot of dynamic people like what happened? How did that happen? To triple, quadruple these numbers.

So I concentrated more on what people wanted than necessarily what the algorithm wanted or even what he wanted. So if people are looking for bars from him, I'm going I'm going to do that. The easiest way that we made from like where he was to the first million was I figured out the best quotes, the best bars

I'm not here to fight that.

I'm not going to be like, no, we're only going to be posting about whatever we're selling, whatever we're doing.

No, these platforms.

Are for brand awareness, So I'm going to always do different clips based off what people said. If there is a sports event that just happened, then You're going to see some images of that with EA's voice on it.

That makes it more relevant. So figuring out the trends.

Whether there's a sports event, whether there's something political, whatever, whatever people are talking about that can be related to what he's saying. Put it together. So between that and trends, it grows. But I concentrated more on the content, the body of that instead of just the tips and tricks of the platforms.

So were you anti or for repurposing the same content across different platforms or does your Instagram content need to be developed for Instagram.

In the beginning, it was a little bit separate, right because if we think about maybe just a couple of years ago, there was different languages. But because of the rise of short form videos, it's almost the same, right, because you got reels on Instagram and Facebook, you got tiktoks, you got YouTube shorts. YouTube shorts just made an announcement saying that they could go up to three minute videos starting somewhere in October, right, so it's going to be

Right?

So in the beginning, yes, one was only taking long form videos. The other one was only taking texts and pictures. The other one was only taking thirty second videos. So in the beginning, understanding the platforms, you have to do a different strategy. Now it's starting to be repurposing it in a strategic way, right, But even.

That, like.

How do you address each audience of the platform. So for example, if I was saying the announcement of the YouTube shorts making it up to three minutes, I would do a green screen on TikTok saying, hey, YouTube shorts are about to be three minutes. You could take your tiktoks that are over a minute and put it on YouTube shorts. If I was saying it on Instagram a your videos that you do on Instagram reels, you could

You know, timing matters so much in social media, and I wonder, like, so like when I got, you know, involved with afrotech. I went to my first Afrotech conference back in twenty seventeen, and I was like the only person back then vlogging every day. I was walking around the whole conference like this come, vlogging all day long, editing that night in the in my hotel room, publishing that night Friday light like who is this guy? And

So I would have say you probably get a YouTube plat guarantee, right, but I will say it does. It does work for a few reasons. One, most people who do that weren't consistent on it anyways. So now you're building consistency. Any platform respects consistency, and once they start seeing you post more and more, they're like, hold on, let me let me push you out because you're here every single day. Now, Hello, I kind of like you.

Gonna finish or not, but they gonna watch you.

They gonna watch you regardless, and so you're like, Yo, this is day seventeen and I feel like quitting, right, but I'm a post it. It's only probably gonna be two minute long vlog.

Today, but a we hear.

People are gonna watch Okay, yo is he gonna it's gonna make it to thirty up?

We're eighteen, we're nineteen. Oh okay cool.

And then also you're giving inspiration for other people to be like, oh they did that, I could do this too, right, And so the community, if anything, if you don't get your plaque, you get a community that the second that these thirty days finished, you could probably drop some merch you could probably got paid commit you could probably do an event, and they're going to be like, I'm invested, Like I want to be a part of whatever else

But yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that. You know. I was reading an interview you this some time ago, and you said that your goal was to help people feel comfortable telling their stories in a way that feels true to them. There's a lot of vulnerability that comes with being truly authentic online. We talked about, you know, if I'm failing right now, there's this meme you know, you talk about the day in the life of an

Yeah, it's setting boundaries, right, You don't have to social media is not a reality TV show. If you don't want it to be right, you can do Like for me, You're probably not going to see much of my mom, much of my Grandma. Doesn't mean I don't love them. It's just a boundary that I have. You may not always see twenty four to seven of my relationship. It's a boundary that I have. But you may hear in certain seasons that I suffer through depression.

Right.

I'm not gonna say that every single day, but there are certain seasons, especially if I know it's kind of heavy and the creator burnout kind of season, that I may talk about that. Right, there's certain I kind of do a list of what I'm able to talk about and what is non negotiable in this season, and then what I may say depending on how I feel, how the audience needs it, and it may stretch me, but I'll be open to it to talk about it, right,

And then they.

Become fifteen years old and they became champion of something and they want to just show them to just say, hey, I love my baby, right, Like I don't really show him, but I love my baby.

Right.

Yeah, it's going to change.

But you as a creator, you as a business owner turn creator too, gotta go. Okay, Yes, the main part is the brand awareness. The main part is the expertise experiences all that great stuff. But I'm open to this and I'll say it here and there or I'll show it here and there, because you're going to receive energy of man, I didn't know that about you. That's so amazing. Yo, I rock with you even more. Like remember, and sometimes

Nah?

That really hit home to me for boom, Like, you don't know the impact that you truly have. And as long as you can feel comfortable showing it talking about it, do it. But if you don't feel comfortable at all, do not stress yourself out because that's just not authentic to you and so you're going to be inconsistent with it.

What is some general and specific things. When you go to an entrepreneur, you go to the page on TikTok they Instagram, you're like, you should stop doing that, Like that's why that's killing your success, this limiting your opportunities. Stop doing that. What do we do?

There's a few things, and it's a preference right. My thing is, I'm never gonna tell you not to do something unless data shares that you shouldn't, right, Because I may not be your audience, regardless if I'm auditing it, I'm looking at it as a friend, whatever, I may

And so it's just it's a true sit down.

Every single month, Ay, I've put out between thirty to ten pieces of content today, depending on how consistent you are. Right this month I put out that in which ones were the highest, which one were the lowest?

What are my average numbers? Right?

My lowest pieces of content? I really need to sit down and be like, is it time to cut that out?

Or do we go one more month?

If we're in two months and we're not doing no numbers, chill out, let it go, Maybe try it in another season. I'm not saying let the idea go, but let's try it a different season, or let's try to create it in a different way in a different environment and different kind of content formats. Maybe that doesn't need to be a video. Maybe that needs to be an article. Maybe that needs to be a long thread, right, maybe that needs to be pictures. But it goes data should run

Does production quality matter anymore?

No?

No, no, We've seen too many videos go via road that was on a bad Android.

Sorry, and I love you, but it doesn't really matter.

It goes like, like I have these three stages of content creation. There's consistency, quality, and connection. Right, So consistency means the most, and those made people are just so bored of hearing of that.

You're bored, but you.

Haven't done it, so I don't know what I'm going to continue to tell you. Right, So, consistency is like and that doesn't mean every single day, just the timeframe that you committed to. So if you're saying, yo, I'm going to show up Monday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and all you have is your phone, Okay, do that right, because your audience is going to care more about the presence than the quality. Now, the quality does matter when you're

You don't want to be too too highly produced.

Because then you lose a connection with the community. You've seen too big time, right, And you don't want to just do lower quality all the time because then it's like, ah, you haven't really grown.

Right If we look at Keith Lee, Keith Lee will.

Forever do the phone videos, but he's taken a little bit serious because other content that he's collabed with has the highly produced content.

Right.

He's doing series, he's doing shows, he's doing commercials and all these different things. So there's still a level of high production. But still, let me keep to the core of how I grew my audience to over millions of followers, right So, Keith Lee is a perfect example of how production isn't necessarily needed. It's great for balance, but it's not needed to really have the brand that you want.

How do we turn people Let's say I got ten twenty thirty thousand followers. They seem to be relatively engaged. How do we turn them into customers?

So do we know what they really what their pain points are? Right, So this is where we stop concentrating on what creates the views and we have to concentrate on what creates the engagement and the conversions.

Right.

So I'm going to be if I have a product, clearly I have a solution to their problem. So I'm going to start talking about their pain points in some way, shape or form.

Pain points can go.

From motivation, education, entertainment. Like it's not just an educational vibe.

Right.

But if you are drowsy and I have an energy drink, right, I'm going to put up different scenario for my night owls. That is going to be like you're in front of the computer dying, but you still have to finish this one project. You may pop out the energy drink and they're like, yo, what's that all right? What flavors do you need at three o'clock in the morning.

Oh?

Right, Now you're creating conversation in a real life scenario. So what are their pain points and how and what is the content that you're creating to show that one

I don't need seven hours. I just need that one extra hour boost. Boom.

I'm gonna get that one, right. So you show different scenarios of where your audiences it can be. That's what turns into into dollars. That's what showing other people. User generated content is another great, great way other people using your product, other people using your services, because we don't necessarily always want to be the first ones to buy.

We want to always be like, oh, okay, all these people are doing this. Okay, hold on, this may this may be the thing I need to do.

Hold on, let me show you so user generated content showing just content of other people using it, it's going to be fire. Testimonials is fire, but finding it in the creative way.

Stop.

I don't know who needs to hear this. Stop posting flyers sucks. No one engages with it horrible, right, leave that for emails. Emails are fine, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn not so much.

Leave it alone. It's old. So yeah, those are those are different ways.

You made a goal of hitting ten thousand subscribers on YouTube by the end of September, and you did it much earlier. Congratulations. What did you learn about that experience? Like, because the YouTube algorithm seems to be the most challenging for many creators, What did you learn about how did you make your hap?

It very.

So?

There was a few things that made it not as stressful. Right.

A combination of a weekly post with a weekly live. Reason why is because one one of them is going to get out more to the masses, which is your weekly post. Right. As long as you're consistent once a week, you should be good, right, and then the live is going to talk more on the trending topics. But as well as build that community centered brand, right, as well as keep up your watch hours. Everybody knows, especially if you're going into the monetizing side of YouTube, you need

Right. But I think the the biggest, the biggest.

Thing that I concentrated on on this ten k journey was the thumbnails and the titles.

I promise you.

Every YouTuber understands the pain about that, because if they don't click, it means nothing.

I don't care how great your.

Content is if they do not click, And the only way they're going to click is if your thumbnail catches attention and your title gives them that decision that this is for me.

Right.

So it was testing out different colors, it was testing out Okay, I'm only going to have two things on my thumbnails and not seventeen different things. I'm going to have sometimes words, sometimes I'm not going to have words as And the biggest thing that helped with that was the ab testing that YouTube enabled on everybody's account, right, So you have when you have a video, always have

We don't know what the mass is like.

So YouTube allows you to test out up to three thumbnails and it goes every single day like, okay, does the people like this one? Does the people like this one? And it'll show you the percentage of what worked and what doesn't, and it goes based off you know, watch time.

Right, So even though I like this thumbnail, this one got me three thousand more views, I'm going with that one. I don't care if I like it or not. I'm going with that one, right.

I wish they did the same thing with titles. But once you understand that formula with titles and thumbnails and really being intentional with testing those things out instead of just Okay, I'm gonna make the best videos ever. Great, That is important on the second stage because now you have to improve on your average view duration and your retention.

That's important.

But that thumbnail entitle to grab their attention when they open up YouTube.

That's super super important.

So I put a lot of concentration on my thumbnails and I'll tell, I'll tell, I use fiber. This is not I have my own graphic designer who's testing it out. Some of the top YouTubers will be like, I test out one hundred thumbnails every video.

I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. I got a I got a thumbnail. Person from fiber.

He gives me about two thumbnails a video. I'm great, I'm I'm absolutely fine. Now, when the money comes back up, we'll may at an end design in a graphic designer who just does thumbnails.

We may do that. Right now, let me get to about twenty k. You know what I mean, and we're good.

So you don't think like kids Canva templates just that's not what it is.

No, No, do listen.

The more that I can get off of my hands, just so I can think of ideas and create, I'm good with I'm not a graphic designer, right, but I do. I know my audience is solopreneurs and solo creators, so I will provide the templates and everything like that, but I will strongly suggest please set ten to twenty dollars aside.

Yeah, and give that to fiver.

If you are serious about growing on YouTube, please invest in that that because your time is worth way more and you the more that you I'm I went through a big creator burnout, so anything that can help you from not getting creative burnout, I'm going to tell you, Hey, get rid.

Of the dumb.

No, you have no business doing thumbnails no, no business.

You you talk about teeth, you do nothing about you. That is the graphic designer. Continue to talk about teeth. That's it.

That's what. That's what. So yesterday you are online, you're talking about the importance of learning and growing in public, and I love that and say, say more about that just in general, talk talk more about that.

So it goes It goes back to what we were talking about earlier about like documenting in public. Right, I'm noticing that more and more people are streating brands from scratch and being like, you know, a bumpet, I'm going to do it in public now. Some people have started with zero followers doing it right, and some people have done it with a little bit of followers or a lot of followers.

A good example like mister Grayful love him hello if you don't know.

He hasn't been on Instagram for a little bit, but he was the guy that said, hey, chat GPT came out, I'm going to try to get thirty k followers only listening to chat EPT. And he got way more followers and his post went viral because people are like, oh, wait, you're you're really using this tool that we don't know is going to work or not, and you're actually using it.

Girl, Let's do it right.

For me.

I'm realizing this new chat gypt voice thing one is hilarious.

Two it's just.

Way more detailed based instead of especially for those people who don't like to type a lot, like I could just have a conversation. So so the research that I'm doing, I'm like, okay, you know what, Let's do this in public. Let's figure out this new voice feature in public. Let's figure out this new hatline whatever we're trying to do in public, because one it could work and it can be successful, or two it could show what not to do and that can still be successful because people are

Doing anything with my business today.

I mean, like chack GBT told me some bs that I'm not doing and somebody's like, yeah, I.

Feel that way too.

I took and then tell me all your self help routines that you did to get you better.

But it gates that situation.

So that's why I'm like, let's do this in public, because the impact is crazy when you do.

Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity, Afro Tech and the Black Effect podcast Networking Night Hire Immedia, and it's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas, with the additional production support by Kate McDonald, say Ergan and Jada McGee. Special thank you to Michael Davis in Love Beach. Learn more about my guess other tech distructors an innovators at afrotech dot com. Video version this episode will drop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, So