I have spoken to so many business owners, so many e com brands who have just had miserable experiences with ad agencies. And I'm the same it's really hard to get on social media and storytell and be like a real authentic human. And that's one of the reasons why these social media marketing agencies are struggling. They don't have those humans. They have a one size fits all approach like, Oh, this work for this brand. We're going to copy paste it and do it for a bunch of other brands.
That doesn't work anymore. Every brand is unique in its own way and has its own thumbprint. The landscape is different People don't want to buy from companies anymore. And they definitely don't want ads. because people want to buy from people An organic first approach that's the secret, man. That's the secret sauce right there. It's seven o'clock in the morning.
I normally don't talk to the camera this early, but as I'm sitting here and drinking coffee, organizing footage, thinking about the future of social media, how content is being used, I want to get these thoughts out and I want to get them into your brain. I'm in a unique position as someone who pays creators to do work for them and someone who is a creator and gets paid by large brands to do work for them. Right in the middle.
So I get this unique perspective, I get to see, you know, what I need and I get to articulate that to my creators. And then I have these big brands telling me what they want and I put my creator lens on it. I'm like, Oh, okay. I know what you really want. Like you're telling me what do you want? But I know what it is that you really want. Today I want to talk to you about how the landscape is changing and why social media marketing agencies are dead.
It's the same reason why you haven't had success with an ad agency. It's the same reason why things worked in 2020 and prior to iOS 14, but they don't anymore. There is no longer a one size fits all social media marketing strategy. It doesn't work like that anymore. You can't just make stuff, post it, or run ads to it and expect it to convert. The landscape is different.
And I want to explain to you what I'm seeing on my end and what I believe to be the future and how you can take advantage of it. Actionable things that you can do to set yourself up for success in this new landscape. Because it's very different and it's changing very fast. Let's start with the social media marketing agency route. I worked with many. And as you know, I have a million followers on social media. I understand it.
I have had more videos with more than a million views than I can count. These social media marketing agencies don't know how to do that. Yet they are telling you that they can do it for you. Or that if you pay them large chunks of money and give them a percentage of your ad spend, they can get you the return and the sales that you're looking for. I don't believe they can anymore.
And I have spoken to so many business owners, so many e com brands who have just had miserable experiences with ad agencies. And I'm the same. I'm the same. All of our media buy is in house. And you know, if you listened to the last episode of this podcast, you would understand how we do our marketing, how we discover it. But it's a, An organic first approach. Organic first approach. Mmm. Mmm. That's the secret, man. That's the secret sauce right there.
Every brand is going to need their own individual. That's how the landscape is changing. Every brand is going to need their own person. Their own creator. Someone to manage all of their social media, someone to respond to comments, someone to video reply to comments, someone to post every day, multiple times a day, someone to be the face of the brand, someone that they can trust Jack. They can trust Jack, some of the trust from the brand, and they can become the face.
And that brand's going to trust that person to represent them and to do the right thing. But in order to connect with the audience, they need someone with the face. They need an individual. People don't want to buy from companies anymore. And they definitely don't want ads. We'll talk about those in a minute. They want to buy from people. So what does that mean for us? It means that, we are all going to need an individual to represent our brand.
The harsh reality is that it's cheaper, faster, and easier for the founder to be the face of the brand. It's cheaper, faster, and easier for you to learn how to do content than it is to find the right creator, pay them, and compensate them, and get them interested, invested, and actually giving a shit. That's a million dollar position. If you can nail that. It's a million dollar position because they will bring in and drive all of your revenue. It's the crux of your marketing strategy.
It's the crux, crux of retention marketing. It's the crux of, how you discover your ads. Look at scrub daddy, look at lock picking lawyer or McNally official. All of those guys represent covert instruments. , those are people that are doing it right. Red Bull doing it right. Right. They have creators and they entertain.
I think it's going to be even more extreme to the point where, this face of the brand is going to be live streaming all the time and people are going to be able to buy directly from that creator as they explain things because people want to buy from people.
Let's talk about the ad stuff really quick because as much as we think or don't want to work with influencers anymore or if that word is dirty I've seen some People not wanting to be referred as influencers, they want to be referred to as creators because they make things and, as someone that creates, I think I align more with the term creator than influencer. I don't believe that I have the influence, but I do believe that I can create.
And so there's a, I think there's a difference there, especially up in here for that individual. So we're going to refer to people as creators instead of influencers. Uh, creators is. Where we want to spend our time looking for special creators. I'll give you a good example. My brother, he's six years younger than me. He started an automotive YouTube channel called day off DIY. You should absolutely check him out. He's fantastic. I can't believe how fast this guy got monetized.
It took me like three years to get monetized on YouTube. It took him six months. He just has it. He's got the special sauce. He's got the juice, he's got the charisma, and I have no doubt in my mind that he is going to just blow up eventually. He just needs to get reps in and practice. At around the 5, 000 subscriber mark, prior to his channel getting serious views, and by serious I mean 100k, he was reached out to and approached by a company called Autoline. And they do smoke machines.
This company originally asked just to send them some stuff. Maybe they could do some sponsored YouTube videos. They were just looking for influencers because they are incapable of creating content. And the owner of that company does not want to put his face on the brand. He doesn't. There's a couple of reasons behind that, that I'm not going to get into, but you probably get it too. You probably feel that, Oh, I don't want to put myself on camera. And I get that. I felt the same way.
I just chose to do it because it was cheaper, faster, and easier than finding someone, but don't get me wrong. I'm still looking because eventually I plan to outsource this, but I need to find the right who the right person, not my personal brand, but my craft company. So let's go back to Alec, my brother and his YouTube channel. This company reached out to him and asked, just to sponsor some YouTube videos, but he ended up building a relationship with them.
He ended up teaching them some of the things that we've learned with Tik TOK live streaming, the community building stuff, sponsored posts, how to do it in a tactful way. It doesn't feel like an ad and what ended up happening is that they continue to give him money and pay him on a monthly retainer to. More or less be the face of the brand. More or less be the face of the brand.
Everybody needs a face of the brand and my brother is taking on that role with this company having a very small following only on YouTube. Not even on Instagram, TikTok, these other places. This company needs him to represent their product to get the information out to the customer. They need someone to represent them. They need someone to video reply to comments. They need someone that understands their product, that can sell it through social media, but not in a salesy way. In a relatable way.
And he's super relatable too. They're paying him around four grand a month to do like five video comment replies, a couple TikTok videos, and , like one longer form. I don't even know if the longer form's on the table. I think it's alive. They need him more than he needs them. That's how the landscape is changing. So, you look at this company, Autoline, that's paying him to do these videos. They could very well do this themselves if they decided to get in front of the camera.
But they'd rather spend the money than put themselves out there and learn that new skill. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just another way of going about the challenge. Here's why I bring this up. He crushes for them. He crushes. His video reply to comments get hundreds of thousands of views. It's just so relatable and it's just so perfect. And people are starting to think that he's the owner of the company. People are starting to associate him with this brand. It's pretty crazy.
But it's because people want to buy from people. They don't want to buy from ads and companies. And so he's positioning himself as a human. And solving problems through the content. That right there is the correct way to do it. In my opinion. It's the correct way to go about this. But there's also a wrong way. And I've participated in many wrong ways. Occasionally brands will reach out and they'll ask for me to make a video for them, a TikTok video, and then post it on my feed.
And I'm like, Oh sure. I will make you the video, but I have to put hashtag ad in this. I have to tell people it's sponsored or the FTC won't be happy with me. You and I both know that as soon as we see the words ad or sponsored or advertisement or whatever, we're swiping right past it. We don't care. I don't care how good the ad is. I don't care how much it's going to help me. I'm going to swipe right past it because I just don't want to watch an ad.
I don't want to watch something that has been served to me by a business. By paying this company money to put it on my feed while I'm scrolling. I just don't want to watch it. Consequently, the platforms suppress those videos too. They're not going to boost videos with hashtag ad in them. Because the platform doesn't get a cut of that transaction. They want to be the middle man between the brand and the creator. So what they'll do is they'll ask the brands to boost The ad post.
Boost the sponsored post through the platform. They get access to the creator's back end, and they put some advertising dollars behind it, and they boost the post using some money. So now the brand has to pay the creator, and they have to pay for ad spend. And they don't know if it's even going to work. It's just too expensive. It's just too expensive, and it doesn't get a good return. So, influencer marketing in that sense is not easy. It's not.
Now the only time that I have willingly watched and been happy to watch an ad is on TikTok. Let me explain. When you have a TikTok shop and you link your product to a video. It doesn't feel as much like an ad as it feels like a demonstration. Something about being able to make a buying decision in that moment in time is strangely comfortable with me. I'm like, okay, let's see what this is, because I could buy the product right now and have it in my life.
And if it's actually that good and it's got, you know, a hundred thousand likes or whatever, like I'll watch it. Maybe it will help me. What I don't want is just a sponsored ad telling me, Hey, go to our website and buy, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to leave the platform. I don't want to be interrupted. My time is too valuable. So on TikTok, if somebody has a product that they've linked, I'll watch it.
And that's the only place that I think is able to capitalize on some of those advertisement style pieces of content is when they're actually linked to a product with a little orange button so you can buy. It's strange. It's strange buying behavior. But, once again, all of those videos are created by individuals, by humans, by customers, or by a creator specifically that's part of that brand. So, what do we do? We have a couple options.
The easiest option is for us, the founders, to become the face of the brand. To start creating content, to put ourselves out there, to get our reps in, pull the band aid off, and just get it done. There are business owners that I know that if they don't do that this year They are going to go bankrupt. They are going to lose their business. Because running picture ads just doesn't work anymore. You can't just do that on Facebook and turn a profit.
Customer acquisition costs are going just too high. There are so many people like that right now. There are so many brands that are just hurting for sales and attention because Traditional marketing is just not working. You can't just make a promo video and slam it into Facebook ads and have it work anymore. You can't. You need a face. You need a human. If you're anything like me, business banking can feel intimidating and overwhelming.
That's why this podcast is sponsored by Relay, a business banking platform that's better than all the others. Why do I say it's better though? Because I've used it. I still use it. I love it, and it's way better than all the big name banks that I've used. They do everything I need a bank account to do. Multiple accounts? No problem. Send checks? Easy. Pay yourself? Statements? Connect to QuickBooks Online? All of it. It's taken me years to find a banking partner like Relay.
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There's no monthly fees, no account minimums, no minimum balances, and no hidden fees. So big thanks to Relay for sponsoring this podcast. I'll leave an affiliate link in the description so you can try it out for yourself. People want to associate a brand with a person. So the easiest way is for you to become that person. I can teach you how to do it. It's not the hardest thing in the world. There are harder things that you will do. But it is a valuable skill.
And it's a skill that lasts the rest of your life. And it's a skill that you can use. In so many ways, just public speaking for me has become a thousand times better because I've been forced to get clear, concise, and brief when I speak to the camera. It's made communication easier. I come off more articulate. I don't say and and um to fill gaps in my sentences anymore. More like I, I, I only use them as expressions.
I can be very deliberate with my speech and that's because I've spent so much time just talking to the camera and editing my own words that I'm like, Oh, okay. Okay. I'm telling you, man, it's a skill you can develop. The other side of that coin, the flip side, or the other thing that you can do if you aren't comfortable with being the creator is you can find them. But you're not going to find them as an influencer. You're not going to find them as a UGC creator.
You're going to find them like, as like a little fledgling, like a little hatchling. Someone who's just started in the niche that you serve. And if you play your cards right and you build a relationship with that person, you can open up that door for a three, four, five, six, 10, 000 a month partnership with them. And they can be the face of your brand. They can make all your content. They can manage your social media. It's expensive though, and it takes work.
And if you don't know what you want, and if you aren't clear about how all of this works, you're just going to waste money. Just going to waste money. I would say that finding a creator to represent your brand and getting them to do the right thing is a hundred times harder than doing it yourself. It's like finding a needle in a haystack, and then you have to train that needle without having any training yourself. I've done this. I've done both.
I have an army of creators that work for me that I train, that make videos for me on a regular basis, but none of them are able to do what I do. Because I've just been doing it longer. And I'm sure they will be able to eventually. Just not right now. Just not right now. So that's the biggest takeaway from this. If you want to be successful, if you want to capitalize on the way things are changing, become the face of your brand, put yourself out there, become that person.
It is very much worth it. Very much worth it. So how does that tie into the content strategy? In the last episode of the podcast, we talked about. content strategies. We talked about how I'm using organic content in 2024 to discover winning creative and then I'm putting ad dollars behind it. This strategy slots in real nicely with you being the face of your brand with what I'm talking about today. They're very congruent. In fact, I think that every single brand is going to be doing this.
Let's talk about what I believe is coming down the pipe and what I think we are going to start seeing. But first, I'm going to get myself another cup of coffee. Ah, that's better. Oof, so good. For those of you that are curious, I have an espresso, I do one pod, and then I do one thing just of hot water, so it kind of, you know, dilutes it a bit, and then I pour in some foamy, regular ass milk. No seed oils, no oat milk. No soy, just regular milk from cows. I want the protein and the fat.
And boy does it make it delicious and creamy. So the days of mechanical advantage on social media are over. You can no longer hashtag, description, title, trend your way to the top. Doesn't work. I tried. I know this. It's about storytelling. How well you can engage an audience, how you hook them, how you keep them interested and how you make them feel. It is just so important. It's really hard to do though.
It's really hard to get on social media and storytell and be like a real authentic human. And that's one of the reasons why these social media marketing agencies are struggling. They don't have those humans. They have a one size fits all approach like, Oh, this work for this brand. We're going to copy paste it and do it for a bunch of other brands. That doesn't work anymore. Every brand is unique in its own way and has its own thumbprint.
So if you look at Scorchmarker's content, look at Vanator's content, you look at any other crafting brand, like, they're all different. Even though we do similar things, we all have a different thumbprint. The main distinction between those thumbprints is the creator. The creator. It's about storytelling, man. It's about Representing this brand, but not making ads. It's about entertaining. And then when you entertain them to a sufficient degree, they want to explore what you have. And they will.
And that's why these places are struggling so much. And that's why it's so hard to find creators and create engaging content. Because we don't need influencers. We need storytellers. We need relatability. That's what I see. That's how I see things changing. I see it coming even faster than we think because it's happening right now, right now. I believe in the future we're going to see big brands hire individual creators for one two million dollars a year.
They are going to pay those people to manage all of their social media and be the face of their business and that brand is going to trust that person with their image and their reputation and it's going to be a gamble but it's going to work. There's also going to be some people that get burned by bad creators who, you know, do things they shouldn't be doing. But that's how I see things changing. So how can you take advantage of this? What are you going to do? How does this affect you?
I think it's in your best interest to become a good storyteller. I think it's in your best interest to become the face of your brand. I think it's in your best interest to learn content. I think it's in your best interest to get on TikTok shops so you can take advantage of the virality factor. And I think it's a great idea to get on TikTok just to practice, just to practice. Just go through the customer support tickets. Just look at the questions that you get and answer them.
It can really be that simple. There doesn't have to be polish. It doesn't have to be lighting or good camera work. You just need good audio and your face, your face, throw in some AirPods and talk to your cell phone in a quiet area. Face a window. So there's at least some sunlight on your face. Go for a walk. Talk to us while you walk green screen something behind you and talk about the thing that you you've put up and and Give us your opinion and your take and fill us in.
I I think that if you want to position yourself strongly for 2024, 2025 You've got to do the hard thing and that's becoming a creator I just don't see many other options with how quickly the landscape is changing. But if you do do this, if you do this, you'll have access to all of the potential that you've been wanting to have access to. The big sales, The brand recognition, the loyal customers, people that care, it's on the other side of that difficulty.
Here's another reason why I say you need to become the creator. It's going to become very hard to find these people. Very hard to find these people that can represent your brand, if not impossible. The people who have the skills to do this are not going to accept a few thousand dollars a month from a social media marketing agency. They're not going to work for them. It might work for a brand if they get a piece, if it's juicy. Otherwise, they're just going to do it for themselves.
It's like when we experienced the whole Web3 boom and everybody was trying to find a Web3 developer to help them make an NFT project so that they could, get a bag from their audience. Web3 developers were in short supply and the good ones did it themselves. They didn't want to work with somebody else. They didn't want to share their skills with them because they didn't need to. They didn't need the other person. Creators don't need the brands. They don't. Some do. But very few.
And there's going to be a lot of brands fighting for a small amount of creators. So, it's easier to be the person. It's easier to do it yourself. What I just said. In this new future, where you have creator and brand, or creators working with brands, there's no room for social media marketing agencies anymore. SMMAs are going to have a very difficult time.
If anything, you're going to see individual creators start their own agency and they're going to create for like five to 10 brands at a time and they're just going to churn and burn real quickly and like hit the volume approach and have like, five brands at 10, 000 a month. But it's not this agency style social media marketing agency stuff anymore. There's no room for them.
they're not needed because the creators know how to do the thing and operate the social media and the brand just needs the creator. They don't need the social media marketing agency. And when the creator has a video that does really well, just put it on Facebook ads, put it on Google Performance Max, put it on a Spark ad, make some variations of the copy. It's not entirely difficult. Media buying is not what it used to be.
Media buying is now, testing, testing, testing and optimizing and letting Facebook tell you. What's going on? Or letting Google tell you what's going on. It's different. So, mark my words. Pay attention to the landscape. You're going to see more creators as the faces of brands specifically. They're going to choose someone. They're going to link together. They're going to hitch their wagon to that horse. You're going to see big brands do it. You're going to see small brands do it.
And the ones that do it now, you're are going to win, but the people who are going to win the most and the fastest and the best are the brands where the founder becomes the face. And I can teach you how to do it. It's not as hard as you think. In fact, I'll, I'll teach you how to start right now. Go answer some comments on your social media with video. That's it. Just do that. Just answer a comment a day with video.
Just literally just stand there holding, you know, your little air pods, microphone to your face, green screen, put the comment up, just be in your office, just answer the questions. Answer the questions. I promise it will start to work. It won't be easy. It won't be quick. But it's the actionable step that you can take to start. And then everything else we just build on top of that. The most important thing is that you're a real human. The most important thing is that you're you.
The most important thing is that you try to take the mask off before you go on social media. So that way you can give your customers a chance to discover you for who you are. Because you are unique. You are special. And people will care. But they won't care if you put on a mask. So you gotta pull that off. You gotta expose yourself a little bit. The rawness. Yeah, you're gonna open yourself up for judgment. And you will be judged. And there will be tough comments.
But those that care don't matter, and those that matter don't care. Okay, let's talk about some numbers. It's the end of the podcast. I promise to update you at the end of every podcast with our sales figures and conversion rates. So let's start with retail. Zero dollars. I'm recording this podcast a few days after the last podcast, so it's gonna be fairly similar. Shopify is at 65, 600 for the last 30 days, with a conversion rate of 2. 04%. Average order value is 41.
Man, it can be so much better, that conversion rate. And that's what we're really working on in 2024. But that's a discussion for another time. Amazon, 192, 000. Conversion rate is at 15%. So we're holding strong. I'd like to take a moment to thank you for listening. Your attention means the world to me. It really does. If you've gotten to a point where you have any questions or you're ready to apply for the Operator Academy, shoot me a DM so I can take care of you.
Otherwise, keep doing the boring work and be good to future you.