EP 05: How Brands Go Viral Using Creative Content Strategies on Tight Budgets
Andrew Deitsch
Andrew Deitsch is a Digital Marketer, Creative Director at 4Media, Podcast Host, World Traveler, College Dropout, Entrepreneur, & Fitness Fanatic. Whether it's racking up billions of organic views on social, or converting paid traffic to sales, Andrew always finds a way to push the limits of what's possible on every platform.
Alright, welcome to the next episode of Mission Control. I am your co-host, Alex Ivanoff, with my co-host and partner, Dave Pancham. And we have a very, very special guest for today's episode. Andrew Deitsch, who is no stranger to this podcasting thing. Welcome, Andrew.
Thank you very much for that warm invitation. Happy to be here.
Yeah, super excited to have you on man. We got to meet you. We're thankful and lucky to meet you in Atlanta in January with your event that you hosted. That was a kick-ass event in such a good time. And you know, we talked a little bit about the podcast, you kicked my ass personally in Mario Kart. And I need to, I need to know where you got your cheat codes from. But yeah, it was, it was a great time bonding, you know, with you and the team. And we knew we had to have you on just with your experience. And you know the quality of information you can bring to the brand's listening to us. So tell us a little bit about what you do. You know, your journey and your path to where you're at. And, you know, introduce yourself.
Yeah, so thank you for the intro. My name is Andrew Deitsch. I'm the Creative Director at 4Media Marketing. We're an eCommerce marketing company. And we pretty much cover the full stack of what you'd need. A lot of agencies are pretty much just like media buying, and maybe email and SMS. But we also have a content creation division, which is one of the hardest, I'd say things to do as an agency. So we're pretty proud of the fact that we've been able to pull that off. Content is, you know, obviously super crucial in any kind of marketing strategy, especially for DTC brands. And, yeah, that's pretty much my department at 4Media is just content creation, and making sure that our clients have high quality, and most importantly, highly-converting ads to run on all platforms. So very excited about the growth of 4Media. We've taken it. I started in November 2020.
So it's been, you know, a year and a half or so, maybe a little more than that now, and we've gotten the chance to work with a lot of amazing clients and have learned a lot. But yeah, I mean, I can go back a bit too, and kind of share my story. So you know, growing up, I was always interested in content and like pushing the boundaries of certain platforms. Like, I remember my parents computer out of those, like messing around with like Microsoft Paint, and just like, trying to put my face on random celebrities, or you know, like random stuff like that, like, oh, how can I make this thing or I'm gonna download this app on my iPod Touch that'll make it look like my brother exploded or like something stupid, you know, like, I was always into just making random little things and pushing the boundaries of like, what was possible on certain platforms and but it's interesting because I never really like actually invested in myself, like, I never bought a camera. I never had a nice computer to edit stuff on. I was always just hacking things together like, like I said, my iPod Touch or my phone or, you know, just random things like that. And I, when I was in college, I went to college for one year, and I was in Mass Communications, which is very similar to what I'm kind of doing now.
But, I went to GCSU in Milledgeville, Georgia College & State University.
In Milledgeville, Georgia.
And I wanted to go to the University of Georgia, but I didn't get in. And so that's like the second best choice I feel like for a lot of people is GCSU and then maybe you can transfer into UGA after that. I grew up in Georgia, by the way, like outside of Atlanta, went to Norcross High School for anyone who's listening and knows what that is, shout out. But basically, like I said, I was in mass communications, and I just kind of, realized that the stuff they were kind of teaching me I was just like, why are we, why am I learning about things like newspaper ads and stuff like that? I'm like, this is this is like, not really what I signed up for. And at the time, I actually got involved with, like a network marketing company called Vima. For people that know Vima. It's a multi level marketing kind of company. And funny enough, that's actually how I met Edie. Edie Maloof, our CEO and that business taught me so much and my mom was actually involved in network marketing with a skincare company when I was growing up. I always thought it was like a cool industry. But I always felt like it was not really for me.
There wasn't really anything out there like skincare Mary Kay, Herbalife, stuff like that. So I was like, ah, probably not for me. But um, Vima seemed really cool. The product was great. And the biggest thing I definitely got out of that whole business with self development, started investing in myself, started reading books, and started learning about entrepreneurship. Rich Dad Poor Dad, that was like a huge one for me just realizing like oh, wow, You know, the things that are taught by a teachers or by parents, like, it's not really their fault, but they don't necessarily, like if they're not extremely wealthy or anything, how are they going to teach me to be super successful? And that's not anyone's fault. But that was just like a big paradigm shift for me. And I realized, like, if I wanted to do something different with my life, I, I wanted to not follow the crowd. And I was like, I'm going to drop out and do this multilevel marketing thing, and I'm gonna, you know, make a bunch of money.
So how old were you then?
And obviously that. Sorry, Dave!
Were you, like, 21-ish, like, what age were you then?
I was literally a freshman in college. So I was like, 18, 19.
Your brain is exploding with new information, man.
Yeah, exactly. My brain was just exploding and I was, it was really Rich Dad, Poor Dad, that was like the thing that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, but also The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.
Great book.
Think and Grow Rich, a lot of great books that I that I I, I was listening to at the time on audiobook and I was just getting so much from it. And I was, I was learning from a lot of mentors in the company that I mean, they were teaching me the blueprint of how to advance and stuff and I'm like, okay, I should probably listen to someone who has what I want, you know, rather than, you know, no offense to any professors or anything, but it's like, I don't really want to be a professor. So like, I don't know, if they can really show me to get to the path that I want to get to, you know, so I did that for a couple of years ended up moving in with some buddies, and we kind of had like a business house where we were like, Let's just all grind and we're going to be successful and stuff. And I mean, it didn't really pan out exactly how we wanted it to. But after that kind of fizzled out a bit, I actually, actually went and I needed to change one of my friends. She was traveling as an au pair, which is like a nanny almost like stays, stays with you.
Typically, it's in a different country to teach the kids a different language or something. And I was like, oh, that sounds so cool. But again, it's like, um, a guy can't really do that. And, but she was like, No, I actually know a bunch of guy au pairs, they live with families with sons, and you can totally do it. And I was like, No way. So I like applying for that. And that was when I started traveling and seeing the world. And that was a huge thing for me. And when I was traveling, this all ties back into content. So when I was traveling, I was like doing tons of Snapchat stories where I would just be snapping, like, everywhere I went, one of the experiments I did, I shared this on stage at Agency Founders, it was, I printed out the Snapchat stickers, and I'd stick them all over, I'd stick them in the airport and stick them at landmarks that stick in places. And that was like an example of me kind of pushing the boundaries. But again, I never actually had a good camera, I was just filming on Snapchat. And so then when I got back,
I was like, really inspired by one of my friends who started a podcast. I started podcasting and got a camera, learned how to, you know, start making stuff on a more professional level. And because I was always just kind of interested in that world, but it never actually made the jump to investing in myself and buying a camera or buying a good computer or anything like that. I was able to pick it up really quickly. And eventually kind of started doing that as a career. So yeah, that's kind of my, my, my backstory in a nutshell.
Andrew, don't you have a very famous photo that went viral that you cropped? I think you showed at the event.
Yeah, yeah. The one between me and Ariana Grande?
That is another example of me trying to just like, push the boundaries of a platform like Instagram was just like, posting pictures of your sandwich at the time and stuff like that. And I was like, I'm gonna trick, I'm gonna see if I can trick people into thinking I met Ariana Grande. So I took a picture of her and her grandpa, like, photoshopped my face onto her grandpa, which looking back is such a weird thing to do. But I was just like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tag it. I'm gonna hashtag it with all the Ariana Grande hashtags, and just see how far I can go with this. And yeah, it got to like a ton of likes and stuff. I don't know how viral I would consider it. But it was viral for me, that's for sure. And I think it got like a thousand likes or something, which at the time for like, I had like, maybe 100 followers on Instagram or something. So that was pretty cool.
You know, what's so funny is, I remember you told that Snapchat sticker story either at the conference, or on one of your podcast episodes probably like five, six months ago. And for some reason, it stuck in the back of my mind. And a couple of times since then, people have asked me for advice on creating content. And I would give them like, you know, like the overall you know, general guidelines of advice and then like, I would just throw like a random titbit of advice would be like, I actually know, this guy who did this with the Snapchat stickers around campus. And they're like, oh, that's genius. And I'm like, you could do that with just a regular QR code, right? Doesn't have to be a Snapchat thing when you're just trying to think But like a landing page or whatever, like, think of something like super catchy, like, you don't want to open this QR code or something like that and just put that on a sticker and slap it everywhere.
Yeah, 100%
It's a good idea.
That was what was so fun for me, especially with the Snapchat ones, it was like, right when that feature kind of came out. And I mean, I feel like QR codes now are pretty universal, like everyone understands them and uses them, especially with the pandemic, like menus and stuff like that, like, my grandma knows what a QR code is now. But like, back in the day, the Snapchat thing, it was almost kind of like, if you were just a random dad or something, and you saw that sticker, you wouldn't know what to do with it. Because there's just a little yellow goes a white ghost on a yellow background with a bunch of dots. So it was like only almost like a little inside joke kind of thing, where it's like, oh, if you know what this is, you should scan it. And people were just curious, because it was like, bringing this little digital because I think the real reason why they made it was just so you could scan it in on someone's phone and add them quickly. Kind of like, you know, but, but printing it out and putting it on a sticker. That level of effort shows a person seeing it like it, their curiosity gets the best of them. They're like, Okay, who is this guy? Why, why did he, why? Why is this? Why is this sitting at this train station? You know, why is this on a gas station button, you know, like,
And how many followers did you end up getting on Snapchat from that?
The thing is on Snapchat, you can't really see the number of people that follow you, which is kind of weird. Like, I can only see the view count. And again, I think I got it up to like 1000 was like my, like 1000 and maybe like 50 was like my highest consistent like, viewing. And then that was like around the time when Instagram kind of came up with stories. And I was so adamant that I was not going to fall for it. I'm like Instagram is just a bunch of copycats. And you know what, I never post Snapchat stories anymore.
I hardly ever do either. Yeah. So obviously, with your story, you have a long history of making content and, you know, being a creator, we'll get into your other podcasts and a bit but you know, what, what made you want like, why were you so fascinated, you know, back to your early days of Microsoft Paint? Like, what was it about, you know, you and your, your passions that like, really clicked with creating stuff?
Yeah, I mean, growing up, I was always like, very into art and stuff. But I guess, especially in high school, I went to a private school up until like, eighth grade, a very small school. And I always took art classes there. I mean, I don't even think it was like a choice. It was more just like, now it's art time. And so, like, I always enjoyed doing art. And I went, I went to high school, I went to a public high school. And I remember going into those art classes. And back in my private Middle School, where each class was like 16 people in a classroom to now a classroom of like, 30 Something people and I'm probably like, the bottom 10 worst people in the class at art. I'm like, oh, okay, like, if I try to go be a professional artists, like if I can't even be the top person in this class at art, like how am I going to be, you know, even a good artist in the real world, you know, and so I kind of just got that feeling that this is something that I'm okay. And, you know, maybe I'm interested in, but I don't think I'm going to be able to make it a career. And so I was always passionate about making things. And yeah, like, I guess it just kind of, I just got discouraged by that. Not in a way where I felt like I would not keep pursuing things like a hobby, or drawing or whatever. But I guess it never occurred to me that the type of creation that I'd be doing now is just so different. And even with photography and videography, I guess there's just this weird stigma that I felt like I had to, in order to do that I had to like, go be in the film industry, or like, go make movies or something.
And that never really interested me that much. For whatever reason, I don't know why. But I never wanted to be on a set like a big budget movie or something. I'd rather be making something with a small team or, you know, creating something that is almost like borderline like, weird, but then people call it genius afterwards, you know, it's like, why are you spending so much time doing this dumb thing? And then you realize, like, Oh, it got a bunch of eyeballs. Like the GIF thing that I talked about on stage two, like, I had like billions of views on these GIFs that I made on Giphy. Like David Beckham used one of my GIFs, and it's like, why did you spend so much time doing that? I don't know. I was just trying to poke the universe and like, see what would happen, you know? And that's kind of I guess what I always go back to is I like to, you know, poke the universe and see what, see what happens. Like, I'm gonna start a podcast, who knows who's gonna listen to it? Who knows where it'll go from this. But I bet that I'll have a lot of great conversations with cool people, and it will be totally worth it even if you know, 10 people listen to it. So like, I guess with our content creation, it was just like, as long as I'm having fun making the thing that I'm making, if people watch it cool, you know, if a couple people appreciate it cool, if not, at least I had, you know, a fun time making it.
Yeah. And this is, this is great. It really actually segways nicely into my next question, because you mentioned, you know, talking about not going to film school and a different path of becoming a creator, you and your team, like to create a lot of really, really high quality stuff and it's also very different. And I assume it's with a much more efficient budget than some of the like, the biggest production companies yet keeping the same quality. How do you guys like to accomplish that? What is the process for brainstorming ideas and producing things efficiently?
Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so like I kind of mentioned earlier, I like pushing the boundaries. So I guess you got to kind of figure out what your boundaries are. I, I, a lot of times, we'll sit and brainstorm meetings and stuff. And a lot of times, the ideas are so out there that the only way you could really pull it off is with a giant budget or something crazy, or, you know, spending half a million dollars on a production. And it's like, okay, great idea. But that's way outside of the boundaries that we kind of have here. You know, let's say we're working with a $10,000 package. And we're going to have a certain amount of stills, a certain amount of videos and stuff, what can we do within the confines of 4Media, that is going to stop someone from scrolling and be interested in this brand. And it's interesting, because I think that a lot of production companies are kind of just going about it in an old mindset, where I feel like a lot of movies and stuff, their goals are different, right? Like, their goal is to make the best thing that they can make in a long period of time. I mean, a lot of movies take years to make, you know, like they've got,
so they're able to hire the best of the best for each position that they need. Like, they have a costume designer, that's amazing. And they're making a full time salary. And they've got this stunt coordinator that's making the making a full time salary, and they've got this camera operator that's making a full time salary like, and with our team, we're operating on a much, much smaller basis, we're not, we're not what's it called in the industry, when you kind of have like a, like a union set, like, we're not like a union set, it's got a bajillion people that are all doing a million different things, we've got a few people that are all really talented at a bunch of things. And that's great, in my opinion, because I know, like Alex Hormozi talks about something called stacking skills, like, the more skills you can stack, the more valuable you're going to be as a person to a company.
So, you know, for me, like, being a content creator is great, but if you can have a marketing mindset on top of that, and understand what's going to get someone to actually pull out their credit card and buy something that's a dangerous combo, because now you've got the content creation side where you can make something cool. But you can also make something cool to make someone want to buy. And then on top of that, do you have the organizational skills to actually rally a team around you and make something like that happen in an efficient way. And do you have the, you know, organizational side of even just file management and systems and things like that. And so like, the more things you can stack on top, the more efficient you can kind of become as a team. And so I guess, for us, like, it really just comes down to a lot of systems and processes and figuring out how we can repeatedly make high quality content for people. And to be honest, a lot of it is just looking around and seeing what other people are doing. I think it's very taboo in art, especially to, and just in general, like plagiarism is a huge thing, right?
But here's a book called Borrowing Brilliance by David Kord Murray. And it's all about how pretty much everything is borrowed, like any big idea is borrowed. And the best artists in the world all borrow, but the key is to borrow from things that are not completely parallel. You borrow from other industries, or you borrow from other, you know, products or things like that, that are unrelated to your niche. So when you implement it into your thing, it looks like you're a genius or a savant, but really, you're just pulling elements from a bunch of different things and kind of bringing them into your world. And we, I mean, we do that a lot. We sit down and we're like, okay, what are the brands that we feel like are similar or like maybe they're not the same niche so if it's a supplement company Maybe we're looking at an apparel company for inspo. But we want the same vibe as them or whatever. So, yeah, we look at a lot of what's going on, and try to make stuff like that.
It's fascinating. Do you think, you know, as a manager of a creative team, you talk about the brainstorming process. Can you teach creativity?
I think so, I think it's, um, I think it's like a muscle that you can learn. Excuse me. So like, if you're, if you've never hit the gym, and you're really weak, it's gonna seem really hard to lift, you know, 200 pounds, but you can flex that muscle over time and, and eventually become strong, like, and so I think, with creativity, it's like a muscle. And I actually had a guy on my podcast a long time ago. His name is Allen Gannett, and he wrote a book called The Creative Curve, I think it was called, yeah, The Creative Curve. And in the book, he actually breaks down, I thought this was amazing, actually, the first time I heard it, but his definition of creativity is the combination, or like, the fine line between the familiar and the novel. So like, the novel is like, the new and the unfamiliar. And the the, the part that we always say is creative, and the familiar, right. So like, when you're coming up with something creative. I could go "be ba bete baboba", but that's not really like creative. That's just like, complete nonsense, right?
But if I combined that with something that was ultimately familiar, and maybe I made that into a remix of a song, or something stupid, everyone would be like, oh, my gosh, this guy's so wild and weird, he's making songs with nonsense, you know, so. So like, I think I might have given this as, as an example, at Agency Founders. But like, for example, Snapchat, they took the idea of a photo sharing app, and they added one little creative twist to it, the fact that it disappears in a certain amount of seconds. And that's not a photo sharing app is not a revolutionary idea. But just adding that one little twist. So just in general, with creativity, I think, if you're trying to do something, think about how you can, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, you just need to find that one little creative lever that you can pull to make it different enough and unique enough to get people's attention, you know, and I think that's when you look at some of the best, you know, advertising campaigns, or especially back in the day, like traditional, even just like billboards and stuff like that. A lot of times it was just very creative twists on pre-existing things, like you see it and you realize what it is, but it's got something about it that makes you stop and look, you know, and I think that's, that's, I guess, my definition of what creativity would be if I had to boil it down. And I do think that you can teach it, but I think it's less about teaching it and more about cultivating it and like, practicing it, yeah, trying new things, because you can't just take a course. And now you're creative.
Yeah, it takes reps. I mean, there's so many examples of this. And going back to what you said a couple questions ago about, like finding inspiration, I can think of so many examples, where it's like, finding something else out there, like I'm a big hip hop guy, and you know, a big thing in the past 15 years, and hip hop is finding like a snippet of a song from the 50s. And like looping it and making it the entire beat of your song. And it's just sampling, right. It's all it is now, and hip hop. And that's, that's like a classic example of, they're literally taking someone else's work. I mean, they're paying for it, but you know, it's becoming the foundation to their song. And, you know, we do that too, as marketers, we find other advertisers, whether they're from, you know, competitors, or similar niches or, you know, brand identities that we're looking to kind of emulate. And we, we talk internally all the time, how do we make this better? Or like, what would we do differently here? This is really cool. How can we spin something like this as well, for us, even like, learning myself, like learning from other entrepreneurs, Dave, you probably have a million examples of this, like, learning from other entrepreneurs, how they talk, how they think, how they operate their businesses. I constantly, like, feel that myself when I'm like, going about my day in a meeting, you know, trying to be creative, like, hitting home with people and my colleagues and stuff. So yeah, it's just a mindset, really, I think that just takes practice.
Yeah, I agree. And especially when it goes back to sampling and things like that, it is interesting, what we consider not stealing and what we consider stealing. And it goes back to like fair use, like in legal terms. There's certain things that are fair use, like you're able to make parodies of things, or you're able to, as long as it's transformative in a court setting, I think they'd have to decipher whether it was more than 50% original and 50% sampled or whatever, as long as you can put a creative twist on something, you know. I'm, I'm, I don't know, I have weird feelings about people feeling like they have ownership over something that they create because I feel like once you create something you kind of put it out into the world. And now it's kind of the world's to decipher how it will be interpreted or used or remixed or whatever. And I think a big example of that is memes, like memes are shared all around the world and reposted by a bajillion meme companies, but the original creator of that meme is nine times out of 10 not getting any credit for that. And for whatever reason, in that creative outlet, it's almost like, laughable when meme creators are like, Hey, you didn't tag me for credit? It's like, oh, shut up. It's a stupid meme. It's like, but that took creativity to make the caption and to think of the relatable, whatever, and why did it got shared a bajillion times? Like, should that be a thing that we give credit to? Maybe, I don't know, but I think generally, like, I think Gen Z is like, kind of not being so I guess, like, strict on that type of stuff, like, TikTok, you know, people make trends, and then it's ever, and then everyone just copies of the trend, you know, it's like, it's kind of just what happens. And I think once you put something out into the world, that's yours, it's kind of your responsibility to keep the ownership of it, or else, you know, you kind of failed, I guess,
Andrew, have you ever had someone rip an ad that you guys made?
Um, I don't know if I can say definitively. But definitely, there's been a lot of inspo. I mean, especially with a lot of these eCommerce companies that I mean, to be transparent. I mean, a lot of them are just finding suppliers in China that are selling the exact same thing that someone else is selling. And so at the end of the day, in a lot of these types of companies, the real differentiator is how much branding and effort and personality you can put behind the actual brand. Because at the end of the day, the product that the customer is getting in the mail is probably going to be 99%, the same whether they buy from one brand or the other, it's more about how they feel about purchasing from that brand, and how comfortable they are with that purchase. And interestingly, I've, it's always the type of brands that are very secretive, I guess you could say, like, for example, when we're on onboarding calls with clients, some of them like we all I always say, Hey, by the way, once we make this content, we'd love to post it on our own social media so that we can use it for our portfolio. Just wanted to make sure that's cool with you. And it's always the brands that are like, we'd rather not, that always have like a my, like, they have like a scarcity mentality of like, well, if they post it, other eCom brands in the space are gonna see because they follow 4media, and they're gonna copy our content, and then they might put more ad dollars behind it, and then they become the new leader. So like, you know, they're coming at it from a place of scarcity versus coming at it from a place of abundance, or, you know, like, just confidence. People are like, yeah, share it, I'm already spending, you know, thousands of dollars to, to use these as actual ads. Yeah, posted everywhere, because we're already one step ahead of the competition, we're already going to be doing another content package in three months. So by the time you ripped off our content, we've already gotten new content, like what you got, you know, and so I think, yeah, there's definitely some companies out there that have ripped our ads.
Yeah, we've had our fair share that too, I think one of my mentors a couple years ago gave me a piece of advice that really stuck with me on this topic, it's, you know, make stuff that people can't copy. Because even if they did, like, you know, it's copied, right, make stuff that and that doesn't even have to be just content like that could be make it like your business model, or your business process, or you know, your sales process or your your customer experience, like for brands listening, that's a huge thing to think about, like, do something that's so differentiated from the competition, that they can't mimic you because they'll just they'll fail at it. You know, it takes a lot of effort to copy it.
100%. And that's something that we try to think about when we're filming. So, for example, let's say I have a supplement that I'm making an ad for, and it's an immune support supplement. That's a really hard, like, there's no real like, product demo that I can show.
You can't see it.
Hopefully, you don't get sick like that. It's hard to make content for that kind of stuff, right? And we could go out and film a bunch of stuff of people frolicking in a field of flowers and living their life or we could film you know, like, you think of like typical drug commercials and things like that. But so what we try to focus on is what we can film and what we can use stock footage for. So like there's there's so many stock footage websites that have great footage that could go in any ad. And so if I'm filming the ad for the immune support supplement I'm going to make sure that whatever we're filming in the studio is very, very proprietary. And someone watching it knows for a fact that this is a, this, that footage is directly tied to this product, or else, there's no real point in getting that footage if that makes sense. So like, for example, if I, we shot an ad for this company Club EarlyBird. And they make, they make an awesome product. And one of the ads was about...
We both drink it.
They do make an awesome product.
Me too, man, I really, really love Club EarlyBird. They make amazing, they make an amazing product. But um, and they've also, I am not going to say actually, they have a great product coming out soon, anyways, so. So there's an ad we made about like, where this lady is dreaming of all the things that she could be doing in the morning. But instead, she keeps snoozing her alarm clock and wasting her whole morning. So what we did was instead of getting all the footage of her kayaking, or running or playing with her kid on the beach, or whatever, we found the model that we were going to use. And then we went on the stock footage websites, we found footage that would potentially look like her shot from the back. So is a lady running, but it was shot from the back so you never see your face. And there's a lady who likes kayaking, and it was like a POV. So you'd never saw the face. And then it was like a lady playing with their kid on the beach. And we just like zoomed in on the hands and the baby.
So here's like you if you didn't realize that that was stock footage, or if you didn't recognize the footage itself. Like you would never know that we didn't go out and film that stuff. But we're licensing that footage. It's not like we're stealing it or anything. And that footage is designed to be used as stock footage, I think the place where people go wrong with stock footage is trying to use 100% stock footage in their videos. And then it just ends up looking really cheesy. And like staged and just not really in line with what you're trying to do. And so that's why we really love bringing stock footage and proprietary footage together. Like if you're if we're storyboarding an ad, and it's something that's just like, very bored, like very easy, but just would require us to go on another to another location and film something that's going to take a lot of time. So like, how can we work around that? How can we maybe achieve that same goal with a creative solution? How can we, you know, instead of going and shooting in a different location, how can we, you know, maybe show it in a different way. And that's like another way that we try to number one, we can lower our budgets that way, but number two, we make the footage feel kind of unstealable in that way. We're like, Okay, this is they're holding the pill bottle. Like there's no way that this is not happening. Like we didn't CGI the pill bottle into these random models hands like we would take too much effort. You might as well just film it at that point.
Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. So on the topic of creativity, and you know, being original, or you know, all that stuff. How does a brand owner, what do they look for when bringing on a creative person, either in house or, you know, like with a marketing partner.
So I think one of the biggest, the hardest hurdles to overcome with content creators is a lot of them are very; A, married to their work. So when there's critiques, it feels like a personal attack versus like an objective change that could be made or whatever. And there's, there's obviously a difference between a subjective revision and an objective revision, like, sometimes it's like, yeah, this video would definitely be better if this was changed, or sometimes like, it might be better. I think I would like it better stylistically, but maybe it won't really matter. And I think that's a hard thing for clients to sometimes realize is like some of the changes that they want, it's like, okay, yeah, we can spend the extra few hours to like, make this change. But is it going to make less people pull out their credit card and buy it? Probably not, but whatever, we'll still do it. But I'm going back to your question about what people should like to look for, I think that the best, at least for eCommerce brands that are looking to like, maybe bring a creative in house. Look for someone that isn't just filming reactive content, look for someone that's filming proactive content. And what I mean by that is, if you're a concert videographer, you're just capturing what's happened. If you're going out and filming in a car show, you're kind of filming what's happening you there are creative ways to like film a car show but but um, if you're if you're just capturing stuff that's already happening, it's hard to go into an eCommerce brand that has that selling a physical product again, let's say supplement and make something cool. Because now you're just sitting there with the pill bottle and you're like, Oh crap, I've gotta like, make something from nothing. And so I think a lot of things to look for are experience and product videography and photography, because that's pretty big. Being able to create something in a studio in a controlled environment versus, you know, just filming pretty B roll and pretty footage.
Anyone can, like, go to the beach, and like film, some cool B roll of like, a Seagull flying in slow motion, but it takes like a different type of vision to take a physical product and like craft a scene or like make something that was nothing, you know, and that's, that's kind of a thing that is hard to teach. And it's also hard to get experience doing. Like, it's, it's a lot easier to like, make a short film, not easier. But for example, like, Okay, I'm gonna make this story up. And we'll film the story. And we'll make this little short film about this little thing. But I'm making a compelling ad about something, you've got to have a lot of other kinds of skills, you might need a little bit of copywriting, you might need a little bit of, you know, just psychology of putting yourself in the other person's shoes. I think that's my biggest tip to anybody is like, when you're creating an ad for a product, think about a what are all the bragging rights of that product, like if I if I, again, to go back to Club EarlyBird, if I was like bragging about it to my friend, I'd be like, Dude, it's so good. Literally just one scoop. I wake up and I have energy all day, no crash, I feel amazing. Like coffee was always making me feel bad. I was always crashing, but like this, this stuff is so good. And it tastes great. Like, rather than giving you a bunch of like, like, it's portable, or like, it's, you know, it's like basically all the things that you could say about the product, but they're not bragging things, you know, like thinking of the bragging things, that's always a big thing for me to focus on.
And especially like, top of funnel type ads. And then the, the other side of it being like the, like creating crafting a scene and kind of like figuring out how you can make something look look cool without much much to go on, you know, because that is a lot of times what we ended up doing the client send us sends us a product and you know, you gotta put yourself in the shoes of the customer and think about what is actually going to be that pain point that is going to be solved in their life that will get them to buy this thing. So that's that's a lot of times I'll see videos, and a lot of editors, I think try to get fancy with their edits and add in a bunch of crazy transitions and text comes in cool and all this stuff. And it's like that all is fine. But if the text itself is weak, and the hook is lame, and I'm confused as a viewer, I'm not really achieving my goal of making a good ad. And that's kind of a hard thing for a lot of content creators to like wrap their head around it.
Yeah, it's almost like you're selling too much of the sizzle, and not the steak. You know!
What kind of, what kind of brands and industries do you find most challenging to create ads for?
Certainly, it's definitely a challenge when you have a product that you don't resonate with personally, even stylistically like for example, if there is an apparel brand that is making shirts, like their shirts have a bunch of inspirational sayings for women. I'm trying to put myself in that woman's shoes that would buy it. It's probably like a mom on Facebook. I'm not a mom on Facebook, so I've got to really kind of think about that and like what would actually make a mom on Facebook buy and so for I guess for me personally that part of it plays in like I'm actually I'd say I don't know this might sound weird but I'm I'm I feel like I'm more in tune with like feminine products sometimes not like feminine care products necessarily but like I understand like what would look good on like a beauty brand you know, graphic or something like that versus some guys just like really don't get it I guess I just kind of have an eye for certain aesthetics sometimes,
Relative to other men, you mean?
Yeah, exactly. Like I'm not humble bragging like I understand women but a lot of guys that have been on my team that are like they just don't Look at it. And I'm like, You gotta make it look cool to girls. Like, yeah, and that goes back to looking at inspo, you know, looking at other brands that are like actually making cool stuff. And it's so funny, like, especially when you have editors like, like, I've got this one editor Gabriel, he's the man. And he's, he's in the Philippines. And, like, I think about like sometimes these cutesy, like, girly brands. And I'm like, it's so funny because you love this ad so much. And you have no idea that this dude in the Philippines made this, it looks so cute, and like fun and whatever. But anyways, that's always just like a fun little side of the, you know, the backstory of it. But I don't remember where I was going with that question. But yeah,
Well, no, I think one of the first things you said when you hopped on today was like, you know, you manage the creative department of the agency. And that's like, one of the hardest things to do in an agency space, is to create content for another brand, because like you just said, you have to put yourself in the shoes of that brand identity and really think hard about what is what is this brand looking to, like, maintain in terms of their identity, in terms of their, you know, their, their, how they look to a customer? How do you like how do you guys think about that, because, you know, for brand, hiring other agencies or other in house marketing person, it's like, I need to make sure that this person or this partner is going to keep the brand that I want, you know,
100% I'd say there's, there's kind of two things that happen. One is, they're the type of eCommerce brand that really only cares about making money. So they could care less about the branding, and like how the font looks and what colors they use. And then there's the brands that care about that to a fault. You know, like, yeah, branding over everything. I don't care if it doesn't convert as well, I'd rather it follow our brand guidelines, you know. So on those two extremes, I think you can kind of gauge that client, like quickly. And you can even ask them questions like in the beginning, like, Hey, if you had the choice, and I know this is like, not an easy question. But if you have the choice between an ad looking exactly how you want it and an ad converting at a better rate, in your heart of hearts, what would you choose? You know, like? And that's like a hard question. Because you, you want to say the conversion thing, because you're like, I want the ad to convert. But there's certain things in the short term that will make things convert that in the long term will hurt your brand. Like, you can make a bunch of corny ass videos that have really cheesy hooks and stuff, and you're gonna hit the lowest hanging fruit customers that are gonna buy anything you put in front of them if it's at least a little compelling.
But how long of a customer is that going to be? How valuable is that customer? How long are you going to retain that customer? Or did they really feel like part of your brand? Or did they just buy this little doodad? Because it seemed like the next cool thing that they needed to have on their desk or whatever, you know? And so like, I think when you're, when you, to go back to your question, Alex , like, when you're trying to make something for a brand, you really do have to dive in and understand what you know, their brand guidelines and understand go through their website, read everything on the product page, and really just understand, like the vibe that they're going for the three main thing, the three main styles that I think of when I when we're going to create content is typically like badass like, is your content going to be badass dark moody, freakin cool, blah, blah, blah, hard edges, like, you know, manly, is it going to be like clean and minimal, like kind of more like Apple, where everything is mainly white with like, pops of color. And kind of just, like minimalistic, very simple, very white, clean, modern, or is it like vibrant, and very, very much, very colorful neons, pinks, oranges, yellows, you know, like, what kind of vibe Are you going for and you can typically kind of grab that. And then I'd say maybe there's even one more kind of more just subdued, serious, like navy blues and things like that. But I'd still say that kind of falls under the like, the middle the middle style. So I guess once you kind of figure that out, you can really wrap your brain around, like the type of content you're gonna make. If it's that vibrant stuff, you're gonna want to make it fun Poppy, of cutesy you know, like very playful. If it's that minimalist, it's probably very like establishing yourself as an expert, very calm, cool and collected. And then if you're like badass, you're like coming in there like you might be able to get away with some humor that you wouldn't be able to get away with with other brands or you can do some crazy stuff like smash things or, you know, whatever that like other brands might just not really be cool with. So I think once you kind of kind of like put them into those three buckets, you can really understand a lot about what kind of content is going to fly, and then really just dig into their brand guidelines.
Yeah, you try to deeply understand what you're promoting.
Yeah, I mean, sometimes the brands that don't really have much guidelines, you gotta gotta create some for them, like, Hey, guys, across the board, we're gonna use this font seems like they use it a lot, but not always, but we're gonna use it, you know, or, you know, they don't really have many brand colors. So it seems like they use this on their packaging. So let's go with this color as our main accent color or whatever. And sometimes they you know, ultimately, they appreciate that, because then you're almost kind of helping them come up with a little bit more of a brand identity, because that's just something that you got to kind of gotta care about when it comes to content. But a lot of brands are very content forward, and they, you know, content is extremely important to them. And then some are like, almost kind of just treating content as a, they know, it's a necessity, but they don't really like to care about it as much so but we'll still make them high quality stuff either way.
I'm sure. So switching gears a little bit onstage in January, you talked a little bit, or you talked a lot about the "biggest platform opportunity right now." It's the number one most visited site in the world. Tell us what it is and what your thoughts are on it.
Yeah, so I mean, that platform is TikTok. And for better or worse. It's, you know, the most downloaded app of the year so far. And it's actually the first time that a non meta-owned company is in the top five, I believe, because you've got Facebook, messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram all kind of dominating the top of the App Store charts for quite a long time. And, you know, sometimes like telegrams snuck in there a little bit. Snapchat snuck in there a little bit from time to time. But,
Yeah, Zuckerberg is not happy.
Yeah, Zuckerberg is not happy. And to be fair, I feel like Instagrams fought back with reels pretty heavily. reels right now, I'd say, are still crashing pretty hard. And we use reels pretty extensively. But um, just to go back to TikTok, I think TikTok is, um, it's really just done what a lot of social networks just had failed to do for such a long time, which is deliver content that people want to see in a way that is so effortless that all they got to do is just scroll in like, and I mean, if you think about it, a lot of other platforms are, you got to like, really go into intentionally to create an experience that's going to be fun for you. So Twitter is a great example of that, like, you can make a Twitter but until you start following the right people and engaging with the stuff that you like, it's going to be a weird experience for you, you're probably gonna get a lot of pop culture stuff, you're probably like, my Twitter is like marketing stuff and crypto stuff. Like that's my Twitter feed for the most part, and content stuff. But, um, like, I'm sure for someone else it might be you know, fan videos of Harry Styles and BTS, you know, like, I don't I don't know. But like, you got to kind of curate that experience for yourself. But with TikTok it's almost like a self curating experience because all of the factors that play into you consuming it doesn't take as much of you liking and following as much as TikTok is understanding, like, they scrolled past this video immediately. Let's not show them stuff like this. Versus they stayed on this video and watched it five times. Let's show them more stuff like this. It doesn't really matter if you follow that creator or like the content it's more just they are learning your you know, your, your preferences. And I think that I mean, it's crazy powerful it's downright scary a little bit you know, there's some weird stuff there and I mean, obviously there's definitely a lot of fear around the the Chinese government and things like that and I mean, I don't need to go too deep into that, but I just, I don't see a world where TikTok is gonna really like fizzle out. I don't think it's a phase anymore. I do think it's here to stay for quite a long time. And the difference, though, that I do see is that I don't see a lot of brands really thriving on TikTok. I still see brands thriving on Instagram. And what's interesting is, at least for me and my experience on Tik Tok, I feel like a lot of the content that I'm seeing on Tik Tok feels very homegrown and feels very like one person, one camera, one opinion kind of stuff. Whereas inherently brands are not that they are multiple people, a conglomerate of people that have, you know, many different objectives or goals or things that they're putting out so it's hard to get people to care on TikTok about us. Brand I think unless there either is A like one kind of main spokesperson that's like running the brand. And so then now is it, is it 4Media or is it Andrew? You know, is it you know, and, but at least on Instagram, it does feel like brands can still live and thrive there. So it's kind of interesting to see like on our 4Media TikTok actually, we had one that blew up recently got like 350,000 views, which is cool is a podcast clip, which podcasts clips do decently well and on TikTok, but as far as like branded kind of stuff are showing like some of the creative work that we've done, I think TikTok is still a little bit of a premature platform where the really high quality stuff hasn't made it there yet. And if you think about it, that's how Instagram started to start off with people posting pictures of their dogs and sandwiches and random stuff. And now it feels like if you didn't perfectly curate your post and take it on a mirrorless camera and you know, all that stuff. You're just not going to stand out among the rest.
It's changed so much for sure.
Yeah, and I think TikTok will probably, you know, get there eventually, in certain circles especially, like I remember making this really cool concert recap video. And I posted on Tik Tok I was thinking like, oh my gosh, it is so much more high quality than anything out there, it's gonna pop so hard people are gonna think this is sick. And no one cared, you know, like, it was almost like too professional, I think for Tik Tok at the time. And that was like, you know, a year and a half ago or something. So who knows, maybe things have changed. But I think it's definitely here to stay. And it's a really powerful platform that a lot of people need to be paying attention to. And as far as with eComm, I think it is hard to crack the code on TikTok, or the TikTok team is doing a great job of really navigating that platform and figuring out what sticks and what is working. But um, I think that the mindset of a person on TikTok is not really a shopper, you know, they're there for entertainment, they're there to you know, kill some time or learn something or wind down at the end of the day. Whereas Tik Tok, or whereas, like Instagram, or Pinterest, or even Facebook, like, I feel like they've kind of taught people that that that those platforms are a little more for Commerce a little more for, you know, whipping out your credit card and maybe buying something in the platform. And I think it's only a matter of time before TikTok realizes that they know, that that's the way that they need to kind of go, but it does kind of suck when marketers just kind of ruin every social network and just make it all about shopping. But that's just how it goes.
It's so funny, because yesterday, I think I was actually just talking to Alex about how we use different social media platforms. And I'm like, Yeah, I'll just go look at reels if I want to be mindless, and not think and be entertained. But when I go to Twitter, I'm like, Tom, you get an education, you know?
Or Facebook, you know, you're putting some work in with those other platforms. And I think that's why they end up being like higher converting platforms.
Totally. And I think, especially for Tiktok, this is something that I really hope that they do. And it is something that it seems like they're probably considering, but I'm on Instagram, I don't know how much you guys use the feature where you can save posts to different folders. Yeah. So like, I'll do that all the time where like, I see a really cool ad and I'll save it to my ads inspo folder, I'll see some cool product photography, I'll save it there. But on TikTok, you can also now save to different folders, which I was very glad about because really the only way to like, save things were just in a general giant saved folder, or liking it and saving it to your likes, which ultimately, you know, likes,
You're never gonna find it again.
Kind of become meaningless. Yeah. And I, and yeah, and so there were really only two ways to say things, liking them or saving them. And now that you can save things in different folders, my thing that I would love is if I could, in my for you page, choose a file. Or like for example, let's say I have a folder that's just called like, I have a folder that's just like animal videos. So if I could go to that folder, and then tell Tiktok to make me a for you page based on that folder only. So then I can choose to like show me animal videos that are similar to the animal videos that I've liked. Or show me like I have a folder called unexpected funny, where it's literally just like, You, you, you know when you find a video and you're like watching it, you're like, Why does this have five million likes?
Yeah, yeah!
And then you're like oh my god, that's amazing. So like, that folder is just full of videos like that. If I could just tell TikTok like, Hey, show me more videos like that. That would be cool. And so I think what happened is,
It's almost like a hashtag.
Yeah, like hashtags or whatever. And like, for example, my ex . Whenever she opened her TikTok it was always like crafting videos and sappy like girl posts, and she was like, can we look at your TikTok, and it was funny. Like, it felt like two different apps like I would open up mine, and it was a different curation. And we'd open up hers, and we'd be bored and sad. And no, no,
I know what you mean.
No, it was just funny. Like, my mind was for mindless scrolling entertainment, funny stuff. But it's funny now that I have been on the platform longer, I do find that I'm engaging with other stuff. And so now I'm like, Damn, I'm getting all this cool stuff. But right now is not the time for me to learn this new Photoshop editing hack, I want to be entertained by something silly. So I wish that I could be like, sorting my for you page by the, you know, other categories. But who knows, I know, Vine used to have that like Vine used to have like, the funny section and you would like choose up to 10 categories for yours to be featured in so you would like jump in to comedy or, you know, drama, or whatever the heck music, you know, stuff like that.
I think it's a great idea. And if TikTok doesn't do it, hopefully a third party will. Because I think this goes back to what Dave was just saying about Twitter. Sometimes people get turned off by a platform, if it's too much of the same type of content all the time. Like I love Twitter, Twitter's my favorite platform. But in the past, like six to 12 months, they've definitely changed their algorithm to be more about stuff that you like, rather than who you follow. And I was just telling you yesterday, you know, I follow a lot of business people a lot of like, marketers and, you know, DTC people, there's like crypto stuff a lot to, like you said, and sometimes, like at night, I'm just scrolling through my Twitter timeline, and I get sick of like, thinking about business all damn day, right? I wanted to see more about sports or like, what's happening in the news, maybe, or whatever it is. And, you know, you get just too much into that funnel. So if you can, like kind of have a dial on TikTok, for example, to like, hey, I want more of this, or, you know, go back this way a little bit. Because you get sucked into it just endless, right? Like, I want to get off of like, depressing TikTok, you know what I mean?
Yeah, exactly. Like, don't show me sad stories right now. Yeah, there's a time in place.
Yeah, for sure. And I think one other thing, before we hop off the TikTok category, for brand owners listening, you, you know, even doing a bad job of creating content on Tiktok, you're still going to get traction. And this is the case as well, for Instagram reels, because they're copying it really, like, you can literally in 60 seconds, take a five second video of you and your product in selfie mode, and put like a funny sound over and a funny caption, and you're gonna get 2000 views on your reel or your TikTok within like three days, there's no other platform in which you can do that. And people, I think it's really just a quantity thing. Like, just keep making them until something goes viral. And it's gonna lead to organic sales, for sure. So don't overthink it. Like, you don't have to make really good stuff on these types of these, you know, mediums, you know, reels and TikTok because it's just so easy to get views, and there's no other platform like it, So.
It is actually wild, how easy it is to get crazy views. And I don't say that in a way where I'm bragging because there are a lot of people trying to make content on these platforms that are struggling to get views. And I don't mean it in a way like that. I think it's consistent over time. You know, with any project, you're going to need to create stuff for a while. And of course, there's going to be people that get there, they get lucky and they get tons of views right off the bat. Right immediately. As soon as they start creating content, they get views that just go videos that go viral. And I think with TikTok and Instagram in particular, one of the things that they definitely do, it's it's like, without a doubt, like they don't say this, but it definitely happens where they actually favor new accounts to have a better chance of like going viral because they want to get you hooked. If you post a video on TikTok, as a brand new user with only one video, there's a pretty high chance that that video is going to do pretty well as long as it's decent, just just simply based on the fact that it's a new account and they want to get you in the door and get you some success, get you some wins right off the bat so that you don't get discouraged, and you keep posting. And Instagram reels are the same way. And I think it's interesting because we were going through a phase I think like, especially right at the beginning of the pandemic, it was very easy to get a lot of views on TikTok just because a lot of people weren't, still a lot of people weren't creating it wasn't as saturated and and reels was like almost non existent when no one was even really like looking at reels when it first came out. Now I almost feel like it's flipped a little bit where Tik Tok has a surplus of people creating content so you do have to put in a little more high effort and stand out and be a little bit more unique, whereas reels I feel like, still doesn't have the same of, you know, firehose of content just coming to that platform. And so anything that feels original to reels, they'll pump it pretty hard. So honestly, as a company of 4Media, we do better on our reels than we do on TikTok currently. And I think that goes back to liking it feeling a little bit more like a brand and things of that nature that Instagram just already kind of more accepted. But yeah, it is interesting. And I'd say that you just need to start creating, that's really the biggest thing is just start, you know, it's like that Kim Kardashian, "everyone doesn't want to get off their ass and work. You need to work."
Yeah. It started yesterday.
A question from a content creation advertising perspective, are you when you guys create ads for TikTok, are you also using that on reels? The same exact ad.
So when we're doing TikTok creative, actually, we're pretty much creating content exclusively for TikTok. And it's interesting, because the way that we've kind of built our TikTok team, it's kind of interesting, because I feel like, in the beginning, the ads team and the content team were like, a little more separate. And we of course, come together to collaborate on what we're creating and what the strategy is, and all that kind of stuff. But like the TikTok side, it's, it's like, you can't really have one without the other, you know, like you really, if you're coming to 4Media for Tiktok, you're not just like, oh, yeah, we only want you for Tiktok ads management, we don't need you to create the ads, we'll create the ads. It's like, No, you're coming to us for both. Whereas with 4Media, like for Facebook ads, and Instagram ads, they might be like, Hey, we already have tons of content, we just need you guys to run the ads. Or, hey, we already have ads management, we have an in house, but we just need content. Whereas with TikTok, it's very much like your there's no way that you're coming to us for one and not the other kind of thing. So we are creating very Tiktok specific content. And then, yes, we are testing that content across the other platforms. But it is weird what works and what doesn't. Because there's definitely a fine line of like, oh, yeah, this is TikTok content. And this would never work on any other platform. And, yeah, you just got to be testing. And but I would say, I would say really starting with TikTok is a good idea. Because if it performs well on TikTok, there's a pretty good chance that it would also perform well on reels, because it seems like reels as you know, 90% of it is just recycled. TikTok content. even now, or at least imitation.
Of a lot of that, like you said earlier, right?
For sure.
So, you know, you in your career, I guess, worked on a lot of different podcasts, each one kind of different, a little bit different than the next. And I'm asking selfishly, like, what makes a good podcast, but like for brand owners listening, you know, how do they know what podcasts listen to?
That's a great question. Um, I think that podcasting is so powerful, because it's one of the only mediums where people are going to consume hours of your content. It's very, very hard to get someone to consume hours of Instagram content, or even YouTube content for that matter, you've got to create something extraordinary for someone to pay attention to for that long. Whereas audio content is amazing for that reason. I've spent days listening to some of my favorite podcasters I mean, literally days in my life, probably at this point. Definitely. Like, I feel like I know them. I feel like I have a personal connection with them, because I've heard all their best stories. I've heard how they interact with their friends. I've heard how they interact with guests that they maybe don't know as well. I've heard them talk about life events, their kids, all the stuff I know, and if someone listened to my podcasts for, you know, a long time, I'm sure they feel the same way which is cool and creepy. Yeah, exactly. You know, like, that's really how it feels. And that's, that's really cool. And that's very powerful. Just as a, as a, as a, just as a medium. You know, that's just an awesome thing. So, as far as what makes a good podcast, it's very opinion based, you know, like, I think some podcasts are very, I remember when I was starting my podcast, there was a trend of creating like very short bite-sized podcasts that were like, designed to be listened to on your commute. And that was what's going to work. No one has an hour and a half, no one's got three hours, they have 25 minutes, the average commute is 25 minutes. So you need to make your podcast 25 minutes super value packed and actionable, you don't want to be wasting your viewers time, blah, blah, blah. And I was thinking about the way that I consume podcasts. And for me, I love long podcasts that are, you know, conversational, and feel like I'm just a fly on the wall hanging out. And the way that I listen to podcasts is the same way I read a book, I don't read a book in one sitting, I read it for a while until I get bored of it or until I gotta do something else. And then when I'm ready to go into book mode, again, I pick up where I left off. Like, I don't understand why that concept is hard for people to realize, like, you don't need to make a podcast. So you got to listen to it all in one sitting like you can pause it and come back. And that's actually why I don't like listening to podcasts on Spotify. Because Spotify is music and podcasts and one app. And I like to separate the two into like, if I'm going like, I have my audible app, and I have my podcasting app and I have Spotify and I have SoundCloud, and I'm going to each of those apps for different listening experiences, I'm probably going to SoundCloud to listen to like, random, like EDM mixes that aren't allowed to be on Spotify. And then I'm gonna go to Spotify because someone sent me a cool playlist. And then I'm going to Audible because I'm going to actually, like intentionally listen to a book and maybe I'm sitting in the sauna, and because it's downloaded, I can just listen to it whenever. And then the podcast is maybe when I'm trying to just listen casually on my commute or whatever. So there's, you got to kind of put yourself in the mindset, I guess of like, who's listening to the podcast and why. And so if it's education based, obviously, trying to make it as value packed as possible. It is super important. If it's very conversational based and just like more about the, about people just, I guess, being fans of you, and being fans of what you're about, and who you're gonna hang out with. I don't know if it matters too much about like, really, how Titan, like, you know, value packed each second is, I think they just want to hang out with you and listen to you, you know, and that's cool, too. I think about a lot of YouTubers that make videos that are like 30 minutes long, if there's some talking to the camera, maybe it's not for me, but for their fans, that's everything to them. You know, like they love that experience. They love hanging out. I mean, shoot, there's Twitch streamers that stream all day, you know, multiple hours a day. And there's people that when they miss a stream, they like to feel bad. And they feel like they got to catch up and they go watch the live. Like they literally go back and watch the stream even though it's not live anymore. Like that's how religiously-attached to these creators they get. So I guess the only thing to think about out there,
Yeah and they donate to them. Like, that's just crazy as fuck to me.
Yeah, literally they're giving their money.
I've never understood that for me, like as a consumer. But I mean, there's obviously like a billion-dollar industry out of just donating to your favorite creators, which is like, you know, incredible, right?
It's wild. And I mean, I love Twitch for that reason like that money is at the core of really how it works. Yeah, it's kind of cool. I mean,
Definitely study Twitch streamers.
Yeah. And I mean, money is the highest form of commitment, right? Like, if you're gonna commit to something, putting your money where your mouth is, that is really the highest form of, of committing to something. And so supporting a creator with your actual money is really cool. And it's awesome that that's kind of how Twitch has been, since the beginning, that it's almost kind of designed for that. And I think a lot of people don't really understand that about YouTube. And they don't understand that about other platforms that like that there's other ways that you can support creators and things like that. One of my favorite ways, I know this is a little, we're going on a tangent besides podcast, but one of my favorite things is I pay for a YouTube premium. And a lot of people think like, oh, that's unnecessary, YouTube's free. But I get to skip all the ads. But I don't know if a lot of people know this. But if a video gets demonetised on YouTube, the creators are not going to make any money from that video from ads, because the ads aren't getting put on the video. But what's cool is with YouTube premium, they take the $10 that I pay every month, they take half YouTube takes 50% or whatever. But the other five bucks actually gets split up among the creators that I watch their content. So even if a video gets demonetized, you can still actually make YouTube premium revenue, with your video being demonetized which, which I mean, I don't really, I don't know why more creators don't talk about that. Because it's like, hey, if I'm like a taboo creator, that's always getting demonetized or like not advertiser friendly, encouraging people to sign up for YouTube premium is like, not only are you getting all the benefits of being on YouTube premium, but you're also like, actually giving those creators back some of that ad revenue that you're paying seem to skip, you know, because like, you're literally paying to not watch the ads. But what's cool is the creators are still getting a portion.
It's like streaming music on Apple Music or Spotify, same thing.
Yeah. And that's why I mean, Spotify, it's kind of genius that they've gotten so, so hard into podcasts because they don't have to pay anything in royalties to the podcasters. It's kind of hilarious how opposite it is, like with music, they pay the music creators to be allowed to put it on there. And podcasters were like, oh, I want to be on Spotify. Like, please, will you let us on your platform, we like sure we'll let you on the platform, but we'll still play ads over it, you know, and it's like, kind of a weird, different relationship, because it can make a lot more money on podcasts, and they can music. But anyways, um, but to go back to the, to the question of like, what makes a good podcast? I think, honestly, consistency is probably one of the biggest things with podcasts. Because, I mean, it depends on the goals of the podcast. But like, for me, when I find a new podcast, I, part of what I look for, is how often they're posting and like when the most recent episode was. Because, I mean, there are a lot of podcasts that can be kind of like evergreen, that just feel like you could listen to them at any point in time. But there are little subtle things that make it make things feel old. Like if you listen to a podcast from 2020, you're gonna immediately know, like, oh, yeah, this is taking me back to like pandemic times. And, you know, like little comments that are being made or like, you know, just little things that, for whatever reason, we like to feel like we're watching stuff that's, like, pretty new. Like, even if I watch a YouTube tutorial or something, if it's like five years old, I'm like, Hmm, is there a better way? Is there a new thing that's come out? Is there a new, more efficient thing that I should be paying attention to? So I'm like, even though the tutorial might be the exact same, I might go be more inclined to watch a video that's three months old than something that's five years old, you know, so like, I guess, for podcasting, I think a big part of it is like consistency and seeing that the podcast creators are as committed to the podcast as I might be as a listener, because I mean, if you think about it, the listener is committing their time to listen. And so if the creators of that podcast are not putting in the same amount of care and effort into continuing it, then why should I care to pay attention, I guess. And I think another thing that's like key for a podcast is just first impressions, like you're really not going to get I mean, you can't do that due to the nature of what a first impression is, you can't get a, you can't get a second first impression. So having a good first impression on a viewer is really, a listener, whatever is really important. And I found that also, like the video element of a podcast is pretty much best used for promo or than anything, if you're getting views on YouTube. I mean, I can't imagine people are sitting there watching every second of people just talking, you're probably doing the dishes, they're probably doing their laundry, they're probably cooking, and they have their phone sitting on the counter off to the side. And if there's something that's visual that needs their attention, they'll glance over and look, or they've got it in a tab in the background, and they're doing their work. And if you know, something seems funny that they want to check out, they'll switch over to the tab and look at it. But for the most part, it's really an audio experience. So kind of keeping that in mind too. Like, if you're, if you're trying to create this, like really in depth show where there's tons of visuals and cool stuff, it's like, you might be better off making a YouTube show, you know, you might be better off making like an actual show that's like 10 or 15 minutes, that's, you know, showing you reacting to content or whatever, rather than like a podcast type format, but, you know, for each his own. But, but yeah, and then also with, that's one thing that I appreciate about you guys using Riverside, and I think that this platform, I mean, people watching probably don't know what Riverside is, or even that we're recording on it. But Riverside is a cool platform, because that was always one of my biggest gripes with podcasts that were recorded, not in person was that the audio quality had to it was too different, like the host would sound amazing. And then the guests would sound like shit, because the audio was being recorded over zoom. Whereas with this platform called Riverside that we're using right now, hopefully, my voice sounds good, because it's actually being recorded locally into my mic, and then being uploaded to the cloud. So that the idea then would be that the quality would be the exact same that would be going into my microphone right now. So anyways, I think that was like a big gripe of me not wanting to do podcasts virtually because as a listener, one of my pet peeves is having to hear the difference in the voices was just annoying. And but I also will say that I was down to put up with that if I felt like the content was good enough. Like if I was listening to Joe Rogan talking to Julian Assange. I'm super down to listen to any, you know, audio discrepancies because that's a conversation that I want to listen to no matter what. But if it's just two guys hanging out and kind of talking, you know, some BS and just being funny. I'd much rather be in person because then it just feels more like I'm a fly on the wall versus listening to a meeting.
Yeah, no, for sure, I totally agree. So Andrew, as we begin to wrap up here, one technical question I wanted to ask you before we actually wrap up, because I know, I think of you as someone that really under, has learned a lot of lessons of like different tools, different strategies, you have like a lot of hacks and creating content, and you understand social media really well. What do you think it's something that a lot of, you know, brands or content creators looking to create something or advertise that they try to do? It's just not worth their time? It's not worth spending money on spending energy and resources? Like, do it do it a different way, instead of this cliche way, it's just not worth it.
Yeah, um, I'd say one of the biggest things I see is like, especially in content, going to one of these big production houses and spending six figures on a content package where they ultimately get like, one main kind of like, you know, Hero video that kind of defines their brand. And no shade to any of these companies. I mean, I'm thinking of like, Harmon brothers. For example, they made amazing ads for Purple Mattress and PooPourri. And like, all these brands that like, cut, and you know, like the Dollar Shave Club ads back in the day that just went crazy viral. And I think of those types of ads, and it's like, I think every brand just thinks like, oh, man, if we just had that one killer ad, we could just rake in money forever from that one ad. And I think a lot of brands don't lend themselves to content like that, like, I think when you're going to an agency or production house, or whatever, that's going to make you content. Kinda like just feeling out that brand and making sure that they are in line with the type of content that you want to make, like, if they're, like Chamber Media, for example, an amazing, awesome production company, and they make a lot of like, humor-based videos. But if your brand is not a humor-based company, like, maybe maybe going with them might not be the best option, like maybe going to another another production company would be a better option, just because that might not be their exact strong suit, maybe like, this company is really amazing at making VSL, video sales letters for landing pages. But maybe they're not great at making vertical content that's going to convert really well on TikTok, you know, so like, just kind of like, understanding that, just throwing tons of money at content isn't always the best option, I guess, like, and you kind of mentioned it earlier, like, 4Media, we, I mean, we do a lot for a lot smaller of a budget than a lot of these companies are charging. And that's because we were a marketing company, first, we're not just content creators that are going to make something cool.
And be, we can really make your dollars go further, I guess. Like, we're, we don't want to just create like one really awesome piece of content that's going to cost you an arm and a leg, and we're gonna have, I mean, it'll look really awesome. It'll look great. It'll be professionally shot, the audio will be amazing, all this stuff. But at the end of the day, an ad that was filmed on an iPhone might convert better, you know, like, and that kind of sucks. And we're in a world right now, where, you know, a lot of products are very versatile, you know what I mean? Like, you kind of, maybe you want to be all things to everybody. But unfortunately, if you're a brand like that, like a lot of times, you're just gonna get defeated by the cheapest brand on Amazon, you know, like, you're, if you really want to create like a brand for yourself, I think you got to niche down you gotta like, make yourself, almost turn away people that could be potential customers in favor of really hitting your target audience. And not trying to be all things to all people. Again, like, I brought up Club EarlyBird I love them, because they're not trying to convert coffee drinkers like they're not going after the coffee drinkers they're looking at, they're going after people that are that coffee did not work for them that they don't like coffee, then maybe energy drinks are too much for them in the morning. Like, they need something. But it's not coffee, and it's not energy drinks. And it's something else, you know, and they're looking for that person or the person that wishes they were a morning person, but isn't. And that was like a problem that they found. And they filled that problem with their solution. And so I guess a lot of times the biggest mistake is like going in and having this huge content budget and like, oh, we just need some really killer stuff. But trying to maybe either go too broad with your target audience or just going with the wrong company, and ultimately getting a bunch of content that sadly just doesn't convert. And, you know, unfortunately we've seen that a lot and it hurts sometimes because it's like, man, we just did a package for you guys for like, you know, 15k. And these ads are performing way better than the ads that you spent six figures on. And that hurts, you know, it hurts me because it's like, damn, maybe we should be charging more. Because it's like, Damn, we spent and wasted so much money on this awesome content that looks really cool. But ultimately just didn't serve the purpose of what we needed it to serve. So I guess in a roundabout way, the thing that they should be looking at is, you know, whether the company that they're going with seems like it fits well, and if it's actually going after the goal that they want to achieve. And then the other thing is, like, I would say, if you're not creating content, like, it's going to be hard for you to know what you want until you kind of like try to even start creating something or try to do something on your own, or at least have like a list of that's, that's one thing that's hard for me is when brands that are not very content focused, they come in and they they have all these inspiration examples. And when you make something that's slightly different from the inspiration example, they are like, Oh, well, we told you to make it like this. Why did you make it a little different? And it's like, well, we're trying to do something unique for your brand. Not exactly just copy the competition. But sometimes that's what people want.
Yeah. Yeah. So many good points there. Cool. So as we begin to wrap up here, we'd like to close out the episode with our guests with the same question. If you could sit in a room with a bunch of mentors, once every morning, let's say you're in a conference room, planning out your day, and they help guide you, you know, advise you on your problems that you're facing, who would be in that room? They can be alive or dead.
That's a great question. Um, I'd probably say Casey Neistat.
Makes perfect sense.
Definitely makes sense for you.
um, probably Daniel Arsham. I don't know if you guys know who he is. He's an artist. He's an amazing artist. Daniel Arsham would be there. Um, I think Gary Vaynerchuk got to make it there. Just because he, I really, I have a love hate relationship with Gary Vee. But he's given a lot more than, given a lot more to me. And I respect a lot of stuff he's done. And so he'd be in there. I'd say Joe Rogan would be in there. I love listening to so many episodes of his podcasts. I would love to have him there. Probably Alex Hormozi, love listening to Alex, I think he's got a lot of great things to say. And I'm not trying to make it too crowded in there, you know! But,
The more the merrier.
Yeah, I know, right? I'm trying to think of someone who's dead that I'd want to hang out with. Maybe Steve Jobs, you know, heck. Oh, Virgil Abloh he's, he's,
Oh that's a good one.
Virgil Abloh I'd love to have in my circle of mentors.
Who's Virgil?
What an amazing artist. lost too soon, for sure. But yeah, Virgil Abloh as well. But I think I think that would be a pretty solid group. I'm trying to think of, maybe even one more entrepreneur like, you know, guy. I don't know. I feel like that's pretty solid. Steve Jobs is pretty solid in there.
That's a really good one.
Oh, Elon Musk. How can I leave him out? Dah? Yeah, like Elon Musk would be the chief guy.
There's like three or four names you said that a lot of people have said.
Yeah, Elon Musk would be the president of my, of my, of my mentors right there. He'd be leading it.
I think Elon and Hormozi might be the most most mentioned so far.
It's funny, I feel like Alex has really come just out swinging with content the past couple years. And I actually know the guy who runs like, does his content and stuff. And it's funny because he's the exact same guy that I went to. So he had a personal branding conference. His name's Ryan McCann, actually. I mean, I don't know. I'm gatekeeping his name. Ryan McGinn. What yp? Ryan, he actually used to have a style YouTube channel where he would talk about like mens style. And like, after I lived in Italy for a little bit, I came home and I was like, my wardrobe sucks. I need to focus on my style, because all these friggin Italian guys are way cooler than me. And I need to buy some cool clothes. So I started trying to get interested in finding him. And then he had a personal branding conference. It was like 20 You know, maybe like 50 people or something like that. And he thought that was right. When I started my podcast he taught us how to like to do little daily vlogs and make content with filming with a little GoPro, and I owe a lot to Ryan and he's been killing it recently. He manages a bunch of people's short form content, for reels and TikToks and runs a lot of big accounts behind the scenes. So pretty cool to see, see it all come together in a roundabout way. And he was actually on my podcast back in the day. So pretty cool. It's cool.
I'll definitely look him up. He does a great job with Hormozi channel. Like I mean, Hormozi does a great job of just creating content, right! It seems like a full time job now but you know, the style of his reels and stuff is on point. Same with Leila, I'm assuming they both use him. So yeah, definitely gonna check him out. Ryan should be in your conference room.
Yeah, I know, no, it's funny, because, um, yeah, yeah, maybe he should be my mentor. It's cool. Because I feel like he's one of those people that I, you know, really looked up to, and now that I don't look up to him now. But I really looked up to it and now I feel like I'm in that circle. Like, I feel like I'm one of the peers, you know what I mean? Rather than, like, Oh, this guy on YouTube is so much cooler than me at making content like now I, I feel like I've accomplished enough to be like, I'm, I'm, I'm up there, you know?
Yeah, that's a good feeling.
That's awesome. Yeah. And I think the biggest lesson is, just keep going, you know, like, if you're, if you're gonna commit to something like, You got to commit for like, more than a year, you know, at least you know, you got to commit for at least a couple years. podcast, I just celebrated the fifth anniversary of me launching my first podcast, we got 270 episodes later, something like that. It's like an average episode a week. So it's pretty, pretty awesome. To see that progress. And, you know, if you're going to go for something, you gotta, you gotta be in it for the long haul. And don't burn yourself out too early. But you still gotta grind hard. In the beginning. That's like the biggest thing for me. With podcasting, I had so many sleepless nights, I had so many nights where I'd stay up till five in the morning, I was still working a regular job. And I was just so passionate about it. And there were days where I would run around, I was doing three podcasts in a day, I was just trying to get to 100 episodes, I was just like, my goal. And I was just like, relentless pursuit. And I think every successful person has that time in their life, where they really put their head down and had, like, a crazy, at least, like 90 days of just like Insanity where like, you did not sleep, you didn't eat, you were just so focused on your brand. But obviously, that's not healthy to do all the time. But I do think that that is a crucial thing. To kind of, like, get ahead of, you know, just, if you're, if you're just gonna say to yourself that you're gonna work nine to five and just, like, go home after five o'clock and play Mario Kart and drink beer. Like, that's cool. But there's nothing wrong with doing that. But at the same time, like, if you really want to get ahead and live a life like no one else, you gotta make some sacrifices and, you know, grind it out and, and get ahead.
Wise words of Andrew Deitsch, See that's the shit you can't teach, right?
Can't teach it.
It's funny. There's a I'll wrap up with this. Ty Lopez is one of my favorite mentors, and he has a YouTube video, you took it down, but I used to, I saved it in my motivation playlist on YouTube and always went back to it. And he's literally just sitting at dinner and talking to the camera. And he goes, like, if you haven't spent like a week to 10 days of barely getting less or more than like a couple hours of sleep a night just averaging like an hour or two as he's like, he looks at the camera. It's like, you ain't a fucking entrepreneur. And it's so raw, and it's so true. He's like, at one time I went 17 days, I averaged like 30 minutes to sleep because I had to get stuff done. He's like, you don't want to do that too often, but like, you got to go through that phase once once every while so I always stay true to that, like, you know, when I get tired, I'm like, Alright, this is my moment, or you know, I'm not my moments, I'm going to go to bed like whatever it is. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs have to go through that. Definitely.
Totally.
Cool, man. I appreciate you so much. This is such a good episode. I had so much fun I learned so much I know the brands listening did. Dave, I know, I'm sure you can say the same. This was awesome. And you know where do you know the brands and everyone listening to all the business people listening, where do you think is the best place for them to you know, follow you and you know, look at your stuff?
Yeah, I'm sure there'll be links in the description and all that but my, I feel like I'm most active on Instagram, so it's Andrew_Deitsch on Instagram, you can find me there DM me. My DMs are pretty open. And as far as working with us, you can go to 4Media.marketing, and that's our website. You can click on the little work with us tab and quick little plug for our agency secret letters to if you're an agency or if you're just interested in what we're doing. We've got a pretty cool program that we're doing right now, where we're releasing pretty much everything, we're peeling back all the secrets of what we do, how we run our operations, how we set up our tech stack, how we problems that we've overcome, how we're hiring, how we're looking at structuring things. And it's all on paper. So it's not digitally available anywhere. We mail it to you physically, and it's pretty solid Dave's, Dave's got his agency secret letter right there. So, yeah.
No scarcity mindset.
Yeah, exactly. No scarcity mindset there. And that's something that internally it's been, it's been hard. Like, it's like, do we want to share that, but it's like, you know, like, I mean, at the end of the day, knowledge is one thing, execution is a totally other thing. So you can have all the ideas and all the, you know, ideas are, of course, very valuable, but you gotta know how to execute and actually find the right people. So I'm definitely more of an abundance mindset person. I don't operate out of scarcity. And I think the more you can share, the more value you can provide to the world. You know, the better and that's ultimately how we all progress. So, so yeah, check out agency secret letters. I don't have the landing page for that offhand, off the top of my head, but I'm sure we can. You'll be able to find it.
Yeah, definitely. Cool.
Sounds good. Well, again.
Thank you guys.
Thanks, Andrew. And yeah, see you next time.