Marketing Happy Hour - Re-Defining the Term "Influencer" | Nina Zadeh of Sidewalker Daily

Starting point is 00:00:00 you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode. Hey, Marketing Happy Hour listeners.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Quick note, just to say thank you for all of the wonderful feedback around our rebrand. Another huge shout out goes to photographer Amy Santavica and Vistaprint's 99designs for making all of our branding dreams come true. We can't wait to continue sharing more about the process with all of you, but in the meantime, we do have a special offer to share. You can get $20 off your first design contest when you head to 99designs.com forward slash marketing dash happy dash hour. For anyone listening, who's looking to work with professional creative experts to build your brand with custom and memorable design. This platform is for you. Check it out. I always say perfectionism is the enemy. Don't let the perfectionism hold you back.

Starting point is 00:01:48 There's no cheat code, but consistency. Consistency is the only cheat code. We are super excited to share this week's episode as we sat down with Nina back in October to be guests on her podcast, Influencer Confidential, and we're finally releasing her episode of Marketing Happy Hour. If you've been on the internet lately, you're well aware of the Tartan Dubai Influencer Trip. So how fitting that our guest this week has experience leading activations just like that. This week, we're chatting with Nina Zadeh, co-founder of Sidewalker Daily, a team of influencer marketing experts and social strategists who work on both sides of the influencer industry. In this episode, Nina shares the importance of weighing

Starting point is 00:02:30 the impact of paid ads versus influencer relationships with current consumer behavior, uncovers unique ways to work with influencers with different objectives that go beyond traditional sponsored social posts, how brands can utilize YouTube Shorts, and gives her best insight into the new wave of influencer assistants. Without further ado, grab your favorite drink and listen in. Hey, Nina, how are you? I am good. Thank you guys so much for having me on. I'm so pumped about today. Yes, we're so excited you're here. It's so fun. We just recorded an episode of your podcast,

Starting point is 00:03:12 so we're excited to, you know, have you come on ours. But before we get started, I have an important question for you that we asked all of our guests, and that is, what is in your glass? I guess this morning, it is still morning after all. Let's hope so. So I drink always my drink of choice is a shaken espresso. So it's always, it's three shots, espresso, a splash of 2% and then like a pump of simple syrup. And then I literally started to think to myself, like, is three espresso shots a day? Like, is that too much? Like, I don't know. I, it sounds a lot now that I thought about it. I didn't even know, but that's my drink shaken espresso. I love a cold shaken espresso with milk and a little like

Starting point is 00:04:02 sweetener or something. If they're fine, regular milk, whatever milk they have. Yeah. I love that. Are you still a cold coffee girly, even in the cold weather? Yes. A hundred percent all the time. Same. Same. Um, I have a rowdy mermaid kombucha. They actually sent us some to try. So this one is roaring pineapple. So it is very good. I can attest to that. Cassie, what are you sipping on? Oh man, I'm so boring this morning. I only have water. Erica always laughs at me because I typically have two drinks with me at all times, which is actually a downgrade from what I used to do. I used to have like caffeine, water, and maybe like something else. So I only have water today, but I just had my

Starting point is 00:04:46 caffeine, but I too love shaken espresso. That's like my go-to. Um, so yes, huge fan. I'm, I'm glad that's your drink of choice. I don't know anyone that likes it. So I feel like, yeah, I know. It's so great. It's so great. So Nina, we're so excited to have you on and you have an incredible firm that you've built. And so can you just start by telling us a little bit about your journey to how you got to where you are today and tell us about what you do too. I will do my best to make it super short because taking you through the whole story is crazy. Let's start where it gets fun. So 2016, this is after I graduated with my MBA. I met my business partner in college before. We both went to Boston College, go Eagles. After that, I ended up going to get my MBA in New York and always, always knew that I wanted to be in marketing in some capacity. That's even in my,

Starting point is 00:05:47 in my MBA program, I studied like a specialization in entrepreneurship and marketing. And I think really where things got really fun was around 2016, when I started doing some consulting for a PR agency here in South Florida. Now, the way that I got that, I think like really how it all kind of came together was at the time I had my own social media, you know, firm where we're like, let's do social for clients. We're starting off at the same time. We had an Instagram account that was like growing sidewalk or daily. It was getting a lot of traction. And this PR firm invited us on a trip, a press trip, which for those who are listening is not, are not familiar with the term. It's when a hotel or tourism board invites you on property to review

Starting point is 00:06:31 the property in exchange for social posts or back in the day media mentions. Right. So I'm like, am I, am I like an influencer? Like, am I going on this trip? I told my husband, I'm like, I think I'm like legit. And he was like, you're not legit. So I was like, so we go on this trip. I told my husband, I'm like, I think I'm like legit. And he was like, you're not legit. So I was like, so we go on this trip. And I remember being on it and being like, I want to be organizing these activations. Like again, marketing brain already having social media background and stuff. I was like, I want to do this. So I pitched myself to this agency. I was like, I know you brought me on as like the influencer. This trip has been great. I want to do it again for you and all your clients and make it even better. And they're like, okay. So I ended up like, you know, through the, however things happen in life, serendipitously ended up consulting from them from 2016 to 2019 doing all the influencer marketing campaigns for the Costa Rica tourism board, which was massive because they did not have an influencer campaign or strategy until we started. I started working on it. Remember,

Starting point is 00:07:29 this is 2016. People did not even know what this was. TikTok wasn't around. People didn't even believe in creator marketing. They thought it was just like going to go away or like pretty people taking pretty pictures. Like it wasn't a thing. There was no money behind it yet. So convincing brands at an early stage, like, trust me, this is it. Like you want to act now. Doing social media strategy for different hotels under the guise of this PR agency I was like, look, I'm getting all this experience. They hired Sidewalker as their consultant to come through. And that's kind of when we broke out and started getting our own clients like Jet Setter, which is part of the TripAdvisor company, doing campaigns and things of the nature. We represented companies like infant optics, baby monitors, literally like every niche, every industry we've gotten our hands in. And what I realized just to wrap up, sorry, I know I'm going on, but what I realized,

Starting point is 00:08:27 okay. What I realized on the brand side was like, I love working with these creators, right. And putting them on these activations, like on these campaigns, but they don't know Jack all about negotiating or they don't know anything on the business side. And again, I keep mentioning my MBA, but I was like, what if they had access to high level creator education to help these amazing creators really make a business out of it? Like truly to be able to monetize, to live their dreams of creating content, but building a solid business to scale. So this bug got in my head being on the brand side, being like,

Starting point is 00:09:04 I want to help them. I want to help them thrive and continue. So right bug got in my head being on the brand side, being like, I want to help them. I want to help them thrive and continue. So right now where we are at in our company, we still have brands that we consult for on the client side. But the main thing that I think we're carving ourselves out for is being creator educators. So much so that even just today, I got a Google alert. I saw the word influencer marketing. I have a Google alert for that term. And it came through with an article that Entrepreneur Magazine wrote on us, all about Sidewalker Daily. Yeah, like our, you know, what we've been doing for the industry, which is helping creators monetize. So it's not to say that

Starting point is 00:09:39 we're not still on brand side, because we are. We always want partnerships to feel like a win-win for both. So I don't like to say I'm picking a side, but it's really about transparency on both sides and helping really good partnerships happen where the brand is happy and the creator is happy, not when it's like one-sided. So that's kind of where we're at now in, you know, we're sidewalkers at now, who knows where we will be in a few years from now, but that's kind of our brand story. I love that. And I think that's so important to have that resource for creatives, for influencers, things like that, because that you're so right. There's so many people out there that are just like falling into this career path for themselves. And they have no idea the behind the scenes that goes into it. So love what you're doing and love that you got your start with a hotel trip, because it's so funny when we're

Starting point is 00:10:30 recording this, it's a Friday, October 21st, um, Taylor's new album just came out. I was doing that at midnight. Um, and now I'm really tired, but it's fine. Um, and Cassie and I are actually going to a hotel opening that they organized, you know, everything. I'm sure a PR firm organized all of the VIP guests and things like that. And I've actually seen a lot of stories on Instagram of like editors and writers and stuff that are going to be there. So very exciting. I was the one like inviting all the people. That's what I would do. Yeah. That's amazing. I love that. I love that so much. One question on the creator side, what do you feel is like a common misconception that they

Starting point is 00:11:12 have about the influencer space or like an area that you feel like creators are the most, I don't want to say in the dark, but kind of like unaware of how this industry works. Yes. So good. I think their weakest points are negotiating valuation, like understanding what to charge and understanding like the contract side. And why should they, to be frank, like if you're so good at like creating really cool content, since when do you now have to be a lawyer and like know what like these like crazy terms are in an agreement? I think as one of the things I try to get creators to think about is positioning themselves more as business owners themselves, helping them get into

Starting point is 00:11:52 the mindset of you are also an entrepreneur. You are also now becoming your own brand. So with that, doesn't mean you need to know how to do everything, but you kind of, as a CEO of your company need to kind of have an awareness of what things are. You still hire your, you know, hire it out to a lawyer, but I think their biggest struggles come to how much to charge, what are fair usage rights, like what is fair? Like there's, and I think money in general is always like a weird cloudy space for a lot of people, like even in the workforce, right? Like what's my assistant, what's that girl getting charged? Like what's she getting paid? Right. So when Glassdoor came to the table and said, oh, these are like transparencies and people's salaries, like people want to know, like, is this fair? Is this good? Like, so I think, I think that's one

Starting point is 00:12:35 of their, their biggest hurdles and the negotiating and obviously contracts. Okay. So then flipping it on its head brands who still question the value of influencers and are like, should I be paying this person? How much should I be paying it them? What do you say about that to the brand? What's kind of a word of encouragement you tell them about the value in this space and paying creators and working with creators? Yeah, it really comes down to like allocating your budget. So like a lot of the brands that we would bring in, they would have a Google ads budget or a Facebook ads budget or, you know, whatever they were going to run anyways. And they would come up with, okay, well, like how much am I going to pay?

Starting point is 00:13:13 What's my CPM for a Google ad? Or what, what am I going to pay for a thousand impressions? So for me, it's like, if you can boil it down to what you're willing to pay for a thousand eyeballs to see your content, you can use similar formulas to help you value how much this content can be worth from the creator side. So our agency, what we help creators do and brands do is come up with their own custom formula. It's not something I can share here on the podcast because there's not a one size fits all. It's very much dependent on so many factors, but we're able to really understand, okay, hey, brand, you were going to use this budget anyways, right? So you're probably going

Starting point is 00:13:50 to have to hire out creative to produce this ad for you anyways, right? How much were you going to hire that out for? Oh, well, we're going to do a photo shoot to get, okay. So we're able to kind of take budget and help them justify it through like an impression based model to help them understand if at the end of the day, you're going after eyeballs, why not go through a trusted source, someone who has spent the time building a community of like people who trust them versus an ad coming from your page, right? There's, there is a rise in ad blockers. There is a rise in people just in general hitting skip ad. I don't know if you've been on YouTube. I'm on YouTube. I've been on YouTube for the last couple of years. I produce lots of videos over there. We monetize our channel, but God bless. I hit skip ad when I

Starting point is 00:14:35 watch people's stuff. But if, you know, Cassie saying, or Erica saying, I really love this drink. It's a kombucha cha-cha-cha. I'm like, oh, like Erica likes it. Like she knows what's up. Like now I'm interested versus if kombucha guy did like a little ad thing. I'm like, I don't know. That's just me. And I think a lot of people resonate to like being influenced by each other. We all influence each other. Right. Oh, absolutely. You honestly nailed it. There's something that comes to mind too. I've been on Instagram lately. I don't go on Instagram that much anymore, but when I do, I'm flipping through stories and I'm now seeing ads for like prescription drugs and things like that, that you would normally see on TV where they rattle off the list of like symptoms that you might have. And then one of them is like death. Like, you know, I'm seeing that now on Instagram and I'm like, that is so interesting. The progression of like ads and, you know, I'm skipping through them. I'm not paying attention to that. And then the, the things I do actually pay attention to are, Hey, I'm, I'm doing a try on haul of these clothes. I'm like, Oh my gosh, like that person, I trust them. They have a similar body type to mine. You know, I'm, I'm very interested in like their review on that. And I'm going to trust that more

Starting point is 00:15:49 and probably buy those products versus like that ad that just gives me all this random information about a prescription drug. So totally agree. Totally. Yeah. I feel that I, it's just kind of consumer behavior nowadays. Right. So that's kind of how I ease my brands into helping them, you know, craft a budget. That makes sense. I don't want my brand partners ripping, getting ripped off either. And I don't want my, you know, again, this is when it gets unfair. This is when it gets like creator ripping brand off, brand ripping creator off. Like we need to find spaces where partnerships feel good for both parties.

Starting point is 00:16:23 And I know that space exists because I've done enough partnerships where the creator's happy, the brand is happy. So it's finding that space, not like who can get more, you know, it's really finding like a good playing field, I think. And then influencers are happy. They talk about your brand anyways. They want to keep working with you. Brand is happy. Brand is seeing results. Like that's the energy that we need to be in, not like a taking advantage vibe. And just a side note, I don't know if you guys feel this, but like we live in a space now where everything you write can like literally be on a green screen on TikTok. Like you were, no one is safe anymore. This is not 10 years ago when people would like not call

Starting point is 00:17:01 out people. Like we are in call out culture. If a brand sends a shady email to a creator, like you will see creators post like, look what granted, I don't recommend anyone to do that. Cause I think it's like a value system. And like, I would never call people out, but I see it happening. So, you know, we also now need to think about the repercussions that can have on your business by not doing things in a fairly way. And think about the repercussions that can have on your business by not doing things in a fairly way. And think about it. If you do something in an amazing way that creators like, Oh my God, this brand just sent me. They're so amazing. Like, do you guys, you guys know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:17:34 Right. Like you're seeing that. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like an unboxing of like your experience with a brand that I'm seeing a lot on social media. It's scary for the brands too. We're like, oh, like please. It can be. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:49 But that's, you're so right. You just got to make sure that you're being fair and you're just, you know, operating with excellence. And I think that across the board, if you're doing that, then you're doing well. But that kind of goes into our next question of like when brands kind of come to you to build out a campaign for them with influencers, creators, what is the first step in like working with your firm and like, how do you help them through like just navigating the first part of that?

Starting point is 00:18:15 Yes. Great question. So traditionally, I think everyone will say, we're going to start with what are your goals, but I'm going to take it somewhere else. I'm going to start with the expectation piece of it. We need to really help our clients understand realistic expectations of what working with a creator can do outside of what are our goals for our campaign. I always try to get them in a headspace of this is not a magic wand. They are not an extension of our sales team. You know, depending on how many posts

Starting point is 00:18:45 this creator will be doing, it's going to reflect like, again, one post for five seconds on TikTok. Like, is that moving the needle? I don't know. We really need to think about our partnerships a little bit. I try to like educate because even if you think that they know, they may still have unrealistic expectations. So I, that's kind of the first place that I like to start is walking you through. I always feel like I can make my clients feel good when I justify budget for content because justifying budget for content is like, well, we needed this content anyways, versus justifying budget for influence. It's more of a crapshoot, right? Because what if the post doesn't do well? What if there aren't conversions? What if the views don't do well? There's that like insecurity around

Starting point is 00:19:28 it versus like content is content. We needed to pay for this video to produce anyways, so we can all sleep at night paying for content. So I try to like in the very beginning, set up content-based strategies as well for brands that don't have any experience because then they just feel good about it, you know? And then I slowly take them into the influencer land, which is like paying for views and paying for conversions or clicks or signups. Funny enough, a lot of the influencer campaigns. So after I set them up and like get them in a good space, obviously we talk about goals

Starting point is 00:19:58 within goals outside of like, you know, sales versus brand awareness outside of that. We talk about that content influence piece. Like, are we, are we going awareness outside of that, we talk about that content influence piece. Like, are we, are we going to go the content route or going the influence route? But I also think that when we are deciding like these sort of campaigns, I also want my brands to feel what's the word I want them to feel safe in a way, like understand like, okay, let's work with someone that maybe I've worked with in the past. And that's why I always tell creators listening, build those good relationships. Cause you will get used again and again, like we'll come back to you. So like, I know a creator that I can send to my new clients that I'm like, oh, like she's

Starting point is 00:20:41 going to do great. She's going to kill it. You're going to see return. It's going to be good, you know? But those relationships take time to build with creators that I have trusted in my back pocket. So that's kind of like where we kind of get them thinking and try to do small things that produce like little wins in the beginning to not scare them off too much. Because it is risky.

Starting point is 00:21:05 Absolutely. And I love how you start with expectations versus goals, because I think a lot of times when asking someone, what are your expectations for this collaboration? What do you hope to get out of your relationship with us as the agency from the creator, from whatever it may be, um, opens the door for, it kind of drops the veil, I guess, in, in the relationship and leaves less room for surprises, maybe down the road of like what they'd expect from you or whatever. And so I love kind of flipping that on its head and that can kind of reveal some of the goals I feel like and the expectation piece, but it's more than that. Yeah. One of the things, um, oh, I'm ha I was saying it and then I forgot. And then now I remembered, um, one of the things that

Starting point is 00:21:50 brands will come to the table with like the, they, it's almost like they don't know what they want fully when we have these discussions. So they'll say things like sales and they'll say things like brand awareness. I'm like, let's dive deeper. Like what if, like, for example, perfect example, I'll give you guys two. One of the brands that I was working with had a very intense email strategy. Like they're all about growing their email lists. Like they have a million people on their email. They're all about the emails because they can sell their emails to advertisers. So this was a client that would be like, we would sell our email spots to advertisers. So I'm like, so why don't we do a campaign then with an influencer to help grow your email list

Starting point is 00:22:28 let's do a giveaway to sign up the influencer has to put in their email they were like oh like they didn't think that they could work with an influencer in that way they're willing to pay up to five dollars in email so this all of a sudden shifted, you know, the program or the campaign, because they didn't even think about it. Another client recently, again, I want to, I want to sell my product. I'm like, okay, so do we all do, but let's talk about like a more keyword based strategy. Like, would you like to rank on YouTube for your product to be like ranked in a keyword that has, you know, in your niche?

Starting point is 00:23:03 So that video lives forever. So anytime anyone types, I don't know, best baby monitor 2020 or best baby monitor, like you are part of that ranking. He's like, Oh, like we can find other ways to work with our brand clients. Like to, again, I, to get them thinking a little bit bigger about the keyword, like the strategies that YouTubers can bring to the table, podcasters can bring to the table. Like we don't have to necessarily just work with Instagrammers or TikTokers. We can have a multi-channel campaign. We can, based on the client, like I had a client when I told him about this keyword idea, he went off and he was obsessed and he was like, I want to rank for all these

Starting point is 00:23:42 keywords. So we literally were finding creators and these creators didn't even have big followers. They just ranked for certain keywords. Like, so that, you know, it made it more cost beneficial for him. Cause he's going to creator now with 3000 YouTube subscribers versus 20, you know, 20,000 or a hundred thousand fees are different. So it got him thinking, he's like, now I want to go after keywords and podcasts like any type of this. So it's like, okay guys, we can, we can work with these trusted audiences in so many different ways, you know? Absolutely. That's so awesome too, that you mentioned podcasts. We just had this conversation, I think the other day, and we were talking about how people are sitting down to

Starting point is 00:24:20 listen to a podcast for like 45 minutes to an hour of just like this, whoever they're following, whoever's podcast it is their thoughts on things because they care and they trust that person. And so tapping into like that audience is really huge and really, really cool. And I'm excited to see where that goes in the future too. I know we did a presentation to USF students on like podcasting and how that's an avenue for, for marketing. And I think I might be misquoting, so maybe I shouldn't say it, but it was like podcasting is projected to be a four. What is it? Is it $4 billion industry, Cassidy? Something like that. Yeah. Something like that. We'll fact check ourselves. Yeah. Within the next like couple of years. And so that's a huge like area. Yeah. We'll fact check ourselves within the next couple of years.

Starting point is 00:25:07 And so that's a huge like area. And I think identifying some of those other areas that are like that, where people are going to authentically listen to a creator for an, you know, an extended period of time, YouTube, like any sort of, you know, blog posts and things like that. I think that's going to be a huge thing in the future too, for sure. So it's not just sponsored posts, right. It's like, we can work with them in so many different ways. Like we can integrate into, I was telling you guys off the record, like, I don't know how this happened, but now I guess I'm like a business influencer. Um, I I'm like, I literally teach like influencer marketing, but now influencer marketing tools want to come on my YouTube, come on my podcast.

Starting point is 00:25:50 Cause they know I have an audience of a hundred thousand creators that want to learn the best product recommendations for the creator economy. So it's like for you guys too, I think about your podcast is marketing happy hour, keyword marketing, right? My podcast is influencer confidential. I'm targeting influencers. So if a brand does not necessarily need to, when they're coming up, when we're coming up with our campaigns, we don't have to just go after who has a bunch of followers. We can go after really niche creators in our space. Like you guys need a drink sponsor, right? If you're always talking about drinks, like who's the sponsor, you know, you guys need like a marketing, like working on it. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? It's like finding good fits. So like people sponsor our YouTube or our podcast, cause they want influencers to know about their

Starting point is 00:26:36 new tool. So again, all my brands need to know guys, we can find very niche creators that are going to hit the nail on the head for you that make sense. It's all about making sense, finding an editorial angle for that partnership to make sense. Yeah, absolutely. And you've mentioned this a little bit about some of the opportunities available with working with influencers. It's grown over the years. We talked about that on your podcast, how this industry has changed so drastically and how influencers are

Starting point is 00:27:06 not just the gals who are gals or guys who just post photos of a, of a product. And that's it. You know, there's so many different opportunities available. So what would you say that given, um, the influencer space now and what creators are able to do, what are brands missing out on when it comes to those relationships with creators? If they're not engaging in these type of activations? Yeah. Yeah. So that, but also just if they have this lens thinking that it's this one-sided industry still, what would you say to them? Yeah. Finding, I think finding the common thread of what your, what your value prop is, like what you want to be known for, and then finding people that can help amplify that message and not thinking of influencers as people with numbers, but thinking about influencers as people

Starting point is 00:28:01 with thought leadership and spaces with audiences and communities that make sense for you. It's like redefining the term influencer a little bit too. Integrating it to these relevant conversations that are not just like Instagram centric. Again, nothing towards, again, anything, a lot of my campaigns are Instagram campaigns, but if I was, again, a marketing brand, like, I don't know, a Monday or an Asana or some sort of click up, like maybe I want to work with a marketing podcast that has like a LinkedIn group with like people who care about marketing, like it's finding common threads, right? Absolutely. I love that. So we did a little bit of digging on our end, just looking at all of the avenues and platforms that you guys have with Sidewalker, Sidewalker Daily. And we found your YouTube channel. How do you feel about YouTube shorts?

Starting point is 00:28:54 I know that you guys are obsessed. I think that, yeah. Tell us more about that and how brands can, can collaborate with influencers in that format too. Oh my God. I'm so obsessed. But if you asked me maybe four months ago or five months ago, I would have not had the experience. We've been posting on YouTube shorts for probably the last four months. So I'm obsessed in so many ways in terms of with YouTube shorts, it's like a very sexy algorithm right now in the sense that it's like favorable, how TikTok used to be, people are getting like additional eyeballs. When it comes to working with a YouTube creator, like if you pay me to do a dedicated video on my channel, it's like a 10 minute video, it's going to be a lot more expensive than if I did a YouTube short for you, just from a monetization perspective.

Starting point is 00:29:45 It's not even a view perspective. It's like people always want to come up with their rates based on views. I tend to think the rates should also really take into time, time of production, like scripting a 10 minute video revisions to a 10 minute video, like learning your key messages and like doing a screen share. Like there is a lot of time that goes into that versus a short, a 30 second, like real that I could arguably like upsell the brand maybe and you know, post on TikTok and Instagram or come up with a nice package where it's like one short form, three avenues, you know, you get maybe more bang for your buck. Brands can integrate a YouTube short strategy the same way they would integrate a TikTok strategy or a real strategy. The thing about shorts now is there's that, there is visibility happening and a lot of growth happening on channels. So creators are seeing a big swift up in their shorts and

Starting point is 00:30:41 their YouTube subscribers. How a brand can jump into the shorts train is again, sponsoring YouTubers the same way they would sponsor TikTokers or Instagrammers, but they could also develop their own shorts, you know, strategy, their own persona, the same way that if a brand is posting on TikTok, like I have a team that repurposes my content amongst all the platforms. That became something very important for us this year. So really, what's the word? Streamline our reposting.

Starting point is 00:31:16 I'm like, if I'm going to do a TikTok, it needs to live on all the places that these like little places can live. So I think brands, not just in working with creators for their own brand identity, if they're already building out a short form video strategy, why not post it to shorts? Like what would stop you besides the administrative of like uploading it and tagging it like the time, which you could just like, you know, from a systems perspective, get this one person to repurpose your content along all the platforms. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm we're excited to test it. We recently just kind of started dabbling into the world of YouTube, which should have done a while ago, but we're trying to step into there and we're like, we need

Starting point is 00:31:56 to talk to Nina about shorts because you guys do such a great job on YouTube. So super excited and inspired by you guys to start tapping into that market and see what happens there. Thank you. I will say, I do think long form content is more authoritative. Like, like Erica said, you're listening to us for 40 minutes, 30 minutes. Um, I do think like if a brand was to come to me and like make me pick and choose, it's always hard. I always feel like I'm getting put against the wall. Cause I'm like, I don't know for you guys, like what are your goals? Like I sell courses, right? So it's like important for me to have long form authoritative content. Um, or I sell like big retainers for my brand clients. So they need to be able to watch my channel. Trust me, feel

Starting point is 00:32:37 that like they know me. I don't know if you would get that with shorts. Shorts is more like brand partnerships and like building, like, you know, it's a different, it's a different goal. So just something to consider. Absolutely. Yeah. And so I want to talk a little bit more about the influencer creative side. A lot of our audience is on the corporate side. They work in nine to five, you know, Erica and I do not, which has been interesting to kind of use our background to background to talk about our experience there, but also kind of our entrepreneurship side and kind of wove that in. But even we're seeing nowadays that a lot of people in the nine to five space are having side hustles. They're creating

Starting point is 00:33:17 personal brands for themselves, whether it's we've talked to a couple of people who have kind of career brands where they talk about getting a role in the tech industry and they've really built up a following in the community there. So I want to kind of talk to that side of things for a minute. How do you feel that creators nowadays can kind of step up and stand out to brands, maybe whether in their pitching phase of things or even just when they're developing the creative or campaigns alongside brands? Great question. So two points, if you're creating content already as a creator, you're probably going to want to think what brand,

Starting point is 00:33:57 like, so I have like 50 YouTube topics and an Excel sheet or 50 reels topics. Like all my topics are planned out. They're all keyword focused. I know exactly what I'm going after. Then I think to myself, what video can I integrate a brand in naturally? So if I was going to do a video like top 10 creator tools for 2023, like that's a beautiful video to integrate a brand into, right? My one tool that I couldn't live without beautiful video to integrate a brand into. So it's also knowing your content strategy, starting there, and then asking yourself, what are brands that naturally make sense into this topic? Because again, when you pitch that, it's going to stick. The pitch will stick.

Starting point is 00:34:37 It will make sense to the person receiving it. So that's kind of like the content strategy. And then secondly, when a creator pitches, the same thing when a brand pitches, like whoever's pitching, you don't want to send templates. You want customized pitches on both ways. So if a brand is pitching a creator to join a campaign, the creator doesn't want to see a copy and paste, right? Like, hey, there, smiley face emoji, like this is a template.

Starting point is 00:35:03 Same thing. Brands don't want to see a templated response from a creator. The creator can take those extra 10 minutes to research a brand's key messages, go on their website, see what it is they're trying to promote, do your investigative research. I always say, get your Nancy Drew hat on, you know, that way you can make the pitch feel more human, resonate better, and you're going to have a better chance of standing out versus in a sea of on value-based pitches. If your pitch is value-based, which is visionary, has a strong call to action, you know, gets

Starting point is 00:35:37 the brand excited about working with the creator because, and I'm sure you guys can all attest, being on the brand side, like we get in, we're always trying to think of good things for our clients. It's like, what's cool. What's creative. If a creator comes to the door and does my job for me. And it's like, I have this idea, like we could kill it. Like I want to do like this vision. I'm like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Like, where have you been all my life? Like, let's talk. So I think a little bit of that needs to be done as well. And that comes when the creator starts thinking of themselves as a business, like that shift happens then. Absolutely. Yeah. So I guess that kind of leads into my next question. So I am curious, someone comes to you, they want to be a creator. Maybe they're passionate about creating content. They have a story to share. They feel like they have value to share with their

Starting point is 00:36:20 audience. They want to build this community. Where do they start? If they're brand new to the space, um, what are some of the first steps you walk them through or guidance that you give them to kind of launch into the creator influencer space? Great question. Um, only because like, I'm not very good at the intro people. Like I always kind of joke on my trainings. I'm like, I can't teach you to make content and I can't teach you to grow. I can teach you to pitch. That's my strength. Because I do feel like I can help creators effectively land these bigger partnerships. towards defining their mission, which is really uncovering like this word niche, which is thrown around a lot, but it's really being known for something. And then I always lean into keywords. Like what are the keywords that you would want to be known for? If like people are searching you, what are the questions you want to answer?

Starting point is 00:37:19 So that gets my creators in a headspace of thinking, not just creating content, but being valuable. And it's not educational. Value can be entertainment. Value can be some inspiration. It's not just teaching, but what are the things that your tribe that you're trying to draw into you? What do they need?

Starting point is 00:37:35 And how can you provide it to them? Like, how can you respond to their questions in the area that you want to provide value in? So I, you know, I do have a course called niching down. Um, it's an intro course. It's helps people that are again, are at the very beginning. Um, and it is for people who don't know how to do their mission statement. Like they will leave that two hour, three hour course saying, this is my mission statement. These are, these are my values. And this is my content strategy because a content, a niche without a content strategy, like you need to, again, my 50 XL, like we know the next 50 reels we are shooting because

Starting point is 00:38:10 we have them all written down based on what the people in our audience, what they want to learn, you know? Yeah. So it's starting with niche and content, I think. Totally. Very, very smart. And that kind of leads us to talking more about the business side of like what you do with your resources and your courses and things like that. How do you use

Starting point is 00:38:31 those resources to drive potential clients down your sales funnel? Yeah. So I think I've always been told like you give away too much for free. Like I've been told that a lot. And sometimes I'm not going to lie. I do get like, I do feel like I do. And then I get like sad. I'm like, oh my God, we give so much. But we do, we really do. We built a business on people seeing a shine in our area of brilliance every single day. So when they see the resources we offer, when they come to our free trainings, when they come and read our blog, when they listen to our podcast, when they get our

Starting point is 00:39:10 newsletter, when they watch our video, they, it's like the trust is built. And we obviously use this as a way to get them to understand. I always say like, if the free stuff is that good, imagine what's, you know, behind the gate, you know, it's not more of the free stuff. It's the premium quality. So we do, in terms of like your question, getting them through the funnel, like we do use content as, as the main piece to attract, like we have not spent money in ads, you know, so it's all an organic strategy of value-based content. And then through there, we're able to, to kind of get them part of the community and everyone that ends up enrolling in a course in some fashion or joining our membership

Starting point is 00:39:57 or doing something, they, they don't feel tricked because they're, they know the quality is already there. They it's like an extension. It's like, they feel like they got like this backend, like, like they entered like a magic portal. Um, so I don't know if that, that fully answers your question. I hope so. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that kind of goes into my next question too. What does the future of your firm look like? Are you looking to create more of a certain resource? Are you looking to tap into new markets? What are you guys planning to do? Oh my God. I wish my business partner was here. She's like my publicist kind of, um, she's a lawyer. So she makes sure I am very don't reveal too much. So I can't reveal too much because I don't have her sitting here

Starting point is 00:40:45 telling me yes or no. What I can reveal, which we publicly revealed, which has been featured on Business Insider, which we got really pumped about, is a new market that we are interested in is influencer assistance. So let me explain. I talk to creators every single day

Starting point is 00:41:06 and I talk, I help creators make money working with brands to the point that they are getting crazy months. Like they come through a program, they're making crazy amount of money a month and they can't scale because they're in the overwhelm. And every single of my clients was a success story cannot scale because they don't have help. And they all want an assistant, but they don't know where to find one. They don't know how to train them. They're like, there's all these virtual assistants, but they don't know about pitching. They don't know about like what I need. It doesn't exist. There's literally no such thing as an influencer assistant. There's tons of virtual assistants that will do data entry and like social media management and post on YouTube,

Starting point is 00:41:48 but they don't know the influencer world. I know the influencer world. My clients know the influencer world. So when business insiders saw that we did a reel talking about, we are going to be, there's a lot of demand, but there's no supply. So what we want to do is create and enter a new market. In addition to being creator educators and staying in this space, because we're not going anywhere. We're only going up from here, but we want to train people who, again, want to be in the industry, don't want to be the main character, don't want to be the influencer. Maybe they do, but they want to learn first.

Starting point is 00:42:24 They want to support the influencer maybe they do but they want to learn first they want to support the influencer they want to help them that's who we're going to be training and then creating some sort of bridge to connect our current creator to the assistants that can properly support them so it's weird because it's like eight assistants like I don't know it doesn't it's not where you would think um but it's very needed to the creator who's going through my pitching course, finally starts making a lot of money and then can't scale because they don't have support. So yeah, that's so interesting. That'll be really cool to see like what that actually plays out and looks like. I have no idea. It could be a total flop, but it could be amazing. Um, but I, but I know there's a need because everyone in my

Starting point is 00:43:08 community, like me and I need to hire someone. What, like, how do I train them? What do I train? Like, what do I do? They don't know. They're like one person shows. So developing that is that's, that's one of the projects that I can reveal, but when I'm ready to reveal other things that we're working on, you guys will be the first to know. Yes. You'll have to share any updates with us and we'll share it with our audience as well. Awesome. Awesome. Well, we're reaching kind of the end of the interview here, but we do ask this question to everyone. We love to ask it and it's, what do you know now that you wish you knew early on in your career? We have a lot of listeners that are kind of fresh out of college, kind of navigating their

Starting point is 00:43:50 first job, things like that. What would you say to someone, if you could go back in time to your younger selves, just starting out, what would you say that, you know, now so many things I know I learned from failure I don't learn from my wins ever I never learn through something that does well I always learn through something that flops I fail all the time I think I should create a conference called like the failure conference because now I feel I'm like always failing because I'm always testing and I'm always trying. Yeah. Big words of wisdom here. I think I always say perfectionism is the enemy. People really think that other people care about them. Like no one cares. And I say this in a kind way, like how many people are we all like swiping through a day? You know what I mean? So it's just get started, You know, don't let the perfectionism hold you back.

Starting point is 00:44:46 Also, obviously there's no cheat code, but consistency, consistency is the only cheat code. So many people quit. They don't make it because they quit and owning your business is really hard. So good luck. It's just really hard. That's not a word of wisdom. It's just an expectation. We live in the TikTok world where people go viral overnight and they think they have a business. They don't have a business. Owning a business. I've been, I've been in my own business owner and entrepreneur for a very long time. And yeah, it takes time, baby. No quick wins, no quick wins. So you just have to know that you're in it for the long run. And that once you hit a milestone, you will never be satisfied with that milestone. You will always want more.

Starting point is 00:45:29 I call it the entrepreneur curse. When you have your best month, you think it would be the best day ever. It's not. It's actually the worst because you're wondering, will I hit it again? So I just think it's like a growth journey. And it is just that. It's a journey. So I'm like, good luck.

Starting point is 00:45:48 That's so good. I think we need to normalize that more. There's like a stat out there, like some of the biggest companies, you know, Apple, whatever it may be, Google, you name it. Most of those companies have failed way more times than they have succeeded. It just takes all of those failures to, to kind of get us there to where we need to go. And your point about like, you're not a big deal is so funny because one of my mentors, um, he led like one of the biggest companies ever. And he says that that's like one

Starting point is 00:46:16 of his core talking points. He's like, listen, I ran a huge company. I was at the very top and I was not a big deal. He's like, you think you are a bigger deal than you actually are. We're here to like serve and to help other people. And so like, stop feeling that way. And I was like, man, you're so right. It's so, so funny. Yeah. I love that. That's like a co-sign. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Nina, this has been so fun, such a fun day. We had, we were on your show, which was a blast. And now you coming onto our show so much fun. We can't wait to just share everything that you've been doing and that you're up to. We'll link everything in the show notes below. Uh, but before we close out, can you just tell us where everyone

Starting point is 00:47:01 can stay in touch with you? thank you thank you guys and thank you again this has been so fun I feel like I'm blushing just like laughing I get it together Nina um okay so obviously YouTube is like wifey you know I love YouTube it's like it's funny you guys like research this there I've been and I tell you it was joke my channel is kind of boring because I'm like today we're talking about, but it is very educational. So YouTube, obviously the podcast, Instagram, TikTok, all of it under Sidewalker Daily. The only thing that's different is the podcast is influencer confidential. One thing that I did want to shout out if it's okay, is that if you are a creator and you do want to work with brands, we host trainings. So I'll make sure to send you guys that link because they're free trainings and they're monthly and people love it.

Starting point is 00:47:49 And if there's brands listening in and they want to learn how to work better with creators, I will leave a link to our brand, our agency, the consulting side of it. So good. Yeah. I would encourage anyone, even if you're like, I don't ever want to become an influencer, just stepping into those shoes and learning from the creator standpoint will help you better create campaigns and work with creators. Um, and so having that knowledge, regardless, even if you're like, this is not for me, I think is so incredibly important. And so go check out Nina's resources on our website, podcast, everything,

Starting point is 00:48:25 because I promise you it will help so, so, so much. Thank you. We have, um, interesting, I just want to add before we sign off, we have a design studio in our agency. So we have like an entire design team. And for the most part, this obviously started because we would do big brand decks, right. And campaign briefs for our brand clients. Like we would design these things. And obviously we design media kits and all the things for our influencers. But remember, they're speaking to the same coin. Like they're the, it's like two,

Starting point is 00:48:54 it's the same microphone, just different sides type of thing. So I think, yes, to the brands, like listening, learning, kind of like what you said, Cassie, like the creator perspective can ask you to know the right tools to ask for the, you know, the right way to charge or what's fair. What's not all of that.

Starting point is 00:49:12 Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you guys. Yes. Thank you so much again. It was such a blast having you and thanks for listening to Marketing Happy Hour. That's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to rate and leave a review. And as always, follow us on Instagram at Marketing Happy Hour. That's at Marketing Happy HR. You can also find all of the links you need from this episode and more in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:49:45 See you soon.

Marketing Happy Hour - Re-Defining the Term "Influencer" | Nina Zadeh of Sidewalker Daily

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