Morning Brew Daily - Morning Brew's Macy Gilliam On How To Take Over Social Media

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

Episode 222: Neal and Toby chat with Morning Brew social video producer Macy Gilliam. They ask her the tricks behind going viral, how to constantly come up with creative ideas when working in social media, and what is it like to march in the Macy's Day Parade when your name is Macy? Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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pwc.com slash US slash brew AI. That's pwc.com slash us slash brewAI. Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. On today's pod, an interview with social media legend in the making, Macy Gilliam. Macy is a social video producer for the brew, and she spills her secrets on how to go viral and why TikTok is still the best platform out there. It's Wednesday, December 27th.

Let's ride. If you follow Morning Brew on social media, you have no doubt seen Macy's. face. She is maybe best known for her excellent video series called How Does This Place Stay in Business, which has been seen by millions across Instagram and TikTok. So we wanted to sit down with her to talk about everything from early career anxiety to why Cro-Shing is the perfect antidote to social media. But first, a quick word from our sponsor, Yahoo! Finance. It's Christmas break. You've probably unplugged for a bit, but the markets are back open, which means you need to stay informed. And this is where Yahoo Finance mobile app comes into play. You can

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only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. Macy, thank you so much for joining us, and by joining us, I mean walking over from our desk pod into the studio together. You're so welcome. Thank you for having me, finally. It's been a minute.

We've been wanting to get you on the pod for a little bit. Neil, excited to have Macy in the pod. So excited. We're big fans of your work. Thank you so much. I'm sure you guys don't know that much about me since I never talk about myself. Never, never. Never.

Never. We're going to try to go behind the Macy that doesn't talk about ourselves to the inner Macy for our audience. Let's start off here. So when kids are asked about their top career choice, their number one answer these days is YouTuber or social media personality. Well, Macy, you are one. So is it everything it's cracked up to be? I think it can be.

In my case, it is. I love my job. But I think a lot of independent creators and a lot of creators for brands don't have the same experience I have. I used to create content in-house as like a social media manager. And like that wasn't fun. It's not, it's not the most fun to have to constantly create content as a brand. That's essentially all an ad. And it's not the same if you don't have like a,

team around you if you're doing everything yourself. So in my case at Morning Brew, I love it, but that is not the experience everywhere. So what advice would you give to these kids? Definitely start on your own. Figure your stuff out. Try it. Figure out if you actually like making content, what kind of content you like making. And then if you're looking to join a company, definitely check out your support system at the company, what the team would look like around you and make sure they're not just going to expect you to be a one-man content machine. Toil in the content mind. That is a theme we've heard about a lot when we talk to individual creators where it seems,

you know, they're the only ones on the camera. So it looks like they're doing everything themselves. But the really successful ones have a huge team behind them that is helping with everything from business to editing. And it makes life so much easier. And if you're just by yourself, it's kind of hell. Yeah. I think that can be the case a lot of the time.

Yeah, at Morningbury, we have a huge team that people never see that we are so grateful for. But it helps a lot. So you mentioned this term creator. How do you feel about that term? It seems like everyone has been using it recently to describe an internet personality. So would you describe yourself as a creator? I would describe myself as a creator, but I think that creator is like the absolute vaguest term for what I do. Like you guys are also creators and writers are creators and Steven Spielberg is a creator when you think about it.

So it doesn't feel like an especially useful term. but I think that the specific terms for exactly what I do and exactly what you do are too specific that there's not a term for it. So like podcaster. Podcaster, but like also writers and also like not all podcasts are the same. So I feel like creator is not a great term, but it's all that we have. And beyond that, you have to use a lot more words to describe exactly. As long as it satisfies the relatives asking at Thanksgiving at Christmas. What is it that you do, Macy?

I guess it'll do. I don't know if creator sounds like that. Well, podcaster sounds even worse. Let me tell you that. I do want to dive into kind of your earlier days at Morning Brew. You started off as a Twitter slash Instagram manager, mostly not an on-screen personality, but now you have a totally different role. I'm sure a lot of young people out there listening are navigating a similar path of kind

of starting their careers at their first companies. What would you tell someone about kind of navigating that early career turbulent times where maybe you start out doing something that you don't think you want to do for long term, but you want to evolve into a bigger role. Yeah, I would say what I did is just immediately make it clear that, like, hey, I like what I'm doing. Pretty good at it. But here's what I'd like to be doing. So in my case, I like went to our video team and I said like, hey guys, anytime you need someone in a video, like, throw me in. This is what I'm interested in long term. And I got to like slowly get into it like that. And then I like worked up to writing my own scripts and then eventually editing and then eventually becoming full time.

So by immediately making that interest known and like doing small tasks when you can, it definitely helped me transition. And then I took a lot of what I learned on Twitter and managing our Instagram to my current role. So like on Twitter, I was tweeting like once every 30 minutes, which is a lot. So it's a lot of topic selection where I was really getting to know our audience through tweeting that many times a day. I could see like which things, which types of jokes, which topics were hitting with them. And I use that now. So a lot of it is, one, just clearly communicating where you eventually want to be. And then two, kind of using your current role, don't get mad at where you're currently at,

but use it to kind of fuel what you eventually want to grow into. Exactly. Macy, one of your most popular series is, how does this store stay open, where you go to small businesses around New York City that appear to be out of another century? One, for example, sells chess sets and another hawks pigeons. Were there any similarities, any connective tissue that you've been? found among the owners of these stores when talking to them? Absolutely.

They could basically all be stand-ins for one another, really. Big similarities. They're not doing it for the money. It wouldn't make any sense to me. Many of them have even used the phrase, like, they are using this as an outlet for their hobby that they would already be doing. This one guy that's the old globes told me that essentially, before he opened the store, he had all these globes just in his apartment.

So it's nice to just have somewhere to store stuff. And if he can get rid of it and kind of clean out the collection once in a while, making a sale is great. But it's essentially just something he would already be doing. It's a deep passion to the point where they would be doing it, whether they're making money or not. And it's a passion to share it with people, which is, I think, why you open a business like that. They also all are struggling with rent. Those who don't own the building and those who do own the building are saying that they wouldn't be able to keep it open. So how do they stay open?

It's a different case, but I mean, most of them have had to adapt to selling online. And then a lot of them are now the last remaining ones in the city where that then kind of gives them a boost again. Where like, you know, if there are two typewriter repair stores open, you're rough. But if there's only one left. Are there any particular stores that you want to visit in the next year? There are a lot. You would not believe how hard it is to schedule these interviews. These people, their brains kind of like shut down when I say the word TikTok.

So like it's hard to explain to them what I want to do, why they should be interested in spending the time to do it out of all the things they have going on in their day as a small business owner. So scheduling the interviews is hard. There are so many I want to go to. It's so cool looking at the comments and people saying, I'm going to go there. I'm going to take an order from this place. That's the best part.

There are those videos that we just spoke about do extremely well on Twitter or on TikTok. We're talking in the multi-millions of views, but I want to kind of dig into what is it about your videos or just the videos you make in general that grabs people's attention? Like, what are some of your tactics to help people stop their mindless scrolling and say, hey, I'm going to watch this particular video. I like to keep, I like to stay focused on what made me interested in the topic in the first place. So for these, it's how does this place stay in business? I generally start with a question.

Like, have you ever wondered this? or something like a little hook at the beginning, and then definitely text on screen and a really good visual first, where the text on screen you can quickly read what the whole video will be about, and the image will also kind of show you that. I like that starting with something

that you yourself are generally interested in because usually that reflects to a wider audience. That's why I stop, so that checks out. All right, Macy. Our final question around your job before we get into The Real Macy, who are some people or accounts that you have drawn inspiration

from in the social media space? In the social media space, it's hard because I wouldn't say there are any particular accounts. It's often random creators we see or random trends popping up that we should mimic this. We should put a business, finance, spin on this. I would say I get a lot of inspiration from non-social media sources. Famously, my favorite TV show is CBS Sunday mornings. I love everything about them. It's so wholesome.

I think that I want the How Are You Still in Business thing to be giving the same energy as CBS Sunday mornings. It's the best program ever made. Loki, I also love CBS Sunday morning. It's a great show. Everyone around me loves it as well. You've got to get on it. I've never seen it. Tape it and then watch it without commercials. It's on YouTube. Okay, some of the good ones. I guess I'll watch Macy's

videos too because it's giving CBS Sunday morning. All right, before we jump into the next part of our interview with Macy, we're going to take a quick break. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of Both worlds.

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and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Okay, our listeners might not know this about you, Macy, but you have some non-typical hobbies for a 23-year-old,

including sewing, crocheting, lots of crafting. Why is crafting kind of as a practice something that you enjoy so much? I think that when you're on your phone 10, 12 hours a day, as I am every day, you have to get off your phone and make something physical with your hands. I can totally zone out. I can have a physical product to show for it when I'm done. It's really relaxing and it's really the opposite of what I do all day for work. So it's...

You're also incredible at it. I've seen Macy in action and she can take a ball of yarn and turn it into something very, very quickly. It is kind of the polar opposite of what we're doing in here. So I see, so it's the mindless aspect that actually appeals to you. Yeah, it's something where I can turn my brain off, but also be doing something physical instead of like turn my brain off scrolling TikTok. When is the Macy Etsy store coming? Many people are asking. Including us.

Including you. It might come. I think it might ruin it for me. If I'm trying to hit a certain quota, if I'm trying to sell stuff. And people might say, how is this place staying in business? People might see that, and it would be fair. Yes. Okay, Macy, famously, you've walked from the tippy top of Manhattan all the way down to the bottom twice now along Broadway.

What is your favorite stretch of the island? My favorite stretch of the island, so to do this, you take the subway up to 225th. Yeah. My favorite stretch is from 225th to the park, which is about a two-hour walk. you're hitting Inwood Park and Fort Tryon Park, which are absolutely gorgeous. You're seeing so many neighborhoods that I've never been up to before. And they're really beautiful neighborhoods. There's a farmhouse up there that's like an original Dutch farmhouse from like when this was New Amsterdam, which is like so interesting to see.

Like it's parts of the city that you never go to, but they are part of the city. Like it's a good strategy. It is nice up there. Inwood is underrated. Very underrated. You did not have the typical American college experience either. If I'm not wrong, you went to university in Spain. And as someone who's an outside observer, you have a unique perspective on this. So I'm very curious.

How much does that classic college experience dominate our culture? Like, do you feel left out when people hang out with their college buddies or gather to watch their team play football? Or is it just not that big of a deal? I don't see it as that big of a deal, but maybe because I wasn't there, you know. So I don't know what I'm missing. But I don't feel like it's that big of a deal. I feel like if you did go to school here, it is that big of a deal. But I don't feel like I missed out on something.

I definitely got something completely different, but I knew that going in. But I would say that, yeah, American college culture is, it forms your identity a lot. And I just have a different one. And what reason did you, like, why did you go to college in Spain? So I was in high school and I had some friends who were from Spain and they invited me to start visiting Spain with them. And I really loved it. They were planning to go to college there. I was planning to study international business

and I knew I didn't love any schools in the U.S. and I didn't really want the whole like sticky frat basement experience. What? I know. It's hard to believe. That is funny. And so it all sort of fell into place that like they could help me figure out

the logistics of moving there and I had two people that I'd be living with that spoke Spanish to help me get started. I'm jealous. I never got to go abroad in my college experience and your entire college experience was abroad. Okay, Macy, I'm going to put you on the spot here for a second. You listen to Morning Brew Daily a little bit on your commutes to work. What is one thing that you think Neil and Toby could work on? This is a safe space, Macy.

Let us have it. I'm a big fan of the pod, a long-time listener, first-time guest. I think I would love to see more of your classic Neil and Toby joking around. We get so much of it in the office, and I feel like a lot of times you're like, maybe it's just because you're rushed for time on the pod trying to get actual information through. but I feel like we get a more fun side of you in the office that the listeners might enjoy. We've got to turn it up, Neil. We've got to josh around a little more.

I'm just trying to get the numbers right, you know. It might be hard at six as well. That is for dang sure. Okay, a lot of the content you make centers around generational differences in the office, you are obviously representing the Gen Z population. Are actual generational differences that, are there any of that you've actually observed? let's take Neal's office behavior for one as a 32-year-old. Is that much different from Macy's office behavior as a 23-year-old?

I think that at our company specifically, it's not a big thing because we don't have a formal culture. I think at other companies where there is like this culture of formality and hierarchy, those differences are probably more noticeable. And I'm trying to make content for a broader experience, not necessarily the experience just here, since this is a pretty non-typical experience. I'd say so. So I think that here, no, everyone here is pretty casual with each other and doesn't have a big generational differences.

But I feel like at other companies is probably more noticeable. It is interesting how that content seems to resonate. The generational battles and conflicts. I mean, that always kind of pops off. I think at companies where, I mean, if I was 23 at another company and I was trying to figure out what the level of formality was and trying to. address the right way. I probably would be missing a lot of those marks as I tried to adapt to that. So it's very noticeable when someone is super young and doesn't know what they're doing. It's probably

more noticeable. Especially coming out of COVID where if you're a young professional, you went to, maybe you went to college, but a lot of it was remote and you didn't have an in-person internship, which was kind of our first experience of getting office work. And then you come into your office for the first time, maybe three days a week. But it is your first experience. So there's probably something to be There. All right, we have final rapid fire questions. Ready? I'm ready.

Okay. Kiss, Mary, Kill. Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok? Okay. Kill Twitter. Kiss Instagram, Mary TikTok. Merry TikTok. You're going, that is a toxic relationship right there.

I think I got to kill TikTok. I know this question was not directed at me. At all? I totally hijacked it. We have to edit that part now. I can't believe marrying TikTok. I like TikTok. You like it a lot.

Toby, it's, you're. Yeah. From a content creator perspective, I like TikTok. From a content consumption perspective, I like TikTok. Yeah, that's fair. Why is that so bewildering? I just think it brain mishes you the most of the platforms. I guess Twitter does as well.

I don't know. I just didn't expect you to... Twitter, to me, I have felt a genuine negative shift, especially if I'm on the 4U feet of Twitter. Like, I can't go over there. It's crazy stuff on there. So you're more of a 4U TikTok page. I'm a 4U TikTok.

Okay, I respect your decision to marry. Thank you. All right. This is a question that. social media managers everywhere have always been wondering, and I'm sure amateur social media managers have been wondering as well, does the time you post actually matter? I don't think so. I think that your efforts in trying to make actually good content are much more important than your efforts in trying to game the system. It doesn't matter how much you game

the system if you're putting out terrible content. It doesn't matter. I love this answer. You can tell if someone's kind of a rookie, if they go, which should I post at 938 or should I wait for like 1042? And yeah, all that matters is the good content. Thank you, me. Macy. What is the best part of marching in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade? Getting to tell everyone, did you know my name is Macy? Because then everyone is so much more excited for me because it's so special to be in the parade that I grew up watching.

My mom told me it was my parade. It has my name on it. And so this happened this year. What float were you in? Where were you in the parade? What was your experience like? They're randomly assigned. So I was walking with the Louisiana Tourism Board Float.

I was accompanying a stilt walker, and that was pretty good. I was nervous because I didn't really know what my duties with the stil walker were. Am I supposed to catch them? It wasn't really clear. Break their fall. I think so. Luckily, I didn't have to do that. The one thing I really loved was how crowded it is with people watching, and I get to, like, yell and wave at all of them and, like, tell them happy Thanksgiving.

I genuinely had no idea it was randomly assigned who walked with what float. That blew my mind. I think if I get closer with the casting director, which I will try to do, I could have more of a pick. How many people are coming up from the Louisiana Tourism Board? Listen, when I'm watching on TV, I genuinely thought all those people are from Louisiana. Why would I think differently? I don't know. No, they're pretty randomly.

They're paid actors, no. We were not paid. My whole childhood. They're not paid actors. Okay, best thing about working at Morning Brew? Our team. I feel like we have a really great team. I love that as well.

worst thing about working at Morning Brew? Phone addiction. Oh, no. I thought you're going to say our team in certain times. All right. Our final question, we're coming up to the end of the year. What is one big goal you have for 2024? Jesus.

Goal for 2024 is more content. More content in the content farm. I'd love to do more of the How Are You Still in Business? We'd love to get a handle on getting those interviews done. I would love to see if I can find another series that resonates with people. Also, you signed up for a marathon. Did you not? Okay, I'm not signed up for the marathon yet.

I have verbally committed to the marathon many times to run it with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, which I do a lot of work with. And their guy told me I have a spot, but it's not confirmed. I'm just holding you to it because I'm excited for you. Your training has gotten off to a good start. And now you verbally committed in front of... And now I've verbally committed... Tens of thousands of people.

Yeah, Marathon Macy. I can't wait for it. Macy, thank you so much for joining us. You can follow her on all social media platforms at Macy A. Gilliam. Also follow Morning Brew, if that isn't enough, Macy for you. A pleasure, as always, and we'll see you around the office. Yeah, see you guys. Thanks, Macy.

Let us know what you thought of the show at Morning Brew Daily at morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our editor and producer. Samantha Vela's and Raymond Loo, our associate producers. Yuchinawa Ogu is our. technical director, Billy Menino, is on audio. Hair and makeup is definitely going to follow Macy on all the platforms right now. Devin Emery is our chief content officer and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. When the job gets tough,

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