We talk about:

• The perks of being an Influencer (0:48)
• Using new platforms, overview (3:39)
• Reddit deep-dive, including Laniege’s foray onto the platform (4:32)
• Substack & Instagram Subscribers – free vs paid, providing value for your audience (18:33)
• Creator paywalls – an opportunity to leverage your superfans! (31:15)
• Our million dollar idea that will certainly happen on Instagram Subscribers at some point (33:14)
• Your follower funnel – how to find new audiences as you evolve as a Creator (41:32)

Let’s Connect!

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The Transcript

Michelle: [00:00:00] welcome back to inside the click. This is your weekly deep dive into the creator economy. I’m Michelle.

Monica: I’m Monica.

Michelle: Let’s get into it.

we Have to talk about Split.

Monica: I keep going back to… Why do people keep doing it for Shopbop specifically, because Shopbop is lower on Split. It’s not like it’s a Bloomingdale’s where it’s like a higher thing, and I only see it with Shopbop.

Michelle: Something that could be happening is maybe… They maybe shopbop is telling the influencers that if they bring people through split links, they’re giving them extra. It’s like a bonus program that they’re doing on the side.

Monica: Yeah, that’s true. We’re like, because that’s true. They do have a really good influencer program where you get it’s like revolve where you get, a monthly stipend. I know. It’s

Michelle: legit. [00:01:00] Yeah. Wait, so if you’re a part of their influencer program, you get a certain amount of money like every month to

Monica: buy this stuff? Gosh. I know Kourtney Kerr does it for Revolve and then I’ve seen a few Dallas girls do it Shopbop. I don’t know like the details and all that but I do know that they do get sent clothes

Michelle: That is so cool.

Monica: I know

Michelle: man. What am I doing?

Monica: I know that’s when I’m like gosh I really would like to have a monthly stipend to revolve. That would be nice

But

Michelle: you could though I feel like you’re always posting and you have a good personality

Monica: I could. I was telling, I was talking to my good friend about this because I was basically telling her, I was like, I’ve done it before, but I feel [00:02:00] like it was a fluke and then I can’t do it again.

And she was like I’ve never met anyone who accomplished something when they didn’t believe in their selves and and I was like. I know. I know.

Michelle: Oh my god, that is so funny.

Monica: But yeah, I was like, I guess I just have to decide. I do think one of my things is I need to be doing work that is, I can’t just take outfit photos. And that’s what I got burnout on the most

Michelle: No, I get that.

Monica: That’s the negative side of it that people don’t talk about a lot cause it’s not glamorous at all.

The perks are, but the perks aren’t the eight every day. And then there was and then that’s why I started doing the coaching stuff because I was like, okay, I can help other people do that. And that’s where I was always the most fulfilled was like interviewing people, helping other people start their own stuff and all that.

But I wouldn’t be able to [00:03:00] do like a true here’s. the picture of my outfit. Here’s my Abercrombie try on every single week.

Michelle: Yeah, that’s The thing though. That’s why it could be a good idea for if people aren’t sure if they want to do it full time for them to just start doing it on the side. Because every Job there’s fun stuff and there’s not fun stuff. Yeah. And also We’ve talked before about just needing to be camera ready all the time and It just gets very exhausting.

Monica: Yeah. It does. It does.

But I do think that is why what we’re talking about today with the new platforms that I don’t think everyone should go jump on all these new platforms all at once. Like you have to weigh if it makes sense for your audience or not, but I was thinking about how

okay, so we have [00:04:00] Substack which is growing in popularity and Reddit is interesting now that brands are like paying attention to Reddit.

But another one that I was thinking about, which is Instagram. So within Instagram, you now have the subscribers feature. And I look at the subscribers feature as it’s like own little separate thing. So it’s almost what are these three shiny new objects? Reddit, Substack. Paid subscribers on Instagram.

Michelle: How do you think, because the Reddit one is really surprising because yeah.

So how do you think that you should start to figure out what platform to branch out on?

Monica: ,first of all, understanding your audience and if you would have to create an audience from scratch, because that’s a whole endeavor in and of itself. If you’re someone who [00:05:00] doesn’t even have a Reddit login, like me, I don’t even have an account and I have to do the thing where if someone sends me something, then I have to decide if I want to download the app.

Reddit is very overwhelming to me because it’s just like a whole different world. Which is probably a blessing because the way I can go down rabbit holes, like I would spend all day on Reddit probably. But, so if you’re someone like me who like doesn’t even know how to access a Reddit article because you don’t know if you need to download something, whatever.

Maybe just because you see that brands are now working with Reddit people. Maybe that doesn’t mean dive into that.

Laneige, there was an article that says that they’re putting money behind these skincare reddits. And you do, you read the skincare. So you know way more than me like how that would even work because yeah, I guess you just throw in a link and there’s probably experts within these [00:06:00] forums.

Michelle: So you know what is actually funny?

Monica: Are you an expert in the forums?

Michelle: I feel like I’ve had different lives in reddit. It’s a whole world. It’s fascinating to me. Yes. I found the best Game of Thrones theory on there years ago. That was better than what the show ended up being.

I have it favorited. I can send it to you. It was amazing. Yeah, I’ll find it and we’ll put it in the show notes, but there’s definitely different communities on there. There’s, like Fitness ones and there’s little pithy things where, Reddit can also be pretty cruel.

Monica: There’s a lot of influencer ones where people just go to town on these influencers.

Michelle: Yes. I have seen some of those. They’re brutal.

Monica: Yeah. I’ve seen people post like court documents from like a girl’s divorce and the restraining order on her husband and like people [00:07:00] theorizing about it. It gets, it’s wild.

Those are the ones that people send me are the ones that have to do with influencers. But other than that, I can only imagine because it’s so niche. These things are like so specific.

Michelle: Yeah, that’s, what’s interesting is. When you sent me that article, which now I’ve seen like a couple of other times, I immediately went to a few skincare subreddits.

I actually, The funny thing was on the Sephora one, literally, someone posted within two hours ago that they got, I thought it was called, I thought it was pronounced Lawn ee age, so

I’m gonna, oh, I don’t. I don’t know how the correct pronunciation is. That’s what I’ve always said. How did you say it?

I said Laneige. I like that better. I have no idea. Because it’s a Korean brand, right?[00:08:00] K Beauty? Is it K Beauty? I don’t

know. I got the lip mask, by the way. And everyone says it’s supposed to be life changing. I thought it was fine.

Monica: It was fine. The Tatcha one is better. The Tatcha one is a lot better.

Michelle: But yes so not even two hours ago, and this was, I looked probably an hour ago or 30 minutes. Someone posted a complaint about one of their lip glosses like exploding all over. Yeah, so I was like, that is unfortunate timing that all this stuff is coming out about the brand. And yeah, the Sephora subreddit has between two and three million people.

So it’s not nothing. Yeah. So how do you

Monica: get, how do you stand out? So let’s say a brand reaches out and is We’re gonna [00:09:00] pay you 500 to post on Reddit. Are they creating their own subreddit, most likely, and that’s where they’re posting about it? Or are they going into these Sephora subreddits? I keep wanting to call them forums, like it’s 2007.

I

Michelle: think also the fact that we’re saying subreddit so much is making me be like, Is it called a subreddit? I know, I’m like is called a subreddit.

Monica: Yeah. So yeah, so are they like having people like who are like experts within these? Because I’m guessing there’s some people that you just know are always there, the leaders of the groups.

Is it like Facebook groups where there could be the admins and then the kind of support

Michelle: people? So yes, but those people need to be affiliated with like the Reddit owner, because there are also guidelines a lot of the times where you

Monica: wouldn’t know by how [00:10:00] crazy it gets.

Michelle: I know.

But that’s, because they haven’t set up the rules, but so that what I was doing in a lot of subreddits was I was trying to find some posts from them because I wanted to know if it’s ads. Because they actually have ads in feed, so that’s one thing, or I wanted to be like, are they actually posting or are they trying to get people to post for them?

What was interesting about being in the Sephora one, I stayed there longer than the general beauty one because it was a little more like bashing. Where how a lot of the reviews now for Sephora are incentivized.

Monica: So with all these incentivized reviews, do you think that’s hurting the Sephora brand because everyone now knows?

Makeup, beauty, skincare, all [00:11:00] that is something that you do look at reviews for. I’m trying to I look at reviews for that and probably shoes, trying to figure out how it fits. Those are the things I lean the most.

Michelle: Yeah, so I feel like a lot of that started because they wanted to make sure that people understood like, hey, this person was paid or gifted the product or whatever to review it.

Yeah, so that the intention started really well. It started good. But how it’s evolved, it’s how on and I only know about this because a company that I used to work at launched a book and they were all like, review it right now, get everyone to review it and buy it.

And they gave us all. Like a credit card. So we could, or a credit buy it from Amazon and then review it. And then [00:12:00] it became an Amazon bestseller. And like the first day it was like ridiculous. A lot of brands are doing that now when they launch new products. Because have you seen that where sometimes it will be like just launch like actually Rihanna’s new Fenty foundation stick.

I really like it because the color match is like divine. Yes, but I looked the other day and it hasn’t it wasn’t even like a day on Ulta because I got it at Sephora and then Ulta got it online like a few days later. Yeah. Yeah. It already has 300 reviews, and I’m like,

Monica: yeah, okay. That makes sense. I have done one incentivized review before for PetSmart

I love that. What was it? It was for a holiday blanket and bed set. So it [00:13:00] was green, a green, and. White blanket and bed and so like Ralph had to pose in the bed and with the blanket.

I was like, it’ll last five seconds, but I’ll do this for the dogs. They can have a little gift.

Michelle: Yeah. What do you, if you’re looking at a product on Sephora or Ulta, do you pay attention to the incentivized reviews or what do you do?

Monica: No, unless they have a picture. If they have a picture, then I’m like.

Okay, fine, because I’m actually seeing it with my own eyes. But if it’s incentivized, no picture, no context of like there are other things like, brunette, blue eyes, whatever, then I’m just like, I don’t know what I’m doing with this. This isn’t helpful.

Michelle: Which that’s [00:14:00] interesting because when it comes to Reddit as well, depending on how they actually execute this, it’s with some of this stuff, you need to have pictures. But then sometimes with Reddit it’s just, you’re going back and forth and it’s just banter. Yeah.

Monica: I don’t know. I find,

Michelle: it’s, I don’t, I really wonder what research they did on this to be moving forward with locking in on that. I

Monica: would think that they probably, Are looking at their traffic and seeing the last click and seeing a lot comes from reddit because if you think about it Conversion is probably high because if you’re going through the reddit thing about a specific makeup product It’s probably because you’re already on the fence about it and the deeper that you go Reading about it.

Then maybe you’re more likely to just be like, okay. I’m just gonna purchase it [00:15:00] versus If you are just looking at someone’s story on Instagram, you haven’t invested as much time in that story, because it was probably 30 seconds and you just saw them putting it on or whatever, versus sitting there reading, scrolling through in research mode.

Michelle: Reddit’s also very good with SEO, like some, you know what I mean, if you’re, so to your point, if you’re doing research, then you might find yourself on Reddit. So that, because one thing that I always see about that lip mask is that it’s viral. It’s awesome. Yeah. So then maybe it does make sense for them to be on Reddit, and maybe that is something that if you’re trying to take advantage of a viral product, that’s the platform to go on.

Monica: Yeah, that’s true. [00:16:00]

Michelle: It’s like virality stuff. Everyone just wants to be viral everywhere. I know.

Monica: And, had That lip stuff not gone viral, they probably wouldn’t be the brand they are today. Definitely. And I do think people are starting to talk more and more about how the lip mask isn’t the end all be all.

And so maybe they’re like needing a boost to be like, Oh shoot, people don’t love this as much as they did a year ago.

Michelle: Right over the next week or so. We should keep tabs to see if we see any of this stuff yeah, I can take

Monica: you may need to keep tabs because I’m still trying to figure out how to just open a link

I’m telling you there is something about if you don’t have the app the it is It almost makes it look like, and this is user error, but basically it implies that you [00:17:00] can’t move forward unless you download the app.

For, so for the longest time, I was just like, oh, I guess I can’t open it. He’s in really small print. It says continue to web. A little user error, a little not great user experience.

Michelle: That the UI of Reddit is the worst when I, cause I jumped on to the Reddit train late. it has been a thing for a very long time and I mainly, the reason why I made an account was to comment on that Game of Thrones theory and be like, this is so smart.

Good job, but when I first started using it, I was like, this is gross. Yeah. I don’t like the UI, but

Monica: that’s why Is it intentional to keep it looking how it looks?

Michelle: So. It’s like, why do I have this saying stuck in my head that Reddit is the underbelly of the internet? [00:18:00] It’s just it makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. People don’t really care about what it looks like or what not, they just want to go on Maybe to get the truth. I say that very weird because I don’t even know. I’m sure there’s a lot of,

Monica: it is probably 90 percent conspiracy theories, but if there’s a place to go to conspiracy theories, that’s probably your best bet to start with.

But so Substack also does not have the greatest. User experience. It’s more relatively new, but I do think it’s interesting that so many creators are already jumping on the sub stack boat, because I feel like sometimes creators wait until it looks pretty before they sign up for it. I don’t know. That sounds really silly, but they really lean heavily towards [00:19:00] very user friendly, visually appealing UI.

Michelle: Which does make sense.

With Substack, though, because I do subscribe to one now.

Monica: Okay. Paid or free version?

Michelle: Free version, but actually your Reddit experience? Is basically, I would say 90 percent of my experience with on a free one where it’s like, you can get all this stuff, but it’s paid. So that’s where you have to really make known what value you’re giving to your audience.

Monica: Oh, it’s so true. Yeah, and that’s the same too with Instagram subscribes. You better make sure if you’re making people pay 4 a month to watch your stories, because they’re [00:20:00] stories that you’re delivering on that because I don’t know, maybe some people don’t care about like the morality ethics piece or whatever.

They’re just like someone decided to pay like this is what they’re getting, but in general, you do, if you’re, even if you’re going to start charging people 2 for a subscription, 2 a month, you still need to be giving them something that they weren’t getting before.

Michelle: Even outside of a morality thing, if you don’t provide people something that they like, you’re, you’ll only have a subscription for a month.

Yeah. That’s, and people are gonna keep just flowing in and out of your platform.

Monica: That’s true. I have a friend who has been doing subscriptions, Adriana, from the age edit, and so she’s started lean heavily into it in the [00:21:00] last two months. Her big thing was, Okay, I’m getting married. I’m going to have a lot of wedding content.

And if, and she gets people asking her every day about wedding stuff, just details, everything. So she was like, you know what? I’m going to put that behind the subscribers. She was charging like 2. Wedding week, everything is going to go there and that was compelling enough for her audience to turn into subscribers, which is amazing because it’s like she understood what her audience is most curious about today and then she put that.

Over there as exclusive content. So that’s really cool how that worked. And then what’s really funny is So she’s one of my best friends, but I didn’t subscribe to her stories I was just like told my [00:22:00] friend Giselle’s who was also at the wedding. I was like, keep me updated But

After the wedding, and now we’ve been back, I was like, I haven’t seen her post stories very much. I usually she’s very she has conversations with her audience through her stories. So she does a lot of story times and things like that. So a lot of times that’s where I first hear about things.

And I haven’t really seen that. And then she did this post the other day that was like If you’ve been wondering where I am, it’s not that I’m off the grid. I’m still posting here, but I’m posting the really interesting like story times that are more in depth. They’re a little more personal.

And they’re over a hundred subscribers and I was like, ah, now I have to start paying you.

So I signed up for subscribers, but as we’ve been talking about [00:23:00] this, there are things that are really interesting. So Instagram has made it so easy on the business side to manage subscribers. It is wild. She was telling me once you sign up, you’re locked into that price.

You sign up. So let’s say. If you want to test it out and you make it 99 cents, then when you raise your prices, those early subscribers, they’re locked in at 99. You’re not also being like, Hey, I’m going to start upcharging you, which is good for the type of content it is.

And then the other piece was interesting, you can set something up so that, let’s say you want to run a promo, you can toggle and say, for the next 5 people who subscribe, they get this rate that they’re locked into, and then once it hits that 5, instead of her having to manually go in and change the pricing and all that, It just [00:24:00] automatically does it and there’s so many times where things like that you have to change your own prices and do all this Instagram has it so set up and then if someone cancels their subscription it Automatically offers them a lower price to get them to stay come back or whatever and send Incentivizes them to stick around. That’s so great that’s already built in to basically manage that financial piece for you, where all you have to worry about is giving good content to your audience.

Michelle: So 2 things 1. Going back to the wedding content and sharing that and whatnot.

Outside of Knowing what her audience wanted, and just being able to get a pulse on that, it was also something that she was going through personally, and that she enjoyed doing. Because you also don’t want to be in a situation [00:25:00] where you’re like, okay, my audience loves seeing these morning selfies, and you hate taking them.

But then you’re like this is content that they like, so I guess I’m doing it. And as you start to do more and more of those things, it can snowball into just not enjoying it at all. Yeah. So that’s why I agree.

The second thing is when it comes to some of the business stuff that Instagram is taking care of, which yes, that is awesome.

Being able to find tools like that. Where yes, you don’t think it’s a big deal like, okay, you’re going to think about a retention program for if people try to leave, or you’re going to lock people in, or you’re going to have to go in and enter all the pricing. [00:26:00] It’s little things like that, similar with the stuff that you don’t enjoy doing.

Anytime you can give yourself some shortcuts and just remove some of the businessy stuff, if you don’t like that, or even just admin, like if you’re doing 20 different things and you have to shoot for four different campaigns and post your affiliate stuff, and then you’re thinking about content themes for the week, you’re not going to want to remember oh, yeah. Okay. So right now my email or my sub stack is 5 a month. That’s right. I wanted to increase it to 7. Yeah.

Monica: And what I really am intrigued about with Substack, I only have a login. I haven’t done anything with it, but I like how it becomes your blog. It’s your email list because it’s also a newsletter.

And then there’s a [00:27:00] podcast section. And then, yeah. And then, of course, then you have your paid member to Tears or whatever and as I’m looking at this and like thinking about this for like my own stuff I’m like, okay, so I wouldn’t have to pay for my MailChimp subscription anymore my mail So my newsletter And my actual blog would be under the same platform.

There’s just, they’re hosting so much all in one. And I don’t know what the pricing structure looks like if you’re like trying to use all their features, but I do wonder does it also lessen the barrier to entry if you’re new and you don’t have a lot to spend on all these tools?

Because, for example, I’m working on a capsule wardrobe pdf right now, and I’ve already created the first piece. And, it’s gonna be free, but in order to have the funnel [00:28:00] be how I want it to be in MailChimp, I have to upgrade to… One of the paid tiers so then it’s do I really want to pay for something that I’m just offering for free And yes, like it has affiliate links So it’ll generate something but something like substack where I can just have my whole world live there It’s very intriguing to me.

I don’t know the ease of use, again the payment structure, all of that. But at initial glance, even at their website, how it’s move your blog to Substack. Because then you have all of this here too. I’m intrigued.

Michelle: It’s something to think about. So When debating what platform you should dive into a couple of things one, what Monica said earlier about the audience and where they’re at. Something like the Instagram subscription, that would [00:29:00] be very easy. Yeah, you already have your audience. It gives you a. Just consistent monetization that would probably depending on how many subscribers you have also take some of the pressure off from I have to post all these affiliate links. I have to be in all these campaigns, right? And so you can have a little more fun on the Instagram platform.

If you do venture into other platforms, you can one, try a light migration for something else and even just see how does that take. But as a part of that, Monica, what you were just saying, is so key using the platform and understanding what is the experience that your audience would get because what I’m going through right now.

And I do really like the person that I am [00:30:00] subscribed to. Her name is Emma Gannon, and she’s all about multi hyphen. Live you don’t just have to do 1 thing. You can do a million things and build your own lifestyle and whatnot. And she’s written books and stuff. I get emails from her.

It’s not really on a set cadence because I’m a free person. Got it. Okay. But I see every other word when I was signing up just for the free one was like, you can subscribe. Oh, you want this? Too bad. You’re not a subscriber. And of course, I didn’t actually say that, but it’s the very.

Yeah, so that’s something else to think about when it comes to the user experience is it might be really nice to have all of your content in the same place for you, but then are you able to provide enough value for people like? At [00:31:00] a baseline where they’re getting some benefit and then they’re intrigued to up level, but not everything is behind like this subscriber paywall when they don’t even know what you’re doing for them.

Monica: Exactly. One other thing that is interesting with these paywalls for creator content, which first of all, it only makes sense if a creator is creating content. They should be able to monetize that if they want, but I have had a conversation with a friend when subscribers first came out on Instagram and there was this creator I’m blanking on her name right now, but she was like, I’m going to share my dating experiences over on subscribers.

It’s a little more personal. This girl has like hundreds of thousands of followers. So she has a lot of hate followers and a lot of creators, [00:32:00] especially like fashion, like the ones that have been around forever, they have a lot of hate followers who are just watching her to like gossip with their friends about.

So she was like, I’m just going to put that there behind the paywall because that’s where I know it’s like the people who are following me. They want to be a part of this journey with me and aren’t gonna be sending horrible messages all day being like you are No wonder you’re single blah blah blah, that’s and so my friend was saying that’s so ridiculous that she’s putting it behind a paywall Because her job is a creator to give us content and to share her life And I was like she doesn’t owe you any what she doesn’t owe you one detail of her life She gets to choose what she shares how she shares it and she was like no when you become a creator You that’s it’s like being a celebrity you’re signing yourself up [00:33:00] to sharing your whole life with the world I was like, I disagree with that so much

one of the most empowering parts of being a creator is that you do get to control your own narrative Yes, and celebrities don’t get to do that.

Michelle: You know what I just thought of I’m sure that this is going to happen, but there should be a branded feature where brands can pay for a certain number of subscribers or something at a certain rate and, or essentially they’re sponsoring the subscription. For a week, right? For example, with Adriana, with the wedding, what if I saw her dress was from David’s Bridal?

Monica: Yes, I was literally going to say, what if David’s Bridal?

Michelle: But what if David’s Bridal literally sponsored just for the wedding day and there was like a watermark or something?

Monica: Oh my gosh, that [00:34:00] would be so cool. And, again the benefit to the brand is they know that’s that creator’s most loyal audience.

So conversion is going to be higher because it’s not watered down by the hate followers or the person who followed them once and forgot who this even is. Because once You get into the 50, 000 plus followers, not everyone there is the ideal shopper for that. And I feel like sometimes brands don’t realize that.

A lot of times. Brands expectations are they have 50, 000 followers. So I’m going to expect X amount conversion, not taking into account. Again, like I know some girls who I’m starting to think their primary audience is almost the hate followers because, and sometimes. It’s gotten so out of hand that now when someone [00:35:00] accidentally sends a DM to that person instead of to their friend to talk shit they’re now posted on their stories with the person.

There was one. There’s a Dallas girl I follow, Amy Havens, and she’s been around for forever. Her style really resonates with me, but to some people, she has a very strong personality. And she has a three year old kid. So she posted a picture of her three year old kid, like they made him a little DJ booth.

Because he likes coming up with little mixes or whatever. This girl meant to send this to her friend, but literally typed in, Oh my gosh, this kid is 3 and he’s already a douche. And sent it to her. First of all, why are you even saying that about a three year old? Completely unnecessary.

Yeah. So I wish you’d post that. And [00:36:00] Dallas is such a small world that I showed my boyfriend at the time, and I’m like, look, this person said this about a three year old. That’s pretty… That’s pretty low to troll a three year old. And he was like, oh my gosh, I went to college with her. She’s best friends with so and and this girl was like in his like, secondary group of friends from college. So it was like his core group and then like the outside group. And I was just like, and this girl just got blasted to 40, 000… People who are mostly Dallas people. So it’s I personally think it’s okay that she shared that because I don’t think that you should be able to.

Troll, say online bully, all of that, because you think you’re behind social media. And that there should be accountability. I know some people when she does stuff like that, they’re like, you shouldn’t be like sharing who said [00:37:00] these mean things, but I’m like, no, especially if they’re coming after your kid.

Michelle: Yeah, but that’s one reason why Reddit can get away with that because a lot of the people there are just like anonymous, blah, blah, blah. And there’s no photos and it’s just like little alien guys or whatever. So yeah.

Monica: But yeah, too. it’s especially if you are charging to pay for the content.

So let’s say the subscribers, then you get even more power to be like, I’m going to post what I post about, that, and do it in a safer space. In a way you’re creating a safer space where I would be very concerned if someone hate follows someone and pays to the subscription because they’re so obsessed with.

Gossiping about them. I’m sure it [00:38:00] happens, but it probably lessens the yes. It’s wild that there’s even a term hate follow. That kind of sucks, but people are people.

Michelle: Yeah, you just if you are very strong in your convictions and what you’re doing you just have to keep going after it and not let any of that bother you.

No.

Monica: I, when I had a YouTube channel when I was like, 18, 19 someone commented about my eyebrows, and to this day I’m self conscious about I was never self conscious about my eyebrows. To this day I still am, because they said this at such an impressionable age. Yeah, and I don’t think this person, whoever they are, even know that they made that comment.

Doubt they know they ever commented [00:39:00] that, because it was probably a five second thought, they posted it, and it’s something that about a lot. Wow. And I’m thirty Your eyebrows are great. I’m thirty three now. Thank you. I have an amazing girl at Dalash. She gives me a little mini facial, and then she does my brows, and it’s Amazing for 50.

I get a 15 minute facial and the brows done. 10 out of 10. She’s amazing. Her name’s Faith. But yeah you just. You just never know the impact that your words can have.

Michelle: Yeah, that Also does really show the strength in these subscription type things. Because even just for mental health, That’s gotta be so refreshing where you just have your, I don’t want to say groupies, but you have like your people.

Yeah. And there’s Much less of The people who want [00:40:00] to see you succeed.

Monica: That’s who signs up for that.

Michelle: And it’s Interesting to think if we do start to move into more of that type of a world, which it would also make sense because that’s where a lot of newspaper publications are going, right?

Like online, there’s so many paywalls, so many subscriptions like that. But the trick is then how do you keep going back to the business side? How’d you keep building your funnel? Because attrition is inevitable. Even if you have a really engaged audience, some people are going to leave. Yeah. So how do you motivate people so that they either bring their friends in or Like you post appealing enough stuff Like even with adriana with the wedding.

I was like I’ll probably get the [00:41:00] highlights, even if I don’t subscribe. I’m already married. I don’t need wedding inspiration, but it’s like, what can you do to make it so that someone doesn’t say that where it’s oh, okay I’ll probably still get the best stuff or the most important stuff or whatever.

It’s fine. How do you create a compelling enough, yeah. Space publicly for what is really behind that subscription.

Monica: I like that.

And I like talking about the funnel piece of it, because that once you’re in your groove, let’s say you’ve been a content creator for five years and you have your really loyal base.

You start to think less about acquiring new followers you have your core people who are helping you make this a reality, but where it gets interesting is then life stages. So if you’re a lifestyle creator, [00:42:00] let’s say you started growing your following in your mid 20s, And then your late 20s, you get engaged, you get married, have kids, but your core audience didn’t follow that path.

And now you’re sharing all baby content and all your favorite baby products and you haven’t posted one outfit picture in six months. I’ve seen how friends, Suddenly

are like

my engagement is changing because my content is changing and I’m excited that my content is changing. But now what?

And other people there’s some people where I’ve followed them for years and now they only post kid content. And so I unfollowed them, even though I hung on for a while because I still thought I liked their personality, I thought the takes were interesting, but it gets to a point where [00:43:00] it’s just completely not relevant.

And that’s Okay for all that to happen. I don’t think that if you start as a fashion blogger, ten years later, you have to be a fashion blogger by any means. But I don’t know that there’s always a strategic plan for making this. The transition.

Michelle: So what are some things to think about if you are going to be doing that?

Because you don’t want to be going back to the fashion blogger example. If you have a family and now you’re going to soccer games and packing snacks and whatever, you’re not going to want to, or you may not want to post the fashion stuff anymore. So you can’t, if you want to keep having a fulfilling. experience being a content creator, you’re not going to want to do what you don’t want to do and what you don’t enjoy. Like what we talked about earlier. [00:44:00]

Monica: Or that’s not even the realm of your reality anymore. You’re not wearing a cocktail dress to go to the newest restaurant three times a week anymore.

You’re just, the opportunity’s not there.

Michelle: Yep. So how can you start to plan for that?

Monica: One, Is understanding where the majority of your audience is at, because maybe they’re all in that stage too, and there’s like a few people, but most of your audience is new moms and that’s great. That’s best case scenario, but at least, you pulled your audience, you drop the questions on what they’ve been searching for.

It can literally be as easy as, what are you shopping for right now? And if everyone’s saying a diaper bag, there’s your clue. Now, if not one person dropped a diaper bag in there, then… That is where it’s time to [00:45:00] get strategic

the first thing that comes to mind is teaming up with a creator who is already in like the mommy blogger space and start like meeting up and sharing stories together. Not just like meeting up to just talk about things, but being together in that person’s stories So that their audience is oh, she’s cool, too. I want to follow her.

Michelle: You’re so smart. That would work in a situation where it’s okay, do you want to meet up?

And the person’s yeah, I’ve got some extra time. Let me help you. But then you also have to think about some ways that you would also be able to help. It’s not to say you have to do it every time, but you don’t just want to reach out to 10 mommy bloggers.

Monica: No,

it has to be, [00:46:00] it definitely has to be like organic and it’d be like, of someone who you’re not just trying to ride their coattails for sure.

I do think another idea that just came to mind was. Brand collabs and on the brand collabs instead of it necessarily being just you posting that on your own content But negotiating something to where they’re putting the content on their own feed so that then You’re tapping into their audience as well.

Yeah. Because sometimes these brand collabs you’re posting and the brand will never reshare your content. I know there’s the problem, the other direction that then the brand shares the content and you didn’t get paid for them to do that. But I do think that could be an interesting way to tap into that new audience.

Michelle: Yeah, not only that, you could just even say, [00:47:00] especially if it’s like an audience acquisition play for yourself, you could just even say, these five photos, you can tag me, you don’t have to pay me. But I want to partner up on writing the copy or whatever, just to try for the chance of getting them diverted over to your profile, because it is like a little bit of an acquisition play.

Yep. You could do creative things like that. Yeah,

Monica: I like that a lot because I also really just like this as a reminder that it’s okay to pivot your content and that you don’t have to be An xyz creator the rest of your life. You can be a fashion creator and now go into your diy era That’s okay.

So many people are like, this is what you are, this is what you know converts, so this is what you’re married to. And I don’t think that has to be the case. And sometimes Some people really blow up after they pivot, because that’s [00:48:00] where like their energy is and that’s what they’re excited about and people feel that.

Taylor Swift, right? Started in country and then totally switch. But the thing with this industry, though, is you do need to put a little more planning. into it because it is human behavior that you’re trying to influence. So that’s gonna take a while longer because you’re not going to just be like, everyone, let’s migrate.

Bring your parent friends here. Let’s

Michelle: go. They’re gonna be like, what the heck? Invoke some sort of reaction and people have to be interested in what you’re doing. And so you Should really think about long term What are you thinking and not to say that’s where you absolutely have to end up but you have to [00:49:00] have Where you want to go, where you are now, and then start peppering in some of that content.

And I was also thinking with polling the audience, you can ask yes, what are you shopping for lately? You can also make it a little more relevant, especially coming up on holidays and be like, who are you buying holiday gifts for? Yeah. Oh, that’s good. If people say Oh, my friends or whatever, you’re going to be like, Oh, yeah, yes.

That’s one thing. But if it’s like my kids, my husband’s that’s going to be

Monica: different. Exactly. Teeth are teacher. Things like that teacher gifts. I’m like a teacher gift has never crossed my mind, but some people are like I’m so stressed of what to gift the teacher Because they already have so many candles My mom

Michelle: so many apples

Monica: My mom was a teacher [00:50:00] and literally she has a closet at the house she retired two years ago, she still has a closet at the house that is literally candles.

Because, over the last 30 years.

Michelle: She never has to buy another candle.

Monica: No, she doesn’t. And then she’ll give me some so that I can re gift them. And it’s like the easiest, it’s the easiest thing in the world. It’s just like the candle gift closet. That’s

Michelle: great. That’s

Monica: awesome.

Speaking of holiday, next episode, , should be like the holiday prep episode.

Michelle: Yes. Next, next week’s long episode, or two, depending on how long it is going to be all about holiday. Which, if you’re not already planning for it… You’re not quite too late, but almost, so we’re going

Monica: to help you’ll want to listen to the episode. All right. Thank y’all for listening. As a [00:51:00] reminder, podcast episodes, like the full ones are out every Tuesday on Wednesdays. We break down the word of the week, our little creator dictionary that we’re creating. And then on Fridays, we are sharing five on Friday, which is. What’s going on in the influencer marketing space in under five minutes. Thank y’all for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review if you’re new here.

And we appreciate you. See you guys later.