Speaker 1: Afrotech Conference is back, bringing together over twenty thousand tech enthusiasts, founders, investors,
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Speaker 1: your spoted afro Tech Conference twenty twenty four today visit
Speaker 1: Afrotech Conference dot counted by your ticket Now. I'm me
Speaker 1: Lucas and this is Black Tech, Green Money. Nicky Sonders
Speaker 1: is a powerhouse in the world of content strategy and
Speaker 1: personal branding. She's the content strategist and founder of Deeper
Speaker 1: than the Brand, where she helps entrepreneurs, speakers, and creatives
Speaker 1: grow their digital footprint authentically. She's best known for her
Speaker 1: work with motivational speaker Eric Thomas, better known as et
Speaker 1: what she helps scale his online community exponentially. She's passionate
Speaker 1: about helping others turn their social media presence into a
Speaker 1: vehicle for success using the power of storytelling, AI and
Speaker 1: impactful strategy. So what goes wrong when I believe I
Speaker 1: have a post that's fire and I post it and
Speaker 1: it goes flat and nothing happens, nobody likes it? Like
Speaker 1: what happens? Nikki? Help me out?
Speaker 2: I mean, it could be a few things like that.
Speaker 2: That's such a broad questions, Like, it could be.
Speaker 3: The timing, It could be anything from you didn't have
Speaker 3: the right hook.
Speaker 2: It could be the algorithm.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things like it's I always look
Speaker 3: at when I post and it goes flat, I look
Speaker 3: at me first.
Speaker 1: Yeah right.
Speaker 3: I think it's easier to control what I post and
Speaker 3: what I put out and what I create instead of
Speaker 3: going ah, the algorithm is doing what it does.
Speaker 2: I was like, because I can't.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's a cop out when other people
Speaker 3: numbers are clearly are doing Okay, I'm just feeling a
Speaker 3: certain kind of way because no one's listening to me
Speaker 3: at this moment.
Speaker 2: But then I have, like I look at it from
Speaker 2: a standpoint of all right, visually, how does it look?
Speaker 2: You know, what was the first three seconds? Did? I? Uh?
Speaker 2: I keep their attention?
Speaker 3: Because depending on the platforms, if you get them to
Speaker 3: listen through the whole way through, like that could be
Speaker 3: a thing.
Speaker 2: So it's it's just it's a lot of things. It's
Speaker 2: a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Our pictures on Instagram.
Speaker 3: Dad, No, No, it's just you feel me like you
Speaker 3: got to put it extra loving it, So you may
Speaker 3: have to put like some music, feel me. You may
Speaker 3: have to make it into a carousel, so you may
Speaker 3: have to say extra stories. You may have to be
Speaker 3: a little bit more intentionals with the captions and make
Speaker 3: it a little bit longer. What happens is what the
Speaker 3: days of I post a picture and I say one sentence.
Speaker 3: Now that's dead, let's just stop it. It doesn't even work.
Speaker 3: But the more that they add features, we have to
Speaker 3: pay attention to it. So they're allowing you to add
Speaker 3: text to it, They're allowing you to add extra.
Speaker 2: Pictures on top of your pictures.
Speaker 3: So you look at, let's say, the different features that
Speaker 3: are inside of Instagram, and you use them, it probably
Speaker 3: better you reach for your post.
Speaker 1: And so what I learned, and this is a year
Speaker 1: ago or more, what Instagram does is they count swipes
Speaker 1: through your photo gallery as engagement. And so what I
Speaker 1: wonder if because I actually enjoyed these particular types of
Speaker 1: posts where there it's a gallery and like none of
Speaker 1: the yotos match, like they just you know, maybe one
Speaker 1: is a quote, another one is me eating, the next
Speaker 1: one is you know, something random. I actually enjoy though,
Speaker 1: so tell like, what is that about? Why are people
Speaker 1: doing that? I enjoy it? But where did it come from?
Speaker 1: What happened?
Speaker 3: So sometimes they follow a theme, right, Sometimes they could
Speaker 3: be super just randomness, but it really gives you a
Speaker 3: sense of personality of the person who's posting it or
Speaker 3: the brand who's posting it, right, And so that's not
Speaker 3: necessarily normal in the way that we normally post that.
Speaker 2: Now it's starting to be attractive.
Speaker 3: So when we're seeing, Okay, I have a picture of
Speaker 3: me at the park, but then I have a funny
Speaker 3: meme on the next one, and then I have a
Speaker 3: deep quote, It's like I'm fully truly understanding who you
Speaker 3: are as a person, rather than the thirty second sixty
Speaker 3: second videos, ninety second videos that can be kind of
Speaker 3: like staged and scripted. So sometimes we don't necessarily get
Speaker 3: your full personality unless it's those types of posts or
Speaker 3: even lives. That's why lives still kind of have a
Speaker 3: little bit of energy to it because we get to
Speaker 3: know who you are because you can't really lie on
Speaker 3: a live It's just impossible as truly as possible.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna ask a question. I'm gonna go the
Speaker 1: long way around to ask this question because I think
Speaker 1: this is important context. So we talk a lot about
Speaker 1: how educational institutions don't teach financial literacy, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them do now they're increasingly teaching financial literacy. And
Speaker 1: I say that, you say this when we talk about
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and people who are trying to build businesses. Don't
Speaker 1: post the struggle, but they post the highlights, so you
Speaker 1: only see the highlight reel. But when you do post
Speaker 1: the struggle or we find it difficul two post truckle,
Speaker 1: I'll say that, so how do we solve for that?
Speaker 1: So when we talk about the academic and they trying
Speaker 1: to fix that. How do we fix you know, the
Speaker 1: entrepreneur who's trying to show you that he's winning or
Speaker 1: she's winning and they're finding success and therefore follow me.
Speaker 1: I'm on a row somewhere, but that struggle, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to sound like I'm on here doing the
Speaker 1: Tyree's cry.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, right, But the Tyresse cry
Speaker 2: worked good or bad? It worked?
Speaker 1: You feel mean?
Speaker 3: So but I say that because I think now in
Speaker 3: the season that we're in, the day in the life
Speaker 3: is starting to get more play, then I fully got
Speaker 3: it together, right. And those people who are actually taking
Speaker 3: advantage of that is like gen Z and Jena, like Alpha,
Speaker 3: like they're really going into day one of trying to
Speaker 3: create a billion dollar brand, right, and they show everything
Speaker 3: about it, good or bad. Those people who can't do that,
Speaker 3: it's a self issue. It has nothing to do with
Speaker 3: the algorithms, the platforms, Does the content work or not?
Speaker 3: Because society culture is over.
Speaker 2: The highlight bils.
Speaker 3: We want the actual things that work or that doesn't work,
Speaker 3: or I want to feel like I'm not alone anymore, right,
Speaker 3: And so those people who are showing, hey, this is
Speaker 3: how I.
Speaker 2: Do this, I don't know if it's right. I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's like, but I'm going to do it anyways.
Speaker 3: It builds community, and so those brands are starting to
Speaker 3: get more and more traction because it's community centered, it's
Speaker 3: for the people. Whereas, yes, the ones that only show
Speaker 3: the highlights are great, cool. You can look at it
Speaker 3: more like as these are goals. I want to get there,
Speaker 3: but I feel disconnected because you're already there and I'm not.
Speaker 3: So I could look at you kind of like I
Speaker 3: look at it more of like we do.
Speaker 2: The vision boards, so I could post.
Speaker 3: Your brand, your content on my vision board, but I don't, like,
Speaker 3: I don't truly feel connected until I am there. Where
Speaker 3: people who are posting about Okay I made ten dollars today, Okay,
Speaker 3: I made three thousand dollars today, Okay it went back
Speaker 3: to like four. Like, those are starting to get a
Speaker 3: little bit more attraction. It's still not of the masses
Speaker 3: just yet, but you start if you pay attention. It's
Speaker 3: definitely more popular on TikTok at this moment, but it's
Speaker 3: starting to make waves on YouTube, on Instagram, on Facebook
Speaker 3: as well because people are just starting to like, are
Speaker 3: just over the highlight reel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that. So I asked Maddy, what are
Speaker 1: the same question? And I'm gonna ask it to you too.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I live in Teed, Ohio. I live
Speaker 1: in a place it's not like an LA in New
Speaker 1: York and Chicago where there's always like beautiful stuff to
Speaker 1: pose and my life is amazing. I'm walking in this
Speaker 1: place and I'm walking in that place and got the
Speaker 1: little furry dog and life is wonderful and beautiful. TikTok beautiful,
Speaker 1: but like and most of the people who listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast are not in LA, New York, Chicago, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So how do you how do you develop that day
Speaker 1: in the life content when your life doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: that kind of exciting?
Speaker 2: You just document what you do.
Speaker 3: So meaning I'm an introvert, so nine out of ten
Speaker 3: times i'm in this area, I'm in front of computer
Speaker 3: screens and that's it. The crazy thing is, I think
Speaker 3: my life is boring, but other people don't.
Speaker 1: Right, your life sounds like my life. I'm sitting right
Speaker 1: here eight hours a day in.
Speaker 3: The fjority of the time, but you're doing things that
Speaker 3: people wish they could, like you feel what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So creating a podcast, creating any type of content, people
Speaker 3: are like, yo, show me how right? Or how do
Speaker 3: I create it? How do I have interviews like you?
Speaker 2: How do I ask? How do you prepare? How?
Speaker 3: Like we take for granted what we do every single
Speaker 3: day because we do it every day and it's super easy.
Speaker 3: But if we was to start documenting it and showing
Speaker 3: that simple, simple format, do it on stories, see how
Speaker 3: it does right? Because we as humans need to build momentum.
Speaker 3: I need to know this works before I really put
Speaker 3: all my energy to it, right, and so put in stories.
Speaker 3: See like day in the life. Okay, boom, I'm walking
Speaker 3: my dog. Okay, maybe that doesn't get that much views,
Speaker 3: but okay, I'm about to bullet journal and write out
Speaker 3: all my task.
Speaker 2: And how I'm feeling. And they're like, oh, you have
Speaker 2: a routine.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, right, okay, Like, okay, I went, I
Speaker 3: went to the suna and cold plunge.
Speaker 2: You do that? I was like, yo, I talk about
Speaker 2: content and AI all the time. Y'all concerned about when
Speaker 2: I go to the sauna and cold plunge. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 3: So it's it's interesting to see that what we think
Speaker 3: is not important, like it really is important to people
Speaker 3: because there's a sense of your expertise and who you are.
Speaker 3: And so you can show one only and then people
Speaker 3: feel disconnected. So if you show both, Yo, I'm on
Speaker 3: the I'm on the the journey of making my company
Speaker 3: over six figures, right.
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, I gotta call my mom right,
Speaker 2: make sure she's good.
Speaker 3: I gotta go and Instacart messed up, so I gotta
Speaker 3: go to the joint over there and make yourself normal.
Speaker 3: This is where storytelling comes in, and storytelling is the
Speaker 3: key part of any brand if we pay attention to
Speaker 3: anything right now, the ones that are killing it know
Speaker 3: how to tell stories. This is why Nike has been
Speaker 3: what they have because they know how to tell stories.
Speaker 3: They're not selling shoes, they sell stories. Apples sell stories.
Speaker 3: And so we look at the best and be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: how do I turn a problem into a story?
Speaker 2: A relatable story?
Speaker 3: And so my boring life is going to be turning
Speaker 3: into a story that can relate to somebody who lives
Speaker 3: in Oklahoma right chilling in the crib, who may only
Speaker 3: have a one bedroom at the time, but can see
Speaker 3: like yo, it's not about the space, it's about the
Speaker 3: story that you tell.
Speaker 1: So you caught a break working with Eric Thomas legendary
Speaker 1: et where when you started working with him? What were
Speaker 1: the what were those numbers?
Speaker 2: Like three hundred k at the time.
Speaker 1: That's Instagram YouTube? What was that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Instagram?
Speaker 3: Uh, Facebook was about two hundred and something YouTube. I
Speaker 3: don't nowhere near a million at the time, but yeah,
Speaker 3: those those were what I was working with.
Speaker 1: And when you do did you stop working or when? Where?
Speaker 1: Where did we go? How did Nicky grow this?
Speaker 2: I mean, we're still working with E. I love E.
Speaker 2: I'm not going nowhere. I'm one of those loyal people like.
Speaker 3: I have my own stuff, but he's he's family. I'm
Speaker 3: always going gonna make sure that he's good. Where are
Speaker 3: we at now, that's why we're still rocking.
Speaker 1: Where we at now on numbers?
Speaker 3: Uh, over two million, two point two on Instagram, about
Speaker 3: to hit one point five on YouTube, and we at
Speaker 3: one point nine Facebook.
Speaker 2: Be acting crazy.
Speaker 3: We're literally at two million with Facebook, but like one
Speaker 3: point nine mil right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is what's so interesting to me because you
Speaker 1: know he obviously he's dynamic, obviously. Yeah, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot of dynamic people like what happened? How did that happen?
Speaker 1: To triple, quadruple these numbers.
Speaker 3: So I concentrated more on what people wanted than necessarily
Speaker 3: what the algorithm wanted or even what he wanted. So
Speaker 3: if people are looking for bars from him, I'm going
Speaker 3: I'm going to do that. The easiest way that we
Speaker 3: made from like where he was to the first million
Speaker 3: was I figured out the best quotes, the best bars
Speaker 3: that everybody was loving, and I posted those things. So
Speaker 3: anytime that he had us, anytime he had an event,
Speaker 3: I would post exactly what the audience want, read the
Speaker 3: comments and go, Okay, somebody's feeling this way, let's find
Speaker 3: a message based off how they're feeling. Right, and really
Speaker 3: went through the feedback based off what the people wanted.
Speaker 3: Because if you cater to what your audience wants, they're
Speaker 3: going to share it.
Speaker 2: I'm not here to fight that.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to be like, no, we're only going
Speaker 3: to be posting about whatever we're selling, whatever we're doing.
Speaker 2: No, these platforms.
Speaker 3: Are for brand awareness, So I'm going to always do
Speaker 3: different clips based off what people said. If there is
Speaker 3: a sports event that just happened, then You're going to
Speaker 3: see some images of that with EA's voice on it.
Speaker 2: That makes it more relevant. So figuring out the trends.
Speaker 3: Whether there's a sports event, whether there's something political, whatever,
Speaker 3: whatever people are talking about that can be related to
Speaker 3: what he's saying. Put it together. So between that and trends,
Speaker 3: it grows. But I concentrated more on the content, the
Speaker 3: body of that instead of just the tips and tricks
Speaker 3: of the platforms.
Speaker 1: So were you anti or for repurposing the same content
Speaker 1: across different platforms or does your Instagram content need to
Speaker 1: be developed for Instagram.
Speaker 3: In the beginning, it was a little bit separate, right
Speaker 3: because if we think about maybe just a couple of
Speaker 3: years ago, there was different languages. But because of the
Speaker 3: rise of short form videos, it's almost the same, right,
Speaker 3: because you got reels on Instagram and Facebook, you got tiktoks,
Speaker 3: you got YouTube shorts. YouTube shorts just made an announcement
Speaker 3: saying that they could go up to three minute videos
Speaker 3: starting somewhere in October, right, so it's going to be
Speaker 3: the same. It's about how can you tell the story?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: So in the beginning, yes, one was only taking long
Speaker 3: form videos. The other one was only taking texts and pictures.
Speaker 3: The other one was only taking thirty second videos. So
Speaker 3: in the beginning, understanding the platforms, you have to do
Speaker 3: a different strategy. Now it's starting to be repurposing it
Speaker 3: in a strategic way, right, But even.
Speaker 2: That, like.
Speaker 3: How do you address each audience of the platform. So
Speaker 3: for example, if I was saying the announcement of the
Speaker 3: YouTube shorts making it up to three minutes, I would
Speaker 3: do a green screen on TikTok saying, hey, YouTube shorts
Speaker 3: are about to be three minutes. You could take your
Speaker 3: tiktoks that are over a minute and put it on
Speaker 3: YouTube shorts. If I was saying it on Instagram a
Speaker 3: your videos that you do on Instagram reels, you could
Speaker 3: put it on YouTube. Now I'm catering to each of
Speaker 3: the audiences, so we would change the captions, we would
Speaker 3: change the formats at certain points of whatever the energy
Speaker 3: was going to be on that platform. But for the
Speaker 3: most part, it was just like strategic repurposing. Like his
Speaker 3: whole his whole content is repurpose content. There's this weekly
Speaker 3: new stuff, but majority of it that you see where
Speaker 3: in any major brands, it's all repurposed content.
Speaker 1: You know, timing matters so much in social media, and
Speaker 1: I wonder, like, so like when I got, you know,
Speaker 1: involved with afrotech. I went to my first Afrotech conference
Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen, and I was like the only
Speaker 1: person back then vlogging every day. I was walking around
Speaker 1: the whole conference like this come, vlogging all day long,
Speaker 1: editing that night in the in my hotel room, publishing
Speaker 1: that night Friday light like who is this guy? And
Speaker 1: I did that every day at that conference. So that's
Speaker 1: that's how I got on the radar of a lot
Speaker 1: of the executives. And so I've so my question is this,
Speaker 1: like how timing matters, Like now you go to aprote
Speaker 1: everybody's doing that when I was when I did in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, it was like one of maybe two people.
Speaker 1: And so if I want to jump off the bridge
Speaker 1: on YouTube, So there was a day where people would
Speaker 1: just say, you know, I'm gonna do thirty days straight
Speaker 1: of YouTube content, I'm like, shameless. Maya did this some
Speaker 1: years ago. It might have even been a year, but
Speaker 1: I think she for sure did it every day for
Speaker 1: a month and she blew up. Does that still work today?
Speaker 1: So if I said, you know, I want to pop
Speaker 1: on YouTube. I'm gonna go hard. I'm gonna do thirty days.
Speaker 1: I'm in, and hopefully by the end of that thirty days,
Speaker 1: i'm up. I got my YouTube plaque coming. It's up.
Speaker 3: So I would have say you probably get a YouTube
Speaker 3: plat guarantee, right, but I will say it does. It
Speaker 3: does work for a few reasons. One, most people who
Speaker 3: do that weren't consistent on it anyways. So now you're
Speaker 3: building consistency. Any platform respects consistency, and once they start
Speaker 3: seeing you post more and more, they're like, hold on,
Speaker 3: let me let me push you out because you're here
Speaker 3: every single day. Now, Hello, I kind of like you.
Speaker 3: Now before I wasn't taking you serious, but now I
Speaker 3: kind of like you, So let me post it to
Speaker 3: As a as a creator, you get better. Right, your
Speaker 3: day one to your day twenty five is going to
Speaker 3: be completely different. So you're going to now start having
Speaker 3: data of what works and what doesn't, and you're going hopefully,
Speaker 3: hopefully you're going to change up some of your content
Speaker 3: based off Okay, this got seven views, this one got
Speaker 3: five thousand views. Hold on, what did I do? Let's
Speaker 3: do this over right. So between the platform taking you serious,
Speaker 3: and then you figuring out exactly what you're your audience
Speaker 3: and the platform wants. On top of that, you're building
Speaker 3: a community because people love journeys. They're either a trying
Speaker 3: to champion you b trying to see if you're.
Speaker 2: Gonna finish or not, but they gonna watch you.
Speaker 3: They gonna watch you regardless, and so you're like, Yo,
Speaker 3: this is day seventeen and I feel like quitting, right,
Speaker 3: but I'm a post it. It's only probably gonna be
Speaker 3: two minute long vlog.
Speaker 2: Today, but a we hear.
Speaker 3: People are gonna watch Okay, yo is he gonna it's
Speaker 3: gonna make it to thirty up?
Speaker 2: We're eighteen, we're nineteen. Oh okay cool.
Speaker 3: And then also you're giving inspiration for other people to
Speaker 3: be like, oh they did that, I could do this too, right,
Speaker 3: And so the community, if anything, if you don't get
Speaker 3: your plaque, you get a community that the second that
Speaker 3: these thirty days finished, you could probably drop some merch
Speaker 3: you could probably got paid commit you could probably do
Speaker 3: an event, and they're going to be like, I'm invested,
Speaker 3: Like I want to be a part of whatever else
Speaker 3: you're doing. So there's a lot of benefits of doing
Speaker 3: that if you are open to the totality of doing
Speaker 3: things on a like a challenge base.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that. You know.
Speaker 1: I was reading an interview you this some time ago,
Speaker 1: and you said that your goal was to help people
Speaker 1: feel comfortable telling their stories in a way that feels
Speaker 1: true to them. There's a lot of vulnerability that comes
Speaker 1: with being truly authentic online. We talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm failing right now, there's this meme you know,
Speaker 1: you talk about the day in the life of an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur like I'm killing it. It's killing me, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm doing it like I'm done, Like you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And so like there's real vulnerability with being authentic.
Speaker 1: How do people get over that and share themselves publicly?
Speaker 1: And when I got to go look at these people
Speaker 1: in the phase now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's setting boundaries, right, You don't have to social
Speaker 3: media is not a reality TV show. If you don't
Speaker 3: want it to be right, you can do Like for me,
Speaker 3: You're probably not going to see much of my mom,
Speaker 3: much of my Grandma. Doesn't mean I don't love them.
Speaker 3: It's just a boundary that I have. You may not
Speaker 3: always see twenty four to seven of my relationship. It's
Speaker 3: a boundary that I have. But you may hear in
Speaker 3: certain seasons that I suffer through depression.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say that every single day, but there
Speaker 3: are certain seasons, especially if I know it's kind of
Speaker 3: heavy and the creator burnout kind of season, that I
Speaker 3: may talk about that. Right, there's certain I kind of
Speaker 3: do a list of what I'm able to talk about
Speaker 3: and what is non negotiable in this season, and then
Speaker 3: what I may say depending on how I feel, how
Speaker 3: the audience needs it, and it may stretch me, but
Speaker 3: I'll be open to it to talk about it, right,
Speaker 3: And that changes with every single season. Like some people
Speaker 3: are like my kids are like non negotiable. I'm not
Speaker 3: putting out my kids at all.
Speaker 2: And then they.
Speaker 3: Become fifteen years old and they became champion of something
Speaker 3: and they want to just show them to just say, hey,
Speaker 3: I love my baby, right, Like I don't really show him,
Speaker 3: but I love my baby.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going to change.
Speaker 3: But you as a creator, you as a business owner
Speaker 3: turn creator too, gotta go. Okay, Yes, the main part
Speaker 3: is the brand awareness. The main part is the expertise
Speaker 3: experiences all that great stuff. But I'm open to this
Speaker 3: and I'll say it here and there or I'll show
Speaker 3: it here and there, because you're going to receive energy
Speaker 3: of man, I didn't know that about you. That's so amazing. Yo,
Speaker 3: I rock with you even more. Like remember, and sometimes
Speaker 3: it won't be in the comments. It will be like
Speaker 3: when you meet a person, Yo, I loved when you
Speaker 3: said this, You're like, you watch that, you didn't comment,
Speaker 3: didn't like that even know you followed like what are
Speaker 3: you talking about?
Speaker 1: Nah?
Speaker 3: That really hit home to me for boom, Like, you
Speaker 3: don't know the impact that you truly have. And as
Speaker 3: long as you can feel comfortable showing it talking about it,
Speaker 3: do it. But if you don't feel comfortable at all,
Speaker 3: do not stress yourself out because that's just not authentic
Speaker 3: to you and so you're going to be inconsistent with it.
Speaker 1: What is some general and specific things. When you go
Speaker 1: to an entrepreneur, you go to the page on TikTok
Speaker 1: they Instagram, you're like, you should stop doing that, Like
Speaker 1: that's why that's killing your success, this limiting your opportunities.
Speaker 1: Stop doing that. What do we do?
Speaker 3: There's a few things, and it's a preference right. My
Speaker 3: thing is, I'm never gonna tell you not to do
Speaker 3: something unless data shares that you shouldn't, right, Because I
Speaker 3: may not be your audience, regardless if I'm auditing it,
Speaker 3: I'm looking at it as a friend, whatever, I may
Speaker 3: not be your audience. But if your data shows that
Speaker 3: this is low numbers every single solitary time, FAM, you
Speaker 3: may have to like, I know we don't want to quit,
Speaker 3: but this one you may have to like put on
Speaker 3: the bench for a little bit, like focus on what
Speaker 3: does numbers right?
Speaker 2: And so it's just it's a true sit down.
Speaker 3: Every single month, Ay, I've put out between thirty to
Speaker 3: ten pieces of content today, depending on how consistent you are.
Speaker 3: Right this month I put out that in which ones
Speaker 3: were the highest, which one were the lowest?
Speaker 2: What are my average numbers? Right?
Speaker 3: My lowest pieces of content? I really need to sit
Speaker 3: down and be like, is it time to cut that out?
Speaker 2: Or do we go one more month?
Speaker 3: If we're in two months and we're not doing no numbers,
Speaker 3: chill out, let it go, Maybe try it in another season.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying let the idea go, but let's try
Speaker 3: it a different season, or let's try to create it
Speaker 3: in a different way in a different environment and different
Speaker 3: kind of content formats. Maybe that doesn't need to be
Speaker 3: a video. Maybe that needs to be an article. Maybe
Speaker 3: that needs to be a long thread, right, maybe that
Speaker 3: needs to be pictures. But it goes data should run
Speaker 3: the way you move certain things. When it comes to
Speaker 3: should I create this type of content or not?
Speaker 1: Does production quality matter anymore?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, no, We've seen too many videos go via road
Speaker 3: that was on a bad Android.
Speaker 2: Sorry, and I love you, but it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 3: It goes like, like I have these three stages of
Speaker 3: content creation. There's consistency, quality, and connection. Right, So consistency
Speaker 3: means the most, and those made people are just so
Speaker 3: bored of hearing of that.
Speaker 2: You're bored, but you.
Speaker 3: Haven't done it, so I don't know what I'm going
Speaker 3: to continue to tell you. Right, So, consistency is like
Speaker 3: and that doesn't mean every single day, just the timeframe
Speaker 3: that you committed to. So if you're saying, yo, I'm
Speaker 3: going to show up Monday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and all
Speaker 3: you have is your phone, Okay, do that right, because
Speaker 3: your audience is going to care more about the presence
Speaker 3: than the quality. Now, the quality does matter when you're
Speaker 3: trying to be taking a little bit more serious. Right So,
Speaker 3: but I will still my phone and do a green
Speaker 3: screen because I connect with the people more.
Speaker 2: You don't want to be too too highly produced.
Speaker 3: Because then you lose a connection with the community. You've
Speaker 3: seen too big time, right, And you don't want to
Speaker 3: just do lower quality all the time because then it's like, ah,
Speaker 3: you haven't really grown.
Speaker 2: Right If we look at Keith Lee, Keith Lee will.
Speaker 3: Forever do the phone videos, but he's taken a little
Speaker 3: bit serious because other content that he's collabed with has
Speaker 3: the highly produced content.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: He's doing series, he's doing shows, he's doing commercials and
Speaker 3: all these different things. So there's still a level of
Speaker 3: high production. But still, let me keep to the core
Speaker 3: of how I grew my audience to over millions of followers,
Speaker 3: right So, Keith Lee is a perfect example of how
Speaker 3: production isn't necessarily needed. It's great for balance, but it's
Speaker 3: not needed to really have the brand that you want.
Speaker 1: How do we turn people Let's say I got ten
Speaker 1: twenty thirty thousand followers. They seem to be relatively engaged.
Speaker 1: How do we turn them into customers?
Speaker 3: So do we know what they really what their pain
Speaker 3: points are? Right, So this is where we stop concentrating
Speaker 3: on what creates the views and we have to concentrate
Speaker 3: on what creates the engagement and the conversions.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to be if I have a product,
Speaker 3: clearly I have a solution to their problem. So I'm
Speaker 3: going to start talking about their pain points in some way,
Speaker 3: shape or form.
Speaker 2: Pain points can go.
Speaker 3: From motivation, education, entertainment. Like it's not just an educational vibe.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: But if you are drowsy and I have an energy drink, right,
Speaker 3: I'm going to put up different scenario for my night owls.
Speaker 3: That is going to be like you're in front of
Speaker 3: the computer dying, but you still have to finish this
Speaker 3: one project. You may pop out the energy drink and
Speaker 3: they're like, yo, what's that all right? What flavors do
Speaker 3: you need at three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Right, Now you're creating conversation in a real life scenario.
Speaker 3: So what are their pain points and how and what
Speaker 3: is the content that you're creating to show that one
Speaker 3: this is them and two what is the solution. When
Speaker 3: they see the solution, this is where they go, I
Speaker 3: may need that, but are you making them aware that
Speaker 3: they even have a problem, right, So that example that
Speaker 3: I showed that's going to connect with night owls and
Speaker 3: they're like, yo, I know I felt this way at
Speaker 3: one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, and I still
Speaker 3: needed just this one little pet And it could be
Speaker 3: an energy drink that only gives me that extra hour
Speaker 3: of boost.
Speaker 2: I don't need seven hours. I just need that one
Speaker 2: extra hour boost. Boom.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get that one, right. So you show different
Speaker 3: scenarios of where your audiences it can be. That's what
Speaker 3: turns into into dollars. That's what showing other people. User
Speaker 3: generated content is another great, great way other people using
Speaker 3: your product, other people using your services, because we don't
Speaker 3: necessarily always want to be the first ones to buy.
Speaker 2: We want to always be like, oh, okay, all these
Speaker 2: people are doing this. Okay, hold on, this may this
Speaker 2: may be the thing I need to do.
Speaker 3: Hold on, let me show you so user generated content
Speaker 3: showing just content of other people using it, it's going
Speaker 3: to be fire. Testimonials is fire, but finding it in
Speaker 3: the creative way.
Speaker 2: Stop.
Speaker 3: I don't know who needs to hear this. Stop posting
Speaker 3: flyers sucks. No one engages with it horrible, right, leave
Speaker 3: that for emails. Emails are fine, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn
Speaker 3: not so much.
Speaker 2: Leave it alone. It's old. So yeah, those are those
Speaker 2: are different ways.
Speaker 1: You made a goal of hitting ten thousand subscribers on
Speaker 1: YouTube by the end of September, and you did it
Speaker 1: much earlier. Congratulations. What did you learn about that experience? Like,
Speaker 1: because the YouTube algorithm seems to be the most challenging
Speaker 1: for many creators, What did you learn about how did
Speaker 1: you make your hap?
Speaker 2: It very.
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: There was a few things that made it not as stressful. Right.
Speaker 3: A combination of a weekly post with a weekly live.
Speaker 3: Reason why is because one one of them is going
Speaker 3: to get out more to the masses, which is your
Speaker 3: weekly post. Right. As long as you're consistent once a week,
Speaker 3: you should be good, right, and then the live is
Speaker 3: going to talk more on the trending topics. But as
Speaker 3: well as build that community centered brand, right, as well
Speaker 3: as keep up your watch hours. Everybody knows, especially if
Speaker 3: you're going into the monetizing side of YouTube, you need
Speaker 3: those four thousand watch hours to monetize. Now you do
Speaker 3: five minute videos, twenty minute videos once a week, it's
Speaker 3: gonna be a little bit slow, right. So the lives
Speaker 3: help bring awareness and watch hours to your videos. Plus
Speaker 3: it gives you more content to then chop up for
Speaker 3: shorts or another post on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Right. But I think the the biggest, the biggest.
Speaker 3: Thing that I concentrated on on this ten k journey
Speaker 3: was the thumbnails and the titles.
Speaker 2: I promise you.
Speaker 3: Every YouTuber understands the pain about that, because if they
Speaker 3: don't click, it means nothing.
Speaker 2: I don't care how great your.
Speaker 3: Content is if they do not click, And the only
Speaker 3: way they're going to click is if your thumbnail catches
Speaker 3: attention and your title gives them that decision that this
Speaker 3: is for me.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So it was testing out different colors, it was testing
Speaker 3: out Okay, I'm only going to have two things on
Speaker 3: my thumbnails and not seventeen different things. I'm going to
Speaker 3: have sometimes words, sometimes I'm not going to have words
Speaker 3: as And the biggest thing that helped with that was
Speaker 3: the ab testing that YouTube enabled on everybody's account, right,
Speaker 3: So you have when you have a video, always have
Speaker 3: two to three thumbnails for that one video. Why because
Speaker 3: even though we may like a thumbnail, it's us liking it.
Speaker 2: We don't know what the mass is like.
Speaker 3: So YouTube allows you to test out up to three
Speaker 3: thumbnails and it goes every single day like, okay, does
Speaker 3: the people like this one? Does the people like this one?
Speaker 3: And it'll show you the percentage of what worked and
Speaker 3: what doesn't, and it goes based off you know, watch time.
Speaker 2: Right, So even though I like this thumbnail, this one
Speaker 2: got me three thousand more views, I'm going with that one.
Speaker 2: I don't care if I like it or not. I'm
Speaker 2: going with that one, right.
Speaker 3: I wish they did the same thing with titles. But
Speaker 3: once you understand that formula with titles and thumbnails and
Speaker 3: really being intentional with testing those things out instead of
Speaker 3: just Okay, I'm gonna make the best videos ever. Great,
Speaker 3: That is important on the second stage because now you
Speaker 3: have to improve on your average view duration and your retention.
Speaker 2: That's important.
Speaker 3: But that thumbnail entitle to grab their attention when they
Speaker 3: open up YouTube.
Speaker 2: That's super super important.
Speaker 3: So I put a lot of concentration on my thumbnails
Speaker 3: and I'll tell, I'll tell, I use fiber. This is
Speaker 3: not I have my own graphic designer who's testing it out.
Speaker 3: Some of the top YouTubers will be like, I test
Speaker 3: out one hundred thumbnails every video.
Speaker 2: I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. I got
Speaker 2: a I got a thumbnail. Person from fiber.
Speaker 3: He gives me about two thumbnails a video. I'm great,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm absolutely fine. Now, when the money comes back up,
Speaker 3: we'll may at an end design in a graphic designer
Speaker 3: who just does thumbnails.
Speaker 2: We may do that. Right now, let me get to
Speaker 2: about twenty k. You know what I mean, and we're good.
Speaker 1: So you don't think like kids Canva templates just that's
Speaker 1: not what it is.
Speaker 2: No, No, do listen.
Speaker 3: The more that I can get off of my hands,
Speaker 3: just so I can think of ideas and create, I'm
Speaker 3: good with I'm not a graphic designer, right, but I do.
Speaker 3: I know my audience is solopreneurs and solo creators, so
Speaker 3: I will provide the templates and everything like that, but
Speaker 3: I will strongly suggest please set ten to twenty dollars aside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and give that to fiver.
Speaker 3: If you are serious about growing on YouTube, please invest
Speaker 3: in that that because your time is worth way more
Speaker 3: and you the more that you I'm I went through
Speaker 3: a big creator burnout, so anything that can help you
Speaker 3: from not getting creative burnout, I'm going to tell you, Hey,
Speaker 3: get rid.
Speaker 2: Of the dumb.
Speaker 3: No, you have no business doing thumbnails no, no business.
Speaker 2: You you talk about teeth, you do nothing about you.
Speaker 2: That is the graphic designer. Continue to talk about teeth.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: That's what. That's what. So yesterday you are online, you're
Speaker 1: talking about the importance of learning and growing in public,
Speaker 1: and I love that and say, say more about that
Speaker 1: just in general, talk talk more about that.
Speaker 3: So it goes It goes back to what we were
Speaker 3: talking about earlier about like documenting in public. Right, I'm
Speaker 3: noticing that more and more people are streating brands from
Speaker 3: scratch and being like, you know, a bumpet, I'm going
Speaker 3: to do it in public now. Some people have started
Speaker 3: with zero followers doing it right, and some people have
Speaker 3: done it with a little bit of followers or a
Speaker 3: lot of followers.
Speaker 2: A good example like mister Grayful love him hello if
Speaker 2: you don't know.
Speaker 3: He hasn't been on Instagram for a little bit, but
Speaker 3: he was the guy that said, hey, chat GPT came out,
Speaker 3: I'm going to try to get thirty k followers only
Speaker 3: listening to chat EPT. And he got way more followers
Speaker 3: and his post went viral because people are like, oh, wait,
Speaker 3: you're you're really using this tool that we don't know
Speaker 3: is going to work or not, and you're actually using it.
Speaker 2: Girl, Let's do it right.
Speaker 1: For me.
Speaker 3: I'm realizing this new chat gypt voice thing one is hilarious.
Speaker 2: Two it's just.
Speaker 3: Way more detailed based instead of especially for those people
Speaker 3: who don't like to type a lot, like I could
Speaker 3: just have a conversation. So so the research that I'm doing,
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, you know what, Let's do this in public.
Speaker 3: Let's figure out this new voice feature in public. Let's
Speaker 3: figure out this new hatline whatever we're trying to do
Speaker 3: in public, because one it could work and it can
Speaker 3: be successful, or two it could show what not to
Speaker 3: do and that can still be successful because people are
Speaker 3: still going to be impacted either way. That's my whole thing.
Speaker 3: Like building in public creates impact, building in public also
Speaker 3: creates supporters, good or bad. So with those benefits, why
Speaker 3: wouldn't you create in public? Because having it all together
Speaker 3: is great cool. I feel like it costs more money
Speaker 3: if you don't do it. I could grab my phone
Speaker 3: and be like, all right, I don't really feel like.
Speaker 2: Doing anything with my business today.
Speaker 3: I mean, like chack GBT told me some bs that
Speaker 3: I'm not doing and somebody's like, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Feel that way too.
Speaker 3: I took and then tell me all your self help
Speaker 3: routines that you did to get you better.
Speaker 2: But it gates that situation.
Speaker 3: So that's why I'm like, let's do this in public,
Speaker 3: because the impact is crazy when you do.
Speaker 1: Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity, Afro
Speaker 1: Tech and the Black Effect podcast Networking Night Hire Immedia,
Speaker 1: and it's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas,
Speaker 1: with the additional production support by Kate McDonald, say Ergan
Speaker 1: and Jada McGee. Special thank you to Michael Davis in
Speaker 1: Love Beach. Learn more about my guess other tech distructors
Speaker 1: an innovators at afrotech dot com. Video version this episode
Speaker 1: will drop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, So
Speaker 1: tap in enjoy your Black Tech Green Money. Shit is
Speaker 1: to somebody, go get your money. Peace in Love