Speaker 1: So I think that's what you gotta do.
Speaker 2: It's not just about oh, my cousin knows TikTok and
Speaker 2: so he can do it. It's no, you should be
Speaker 2: going on TikTok. Let's use the hoodie example. You know,
Speaker 2: if you have a hoodie company, you should be on
Speaker 2: TikTok finding out who makes dope content about hoodies. You
Speaker 2: should be looking at every hoodie hashtag, you know, every
Speaker 2: hoodie rated brand, every creator that's making jokes about you know,
Speaker 2: the girls stealing your hoodies or its hoodie season, and
Speaker 2: you will find somebody in there that probably resonates with you.
Speaker 2: And then that's how you find somebody that can make
Speaker 2: you hoodie content.
Speaker 3: I'm well, lookas this is black tach green money.
Speaker 1: Hey look.
Speaker 3: Brandon Butler is Partner in Chief, Culture and Innovation Officer
Speaker 3: at Majority in CEO at Butter atl in Atlanta based
Speaker 3: media company covering all things Atlanta from sports, news, music.
Speaker 3: His storytelling about communities is a high ROI play which
Speaker 3: feeds ecosystem. And when the ecosystem is strong for black
Speaker 3: entrepreneurship and culture, are people thrive.
Speaker 1: I just believe that.
Speaker 3: All companies in organizations should see themselves as media companies
Speaker 3: and put the work in to tell authentic stories. Butter
Speaker 3: Atl believes this also and puts this philosophy to work
Speaker 3: for the city. So I asked Brandon how this came about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it started with this idea that some
Speaker 2: of the most successful companies and brands tend to operate
Speaker 2: as media companies. The example that always kind of references
Speaker 2: Red Bull. You see Red Bull doing all kind of
Speaker 2: crazy stuff. You see guys, you know, jumping from outer space.
Speaker 2: You know, you see them doing race cars. And you've
Speaker 2: never really seen like a Red Bull commercial though, You've
Speaker 2: never really seen a commercial with somebody holding the Red
Speaker 2: Bull saying like go buy this or drink it. Right,
Speaker 2: So they've associated their brand with this idea that just
Speaker 2: you know, content and media and being associated with it,
Speaker 2: you know, will give people what they need to know
Speaker 2: that this thing exists.
Speaker 1: And so for us, we kind.
Speaker 2: Of had the same that same belief right that the
Speaker 2: most successful brands operated that way, and and so we
Speaker 2: kind of started looking around and at first, you know,
Speaker 2: there was this idea that you know, maybe we do
Speaker 2: it for like the culture at large, you know, So
Speaker 2: it's just what's trending what's in pop culture right now,
Speaker 2: and and I mean we we did that for a
Speaker 2: little while, but honestly, it just didn't feel it didn't
Speaker 2: feel right, didn't feel super authentic, you know, as my
Speaker 2: uh as my gud Bame Joiner, one of the founders
Speaker 2: of Atlanta influences Everything, says Atlanta influences everything. And so
Speaker 2: you know, based on that idea and really based on
Speaker 2: this idea that Atlanta is a really special place. You know,
Speaker 2: I always say, I think our number one export in
Speaker 2: Atlanta's culture. Uh you know, why not kind of turn
Speaker 2: that that lens inward and and and really find ways
Speaker 2: to kind of highlight and and tell stories and just
Speaker 2: showcase the city that honestly has been overlooked in so
Speaker 2: many different ways. You know, It's always funny to me,
Speaker 2: right like when you go back and you look, you've
Speaker 2: noticed that these brands would come in from you know,
Speaker 2: the New York, LA and Chicago and they would want
Speaker 2: to kind of give us permission to talk about Atlanta.
Speaker 2: They'd come down here and say, hey, you know, we
Speaker 2: heard y'all like Lemon Pepper wings down there. Can you
Speaker 2: tell us about Lemon Pepper wings Man y'all don't eat
Speaker 2: limp pepper wings in New York, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: y'all eat, y'all eat buffalo wings, whatever those are, and
Speaker 2: so and so again, it was like, why do we
Speaker 2: need to wait for somebody from another city or state
Speaker 2: to come down here and ask us about that and
Speaker 2: then take that story back home and say, so I
Speaker 2: went down to Atlanta, and this is what I learned.
Speaker 2: You know, if we're really leading in all elements of
Speaker 2: you know, culture and media and all these different things,
Speaker 2: why not be able to tell those stories ourselves? And
Speaker 2: then even thinking about it even more, you know, when
Speaker 2: is the last time you've seen a brand or a
Speaker 2: media company really focus in specifically on a city like this?
Speaker 2: And so, you know, for me, it was kind of
Speaker 2: just an opportunity that was kind of hidden in plain sight,
Speaker 2: and we very quickly, you know, I think we maybe
Speaker 2: did the national thing for like a week or two,
Speaker 2: but we very quickly said, you know what, let's just
Speaker 2: focus this thing on what we think is the coolest,
Speaker 2: most interesting, most you know, cultural relevant city in the
Speaker 2: world really, which we think is Atlanta. And you know,
Speaker 2: it just again, it really resonated with people connected with
Speaker 2: people really quickly. You know, people down here we have
Speaker 2: a tendency to kind of protect the culture in a
Speaker 2: lot of the senses because we know how special it is,
Speaker 2: and I think that, well, we both put that lens
Speaker 2: on it. But then also people realize that the person
Speaker 2: that was doing it was from here that understood those
Speaker 2: kind of nuances about the city. There was just a
Speaker 2: whole different level of appreciation for it. You know, I
Speaker 2: always loved Atlanta on FX by Donald Glover because it
Speaker 2: was kind of the same way. You know, if you're
Speaker 2: from Atlanta. Even if you're not from Atlanta, you can
Speaker 2: appreciate that as a good show. But if you're from Atlanta,
Speaker 2: there's this additional level of appreciation you have for it
Speaker 2: because they shoot that show in places that you've been to.
Speaker 2: They shoot that show, and you know, you'll see things
Speaker 2: allude to things that just you recognize instantly. And so
Speaker 2: that was kind of how we approach Butter was you know,
Speaker 2: if we tell this story, but we also just really
Speaker 2: authentic and truth to the culture, people will hear it.
Speaker 2: You know, people will hear the drawl in my voice
Speaker 2: when I speak. You know, people will see the references
Speaker 2: that we make the things that are authentic, and I
Speaker 2: think a combination of all those things just really kind
Speaker 2: of helped put Butter in a really special place for us.
Speaker 3: I want to go back to something you talked about
Speaker 3: in the beginning, that you talked about the Red Bull
Speaker 3: story and how they don't really do commercials about Red
Speaker 3: Bull saying hey buy this, and there's such a key
Speaker 3: there that a lot of small brands that you know,
Speaker 3: are trying to get traction, trying to find their fit
Speaker 3: in the marketplace. That's an investment to do what Red
Speaker 3: Bull is doing because it's not necessarily a direct pitch
Speaker 3: to by the thing, it's explicitly an indirect one. And
Speaker 3: so how do you admonish or encourage people who have
Speaker 3: a hoodie line or you know, a hair you know,
Speaker 3: a shade butter and they're trying to make sales because
Speaker 3: they need that to keep going at all and don't
Speaker 3: have the marketing budget like a Red Bull would have
Speaker 3: to actually find different ways to tell their story or
Speaker 3: to show what people who buy that thing do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the beautiful thing about where we're at
Speaker 2: right now just in content and media is I think
Speaker 2: the bar has been significantly lowered, which is making it
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: Of easier folks to get involved.
Speaker 2: Right, Like, everybody's got a cell phone, and all cell
Speaker 2: phones pretty much shoot in HD quality.
Speaker 1: So there's your camera.
Speaker 2: You know, you can get a why I saw a
Speaker 2: wireless microphone on sale on TikTok for ten bucks, right like,
Speaker 2: you can get a wireless mic for your cell phones.
Speaker 2: And now you got audio, You've got good video. What's
Speaker 2: the only thing you need beyond that is just a
Speaker 2: good idea? And you know, and even when you kind
Speaker 2: of think about it, you know, there are trends that
Speaker 2: go on. So I think it's I think it's kind
Speaker 2: of easy to jump in.
Speaker 1: You know what.
Speaker 2: I what I noticed and I've really noticed is over
Speaker 2: the last you know, Butter's been around now for you know,
Speaker 2: five plus years, and we make content every single day.
Speaker 2: So the thing I've noticed making content every day for
Speaker 2: the last five years is that at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, it's all about just continuing to kind of
Speaker 2: throw you know. The thing I would tell my team
Speaker 2: is if you if you ever watch a person that
Speaker 2: knows how to juggle, everybody always watches, you know, the
Speaker 2: hand that they kind of like they always kind of
Speaker 2: just watch the person they watch the hand that they
Speaker 2: catch with. The trick with juggling, though, is to wash
Speaker 2: the hand that they throw with because if you keep throwing,
Speaker 2: the ball is gonna land in the right place every
Speaker 2: single time. And so what I what I use that
Speaker 2: to say is with most people, most entrepreneurs, no matter
Speaker 2: how big or small your budget is. My my thing
Speaker 2: to you is just start throwing. You never know what
Speaker 2: the thing is gonna be. I can tell you right now,
Speaker 2: there are you know, one of our most successful pieces
Speaker 2: of content on Butter was a photograph of some chicken
Speaker 2: wings that I took inside a cafeteria. That photograph ended
Speaker 2: up on us what was it, Good Morning America, and
Speaker 2: ended up on Complex, ended up on you know, all
Speaker 2: these different channels. And it was a literally a picture
Speaker 2: of some chicken wings that we took with no photo editing.
Speaker 2: You know, I think maybe we cropped the photo and
Speaker 2: that's it, so you never know the thing is gonna be.
Speaker 2: And like that created so much, you know, a claim
Speaker 2: and visibility for us.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Another thing we did was a post about you know,
Speaker 2: different types of sneakers, which again it was a super
Speaker 2: simple post, but that led to a conversation with Killer Mike,
Speaker 2: which you know, a year later, year and a half
Speaker 2: later he became a partner with butter and so again.
Speaker 2: But all that comes from, just like I said, throwing,
Speaker 2: Like you know, we put stuff out, everything doesn't go viral,
Speaker 2: and that's totally fine with me. A lot of times
Speaker 2: I put stuff out just to see what will happen
Speaker 2: because I'm kind of past this place, and oh well
Speaker 2: it didn't work, take it down. So the biggest, yeah,
Speaker 2: the biggest advice I would give the people that they
Speaker 2: feel like they don't have a budget is you don't
Speaker 2: really need that much of a budget. You just need,
Speaker 2: you know, some ideas. And at the same time, again,
Speaker 2: you just need to just kind of start getting your
Speaker 2: stuff out there and throwing and and again I'm a
Speaker 2: big believer in frameworks, you know, whether you're kind of
Speaker 2: doing the the Gary v jab jab jab hook or
Speaker 2: what I like to say is, you know, candy, vitamin
Speaker 2: and painkillers, right, Like, I think there's certain kinds of
Speaker 2: content that's candy. In other words, you know, everybody loves candy,
Speaker 2: but too much candy or rocket teeth, you know, I
Speaker 2: think that there is a content that is vitamins, and
Speaker 2: that's the that's where I kind of put a lot
Speaker 2: of the Gary V content at like, no shade to him,
Speaker 2: but he can yell at you about hustling all day
Speaker 2: long until you actually go out and do something. It's
Speaker 2: just the pep talk, right, but you're getting that motivation,
Speaker 2: but you still have to actually do the work. It's
Speaker 2: no different than taking vitamins every day and not going
Speaker 2: to the gym, right like you said, to do the work.
Speaker 2: And then there's then there's painkiller content. There's content that
Speaker 2: like solves the problem. It has very high utility, right like,
Speaker 2: and I tell that by the number of saves that
Speaker 2: we get on the post particularly, right. So I think
Speaker 2: you know, again, when you start thinking about content from
Speaker 2: the standpoint of again whether jab jab jab hook or
Speaker 2: candy vitamins painkillers, you'll see that, you know, the really
Speaker 2: the only thing that's kind of stopping you from you
Speaker 2: is is is really you know what you think people
Speaker 2: want to see. And I can guarantee you that the
Speaker 2: only way to find that is by putting out enough
Speaker 2: stuff to really start to get good insights.
Speaker 3: That's so key there. And I want to dig into
Speaker 3: that a little bit because you know, and I have
Speaker 3: a couple of small businesses also, And to your point
Speaker 3: of like when things work and when they don't, I
Speaker 3: tell you this quick story. So last last Thanksgiving, this
Speaker 3: would have been twenty twenty two, the coffee house was
Speaker 3: like a year old, and there were still so many
Speaker 3: people in the community who didn't know that we existed.
Speaker 3: And so Thanksgiving the Black Friday, Black Friday morning, we
Speaker 3: were open and I found I'm like, oh, I got
Speaker 3: to tell the community we're open. So I just went
Speaker 3: through my photo album real quick on my phone, found
Speaker 3: the first photo I could find, put it up, say hey,
Speaker 3: we're open today. Just so you know, I didn't know
Speaker 3: this Sunday morning. It had twelve hundred shares on it
Speaker 3: on Facebook. And if I would have spent any time
Speaker 3: thinking about that post, I would not have used the
Speaker 3: picture that I used because there was nobody in it.
Speaker 3: It looked empty, you know, it was an angle that
Speaker 3: was just it was just a random fhotto because I
Speaker 3: just needed to get something up. But to your point
Speaker 3: of you don't know what to work and what doesn't.
Speaker 3: If it wouldn't have worked, I would have taken it
Speaker 3: down on Monday. So how do you get old?
Speaker 1: I guess the question.
Speaker 3: A better question is what are you looking at in
Speaker 3: a post metrics wise or otherwise. If you're saying just
Speaker 3: put up shots, what are you looking for it to do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that's something that people have
Speaker 2: to think about. Right again, I'm a big believer in
Speaker 2: kind of starting with the end in mind for things.
Speaker 2: There are certain types of posts that we make that
Speaker 2: are specifically created to drive comments. I literally do not
Speaker 2: care if they don't get a ton of likes. I
Speaker 2: am more interested in the comments, and we engineer our
Speaker 2: content like that. You know, we did a post the
Speaker 2: other week about you know, I'm so old Atlanta, I
Speaker 2: remember X, Y and Z and ask people to kind
Speaker 2: of fill that out. Well, the thing is that thing
Speaker 2: got like a thousand comments on it. And the beautiful
Speaker 2: thing about those comments is if you start to think about,
Speaker 2: just like marketing is now, you go on those comments,
Speaker 2: you start to kind of go through and read, you
Speaker 2: get ideas for new content. You see, you know, when
Speaker 2: people somebody mentions something and gets a bunch of likes now,
Speaker 2: or there's a whole bunch of replies to it, that
Speaker 2: should be a signal that goes off to you and
Speaker 2: says oh wow, there's an engagement around this. Maybe I
Speaker 2: could build more content around that, right. You know, again,
Speaker 2: when you think about stuff, you know, I would always
Speaker 2: say like if you you know, it depends on what
Speaker 2: you want to do. If you want to create content
Speaker 2: that drives shares, you want to share like a really
Speaker 2: interesting fact or something like that, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like something again, like people share content because it represents
Speaker 2: them or helps them kind of tell a story. There's
Speaker 2: this whole idea of like, you know, I always get
Speaker 2: the example of, you know, there's certain pieces of content
Speaker 2: that people send because it helps them prove a point.
Speaker 2: You know, Like somebody sends a post is like see,
Speaker 2: this is exactly what I was talking about, right, So
Speaker 2: that's kind of that is this is so me kind
Speaker 2: of content. Right, So I think you know, or again,
Speaker 2: if you want to, if you want to, if you
Speaker 2: want to drive you know, follows or likes. Again, you
Speaker 2: want to create a content that has a like I said,
Speaker 2: either tip in it or it's just something like really
Speaker 2: fun and engaging. Right, So again, I think what you
Speaker 2: have to do is just start to kind of think
Speaker 2: about what you want and also again understand that it's
Speaker 2: not any one post.
Speaker 1: It's kind of again the.
Speaker 2: Totality of all the things you do that really kind
Speaker 2: of help you figure out what the real insight is. Again,
Speaker 2: I would tell people, if you really want to figure
Speaker 2: it out, you know, get get you know, get thirty
Speaker 2: shots up, get thirty posts up, and then just start
Speaker 2: to go back and look and figure out again what
Speaker 2: are the things that absolutely worked what doesn't work? Again,
Speaker 2: I can tell you a little trick, especially on social media,
Speaker 2: is when something's gonna work, it works immediately. There are
Speaker 2: very few things that I've seen go out to where
Speaker 2: it sits dormant for like a day or two, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden it takes off. In my
Speaker 2: in my experience, the things that work work almost it's
Speaker 2: crazy how it happens. I have some theories about why
Speaker 2: that might be like that, but that's all different conversation.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's like so so it's like, when
Speaker 2: you see the things that are working, you do those things.
Speaker 2: I think too much with people, like we have this
Speaker 2: weird thing about oh, you got to work on this
Speaker 2: stuff you're not good at. Nah, forget that. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff I'm not good at. I don't want
Speaker 2: to spend all day trying to get better that I
Speaker 2: want to get better than things I'm already good at.
Speaker 2: And so again, I think it's figuring out, Like I said,
Speaker 2: what works by putting up shots and just being really
Speaker 2: honest about what are you seeing? What's the feedback? Like,
Speaker 2: what are people saying reading the comments? You know, I
Speaker 2: tell people when we first launched Butter, I actually put
Speaker 2: a post up one day and said, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: I think we had maybe ten thousand followers at that point,
Speaker 2: and I said, hey, you know, thank y'all for following Butter.
Speaker 2: Look we have some questions for y'all. So if y'all
Speaker 2: are interested in, like, you know, being a part of
Speaker 2: our user group, fill out this form and I'll call you.
Speaker 1: And I literally called like fifty people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was like, hey, hey, this is Brandon
Speaker 2: from Butter atl They were like, you're really calling me? Yep, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you filled the format, you put your phone number on there.
Speaker 2: But I literally asked them, hey, what made you follow Butter?
Speaker 2: Just out of curiosity? What made you click the follow button?
Speaker 2: What made you how did you find out about the page?
Speaker 2: And I'm just what I'm saying, like even that level
Speaker 2: of insight is informed things that I do to this day.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not really in a position to do that
Speaker 2: right now, but like I said, it's that whole idea
Speaker 2: of like do things that don't scale.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: And that was one of those things to where you know,
Speaker 2: actually talking to people having those conversations, even with those folks,
Speaker 2: you know, those are some of our early followers. So
Speaker 2: I feel like those are the folks who were really
Speaker 2: rocking with us right out the gate. But to kind
Speaker 2: of go back and ask them, like, what do you
Speaker 2: want to see? It just gave me more perspective in
Speaker 2: what kind of things people were looking for, and then
Speaker 2: we just gave them more of that stuff over time.
Speaker 3: There was an interview I saw where you did and
Speaker 3: there was a quote from you where you said, we're
Speaker 3: most proud of our ability to tell the story of
Speaker 3: Atlanta's culture with high quality, intentional content. This was some
Speaker 3: time ago when you said that, so, and I wonder
Speaker 3: if it's still true in this way. Is because it
Speaker 3: seems like today there's this battle between high quality production
Speaker 3: and raw and where produced content may not get be
Speaker 3: as valuable, not that it's not good, but it may
Speaker 3: not be as valuable to the mainstream audience that consumed
Speaker 3: social media content. What do you say to that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't remember when I made that comment,
Speaker 2: but I think the thing that probably changed a lot
Speaker 2: of that stuff was, honestly, COVID. I think the pandemic.
Speaker 2: You know, I told people coming out of the pandemic because
Speaker 2: my backgrounds actually in tech. I spent the first half
Speaker 2: of my career as a engineer and a solution architect,
Speaker 2: so I just kind of have a different perspective when
Speaker 2: it comes to a lot of this stuff. But coming
Speaker 2: out of the pandemic, I told people like, look, this
Speaker 2: thing moved us ahead four years. I don't know if
Speaker 2: y'all realize it or not, but again, when we went in,
Speaker 2: nobody was using video conference, and we came out, even
Speaker 2: my mom was using video conference, and you know, we
Speaker 2: went in, nobody wanted to use QR codes. Now everybody
Speaker 2: uses QR codes, right, So it really like moved us
Speaker 2: ahead in a very short period of time. And I
Speaker 2: think in that again, what started to happen was, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're like, produced content is good, but it's very easy
Speaker 2: to over engineer something. And I think, you know, again,
Speaker 2: people get just sense authenticity they can sense, you know,
Speaker 2: when you've probably gone through uh you know, a table
Speaker 2: read and getting the script created and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff and getting the perfect shot. I think there
Speaker 2: are times for that. But you know, again, I think
Speaker 2: just in a day and age, and also just the
Speaker 2: volume of content that we kind of have out there,
Speaker 2: just honestly, the expectation of people is a little bit lower.
Speaker 2: So even what that means for us is that means
Speaker 2: that it's not as important for us to go.
Speaker 1: Out and shoot stuff on red cameras.
Speaker 2: It's not as important for us to go out and
Speaker 2: you know again, uh, you know, create a create a
Speaker 2: deck in a script about a thing. Sometimes we just
Speaker 2: kind of turn the camera on and start going. Sometimes
Speaker 2: we just make a piece of content and we're not
Speaker 2: you know, overly worried about is it pixel perfect, because
Speaker 2: again I know at the end of the day, we're
Speaker 2: gonna be right back at it. So uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's not as important now,
Speaker 2: and I think it's actually a good thing because again now,
Speaker 2: which is it's lowered the barrier to entry for so
Speaker 2: many other people to kind of create opportunities and content
Speaker 2: and get their stuff out there. That it should really
Speaker 2: hopefully not intimidate people and really want to enable them
Speaker 2: to kind of stick their toe in the water and
Speaker 2: start doing what they need to do to get their
Speaker 2: selves or their brand out there. So, because you also
Speaker 2: managed creative talent today, what are you looking for in
Speaker 2: that talent? Because I imagine.
Speaker 3: The portfolio matters. But and I want you to answer
Speaker 3: this from the perspective of small businesses, medium sized businesses
Speaker 3: who are looking to bring people on their team and
Speaker 3: see themselves as a media company, because what they might
Speaker 3: say is, hey, my nephew knows how to do TikTok,
Speaker 3: let's give him the keys to the thing. So how
Speaker 3: do you do this?
Speaker 1: Yeah? You know what really, So it's a couple of things.
Speaker 1: What really worked for me was.
Speaker 2: Find some you know, if you want if you want
Speaker 2: to find people that, if you want to find good people,
Speaker 2: find the good work and then find the people that
Speaker 2: made it.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: I remember when we first kind of launched Butter we
Speaker 2: were doing this post on the Clairemont Lounge here in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: It's a iconic establishment. I'll let your audience look it.
Speaker 1: Up one day. But you know, I was I was
Speaker 1: coming up.
Speaker 2: I was looking for ideas, and I said, you know,
Speaker 2: let me jump on ig for some inspiration. And so
Speaker 2: I kind of started clicking on the Clairemont Lounge hashtag
Speaker 2: and I'm just scrolling and then I see this post
Speaker 2: that somebody made about the Claremont Lounge and I just said,
Speaker 2: you know what, that is what I was looking like,
Speaker 2: I want that. So what I did was I literally
Speaker 2: DM the person that made it and was like, yo,
Speaker 2: my name is Brandon. I got this company called Butter.
Speaker 2: I'm not crazy, but I saw you make this post
Speaker 2: about the Clairemont Lounge and I'm actually working on some
Speaker 2: content very similar. Would you be interested in work with
Speaker 2: me on this content? And they were like, yeah, well
Speaker 2: that ended up. Person ended up working on that thing.
Speaker 2: It went well. Then I ended up hiring them full time.
Speaker 2: They worked with me for three years, right, And so
Speaker 2: I think again, if you want to find so I
Speaker 2: think that that's what you got to do. It's not
Speaker 2: just about oh, my cousin knows TikTok and so he
Speaker 2: can do it.
Speaker 1: It's no, you should be going on TikTok. Let's use
Speaker 1: the hoodie example.
Speaker 2: You know, if you have a hoodie company, you should
Speaker 2: be on TikTok finding out who makes dope content about hoodies.
Speaker 2: You should be looking at every hoodie hashtag, you know,
Speaker 2: every hoodie rated brand, every creator that's making jokes about
Speaker 2: you know, the girls stealing your hoodies or its hoodie season,
Speaker 2: and you will find somebody in there that probably resonates
Speaker 2: with you. And then that's how you find somebody that
Speaker 2: can make you hoodie content.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Again, like so, and even with the portfolios and stuff
Speaker 2: like your portfolio, you know, I don't need to see
Speaker 2: your overly crafted, curated online portfolio. I can look at
Speaker 2: your Instagram and your TikTok because if you're really making stuff,
Speaker 2: it should be on there. So I wouldn't trust anybody
Speaker 2: that's a maker that isn't making stuff and putting it
Speaker 2: on there in their free time, right because again, if
Speaker 2: you're doing this, a lot of these folks are like
Speaker 2: really in this for a living, and even when they're
Speaker 2: not making stuff for their job, they're making stuff for fun.
Speaker 1: They're making things that inspire them. Right.
Speaker 2: You want people like that because if they can get
Speaker 2: inspired on their own, they can definitely get inspired and
Speaker 2: it comes to kind of working for you. The other thing,
Speaker 2: I kind of tell people too, is like, you can't
Speaker 2: work for me until you work for me. So you know,
Speaker 2: when you find that person that's doing good work, give
Speaker 2: them a project. You know, I tell you the only
Speaker 2: way to find out how somebody works is to give
Speaker 2: give them a project. And what I what I like
Speaker 2: to do is I actually will depending on the kind
Speaker 2: of job, but I actually give people like test projects.
Speaker 1: Just to see how they're going to react to stuff.
Speaker 2: So you know, I had I was looking for a
Speaker 2: video editor and I kind of came down to three candidates,
Speaker 2: and so I gave them a couple of things.
Speaker 1: I said, look, i'll pay you. I said, here's the rate.
Speaker 2: I'll pay you this rate, which I think is more
Speaker 2: than fair because it shouldn't take you more than this
Speaker 2: much time to do this work. Like I don't want
Speaker 2: you to spending a week on this, but I need
Speaker 2: you know, a video about this. I need a video
Speaker 2: about this, and I need you to go on my
Speaker 2: social media and give me your feedback. And even with
Speaker 2: the videos I gave them, it wasn't the best video,
Speaker 2: but I want to see how what they were gonna
Speaker 2: make with it. I can tell if you're just gonna
Speaker 2: stick stuff together on a timeline and just put some
Speaker 2: fades between it or if you actually did something with it.
Speaker 2: And so again I think you know, we should do it.
Speaker 2: Is the only way to see how people work is
Speaker 2: to actually get them to work for you. And I
Speaker 2: would much rather pay somebody for a project. See what
Speaker 2: they work like, See how we interact, you know, see
Speaker 2: how long they take the turn stuff around, See if
Speaker 2: they do the minimum, if they go above and beyond,
Speaker 2: and if you know, if you're amazing, I have no
Speaker 2: issue whatsoever, and in paying you and keeping you around.
Speaker 2: But again if you don't, if you don't knock it
Speaker 2: out the park, and that that's cool. It's no issues.
Speaker 2: You've got paid, I got something. But you know, we're
Speaker 2: probably not gonna work together. And so like, those are
Speaker 2: the ways I've seen, especially kind of in this again
Speaker 2: world where like everybody's just making stuff or some hacks
Speaker 2: that I found to kind of like find talent, but
Speaker 2: also find the right.
Speaker 1: Folks, because again, you just have to.
Speaker 2: It's it's a continuous effort to find the right people
Speaker 2: to kind of get on the bus to get it
Speaker 2: that understand what you're trying to accomplish. That they have
Speaker 2: their own goals and it all works together. So you
Speaker 2: have to always kind of have your antenna up for
Speaker 2: talent once you kind of get into that game as well.
Speaker 3: So what does it mean to be chief culture and
Speaker 3: innovation officer?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: What is your what are your days like?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So so on the other side, So again for the
Speaker 2: folks though, I actually I'm a co owner and partner
Speaker 2: at the agency I here call majority. We started with
Speaker 2: Shaquille O'Neil a couple of years ago. We do you know,
Speaker 2: big creative work. And the whole idea behind the company
Speaker 2: was founded on the idea that the reality is in
Speaker 2: most agencies, you know, people of color are the minority,
Speaker 2: but so much of the content that the agencies make
Speaker 2: wants to land in culture. That and the culture at
Speaker 2: a macro is you know, again more black and brown
Speaker 2: than people want to admit. I mean, by twenty thirty,
Speaker 2: the minority will become the majority in this country. So
Speaker 2: the whole idea with us is that what if you
Speaker 2: actually flip that model and made it so that you know,
Speaker 2: seventy to eighty percent of the company, especially the leadership positions,
Speaker 2: were you know, minorities, right, But we're also still making
Speaker 2: general market work, and so because of that culture is
Speaker 2: super important, especially in the city like Atlanta. You know,
Speaker 2: what Butter has given me the ability to do is
Speaker 2: be able to get into different rooms and just connect
Speaker 2: with people. But also it's given me the opportunity to
Speaker 2: kind of give people, to give people opportunities. Again, especially
Speaker 2: in the agency world. You know, Atlanta's kind of looked
Speaker 2: over the talent. It was always kind of considered this
Speaker 2: is the place that you can't start a career at
Speaker 2: if you were serious about working an agency, you had
Speaker 2: to go to New York, LA, Chicago, Miami or something.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, from from a keeping people down
Speaker 2: here standpoint of keeping talent local, you know, one of
Speaker 2: my biggest remits is really just to kind of go
Speaker 2: out and engage with different you know, people, schools, talent creatives,
Speaker 2: just anybody in that space around the city and just
Speaker 2: kind of build relationships so that they know that at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, that majority is is authentically
Speaker 2: rooted and connected to the culture and it's a priority
Speaker 2: for us. That means again making sure that we're you know,
Speaker 2: again being proactive and going to the auc to make
Speaker 2: sure that we're getting talent from the Atlanta University Center
Speaker 2: and make sure that we're you know, doing things around
Speaker 2: the seed to bring in people that might not have
Speaker 2: had a traditional path. You know, everybody doesn't go to
Speaker 2: college anymore, so how are we looking for people that
Speaker 2: didn't go to school and can how how can they
Speaker 2: get into this industry? And then on the innovation and
Speaker 2: then also just again how do we even manage our
Speaker 2: culture internally? You know, I'm not HR, but I'm a
Speaker 2: big believer in you know again people people you know,
Speaker 2: high achievers want to be around other high achievers, and
Speaker 2: so you know, I really want to help us. I
Speaker 2: work to kind of help us create a kind of
Speaker 2: a high achieving atmosphere for our team. That's fund, it's engaging,
Speaker 2: but you know, we also get stuff done. And then
Speaker 2: on the innovation side, like I said before, you know,
Speaker 2: my background's in tech. I always just have a love
Speaker 2: for technology. I spent the first half of my career
Speaker 2: in that. And so it's also about figuring out what
Speaker 2: are the tools and things that we can use to
Speaker 2: help innovate and make ourselves more efficient so that as
Speaker 2: an agency, one again, we're just being more efficient so
Speaker 2: we can create more opportunities. But We're also given our
Speaker 2: people in employees access and experience to use, you know,
Speaker 2: more cutting edge things that will just help them stay
Speaker 2: competitive in their jobs. I'm I'm a big believer in AI,
Speaker 2: but I think even with AI, for example, the people
Speaker 2: that learn how to embrace it and integrate it into
Speaker 2: their workflows are going to be the ones that are
Speaker 2: the most successful. Like, it's very true that AI might
Speaker 2: replace some jobs, but on the same time, I think
Speaker 2: it's a lot like a computer, you know, Like there
Speaker 2: was a time when everybody had typewriters, and now we
Speaker 2: have computers. And so the folks that embraced learning how
Speaker 2: to use email, learning how to use a computer, you know,
Speaker 2: learning how just to use tech in general, had just
Speaker 2: more opportunities than the folks that said, I'm only using
Speaker 2: a typewriter. And so I think, you know, AI is
Speaker 2: kind of that same thing, right, like the folks that
Speaker 2: learn how to you know. I literally was just in
Speaker 2: a meeting a little while ago with my creative team saying,
Speaker 2: you know, how can we use AI to help make
Speaker 2: us more efficient? Like, you know, is it recording all
Speaker 2: our meetings, you know, with a tool like and then
Speaker 2: you know, then sharing those meeting notes backed out to everybody,
Speaker 2: so that somebody just have to do it, is it?
Speaker 2: You know, using tools like mid Journey or you know,
Speaker 2: Getty Images even has an AI generator now to help
Speaker 2: us quickly ideate on you know, conceptual you know design
Speaker 2: for clients to kind of just get stuff out the door,
Speaker 2: not that they will ever go live, but it just
Speaker 2: gets the juices for them. Right, How can we just
Speaker 2: think about technology to help us be more efficient? So
Speaker 2: you know, that's kind of what my day typically includes,
Speaker 2: is that, and you know also a lot of spreadsheets
Speaker 2: and budget stuff too.
Speaker 3: So with Butter, I mean, you guys are covering every
Speaker 3: category of the culture in Atlanta, and that's you know, sports, news, food, music,
Speaker 3: and et cetera. What is so special about the black
Speaker 3: entrepreneurial landscape and these particular verticals in Atlanta?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, well, I always say Atlanta
Speaker 2: is a special place in general, just because if you're
Speaker 2: ever not clear why the once you get off the
Speaker 2: get off your plane at the airport, you know, Atlanta
Speaker 2: is different. I've been all over the world and that's
Speaker 2: one of the few places I've ever been that when
Speaker 2: you get off from the moment you kind of touch down.
Speaker 2: You see people of color at all, you know, all
Speaker 2: walks of life, from the pilots to the janitors, right,
Speaker 2: you know, so and I think you know, the different
Speaker 2: verticals around Atlanta are very much the same thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's a very unique thing that we can
Speaker 2: go to these brands, go to these companies, go to
Speaker 2: these large organizations, and the people that are making decisions
Speaker 2: at the top, you know, look like you. And you
Speaker 2: know what does that mean. It means that one, it's
Speaker 2: easier for you to be your authentic self. You know,
Speaker 2: it's easy for you to walk into certain conversations and say,
Speaker 2: you know what, I don't have thought I have to
Speaker 2: you know, overly code switch or be somebody I'm not.
Speaker 2: I can actually be authentic. I could bring my whole
Speaker 2: self in here to this conversation. But also what's amazing
Speaker 2: about that is because you have people that you know
Speaker 2: that are from the culture or or they get it
Speaker 2: at the top making those decisions, you're just able to
Speaker 2: do things that resonate more broadly because everybody's kind of
Speaker 2: understanding it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So again, you know, it's it's it's it's like again,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, when people would say, yeah, we
Speaker 2: got to get an influencer on this, it's like, well,
Speaker 2: why you know?
Speaker 1: But but now when you have.
Speaker 2: Somebody in there at the top that understands the nuances around,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna use it Atlanta as like Atlanta culture.
Speaker 2: It's not like you're just you know, throwing things in
Speaker 2: there to say we gotta do this, we gotta do this,
Speaker 2: we gotta do this. It's really the conversations more often
Speaker 2: not tend to leverage around what's impactful, what would really
Speaker 2: you know, resonate, what would really help this be successful?
Speaker 2: And then how can we kind of do that together?
Speaker 2: And again it's just having that ability to be collaborative
Speaker 2: while also just being your full self, I think is
Speaker 2: what makes Atlanta really special and unique.
Speaker 1: And again, having.
Speaker 2: Traveled and worked all over the world, I I you know,
Speaker 2: I've said that's not always been the case, and that's
Speaker 2: why I think that again, that's why lant is such
Speaker 2: a special place.
Speaker 3: So if you think about what you guys have done
Speaker 3: with butter Ato and how it's work for Atlanta, and
Speaker 3: then giving the platform to people doing really great things
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, what can other communities learn from that think
Speaker 3: about Detroit, you know, Cleveland, Baltimore, Chattanooga. What can other
Speaker 3: cities replicate that has worked well for Butter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 2: every city. I think every city has a story. I mean,
Speaker 2: use Detroit as an example, right, Like you think about
Speaker 2: just the history from you know, the car companies, the
Speaker 2: motown and everything in between. Right, Like, there's an element
Speaker 2: of just having pride, you know, in your city, in
Speaker 2: the place you live, in the place you call home.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, the great thing about that
Speaker 2: pride is is that you can activate it and really
Speaker 2: fun and interesting ways. Just recently, you know, just recently,
Speaker 2: we did the very a very similar thing, right you know,
Speaker 2: here in Atlanta, an announcement came out that the city
Speaker 2: of Decatur schools had a path do balance of almost
Speaker 2: eighty eight thousand dollars for student unpaid school lunches, and
Speaker 2: because of that, they were going to start giving students
Speaker 2: that had unpaid balances a cheese sandwich and a cart.
Speaker 1: And of milk.
Speaker 2: Now, there's a lot of common questions that come up
Speaker 2: when you say that, like what if they're Lato's intolerant,
Speaker 2: or you know, is that now singling out the people
Speaker 2: who might be having issues at home. But what was
Speaker 2: really interesting was, you know, we partnered with another amazing
Speaker 2: entrepreneur right here called Jasmine, Jasmine Crow of Gooder, and
Speaker 2: she had this idea to basically say, you know what,
Speaker 2: because we're the people that you know, care about this city.
Speaker 2: If the city of Decatur can't raise eighty eight thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: why we can. And literally, in forty eight hours, we
Speaker 2: raised eighty five eighty six thousand dollars on GoFundMe, enough
Speaker 2: to pay off the entire outstanding Student Outstanding Student lunch
Speaker 2: balance for the entire city of Decatur.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So I think that's where that whole city pride comes from,
Speaker 2: right because why the people that followed Butter, they went
Speaker 2: to school, Indicator, they went to school, they have kids,
Speaker 2: they have family around there, they have pride in that sense.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, while we have fun and we try to keep
Speaker 2: it positive and we try to you know, do things
Speaker 2: when we do need to activate our audience, our audiences
Speaker 2: is very engaged and they want to see the city
Speaker 2: and the culture be protected.
Speaker 1: And so I was super proud for that.
Speaker 2: Moment just and again it wasn't even my idea, it
Speaker 2: was not that we helped out with, but the idea
Speaker 2: that we had a huge audience and you know, just
Speaker 2: putting this message out here drove tens of thousands of
Speaker 2: dollars and you know, submissions literally in twenty four to
Speaker 2: forty eight hours, you know where on Monday, you know,
Speaker 2: they were saying this is what was going to happen.
Speaker 2: Two three days later they're like, Okay, the balance is
Speaker 2: paid off.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So I think that's the benefit of a butter like
Speaker 2: object in other cities. Right, It's like there could be
Speaker 2: moments where because government moves slow, or because it takes
Speaker 2: a while to activate, like, how else can you just
Speaker 2: get the best of a sty to kind of stand
Speaker 2: up and say, you know what, we're all gonna get
Speaker 2: behind this thing and make something happen right now. And
Speaker 2: I think, you know, when you cultivate that audience by
Speaker 2: providing them value, giving them an outlet, letting them have fun.
Speaker 2: But then when you say hey, y'all, I need y'all
Speaker 2: to step up and they do it, it's just an
Speaker 2: amazing thing to kind of see. And so I think
Speaker 2: that's something that again, all these other cities could really use,
Speaker 2: you know, a very a very similar like I said,
Speaker 2: Butter like object.
Speaker 3: And then so when you started Butter, like this was
Speaker 3: this design to be a business or was this design
Speaker 3: to be something We care about the community, we want
Speaker 3: to tell these stories, et cetera. And here's why I'm
Speaker 3: asking this question is you know, I have the belief
Speaker 3: that and maybe you agree that you can build You
Speaker 3: can try to sell a product without a brand, and
Speaker 3: you may sell something, but if you build a brand,
Speaker 3: you can sell anything almost that aligns with your product,
Speaker 3: it aligns with your you know, true north Like, think
Speaker 3: about a Rihanna. Rihanna can sell almost anything. She can
Speaker 3: sell many things. But if she just had didn't have
Speaker 3: the name, but just had a product, she could sell
Speaker 3: some product, maybe sell some fansy, maybe people will buy it,
Speaker 3: maybe they don't, but they will follow her anywhere now
Speaker 3: because she has a brand. And so my reason for
Speaker 3: asking question about Butter is was this design to be
Speaker 3: I guess was it more contributory, contributive to the community
Speaker 3: and a business happened, or was like, Hey, we're going
Speaker 3: to start a business and we're going to create content.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So when we started Butter, I actually launched and
Speaker 2: incubated it inside of an agency that I was working
Speaker 2: out here in Atlanta. You know, in the beginning, folks
Speaker 2: thought there was like some weird angle. I had people
Speaker 2: hitting me up like, are y'all just trying to market
Speaker 2: to black people? Or what are you selling? I said, no, honestly,
Speaker 2: there's no hidden agenda. The only agenda is I'm just
Speaker 2: trying to do cool shit for the city. But the
Speaker 2: beautiful thing about that it kind of being incubated was
Speaker 2: it allowed us for the first couple of years to
Speaker 2: not worry about making money and just focus on the brand.
Speaker 2: I think there was always an there was always a
Speaker 2: goal or I think a vision that this could be something.
Speaker 1: We just had kind of figure out what it was.
Speaker 2: And you know, the trick is is, like I said,
Speaker 2: when you actually have the ability to build an audience
Speaker 2: and build a brand first, what you can then do
Speaker 2: is you can then go to them and ask them
Speaker 2: what they want, and then it's easy. Like that's honestly,
Speaker 2: that's that's like almost the definition of marketing at its core, right,
Speaker 2: It's like understanding your audience and just giving them what
Speaker 2: they want. And so, you know, building up this brand,
Speaker 2: building up this audience, is super just tied in and
Speaker 2: resonated to Atlanta. You know, we would do little stuff
Speaker 2: here and there to just kind of have fun, but
Speaker 2: it was never kind of a you know, Okay, we
Speaker 2: got to do this to pay the bills kind of situation.
Speaker 2: When I left that agency and then fully acquired all
Speaker 2: the IP for Butter, you know, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we have to do more of a business now. But again,
Speaker 2: we already kind of knew because our audience and we
Speaker 2: knew what they wanted, what are the things that would work?
Speaker 2: And so for me, the fun part is is now
Speaker 2: that I have such a good understanding of our audience,
Speaker 2: the fun part is really figuring out, Okay, what are
Speaker 2: the things that we could do to kind of do this,
Speaker 2: because at the end of the day, you know, great
Speaker 2: content needs a business model. You know, I'm not a
Speaker 2: huge fan of the advertising business model in general, even
Speaker 2: though I work in that space, but you know, I
Speaker 2: do think for us, it's it's kind of similar to what.
Speaker 1: You said about Rihanna.
Speaker 2: What I'm looking at now is what are things that
Speaker 2: only Butter could do and that could push out because
Speaker 2: of our audience and they would just love this and
Speaker 2: they would actually want to you know, buy it or
Speaker 2: do something with it. So you know, I'm thinking about
Speaker 2: you know, different you know, events, activations, we think about
Speaker 2: actual real products. There's lots of stuff that we're kind
Speaker 2: of working on right now with that idea that we
Speaker 2: kind of came out of last year, with that realization
Speaker 2: of Okay, the audience is here. We kind of we
Speaker 2: have the distribution built in. Now, the question is what
Speaker 2: do we put in front of them? What do they want?
Speaker 2: And so that's going to really be the focus. You know,
Speaker 2: that was the focus last year and going into this
Speaker 2: year is you know, products and services that our audience
Speaker 2: you know, we know they'd like that we could just
Speaker 2: put right in front of them, and we know they
Speaker 2: would just you know, snatch it up off the gate.
Speaker 2: Because again, you know, in order to stick around, you
Speaker 2: do got to make money. And you know, again that
Speaker 2: money goes to help you know, fun, the salaries of
Speaker 2: the team and everything else. And so that's why it's
Speaker 2: important that we that we go out and create those
Speaker 2: things so that this can exist one so we can
Speaker 2: do things, but to the next time a Decatur Schools
Speaker 2: type situation happens. There's a brand here that can also
Speaker 2: help activate people and make stuff happen, you.
Speaker 3: Know, black tech. Green money to production to Blavity, Afrotech
Speaker 3: from the Black Effect Podcast Network and I Hire Media.
Speaker 3: It's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas. If
Speaker 3: you got something out of this episode shared with somebody,
Speaker 3: we'll get your money.
Speaker 1: Piece of luck.