How To Grow Your Brand On TikTok With Alessandro Bogliari, CEO of Influencer Marketing Factory
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How To Grow Your Brand On TikTok With Alessandro Bogliari, CEO of Influencer Marketing Factory
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About The Guest
Alessandro Bogliari is a Digital Entrepreneur and Growth Marketer. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of The Influencer Marketing Factory, a global influencer marketing agency that helps brands and companies launch influencer marketing campaigns on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Alessandro Is Also A Member Of The Forbes Agency Council And Member Of The Drum Network.
Thanks to his work and contribution to the field he has been cited numerous times as an authority in the Influencer Marketing field, from magazines such as TIME, AdAge, AdWeek, The Verge, Daily Voice, BBC, WSJ, Distractify, Glossy, eConsultancy, Forbes, B&T and many others.
Talking Points
07:38 — Making mistakes & early entrepreneurship.
16:24 — How do brands convert their message onto TikTok.
20:05 — Impressive business/TikTok case studies.
25:48 — Crafting your message for social media.
30:47 — How to use micro influencers.
40:23 — There’s so many social platforms.. which one should you focus on?
43:53 — Suggestions for how companies approach creating the content.
48:07 — Career advice for professionals.
Show Links
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Read The Transcript (Machine Generated)
Alessandro 02:38
Yeah, I mean, definitely a lot of different things before these, you know, a lot of, you know, trial and error, several things, I will try to like make, you know, super long, you know, we tell us we talk a lot too long. So, I’m gonna try to make it like, you know, a long story short, but what I see all the time with is that I started working since I was like, 15 years old, doing, you know, different things on the side that while I was studying, I was studying and working together, always single time. I mean, I did my first website when I was 12 years old with HTML and CSS and some basic CSS, like we’re still at the beginning, I was doing that with an, you know, a notepad on Windows, that that’s, that’s, that’s the time, okay, so I’m not confused, or I’m not that old. But still, you know, like, this was, like, old enough to know, notepad on Windows. So so whatever, it is a long story short, I mean, I’ve been always in into intrapreneurship I did my first startup when I was around 1920 years old. It was like these websites about Milano in Italy, my city. And you know, it started as just an experiment, but at that age already got like a team of around 20 people. And this was this website about like, you know, the city and I learned a lot I didn’t make a single dime out of it. But I learned so many things about like, you know, leadership and you know, the growth hacking mindset how to how to go big or try to go by like without no budgets or small really small budgets, and that opted out because you know, when you’re there you don’t have like any let’s say funding officer data, your mind and your brain is like developed to find all the time you know, solutions, right. So that helped me a lot and fast forward always like, you know, studying and everything I did my bachelor degree in in Italy. I got my master’s degree in Copenhagen, Denmark. And while I was there, I was working for other different startups and everything but I got definitely a lot into influencer marketing. I was working with other people in Copenhagen. We actually wrote my thesis about influencer marketing wasn’t one of the first pieces about that was like a few years ago now. And it was like a softball like, you know, it was about like how much you should pay influencers based on all sorts of really easy formula. I don’t want even to call it algorithm was like a really sort of formula, taking into consideration different factors. And I was really fascinated by that. I was already working in that I was starting that I was like, This is growing pretty fast. And they were the agencies out there. But something was missing, in my opinion was missing, like, adding more like of the sorry, like the data behind the inferences that usually platforms offer. But also, like, you know, combine that with their strategic point of view and the creativity of an agency. A lot of times back in the days agencies, were still offering those vanity metrics to clients. And I felt like now people and clients want something more. So I said, let’s go back together, creativity, and data. And that’s why then I moved to actually Miami. And after that, now, I’m in New York. But yes, I mean, like, I can find that it was mercury factory less than three years ago, we’ve been really, we are now almost 30 people, between Europe and the States and Iran. Now. I mean, like, we have done a lot of campaigns with amazing clients sound that you mentioned before, but I’d say that the thing that really changed everything for us was that we have been one of the first agencies in the world to offer tik tok when it was still on, as people call it, an app for kids. And we actually believed in that there was a big lover of vine. Back in the days after vine our got something about musically, but it was definitely like not my audience that also said like, let’s see what happens and then tik tok came along and that we we said, let’s let’s really put a lot of our effort in data, it’s gonna be like, it’s, it wouldn’t be wisest to go and compete with all Instagram, because there were so many agencies around there. So we said, let’s go talk talks so fast, like in our first four were on that like, again, a lot of trial and errors before and then got to this agency, start building from scratch. And we went from zero to seven digits in the first year and our like growing pretty faster, day by day. So quite excited to see what is gonna happen the next month.
Scott 06:48
It seems like you’ve always you’ve kind of always been on the on the leading edge of trends in terms of influencer marketing. So I have tons of questions about Tick tock, and you know, how brands can be effective on Tick tock, but first, just a few a few last points on as you build this brand. And this company, when you started, when you started this company, was this was not your first foray into entrepreneurship, like you said before you had some, you know, get some experience not really successful. What do you think led to your rapid success with when you started this agency, because a lot of people try and start marketing agency, it’s like every kid, and a computer can start, quote, unquote, marketing agency. So you said you took on Tick tock, but I’m sure there’s other factors that lead you to be successful. So walk me through that.
Alessandro 07:38
So I’d say that I mean, first of all, when I was definitely younger, I did a big mistake that a lot of people do, you try to do a lot of different things together, you maybe are not consistent, you do something for three months, is not working. And you will say let’s go to something else, you know, so that is a big mistake. I think all the time that also people do and I did it so many times. And actually is the worst thing ever because you are putting effort money and you have to learn new things you even put like in some investment in some of that you fate is gonna maybe get back your money in the same day or a few months. But usually it’s not like that. It takes a lot of time to you have to have like auto factories in all the time right the right timing right industry, and but mostly consistency. I’d say that this time what what changed rate is that first of all, I had now like 15 years of a lot of things that I’ve done in the past. So I took a lot of different things like you know, I was able to I mean I am I have a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and art direction I went before I was doing freelancer, like work for like making websites and everything. So like I had all that knowledge is so I didn’t have to pay for like someone to make the website, the logo and everything right, I did it by myself then I knew already how to do like growth hacking. So I was like, Okay, I have no no budget, but I know how to hack the system in a way right to get like clients without having to spend for paid ads. And I knew already like how to make networks and so on. And also my co founder like, you know, she was already she was more in the corporate side. So she can come in and helped out in the structure, a start up in a more professional way. So I knew how to do all those growth hacking. She was like really good in that how to structure a company that because I never worked in a big company always working for myself or for startups. So Surf’s Up Sarah Barbara, fantastic for many things. But usually there is no structure. There is no your key. There is no vision, real vision of what is going to happen in three months, six months in one year. So I think that I combined all the things that are learned, committed like different mistakes in the past, a lot of consistency. A lot of working hours in my union was waking up at four in the morning, I was taking my bike and I was riding my bike to the office and started working at 430 for Europe and then after Europe, I was working for the us. So again, you cannot start a company and thinking that you’re going to work for it for eight hours a day, you have to work like 16 hours a day, like, I don’t think there is any other way at the beginning, because you’re gonna have so many hats on you, you’re gonna be the CEO, the CTO, the CMO, the support everything and all after a while you’re like, able to get like, getting more people on in delegate. So really, it’s a combination of things. But definitely, and I want to say common sense things for like the consistency of that it’s definitely important. And the beginning, like what I say all the time, is trying to do the most possible things by yourself, especially if like no money or just on a budget, like why go out there and spend for like, getting something perfect. If like, all the time, you’re just waiting for Oh, it’s not perfect yet, you know, for the market that you will just postpone all the time. So again, it’s a combination of these things that say, and of course, like, you know, doing some research and understanding where the industry is going, you don’t want to go into a red ocean. So what we have done is that, let’s get our knowledge into a blue ocean market. That was the token, there was no one who was there. If you’re pretty good in SEO, I have a lot of experience in that. I said, if we know how to now like, you know, create certain landing pages around Tiktok area. And I knew a lot about backlinking a lot of VA like say SEO on site and so on. We were the first there were still like the second in the world like 40,000 friends and my agency. Were second now on Google for influencer marketing agency, we can be like after competing for like, you know, just two years like it or not even for years, I guess like, although other people there, if you’re not to go those things, you can still beat the competition. So again, long story short, all of those different things are good industry consistency working a lot for that. But I just feel that, you know, it’s normal to commit mistakes, especially if this is the first, this is my first real experience in something. But because I come from, like 1015 years of like, let’s try this. Let’s try that. And you know, I learned a lot along the way,
Scott 11:58
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Alessandro 16:24
So I’d say that the majority Yes, they can there is some misconceptions and I said only b2c you know clients can go there or that only you know, fresh companies and you know like more like design for young people can be there we actually work also for companies like in the banking industry, in the insurance industry, in sometimes like pharma industry. So again, if you are crafting the message in the right way, you can still do narrative content. What I say all the time is that not because everyone now wants to go Tick Tock you sheet like this, I say that like even like against our own interests. But the truth is that do not like to rush to something just because everyone is there, you still want to add your tone of voice, you still want to have your brand values. You don’t want to just make fun of yourself, just because you want to go on tik tok and maybe playing like the silly brand, okay? You can go on tik tok, even without having to you know, to dance like finally people understand. It’s not just like for dentists like it’s a place where you can actually learn things. You can learn about marketing, you can learn about medicine, especially during COVID there were a lot of professionals that were saying like what to do, what not to do, and why certain viruses were spreading, and so on. So like, now it’s really hub, where you can learn things you can have fun, and so on. So even if you’re like you know, someone in personal finance, you can you can give away like, you know, like different tips there. If you are in the banking as well, if you are a coach, like everyone really can find their niche. Actually, the good thing of tik tok is the algorithm like if you are consistent in a nation, you’re going to like your content is going to be served to the same people that liked your content or similar content. So actually, everyone that is a certain niche can actually get a lot of more niche audience because of how the algorithm works cooperatively with other social media. So International, yes, I think that a majority of brands, even b2b can be there, you just have to understand that one, you have to do everything in a Tiktok native way. So do not just think that they’re gonna record something for anything and then you’re gonna post it on tik tok or take a short cut off of YouTube video and put it on Tick Tock in my work every once in a while but other than that people want to see something that is designed for Tick Tock and to understand before posting anything, what the community wants to see, read their comments and understand a bit more what is trending that week, you know, so, do some more research because again, people on tik tok are expecting certain type of content and you want to give them you know, what they like?
Scott 18:58
So, so walk me through like say, you know, say one case study two, because we’re talking we’re sort of talking theoretical and high level now. So walk me through like, say one one b2b brand setting, that’s the people that probably find the most find the platform the most difficult to understand. So walk me through like a case study of one you can talk about, of somebody that did it successfully. And like what that what that campaign was like, because I’ve seen someone, I’ve seen some on your site, and they do it quite well. So I’m sure there’s a few examples. Yeah. Is there any one that you saw on the website? There was there was I’ll pull it up again. Actually, I was looking at unless there’s one that you just like in particular doesn’t really matter to me. I just thought it’d be a good to walk through a case study just because I know that people first every every every influencer marketing consultant agency, they all say like, yes, you should take your brand there. But it I actually had trouble outside of outside of your site. I actually had trouble finding a lot of brands that spoke about their Tiktok campaigns and whatnot. I feel like it hasn’t really been adopted. Yes. So you probably have some of the few really strong case studies that are out there. Yeah,
Alessandro 20:05
definitely. You know, I mean, like, in general, I mean, of course, like I can, I mean, there are like different type of case studies that I can talk about. Maybe Let me start, like, you know, with some, that is an easy one, there is maybe b2c just to get there, and then we can go like in the, in the, in the b2b. When it comes to b2b, it’s for me, of course, it’ll be more like difficult to talk about that because there is more like you know, things evolves in terms of like NDA, I realize then then the b2c as you can easily understand, but let me start like with for example one maybe there is more in the in the b2c you know, we also represent talents on tik tok. So we also have like a roster of people that work with us and under our agency and one perfect example it is that we have these talent cola cringe Carter on Tick Tock he was a steal his butter like he was really like a big fan of Dunkin back in the days he has done like so many free videos about Dunkin he was going to Dunkin every single morning getting a coffee talking about these big like, you know, it was it was like so, so much a big fan you know, like it was just talking like a this is my daily life. I want to share that with you. And all the time there was like a dunking cap or some product you know, usually coffee like in his and Okay, so donkey reached out you know, and said like, we want to do something and this was the beginning when Charlotte Amelio was going out with the first Charlie drinkin. And so we have a donkey in that way, for example, with our talent to go out there etc, there was this new product, what people loved it is that we were combining together the love that genuinely love authentic love, have one of our talent for a certain brand. And then when he went out with like, you know, this promotion, and Dunkin even sent him like custom and tailored merchandising with his name on their audience, like his audience loved that, because it was like, Oh, you’re not just like selling out like your, you know, your your, your your account, you’re actually getting paid for like from a brand that you always sponsored even without, like, you know, being paid in the past. So I think that now we are going in the direction where audiences love to see in these co branding activities, we are going from mere promotional content of like a buy these to actually co creating co branding things, especially imagine in the makeup and beauty industry. There are like a lot of influencers that are creating their own merchandise merchandising their own line of makeup, because these what people want to see, they want to see that there is a face that they can trust behind that and not just anymore. A B Corp. So this is like, you know, one example but we have done that for so many, like, you know, different like, you know, industries, I’m talking about the music industry, we’ve been like, you know, back in the days again, we started working with Sony Music, universal Warner Music Group, whenever they had like a new launch of a song or artist, we help with that. Because you know, you can use that soundtrack on tik tok for a new trend or as a challenger, and people just to jump in on that are gonna use that song. And so you start them, you know, you maybe you pay five people, but at the end of the campaign, you’re gonna have hundreds of 1000s of videos created on that song, and a percentage of that are gonna look on Spotify or Apple Music for that song. And this is why you see nowadays so many songs that goes from tik tok to the Billboard and even a radio because it’s like, imagine that like, one minute of people make content on that soundtrack as a percentage of that is gonna get interested in that I’m gonna listen to that. And even the artist gets famous. And we have like an Olivia Rodrigo is, I think the biggest example of that, or we can start on Tick Tock and became like a big a big, like, you know, sensation. So that is more about like, I get more b2c. But for example, in the b2b, we also have like, you know, interesting cases, about like, anything that goes from banking to insurances. In that case, while we’re done with some of these clients, that is that we went in a way there, we know that some of those contracts are sometimes to be boring, right? So you don’t want to watch maybe 30 minutes video or go through a PDF of like 20 pages. But what if your favorite talker can tell you in 30 seconds, the benefits of something like that about for example, your bank, why should switch to this bank that is more for young people that are maybe they want to spend this amount of money in fees? What if I can tell you that there is new service that can help you on that or like something that we saw a lot, it’s insurances like insurances, especially for young people. These year in the States, more people save the money. And more people understood that you not only have to save money, but you have to pay attention to many things and one of that is insurance insurance. is such a mess. Even for me like from Europa, when I moved here, I was like, What is these? Like, I don’t know what to do. And I realized that many Americans live like Berner living here. They don’t, they don’t know how does it work. So imagine if I think tocker can explain you in a few seconds, at least the basics on how to find insurance. So in an informative video of a 32nd, you can give away Five golden nuggets, okay, of information. And one of those a, maybe it is a promotion to the new insurance platform, or whatever. So it’s always a combination of like being informative, be useful, but also being entertaining, right for the audience. So again, you can really craft the message in a different way, and still drive traffic to a certain website, even in the b2b space.
Scott 25:48
I was gonna say, these are just really good. These are just good marketing practices, not just tick tock, they’re just really smart marketing practices. And the other thing I thought was interesting, that I’d love to get your opinion on. You mentioned how influencer marketing, even when you first sort of got into the space was not very data driven. that carries over to tick tock carries over to every every social platform. So how do I say Semih brand? I want to get involved in influencer marketing, I want to use it. How do I measure the ROI? What are the What should I look for? What should I stay away from?
Alessandro 26:24
So, of course, I mean, like there are different same metrics to take in consideration. It depends your initial KPIs. So first of all, a lot of brands what they don’t do, from the beginning from day one, it is to do a forecast on what they can expect. And what are their goals we work with a lot of apps is of course, you know, one of the metrics and KPIs download of the app or signups after there are certain metrics, right? If we’re talking about a physical product in store, be more difficult sometimes to like, you know, to track or sometimes we have ecommerce sales. So you can track those through UTM parameters, tracking links, tracking pixels, and even promo codes, right or discounts codes. So first of all, you have to understand from day one, what do I want to what is the goal of this campaign is that brand awareness is that driving conversion is that getting more followers on my page is that a combination of things. So first of all important understand that, based on that you after that, like we as an agency, what we do is that based on the KPIs and geolocation and type of industry, we give you a combination of different inferences that can get you to that point. So if we know that it’s going to possibly be brand awareness, maybe we’re gonna work with bigger influencers, that you’re going to pay more, but you can get to millions of people in an easy way. And again, some REITs are like, we want to do awareness about these new product launch, since they know that it’s gonna be a bit more difficult to track because maybe it is in store, they are like, okay with that, and they just like a, we want just to make some noise about that. Yeah, other points may be smaller budgets, or they really need to justify ROI to their CFO or whatever, that in that case, we prefer all the time to go maybe with a combination of macro and some medium, because they can drive more traffic. And what we do all the time it is that we give to any of them a specific link with UTM parameters that we asked to the client, if they can put tracking pixels, or any any other like fighting events on their website, in order for First of all, see the overall campaigns, how it is working to what are the influences that are bringing the most and free, they can do an easy calculation of like, Okay, this is the traffic that we got, this is the conversion. And you can calculate it in any way right from the thank you page, if it is an app, you can use like appsflyer, a singular dotnet or any other third party tracking system. And you can do as easy calculation where you take the total budget amount, and then you divide that by the different metrics. So you’re going to have, as you can have even in programmatic and in other like, you know, in other like in marketing, you know, fields, you’re going to have one that is going to be the cost of customer acquisition cost. Another metric is gonna be the CPC one is going to be the CPM. One is going to be the CPI if these installs of app, and you can even calculate the vanity metrics that for some reds are still important, like likes, views, comments, and so on. I mean, you also have to differentiate the comments that are just like, Oh, I love the content. And one comment they said is like, I love this bag, I love these, or where can I find more information about your coaching service and so on, there is a valuable compliment because you can drive more people thanks for that. So again, KPIs thanks about you understand this type of strategy that you want to do and then you calculate that and again, you can calculate ROI in different ways. But usually, if you put from day one everything in place, and everyone has tracking pixels and tracking links and UTM parameters, again, you take the actions that are interested in you divided that by the total budget as you would do for any other marketing activity. And you can also calculate influencer marketing ROI, again, if you have ever been placed, if not, is going to be maybe a waste of money and time. But if you do everything correctly, if you
Scott 30:06
set up the tracking, right, yeah. Do you have? Do you find that an influencer marketing, like if you run an influencer marketing campaign, you have these huge enormous influencers, you have micro influencers? Do you find that one is better suited to brand awareness versus direct conversions? Is there any anecdotal data, you know, just takeaways that you’ve seen after working with a variety of influencers? What converts better what’s just better for Jenna like is, you know, going to the Kim Kardashian, good to drive conversions? Or is that just great if you just want people to know about your brand?
Alessandro 30:47
Yeah, good question. So I mean, like, I’d say that, first of all, it depends by the social media, it depends. By that, because different social media offer different ways. Like they have different algorithms on how to serve content, and definitely different organic reach. So for example, one of the best way my opinion also to go, you know, again, to take like, maybe instead of doing just a comparison between Tick tock, there is the easiest one, let’s make it between YouTube and Tiktok. Okay. YouTube, is definitely really good for longer content, something that you where you can explain me more. And the follower base at the subscriber base, it is important sometimes, yes. But if one of those videos blow out and goes on their feature page, or like they go into related videos, it can be seen by many people, it’s quite normal on YouTube to find the people with 300,000 followers, subscribers, to receive every five minutes of views. So you can still bid on a person, okay, that hasn’t that many followers, maybe your subscribers. And still, if the content is good enough, they can go like, you know, well. And in that case, you can even drive traffic, even later on. Imagine that, like, YouTube, it’s a search engine, right? So at the end of the day, like, you can go there and type things as you would do in Google and others, right. And, I mean, it’s the same, it’s the same family, right? So the idea is that you can find videos if someone sent it to you, or on the free play, the feature page, whatever. But also, you can pull information, right? It’s full marketing, you go there, and you say, like, you know, versus sneakers of the month, whatever. And you’re going to find someone talking about that. The good thing of YouTube is that, as it happens for Google, your content is going to be there for a month for a year. And if you have a link in your description, people can still click on that, and you can drive conversions, even after three years. On the contrary of maybe like other social media, that it is more time sensitive, you know, like Instagram, after a while the content is, it is appears for stories, and for the feed. After a while, don’t even go check, you know, 48 hours, you know, scroll is a different type of intent and purchase, like, you know, intents from the people and buy like Tiktok. On the other end, for example, it’s great if you don’t have a big budget, you can go there and pay people that are like maybe micro influencer, because if they go to the for you page, similar to YouTube concept, they can blow out and get maybe 10 minutes of user, but you’ve paid for maybe 100,000 followers, right? You’re paying on those metrics, or previous videos. And what if, you know, you get like some one of that blows up in then then you can get like, fantastic exposure for a fraction of the cost on the content of maybe Instagram, or sometimes you get you paid for a certain number of metrics, but because of the organic reach, there is not that good nowadays, you might not get the best You know, there are so again, I’m not saying that one is better than the other is just different approaches. But in Nashville, I’d say that usually the big ones, you’re going to pay them a lot of money bar is not necessarily means that you’re going to get a lot of conversions. The majority of the people this is what I say all the time. Okay, so now though, I think this now is the first right on this kind of stuff like that he has like the most affiliates the most followed. Like you can still follow Cristiano Ronaldo, just because he seems like he’s Cristiano Ronaldo. So even if you don’t care about soccer, if you don’t care about anything that he does, you’re going to follow because he’s a celebrity. So what is your value as a follower is zero. So you are going to still pay him for all these millions of followers. But the conversion rate or the interest rate from these people, you know is the same for the Kardashian is the same for the big ones. They have a big following, but just random people that follow these people just because so it is preferable time to go with someone that you know that can have a niche audience and we need showdance I don’t mean all the people with 1000 followers, even people with 1 million, but you know that those people are interested in following this person because they want to follow this person they chose because of trust. Because of a niche because of content creation, and so on. So again, it’s a combination. But again, if you’re just starting, I would avoid to go with the big ones, because you can commit some mistakes. And even if you have big budgets, what we prefer, say all the time, diversify, because if one post doesn’t go, Well, you didn’t waste $200,000, you have $200,000, it is better to put, you know, like you’re, you’re bidding on different horses all the time, because that is a good way to diversify, as
Scott 35:28
you would do for anything, the stock market the anything right. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today’s episode quantum metric. So what quantum metric is going to do is it’s going to allow you to develop a single source of customer centric truth that can help you understand how to position your products, how to sell to your customers, because anyone is a digital leader who wants to understand your customers better, it should be 100% of you, you should want to understand the customer experience when they hate your website. And then you also want to understand not just your customers but who else in the world is having similar experiences. And how can you use that information to make informed decisions about how your business moves forward, we are gearing up for an unprecedented 2021 ecommerce season, ecommerce sales are expected to exceed 2020 benchmarks Even though COVID is lightening up consumer behavior has changed forever. 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You can install live chat on your website and allow sales or support to talk to prospects directly you can send marketing emails on behalf of a sales rep to complement their outbound campaign. You can allow prospects to book meetings directly from marketing emails right into a sales reps, calendar and all the interaction all the communication is seamlessly documented into your HubSpot CRM so that if somebody else has to look into an account or to help out they know exactly where the last person left off best of all with HubSpot, various price points and flexible pricing any company at any stage and take advantage of the various features that HubSpot has to offer starting with free and allowing for more scalability and complexity as your organization grows, learn how to scale your company without scaling complexity@hubspot.com Alright, let’s get back to the show. Yeah, yeah, I know that it’s smart advice. And now I guess the follow up would be okay, so this is if they’re actually working with influencers but you just have a good handle on you know how companies should best approach social. So if a company let’s assume it’s not a big companies assume smaller company. Yeah. And they’re trying to figure out where to spend their time because there’s a million different mediums, different channels, and they don’t know where to spend their time should be on Tick Tock YouTube, Instagram, whatever Twitter, it doesn’t, you know? So where do you recommend they spend time? Just one all of them? What’s your take on that?
Alessandro 40:23
So, I mean, you know what, whenever you try to do like all of them, it’s a lot of work. I think that a lot of brands do not realize how time consuming it is to be active on social media. So I’m talking about creating content for influencers, planning a strategy, doing a calendar of activities. And, like, it can be really like, you know, frustrating sometimes, because maybe you’re trying to do everything on any places, and it doesn’t work. What I recommend, personally, is that first of all, do not be in on everything, just because so if your audience is not on Pinterest, don’t be there. Like for every like continent, you put, maybe you’re gonna get free repaints or whatever. And was, was worth it, maybe not. So whatever these are, like, maybe try to find like two or three main social media that are working for you. For each of them. Spend time, I know that he’s like, common sense, again, things but you have to spend time on each social media some hours every day, or every week, if you don’t have enough time during the day, to understand what type of content are working, first of all, and what people are commenting in under their spots, you want to see the sentiment about that, you know, so you can do sort of even just like by yourself sentiment analysis of what is working under certain competitors of yours, go there, see, are they liking this type of content on these social media or they are hating it, if you can see that after a while you analyze 20 of your competitors on Instagram. And you can see that the audience on Instagram is not liking that on tik tok or on YouTube or on Pinterest on Twitch, they’re not liking that type of content, there are two ways one, it means that maybe you can be the first one to go with a different type of content. So to be the competition and understand what the what you’re always looking for, or to it means that the type of social media is just not a good match for your type of brand, okay, or industry. So you just avoid it, you know, like, Why just be like, you know, go there and try to be a meet the system all the time. But what are we doing is that start with two or three. And as you will do, like, you know, a B testing type of approach for anything, any anything in marketing, I will do also the same there, do these? And after a while, you’re going to see what is the response rate right on the different social media. And if after two, three years, you can see that one channel is not working that well. I mean, maybe you don’t have to kill it, but put all your effort in the other two that are working, right. I mean, at the end of the day, the 8020 rule. It works even for social media, so why spending maybe one hour a day for different social media, when you can put all your effort for those, like, you know, 20% out of everything that is bringing you the 80 in right. It’s an easy rule, you know, the Pareto principle, but I think that you can definitely like you know, adapted for for social media. So, again, spend time on that, understand what the audience is looking for. And as I mentioned at the beginning, do different type of content for a for all the different social media, don’t try to repurpose, because all these are going to notice that they’re not going to like it, you’re not going to the majority of times get you know, the best fit that feedback out of it, you know, so create one content thinking this goes to tik tok, this goes to YouTube, this goes to twitch, every time should be negative, normally. Okay, they are these their audience, they might like it, they might not like it, but put the right effort and time to create a custom content all the single time. And then,
Scott 43:53
last last insight from you on social, there’s a lot because I know that you live it. So that’s why I’m trying to trying to get this whole idea. So last last question. In terms of the actual content, what are what are some of your suggestions for how companies approach creating the content? What What should drive the decision in the pieces they make?
Alessandro 44:11
Yeah, so good question. So again, it depends by the type of media. I’d say that like for example, on tik tok, something that works well it is to jump in on transfer. pros and cons of that the Pro is that you’re going to be really relatable and you’re going to be right like, you know, portfolio on the folio page if you’re using a certain hashtag or certain trends or soundtracks so you can have more possibility to get featured. The corner and it’s not like really a call but is a potential issue. It is that it is easy to say oh, let’s do something with trending. But then depending on the year key of the company or a decision making or time that you can afford like to put into that is going to be like okay, I will have to do this content, but then maybe one day You think about it a second that you have to edit the content, that you publish it, and maybe it’s already old, right for the, for the public. So a lot of brands start with the idea. They’re like, I’m gonna do these super trending, and maybe one week passed by, and he’s not trying anymore. And actually, you’re gonna have the Contra effect, like, you know, some some subtable audience, if you if you jump on all the trend by a week, no one really cares about anymore. So, but that’s definitely something like if you’re on there doing something that is trending, if you are working with influencers, what I recommend all the time is that, try to trust them the most possible so of course, if you have a brand values, your tone of voice, you have something that is really important for you, or like a blacklist of words that you don’t want them to say, or associated with your brands, of course, then give them guidelines, but do trust them when it comes to content, because they are the ones that know the social media, they are the one they know their own audiences. So even if if they’re sent you a content that you might not like it, or they you don’t fully understand, imagine that there might be a gap or a generational gap, there might be different, like things that you do not understand about the audience is looking for. So try to find a middle ground on data, and try not to dictate too much like what they have to say, because again, social media, like especially on Tick Tock and, and but also like on YouTube, like people want to see something that’s authentic and genuine. And you want that the message is crafted in a way that is like relatable for people. And if you just say follow these guidelines, and this script, people are going to notice. And lastly, all the time, like I’d say try to be the less possible like your corporate on social media, because people when are on social media, unless you’re like on LinkedIn, but there is professional network, you are not in your not in work mode, you know what I mean? Like you are in a place where you want to see something that has different layout of graphics, that is more fresh, something that is not definitely that like, you know, maybe structure as you could see on LinkedIn in a corporate way. You want to have maybe sometimes a tone of voice that is might be formal, but also like informative and useful. So it’s like a way like, again, if I if I don’t like myself to see something that might be boring or corporate, like when I when I’m on social media, why should I create that type of content. So thinking that way, there is a good middle ground between sunovion your brand’s values, but also having your audience happy to see a content that maybe might be shareable. If it is just something that they can see like a content you can easily see on LinkedIn, and they just repurpose on tik tok, that is not going to work at all, you know. So just like read the room, understand what is happening during the week, you know, and again, start to do something that, you know, you you would like to share to others if you saw it, you know, and a lot of people think that is okay, I’m gonna just post it and people are gonna like it just because no, there is a plethora of content, and you have to be one of the best out there if you want really to get viral or if you want to get enough visitors to your website, the more followers on your page and so on, you know, so again, a lot of a lot of work and people do do not realize, you know, everything that is behind actually social media.
Scott 48:07
Agree? No, it is it’s very difficult. Do you I guess last question on this, then I want to do like some rapid fire career questions to pull some insights out of you. But any new trends or things that you’re seeing that you’re that you’re investigating now that you think will be relevant in the next six months? Yeah, social? Yeah,
Alessandro 48:29
definitely. So actually a couple of things. One, and we also, we also published a report about the it’s a free report that people can find on our website. It’s about social commerce. So I’ve been closely following what is happening in Asia in the past couple of years, and how people are combining together such as commerce, live streaming, and social media. So you know, and for people that are listening, some of them might not know yet, like what is social commerce, I can see there is sometimes a bit of confusion and misunderstanding. Social Commerce is like a way to buy and purchase an item inside the app without leaving the social media app. So it’s not like clicking on a button from Pinterest and go to a third party website and finalize the purchase. There it is to buy inside the app. So I’m talking about like Instagram shops, you go there, you see a post, you click on the target product, and you can find a button called Buy Now, when you click Buy Now, yeah, just to add your billing address. And you can even pay with PayPal or Apple Pay that is already in your phone. So it’s a smoother and frictionless like you know, way to buy things. So social commerce is still at the beginning in the US in Europe compared to Asia, I’d say people are still not used to do that for many reasons that we also serve it and we got some answer that so but definitely a good one. And I’m I’m curious to see how social media are gonna do in this era sort of the war to get more people on The Social Commerce aspects, technology is going there, I just can see that people culturally speaking are not there yet, they prefer still to buy sometimes from browser or from desktop. Okay, so mobile browser or desktop, so still all the work to do that, but definitely, I can see a big first future for that. And the second one is some more, I’ll be broader, but it’s about the creative economy. So as I was mentioning, at the beginning of this podcast like that, now, influencers are not just merely promoting things, they’re actually understanding that they are intrapreneurs they are creating their own solopreneur like, you know, journey and sometimes influencers stop by themselves, but actually, after a while, they have an entourage of people, helping them, you know, an agent, production assistant, and so on. And so now brands are going there and they want to co create or co branded things like that, like, you know, with with influencers, and the same influencers are understanding that you can have multiple revenue streams. I’m super familiar, thanks to merchandising, thanks for everything. So we’re gonna see our big future now in the greater economy, with new platforms, offering tools to help creators and influencers, in managing their economies, diversify their portfolio, and so on. So again, we started with like, just photos, promoted content on Instagram, back in the days, and now creators are like, wow, actually, I can think of myself as a company. And and they are making a lot of money. And on the other hand, the brands are understanding that creators are more than just like, you know, people on social media that actually again, like small medium, or some people are big companies, you know, for what they make yearly. And Mr. Really quick to see how how are shifting, like, you know, things and even in terms of budgets and interest from from brands, but in a international social commerce and creative economy, to Bart’s words are being seen along for in the last months, but definitely a lot of interest for for American companies to look into. Very good.
Scott 52:03
Okay, a couple of career questions that I like to pull out. So the biggest challenge you had in your career, how did you overcome it?
Alessandro 52:13
Okay, so I’d say that when I moved to the States, I had no connections. And that was a big cultural, I’d say, shock. But it also helped me to understand that there was no plan B. So I think that when you get to a situation of total uncomfort zone, that is where your brain is, like panic mode, and is like, that’s it, like, I don’t have Plan B, I want to stay in the States. And you know, I’m no one out, no one was there to help me. So I’d say that, when you get to that position, where this is it, or this is your brain, I don’t know how to explain it, but it does something and something clicks on you, and if you really want to get that you get there, so but I see that definitely that one sort of panic mode and consistency, to be in a position where again, like you, like, you know, that that that is like the only way to do things and, and you just like follow your instincts. And and that’s, that’s mostly it. So, again, it’s different for everyone that that was helping me like, you know, you go from, okay, this is like something I might do is to like, this is the only thing that I have to do right now you have to do it.
Scott 53:20
Yeah, I love that. I love that. Okay, one thing that you would tell your 20 year old self,
Alessandro 53:27
um, take things less seriously. Because when I was 20, I felt on myself maybe more similar to some people in Silicon Valley that they think they are gods, and you’re not, you’re not changing the world, even if your mission is like make the world a better place is not just another platform. So the thing that I say all the time is like, if you’re 20, you still have to learn so many things. Don’t be a bad person to others, and not that I was ever, but sometimes you might feel that you are more than what you are. So try to have like an eye sport for everyone working with you all the single time. And again, like think that you have so many years to make mistakes there even if you think that that idea that you are having on that platform said that that age is the best things that you ever created and the world that ever seen might not be. So Breathe in and breathe out just to think about like what to say out to your behavior with people because again, you are so full of energy at that age, but also so full of gaps in your knowledge about people about network about companies about how to make money that you might made so many mistakes, just because you think that you know more than the people that you actually are. So just take things a bit like not slower. But again, like you know, don’t take it super seriously. Because I was thinking of myself in a different way than I am now. And I feel now that I’m more like, whatever I’m doing my things but I’m not changing life. So if it goes well I’m happy if it doesn’t I’m still happy that I’m, I’m trying to do what I love to do.
Scott 55:02
I love that. That’s good advice. Very good advice. Um, one person that had a major impact on your life, it could be family, it could be professional. Who was that? And what did they teach you.
Alessandro 55:14
Um, I don’t have like any gurus or any personal like, you know, a story public person, I’d say that definitely my, definitely my parents, I think a lot in understanding that you have to work to get things done. And also that you can always like go outside your comfort zone. And you should be always interested in things. The like a curious person, they also have a company, totally different industry. But I saw that working a lot, you know, to get things done. And the thing that when you have that message, it helps you a lot during evenings at dinner, we were talking every single night about not just how school was going, but also our theater work. And that why when I was already 15, I got my professional mindset, because they were talking about me how their day also at work was gone. I am in a company. And they’ll have at all because I was already thinking of myself in a professional way. And so thanks to their hard work, so like okay understood, like if you if you want things to get done, and you don’t get from like, super video rich family, then the only way is to do things. So I’d say that they were like, definitely good. A good a good example for me to be honest, people are working hard, and that you cannot just dream about things, you have to mostly do things if you want to achieve certain results. Very good.
Scott 56:38
A book or a podcast that you’d recommend people go check out. So I know about this culture. Here’s another one another one.
Alessandro 56:50
No, I mean, like, I think that there are like many. Maybe Let me tell you just like, I don’t know, like maybe a capital, Okay, one, it is one of these. I mean, like one that everyone knows, but there is just one, I think one minute yet that I love about that is I mean, it’s rich, rich dad poor that everyone knows about the broker. But there is one concept that I love personally, it is the difference between being an employee and employer, so on how you can actually benefit in being an employee or in your like, you know, budgeting during the year. So again, a big book with a lot of some is common sense, some others, but I find some little small things that for people that are nothing intrapreneur yet can switch their mindset. So that helped me. But again, everyone knows about that book, another one that I liked, if you want to understand more about Tiktok, social media, Vine, what happened to vine, and so on. It’s a book called The attention factory. And it’s pretty interesting goes through all the I had the chance to talk with a with a with, with the author of that is an expert in all that area. And it’s nice because you can understand what happened in Asia, and in the States. And the history and why now we have big talker, so it’s gonna be more technical, but I think it’s, it’s so well detail about like everything that happened there that, you know, so so. So again, you can read Jake books, Yes, fine. But this one is, specifically it’s a good one where you can have a really good sense of what happened and you can also maybe understand what is going to happen next.
Scott 58:29
What does success mean to you?
Alessandro 58:37
This is a deep question. Friends, we’re talking about what is happiness? And now you’re telling me about success and after a one hour discussion about happiness, no one was on the same page so so to go back to your question before when I was 20 years old, I fought that success was the being the next CEO of Silicon Valley startup with 300 millions in investment I want it to be that person after while I understood that success is not definitely or necessarily mean that you got funding actually because all the times you get more money more trouble and you are not in charge like you’re not in in total like you know ownership of your own syrup so it’s more trouble usually then then success or or me like you know more bad days than good days. For me now after again many years and having this agency that is Mr. Pinto successful for what I expected what is and how is going for me success to be honest now. It’s like achieving certain things that I told to myself that are like things that I can reach, okay, it’s not like crazy things. And they know that I can for me success is to be in a position where I can finally be like, you know, financially speaking like free to not having to work every single day in my life that I can work if I want The bottom because of the assets that I’m building up, I can retire before the others, and not having to get crazy, like, I want a family and everything. So like, I don’t want to get to a position where you cannot have everything but it’s gonna be a difficult situation for you. So for me society is like having the basic things in life, family, friends, I would apartment or home or whatever, and not having to like work as crazy. So I’m not looking for a yacht, I’m looking for my life, but again, not having to work for them every single day of my life because I can have passive income thanks to the asset that I built before. And for me, that is success. Like if you have like a good family, good friends, do activities that you love travel the world and all seven some of those. It’s I think that should be successful. Many people, you know, like everyone, of course, they want to make money while I sleep. Right? And, and, but the message is that if you want to get there, you have to work there is no easy, rich scheme, like no money, double things like there is no how I go like 1 million in one day, they do not exist like those schools that tell you that they just don’t exist. So the difference is here to work a lot together. And then yes, so that there is Success to me. And if I’m happy we like I’m ready like winter, I’m successful in what I got for where I come from, right. As an immigrant, I’m already filming myself successful in that but again, without having that 20 years mindset of like, Oh, I am successful. I’m the best. I’m like, I’m no one. I’m happy with what I’ve built. I think that it’s a successful journey. And you know, if we continue like that, it’s gonna be even more successful. But even if it ends tomorrow, I feel a failure like Wow, it went so well. That’s good.
Scott 1:01:47
You had a lot of thoughts out of that happiness conversation. I know but that is its freedom its freedom its happiness its its its balance. Its and it’s not just inundating yourself with work till you die. And I think that’s very very balanced and smart way to look at success.
