How to Make Finance Fun with Social Media

transcript was exported on Feb 02, 2022 – view latest version here.

Coleman:

wanna make sure that we have the creative freedom that we want to continue doing. You know, the list of 24 videos a year that, that we are most excited about and then find brands who are willing to work with us and integrate naturally into that content versus, you know, so a brand coming to us and saying, Hey, we want to pay you X amount for a whole YouTube video focused around our product.

Brown:

entire world of marketing and advertising is changing. As we watch it just a couple years ago, you had 32nd ads during your musty TV on NBC. And today here we are with Chad Coleman talking about brand partnerships in the right ways to get your brand integrated and incorporated into actual messaging. This is a product placement, but it is product placement. And what I really think is fascinating here is how this is becoming such a multi multi-billion dollar industry.

Hrach:

it it’s so crazy. Just how partnerships and influencer partnerships and collaborations have evolved even just over the last couple of years, but especially even within like the last year, Adam, it just has exploded. And, you know, we have just talked about it so much over the last two years. It’s crazy. And Chad really dives deep today on how dude perfect is really setting up the perfect partnerships and what that looks like.

Brown:

again, like we always talk about on the show, authenticity is so important and finding that right, pairing of your brand and finding the right influencer, like dude, perfect, or anybody else, what you’re B2C kind of like dude, perfect. And, you know, bass bro shops or another brand that they work with or what we heard just a couple weeks ago from 10 William, 10 Williams about B2B influencers now a 15 billion annual industry, crazy stuff

Hrach:

is nuts. Yeah, let’s definitely bring Chad Coleman, VP brand partnerships, digital engagement at Dude Perfect. And to chat about those partnerships. But before we do, we also wanted to talk to you about the fact that today 84% of marketers say customer expectations are changing their digital strategy. Despite the harsh challenges of the past two years, marketers have found innovative ways to connect our customers and each other. The seventh edition of the state of marketing report from our amazing friends at Salesforce presents the insights of over 8,000 marketing leaders across 37 countries. This year’s report reveals the biggest priorities and challenges that will shape the future of marketing strategy in 2022 and be a on download your free copy today at Bitly slash state of marketing report. That’s B I T dot Y slash state of marketing report, all lower case. Also friends, you may have heard that we recently celebrated a massive social pros milestone by reaching our 500th episode that officially puts social pros up there with just as many episodes as law and order hard to believe. But to celebrate, we created a free e-book that features the absolute best of the best of social pros over the years, including our favorite guest provided tips on how to become a social pro and exclusive insights on what experts are predicting about the future of social. You can grab that ebook right now at Bitly slash social pros, 500 that’s B I T dot Y slash social pros five zero all lower case. Now let’s hear from Chad Coleman, VP brand partnerships and digital engagement at dude. Perfect.

Brown:

if you’re not one of their 57 million subscribers or have watched their third team, seven 5 billion billion with the B views, Chad Coleman is going to tell you about Dude Perfect. Chad Coleman is the vice president brand partnerships and digital engagement of dude. Perfect. For the seven people out there, seven, I say, who have never heard of dude. Perfect. Chad, bring up to speed.

Coleman:

Wow. It’s, it’s always crazy. When you hear the, the total view count number and billions, when you think about like just how many people there are in the world and how many views that actually is it’s, it’s like kinda like space it’s it’s mind blog, mind boggling to think about when you like, truly get into it. But yeah, thanks for having me on we you know, we’ve in this for about 13, almost 13 years now you know, creating family friendly content that you know, kids and parents alike can enjoy together and, you know, it’s, it, it didn’t really start out that way. I wasn’t really the intent for dude perfect from the beginning was to be like that kind of family friendly brand, but it just kind of morphed into that. You know, we started out with trick shots.

Coleman:

sure you guys remember you know, kind of the early days of dude perfect. The basketball trick shots, things like that. And then you know, what’s what I think is the most impressive is how they’ve diversified since then to keep the business going and keep it growing into what it is today, right? Like, you’ll see a lot of social media you know, trick, shot artists out there. And you know, it’s, I come from the golf industry as my background. So you know, there’s, I worked with a lot of kind of golf trick shot people throughout, you know, my day there. And it’s, it’s just kind of a, it’s awesome, but it’s like, you know, it’s, it’s rare that you see in this day and age, someone start there and then be able to grow that into, you know, an actual brand and that can sustain over time especially doing it with four of your other best friends, which makes it even more difficult. So you know, it’s been, it’s been really cool to watch and I actually met the dude perfect guys when I was working at Callaway and, and just was admiring kind of what they built and the direction they were going. And that’s kind of what made me wanna, you know, think about moving over to, to their team and, and here we are,

Brown:

and here you are nearly 14 billion videos later, and I love and appreciate the, the family for any aspect of it. And the idea that you have changed, you know, your, your kind of content to evolve you, you guys have been copied. Sometimes that’s a serious form of flattery, but you’ve created an entirely new genres on YouTube and all of the other social media properties. How does that, before we get into the technicals and the ones and zeros of this, how does that kind of work? How, I mean, does everybody kind of sit around and say, you know, we, we need to start doing this type of content. I mean, are you looking at data? Are you looking at kind of viewer accounts and demographic and say, we need to create some more content that’s gonna go, you know, younger or older, or is it just, you guys are so creative and know each other, you go and start filming stuff and magic happens.

Coleman:

a good question. I mean, creative is the hardest part of the job, right? Like we’ve, you know, we’ve done so many, it’s almost like at this point, it’s like, what, what else is there that we haven’t done? And so you know, that’s definitely one of the hardest parts of the job now, but we have, you know, we have creative meetings, creative brainstorms. I think one of the most impressive things is that all the ideas that we’ve we’ve done throughout the years up to this point has been just strictly from you know, from our team, just thrown out ideas outside help or anything like that. Which is pretty crazy. But I think, you know, we’ve starting with trick shots, getting into stereotypes is, and is another one of our really popular video series where it’s kind of, we take a subject or a sport or something like that and, and create kind of over the top parities of you know, just relatable things about that particular subject.

Coleman:

that’s, that’s always a fan favorite. So those were kind of the first two things that doper started with and then branching out more into, you know, battle videos. So challenges between the five guys. And then what else we’ve got overtime, which was a, it’s kind of like our variety show series that we launched two and a half, maybe three years ago. So that was a big turning point for dude perfect as well. Because it, it was basically the first time that we had done something outside of the like trick shots, stereotypes, battles format, and it’s, you, you know, is a longer form thing. There’s four segments it’s personality driven. It’s, you know, just, but what we liked about it so much top production value too. Yeah. Yeah. Good production value. And that’s, that’s the one thing that we pride ourselves on overall as the production value.

Coleman:

you know, that was kind of something that allowed us to, to experiment with different things. Like we can, we can try new segments and, you know, we don’t have to be like, oh, is this, this idea is good, but is it good enough for like that? Is that idea good enough for a main channel video? I don’t know, like, okay, well, let’s try it as an overtime segment first and see how people like it. And then maybe things, you know, kind of blossom, cuz it’s a little bit less risky, right. To have one segment and a four segment overtime video to kind of see how that, how people like that versus you know, going with a entire hero video on that specific concept and then being like, well then people didn’t really like that one, but now it’s too late. So there is a lot of strategy and, and thinking that goes into into that, but it’s not necessarily, it’s not that part of that part of it isn’t super data driven.

Coleman:

it is in the sense that if people are liking it or not liking that particular video type, then we’ll we’ll pivot. But when it’s coming up with the new ideas, it’s just like, what do we think is cool? What do we think that you know, that people are gonna like, and what have you always wanted to do as a kid that now as an adult with adult money, you can actually do that. And so that’s kind of the thesis that we have and we, we throw any and every idea at the wall and you know, it’s a lot of times it’s like one of those things where you know, we’ll throw 50 ideas on the wall and maybe get one good hero, YouTube video idea out of that. And that’s, that’s a success, right? Like it’s very hard to come up with ideas.

Coleman:

so we will sit in these brainstorms and be like, listen no idea is a bad idea. Throw it up there don’t care. How big of an idea it is, don’t care how crazy it is. And a lot of times we’ll take one concept that someone says and be like, Hey, what if we did that this way? And then we’ll kind of go down that path and then we end up at the result. So it’s it’s a, it’s a fun, fun process. And I think, you know, a lot of different series have spun off of creative meetings like that as well. Like bucket list is a overtime and then bucket list is a, another one of our newest series where that’s kind of our travel and adventure based series. So we’ll go either experience as experienced places or things that, you know, we think people have always wanted to do and they can experience it through our lens and our eyes.

Coleman:

like we’ve, we’ve gone to Alaska, we’ve gone to South Africa jumped off of world’s highest Bunche jump. And Cody went wing walking on on a previous bucket list where he literally, I don’t know if you guys saw this video, but it was insane. You get in this little prop plane and you go, you’re in the air flying, and then you have one little rope attached around you and you get out of your seat and you climb up onto the wing of the airplane and strap yourself in. And you’re just standing there, like on the top of an airplane flying. And they did like loops and all this stuff. It was, it was, I still can’t believe he did that. But so yeah, so that’s kind of a long-winded answer I guess, to, to our creative process and, and how ideas get chosen.

Coleman:

sometimes we do things that don’t work, you know, and we just, we have to go into everything we do with the, the, the realization that not everything is gonna be a mega viral hit. And, you know, we’re gonna try things that didn’t land as well. And that’s fine. Like we’ll just pivot from that. And if our audience if our audience didn’t like it as much as something else, then, you know, we’re gonna take the things that they didn’t like and stop doing that and take the things that they do like and do more of that.

Hrach:

Chad, I first off, there’s so much to unpack there and I, I have so many questions. I’m so excited. We have so much more time. And we’re just at the start of this show today because I have so many questions for you, but as I’m sitting here and listening, I think your initial analogy of like space is so, so spot on and accurate because I, my mind is blown first off, but then also just this vast media universe that, that dude perfect has created is amazing. And there’s so much to it. So I’m almost gonna take a step back and, and just ask first off, it sounds like there is no typical day for you at dude. Perfect. But what would you say like a typical week is cuz there’s, I mean, everything from, you know, getting team members to do, you know, wing walking all the way down to, you know, there’s a tour coming up. I mean, it’s just like, what does your, like, what does your typical week look like? It’s just insane. How much, how much goes into everything? Yeah,

Coleman:

think that’s one of the best parts of the job. And one of the things that excited me to come here and join these guys is that, you know, I spent a lot of time in the corporate world at Callaway golf before I joined the team here, which was amazing, incredible company. It was my dream job. I’m a huge golfer. And, and so that’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of a stark difference coming from a corporate world to what feels like a startup here. Like it, we truly feel like a startup cuz we have a very small team and we’re responsible for producing a lot of content. But the, the cool thing about it is you literally never know what you’re gonna doing. You know, from one day to the next I was talking to, we just hired we just hired a social media coordinator here to kind of help me as we take this our content and strategy to the next level.

Coleman:

he started at the January 3rd and I was like, yeah, pretty, pretty fun. First couple weeks. Right. Cuz we were at the first week of January, we went to SoFi stadium and filmed a video with mark Rover launching the world’s strongest t-shirt cannon over the stadium and doing all kinds of fun stuff at SoFi stadium. And then the next week we were out in the mountains in rural Montana filming a snow airsoft battle video up in the snowy mountains of Montana. And that’s like, that was what his first two weeks were like. And I was like, this is, this is what you get here. It’s it. You could be. And you know, a lot of things come up last minute and you never know what it’s gonna be, but it’s, it’s never gonna be quite the same thing.

Hrach:

then have you had to like perfect an elevator pitch when people are like, so what do you do? Like do you just film fun videos all day? Cause like obviously yes, but then like how do you tell people, like I have an actual with accountability and it’s not just all fun and games all day.

Coleman:

It’s very hard to explain you know, it used to be it’s it’s and especially to like, you know, there’s, you know, like Adam said, there’s seven people maybe who don’t know who dude perfect is, but you know, there’s sometimes I’ll, I’ll the most difficult is whenever. I’ll talk to someone who, who doesn’t really know what dude perfect is. And I’ll having to try to explain that is, is difficult because they’re like, what YouTubers? Like what, what, what do people just watch your YouTube videos and what do you guys do you’re you’re doing, you know, it’s kind of so it’s, it’s definitely difficult to kind of perfect that elevator pitch, but I, I generally just, I generally just say, you know, I’m responsible for all the stuff that happens behind the scenes of do perfect and just kind of leave it at that

Brown:

wanna follow up on, on that great question. And that is, you know, around the accountability. I mean, so you look at our audience of, of social pros and their jobs pro probably in terms of looking at what they’re trying to do is pretty similar. They’re trying to sell a product, they’re trying to sell a service. Now I could create many, many buckets Chad, for, for you. I mean, there’s certainly as VP of brand partnership and digital engagement, you are trying to drive eyeballs to the videos. You’re trying to promote the the, the cast themselves. You’re trying to promote your events and your shows. You’re trying to promote the actual advertiser that very likely may be embedded in the said content, how do you kind of look at all those things? And I just made those off up there. There could be many of how does that work and have those changed over the years? Are you doing more of one thing than than you were even, you know, six months or or a year ago?

Coleman:

that’s a great question. You know, we’re, we’re very lucky in the sense that like, you know, I think coming from again, back at my days at Calloway, right, we were, it was, we’re trying to sell a product we’re trying to sell yeah. People a, you know, $500 driver every year that they probably don’t need. And so it’s, you know, a lot of that is it’s very much like, you know, product focus, product centric, and trying to get people to buy our products all the time. That’s the only really the only thing. That’s the main goal, right? But here it’s a little bit different because you know, first and foremost, we’re just trying to create a good like visual identity and social identity for personality driven on for dude. Perfect. We just want people to enjoy following us on social and show some sides of the dude, perfect guys that maybe you don’t see on our polished, more polished YouTube videos and just draw people in and create, I mean, we just, , we just posted a video that, you know, took like 10 minutes to film on an iPhone of the guys blow, seeing who can blow out the most tea, light candles with one breath.

Coleman:

it has like 15 million views on TikTok and you know, like 2 million likes and it like, things like that, that blow up that are, you know, more relatable and more personal and things that, you know, people will see and be like, oh, that’s fun. Like I wanna do that. Like we want people to, to see, you know, these are just five best friends having fun and have created a successful business, but we’re, we’re having fun along the way. And then obvious there are some areas of the business that we’re trying to promote and grow. And along with that, such as, like you mentioned tour, tour’s a big a big part of that. We, we will, we’ll be going on our, our third tour this summer. And so, you know, we’re, we’re trying to start ramping up that kind of promotion and things like for selling tickets and, and people coming out to see us.

Coleman:

then merch is another big area for us that we try to promote every once in a while. And and then brand partnerships, you know, I’ve, so I manage, I manage all of our brand partnerships and companies that we work with and trying to figure out, you know, ways that we can naturally integrate the brand into our content, cuz we’ve, we’ve really gotten to a point where we don’t, you know, we don’t have to take every brand deal offer that comes to our doorstep, right. We, we want to be picky and we want to be a little choosy because we are at the point where like, we want to create the videos that we want to create, the things that get us excited and find brand partners that are willing to be a part of that. And they understand the value of, you know, working a brand in, in natural and organic ways because that’s better for everyone, right?

Coleman:

we want to, you know, we wanna make sure that we have the creative freedom that we want to con continue doing, you know, the list of 24 videos a year that, that we are most excited about and then find brands who are willing to work with us and integrate naturally into that content versus, you know, some, a brand coming to us and saying, Hey, we want to pay you X amount for a whole YouTube video focused around our product. Like we’re just not gonna do that. And so it’s been a little bit of a, you know, a mindset change, especially from the brand side and getting them to understand like, Hey, this is better for all of us. If you let us create this video that we know is gonna do well, we know our audience is gonna, like, it’s gonna be viral.

Coleman:

gonna have you know, it’s gonna have a really strong reaction and we’re gonna work your brand in these natural ways throughout the video versus, you know, trying to make a lesser video concept out of promoting a, a product or a brand way too hard that nobody’s gonna, like, it’s gonna get less views, less engagement. And it’s, it’s not good for us. It’s not good for them. So trying to get brands to kind of change their thinking in that way, to trust us that let us do what we do best and we’ll find really awesome natural ways to work in your brand and your messaging throughout it may not be quite as blunt as you would prefer. And you know, a lot of brands are like, they want, they want a lot, right? They want 60 seconds of messaging in, in the video and they want to show like, you know, just talk like a script and all this stuff. And it’s just, that’s just not something that really works for us. And so, so, you know, we’ve had some really good success though in kind of explaining our process and some kind of success stories on how, you know, let us, let us take your idea, your brand, your messaging, and what you want to accomplish. And we’ll go brainstorm around that and think of ways that we can creatively work. Those messaging points into whether it’s a social video or a, a YouTube video or anything else and kind of go from there.

Hrach:

love that you just outlined so many really fantastic ways in which partnerships really work and how success really happens from partnerships. Cause I think especially, you know, the rise of influencer marketing and the rise of influencer partnerships has happened so quickly and everybody’s just trying to navigate through it in, in, in brand partnerships. And sometimes those things are amazing and they work and obviously as dude perfect has shown, they can be incredibly successful. But on the flip side, sometimes they’re just not right. Or maybe it’s just not the right time. What are some ways that you kind of feel out, okay, this is a brand partnership we’d like to do, or maybe an influencer partnership we’d like to do, but maybe now is just not the right time or, you know, these conversations just aren’t going this particular way. So maybe this just isn’t gonna work. What are some signs that you see that maybe it’s just not the right fit?

Coleman:

I think the main one is just generally, you know, on that first call or on the first kind of correspondence with either the brand directly or the agency is, Hey, like, do they get it or not? Or like, do they, are they gonna be willing to work with us or are they really like, does it feel like this is gonna be a difficult thing to do with them because they’re very stuck on, you know, what they think they need, which is, you know, a certain number of talking points dis you know, shown this specific way, or are they again, are they, you know, it’s essentially most of the time, it’s very obvious what camp it’s in, what camp they fall in. It’s either that, or it’s, Hey, like we totally get it. Like we’re coming to you guys so that we can partner with you and you do what you do best and let’s figure out, you know, really cool natural ways to integrate us.

Coleman:

we’re open to we’re open to all those ideas. And so you can, you can really tell pretty, pretty soon off the bat, how that conversation is gonna go. Just from, from my experience. And then, you know, if it’s something that it’s like, Hey, you know, we can just tell that this isn’t going the right way, you know, and it’s, and it’s totally fine. Like some brands and some brands want very spec specific messaging. They want very specific placement. They think of it more like a media buy. Like that’s, that’s a hundred percent fine, like, do you? But that doesn’t, that just doesn’t really work for us. And so it’s just, you know, one of those things where it’s like, Hey, you know, we’re we’re gonna be, you know, we’re just, that’s not really where we’re at right now as a company and turn of the way that we want to collaborate with brands.

Coleman:

you know, let’s keep in touch and maybe something down the road will, will work. But you know, we’re, we’re never afraid to turn down a partnership. You know, if it means that we think we’re gonna have to compromise our creative, our, or some of the ideas that we want to do in any way, because, you know, at this point it’s just not worth it, right? Like we we’ve earned a lot of trust with our, our audience and we wanna make sure that we’re delivering, you know, the best experience for them at all times.

Brown:

I, I think that’s gotta be probably one of your prime directives, Chad, that keep the audience in mind is this a, a sponsorship is just a product or a service that’s, that’s gonna resonate with them. And it’s going to up level both of our brands that, of the sponsor. And, and that of, of, of do perfect. I’m curious, we had we had on the show, I guess about a month ago, Tim Williams and Tim Williams is CEO of on Analytica, but he’s also wrote a book of the 20, 21 B2B influencer compensation report that really talked about this a little bit more on the B2B side than the B2C side that I think dude perfect lives in. But one of the things he talked about where those expectations, like you just addressed of the advertiser or the marketer or or the brand for what they expect of you, I’m, I’m curious if you have seen an evolution of that without a doubt, your reach, and I’m sure this prices for, for a marketer to participate in something with dude perfect. Have gone up with that, have the expectations of the advertiser or marketer gone up, or is everybody kind of understanding what this means and what they, what they get out of it and what the ROI that they should expect should

Coleman:

yeah, it, the expectations have definitely gone up, you know, when we back in, you know, five, six years ago, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the brand partner ships we would do were, were very, it was very much, you know, a time where you know, advertisers brands were happy with signage and product placement, things like that. So we would do, you know, a video, like a trick shot video or something. And we would, we would put signage, you know, the brand signage in the background and work them in, in kind of natural ways, but never really, like, it would never be something where we would stop and like do a 32nd or a 62nd ad read. But now, you know, and I, I talk to the dudes about this all the time. The expectations have gotten a lot higher you know, lot of the inquiries we get are Hey, so, and so company, we, we would like a 62nd ad integration into a YouTube video, which meaning, you know, and, and we’ve, we’ve tried this, we we’ve tried this format before where it’s like a, a, an abrupt 62nd, you know, we stopped the video and it’s like, Hey, let’s hear for a word from our sponsors.

Coleman:

it’s a 62nd ad read. And a lot of times that’s what the brand is looking for and that’s kind of why we changed for a while last year. We changed, we like, okay, we’re seeing that a lot of brands are asking for this. We don’t want to change the types of videos we’re do doing to accommodate this, but is there a way where we can insert a brand like gaming company or whatever it is, even if they have nothing to do with the creative of the video and still give them what they want. And so we created this format called a halftime ad where you know, in the middle of the video, we would just do a quick break and blow a whistle and take it to half, half time and read, you know, 60 seconds of basically the brand’s space to do whatever they wanted, show gameplay, show their product in action, whatever, whatever it may be.

Coleman:

then, you know, we, we, we follow all the, obviously the analytics and things really closely on, on our videos and our channel. And we realize that that was hurting our retention a little bit because people would, as they got used to that, they would just skip forward you know, 60 seconds. And it didn’t really hurt. It didn’t really hurt, drop off, cuz people just skip forward 30 60 seconds and, and resumed what we were doing. But in the YouTube algorithm, it, you know, that says one minute of time in your video that people didn’t watch. And it, and it’s all relative, right? There’s a lot of people who did watch, but it was, you know, I would say probably a dip of like 10 to 15% of retention people who are watching the video 10 or 15%, it kind of goes down for a minute and then goes back up.

Coleman:

so, you know, we were just like, Hey, like this just isn’t, this isn’t worth it for us because it’s just not a great user experience. The retention is you know, it, it takes a hit on our retention, which is a, a metric that YouTube is really holds, holds highly in terms of how your video gets recommended and things like that across the platform. So we decided to stop doing that, you know, and like, Hey, this, like I said earlier do more of the things that are working and less of the things that aren’t. And that was one thing that it, it was working in the sense that the brand got what they wanted and you know, we were still able to do the creative and the videos that we wanted, but it wasn’t working overall because we value the experience of consumers and you know, the future of our channel and the growth of our channel more than, you know, one, a one off paycheck for a sponsored video. So, yeah.

Brown:

so to clarify your, your assumption is that more embedded marketing messages is better rather than kind of SHA true pure old school read.

Coleman:

A hundred percent, especially for us, you know, like a good example of that is we worked with we work with SoFi and one of the first videos we did with them was a feature in our cell phone stereotypes video. So we did a, a stereotypes video that we’ve always wanted to do on cell phone. Right. So like, you know, any and all, you know, things that you can think of, of stereotypical things people do with their cell phone, the guy who always drops it, the guy who has the crack screen all the time the guy who’s always like on his Bluetooth or, you know, whatever, there’s a million of them. And so we were filming that video and, and this was right around the time that, so we had been in talk sofa about partnering and you know, so we thought, Hey, you know, stereotypes are some of our best per forming videos, but we, can’t just like, it’s a very hard video series format for us to integrate brands into because the video is very fast paced and it’s stereotype after stereotype, after stereotype, very, you know, fast moving.

Coleman:

there’s not really a time to like, stop and talk about a brand. And so for that VI particular video, we’re like, Hey, we, we’ll, why don’t we do a stereotype that is like the mobile investor, right. So that was right at the time that everything was blowing up with, you know, the game stop, you know, stock and things like that. And the stock market was like crypto and all that stuff was kind of blowing up. And so that, you know, one of the things that SoFi on the SoFi app, you can do trade crypto stocks, all that stuff. And so we made a we made a branded stereotype stereotype within that video, that was the mobile investor. So we, you know, we showed the SoFi logo on his screen and showed that he was in the SoFi app and talking about, you know, the, the variety of different feelings you can feel as a, a crypto trader from, you know, buying the dip and then one second, you’re riding high.

Coleman:

then the next second it’s all crashing down and, and things like that. So that was something where, what I would it or a home run, right. It was, we integrated the video in a very we integrated the brand in a very natural way. And we got to create the video that we wanted to create. So cell phone stereotypes was a video that was just on our list of videos we need to make. And so we didn’t have to alter that at all. And so the brand was happy because it there zero retention drop off during that, during that branded segment it was very natural people, you know, they got the messaging across that is, oh, sofa is an app that the dude perfect guys use to trade crypto and do, you know, all this stuff, but it, so it, it was a win-win for us.

Coleman:

I think they, they would also agree with that. And that, you know, is very natural integration and a video that we were already creating. And so that’s like a home run scenario for, for, for me personally, as I’m looking on how we, how we integrate brands into our videos, because you know, it’s, and, and so I, you know, thankfully has been very, they were kind of of on board with doing things like that from the beginning, right? Like they, they realize that not just doing a, a standalone ad in every video is the best way to go. You have to do some natural find ways to get created with it.

Hrach:

huge. And I’d love the creativity around it too. I think that’s one of the things I’d, I personally would love to see more of like, obviously being in digital marketing and advertising, I a hundred percent understand that, you know advertising dollars make content go and they, they make content run, but it’s so much more fun to see those partnerships and see things happen and make it fun and, and still explain how everything works for yeah. For audiences. Like, it’s just fun. That’s like a dream world, but you also did a sweepstakes with them, correct. That that was hugely successful.

Coleman:

That was another one. So we’ve, so they, you know, that’s kind of, they’re like, Hey, we, we really like the way that this is going and we want, you know, another thing that from, from our side we’re looking at is to do less of like the one off partnerships and more of like long term, long term brand ambassador deals that we can really hang our hat on. Like bass pro shops has been a, a longstanding sponsor of ours. And sofa’s trading that way as well because they understand it’s as we do that, this is about, this is a long term play. And, and that, you know, the messaging will just kind of keep coming across in our content throughout the course of a year, two years, three years. And you know, one of the things that we came up with in December to do was a, we’re gonna give away super bowl tickets to SoFi stadium.

Coleman:

so that was something that was a little bit more of a, it was kind of like a, an ad read in the sense that it by definition was, but it was, it wasn’t, it was more about just a fun giveaway. And so we did that integration in our Christmas episode of our on YouTube of our Christmas overtime episode. And so we gave away ticket four tickets to the super bowl for one winner, plus three of their family or friends. And you get to go sit in a suite with the dude perfect guys at SoFi stadium. And it was just like, one of those things is like, this is a great idea. And we should, and, you know, this was something where the first video of cellphone stereotypes was about awareness, right. It was kind of planting that seed and, oh, sofa’s oh, okay.

Coleman:

get it. That’s what sofa does. And then this one was, Hey, their objective for this one was downloads. And so we, you know, there, they came to us like, Hey, we want to do something a little bit more tactical. And so that’s how we kind of came up with that idea. We’re like, Hey, let’s do a huge giveaway. It drove like, I think 30, 35,000 app downloads at this point. Just off that one YouTube video, which is which is in credible. So they, you know, it was something where our audience, you know, they, they, everyone wants a chance to win super bowl tickets, especially to go sit in a suite would do perfect. And so it was a win-win for everyone, cuz it was a fun kind of giveaway and it accomplished what they were, what they wanted to, which was you know, getting app downloads. Right? So , once someone downloads the SoFi app, then they realize how many things are available to them from, you know, refinancing student loans. And I mean, SoFi basically does everything. And part of, part of what they were wanting to accomplish was let’s just get people in the door, get ’em to download the app so they can see like everything that’s available to ’em. And so yeah, very successful.

Brown:

successful indeed. And Chad, you know, one of the things that I get out of this is what uncharted territory we are all on as it relates to influence your marketing and, and what you’re doing to do perfect. And quite frankly, what this, and I think the, the, the statistic, at least for B2B from from Tim Williams report was $15 billion industry right now for B2B. I can’t even imagine what B2C is. I mean, you guys might be half of that. I think to that point, you know, one of the things we’ve talked a little bit about is keeping the algorithms happy and, and how you have to keep that frequency, how you’ve gotta keep people engaged with a full video that, that piece that you shared about kind of, when people skip over a, you know, 30 or 60 seconds of a five minute video, that that can actually have an impact on your, on your algorithm and, and how the, the social platforms see you, how do you kind of keep the algorithms happy?

Brown:

were working on so many different platforms. I mean, YouTube Twitter, you talked a little bit before the show about YouTube shorts you know, kind of their response to to TikTok really interesting things there, you know, and how you shoot it, you know, it has to be vertical or it has to be horizontal and, and how you’ve gotta do all these things when you’re actually in that process of thinking about new content. Are you also thinking about production? Are you also thinking about, okay, this type of content’s gonna work on this platform, but this kind of content’s gonna work better over here? How much of that goes into the rubric?

Coleman:

yes. A lot. That’s something that, you know, we put a lot of thought and effort into, especially like I see YouTube as a separate deal with that, right? Like that’s, we, we’re constantly, you know, looking at our analytics to, to, you know, cuz the two algorithm is constantly changing and what are they prioritizing right now? How can we, how can we, you know, adjust our filming style and our, maybe even our editing style, a little bit to cater to, you know, what YouTube is trying to kind of push at that certain time, right? Like it used to be longer videos now, shorter videos that have, you know, very high retention. So things like that. And then on, on social it’s, it’s kind of a playground because you know, a lot of times what performs best is the, you know, the content that, like I said, we filmed with our iPhones in this cabin after we were in Montana, when we were after we I’m filming an airsoft battle video for YouTube one last week, this dumb challenge that, you know, see how many tea lights that do perfect guys can blow out in with one breath and it’s gone like crazy.

Coleman:

we, we first posted that on TikTok. And sometimes things that break through like that are, and people are relating with we’ll post on, you know shorts as well and or Instagram reels. We typically though it typically starts with TikTok. That’s where, you know, that’s where it’s like those like kind of challenges and funny stunts and things like that are most catered to that platform. But you know, we also like have unique con unique content on each channel so that when people are consuming dude, perfect content on YouTube shorts, Instagram, TikTok, they’re receiving a, a new experience and a different experience. And so that’s something that is a, a priority for us, but sometimes there’s just, you know, things that are too funny or too good that we’ll just publish on, on all of our channels. So there’s a little bit of overlap in, in, in that regard.

Coleman:

it typically, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s understanding how people are consuming content on each channel. And, you know, we realized that highly produced video, like even short, highly produced, funny videos on TikTok probably won’t perform as well as something that looks a little bit worse cuz it was on your iPhone and low light or whatever. It’s those things that I’m, I I’m personally obsessed with cuz I think it’s fun to, you know, to kind of try to get in that mindset of how people are consuming and what they like and TikTok in particular, you know, it’s something where the first three seconds of a TikTok is the most important you have to hook people quick so that they’ll stop scrolling like everyone does on TikTok and, and actually watch your video. So there’s a lot of, there actually is a lot of strategy that goes in behind that because we wanna make sure that we’re playing the TikTok algorithm as well, which is get people hooked so that they watch, you know, retention is essentially the same thing on TikTok.

Coleman:

more people watch your videos all the way through the more people that it’ll that it’ll share your content with on the, for you page. And so there’s a little bit of strategy that goes in behind, behind that as well. Just more so in sense of how we edit it. Not, not necessarily the idea more so just how we edit it, but it’s, it’s so fun. It’s, it’s, it’s a lot of work, but it, lot of fun kind of keeping up with those trends and anticipating, you know, the types of content that your audience is gonna like. And we’re just, we’re constantly evolving in that regard, you know, it’s, we’ll put something out and maybe it doesn’t perform well. Like I said, so we’ll, we’ll stop doing that, try something else and keep building on those things that we’re noticing that people are liking on each different channel.

Hrach:

you know, I think the examples that you provided are, are just an amazing opportunity for other brands to take to heart. Even though you are obviously providing a much different type of entertainment than, you know, typical B2B side does just the, the level of engagement that’s available and the op opportunities to learn and, and see exactly what people are gravitating to and, you know, figuring out exactly what type of content they want and delivering of that. And I think ultimately that really is that common thread between all marketers, all content creators is really just finding out what exactly works, what people are gravitating to and delivering more that at the end of the day.

Coleman:

Hrach:

Chad, I, I, I have so many more questions to ask you and I know Adam does too, but unfortunately I do are coming. I know there’s so many, I feel like there’s so many things that we didn’t talk about that I wanted to ask you, but there’s still time left. And of course we absolutely cannot let you go until we ask you the final question that we have asked all now over 500 guests of the social pros podcast. So Chad, are you ready for the final two questions of today? Let’s do

Coleman:

Hrach:

All right. So question number one is what piece of advice would you give to anyone who wants to become a social pro

Coleman:

question. I think, you know, my answer might, might kind of echo what a lot of people would say, but just get your foot in the door. Be active on social. I mean, when I was, when I graduated college at our, the university of Arkansas and I knew that I wanted to be in the golf industry, I was working at a, a digital ad agency out of college, knew that there was a lot of room for innovation in social media in the golf industry and with golf equipment companies. And, and I mean, I was just a kid from Arkansas. I had no connections in the golf industry at all, but what I did have was Twitter and I used Twitter to actually connect with like Lauren TEG. And I think she was one of the first people that I had talked to.

Coleman:

I basically, I just, I, I was on Twitter. I was in engaging with the people who were on the golf community in Twitter as just like a fan of golf, right. Like, and over time just kind of got to know some people through Twitter and one thing led to another. And at, at one point when I felt like it was, it was right and I was, you know, ready to actually put myself out there, sent a direct message to this girl named Ashley Mayo, who now works@golf.com. She was at golf digest at the time. Just someone who I had been chatting with about golf on Twitter for, for a while. And I was like, Hey, like, you know, I sent her a direct message. I’m like, I’m not trying to be that guy, but I would love to get into the golf industry.

Coleman:

my resume. If you ever, like, if you ever hear of anything that you don’t mind, like letting me know, like, I, I don’t have any connections or anything in that space. So would you mind just keeping me in mind and kind of very informal like that? Cause I didn’t want to be pushy. And she called me like five minutes later, like, what’s your number? Can I call you real quick? And I was like, yeah, sure. And she was like, Hey, I actually have a friend at Calloway who just called me yesterday. They’re trying to hire their first in-house social person. And he asked if I had any recommendations, cuz they were kind of striking out on, on some interviews and things and haven’t found the right fit. And she’s like, I’ll recommend you if you want. And I’m like, yeah, that’d be amazing.

Coleman:

I flew out for an interview the next week and got the job at the end of my interview. And they’re like, can you be out here in two weeks? And so three weeks from that moment, I was living in California with my dream job and social at Callaway. So wow. It’s it truly is so powerful. How nowadays you have literally direct access to basically anyone that, you know, you want to talk to like for, to some extent, right? Like send ’em a direct message, engage with them on Twitter, as long as you’re not like constantly asking for something. And you’re just a, someone who has shared interests and you know, Ashley Mayo had no idea who I was never met me, but she knew that I was a golf fan and she knew me from social media. And she was like, Hey, like I, I think I know you well enough to recommend you for this position if you want.

Coleman:

so the timing just obviously, obviously that was great time mean and everything just kind of aligned, but I’ve truly never been in more of a, a believer of get your foot in the door in that way. We have, we have so much access. You have so much access to everyone that you could possibly want to talk to now that, you know, shoot your shot, but do it, you know, in a, in a way that feels like you’re not just trying to get something that feels like, Hey, I can add some value here. And I would really like to, you know, to try my, try my hand at this and just kind of see what happens,

Hrach:

advice. And so, so true even still today. I mean just that that one click access to people is, is huge. And especially when done the right way too. Love that, which also is a beautiful transition into our second and final question for you, which is if you could have direct access to anyone for a video call, anyone living for a video call, who would it be and why?

Coleman:

man, is this like in like a social space or anyone? I mean anyone, anyone?

Coleman:

gosh, anyone. Well obviously tiger woods. I mean he is, he’s, we’ve, we’ve actually had the, the chance to meet him last year briefly at an event. But you know, terms of someone I just wanna sit down and talk with he’s up there. I think, you know, I, I just love learning for, from people who inspire me, creators, you know, Casey Nead Peter McKinnon photographer videographer, who’s just like super unique in what he does. Like people like that, where I just love to pick their brains about, you know, what’s what, what inspires them, what are, what goes through their mind in terms of like you know, how they are thinking about creating content, what they think is next in this area. Like, I just love learning from people. And those are a couple people that come to mind specifically in the content social content kind of creating space. But yeah, so definitely a little bit of a variety there.

Hrach:

for sure. Well, and I feel especially to, you know, tiger woods, especially being inspired by his passion and also where he gets inspiration from would be like almost infectious. It would be a great conversation. Yeah. Oh,

Coleman:

hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. I,

Brown:

agree with all those Casey, Peter and, and tiger , but three people, I think that are at the top of their respective games and, and create fantastic product, whatever that P may be for, for them. Great, great

Coleman:

And I feel like they just have like a very unique view on, on life and yeah. And things in, in particular, you know, and that comes through cuz it’s Casey and Peter in particular are two people that just, you just feel like it’s very natural in what they’re doing

Hrach:

they’re not, you know, they’re just, they’re who they are and, but they’re really, really good at it. And they have a very unique perspective. So would, would love to, to sit down and talk with them at some point. Yeah. That would be super fun and very, very fun conversations much like today, Chad, this has been a fantastic and crazy fun conversation. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Coleman:

Thank you for having me.

Hrach:

And thank you so much to everyone else. Who’s listening and tuning in as well. He is Adam Brown from Salesforce and I am Anna har rock from convinced and convert. And we hope you enjoyed this episode because we absolutely did. We also look forward to continuing our conversations next week on what we hope is your favorite podcast in the whole wide world. Social pros.

EP 508 – Edited (Completed 02/02/22)

by Rev.com

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