Celebrity Social Media Experts On How To Build a Creative Agency For The Stars And How To Go Viral

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1:03In case you missed it, you're allowed to be hot, smart, and rich. So let's get into it.

1:14Okay, you guys. Chloe Soppern, Lydia Berry. Are you ready to get hot, smart, rich? Yes. So ready. I'm so happy we're finally here. How do you guys feel? Well, I mean, we were just saying Lydia's been nervous for a month now. You know why? Because I feel like there's more pressure because I used to work at a podcast network. So I feel like I have pressure to know what I'm doing, even though I wasn't in the seat. So is this your first podcast? Yes. I'm nervous for you, but I'm going to make it really easy. And it's not your first podcast. No, but I also like, I feel like I could just gab for days.

1:47Yeah. Chloe's a good gabber. You guys have a really cute meet cute, which we're going to get into. but Lydia and I also have a really cute meet you. Have you told her how we met? I think I probably have the text from you being like, wait. Yeah. We were. Yeah. I want to read the story. Okay. From my POV. Yeah. I'm at the airport. I'm, I'm flying like 6 a.m. to New York for fashion week. Yeah. And I see this really chic girl next to me. You know, when you just like see the chic girls at the airport, that was you. I do not picture that for myself. You had like a trench on and like the sambas and like you were cute.

2:18Like I was like, oh, she is. She knows what she's doing here. and you sat right next to me and I was editing a podcast clip for one of our clients at the time you were still at dear media then I had just left okay I had truly just left you were editing a video yes I was editing a video all of us and I think you had noticed that it was dear media branded and you had just gone off a phone call literally talking about podcast networks yes and you turned to me and you're like wait do you work at dear media and I said no but I used to like a year ago. Yeah. Um, I feel like I had just gotten off the phone either with a network or with an editor or something.

2:54And we were really like struggling to figure out this whole thing. Cause people have asked me to do a podcast for years and it's so much work that I was like, okay, I just need to like figure everything out. And then when I met you, I was like, you told me you were an entrepreneur, a new female founder. And like in typical me fashion, I'm like, how can I help you? What can we do? Like, I was like, let's connect. And then we exchanged a few DMS and now you're sitting in my podcast chair, which is full circle. I love a full circle. But you guys have a cuter meet cute. So talk about your meet cute.

3:21Well, we actually just found out that our meet cute, like we've been telling the story all wrong apparently. So the meet cute that we thought we had was Blair who used to work at TikTok and she was head of public figures. Okay. I had a call with her because I was doing this kind of on my own at the time. And she said, you should really talk to this girl, Lydia. She's based out in LA. Like you guys are doing something similar. And I was like, oh, I'd love to meet with her. I don't know anyone else that's, you know, kind of doing this social celebrity stuff, not in front of the camera. I mean, ironic now we're in front of the camera.

3:54But for the most part, I slid into Lydia's DMs, which I feel like is like what everybody does these days. Yeah. And we spoke and it was great. But then like I was in New York and she was in LA. And then a couple months later in April, I was like, hey, I'm coming to LA like if you want to grab coffee. And I had a place out in LA and she was like, great, like I'm in Brentwood. I was like, same. She was like, I'm on Darlington. I was like, same. And we realized that we were like actual next door neighbors essentially living these parallel lives. I could throw a baseball to her apartment. That's crazy.

4:25And so I was like, oh, do you want to go to the Alfred that we both go to every day? And we had coffee. And I think it was like, what, an hour and a half? Yeah, it was a long. And then afterwards, literally at the end of coffee, I was like, do you want to be my business partner? Let me just ask about that because I think it's so rare, especially for women listening, that like are taking the jump and going and being an entrepreneur to like almost become best friends and business partners with like what could look at as competition. So it's shocking to me to hear that after just an hour and a half in a Zoom call, you were like, let's partner up and do this.

4:55Like, why? Here's why. Because we both immediately recognized the white space in this, I guess, industry, you could say. I had I was only maybe a month, two months in at the point that we went to coffee and I was swamped with, you know, freelance celebrity clients. I could see how big this could get and could be. And already I knew that there was no way I could do that on my own. And it was, and it still is, uncharted territory. I wanted somebody to help me. Yeah, I think we were very aware of the way that it had been working and honestly is still working is what we do and the services that we offer are not provided in-house at agencies because they have too many clients to say, oh, for all 40 ,000 of our talent, you have a social strategist.

5:42That's just not feasible. But if it's in-house, they can't deny that offering then to one of their talent. And so that's why they outsource it. So you basically have these agents or these managers or these publicists saying to their clients, here's a list of names. Go off and see who's a good fit for you. And so Lydia and I were both very aware that both of our names, let's say, would be on that list. And we would chat with the same people or we'd have the same conversations. And I was like, well, instead of doing it on our own, like we're so much stronger together. My lease was running up in LA.

6:13I needed some LA support. But I think too, I had met a lot of people who were creative or people who I thought or had hoped could potentially be partners for me. And for whatever reason, no one was really the right fit. And when I met Lydia, I was like, oh my God, we're speaking the same language. You know when you meet someone and you just kind of click immediately. What celebrity clients did you have independently before and who did you have? And then who have you guys brought in as like a duo? So it's actually been amazing because since we became a duo, we haven't done any outreach. Like it's all been in bounds and word of mouth, which is so like, we're so fortunate.

6:51Um, I was working with, um, a couple of creators in New York and I think, you know, Serena Kerrigan. So well, shout out Serena Kerrigan. She was my first, Yeah, I'll send it to her. She was my first ever client that I worked with. We got connected during COVID and she was kind of blowing up and she was like, I just need, you know, like a creative thought partner. And I was like, yeah, so fun. And then I was working with Megan Roop out in LA and Miranda Kerr, who's also in LA. So I was coming back and forth like every other week and I was just so exhausted. And when I heard that Lydia was doing what I was doing in LA, I was like, oh my gosh, this could be amazing.

7:27And you were, you know, doing it with your gals. Yeah, so I had been at Dear Media for five years. I started working with Michael when I was a sophomore in college. Wow. Yeah, when Dear Media had three shows, one of which was Skinny Confidential, him and her podcast. Ended up building out the entire content team. I went from running the Instagram, the TikTok, you know, being in the DMs and the weeds to then really overseeing more of that macro digital strategy. and then I always tell people I really just at the core of it love making pretty things and Dear Media was more becoming this big media company and I was doing less I think with like my hands and more of the creating within right like fashion all I wanted to do was just be on set every day that was like my dream so you got it yeah literally so at the I don't even I don't remember the timeline, but I think over the summer I had made the decision that I was ready to kind of take the leap.

8:30I reached out to a handful of creative people in my network and I said, listen, I don't know what it is I want to do, but I know I want to be creative. I know I want to be on set. I love fashion, you know, that world. And a friend got back to me and he was like, listen, Sophia Richie Grange obviously is blowing up. She has a ton of brand deals coming in. They're looking for someone to similar be like a creative thought partner she was blowing up and it was there were all these opportunities yeah and it was like okay how this is something that a lot of our clients will say like they're getting so many inbounds from brands or people that want to work with them right cool projects and they're working on all these things and it's like okay great let's use our social to promote all those things but then how do we also keep like the authenticity at the core and like make sure that they're not like selling yeah all the time so obviously killed it at wedding content and the organic but then when it came time for the branded it was like okay let's bring on somebody and at that point I was like oh my god yes immediately yes of course yeah um and then immediately once we started working together I was like oh this is not only really fulfilling and exciting but there's so many other creators celebrities influencers that I see needing this same type of of support how would you guys summarize I guess like what you guys do for a talent or a creator, like at a very high level.

9:52Everything? I know. No, no, no. I mean, we'll do, that's one of the things that Lydia and I always say, like no job is too small. Like, you know, if it's like Uber eats water because we're on set and like someone needs something, like we're, we're happy to help wherever we can. Always, usually we're focusing on social strategy, content creation and execution. And so we'll shoot, we'll edit, we'll post. we're working very closely with the talent managers, their publicists, like essentially everything that's going on in their lives. So we have a pulse on, okay, if, you know, if we're promoting something this week or this project's coming out here, like how can we make sure that we have these organic moments in between?

10:28And I think what we found, especially with traditional celebrity talent, whether they're an actor, a singer, a model is they're not social media stars, like they're not TikTokers. So when they have these opportunities, like they don't, they're not sitting on their phones they don't know what's trending they don't know necessarily like if their name is trending like they're like because they're actresses first or they're singers first you know the one of the things that I love about this podcast is I get to learn from people that I'm like genuinely I would love to do like an hour consulting call with you guys I'm like what do I do because I often still I am like a digitally first creator right but I also have a foot in investing and like my job is not just to create content and I feel that pain that you guys are experiencing where it's like sometimes you get these amazing opportunities like working with Spotify and Shopify are like my dream deals but then it's like at a certain point if you're doing investing or doing something else your content just starts to look like it's all branded and you're like oh I need that organicness you're doing two jobs you're doing two jobs people I think and I always say this sorry to cut you off but I do think it's important to note social media three years ago is not what it is today right like you are you yourself are thinking okay what's the real I'm posting today?

11:37What's the TikTok I'm posting today? Maybe there's two TikToks I'm posting today. What are my stories throughout the day? What's on YouTube shorts? Like, am I dabbling with Snapchat? There's so much content. Do I need to toggle the paid partnership label? Like, what are the hashtags? You guys do all of that. Yes. So we always say we're not one size fits all because that just, everybody is so different and it's so personal. So some people need a lot of support and they want us actually like supporting with the posting or the editing or, you know, shooting. And then we have other clients where, you know, they're more digitally native.

12:08And so we always say, like, you know, they're showing up a day-to-day, like, on stories. Like, we're obviously not them. And then they'll kind of check in with us and pulse us on, you know, a new launch, a brand deal, like, a rollout strategy. They'll say, hey, I'm traveling here. Like, can you send me some, like, trend ideas? So it really depends on the person and how integrated they want us in their social media presence. At its core, it's like being a social media manager or strategist or content creator for a brand. Except the brand is a person. Yeah. Exactly. And I think that's what's so hard about it though, because we have tried, at least in my business, like so many different ways to like have people help me with content.

12:47And it hasn't worked because I'm like, one, I don't know if it's because we do a lot of like finance, investing and business content. So I'm like, you have to have a level of expertise there where it's like, it's harder in ways. but I think what's so challenging is like it is an input from a person versus the input of a brand right and like when you have talent it's like they are posting organically themselves I would assume like how often let's say in a week is it like you guys versus your clients well it totally depends because if they're a creator they're posting usually every day yeah and so they might be in their account posting every day and then like we just pop in for a branded post or something like that we have some clients where we might be logged into their tiktok but not their instagram and then with the more traditional like celebrity talent they don't have to show up every day so like when they're posting why is that well because it's not their it's not their core business part of the celebrity aspect like part of the goal when we approach celebrity social too is relevancy so they don't necessarily you know people know who kate hudson is kate hudson is we don't necessarily she doesn't need to be showing up every day reminding people who she is and what she's doing.

13:54People know that from her movies or other maybe media outlets. But we always say too, like this is essentially the new kind of PR in a sense. You know, like for something like a press tour where like we're going from Good Morning America to the Today Show to Fallon to whatever it is like we love to be around and filming stuff behind the scenes. Because also too, like we'll plan, but there are so many fun candid moments like where everyone's just being themselves. and you're like, oh, this is what people want to see because you see them play a character on the screen or you see them on the cover of a magazine.

14:27But like Chloe's going to Cannes in when, two weeks? Oh my God, I don't know. Chloe's going to Cannes. We're going to be at the Met. I go to Paris Fashion Week twice a year. I go to New York Fashion Week. So when we can be there, absolutely, we'll help with the execution. And then sometimes like it could be an assistant. It could be, they might feel comfortable filming it themselves. This is such an interesting thing because I feel like briefing people in is part of the magic and it's you guys that are coming up with stuff. There are a lot of agency owners that are listening to this, that the hardest thing about running an agency is you guys are the special sauce.

15:00Like you guys are the ones that like saw this from the beginning, have the vision, but in order to grow it and service the clients to the level that you want, you do need to start bringing in people that have the same vision or have a different skillset. So are you two guys currently employing anybody else that's executing for you? And then how do you think about scalability when clients want Chloe and Lydia? They don't necessarily yet want the people that are underneath you guys. That's been from day one, like our biggest, I wouldn't say an issue. It's a great problem to have. Yeah, totally. But we are thinking about it.

15:32And I think what's difficult is it is a new area in the industry. Right. Like we don't have like really mentors that we're looking to. I feel the same way, by the way. Yeah. And I'm like, I wish someone could just tell us what to do. Right. So the talent pool is a little bit smaller by nature because traditionally there hasn't really been somebody, right? Like somebody, a client of ours maybe would go to their assistant. Like social media traditionally has been passed to the intern or the assistant. The brands and the people that actually hire somebody like us or brand strategists are the ones that are succeeding.

16:06I think we're breaking out of that mold a little bit more. Do you mean by that like bringing on new clients that are more unknown and helping grow them? No, more so like everyone's understanding that social, whether they like it or not, is something that they have to be a part of. Like I think for a long time it was like, I don't want to do this or TikTok's that dancing app. And it takes a specific like skill set level. It's not just something that, you know, you can you can hand to someone to like try and figure out. Like it's truly a skill set and expertise now. Again, five years ago, I don't think that was the case.

16:38It's totally changed. and then you know if a client isn't handing it off to their assistant then they're asking their manager and then PR and their PR hey like what am I supposed to do here you know and and the managers aren't that's not really their job yeah it's not that that's not really their job assistants they have so many other things to be focused on but everyone everyone does have a phone which is totally yeah but I would say you know we have a few part-time employees um in New York in LA we've tried to hand off, I would say, most of like the back end. So things like invoicing, like contracts.

17:12What about like analytics reporting? Like, are you sitting down with clients and being like, this video is trending? This is what's working for us. Like, let's now do the strategy. Like, what does that look like using data? Some of them want that in like a monthly recap deck. Some of them are logged into their account. So like, they're seeing it firsthand. Like, it's pretty clear to like, we'll send them a note like, hey, like this video is blowing up or like this went viral or? We're chronically online. Yeah. So we're seeing, yes, like we are seeing in real time, we're checking the video 10 times a day to see what people are talking about and exactly what they're commenting and how it's performing.

17:49And, you know, if it's maybe not so great, okay, why? And how can we pivot? And we're constantly taking that into account as we strategize and create content. So it's kind of like we're looking at the data daily. In real time. Okay. Can we do a fun exercise? Yeah. Okay, so not to put you guys on the spot, but I would love to hear, because let me just say this first. In four and a half months, your stats for your clients is over 1 ,000 % growth on views, over 2 ,000 % growth on likes, 1 ,900 % growth on comments, 2 ,000 % growth on shares, and 1 ,164 % growth on followers. You guys have done that for some of the biggest creators in the world.

18:29So I'm hoping that we can do a really fun little exercise with my social media. Okay. I know you watch my content. So I have a very different kind of POV perspective on TikTok than I do on Instagram. And I think a lot of the time that comes from like, I had a 10 year career working in startups. I have a certain persona, I would say on my Instagram. And then my TikTok is more like fast and loose and like in the moment, whatever. So I don't know how much time you spent on my social media, hopefully a little, what would you say is like the one thing I could keep doing and the one thing that I could maybe improve to see results like this?

19:04Or is it not that simple? Can I do the one thing that I think you could improve? Yeah. And it's not, it's not necessarily specific. Okay, Chloe, go for it. Okay. It's not necessarily specific to you. I actually think this is a lot of people is historically Instagram has been so buttoned up and so aesthetic. And you know, again, it's like your friends are following your family. TikTok, I think people have always been more comfortable kind of posting whatever they want, like this unfiltered behind the scenes, like, you know, you're sitting in your sweatpants and you're talking to the camera. And I think what we're seeing now is people want that type of content on Instagram and creators are hesitant to share it because it feels, I think, more vulnerable.

19:40And also like just historically, that's not how we could use the platform. So I think less so separating the two platforms. That being said, I would say when it comes to trends, like it'll hit TikTok way before it hits Instagram. And so if you prop it over too soon, it's gonna go right over people's heads. Yeah. So being thoughtful about that, but I think some of the unfiltered content that maybe you're just keeping on TikTok would actually perform really well on Instagram. And I think, you know, with the ability now to hide things from your grid or change the cover photo, like you can still have the aesthetic feed and vibe, but giving people like that more organic feel of content because I think that's really what people are looking for these days.

20:22Right. Yeah. You're thinking about it the right way though. I do think there is a differentiation between what TikTok content feels and is and looks like and what maybe Instagram is. Chloe's right in that we're starting to see more of a crossover. When we think about our clients, there are some things where we say, okay, this should just live on TikTok. Really? We're like the Instagram audience is not going to get this. because that's what I've heard so much is that the Instagram audience is looking for that like curation, more aspirational. And then it's like TikTok, they're looking for more of that relatability.

20:51But it's interesting because my TikTok grows at like a pretty steady rate, I would say just for how much I focus on it. And my Instagram, I'm like, because I don't post that much and because it is so much more of that like curated. And I even see this from my engagement, I'll be really honest, like in my stories, when I don't post, let's say for like three days, I will get with 30 ,000 followers, like 7 ,000, 8 ,000 views a story when I haven't posted in a few days. When I'm consistently posting, I actually notice my engagement drops down significantly on my stories. Why is that? I actually was just having this conversation with a client yesterday and I meta like let us know because it's almost incentivizing you not to use the platform.

21:30Like this idea that you're supposed to wait 24 hours for your stories to run out before you post again. I don't know why the algorithm is rewarding that because I'm like, Like in theory, you would think that people would post less if they're not going to get the same number of views. So sometimes there are things where Lydia and I are like, we don't know why this is the case. We know that it is the case. So if your goal is to like engage every day with your audience, keep posting. If your goal is to reach a larger number of people less frequently, then do that. But it's so interesting too because like with brands, right, they look at my numbers and they're like, holy shit, like you're getting 7 ,000 views a story and you have 30 ,000 followers.

22:05That's amazing. Like we know you have the engagement. We don't really care about your audience. But then when you post the brand story, you're like, oh, I don't know why it's not. I know. It's so interesting. And on the brand note, too, I do think brands, we just had this conversation, too, are trying to figure it out as well. Because they're like, why is this? Yeah. And they also don't, you know, like they're focused on a brand view and maybe not necessarily. Like we see the craziest caption suggestions sometimes. From brands? Yes. But brands that are the most successful with working with talent are the ones who say, like, you know what works best with your audience.

22:42We want this to feel as organic as possible. Like, we defer to you. And then the brands who come in and say you have to show the product within the first three seconds. We need hashtag ad on the left-hand side of the screen. You know, we need to make sure that we have the paid partner. Like, all the things. Obviously, I understand there are things that you have to do legally to disclose that something's an ad. But I think when the brand lets the talent really do what they're doing best, like if you just wanted someone to show the product in the first three seconds, like hire an actor than hire a model.

23:14Totally. Like you don't, you're leveraging the influencer because of their influence in their audience and their community. So let them talk to their community the way that they are accustomed to. I'll also say trial reels we've been using a lot really recently. they essentially so when you go to post a reel there's a little toggle at the bottom and you can toggle it on and it says trial reel it does not get posted to your profile but it gets shown to your non-follower your non-follower so it's a good way to there's two two strategies we use with it one um we use it to repurpose content that's done really well so we'll pull the top five performing posts from a client for the last like five years yes as long as it still feels relevant yeah yeah or evergreen yeah and then post that and then we see I think one of our did somebody get 30 ,000 followers yeah maybe I mean there's like there's a lot of growth in trial reels and I think it's because like sometimes like you don't even know that you're not following somebody and then you get served everything you're like oh I should follow her totally discoverability goes through the roof so like what you just read some of those numbers trial reels have really helped and I think Instagram's catching on too a little bit like I've seen so much sentiment on TikTok of people saying like is Instagram cringy now like are we embarrassed of Instagram and I think trial reels is a good way to kind of also test a piece of content and see okay is this cringy do people like it oh people like it now I'll post it to my actual profile and let my friends see it too.

24:47Or you could just leave it in trial reels forever. I do think something that I was talking to a client about who was using trial reels is we saw a big uptick in growth and we're like, okay, this is awesome. We have all these new followers. Are they the right followers? Right. How do you determine that? And so that's, we don't know yet. And I'm curious, again, I'm like meta, I have some questions. But is it, are these people who are going to purchase your product? Are these people who are going to engage with your posts? Because you don't want ghost followers. Like those are, they're, they're worthless to a brand.

25:18They're not going to, they're not going to go see your movies. They're not going to buy what you're selling. They're not going to comment. And they hurt your engagement. Right. Like to see a million followers, but you know, not a lot of likes. It's like, well, wait a second. We would rather those people, like I would rather see a really healthy account at 300 ,000 followers with ride or die followers than 1.5 million. For sure. Yeah. Are there some like fast rules that you guys apply to every single new talent that comes into your Rolodex? Are you like, you have to be doing these things where we can't work with you?