From Creator to Strategist w/ Austin Null (McKinney)

0:00I think the future is bringing in creators early and proactively figuring out at scale. okay now how do we fit them in so it's not just UGC anymore

0:14hey Yossi welcome to the show how are you good man excited to be here yeah same here thank you you know thank you for joining we're gonna talk about today everything about you know influencer marketing the evolution right the past decade the present the future of it UGC what is updated what is still cool in the industry. So a lot to talk about. But before we get started, why don't you tell us a bit more about yourself? You use this thing called the map. But for people listening, you know, I'm pretty sure that they know it already by the 100th episode that we recorded so far. But for everyone that is new listening today, we divided in mission, achievements, and purpose.

0:50So basically the mission is what do you aim to achieve with your work? The achievements is basically like, you know, an innotable milestone in your life and career. And the last one is the purpose. So why do you do what you do? My name is Austin Noll. I'm a strategy director of influencer marketing at McKinney. So my mission, I would say I'm all about, I want to empower creators. I'm a former creator. And so I'll speak to that, I guess, in a minute, but you know, I'm all about empowering creators. I want them to thrive and being in this, I guess, broader influencer marketing space, you know, there's a lot of different ways to do that, but I would say that's kind of my main mission.

1:25In terms of my achievements, I've been in the influencer space over 12 years so I actually started back uh in the YouTube network days I worked at full screen and built out their social media did that for a while and then quit there was actually a full-time influencer full-time YouTuber for like five years and then in 2017 I quit and came over to the uh I guess agency side and ever since then I've been running global influencer marketing programs for brands like Intel Samsung and the tech space I've done stuff with Popeyes and Wingstop and the QSR and then a bunch of CPG brands in between. But, you know, I think because of, you know, I've been on both sides, right?

2:06Like I've done agency work, but I've been an actual creator, you know, ran a business, shot and edited everything. That's, I think, where my true passion for creators comes from. So just finding ways to tie all that through line together is really what I'm all about. And then lastly, I guess, you know, my purpose, like what do I want to do? I mean, I want to push the industry forward. I'm very much not a it's always been done this way kind of person so I'm all about asking questions trying to figure out like what's next what's the future of where this space is going how does it either incorporate into existing marketing structures or mediums or whatever and or disrupt and completely replace them right and I think the industry in and of itself is going to evolve a lot but I would say my purpose is just trying to be a voice that is always asking questions and trying to push us to think differently and not just be rinse and repeat in what we do.

3:00Fantastic. And you said 12 years, right? Yeah, yeah. So I started, I, well, I actually started like making YouTube videos in college. Yeah, of course. Yeah, like 2008, I guess, right? Well, yeah, honestly, yeah. I was, yeah, I was making YouTube videos early on, but then like consistently started like a channel in 2010. I DMed George Trompolis, the CEO of Fullscreen at the time. I was like, you should give me a job because I signed with your network. He's like, all right. And then that's how I ended up moving out to LA and running their socials. So yeah, but did that in 2012. And then, you know, ever since then, it's been kind of a whirlwind of everything in between.

3:37And, you know, before we get into how did it change in 10 years, 12 years, and I know that it is going to be, you know, a lot, right? What did you learn as a content creator? And what did you learn then as a marketer more on the agency side? I think, you know, as a creator, I learned how to build community and what that actually looks like. I think if someone doesn't really know the space or know influencers, but they consume the content a lot, they may just always see it as like, oh, it's a mass. It's like Keith Lee, 14, 15 million followers. Like, that's crazy. Or Mr. Beast making all this money, whatever.

4:14I maxed out at like 400 ,000 subscribers on YouTube and I had a super engaged community. Right. And so like understanding how to build that, understanding the power of it at different levels and different scales and understanding that you don't just have to be the top 0.01%. You can have so much success building community that way. I think that's what I learned a lot from the creator side. And then on the marketing side, I kind of took a lot of that to be like, okay, if I, if I believe creators and community are the baseline, what does that mean for these existing structures that are in place?

4:46What does that mean for paid social assets? What does that mean for organic social content? What does that mean? Obviously for an influencer marketing program, what does that mean for modernizing TVC? Right? Like, so I'm just always kind of coming at it from that approach. So community is kind of just the big thing I'm always focused on though. and in the 10 past 10 years right although it'll be more let's say you know 12 years and so on a lot of things changed right because i mean youtube has been there from the beginning they understood from the beginning the importance of also monetization and giving you know you a voice in a platform right and then tiktok was not a thing 10 years ago it was not even a thing five years ago to be honest right they just started on that instagram changed like you know several times, Snapchat as well, Twitch with ups and downs.

5:30What has been the most interesting thing that you saw changing in the past 10 years and also the biggest challenges that you had to face both as a creator and now as a marketer? I think high level, if we're looking at probably the biggest change, it's TikTok coming onto the scene and introducing us to the For You page. Yeah. Because really what happened was in, you know, back in the day, like when I was making YouTube videos right and and being a creator you know it's all about like how do you tell stories the right way how do you get it an enticing thumbnail that people will click on which all these things are still valid and you want to focus on but like that was key right and and now with the for you page one all the other platforms kind of adjusted their algorithms to be similar but now it's about just like making content that you I guess care about but it's going to find the right audience no matter what so some of those other tactics I guess some some things may be good in terms of like the democratization of it all which I actually do think is a good thing but then other times I think holistically it might have changed the way we think about like I said community because now I don't necessarily have to worry as much about are you guys consistent viewers and are you here and are we talking it's like okay I know like if I do a video talking about a sports clip and I found this like consistent way to do it and it's going to reach these audiences that I'm going to just focus on the content and content alone and just make stuff that I know people want to see and that will be shown by the 40 page so I would say it sounds ridiculous because algorithms are always changing, but I think that algorithm change has completely changed the way that we've done things in terms of like maybe storytelling versus scale, maybe how we could look at it.

7:19What about monetization, right? Because again, YouTube has been understanding the CPM model from the beginning. TikTok had a few challenges with the founder. Snapchat did the spotlight eight years ago, kind of burned a lot of money that they say like, we're going to stop it. And they started again with something different. how did it change what what do you think is working what is not working when it comes to uh you know creator monetization it's tough because i mean youtube is still king of monetization by far i think that's just i'm a no-brainer i mean obviously like the easy answers are yeah as a creator you need to scale out your you know diversify your your ways to make money so yes do brand deals and get ad revenue and then create your own merch line or make a product or do live than you know whatever it is like that's things that all creators have to do i would say one of the toughest things though is the top uh job gen z and like even gen alpha now what to be is like a creator now this market is so saturated with creators so you know i think all those things of the past of like oh yeah i'll just get brand deals like that honestly when i was a creator I made 80 % of my income was brand deals and it was pretty easy or not easy but like it it was easier to find brand deals now whatever it is that you're doing there's like 2 ,000 other people minimum right doing the exact same thing 100 ,000 I don't know you know it's like it's crazy numbers so I think the days of brand deals like as someone that works at an agency and works with creators all the time.

8:54It's just, we have so many more options. So definitely is just harder now because to your point, like TikTok and Meta and all them, they haven't really changed much in terms of their ad revenue shares. So it's, it's, it's honestly just gotten harder for creators, I think overall. And since you said, you know, it's harder, there is like, you know, there is more content than ever. There is more people that want to become a content creator. There is like so much, right. And also a lot is the same. Many times it's difficult for a creator to be unique and therefore difficult also for them to close a campaign right now.

9:28Let's talk for a second about UGC, right? Because there is also another thing that has been a big rise, but because everyone is kind of offering that and you don't have to be an influencer, right? You don't need to have an influence on others. You just have to be very good at creating content that could be authentic, relatable, yada, yada, yada. How do you make... Let's see from an agency standpoint, a marketer. if you had to choose someone from UGC right again you have like so many hundreds of thousands of people be like I do UGC how would you choose from is it just about the content is about how they approach the work like tell me a bit more again there is again a big rise of UGC how would you go and say I like this more than these other creator yeah I mean I think it's interesting because I was just at VidCon a couple months ago and we were on a panel talking about like the rise of UGC and really where I, you know, when I hear UGC, obviously user generated content, a lot of times historically it's been reactive.

10:26So it's like, if I'll use, like I work on Popeyes, that's one of my clients I work on. I'll just use them as an example. If I'm Popeyes and I see a creator make a video with Popeyes, and then I'm like, I like this video. I'm going to reach out to them reacting to it and want to get that natural content and be like, Hey, can I share it on my social channel? right now the strategy of it should be more proactive and really like i mean like there's ways that i believe we should be bringing in creators to build strategies for brands like i want to bring in creators to help build brand strategy i want to bring in creators to help build creative strategy right um which traditionally in like an ad agency space it's like we got our creative directors we got our strategy department we got all these different people building that I say all that to say, I think the future is bringing in creators early and proactively figuring out at scale.

11:20Okay, now how do we fit them in? So it's not just UGC anymore. It's no, I have creators I brought in to help me build a strategy. I maybe have, maybe it's the same creators or maybe it's other creators I now bring in to build out a social strategy with and then have them actually make that content that's going to live on the brand social channel. Because historically that's what UGC was, right? I like this piece of content. And can I post it on this brand social channel? Now let's actually bring them in and proactively build it together and then have content or the brand social channel that looks like it belongs in the feed, you know, because a lot of times it doesn't.

11:53So, you know, that's, that was one of the things I was talking about and that I really am big on is just being proactive in that approach of using creators, you know, at scale. Like I think when we hear creators, it's like, oh yeah, influencer marketing, do an influencer marketing campaign. But creators, like I said, in my opinion, they're the best creative directors in the world. A lot of times on the agency side, we'll be like, I saw a thing. We should do something like it. And it's like, OK, why don't I go to the source? Like if one's building the thing that is inspiring us, let's bring them in and actually build with them.

12:24So, yeah, that's kind of the approach I usually try to take. Hello. Is your brand ready to amplify its reach? Well, the Influencer Marketing Factory is here to do just that. We are a global influencer marketing agency helping brands ignite their growth from influencer identification to campaign strategy. handling legalities and agreements to managing shipping and logistics, we have it all covered. We work with hundreds of brands across different verticals from Fortune 500 companies to DTC brands. And we don't just stop there. With detailed ROI analysis, we help brands like yours measure success, transforming impressions into actionable conversions.

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13:34No, I do agree. on everything to say, all this back and forth about like, because usually brands starts with the idea like, let's do something new. And then they finish all, not all the time, but a lot of the times, unfortunately, they get scared and concerned like, oh, but this is maybe too much. And then they go back to the, you know, typical advertising from the 80s. It's such a pity because why don't you just try, right? You don't have to change your identity completely for social media. But if you go to an influencer, then they say, just tell this story how I would like to, that was the point of having an influencer, right?

14:05Yeah, no, I actually, I saw that exact same post. And yeah, that idea of like, it's a no brainer to us to work in influence marketing, right? We're like, yeah, let creators cook, let them do their thing. I actually made a post kind of quoting that post on LinkedIn, but I was talking about how upfronts is something that has been going on forever, right? Brands go up, they hear about, okay, CBS has this show coming out. I'm going to dedicate this much of my ad spend to it. They've never seen this show. They don't know anything about it other than like a trailer, right? And if brands and agencies can work that way together, there's no reason that we can't get to that point with influencer marketing too, where obviously we want to still have like a 30 ,000 foot kind of creative framework brand framework.

14:50Like that data showed of a thousand pieces of content where the brand gave tons of extra feedback. It didn't perform as well as the other thousand that just let the creators do their thing with no feedback. Like that's how you're going to win as a brand is when you can kind of just put a framework out there, step back and let professionals like you and I work together with the creators because we know how to get to the right thing. right and i think like i was saying earlier that's why i think it's actually really important to bring those creators in early so that we're not just prescripting a bunch of stuff to them because it's not always the brand it could be the agents too we could be the ones that are like well here's our brief and you must say this and here's our thought starter do this it's like no like put a little bit out there and then collaborate together and that's how you're going to get to the best results and so you know because again you know now there is all this back and forth like so 10 years ago right it was like no data no historical insights whatever it was like a bet right oh this person is famous let's pay this person you know a thousand dollars and let's see how it goes now we have all these platforms all these ROI focus and everything and then some people say this is just the beginning others are some media are writing every year there is always the typical you know title is influencer marketing dead right like that is the yearly right that we all read every year.

16:07Where are we in your opinion? Is it mainstream? Is it a niche compared to other markets? What's happening? It's funny because you're right. Every year there's a Is Influencer Marketing Dead article? And then also every year there's a Year of the Creator Economy article. So yeah, it's a simultaneous hilarious back and forth. I would say one thing I've been kind of pushing is it's definitely a thing and it's not going anywhere like I kind of have this this idea of like the state of advertising so basically and I'll just talk in U.S. terms I'm not sure how global this podcast is but like in the U.S.

16:49if you're 50 and under that's like basically 60 % of the population you're consuming social media more than any other thing if you're consuming social media what is on social media it's creator content and that doesn't mean it's all just like like Mr. Beast or these massive people, it's, no, you can have 5 ,000 followers, 2 ,000 followers, you're a creator, you're making content, right? That's like 90 plus percent of the content. So if everyone is consuming social more than anything, and it's all creator content, and then the other thing is that we know just there's so many stats backing up how people just don't want to see ads, they're skipping ads, they're actively getting ad blockers, they're scrolling past and then you know when we think about like uh media right i think we're now past like where most media dollars are going towards social content more than traditional but even then it's just paid social ads and they look like ads right i'll say all that to say i think we're about to hit like a trillion dollar global spend in the advertising space influencer marketing spend is like what 30 billion it's yeah i feel like that yeah it's that's 30 that's three percent so i guess what i'm trying to get to with all this random stuff is we know people are on social more than anything else we know this was all creator content we know people don't want to see ads and then we hear these articles yeah you're the creator economy but yet in the advertising space we're only giving three percent of that to what technically is what people are consuming the most so i would say we're actually at the very beginning which is a weird thing for someone like yourself me we've been in it for a decade plus right we're actually so early on because the budgets are actually coming when people realize oh the most effective way is to basically build brand campaigns and scale it out creators at the center and have them as the baseline so yeah i I don't know if that truly answers your question, but I would say it's like, it's obviously very effective.

18:50There's so many stats to back that up. But I actually just think we're in the infant stages still, which is crazy to say. So again, one item you said is basically budget, right? So it's still like for us now, it's way better than five years ago. As you said, if you look at media, traditional advertising and so on, it's still like a drop in the ocean, right? Compared to what other have. The other one I wanted to ask you is also, that's what I'm feeling. Tell me if I'm, what do you feel about it? it's also like the system overall right of influencer marketing because it's still somehow new and there are so new people like a lot of people are not professionals right a lot of creators started as creators they never worked in a company so sometimes they don't know how to interact with a brand a brand doesn't know sometimes how to interact with a creator because of what we said before right they have a corporate vision of everything while a creator might be someone that doesn't necessarily have to be young right but it's someone that maybe never worked corporate.

19:42So there is all these loss in translation, miscommunication, and so on. That's personally what I feel sometimes. What do you feel about it? Do you think that is it a system that is an old machine? Do we miss still a lot of things? And if so, what are the things that you would like to see happening soon in order for a better consolidation and a more serious infrastructure when it comes to all the creator economy environment? Yeah, no, I totally agree with all that. I mean, I love that we're doing this on Friday, August 16th yesterday there was a bunch of greater economy people at the White House right I love that we are the people in the actual greater economy space currently are the future of what advertising is actually going to be and I guess when I say that we're working in old systems like I work at an advertising agency it's an awesome place but it is the system of it and the structure of it is like based on things that have been happening for 30 40 50 years right and And, you know, I think as we look at the structure, like I said, I think creators need to be the baseline.

20:45Right. So what that means is, you know, when you talk about creators don't know how to work with brands or brands don't know how to work with creators. The other component and like my way, if I was to just take over everyone and do everything, I would want to do what I call creator brand studios. And so you're building it to where in-house at an agency, brand side, whatever, you're building a creator brand studio where once again, creators of the baseline. They're brought in to be part of every part of the process. And another big part of that that I didn't mention is learning and development opportunities, having, you know, so like bringing in creators to talk to the C-suite.

21:20The C-suite know like generally maybe the audience they want to go after. Well, hey, not only is this creator, the audience are going after their audience of however many people is that same audience too, right? And so having these direct conversations with people who, because creators are more tapped in you know i would say community managers and creators are the most tapped into audiences more than any other marketers out there right so you know i think being able to have that collaboration more fostered by people like us in the space who are creator economy executives whatever that's where the structure can begin to change but then also that education is so key like that's the biggest thing that we're going to need when i talk about budgets like budgets not being allocated, you know, like influencer marketing spend being 3 % of total advertising.

22:08That's only going to change their education. Like a CMO that's, you know, been doing this 30 years. Most of them are not going to just be like, yeah, sure. Actually, I should give maybe half of my budget to creator centric work. You know what I mean? So that education has to start with us, but it also, I think is going to be more effective when it's done with creators, partners, and not just take my word for it. I've been here a while. It's hear from the people that are the pulse of a community that you're trying to go after. I do agree, right, on the old education side. Because especially for us, right, that we're practicing this, been doing this for more than 10 years.

22:43Of course, you know, it's what we breathe. It's our bread and butter. Every day we know what is happening. But it's so fast-paced, right? Every single day there is a new feature, a new social media app, a new community. A lot of them, they have like a spike, right, for one week and then they die out and everything. But yes, it's difficult to be honest sometimes also for us, right, to be updated. So for a brand marketer there, so not an agent, not a content creator, but for a brand marketer, they want to be updated first of all and then understand 100 % how to approach these from, you know, authentic way.

23:15I know that authentic is such a buzzword, you know, but in a way where it can be relatable content, not over scripted and everything. Do you have any tips for them? like could be, how would you approach, again, not being necessarily in the industry, but trying to understand what is happening? I don't know, it's like things that you're reading, podcasts linked in close communities. What would be the best places for them to be updated and understanding exactly, again, how to approach these to nail it instead of like trying to do something, right, that might work on TV and then they try to transpose it on a Snap or TikTok and it doesn't work, you know?

23:48Yeah, I mean, I think like my interaction with a lot of clients right is obviously there's the more business side things of like we have this much money or we need to hit these goals for kpis for overall revenue blah blah that's all business stuff we can figure out the biggest thing for them though is the best clients that i've worked with are ones that are actually like living and breathing social because to my point earlier like obviously social is it's king at this point but you know if you're actually actively consuming social which sounds so basic but so many brand marketers are not they really truly aren't living and breathing that um and so that would be the first easiest step is just actually go consume actually go uh dive into the communities that you're asking us on the agency side to go, you know, tap into, you know, there's obviously a bunch of different educational resources, newsletters, and all that kind of stuff on LinkedIn.

24:48But it's also why, like I said earlier, one of the big things that I think they can do is just directly connect with creators who understand social and live and breathe it in a different way than, you know, if someone brand side, if there's a social media manager brand side, they could be the best social media manager there, they can understand community super well, but it is totally different when you're doing it as a creator, building from scratch. You're a nobody to start with, and then you can become somebody. That is just a different level of understanding than even brand social managers.

25:22So being able to connect with actual creators directly can open up your mind to just so many other things. That's a good point. It reminds me, I did another episode recently about the difference of being a content creator and live streaming host. It was quite interesting because to your point, like sometimes not because someone is in front of a camera, it means that it's going to be good at everything, right? Each person is going to be good at something. There are people good at B2B, other web B2C, other live streaming. And that's what I say all the time to brands, like talk with all the different personas out there because as you said at the beginning, you have the 50 million follower personality but then you have the micro like you know influencer without with a small but mighty community then you have the live hosts that a lot of them are not influencers not even contributors they are just great uh hosting like six hours of live streaming to sell you things and a lot of these people go to academies to learn that like it's a job that you have to learn how to do right right so the more you talk with these people the more you understand of the ins and outs of everything yeah i mean that's a great point i mean those types of people like i've i've heard brands talk about that too where it's like no we actually basically just got an actor because we need someone that can keep up with six hours straight doing something which is nuts i as a former creator that sounds tiring and i don't know if i can do that you know so it's like not everyone is cut yet but yeah but i love that point because i think ultimately too that's that's another key thing is just diversifying the types of people whether it's creators or brand or brand marketers agency marketers whatever it's just diversifying the different people that you're learning from Like I know for me, you know, I've been primarily influence marketing, social media type stuff, right?

27:05I was actually just at like a leadership conference that McKinney, the agency I work at, did for us. I learned so much from like the paid media team and like the data team that helped me to start thinking even differently about my own work, right? So I think in general, it's a good note for all of us, whether we're brand side, agency, creators, diversifying the types of people you talk to in marketing is key and can open up new ways in for even the work you're doing. And on this, and then we, you know, we're going to start wrapping the episode, but it's exactly the point of the time. I agree with you a hundred percent.

27:41Don't be in silos. That doesn't help any, any time. I remember I was reading about the wide of the success of ByteDance and other, you know, Chinese companies. A lot of departments talk to each other and they help each other. And that's why they have such, you know, successful. Then, then when they go bigger and bigger, then they go back to silos again. And then in fact, they see all the problems, right? But when they start, they have all the departments talk to each other. And I agree with you. You can learn from everyone, right? Because you might do organic. What about paid media? Paid media can learn from you.

28:15Then the talent department, we do the same in our agency, right? The more you talk from different departments, the more you can learn. And also seeing point of views that you might be missing, right? The same I also say all the time, go and talk also with people that are not in the US. Talk with people in Europe, in Asia, in Southeast Asia, right? In Australia, you can learn so much about different cultures, behavior of users and so on right so yeah some of the best influencer work i got to be a part of was at my previous agency when we were we worked on intel but we were doing global campaigns and i learned so much from like oh we need to think about this when we're working with german influencers yeah korean influencers whatever and yeah it does help you just understand so much more on like the styles of content out there especially outside of the u.s so i love that great totally yeah again And it takes time and everything to invest in, but it's important if you don't do your homework, then if you don't identify the right of rights and understanding the trends, each country and everything, it's going to be quite a chaotic campaign.

29:12So it's going to be a bit hard. But Austin, thank you so much for joining me today. It was a great conversation. Thank you for sharing all your knowledge with us. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. This is fun. I always love talking about the space. So yeah, it's a good time. Amazing. Thank you so much. This was the Influence Factor by the Influencer Marketing Factory and I'll see you next week.