Verity (00:00.142)
Right, okay, the wait is over because this afternoon is about to start and I have got a killer lineup for this next session. I have no idea how this is going to go. I'm a little bit nervous. There's a lot of nervous energy going on, but it's going to be great. You will all know because you have seen your flags on the chairs. We will be using those shortly, so get them ready. You can be as interactive with this as you want. If you want to heckle them, please feel free.
call them out, you know, or so just give them praise because they deserve it. There's too many of them for me to stand here and intro, so I'm going to get them up and they can do that themselves. Come on,
Hmm.
Verity (00:45.56)
Take your seat.
Verity (00:54.158)
It's like game show music. I like it.
Okay, raves. Everyone ready?
Ready.
Test, test, yeah.
This keeps moving up. This is really annoying. Okay. We are going to start with some quick intros, but before you kind of move on, I want to hear one bold prediction that you think is going to happen in 2026. So we're going to start off strong. Madison. Hello.
Madisen (01:22.99)
Hi, I'm Madison Diebald from Matt Cosmetics. I lead social there. Just got my face beat, so looking fresh. My bold prediction is that, you know, I lead organic social. I think a big common misconception is that organic social is dying. I don't think it's dying. I think it's just evolving. I think a big way that this has changed is that, think about it yourselves, we used to just really have Instagram and Facebook, but now it's not only Instagram and Facebook, but within that app, you have a whole Reels tab. You have a whole...
Like there's a new platforms, you have threads now. So there's different ways that consumers are now entering your app, not just staying on the main Instagram feed, you have stories. So I think that's a big way. Just trying to think about where your audience is and how you're reaching your audience.
I heard the other day that your influence is not based on how many people are following you, but based on like how much intimacy you have with your following, which I think is really cool. Anyone have anything you want to add to Madison's bold prediction?
I can piggyback off of the prediction. Hi everyone, I'm Gabe. lead, similar to Mads, lead organic social and creators for M.COBE Beauty. I think, you know, to your point, the narrative around organic social dying, I think is totally untrue. But I also think we're gonna shift away from just posting content and like leaving it alone to much more like real time, like brands having to stream.
brands having to broadcast, brands having to put on more of a production and make that production in real time versus just like setting and forgetting. So you can't just like post a video and have it go viral anymore. I think you're going to have to do that and also show up day in and day out through broadcast, through real people broadcasting through your channels and like lending your brand voice to real consumers to continue to build the brand and keep it energized.
Verity (03:11.594)
No more CMOs saying, make it go viral by Friday, Gabe.
No more, it could go viral by Friday, but maybe like get on live at 8 p.m. like, I don't know, dance a little bit, but yeah.
want to see that.
My point actually piggybacks off of Gabe's point in a great way too. I'm Max, I'm senior social strategist at Loop Earplugs. And I think that non-legacy brands, if you're not Nike or Apple, if you're not doing reactive social based on pop culture, you're going to be left in the dust.
Interesting. I want to take into that in a bit.
McKinley (03:47.992)
Hi, I'm McKinley. the director of social at SoulCycle. And what I think is going to happen in the spirit of reactive social media is I think social media is going to fully capitalize on being nosy. I think it's like MySpace top eight, but messier and smarter. mean, you if you remember Snapchat used to tell you who your besties were. You used to have that great feed on Instagram where you could see what everyone was up to. Now you can kind of see who everyone's liking on Reels. I think they're going to fully go all in and you'll be able to see the recent activity of users.
and brands, and brands would be able to use it to sort of, they already kind of are, but to use it to sort of like, who are they liking? Who are they saving? Who are they following? And kind of use that as a way to soft launch in a bigger way.
How else do think they can use that to their advantage?
I think it'll be interesting for them to capitalize on maybe some advocates that they can use to just engage with on social. So it may not be a full-blown partnership, but it may be like, you're in my social circle. I'm liking your content, you're liking mine, because it's public. You can kind of see, this is who they're liking. Okay. So I think brands can invest on that sort of tier of advocates.
see that happen. You too. James!
James (04:55.072)
I am James Dimmond. I'm a brand strategy consultant for fashion and luxury brands. And I will linger in that space because I think honestly, if I was going to be frank about it, I think people are going to shut the fuck up.
Like luxury and fashion brands, certainly at a certain tier have an ability, like there's so much noise out there. There's so much sort of energy. There's so much sort of like just effectively chasing of a trend, chasing of a trend, chasing a trend. In many ways, a lot of those brands make an active, positive choice to go, I'm going to step out of that. And in that sort of like black hole, my allure, my interest, my engagement, my sense of, um, uh,
this mystery starts to reappear.
love that. Everyone shut the fuck up.
I love these spicy takes. Hey, I'm Brandon Smithrick. I was the former director of content and creative for Kickstarter. I'm now a full-time B2B content creator and I write a newsletter called Contentacamas. Just quickly picking you back and off like what the team set up here. I do think the traditional social team is dying and I'm actually very interested in brands adopting more of a holistic social team when it comes to like considering SEO and other kind of
Brandon (06:21.686)
mediums when it comes to your social strategy. But my bold prediction is that AI UGC is going to get banned because there are so many fake AI UGC ads that are currently being run and there's AI avatars. I think a brand is going to get sued like crazy because either an AI UGC looks like someone's actual face or AI UGC is making a bold claim and then they lose all their money.
Did you see Jake Paul's AI get ready with me? guys, we saw it and we tried to send him a little PR package and we couldn't, we wanted to send him some beauty products in a pink Lamborghini and we couldn't reach him. So sad. Wow.
Amazing. Right. We are going to move on to red flag, green flag and beige flag. So as you can see, your green flag means it's a yes. Your beige is mid and your red is just red alert. Let's stay away from it. Okay. You ready? Is the audience ready?
A brand jumps on every Taylor Swift moment but has zero cultural connection to their audience.
Oh, was easy. I think someone did put a green one up, but don't quickly throw it down.
Madisen (07:34.702)
I would do green just because for us at Mac. I think we're super, we pride ourselves not only are we the number one like luxury prestige makeup brand in the world. We also, our ambition is to be a culture brand at the end of the day. And Mac has been doing that for such a long time. And I think for us, like we can find ways and we've trained our audience to weave culture in. So Taylor Swift for us is not inauthentic at all. Like she wears Ruby Woo. The moment that, you know, she got her engagement, my team reacted in 17 minutes. We were one of the very first.
There are articles about us getting that up in time and it was like Ruby Wu in her bridal era. Like that's it. 40,000 likes, calm, it was insane. But we've trained our audience to do that. So it's not, it's not for everyone, but for Mac, it was the answer. Yeah.
have cultural connection though, like that's the best part, like...
How did you get that so right?
I think it's taken years. You we've been around for 30 plus years in general. think we also like in our, it's in our brand ethos, like it's who we are. all genders, all races, all ages. It's everything. So I think from the beginning, like you were saying, Nike and you know, brands that are legacy like Mac, we've been around for a really long time. But I think what I pride my team on and my marketing team and everyone here in the audience is the evolution. Like we are willing to evolve and still be at the center of culture while not just getting passed in the dust.
Madisen (08:53.858)
And I think that's such a forward way of thinking from leadership all the way top down. And I really admire that a lot.
Okay, the next one.
Verity (09:10.907)
Verity (09:16.95)
Okay, right.
little toxic, no?
You really better know that creator if you're gonna be asking that.
Let's go with why you said yes.
I don't mind that. mean, also I'm a creator, so it's very interesting. Even before this panel, I was like, I need to get this post up right now. But I have to give brands constant analytics. And I do know that a screenshot could be from whenever, and they need to make sure that it's for real. So if a brand wanted a screen recording, that's totally fine. I think you as a creator, you want to build that trust. And if that bothers you as a creator, it feels like you are kind of trying to hide something, in my opinion.
Verity (09:56.59)
kind of agree. James, what did you say?
I said made by Fully Agree with that. I think like...
This is around transparency and if you want the money, you got to pony up for it. So therefore, I think it's a completely legitimate for a brand to turn around and go like, yeah, we want to actually see the numbers rather than let's say maybe your glossed over story of it.
McKinley, why did you say red?
think it's a delicate relationship between a creator and a brand. And I think you should have good faith in your creators. You can probably also tell if the analytics have been amplified in some way. So I think it is a relationship of trust. And I think you should start off on the right foot with trust and not instill this suspicion from the get-go.
Verity (10:43.822)
Okay, interesting. All right, next one. Okay, a brand double downs, double, double, my God, it started already. A brand doubles down on micro and nano advocates, real customers, employees, loyalists, and leaves mega influences out of the big campaign mix.
Verity (11:03.822)
These two can't decide.
Hi.
You need both. The reality is that like the smaller creators need to feel like the brand amplifies real voices, but let's be real at the end of the day, if you're talking social, you're talking reach and you're talking eyeballs. So you need some of the larger people that have that insane reach, but you can't get that same authenticity from a creator who's a mega influencer or like KOL status, right? You still need that real person touch.
I totally agree. was in between this one. think there's value in real people and you want real voices, but it's pretty cool if you could set real people with people they aspire to be as well. If you're taking a brand fan and connecting them with someone they admire and they love in the same space, that still feels authentic and exciting. So I think why not have the best of both worlds?
Well, I'm biased because at SoulCycle we have a built-in influencer network with our instructors. So with me raising my flag, you we do have these fantastic creators with this huge reach and audience built in. So using them and then our writers and our studio crew, we kind of have just this amazing sort of network already there. So that maybe a creator with a huge amount of, a huge reach and this audience is great, but it will never compare to the organic creator network that we already have.
Verity (12:27.97)
Yeah, interesting.
Yeah, we, for Mac specifically, we have over 12,000 artists that are our built-in creators. We are fortunate to have brick and mortar stores, people here that create on the side, we carve out time for them. So we really value that. So I think that's going to be a big switch to just speaking of a bold prediction. Like there's a lot of employee advocacy programs that are on the forefront. I think we're going to see a lot of that. So a lot of you guys will turn to creators yourselves here pretty soon, I'm sure.
Just to add one thing to that, I do think we've seen a lot of the big creators say that they love a lot of brands. And over time, I think a brand knows, you know, if I pay this influence, also say they love our product, might not, it may garner a lot of reach on a social level, but what's the actual business impact? And I think if we're talking about what's the advancement of social, I think we need to think beyond YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, you name it.
I do want more brands to think about Reddit. Reddit is crawled for AI searches. So if I have a ton of nano influencers on Reddit, on TikTok, on all these other channels, and even when you search a video on TikTok, it's not the biggest following that appears, it's the most relevant content. So if I have people talking about my product all over the internet, from newsletters to social posts, I can get more bang from my buck.
make sure that a lot more people are talking about our product. And over the long time, I think that's more longevity versus one off social posts that's going to cost you $20,000 for a big influencer.
Gabe (13:56.94)
like a real world example of Reddit being a superpower platform because when in my past life when we were launching Verizon Super Bowl ad with Beyonce we posted the teaser we even we posted a teaser video thinking the beehive is gonna get it right away no one really cared but then we secretly planted a leak on reddit and it went crazy overnight I've done that before too so it's it's I think that
Ha!
Reddit is just like a community primed for engagement. It's so interesting how it works that you just like plant something and people activate right away.
We literally leaked products on Reddit and then five minutes later have had people in our Instagram comments on our most recent post being like, what did you just post about on Reddit? What is that?
That's how the CeraVe thing kicked off though, wasn't it? Because that was found through a Reddit thread. Amazing. Okay, next one. YouTube shorts creators demanding TV level budget.
Verity (15:05.816)
this a sore point? Everyone says red. James, let's go with you.
What are not getting at? I mean, as simple as that. Like, like it's, it begins with N and ends in O.
I mean, you know, I think there's probably people who are much better qualified to talk about that specifically, but I think, you know, realistically, that seems like an enormous capital investment and your CFO is fundamentally going to turn around and go like, what exactly am I, Yara, why am I going to get off that? And, you know, maybe in the future, who knows, but right now I don't think that's the case.
Yeah, agree. think the YouTube shorts audience is really fragmented right now. I think the user journey is a bit clunky in comparison to like a TikTok. You know what you're going in for. You know where the shop is. I think YouTube shorts, like while it surpassed in views this year, that is where an audience is. I don't really know if we've really unlocked, you know, as consumers, what this means for like, is short forms going to be teasers for long? Like, I just feel like it's very fragmented right now. I do foresee it though, like definitely popping off very soon.
And part of it too, the beauty of YouTube has always been the creativity that comes with the budget constraints. So throwing money at the problem to fix it is not the solution.
Verity (16:27.512)
We are seeing the rise of it though, right? We are seeing creators actually wanting this. Do you work with a lot of YouTube creators?
We do some stuff, but it's like we've done, we've done a couple of sponsored videos where people will like review our products, but this is like anecdotal, but every single time we have somebody actually organically post a product review, it always does eight trillion times better than when we pay for it. Even if it's the same creator, we've had the same creator create a review for our product after they already did one for free. And it was just not even worth it. Like it was not a good investment of money in hindsight.
because you're speaking to a community that already knows about your product and is already stoked on your product in our experience. So what you're just doubling down on something they already know about. It's just another add to them.
Yeah. Okay. A brand rewards super fans who don't post, creating secret product experiences for private advocates in DMs.
Verity (17:32.726)
Not everyone's voting, come on get your flags up! A brand rewards superfans who don't post but create secret product experiences for private advocates in the DMs.
Verity (17:50.892)
still don't see everyone's flags.
When you say, when you say super fans that don't post, these like fans that are just engaging with the brand regularly and whatnot?
Yes. Sorry. Just to clarify. They're not actively posting about you, but they may engage with your content. They may like, you know, comment on every post that you do. They may be in your broadcast channel, but they're not actually posting. Yeah.
We've done that with our Reddit before actually, where we have some of our like crazy Reddit super fans that I see them post every single day pretty much. But again, that's, well that is posting, it's on that platform. So I don't know if that's equivalent, but it's not social, right? So, or it's not like traditional social, whatever. And we've given them sneak peeks to new products just because I have a relationship with them at this point. So why not?
There's a brand, built rewards who's currently doing this now where they created built rewards, close friends. and it's not people with the most massive following, but they are advocates for the brand. And their thesis is that people who love the product so much will find a way to bring it up almost in every conversation. And they are doing this almost around the world doing like, whether it's a happy hour with their close friends or a comedy show with their close friends.
Brandon (19:14.708)
It's with the goal of building community. The last point I'll make towards this is we mentioned in the DMS that is fascinating to me because as you know, Instagram just changed their whole layout. and Adam, head of Instagram says people are spending time in two things on Reels and DMS. And I wrote a newsletter about this, this past weekend where I told every single brand, if you don't have a broadcast channel, make one. Instagram saying more people are spending time in DMS.
So you need to make sure you are spending time in DMs, not trying to fight the algorithm in the feed, but make sure you have a broadcast channel where whatever news you're trying to surface for your community appears there.
I think, I think to build on that point, you've got, you know, fundamentally that, know, there's obviously we drive in the short-term sale. We're driving that sort of like the efficacy, but that long-term relationship is the business that everybody's in. You, know, you can have a relationship with a brand over decades. And I think that that traverses and like, like platform and time, that's about a real deep seated thing. So I think any of those opportunities and for brands to engage in that.
in that way, actively is a positive thing that they should pursue.
Okay, so on that note, the next one is a brand decides to stop posting on the feed entirely and focus only on close friends, WhatsApps, DMs, broadcast channels.
Verity (20:47.54)
scary move, okay? Right. Why did you go with red?
think you should always be in the business of trying to recruit new customers, new for us new riders, you know, so to limit it, I understand exclusivity is, you know, very popular right now, but so is community. In order to build that, you have to have some sort of access point. And so to limit it to close friends and be so secretive, I think some brands can pull that off. But for me in the group fitness and in a brand that is so based on community, I wince to think of doing that.
I know too, like at Mac, we dabbled in this when we were launching our nudes campaign this year. We were like, wouldn't it be so cool? Everyone's doing it now, which is like, I'm so glad we did it. Like delete our Instagram and get everyone. Like we are the most followed makeup brand in the world. Like that is such a disservice to the community. We have cultivated all generations. So, you know, instead we actually use the close friends model where we're like, let's get the people we want to talk about us, tastemakers, celebs, who we want to see, outlets.
and get them in our inner circle. So we just tried to formulate a community within a community for Mac and it was super successful, orchestrated virality, et cetera, but I don't think deleting Maya and...
I'm so glad you brought that up because it's been obviously in the context of fashion brands over the last sort of like month with Paris and Milan and everything is the sort of like, let's say the trend to deleting it, which is really just a proxy for an ego trip of a creative director. But what it does is it's sort of like undercuts our equity, right? Whether you're
James (22:26.452)
a fan of what Demna did at Balenciaga as an example, and then you're into what Pierre Pallon is doing. Fundamentally, there's a lineage there and a story there. And so the idea of just, I think, wiping it, I think, in many ways, just talks to... It's about ego and aggrandizement more than is actual smart business strategy.
Anything else anyone wants to add?
I will add that I have talked with the team at Hinge who kind of did this where, mean, their whole thing is the app that gets deleted. So they're also like, let's just not do social. it's.
Is that working out for him?
How's that work out for everyone?
Brandon (23:03.352)
I thought it was so risky and they tried to just pivot in other ways, but again, I don't think most brands should do it. That's it.
Okay, right, we're going to take a different spin. So you guys don't need to use your flags for this bit, but if you want to, if you love them, you can keep going. But we're going to do watch, wait, or walk. So I'm going to give you some scenarios, things that are kind of happening right now, conversations that are happening. You need to let me know where the brand should watch them. It's not quite ready yet. No, watch them as in like, go for it. Wait on it because it's not quite ready yet, or just disregard it because it's just noise disruption. Okay? Right.
first one is, Gen Beta, the next cultural generation. So should brands already be investing in understanding what comes after Gen Z? I saw this in a Business of Fashion article that fashion brands were already starting to think about what they look like, what they're interested in. Okay. you still love the flags. Yeah, go.
footnote.
I think it's important to keep an eye on it, but I just think, you know, as a proud millennial, we got typecasted as so many things that we weren't so early, like the avocado toast of it all, that we should be buying homes, that we were so quick to label what a millennial was and what a millennial was into that what we labeled is actually not what any of us millennials are, maybe some, but I think it's important to be, you know, keeping eyes.
McKinley (24:33.432)
But to sort of invest is where I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. No LinkedIn DMs about offers about how we can invest so quickly. I think we just keep an eye on it.
I mean we've got to get through the Gen Alpha first.
I don't even get Jen off. I don't even get me. How am I gonna understand two generations sooner? Like, I don't know. And also in terms of like advertising to them, you just like, I don't know, aren't they like on YouTube anyway? It's fine.
I think it's an interesting point about like the Gen Z, the Gen Beta, et cetera. because what it, talks to a larger point of thing about trends, which is just it's smooth brains, everybody. And it makes every, you know, to your point, like these enormously generic sort of sweeping statements that then everybody sort of like lashes onto, like there's like an anchor and there's sort of like, there's no nuance and depth to it. And it reinforces some of the challenges inherent, I think with everybody doing their jobs, right? Cause you have to then lean into what effectively are
Instead like, smooth brain trans.
Madisen (25:33.142)
Okay.
All I going to say is that I initially said watch, but now I'm changing my answer to wait because the reality is that the workforce will handle this naturally, right? Young people are going to eventually be employed at your company and even, you know, Gen Z, Gen Alpha peeps are going to know the generation below them because they might have a sibling or have a friend who has a sibling. So it's not something that like, I don't know. My 30 year old self needs to spend time doing right now at work, but I think that there most brands it'll happen naturally for them. personally feel.
Yeah, I have an interesting, a personal anecdote. My mom's a third grade teacher in Illinois, like straight in the Midwest. She says she went around this year when school started and asked what everyone wanted to be. Every single one of their responses was a YouTuber. So I just think we keep it. I agree. I think it's green. I think it's beige, but there's something there. And I feel like we're still trying to catch up with like, what is Gen Z like? Like we need to get ahead of this. So it's not, we're so behind already. But I thought that was really interesting.
as it's like no more doctor, you know, I come.
doctor on YouTube.
Madisen (26:38.764)
A YouTube doctor!
exists on Earth.
Dr. Mike, I love doctor.
Yeah, my eight year old is either going to be a YouTuber or a footballer. Yay me though. Money.
for it.
Verity (26:53.46)
Okay, next one. we kind of touched on this before, but close friends is a strategy play. Is this the new frontier of influence or just another algorithmic fab?
What's everyone saying in the audience?
Verity (27:09.782)
Okay. Think there's a goer? no.
No, I think I'm much more of a broadcast channel fan than I am close friends. Again, it kind of plays on the exclusivity factor that I was speaking to earlier. think close friends, if you don't necessarily know how to get in, think broadcast channel is a nice way. I would prefer that over close friends.
think the word algorithmic fad is what got me there because I think we've done this so much because there's such a hunger for us to get back to the old Instagram where I could see my friends, I could see the content I want. And because that no longer exists, we have to basically have all these detours to have community the way we used to.
I think if you use it creatively, like in a way that feels out of the box and not overplayed, because then don't want everyone feeling like they have to be close friends with a brand to get access to the best stuff. if it's a product launch, if it's an exclusive pop-up, if it's a product leak, I think if you're creative with it, or if your CMO is all of a sudden close friends for the day and they say, know, they answer questions about a brand that folks have always wanted to know, I think there's interesting plays.
Yeah, I think for us, experimented with this a lot actually this whole year. think, like you said, we're so annoyed with having to like figure out how to get in, but there's such that sense of belonging. I think we all feel it so bad. But I think for us, one way we brought our community in was like, we have this launch coming up, comment, close friends, and we'll add you. So no stone was left unturned. We made them feel a part of the community. And that was really successful for us. now we have all, and we were designing at this point now for the audience we want, not the audience we have.
Madisen (28:56.14)
I think that's really important for any legacy brand. It's like, there are gonna be some people that are just like, this is not the old Mac. That's the point. It's not for you right now. And we want to capture a new audience, but at the same time, we have our loyalists that we wanna continue to service. So I think for us, we use this as, like you said, a creative play.
Yeah, I've seen quite a few. I think I saw it was like the new Meta and the Ray-Ban glasses. They did this whole close friends thing. And that's where I heard about the level of your influence is not about the following, it's the intimacy because it is all about that connection piece. like, it's about how well do they feel connected to you as a brand, but also one another. And, you know, how much do they trust you? Do they keep coming back? And it just got me really thinking about where does close friends fit in the strategy? Anyone else use close friends in their strategy?
okay. Some missed opportunities maybe. Okay, the next one. Employee Advocates, the next creators. Should every brand be building an employee advocacy program?
Verity (30:01.866)
Intra, okay, we're very divided, well, not very divided, but we're divided. Let's go with this side first, James.
I'm gonna caveat the Everybrand thing. I'm not sure I want forklift drivers. Warehouses, sort of like doing wheelies, like to get picked up.
I mean, at Argos Kurus, which I know is very...
And I'll go work where I see what happens. anyway, no, I look, mean, we did this when I was a spree. and you know, we, we, we, we integrated tick tock creators into our retail teams. And, it was enormously successful because not only obviously you could, from a styling perspective, you could bring a lot of that into the, into the story. It just felt like it gave, it reinforced the values of the brand in a really strong manner. so.
I feel that, again, for fashion and luxury brands, it is something that I think is very, very well worth exploring as an opportunity.
Brandon (30:59.342)
I'm torn on this to be honest, because I forget what brand it was. There was some conversation online, one about our creators being paid too much. And then if we are paying creators this huge check, can we bypass paying creators by having employees make content on top of their nine to five jobs? yes, employee advocacy programs are great. I do think this is a great way for people who are naturally embedded within your ecosystem to talk about your brand. However, I do think.
We are in some murky waters right now surrounding, do is that extra compensation? Is this a way for us to kind of shrink our budget and still get those KPIs we want? It's kind of up in the air.
side you were a bit meh.
I feel like much to what was said in regards to like employees already having a nine to nine to five, needs to like authentically be integrated into your business model. Like McKinley for you at SoulCycle, it's a freaking gold model. Yeah, of course you guys like that's genius for us as an earplugs brand. Like it's cool when like, you know, our audio engineers actually talk about their experience, right? We'll host AMAs on Reddit. We'll have like Instagram takeovers and stuff like that. But that's not necessarily an employee advocacy program, right? You can use it more.
sparsely. You can use it as much or as little as you want, but to have it be like a constant thing running in the background for our business, I don't think it'd work.
Gabe (32:24.322)
Yeah, I think I agree with a lot of what's being said. And I think there's a time and place for everything. There's a strategy or not a strategy for it. You don't have to just dog pile on to advocacy in this way. If it doesn't make sense. I'm what I will say is when it works, it works great. I E soul cycle. I've also seen, Peter Thomas Roth. have the NEPO baby, like the, the, the son of like the, the founder. He's just like on tick tock live selling products.
And the grandmother. Wait, what was that? The grandmother. And the gran- Nevo grandmother.
Grandma, yeah, they're, they're Nepo, the Nepo grandma and the Nepo son. Like they're both just like employees selling products and it works. And I love it. I tune in all the time.
I think the word every for me was kind of like, think if it fits, it fits. think Mac, SoulCycle, we have these built-in artists, like I said, 12,000. So if I know that there is a specific lipstick shade or a lip liner that is doing super well and going viral, I can easily, you know, reach out to all of those artists via whatever it is. And I can make it even more viral. I think it's awesome. I think unfortunately for some brands, there's going to need to be some work grounds because it's not for everybody.
Okay, on our last one. Should brands be building social first SEO and AI optimized content teams?
Verity (33:43.734)
Okay, James, I'm going to go with you first because you're the minority here.
Great. I mean, look, I mean, you know, I think to the point of that question for me, it seems to be a bit like a sort of, it's not, it's a bit more of an either, it's not an either or proposition. It's an additive. So for me, I think, you know, it's about a larger cohesive sort of like team that, you know, incorporates a whole bunch of different things as much as the AI, Optimized and Social First SEO.
I nerd out about this stuff. When I was at Kickstarter, this was a project I wanted to spearhead because I knew people were going to use AI as a search engine. Here's like one tactic I don't think a lot of brands are doing, because even in Google, Google has a short video tab. So the same way you can search on Google, it says images, shopping. There's a section that says short videos. And then that short videos tab, Google is actually crawling.
Reddit videos, TikTok videos, Facebook videos, YouTube shorts and Facebook, sorry, and Instagram videos. So if your brand, for Kickstarter, we tested it with Comic-Con, because we had to speak to filmmakers, comic book creators, you name it. We went to Comic-Con, created content. How do you start a comic book? Very long tail SEO optimized social content. And then we posted it everywhere, but we noticed that YouTube shorts skyrocketed.
And we track it back to people who are searching stuff on Google within see the short videos tab. And I do think this is just a way for social teams to start thinking about new discovery mechanisms. It's going to be AI. It's going to be SEO optimized content beyond them what we've done in the past.
Verity (35:25.954)
Yeah. Any additional points here guys? No.
I feel the same. think, you know, we just had a training, you we brought our UK team out and we did the same thing. You know, it is supposed to be social first SEO. as you guys know, hashtags are pretty much no longer. I won't say dead. They're good for tracking, but yes. But like, when you're looking, think about how you search for something. Like you want to learn something. You want to feel something. You want to find a tutorial. You want to find answers. You are going to probably TikTok, Instagram. Google might be your last resort at this point. YouTube.
So you need to have search terms in your captions, in your content, to make it discoverable, especially with AI at the forefront.
Yeah, I we were wandering around the streets in New York the other day trying to find the Halloween streets. We went to TikTok straight away. Google wasn't even on there. In fact, we joked about using Google to try and find where these streets were. Okay, we have about like a couple of minutes. So this is your time, guys, to heckle these guys, you know, completely wrong, don't agree. Does anyone have any questions? You've got some amazing experts on the stage.
Yeah, so he asked about our recent I only wear MAC campaign. We have a new creative director at MAC. name is Nicola Formicetti. He actually was Lady Gaga's creative director. already just coming in, we were super excited. So him coming in, know, already from an organic social perspective, I'm like, okay, how are we gonna make Kris Jenner, all of these people, like, do I even get time with Kris Jenner? Social is usually like a last thought. I think one thing that I pride MAC on and just like a lot of brands that I've been on now,
Madisen (37:03.352)
Social is in the room. I am right there. I had my own set. I had my own time with her. Gabrielle, Bach, et cetera. Like we brought all these amazing creators together. And I think what we did so well and what made it do well on Organic Social to your point of having like mega and like we had models, but then we also had Kris Jenner. So it reached all audiences, all ages. We were all over. We took it over. And I think honestly, from like start to finish, knowing that having like a social team in the room that could inform
and give this kind of feedback and actually have creative freedom was something that really turned this campaign into what it is today. I'm really excited. actually won our first Highly Award at Maccain. We won a DigiDay Award for it. So, very exciting, yeah. I didn't get the webby, but thank you for your question.
Anything else? Bye everyone.
So my question is also kind of about AI, but more so for general.
AI or general like organic or paid content and how you guys or how should be using it. So there's areas we're saying like generated AI content from but for always on content really trying to push that to break costs down. So I'm curious what you guys think AI for that type of content.
Madisen (38:05.71)
brands like you're not going to see any icons, then a lot of brands you see are like
Madisen (38:19.655)
in terms of using.
Max (38:23.918)
I'm super happy to speak on this because we have like a super, we're a very, very, very AI forward company. Like our founders like obsessed, they're both like former Microsoft engineers. So they're obsessed with AI. my only pro tip, and I know that this is probably going to sound a little bit shady, but it's the truth. If you can't tell it's AI, then it's not that big of an issue. We have a couple of social posts now live that I'd implore you to go to our socials and look and see if you can find them. If it's good enough.
use it. If it looks like slop, don't. I know that that's a really simplistic way of putting it, but it really comes down to the fact that if it authentically speaks to your audience on your page and looks clean and looks within your brand playbook, who cares? It's using it as like a tool for art, essentially, right? But if it's evidently AI, definitely a big no-go from us.
on organic social at least, I can't speak for other teams.
curious that you said that if it doesn't look like AI, you should use it. You think you should disclose that it's made by AI?
city.
Max (39:33.09)
You see, that's a really difficult ethical question that our creative team can answer better than me.
I-I-I-I... There's an answer to this. Don't. Pretty simple.
Don't disclose your thing or...
No, do disclose. You're out of your mind if you don't disclose. so, who saw J.Crew and Vans did a collaboration recently? Anybody see that? Anybody know? It looked beautiful, didn't it? It was like 1990s and so aesthetically wonderful. It was AI generated. And they got in real trouble for that because you know what? Like, J.Crew has spent a ton of money and like a ton of time building up equity.
as an authentic brand for its story. So what they did is they shot themselves in the foot. Now there's other brands good on them. If they want to use it, knock themselves out. I think this is a horses for courses thing. If you're a brand that has, needs scale, needs speed, needs adaptability, absolutely. But there are brands like J.Crew that were sloppy and they got caught. And I think it is a warning shot.
James (40:45.422)
for other brands in that environment and that category to be very, very careful about it. It doesn't matter whether Sora gets a 3.5, 4.5, and no one knows the difference. People do know the difference because 33,000 people on that Aerie post commented and were very, very clear about it. So look, it obviously stirs up lot of feelings, unsurprisingly. It's because I think it acts, we are living in a time where
Our president of United States is the slop king and our marketplace and our environment effectively feels like it's just covered in slop. So I think the idea of to have taste and discernment and a clarity and a sort of like a thoughtfulness underpinning that is going to be the way to go. And that's my brand over.
I think James needs his own show.
Not really.
Awesome guys, we are out of time. Thank you so much for diving straight into this. Yeah, let's give our speakers a round of applause.
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