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Content platforms and content influencers have revolutionized the way businesses connect with their audiences over the past 30 years. As the digital landscape has evolved, so too have content consumption habits and marketing strategies.
The overall content economy size is estimated to be worth around $104.2 billion. That includes 207 million content creators worldwide, generating an estimated $16.4 billion.
Joining Chris Hood on the show today is Phil Beaudoin, CEO of Waverly, and Todd Brison, an author and content creator, to discuss how the advent of the internet has driven content transformation, the growth of social media platforms, and the increasing demand for personalized, engaging content.
Over the past three decades, the world has witnessed a revolution in consuming and creating content. Digital platforms have played a central role in this transformation, giving rise to content marketing and the phenomenon of content influencers. This article provides an overview of the evolution of content marketing and content influencers, highlighting how online content habits have changed during the last 30 years.
The Dawn of Content Marketing
In the early 1990s, the Internet began reshaping how businesses communicated with their audiences. The rise of search engines like Google in the late 90s accelerated this shift, as companies quickly realized the importance of optimizing their online presence to rank higher in search results. This era marked the birth of content marketing, where businesses started creating valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.
“You talked about creating a blog. You had to sit in front of a keyboard for a few hours, come up with a real idea, type it down, and eventually it became Instagram where you could just snap a few pictures and this would ne enough for your audience. And this has been the content evolution.” – Philippe Beaudoin
Content marketing strategies have evolved significantly since then, driven by the rapid adoption of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These platforms provided new opportunities for businesses to engage with their target audience, share content, and cultivate brand loyalty.
The Emergence of Content Influencers
As content marketing matured, a new breed of online personalities emerged: content influencers. These individuals leveraged their online presence, creativity, and charisma to build a loyal following, becoming vital components in many companies’ marketing strategies.
“The question is, are those pieces of content, whatever they look like, actually going to build the relationship between the creator and the audience?” – Todd Brison
In the early 2000s, bloggers and vloggers became the first wave of content influencers. As social media platforms grew, so did the influence of these creators. Content platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok became breeding grounds for influencers focusing on specific niches like fashion, beauty, tech, and travel.
The partnership between businesses and content influencers has proven a successful marketing strategy. Influencers provide a sense of authenticity, which helps brands connect with their audience on a personal level. Moreover, influencers can help boost a company’s visibility, as they often have a significant reach within their respective niche.
The Changing Online Content Habits
Over the last 30 years, online content habits have evolved dramatically. In the early days of the Internet, the content was primarily text-based, with images and videos relatively rare. However, multimedia content became increasingly popular as internet speeds and technology improved.
The rise of social media platforms has profoundly impacted content consumption habits. Today’s users expect a constant stream of fresh and engaging content tailored to their interests and preferences—algorithms on platforms like Facebook and Instagram curate content based on user behavior, creating a personalized experience.
“You open by saying content is king. I would actually challenge that. I don’t think content is king anymore. Content is stable stakes.” – Philippe Beaudoin
Content creators and marketers have adapted to these changes by generating visually appealing, shareable, and easily digestible content. Short-form content, such as Instagram stories and TikTok videos, has become particularly popular recently.
The Future of Content Marketing and Influencers
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, so will content marketing and the role of influencers. Virtual and augmented reality technologies are expected to play an increasingly prominent role in content creation, offering immersive experiences that engage audiences in new ways.
“What I think is interesting is just past all the content and role model stuff is the content distribution reach today is mind boggling.” – Todd Brison
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will also significantly impact content marketing strategies. AI-driven tools will allow for more precise targeting and personalization, while machine learning algorithms will enable marketers to understand better and predict user behavior.
What’s Next for Content Influence?
The evolution of content marketing and the rise of content influencers over the last 30 years reflect the dynamic nature of the digital landscape. As online content habits change, businesses and creators must adapt to stay relevant and effectively engage with their target audiences. In the years to come, emerging technologies will likely play a crucial role in shaping the future of content marketing and influencer partnerships.
Chris Hood (00:00):
Hey everyone. Thanks for listening. Content platforms and content influencers have revolutionized the way businesses connect with their audiences over the past 30 years. As the digital landscape has evolved, so has content consumption, habits and marketing strategies, the overall content economy sizes estimated to be worth around 104 billion. That includes 207 million content creators worldwide. Joining me on the show today is Phil Beaudoin, CEO of Waverly, and Todd Brison, and author and content creator to discuss how content transformation has been driven by the advent of the internet, the growth of social media platforms, and the increasing demand for personalized engaging content. To support the show, visit chrishood.com/show. Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform. Follow us on social media, or you can email me directly. Show chrishood.com. I’m Chris Hood, and let’s get connected.
Voice Over (01:06):
Connecting access. Granted, it’s the Chris Hood digital show, global business and technology Leaders meet to discuss strategy, innovation, and digital acceleration. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Your digital evolution. Stop. Now, here’s your host, Chris Hood.
Chris Hood (01:39):
They say content is king. Well, let’s find out from our two guests today. Phil, would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?
Philippe Beaudoin (01:46):
Yeah, sure. I’m I describe myself as a venture scientist, so somewhere in between academia and building companies, which I’ve done a couple of times in academia. I was working on, on AI as a researcher back in the days when it was, was not yet cool. Yeah. After that, I worked at Google for a few years. I learned a robe there. How, how do you, you know, a lot of people build a lot of content. And at Google our role was, let’s try to figure out which one to put in front of users. And after a few years at Google, I actually jumped out to create a company, co-found a company called Element ai. At that point, AI was working, and we felt like let’s build AI for, for all the enterprises, all the businesses out there who need it. I’ve ran that company for a number of years. Eventually we sold it to ServiceNow and now I’m onto my next venture, which is called Waverly. And the goal here is, you know, we’re back into cons. I’m back into consumer space, and what I really want to do is help people use the AI tools we have today to create better content feeds for themselves. So just imagine chatting with chat g p t, but instead of getting an image at the end, you get like a healthier feed on your social platform. So that’s what we’re building.
Todd Brison (03:02):
Yeah, very nice. I’m Todd Bryson, or Todd B from Tennessee. I’m interested about this because I feel like Phil’s definitely on the platform side and I’m more on the creation side. So I had some time creating content myself, did the influencer thing for a little while. Went to from zero to roughly a hundred thousand followers and, and lived that life, have backed away a little bit now. And I, I partner with someone who does that much better and prefers it to, to my experience. And I also advise a fitness influencer who’s blowing up on TikTok, and we’re trying to figure out how that game works still and, and make the content for that space and, you know, have the proper conversion so that we find leads. Mostly if you’ve heard of me, it’s been through my writing. I’ve, I’ve shown up on c m, BBC and Time and Inc. Magazine, places like that, have an award-winning book on Amazon, and also did the a ghostwriting book that won a few awards in the UK as well. I’m really excited for this, right? It’s, it’s what’s coming next in the content world. I think it’s gonna be a great conversation.
Chris Hood (04:11):
Yeah. What’s coming next I think is a good place for us to get to. But how about if we take a look backwards first and think about how did we actually get here? Now, I started writing content online back in 1995. I started a, a blog post before we even knew to call them blog posts. From both of your perspectives, walk us through the evolution of content.
Philippe Beaudoin (04:35):
When you think about it, I I would say influential marketing, right? It, it predates content. The first examples might have been, I mean, I’m sure you can look, look back further than that, but celebrity endorsement in the eighties were, were big thing. You know, you got like Michael Jordan to sign off on your Nike campaign and suddenly a lot of people listened to it. And then eventually when the, the internet came, this is when the content became important. You got the blogs, you got the micro blogs, the Instagram, everybody was starting to do content. But this, the nature of content has evolved so that it was easier and easier to create. It’s always been the case. You talked about creating a blog. You had to sit in front of a keyboard for a few hours, come up with a real idea, type it down, and eventually it became Instagram where you could just snap a few pictures and, and this would, this would content enough for your audience.
(05:30):
Today you have TikTok, which, which makes for a different type of content, but it’s still easy to create. And this has been the consent evolution. Now we are getting with this new wave of tools are AI based, and they’re also going to make some form of, of content easier to, to create. But what we, I think what we need to go back to is what, what has been there since the beginning? Since the beginning, there has been this idea, there is someone you trust who writes that content. The way in which you develop trust for that person changes and evolve. But this, this, this remains there. And if people who think that, oh, now we can just chug content out and it’s going to make my life easy, I think that’s that’s not gonna hold. Because if you, you cannot build that trust relationship with someone, you’re gonna be, you know, just one more piece of content out there.
Todd Brison (06:23):
Oh my gosh, Phil, I’m glad you led with trust, because that’s almost the whole game, right? Like, I know we’re going to get into talking about where we’re at now with chat, G P T and the ability for content creators and writers to churn out things faster. The question is, are those pieces of content, whatever they look like, actually going to build the relationship between the creator and the audience? Because you reference Michael Jordan, why do people wanna wear the shoes that Michael Jordan wears, right? Like they, they, they trust his abilities to produce something that can give them a result that they want. And now obviously, th they’re all kinds of famous people in their various domains where they’re various audiences. It’s just a really interesting time. And Chris, you talked about blogging in, in 1995. While you were doing that, I was waking up in my little like log cabin here in Tennessee, and I went under the Christmas tree, and I find this like, now it seems like a behemoth of a machine, but my dad flipped it on.
(07:27):
It was windows 95, right? The screen booted up. And for there, I’m six years old to do whatever the reverse of dating myself is. But I remember seeing that and just going, oh my gosh, it was unbelievable to me. So I’ve never known a time without that technology, but I have known a time before the huge content wave, of course. And I think what’s so interesting is, you know, Chris, a couple episodes ago you had on a guy Morris, who talked about the speed at which technology has developed. And he pointed out that 35 years ago, offices didn’t even have desktops, right? Like they weren’t ubiquitous. And now you, you can’t go into an office without seeing one on every surface, sometimes more than one. And so alongside the ability to to reach an audience has been, you know, the, the acceleration of tech, of the technology. And of course with that, from the desktops to the laptops, to the iPads, to the phones, like Phil said, the speed is what’s really interesting, both the speed to produce and the speed of the consumer to go, okay, how can I re reduce my decision making time and who do I trust to make those decisions faster? And I think that that’s kind of the meeting point that we’re talking about here with content.
Chris Hood (08:43):
You know, we think about this speed and the audience perspective. I, I think is a great segue into this concept. There’s a lot of belief out there that if you build it, they come, but we know that’s not the case. You still have to build that audience, right? Yeah,
Todd Brison (09:00):
Yeah. You know, I, I think there are different stages to this, right? Like if you, if you had told me in 2000, even 2007, 2008, right? And you said it’s volume of content, and that’s what you said that that might, you might have gotten away with it because in 2007 you see Twitter and Facebook just coming into their own, you see the, the very first iPhone is launched. And so if you’re looking for a window of time where that advice worked in spades, it’s 2007 to 2008. Now, as both of you have alluded to, it’s, it’s a way to get lost in the noise, right? So it’s not just about quantity anymore, it really is about quality y you gotta have both sides. If you want to play the game now, for better, for worse, like no, no matter where you are, no matter what resources you have, you gotta reach a certain level of quality or else you really, you know, you’re, you’re part of the noise, you’re washed away
Philippe Beaudoin (09:59):
Just to build on this, right? You open by saying content is king. I would actually challenge that. I don’t think content is king anymore. Content is stable stakes. You just have to have it. What what what is becoming more and more important is can you gain the trust of the people you’re talking, you’re trying to talk to. And this is done through relationships, like through humans. Like who do these people trust now? Can I gain their trust and can I, you know, eventually make it all the way to the person I want to to have a conversation with? And when you start thinking about it this way, it’s not about influence anymore. It really is about building a trustworthy relationship with someone. And I, I think maybe we got lost a bit too much in the content is king, part of the equation content is table stakes. You just have to create content. You won’t bring value if you don’t create content. But once you have done it, like did you create useful content? Did you create truthful content? Did you create content that people will find engaging? This becomes super important and more and more and more important. So yeah, maybe it’s it’s time to to throw, throw away that all the, that old saying,
Chris Hood (11:15):
I, I would say that content was king maybe 10 years ago. Today, data is king. You have to have the understanding just as you’re saying, of who your audience is. And that’s all coming from data. And the data is going to help you influence what content you want to generate because it’s going to continue to evolve that audience base who is coming to you for your expertise or your view on whatever the topic is. And plus data is also what’s influencing all of our ai, our feeds. And, and Phil, I mean, that’s really what Waverly is all about, right?
Philippe Beaudoin (11:55):
It is. I mean, the interesting thing with data is it used to be something only the brands had access to, but more and more the users are beginning to, to leverage it or we will see it more. That’s a belief, that’s a belief of wery in a sense that before that you could see, oh, these types of, of profiles show up on my webpage or listen to my podcast and engage with my content. So you could do all these analytics as a brand, but now as a users, the only thing you had is, well, you know, if I want more CAD videos, I have to click on videos and five months less of them, I don’t know what to do. And I, I think this will change because this is a part that we will see evolved in, in, you know, just a few years.
(12:44):
And this means I think that from, you know, this old verb targeting where, where you have someone who targets an audience, targets you, I think we will see that verb change from targeting which existed when only the brands add data to matchmaking, which is basically people being more, you know, more able to go out there and say, this is what I want my information landscape to look like. This is what I want my entertainment landscape to look like. And as people start saying that and putting it that, putting that forward, I think we will see more opportunities for these matchmaking between the people, the brands who are trying to have a conversation and the users who are trying to manage their attention and basically just how they spend their time.
Todd Brison (13:30):
Yeah, I think that’s an interesting point. I hope that happens, honestly. And not just because I want more cat videos in my feed to, to be honest, I have plenty and I can’t get enough of them. I think it’s curious to, to think about the modern consumer, and we’re seeing Gen Z come up, right? Like the digital natives, they know all this stuff. They were, they were born in even more so than I was. Like at least I have the reality of a desktop computer is plugged into something that’s not even reality for Gen Z, right? And so you’re seeing them come up and not only create one social account, right, but two or three or five or 10 on the same platform to manage their different interests. And maybe over here they’ll follow all the, all the, I dunno, golf influencers and over here it’ll be their just close circle of friends. So you can see the desire building there. And I, I think Phil’s onto something because the brands are going to realize that and the platforms are going to realize that, and I think work towards a more flexible social experience where we do have more say over what we want out of the platforms. And that’s, to me, that’s the way forward.
Chris Hood (14:38):
You know, in there, there’s something really interesting. So I I I want to continue on this matchmaking type of philosophy. We know that individuals online, as you’re alluding to have different personas and depending upon the social circles that they travel in, they may change that persona. But typically, as you were saying, Phil, the targeting effort was going towards, I’m gonna target this piece of content to personas that I believe to exist. And now we’re getting into these identity elements where I can identify myself in this type of capacity across all elements of my lifestyle. If we even just go back to traditional like dating apps, fill out a profile, you share everything you wanna share about yourself, the algorithms are out there to do the matchmaking. I mean, I could see a scenario where those personas that we are creating online are matching to the content that’s available to us.
Philippe Beaudoin (15:43):
I think your, your parallel of the dating app is really spot on, right? On dating app, you would never, never imagine getting targeted. But, but it has always been about a, you know, let me think about what I want out of a relationship. Let me try to express it. It’s always been super hard to do by the way you, you know, there’s a, the dread of like building your, your dating app profile. This is one place, by the way where AI will definitely help. They will definitely help people identify what, what their intention is and express it on, on dating app or for the future of social networks. But yeah, as as you you get into that world, you get into a, a more fair relationship between brands and their, their customers. The saying at Google back in the days was, look at what people do, don’t listen to what they say.
(16:36):
And it felt like, hey, we have the data. We’ll just look at the click through rate. Are you clicking on that link or not? But the, the problem with that is that you are missing an entire side of who the users are. They are not only their clicks, they are not only their doom scrolling session, they are more than that. They have aspirations. There is a place where they are a place where they want to be. And what we get with natural language understanding is we’re giving a space where users can express that We’ve had that in dating app. Now we’ll get it for a bunch of other places. And once you start expressing, hey, you know, I wish I spent more time with my family, or I wish I became a better father, or whatever your objective is, you’re probably not clicking on the right videos to get to that. But now the system knows and can help get you there by curating a better experience. So this will be, yeah, this will be a fascinating new world.
Todd Brison (17:33):
The other day I stumbled across this thread on Twitter where someone had tweeted, he said I just used chat g p t to help me become addicted to running and lose 26 pounds. And at first, cuz you, you guys know the culture on Twitter, right? Like it’s super sarcastic. So I’m, oh, this is just satire, right? Like this is a total joke. But no, you, you go down through the thread and you read how he prompted the ai, he was like, make it easier than that. Make it easier than that. Make it. And, and he kept going on to where, you know, he thought it was kind of joking him cuz he said the first step was, okay Chad, g p t says, okay, put your shoes somewhere, we can see them in the morning. And he was like, okay. Like if this is as easy as it gets, that’s where it was.
(18:12):
And he tells the journey, that’s what happened. AI made the psychological steps easy for him to follow, made the training easy for him to follow, to a point where he really did, you know, he built the habit and in a world where you could have a motivational coach or a fitness instructor to, to fill that role. And I think those will probably still exist if there’s a world where now you have a flexible coach, Chad, g p i or some other platform to say, here’s the goal I want, how can you help me get there? Then we’re seeing a world where not only is it, you know, making plans for you, and again, who knows how this actually plays out, right? We’re all in blue sky mode here right now and dreaming of what’s possible. But if, if now I say, here’s my preferred goal to run a marathon, to spend more time with my wife and kids to, I don’t know, swim the English channel, what, whatever it is, and we’re suddenly seeing across all our feeds pieces of content that can get us there. I think that’s a very interesting and admittedly hopeful like version of, of what can happen with, with the technology that we’re seeing now.
Philippe Beaudoin (19:23):
And you know what Todd, when you talk about that, it’s actually striking that a lot of effective and influe ha have been these kind of people, the people who care about you enough to understand that you have a goal and to become a coach or, you know, to, to help you achieve it. It’s, it’s kind of almost antithetical to what the platforms have tried to do for us, which is basically prey on all of our little addictions. And then you meet these humans who say, Hey, I know you’re not just your addictions. You know, maybe I can it’s fascinating to see that, that almost you know, it’s almost enot and I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of advice you give when, when you work with a fitness instructor. It’s just like, try to understand the u you know, what, what people aspire to be.
Chris Hood (20:09):
You know, if we go back to your reference of Michael Jordan today, we have tons of people out there that are on YouTube or other forms of social media who have massive followings, and those followers in some cases are replicating what those individuals are saying. I remember Charles Barkley who basically came out and said, look, I’m not a role model, don’t follow me. And yet on YouTube you can find thousands of people with millions of followers who are developing content strategically to help people. And it’s working.
Todd Brison (20:51):
I think it’s interesting, like, I wanna speak to the reach really quickly, right? Because Chris pointed that out. He said, million people with millions of followers. And I think if you haven’t studied this industry and you’re not watching what happens, and you hear the word influencer, it can put you in this mind of like a, I don’t know, fluffy, teeny bopper talking about their high school experience or, or, or whatever, right? Like if, if you’re not dialed into what’s really happening, but then you go, wait a minute, okay, Joe Rogan podcast, or exclusive to Spotify now has a streaming count that far outstrips cnn, far outstrips Fox News. I I mean in multiples of, of three, I think, or, or or something ridiculous like that. You look at Tucker Carlson, who, you know, kind of gets unceremoniously dumped by Fox News takes to Twitter, says, you know what?
(21:47):
I’m going into my own hands and now has, you know, 74, 75, 80 million views on that first video. And so what I think is interesting is just past all the content and role model stuff of, of course that’s a great conversation and we need to get into that as well. But just the sheer distribution is al almost mind boggling. Very difficult to imagine, especially if you’re, you’re not Gen Z or, or haven’t grown up with this stuff that the Today Show or Good Morning America or 60 Minutes is, is just receiving a, a fraction of the distribution that is now achieved by individuals, right? Not not companies by by single people who have earned enough social capital, maybe trust or whatever it is, entertainment over the last decade that, that they have that much impact and reach. And then you, you do almost get into like a philosophical and and moral debate of like, wow, should a single person have that much distribution and impact?
(22:53):
Are there checks in place to, to keep strange things from happening? And, you know, in the wake of cancel culture and almost every celebrity’s life being exposed now, it’s an incredibly different world. I, I’d be interested, I don’t know if I have an answer for this, I’d be interested to exploring what you talked about Chris, and saying, okay, well at what point do we stop expecting influencers to be role models, right? Is is it possible for us to look at a Joe Rogan or someone no differently than we would look at, I don’t know, a Lester Holt or a Dan Rathers as, as someone who is there to produce media and then his personal life kind of gets taken off the table. I don’t even know if that’s possible now, but I think it’s an interesting debate to have or an interesting conversation to have.
Chris Hood (23:43):
Here’s a scenario though, for you, let’s say we’ll use Tucker Carlson because it’s relevant. It just came out. Let’s just create somebody, let’s say Joe, somebody has a massive following and we find out that all of the content that that individual is producing is being generated by ai, not by that individual themselves. Does that individual then lose credibility, lose the trust?
Philippe Beaudoin (24:13):
It’s always going back to the same thing, but it depends on the social contract you establish with the people you’re speaking with. You know, if you are Joe Rogan and you or, or you’re someone really passionate and you go into these, these passionate discourse and it feels like you’re living this, it’s you who’s talking, it’s your life. And then people find out it has nothing to do with you. It was all, you know, the hallucination of Chad g p t I think people will lose trust, right? There is this idea that you’re getting access to the real person and, and it’s, it’s an implicit social contract. When you see all that, that emotion, all that, that genuineness, which is maybe the, the new king, the new currency of the times, and then you hear, Nope, this wasn’t true all along I was acting. I, I feel there might be some, some lose of trust there. So I don’t know that would, that, that’s my impression. It’s not about the fact that you use a tool to generate a content. It’s about the fact that like, do you really own what you’re saying or not?
Chris Hood (25:16):
I’m sure you’re familiar with the touring test. We have several movies that are out there that focus on robotics and how realistic are they? At some point in time, we may get to the point where we can’t distinguish, heck, we now have AI that can generate voice. We have AI that can generate or, or deep fake video and personas. We’re at a point where I could have a guest that is an AI and most people out there would not know that it wasn’t a real person. And that is going to have impact on us as we look towards the next five years.
Philippe Beaudoin (25:55):
It’s going to happen. I don’t know how people will react. You know, I think some of this will be, you know, novelty at the beginning. I think some people will fall in love with AI too, and they will know it’s an AI and they will fall in love with it still. But I think if you are not transparent about it, if you are like lying about, oh yes, I’m having this human on the show, and turns out it’s not a human, it’s a simulated system. I, I, I think, you know, it’s like each, like, every time someone breaks a trust of someone else, it’s hard to make up for it.
Todd Brison (26:27):
Sam Altman founder of open AI also created a software startup called World Coin. Basically, he foresaw this need that we’re talking about right now, right? Like he knew the technology he was creating with Open AI and chat, G P T would necessitate a human verification system. And that’s, that’s world coin. And I don’t know if they’ll win that battle per se, of, of who gets to label what a human is or who gets to like verify that. But that’s, I mean, we’re, we are there, James Earl Jones’ voice can be in the next 500 years of Star Wars movies without any problem at all. And that’s ob obviously that opens the door to something beyond the scope, which is what’s the legal battle there, right? like, does James Earl Jones descendants still get checks for AI generated voice if it’s his name and likeness?
(27:24):
I, I don’t know. And that’s, I think that’s what makes this conversation so, I don’t know, timely as, as eerie as it is exciting to imagine that, Hey Chris, you know what? You don’t have to have us, you can just go get James Earl Jones, right? Like, go get him on this show and, and run him through the robot. Or Steve Jobs right from beyond the grape. We, we’ve seen Steve Jobs keynotes emerge from passive’s death and these weren’t found files. This was an AI dialing up his voice and saying, Hey, analyze these keynotes and present like your Steve Jobs. And getting back to the influencer discussion, I, I think Phil’s, you know, he keeps hitting the trusts bell. And I, I think that’s what it is, and that we have to go, deceit is the problem, right? So if, if a creator is coming forward and saying, Hey, you know what, listen, like this is my face and my name, I do some of this, but AI produces 95% of the work that I do, and we can be comfortable with that, then sure, why not if they’re honest about it, but if, if, if it’s turns out to be some sort of pulled the rug out from under you situation, like Phil said, it’s hard to win trust back after something like that.
Philippe Beaudoin (28:36):
And, and to be honest, you know, the shift you talked about from the big networks to the individuals I think hinges on this. What people were craving for was authenticity, genuineness, you know, I want to to to know it’s a real human that suffers in the same way that I suffer. And this is something that influencers can give people that big networks have a hard time giving them. So it’s, it’s all about that. So the day you lose this, the day you feel like, hey, I can’t connect to that person anymore because it’s made of it’s a computer made of computer chips, it’s not made of flesh and it doesn’t suffer the way in which I, I suffer. I don’t know what the world will look like then it’s going to be interesting.
Chris Hood (29:19):
So here you go. One final question for us to wrap things up with. If we have a business and we are trying to come up with a content strategy that is going to build the trust, attract people to come to our brand, what is one or two recommendations that you could give them right now?
Philippe Beaudoin (29:41):
I would say, you know, try ai, try to understand what’s going on with J G P T, but don’t believe it will give you a shortcut, right? You know, the, if you become a content farm, if you’re a strategy with AI is I’ll become a content farm. I think you will miss a boat. This, this might work for a very short while, but the world will adjust. So, you know, try to try to understand what makes your your audience take the people you’re trying to to connect with. Position yourself for a world where they will be more and more empowered to to look for the things they care for. So my, you know, three, three factors that will contribute to your success [inaudible] authenticity, . So just, just be true, be honest. Ask yourself the hard questions. Who are you as a brand? Who do you care for? What do you care for? Speak from the heart. And yeah. And then you will, you will find the right influencers that will just really embrace, embrace you, work with you and help you connect to the people you want to connect with.
Todd Brison (30:52):
I like it. I think if you’re a brand looking for influencers, and I know we’ve, you know, we’ve talked a lot about AI and stuff like that, but probably for the next five to 10 years at least, we’re going to be looking at this army of humans producing content and it will be largely humans until they start to offload the, the creation part of it. So if you’re looking to, to pair with influencers now, I think that’s still very well worth doing. And if you think about what influencers want, there’s basically three things. Influencers want support, they wanna be liked, and they want some money. And I think actually, like we haven’t touched the money at all, but there are folks who, well, let’s, let’s go back and put it this way, right? Half of America wants to be an influencer, like polls report that that is a career path that they desire from middle-aged all the way down.
(31:45):
And you end up with this strange cherry picking scenario where you have people who have legitimate following and absolutely zero revenue coming off of that, right? Like 50,000, a hundred thousand, 200,000 followers and, and no revenue because they don’t have time to build a business alongside or to the point here, the right partner has not come along. And so I think if you’re a brand right now, go find a good human who is growing and willing to put in the work and is still looking for opportunities and build a relationships that make sense for both of you. And then both of you can figure out how to use whatever technology to, to, to carry on that audience into wherever we’re going next.
Chris Hood (32:33):
To demonstrate that my nephew is gonna be 10 years old and last year for Christmas, he asked for a webcam and a microphone so that he could be a YouTube star because that is his world and he sees all of the influencers, all of the YouTube stars, and that’s what he wants to be when he grows up. I think it’s fascinating and it will continue to evolve as everything else does. Thank you Phil, for participating. Appreciate it. Thank you Chris. And thank you Todd, also for your insights. Thanks Chris. And of course, thanks to all of you who are listening. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform and leave a review. Your feedback helps us improve and grow. And if you have any questions, comments, or ideas for the show, you can connect with us throughout social media and online at Chris Hood Show. And please share this episode with your friends, family, colleagues, or anyone else looking to grow their business and start their own digital evolution. Until next week, take care and stay connected.
Hey everyone. Thanks for listening. Content platforms and content influencers have revolutionized the way businesses connect with their audiences over the past 30 years. As the digital landscape has evolved, so has content consumption, habits and marketing strategies, the overall content economy sizes estimated to be worth around 104 billion. That includes 207 million content creators worldwide. Joining me on the show today is Phil Beaudoin, CEO of Waverly, and Todd Brison, and author and content creator to discuss how content transformation has been driven by the advent of the internet, the growth of social media platforms, and the increasing demand for personalized engaging content. To support the show, visit chrishood.com/show. Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform. Follow us on social media, or you can email me directly. Show chrishood.com. I’m Chris Hood, and let’s get connected.
Voice Over (01:06):
Connecting access. Granted, it’s the Chris Hood digital show, global business and technology Leaders meet to discuss strategy, innovation, and digital acceleration. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Your digital evolution. Stop. Now, here’s your host, Chris Hood.
Chris Hood (01:39):
They say content is king. Well, let’s find out from our two guests today. Phil, would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?
Philippe Beaudoin (01:46):
Yeah, sure. I’m I describe myself as a venture scientist, so somewhere in between academia and building companies, which I’ve done a couple of times in academia. I was working on, on AI as a researcher back in the days when it was, was not yet cool. Yeah. After that, I worked at Google for a few years. I learned a robe there. How, how do you, you know, a lot of people build a lot of content. And at Google our role was, let’s try to figure out which one to put in front of users. And after a few years at Google, I actually jumped out to create a company, co-found a company called Element ai. At that point, AI was working, and we felt like let’s build AI for, for all the enterprises, all the businesses out there who need it. I’ve ran that company for a number of years. Eventually we sold it to ServiceNow and now I’m onto my next venture, which is called Waverly. And the goal here is, you know, we’re back into cons. I’m back into consumer space, and what I really want to do is help people use the AI tools we have today to create better content feeds for themselves. So just imagine chatting with chat g p t, but instead of getting an image at the end, you get like a healthier feed on your social platform. So that’s what we’re building.
Todd Brison (03:02):
Yeah, very nice. I’m Todd Bryson, or Todd B from Tennessee. I’m interested about this because I feel like Phil’s definitely on the platform side and I’m more on the creation side. So I had some time creating content myself, did the influencer thing for a little while. Went to from zero to roughly a hundred thousand followers and, and lived that life, have backed away a little bit now. And I, I partner with someone who does that much better and prefers it to, to my experience. And I also advise a fitness influencer who’s blowing up on TikTok, and we’re trying to figure out how that game works still and, and make the content for that space and, you know, have the proper conversion so that we find leads. Mostly if you’ve heard of me, it’s been through my writing. I’ve, I’ve shown up on c m, BBC and Time and Inc. Magazine, places like that, have an award-winning book on Amazon, and also did the a ghostwriting book that won a few awards in the UK as well. I’m really excited for this, right? It’s, it’s what’s coming next in the content world. I think it’s gonna be a great conversation.
Chris Hood (04:11):
Yeah. What’s coming next I think is a good place for us to get to. But how about if we take a look backwards first and think about how did we actually get here? Now, I started writing content online back in 1995. I started a, a blog post before we even knew to call them blog posts. From both of your perspectives, walk us through the evolution of content.
Philippe Beaudoin (04:35):
When you think about it, I I would say influential marketing, right? It, it predates content. The first examples might have been, I mean, I’m sure you can look, look back further than that, but celebrity endorsement in the eighties were, were big thing. You know, you got like Michael Jordan to sign off on your Nike campaign and suddenly a lot of people listened to it. And then eventually when the, the internet came, this is when the content became important. You got the blogs, you got the micro blogs, the Instagram, everybody was starting to do content. But this, the nature of content has evolved so that it was easier and easier to create. It’s always been the case. You talked about creating a blog. You had to sit in front of a keyboard for a few hours, come up with a real idea, type it down, and eventually it became Instagram where you could just snap a few pictures and, and this would, this would content enough for your audience.
(05:30):
Today you have TikTok, which, which makes for a different type of content, but it’s still easy to create. And this has been the consent evolution. Now we are getting with this new wave of tools are AI based, and they’re also going to make some form of, of content easier to, to create. But what we, I think what we need to go back to is what, what has been there since the beginning? Since the beginning, there has been this idea, there is someone you trust who writes that content. The way in which you develop trust for that person changes and evolve. But this, this, this remains there. And if people who think that, oh, now we can just chug content out and it’s going to make my life easy, I think that’s that’s not gonna hold. Because if you, you cannot build that trust relationship with someone, you’re gonna be, you know, just one more piece of content out there.
Todd Brison (06:23):
Oh my gosh, Phil, I’m glad you led with trust, because that’s almost the whole game, right? Like, I know we’re going to get into talking about where we’re at now with chat, G P T and the ability for content creators and writers to churn out things faster. The question is, are those pieces of content, whatever they look like, actually going to build the relationship between the creator and the audience? Because you reference Michael Jordan, why do people wanna wear the shoes that Michael Jordan wears, right? Like they, they, they trust his abilities to produce something that can give them a result that they want. And now obviously, th they’re all kinds of famous people in their various domains where they’re various audiences. It’s just a really interesting time. And Chris, you talked about blogging in, in 1995. While you were doing that, I was waking up in my little like log cabin here in Tennessee, and I went under the Christmas tree, and I find this like, now it seems like a behemoth of a machine, but my dad flipped it on.
(07:27):
It was windows 95, right? The screen booted up. And for there, I’m six years old to do whatever the reverse of dating myself is. But I remember seeing that and just going, oh my gosh, it was unbelievable to me. So I’ve never known a time without that technology, but I have known a time before the huge content wave, of course. And I think what’s so interesting is, you know, Chris, a couple episodes ago you had on a guy Morris, who talked about the speed at which technology has developed. And he pointed out that 35 years ago, offices didn’t even have desktops, right? Like they weren’t ubiquitous. And now you, you can’t go into an office without seeing one on every surface, sometimes more than one. And so alongside the ability to to reach an audience has been, you know, the, the acceleration of tech, of the technology. And of course with that, from the desktops to the laptops, to the iPads, to the phones, like Phil said, the speed is what’s really interesting, both the speed to produce and the speed of the consumer to go, okay, how can I re reduce my decision making time and who do I trust to make those decisions faster? And I think that that’s kind of the meeting point that we’re talking about here with content.
Chris Hood (08:43):
You know, we think about this speed and the audience perspective. I, I think is a great segue into this concept. There’s a lot of belief out there that if you build it, they come, but we know that’s not the case. You still have to build that audience, right? Yeah,
Todd Brison (09:00):
Yeah. You know, I, I think there are different stages to this, right? Like if you, if you had told me in 2000, even 2007, 2008, right? And you said it’s volume of content, and that’s what you said that that might, you might have gotten away with it because in 2007 you see Twitter and Facebook just coming into their own, you see the, the very first iPhone is launched. And so if you’re looking for a window of time where that advice worked in spades, it’s 2007 to 2008. Now, as both of you have alluded to, it’s, it’s a way to get lost in the noise, right? So it’s not just about quantity anymore, it really is about quality y you gotta have both sides. If you want to play the game now, for better, for worse, like no, no matter where you are, no matter what resources you have, you gotta reach a certain level of quality or else you really, you know, you’re, you’re part of the noise, you’re washed away
Philippe Beaudoin (09:59):
Just to build on this, right? You open by saying content is king. I would actually challenge that. I don’t think content is king anymore. Content is stable stakes. You just have to have it. What what what is becoming more and more important is can you gain the trust of the people you’re talking, you’re trying to talk to. And this is done through relationships, like through humans. Like who do these people trust now? Can I gain their trust and can I, you know, eventually make it all the way to the person I want to to have a conversation with? And when you start thinking about it this way, it’s not about influence anymore. It really is about building a trustworthy relationship with someone. And I, I think maybe we got lost a bit too much in the content is king, part of the equation content is table stakes. You just have to create content. You won’t bring value if you don’t create content. But once you have done it, like did you create useful content? Did you create truthful content? Did you create content that people will find engaging? This becomes super important and more and more and more important. So yeah, maybe it’s it’s time to to throw, throw away that all the, that old saying,
Chris Hood (11:15):
I, I would say that content was king maybe 10 years ago. Today, data is king. You have to have the understanding just as you’re saying, of who your audience is. And that’s all coming from data. And the data is going to help you influence what content you want to generate because it’s going to continue to evolve that audience base who is coming to you for your expertise or your view on whatever the topic is. And plus data is also what’s influencing all of our ai, our feeds. And, and Phil, I mean, that’s really what Waverly is all about, right?
Philippe Beaudoin (11:55):
It is. I mean, the interesting thing with data is it used to be something only the brands had access to, but more and more the users are beginning to, to leverage it or we will see it more. That’s a belief, that’s a belief of wery in a sense that before that you could see, oh, these types of, of profiles show up on my webpage or listen to my podcast and engage with my content. So you could do all these analytics as a brand, but now as a users, the only thing you had is, well, you know, if I want more CAD videos, I have to click on videos and five months less of them, I don’t know what to do. And I, I think this will change because this is a part that we will see evolved in, in, you know, just a few years.
(12:44):
And this means I think that from, you know, this old verb targeting where, where you have someone who targets an audience, targets you, I think we will see that verb change from targeting which existed when only the brands add data to matchmaking, which is basically people being more, you know, more able to go out there and say, this is what I want my information landscape to look like. This is what I want my entertainment landscape to look like. And as people start saying that and putting it that, putting that forward, I think we will see more opportunities for these matchmaking between the people, the brands who are trying to have a conversation and the users who are trying to manage their attention and basically just how they spend their time.
Todd Brison (13:30):
Yeah, I think that’s an interesting point. I hope that happens, honestly. And not just because I want more cat videos in my feed to, to be honest, I have plenty and I can’t get enough of them. I think it’s curious to, to think about the modern consumer, and we’re seeing Gen Z come up, right? Like the digital natives, they know all this stuff. They were, they were born in even more so than I was. Like at least I have the reality of a desktop computer is plugged into something that’s not even reality for Gen Z, right? And so you’re seeing them come up and not only create one social account, right, but two or three or five or 10 on the same platform to manage their different interests. And maybe over here they’ll follow all the, all the, I dunno, golf influencers and over here it’ll be their just close circle of friends. So you can see the desire building there. And I, I think Phil’s onto something because the brands are going to realize that and the platforms are going to realize that, and I think work towards a more flexible social experience where we do have more say over what we want out of the platforms. And that’s, to me, that’s the way forward.
Chris Hood (14:38):
You know, in there, there’s something really interesting. So I I I want to continue on this matchmaking type of philosophy. We know that individuals online, as you’re alluding to have different personas and depending upon the social circles that they travel in, they may change that persona. But typically, as you were saying, Phil, the targeting effort was going towards, I’m gonna target this piece of content to personas that I believe to exist. And now we’re getting into these identity elements where I can identify myself in this type of capacity across all elements of my lifestyle. If we even just go back to traditional like dating apps, fill out a profile, you share everything you wanna share about yourself, the algorithms are out there to do the matchmaking. I mean, I could see a scenario where those personas that we are creating online are matching to the content that’s available to us.
Philippe Beaudoin (15:43):
I think your, your parallel of the dating app is really spot on, right? On dating app, you would never, never imagine getting targeted. But, but it has always been about a, you know, let me think about what I want out of a relationship. Let me try to express it. It’s always been super hard to do by the way you, you know, there’s a, the dread of like building your, your dating app profile. This is one place, by the way where AI will definitely help. They will definitely help people identify what, what their intention is and express it on, on dating app or for the future of social networks. But yeah, as as you you get into that world, you get into a, a more fair relationship between brands and their, their customers. The saying at Google back in the days was, look at what people do, don’t listen to what they say.
(16:36):
And it felt like, hey, we have the data. We’ll just look at the click through rate. Are you clicking on that link or not? But the, the problem with that is that you are missing an entire side of who the users are. They are not only their clicks, they are not only their doom scrolling session, they are more than that. They have aspirations. There is a place where they are a place where they want to be. And what we get with natural language understanding is we’re giving a space where users can express that We’ve had that in dating app. Now we’ll get it for a bunch of other places. And once you start expressing, hey, you know, I wish I spent more time with my family, or I wish I became a better father, or whatever your objective is, you’re probably not clicking on the right videos to get to that. But now the system knows and can help get you there by curating a better experience. So this will be, yeah, this will be a fascinating new world.
Todd Brison (17:33):
The other day I stumbled across this thread on Twitter where someone had tweeted, he said I just used chat g p t to help me become addicted to running and lose 26 pounds. And at first, cuz you, you guys know the culture on Twitter, right? Like it’s super sarcastic. So I’m, oh, this is just satire, right? Like this is a total joke. But no, you, you go down through the thread and you read how he prompted the ai, he was like, make it easier than that. Make it easier than that. Make it. And, and he kept going on to where, you know, he thought it was kind of joking him cuz he said the first step was, okay Chad, g p t says, okay, put your shoes somewhere, we can see them in the morning. And he was like, okay. Like if this is as easy as it gets, that’s where it was.
(18:12):
And he tells the journey, that’s what happened. AI made the psychological steps easy for him to follow, made the training easy for him to follow, to a point where he really did, you know, he built the habit and in a world where you could have a motivational coach or a fitness instructor to, to fill that role. And I think those will probably still exist if there’s a world where now you have a flexible coach, Chad, g p i or some other platform to say, here’s the goal I want, how can you help me get there? Then we’re seeing a world where not only is it, you know, making plans for you, and again, who knows how this actually plays out, right? We’re all in blue sky mode here right now and dreaming of what’s possible. But if, if now I say, here’s my preferred goal to run a marathon, to spend more time with my wife and kids to, I don’t know, swim the English channel, what, whatever it is, and we’re suddenly seeing across all our feeds pieces of content that can get us there. I think that’s a very interesting and admittedly hopeful like version of, of what can happen with, with the technology that we’re seeing now.
Philippe Beaudoin (19:23):
And you know what Todd, when you talk about that, it’s actually striking that a lot of effective and influe ha have been these kind of people, the people who care about you enough to understand that you have a goal and to become a coach or, you know, to, to help you achieve it. It’s, it’s kind of almost antithetical to what the platforms have tried to do for us, which is basically prey on all of our little addictions. And then you meet these humans who say, Hey, I know you’re not just your addictions. You know, maybe I can it’s fascinating to see that, that almost you know, it’s almost enot and I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of advice you give when, when you work with a fitness instructor. It’s just like, try to understand the u you know, what, what people aspire to be.
Chris Hood (20:09):
You know, if we go back to your reference of Michael Jordan today, we have tons of people out there that are on YouTube or other forms of social media who have massive followings, and those followers in some cases are replicating what those individuals are saying. I remember Charles Barkley who basically came out and said, look, I’m not a role model, don’t follow me. And yet on YouTube you can find thousands of people with millions of followers who are developing content strategically to help people. And it’s working.
Todd Brison (20:51):
I think it’s interesting, like, I wanna speak to the reach really quickly, right? Because Chris pointed that out. He said, million people with millions of followers. And I think if you haven’t studied this industry and you’re not watching what happens, and you hear the word influencer, it can put you in this mind of like a, I don’t know, fluffy, teeny bopper talking about their high school experience or, or, or whatever, right? Like if, if you’re not dialed into what’s really happening, but then you go, wait a minute, okay, Joe Rogan podcast, or exclusive to Spotify now has a streaming count that far outstrips cnn, far outstrips Fox News. I I mean in multiples of, of three, I think, or, or or something ridiculous like that. You look at Tucker Carlson, who, you know, kind of gets unceremoniously dumped by Fox News takes to Twitter, says, you know what?
(21:47):
I’m going into my own hands and now has, you know, 74, 75, 80 million views on that first video. And so what I think is interesting is just past all the content and role model stuff of, of course that’s a great conversation and we need to get into that as well. But just the sheer distribution is al almost mind boggling. Very difficult to imagine, especially if you’re, you’re not Gen Z or, or haven’t grown up with this stuff that the Today Show or Good Morning America or 60 Minutes is, is just receiving a, a fraction of the distribution that is now achieved by individuals, right? Not not companies by by single people who have earned enough social capital, maybe trust or whatever it is, entertainment over the last decade that, that they have that much impact and reach. And then you, you do almost get into like a philosophical and and moral debate of like, wow, should a single person have that much distribution and impact?
(22:53):
Are there checks in place to, to keep strange things from happening? And, you know, in the wake of cancel culture and almost every celebrity’s life being exposed now, it’s an incredibly different world. I, I’d be interested, I don’t know if I have an answer for this, I’d be interested to exploring what you talked about Chris, and saying, okay, well at what point do we stop expecting influencers to be role models, right? Is is it possible for us to look at a Joe Rogan or someone no differently than we would look at, I don’t know, a Lester Holt or a Dan Rathers as, as someone who is there to produce media and then his personal life kind of gets taken off the table. I don’t even know if that’s possible now, but I think it’s an interesting debate to have or an interesting conversation to have.
Chris Hood (23:43):
Here’s a scenario though, for you, let’s say we’ll use Tucker Carlson because it’s relevant. It just came out. Let’s just create somebody, let’s say Joe, somebody has a massive following and we find out that all of the content that that individual is producing is being generated by ai, not by that individual themselves. Does that individual then lose credibility, lose the trust?
Philippe Beaudoin (24:13):
It’s always going back to the same thing, but it depends on the social contract you establish with the people you’re speaking with. You know, if you are Joe Rogan and you or, or you’re someone really passionate and you go into these, these passionate discourse and it feels like you’re living this, it’s you who’s talking, it’s your life. And then people find out it has nothing to do with you. It was all, you know, the hallucination of Chad g p t I think people will lose trust, right? There is this idea that you’re getting access to the real person and, and it’s, it’s an implicit social contract. When you see all that, that emotion, all that, that genuineness, which is maybe the, the new king, the new currency of the times, and then you hear, Nope, this wasn’t true all along I was acting. I, I feel there might be some, some lose of trust there. So I don’t know that would, that, that’s my impression. It’s not about the fact that you use a tool to generate a content. It’s about the fact that like, do you really own what you’re saying or not?
Chris Hood (25:16):
I’m sure you’re familiar with the touring test. We have several movies that are out there that focus on robotics and how realistic are they? At some point in time, we may get to the point where we can’t distinguish, heck, we now have AI that can generate voice. We have AI that can generate or, or deep fake video and personas. We’re at a point where I could have a guest that is an AI and most people out there would not know that it wasn’t a real person. And that is going to have impact on us as we look towards the next five years.
Philippe Beaudoin (25:55):
It’s going to happen. I don’t know how people will react. You know, I think some of this will be, you know, novelty at the beginning. I think some people will fall in love with AI too, and they will know it’s an AI and they will fall in love with it still. But I think if you are not transparent about it, if you are like lying about, oh yes, I’m having this human on the show, and turns out it’s not a human, it’s a simulated system. I, I, I think, you know, it’s like each, like, every time someone breaks a trust of someone else, it’s hard to make up for it.
Todd Brison (26:27):
Sam Altman founder of open AI also created a software startup called World Coin. Basically, he foresaw this need that we’re talking about right now, right? Like he knew the technology he was creating with Open AI and chat, G P T would necessitate a human verification system. And that’s, that’s world coin. And I don’t know if they’ll win that battle per se, of, of who gets to label what a human is or who gets to like verify that. But that’s, I mean, we’re, we are there, James Earl Jones’ voice can be in the next 500 years of Star Wars movies without any problem at all. And that’s ob obviously that opens the door to something beyond the scope, which is what’s the legal battle there, right? like, does James Earl Jones descendants still get checks for AI generated voice if it’s his name and likeness?
(27:24):
I, I don’t know. And that’s, I think that’s what makes this conversation so, I don’t know, timely as, as eerie as it is exciting to imagine that, Hey Chris, you know what? You don’t have to have us, you can just go get James Earl Jones, right? Like, go get him on this show and, and run him through the robot. Or Steve Jobs right from beyond the grape. We, we’ve seen Steve Jobs keynotes emerge from passive’s death and these weren’t found files. This was an AI dialing up his voice and saying, Hey, analyze these keynotes and present like your Steve Jobs. And getting back to the influencer discussion, I, I think Phil’s, you know, he keeps hitting the trusts bell. And I, I think that’s what it is, and that we have to go, deceit is the problem, right? So if, if a creator is coming forward and saying, Hey, you know what, listen, like this is my face and my name, I do some of this, but AI produces 95% of the work that I do, and we can be comfortable with that, then sure, why not if they’re honest about it, but if, if, if it’s turns out to be some sort of pulled the rug out from under you situation, like Phil said, it’s hard to win trust back after something like that.
Philippe Beaudoin (28:36):
And, and to be honest, you know, the shift you talked about from the big networks to the individuals I think hinges on this. What people were craving for was authenticity, genuineness, you know, I want to to to know it’s a real human that suffers in the same way that I suffer. And this is something that influencers can give people that big networks have a hard time giving them. So it’s, it’s all about that. So the day you lose this, the day you feel like, hey, I can’t connect to that person anymore because it’s made of it’s a computer made of computer chips, it’s not made of flesh and it doesn’t suffer the way in which I, I suffer. I don’t know what the world will look like then it’s going to be interesting.
Chris Hood (29:19):
So here you go. One final question for us to wrap things up with. If we have a business and we are trying to come up with a content strategy that is going to build the trust, attract people to come to our brand, what is one or two recommendations that you could give them right now?
Philippe Beaudoin (29:41):
I would say, you know, try ai, try to understand what’s going on with J G P T, but don’t believe it will give you a shortcut, right? You know, the, if you become a content farm, if you’re a strategy with AI is I’ll become a content farm. I think you will miss a boat. This, this might work for a very short while, but the world will adjust. So, you know, try to try to understand what makes your your audience take the people you’re trying to to connect with. Position yourself for a world where they will be more and more empowered to to look for the things they care for. So my, you know, three, three factors that will contribute to your success [inaudible] authenticity, . So just, just be true, be honest. Ask yourself the hard questions. Who are you as a brand? Who do you care for? What do you care for? Speak from the heart. And yeah. And then you will, you will find the right influencers that will just really embrace, embrace you, work with you and help you connect to the people you want to connect with.
Todd Brison (30:52):
I like it. I think if you’re a brand looking for influencers, and I know we’ve, you know, we’ve talked a lot about AI and stuff like that, but probably for the next five to 10 years at least, we’re going to be looking at this army of humans producing content and it will be largely humans until they start to offload the, the creation part of it. So if you’re looking to, to pair with influencers now, I think that’s still very well worth doing. And if you think about what influencers want, there’s basically three things. Influencers want support, they wanna be liked, and they want some money. And I think actually, like we haven’t touched the money at all, but there are folks who, well, let’s, let’s go back and put it this way, right? Half of America wants to be an influencer, like polls report that that is a career path that they desire from middle-aged all the way down.
(31:45):
And you end up with this strange cherry picking scenario where you have people who have legitimate following and absolutely zero revenue coming off of that, right? Like 50,000, a hundred thousand, 200,000 followers and, and no revenue because they don’t have time to build a business alongside or to the point here, the right partner has not come along. And so I think if you’re a brand right now, go find a good human who is growing and willing to put in the work and is still looking for opportunities and build a relationships that make sense for both of you. And then both of you can figure out how to use whatever technology to, to, to carry on that audience into wherever we’re going next.
Chris Hood (32:33):
To demonstrate that my nephew is gonna be 10 years old and last year for Christmas, he asked for a webcam and a microphone so that he could be a YouTube star because that is his world and he sees all of the influencers, all of the YouTube stars, and that’s what he wants to be when he grows up. I think it’s fascinating and it will continue to evolve as everything else does. Thank you Phil, for participating. Appreciate it. Thank you Chris. And thank you Todd, also for your insights. Thanks Chris. And of course, thanks to all of you who are listening. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform and leave a review. Your feedback helps us improve and grow. And if you have any questions, comments, or ideas for the show, you can connect with us throughout social media and online at Chris Hood Show. And please share this episode with your friends, family, colleagues, or anyone else looking to grow their business and start their own digital evolution. Until next week, take care and stay connected.