Joe Gagliese | What Does Social First Even Mean & Is It Right For You?

Summary

Podcast Summary: CMO Confidential

Host: Mike Linton
Guest: Joe Gagliese, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Viral Nation
Episode Title: Joe Gagliese | What Does Social First Even Mean & Is It Right For You?
Date: June 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the increasingly dominant concept of "social first" marketing with Joe Gagliese, co-founder and co-CEO of Viral Nation. Host Mike Linton and Joe discuss what "social first" really means for brands, whether it's right for all organizations, and what it takes to implement this philosophy at scale. The conversation balances strategic insight, actionable advice, and real-world examples — plus a philosophical flourish on resilience in marketing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining "Social First" (03:04–04:46)

• Social first is not about recycling campaigns for social media, but about building campaigns that originate with how modern consumers pay attention to brands — increasingly through social channels.

• Quote (03:28):
  "Social first means you stop treating social like a place where you recycle campaigns...and you start with the reality that for most consumers, discovery, influence, and validation increasingly is actually happening on social." — Joe Gagliese

• The approach is more than channel strategy; it’s a recognition that consumer behavior has fundamentally shifted.

• Comparison: A similar pivot to the "mobile first" movement, as devices became the primary interaction point due to social media itself (05:03).

2. Social Strategy vs. Traditional Marketing (06:16–07:50)

• In early days, social was just a content outlet. Now, it's a behavioral system where social listening and consumer signals become critical.
• Today’s best marketers see social as a "people's media" — democratized, authentic, powered by everyday consumers, not a handful of corporations.
• Memorable Example: Ordinary people’s "one year review" of a car on YouTube are more trusted and influential than expert journalist reviews (10:31).

3. Social’s Impact on Brand Authenticity (08:24–11:25)

• Brands can't "choose" to be on social — it's a prerequisite.
• Radical transparency: Brands used to get away with more. Now, social feedback loops make brands immediately accountable.
• The most successful brands are listening earnestly and leveraging the authentic voices of their communities.
• Quote (08:24):
  "We're living in a world of radical transparency, Mike. So now...it's not a decision if you want to be social or not. It's a prerequisite." — Joe Gagliese

4. Creator Relationships and Brand Trust (12:31–16:06)

• Creator networks are organic; they are authentic and credible only if the brand respects that.
• Genuine creator partnerships prioritize honesty and allow influencers to freely express their experiences, rather than dictate messaging.
• Caution: Overly managed or “bought” endorsements risk eroding credibility, both for creators and brands.
• Quote (15:56):
  "The best approach today...is a company should have a brand they believe in...and let [creators] do their thing. That question only becomes a problem if a brand has something to hide or something's wrong." — Joe Gagliese

5. Organizational Gaps: Why Most Brands Aren’t Ready (12:59–15:23)

• True "social first" marketing requires an organization-wide overhaul — not siloed agencies or fragmented teams.
• Global marketers succeeding in social are restructuring from "media-led" to "social-led" organizations.
• Notable Shift: Even celebrity partnerships are evaluated now by social presence, not classic fame (14:50).

6. Readiness: Is "Social First" Right for All Brands? (20:39–22:22)

• Readiness, not category, is the key differentiator:
  • Slow legal approval, aversion to risk, or an ill-fitting product story = poor fit.
  • Social is critical for most but not a blanket solution; should complement, not necessarily replace, traditional advertising.
• Quote (21:02): "A poor fit is usually not about category, Mike. It’s about readiness...If your legal process takes six weeks... or your leadership hates creative risk...social's not for you." — Joe Gagliese

7. Measurement: The Achilles Heel of Social (22:22–25:24)

• Social’s measurement challenge: Social platforms limit tracking to favor their own ad products.

• Four-part measurement approach:

  1. Brand lift and neuro studies (classic metrics; 24:03)
  2. Time-series analysis to correlate engagement with sales (24:10)
  3. Custom models leveraging data partnerships and “culture quotient” metrics (24:30)
  4. Integrating results into existing mixed media models (25:00)

• Quote (22:48):
  "Welcome to the Achilles heel of social media. That's been the bane of my existence for 12 years." — Joe Gagliese

8. Hiring Social Agencies: The Essential Questions (25:39–28:47)

• Ask about:
  1. Creator pricing rigor and optimization
  2. Ability to scale (few can handle >$10M campaigns)
  3. Brand safety protocols (social backlash can be costly)
  4. Advancement and maturity with AI
  5. Ability to connect all parts of the social ecosystem
• Quote (26:32): "There's 7,000 agencies that can do a million dollar social campaign. There's maybe five who can do a $10 million one." — Joe Gagliese

9. Biggest Mistakes Brands Make in Social (28:58–29:47)

• Brands still treat social as an afterthought or a black box — instead of as the central, most powerful channel for consumer engagement.

• This underinvestment allows digital-native competitors to leapfrog incumbent brands via "social first" mastery.

• Quote (28:58):
  "You have the most powerful mode of communication ever imaginable...and you have it in a black box sitting somewhere between an exponential budget and PR...You're running out of time to catch some of these companies..." — Joe Gagliese

• Examples: Poppy beverages, Jake Paul’s deodorant line, ELF Cosmetics — all achieving viral, outsized influence through social-native strategies (29:50–30:32).

10. Practical Takeaways & Mindset for CMOs (30:57–32:25)

• Joe’s practical advice:
  • Embrace AI and its transformative potential for marketers.
  • Read and reflect on Meditations by Marcus Aurelius to build resilience in the face of the industry’s chaos.
• Quote (32:25):
  "Marketers are warriors...resilience, you can own it...and you don’t let other people or hard conditions keep you down." — Joe Gagliese

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• "Social media is where we communicate, that's where our communities live." (06:32–07:10, Joe)
• "You can't build for [social], you need to build what it wants." (07:34, Joe)
• "If things are what they say they are, giving the creator the honest, unobstructed ability to be able to experience what you've developed goes a long way." (16:11, Joe)
• "You can spend half a million dollars on a creator much more easily than you can spend half a million dollars on media." (25:54, Joe)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:28: Joe defines "social first" and its implications
• 06:16: How social is more than a channel — it’s a behavioral system
• 08:24: Radical transparency and social as a prerequisite for brands
• 11:25: Rise of creator reviews vs. traditional media
• 15:56: The impact of gifting and preserving credibility
• 20:39: Evaluation of social readiness for brands
• 22:48: The challenge of measurement in social marketing
• 25:39: Questions to ask social agencies before hiring
• 28:58: The biggest strategic mistake brands make with social
• 30:57: Joe’s practical advice and a Stoic mindset for marketing professionals

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Summary

This episode offers a candid look at both the philosophy and operations of being “social first.” Joe Gagliese argues convincingly that today’s successful brands build for a reality where social is central — and that doing so requires organizational change, authentic engagement with real creators, comfort with AI, and relentless measurement adaptation.

Brands that drag their feet risk losing relevance to faster, savvier competitors who aren’t weighed down by old-school structures and metrics. Whether you’re considering a shift or want to audit your agency partners, Joe’s hard-earned insights — from hands-on scaling lessons to philosophical resilience — are a goldmine for CMOs and marketing leaders seeking to thrive in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

Transcript

[Podcast Announcer]

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[Podcast Host Mike Linton]

the podcast that takes you inside the drama, decisions and choices that go with being the head of marketing. Hosted by 5 time CMO Mike Linton

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[Mike Linton]

at Typeface AI CMO welcome marketers, advertisers and those who love them to Chief Marketing Officer Confidential. CMO Confidential is a program that takes you inside the drama, the decisions and the politics that go with being the head of marketing at any company in what is one of the most scrutinized jobs in the executive suite. Mike I'm Mike Linton, the former Chief Marketing Officer of Best Buy, ebay, Farmers Insurance and Ancestry.com here today with my guest Joe Gagliesti. Today's topic he told me how to say that too. By the way, Today's topic what does social first even mean and is it right for you now? Joe is the co founder and co CEO of Viral Nation, a 12 year old social first marketing and technology company that specializes in influencer and creator marketing, creative content development and creator talent. There's a lot of creators in there. Their belief is that the marketplace is shifting from media centric marketing to creator and social centric marketing and they've worked with many of the world's leading brands while growing into a global business. Welcome Joe.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Thank you, thank you. The Italian accent was strong on the last name, you know.

[Mike Linton]

Well you have me practice before we started. That's, that's, that's the most we have ever done for a show.

[Joe Gagliesti]

I always tell it's funny because I'm the only Italian in my extended family who ended up in marketing so I'm a solo Italian marketer.

[Mike Linton]

Okay, very good, Moto Benny. All right, let's start at the top. Give us the actual definition, your mind, of social. And then we. What does social first even mean? We've had all kinds of firsts over the last few decades. Mobile first, digital first, customer first, cloud first. Give us your take on social first.

[Joe Gagliesti]

You know what, Mike? It's pretty simple. Social first means you stop treating social like a place where you recycle campaigns kind of built somewhere else. And you start with the reality that for most consumers, discovery, influence, and validation increasingly is actually happening on social, especially as we think about commerce. So social first is really a planning philosophy, which is build from how people pay attention now, not how brands used to buy attention. So when you think about what's happened, Mike, the world has changed completely, but the tactics of how we go to market with marketing have been slower to change. And now when you think about the average consumer, be it myself, I built a. You know, me and my wife built a house, Mike. And I guarantee about 90% of the things in my home came from Pinterest. I always tell people, Mike, all the time. It's one of my funniest sayings that I haven't bought something for over $100 in the last eight years without watching a YouTube review about it first. Discovery and commerce is really happening at the intersection of social and social first really just means a brand who understands that they develop for social first and then drive the standard marketing later. And that's really what it entails.

[Mike Linton]

Hey, hey, Joe. Can I draw a parallel between this and, you know, mobile first, where there was that big pivot where everybody started saying, instead of designing for the web, I'm going to design for the phone and then the web second? Is that what you're saying this is like, or is it something different?

[Joe Gagliesti]

Well, it's funny because that one was the adaptation. Right. We were spending more time on our devices. Why? Because of social. Right. So I think those are tied very similarly. I think that these firsts really emulate the change. Right. For instance, we've been hearing a lot recently, Mike, about Viral Nation just launched an ago practice, so now we're doing a lot of AI SEO. And if you look up Viral Nation on any. Any LLM in the world will come up in first place. We've been working on it for three years. That is the next website, that is the next commerce. So I think in the not so distant future, we'll hear AI first. So I think that these firsts really Emulate where people spend time. And I would argue right now it's predominantly on social media. Second would be, you know, real life, and then third is likely now becoming AI but it's just really a representation of where the people are.

[Mike Linton]

Okay, so let's talk about what is social. What is a social strategy? Is it a strategy? Is it media, is it something else? And how do you think about it in. In terms of nesting it in to all the other marketing that's already there?

[Joe Gagliesti]

Yeah, well, you know, it's cool, Mike, because social really just started as a channel, right? And then marketers treated it like a content outlet. Today, the best marketers treat it more as a behavioral system. So when you think about strategy and social, it's less about a particular idea or creative. What social allows us to do now, Mike, that no other form of marketing really ever has been able to do is listen to people. So the big, big, big change in my opinion, Mike, is that creators and social media is a version of the people's media. So not too long ago, there were seven companies who control basically everything that we see. There was a big democratization of that. Now people control the media. So social media is where we communicate. That's where our communities live, et cetera. So when we think about strategy and social, it's not about just the good idea. It's about reading the signals from social that tell you what the customer wants and then in turn translating that into something meaningful. So strategy on social is very different than standard advertising in that you can't build for it, you need to build what it wants. And the closer you get to building what social wants is where you start to see things like this went viral, or Poppy gets acquired by X amount of billions of dollars, or Logan Paul's line is the number one selling in Walmart, Wall Street. These are not strategies. These are manipulation of community at scale in a new form of media.

[Mike Linton]

So I have a couple follow ons to this, which is if you go back 20 years when Facebook comes on the scene and kind of starts really pushing a lot of this category and everyone thought, oh, Facebook's just for the young people. And now it's definitely not just for the young people. Where is it now? And then how do brands stay true to themselves in this game? Because the way you just described it, almost by definition, the brand is what the people want the brand to be versus what the brand wants to be.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Well, we're just living in a world of radical transparency, Mike. So now, you know, back in the day, brands used to get away with a lot of stuff. Right. So you would run an advertising campaign, you put out a product, maybe the product wasn't exactly where you wanted it to be, but you put it out anyway for timeline or for stock purposes or whatever it may be, and you might get away with it.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah.

[Joe Gagliesti]

The problem today for brands is that it's not a decision if you want to be social or not. It's a prerequisite. And how you treat that prerequisite means everything. So now when Sonos speakers or Ford puts out a new model, they almost have to put out the model mic and they wait to see what the Internet and what social media says before they continue. Because we've seen just in the last 12 to 24 months, brands completely, completely miss based off social.

[Mike Linton]

Really, what's a great big miss that you can put on?

[Joe Gagliesti]

The beautiful example of that, Mike, is in the automotive space, social is probably in the top five most important industries. For social is automotive. And funny enough, automotive is probably the most behind in social. But what happens in automotive is they release a car and this network of thousands of reviewers get their hands on it and they do these reviews. Those reviews end up becoming religion that people follow in order to make the acquisition. So a cool example was when Ford launched their EV line. So when they launched their EV trucks, they have big stockpiles of these EV trucks and they're having a hard time with them. But if you go to YouTube and you actually look at the sentiment of the reviews around that vehicle, from start to now, they've been mostly detractors. Right. Versus an organization that figures out how to kind of tap into that in a way that is natural, sees the opposite results. So now companies are at bay to these social communities and the communities us determine the success of those products.

[Mike Linton]

Hey, can I go back to the Ford thing? Is that an organic network of car reviewers or is that like all the people at Car and Driver and Automotive Weekly or whatever else they have?

[Joe Gagliesti]

Yeah, those have become a much less relevant channel because the biggest intersection of difference between the traditional publishers, Mike and the creator, publishers are the creators, are not analysts. They're everyday users. So one of the things you'll see in the automotive category, Mike, is a thing called one year review. So people do a one year review of the vehicle. I've had the vehicle for one year. Here's my take. That's not something that's ever made its way to traditional automotive media. Right. So it's a much more relatable and authentic. And I don't Love that word, but it's true. Channel to understand what's going on. For instance, I read a stat the other day, Mike, that folks are going into a dealer and they know more about the car than the actual salesperson does. That's the first time in history, right? First you used to try to get people to the dealer. Now the dealer is the last step because the client comes in already sold. And that's happening with social.

[Podcast Host Mike Linton]

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[Mike Linton]

So just to make sure I have it right, you're saying these networks and these reviewers and these creators, they organically just exist. And then when the brands though reach out and then take them over or help them or give them stuff, how does the network stay true to itself versus become co opted by the brands?

[Joe Gagliesti]

So that's a much bigger conversation, Mike, because this is the fragmentation of social that's causing a problem for most brands because most brands look at these things as singular challenges. A really good brand, Mike, who is social first and operating at scale, right, is able to tackle wherever the opportunity might lie, that being one of them. But the problem is today is they're looking at each one separately. So for automotive, for instance, you just don't want to go pay a guy to do a good review. That won't work, right? So in that space, what you need to do is you got to have them come to your events, you got to give them a first look at a vehicle. You have to develop relationships with the creators who are speaking about the brand because you're trying to increase your odds of that positivity versus pay for it. Whereas when you're in a market where, let's say you're selling on Amazon or through commerce, there's actually creators who make a living from promoting products to sell on Amazon, right? So it depends on the type of customer and the type of product, what indicates the strategy, but what all These big brands around the world, Mike, are missing is that none of them actually have the internal organizational setup or rigor necessary to run social first. Because if they did, you can capitalize on those things differently. A lot of them today will either hire multiple agencies to do all different parts of social, or they will go after one component where another competitor is going. But you're starting to see, Mike now that massive shift, right. You're seeing Unilever go 50% into creators. Some of our own nation's clients have pivoted from media led to fully social media led today. So that's really the big transition is not in the small stuff. It's in how these companies rebuild, build themselves from being media, plan ahead comms and organic to this always on social engine that is basically driving all of global commerce. And, and when you get that right, then you can basically adapt your company's marketing into those specific channels, whether it's automotive or reviews, or whether it's paying for creators, whether it's, you know, even celebrity. Today, Mike, we're doing celebrity campaigns, but we only work with celebrities who are big on social media. Yeah, right, because we don't want to pay for the extra media cost that comes with buying a commercial and all those things. We can get a celebrity who gets more views than the Super Bowl. Right. So it's just this adaptation to now that allows us into all those different channels easily.

[Mike Linton]

Hey, so I want to go into what makes a strategy in a minute, but I want to say if I am a brand and I start inviting all these creators to like drive my Ford or whatever, and then I give them free stuff and everything else, do I over time ruin the credibility of the channel? Because I am essentially gifting these people things like how do I keep my authentic social credibility as a creator in this?

[Joe Gagliesti]

It all really just comes down to the approach from the brand. Right. You know, like speaking candidly, there's lots of brands out there who would say, I'm paying for this and this is what I want to be said.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah.

[Joe Gagliesti]

I think the best approach today in like 2026 is a company should have a brand they believe in and stand behind. They should put that brand they believe in, stand behind between the people with the microphone and let them do their thing. Right. That question, Mike, only becomes a problem if a brand has something to hide or something's wrong. Right. If things are what they say they are, giving the creator the honest, unobstructed ability to be able to experience what you've developed goes a long way. One of our really incredible new clients is Lucid Motors. And Lucid Motors is a very strong, community engaged company. And for instance, their drivers are their biggest advocates, right? They have customers making content about how much they love the vehicles. They, you know, and they got, they got, they purchased those vehicles and they're still saying those great things. So it's just about aligning those specific, those specific touch points together in a way that's meaningful. Like, for instance, my faral nation. One of the things that makes us unique is we're one of the world leaders on the social AI side. So what we're able to do, Mike, for instance, on that specific thing is we can go to Ford and say, hey, Ford, well, why don't we only bring creators in front of you who already drive a Ford, who have already talked positively about Ford in the past. We as viral nation, it's our job, not the brand's job, to figure out how we land the right folks and the right message and the right content for that specific brand. And we've developed and operate our own technologies to kind of do that piece. And that piece is the difference between I just hired a guy who likes GMC who just talked about my Ford and now I'm in trouble and the authentic nature of what we're after.

[Mike Linton]

So help me with we, we have all of our listeners out here. How should they evaluate this topic in their head?

[Joe Gagliesti]

Well, I think it's first, from a

[Mike Linton]

strategy standpoint, I got to think about. I want to develop this strategy. What do I do? How do I think about it?

[Joe Gagliesti]

Yeah, I think it's first. I think the main critical point, Mike, is you have to acknowledge whether you believe it to be true or not. I think what's happening in the market right now, Mike, is people are on the fence between what's worked for a long time and what their KPIs and objectives are tied to and the reality of how the world's moving. So what I've seen is the social first leaders, marketers who have made the transition and who are growing, had a moment, Mike, where they went, you know what? A lot has changed. And I know this is a harder channel. It's going to create a lot of work, but I'm willing to do that to future proof this business or to continue to grow this business. So I think first is the acknowledgment. Because I think a lot of organizations still today, Mike, believe it or not, are, you know, I like this. It works. My KPIs for how I get my bonus are tied to it, you know, etc. Versus a lot of the people who are winning in social are ones who went, I don't care about any of that stuff. I care about making this business big and strong and I want to be where the people are and they make the transition. So I think that's the first thing is really committing to do. I believe that the modern consumer is a social first consumer. If the answer is yes, that's the first step. I think second is evaluating your own company first. A lot of people, Mike will run out and just, you know, call a viral nation. But the problem with that is that like media took a long time to be able to do. A lot of these organizations, Mike, today don't actually have social media leadership. Right. It's generally very antiquated or it's small or it's junior staff or they don't have a VP there. So understanding what does our organization need to look like and what do we need on our side to be successful in social, I think is a big misstep because then you end up hiring a viral nation and now all of a sudden you're under resourced against all of the things that come back from our side when you're operating at that level. I think third is breaking this notion of fragmentation in social. Mike, as the third thought, which is social is a living organism, Mike. It's very different than TV and broadcast and programmatic in that it actually all works together really natively. So community management, for instance, Mike works exhaustively with creator marketing. Creator marketing works incredible with paid social. Paid social works incredible with conversion and cpa. So these pieces all work. Most of the modern companies, Mike, believe it or not, still have social between three divisions internally and six outside parties.

[Mike Linton]

No, I believe that I. I also. Are all brands. Should all brands be social first? I mean the way you're talking about it, it's almost like, you know, this is the future for every brand.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Is.

[Mike Linton]

Is. Is there a little curve you would give for more likely to need social than others?

[Joe Gagliesti]

Yeah. You know, a poor fit is usually not kind of about category, Mike. It's about readiness. Right. So if your legal process takes six weeks to get something through, or your leadership hates creative risk or your product stories, un. Social's not for you. Right. But when you also think about the buyer journey, if in your buyer journey has a very low frequency and is very relationship driven, then you know what? Social's not as important. I also want to caveat Mike by like, you know, I'm one of the Social guys who thinks that traditional advertising is critical. I'm not a replace theory social guy. I just believe very strongly that if you put social as the first mechanism and you build behind it, you can create maximum output. But I do believe that there's certain situations where social doesn't become the driver, but then it will morph into something else. I'll give you an example, Mike. For Deloitte, you might argue that's a relationship business. You know, they drive those commercial impact. My view for Deloitte wouldn't be running creator campaigns. It might be how do we turn our top 10 global partners into LinkedIn creators so that we get more attention in those specific verticals. So social is not always just about, you know, pay a creator, do some paid social, etc. It can form in many different ways. But I think social is critical in enterprise, as critical as it is in small business.

[Mike Linton]

Hey, and Joe, how do I measure this? If let's say we'll go to how do you know you're ready in a minute. But let's say, how do I measure this thing? I'm going to, I'm going to say, okay, I've got to go do all this and how am I going to measure it? Because you know, measurement, everyone always wants measurement. You can measure all the performance, marketing and blah, blah, blah, the brand is harder, blah, blah, blah. Tell me about this one.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Well, welcome to the Achilles heel of social media. You know, Mike, that's been the bane of my existence for 12 years. It's actually.

[Mike Linton]

I'm glad I could bring that up, Joe.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Yeah. Viral Nation. Viral Nation has spent more in that area than any other area of innovation inside of our company. And the reason is simple. We believe, and we know emphatically, I know all my kids, that it is the best driver of conversion. What's been difficult, Mike, however, is that because the social platforms are inherently advertising companies, right? Met as an advertising company. Google and YouTube are an advertising company. Their main objective is to stop people from tracking anything that's not going through them. So you have this setup right out of the gate where you have an advertiser and you have advertisers like me advertising on an advertiser. So what they did was they put up this big wall. And that wall's been there, Mike, really, since the beginning, all the way to this day. So what we've had to do is we've had to adapt. So we have four different systems of measurement. One is the simple stuff, brand lift, neuro studies, the things you're Used to the Nielsen of it all, we can do that. Part two is what we kind of dub as time series. So what we've done developed is our own systems to be able to determine conversion, but we use time. So if engagement from a campaign is really high over a period of time, we can actually reverse correlate that into sales for a retailer, for commerce company, etc. So we use time graphing in order to do some of that. Third is our partnerships with the platforms allow us to get more information than your average Joe. So we've been able to develop our own models. One of them is called the culture quotient, which is basically understanding the value of the viewership to brand and conversion acknowledgment. And we've spent about three and a half years developing that tool and then the final one and it's interesting because it's the one I was least excited about that ended up being something we do quite a bit which is we actually adapt and build into existing mixed media models. Mike. So one of the big maturity steps we took two years ago was Viral Nation. We're one of the only social companies with we have almost like a 27 person business intelligence team that does just reporting and we had them work on methods and methodologies to be able to back into enterprise brands existing mixed media models that they're running already. That's been a big unlock. So basically Mike, we've exhausted everything. The reality with social is you're never going to be able to go directly link to conversion perfectly on every campaign.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah. So it's a little like brand.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Exactly right.

[Mike Linton]

I want to say Joe, you got your talking points out super well in

[Joe Gagliesti]

the last, I mean I, I, this is 15 hours a day for 10 years up here.

[Mike Linton]

Hey, if, if I am interviewing an agency that's not you or somebody I want to hire for a position running my social first strategy, what are questions I should ask them?

[Joe Gagliesti]

Yeah, I think just to keep it simple, Mike, there's like five ones that'll make the agency shake a little bit that I think would be good for the audience. I think number one is that brands don't ask about creator pricing with the same type of rigor they do with media. Meaning you can spend half a million dollars on a creator much easily than you can spend half a million dollars in media. So one of the big questions that's very val to ask any company in the social first world is how do you do creator pricing, how do you think about it and how do you optimize it I know that sounds simple, but it's a question maybe asked one of ten times to us, Mike, that I think is really, really relevant.

[Mike Linton]

Wow.

[Joe Gagliesti]

I think number two is really, really, really questioning the scale. So can you scale and determining that? Because one of the big things we've learned, Mike, over the years is there's 7,000 agencies that can do a million dollar social campaign. There's maybe five who can do a $10 million one.

[Mike Linton]

Right.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Because social is a very hands on business. So when it scales, it breaks. So if I'm a large enterprise, excuse me, I'm asking, show me your scale. Show me what it means when things go well and we need to go to the next level. A lot of brands will want to go social first, Mike. Get, get in, get in bed, do all that work. And then when they go to scale, they have to switch to a viral nation or someone like viral nation.

[Mike Linton]

So you said there's five, so there's three left.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Three left. The other one is brand safety requirements. So in this world, Mike, the scariest thing in social first world is social is as powerful negatively. It is positively. And how we operate, everything that goes out the door needs to be under the condition of brand safety. Far too many companies neglect that component. So asking about how they're basically protecting your brand from those things as we scale. Because, Mike, no one wants to make a million dollars in social and lose 10 million in market valuation because something went wrong. So, so that's what makes you such

[Mike Linton]

a good agency are insights like that.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Exactly.

[Mike Linton]

Okay, four. What's four?

[Joe Gagliesti]

Four. Four is the advancement in AI. So, so, so Mike, any company worth its salt right now needs to be operating with AI at a pretty significant scale in our industry. And checking for that is important because AI is going to be the difference between, between a campaign output of 5 out of 10 versus 10 out of 10. So understanding a company's maturity in that area is really, really, really, really critical. And then lastly is how do you connect all of social? So many companies, Mike, make a mistake of going after one piece and then needing the others and not being able to connect them. So validating with that partner that if you want to add these different social components to work together, is that possible? Again, is a missed question that a lot of brands go, now I got to transition.

[Mike Linton]

So this probably follows on to your last point. But when you look out there, the biggest mistakes you see in the marketplace today that people are making in social.

[Joe Gagliesti]

You know what, Mike? I, I think the biggest mistake folks are making in social is they're not treating it like a real channel. I think that's the biggest mistake. You have the most powerful mode of communication ever imaginable, and you have it in a black box sitting somewhere between an exponential budget and pr. And I think not taking that channel seriously internally and, and as a channel in general is, you're running out of time to be able to catch some of these companies who are now coming. Mike, over the last 24 months, there's been these companies that have come out of nowhere that have. Should have no ability to touch the toes of these large organizations who they're going, how do they get there? Well, the reality is they just mastered social first.

[Mike Linton]

Give us another example on that.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Like, you know, Poppy, the.

[Mike Linton]

Oh, yeah, Poppy that got bought.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Yeah, yeah, right. If you think about company like Jake Paul's new line of deodorant and stuff like that is across almost every Walmart in the country. They're doing it and all they know is social. Right? So when you start to see that Elf Cosmetics is another one, right, Mike, you got people from l' Oreal over the world going, how do they do that? They're so small. How do they do that? Well, they only know social first. They don't know any of the other stuff. So again, it's, it's so powerful when these companies can break in the community and hold. And these large organizations just need to get there as quickly as possible.

[Mike Linton]

All right, well, that brings us to our traditional last question. It's a two parter. You must take at least one part, but you can't take both. Practical advice we haven't talked about yet and. Or the funniest story you can tell on the air. You can take both. Both topics or just one. But you must take at least one practical advice.

[Joe Gagliesti]

My practical advice, believe it or not, would be to use AI Buy a book called Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and go front to back, but translate his words because I think that he is one of the most prolific, incredible figures of modern time. And I think a lot of the learnings will really help marketers because of the chaos that we deal with every day. It's just a really special thing, Mike, that, you know, whenever I'm having a hard time, I think about and it lifts me up.

[Mike Linton]

Well, give me one of those. I have the book. I haven't read it yet, but like, there's a, there's, there's lines in there that you think are apropos to marketing is what you're saying. Right.

[Joe Gagliesti]

Apropos to the mindset of marketing.

[Mike Linton]

Okay.

[Joe Gagliesti]

You know, when I think about marketers, and I'm not just saying this to be nice to the audience, we're at the front lines. It's. It's not easy. It's not an industry where everyone's your best friend and you get pats on the back. This is a very hard industry. And I think a lot of the times marketers show up every day, crawl into the trench, and they get it done. So I think that what I got from that book was this idea that resilience, you can own it, you can own resilience, and you don't let other things or other people or hard conditions kind of keep you down. And it was just one of the only things I've ever read in my life that, that, that at that level. But, yeah, I think marketers are warriors.

[Mike Linton]

All right, well, this is the first time Marcus Aurelius has ever been referenced on our show. So thank you, Joe, and thanks for listening to CMO Confidential. Everyone, New shows drop every Tuesday, and you can find all of our more than 160 shows on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, which include. If you drop the best marketers of the 1950s into today's environment, how would they do what your agency wants to tell you but won't? Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 is AI an extinction event for agencies and the truth behind the curtain in B2B marketing. Hey, all you marketers, stay safe out there. This is Mike Linton signing off for CMO Confidential.

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