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- [00:00]
A
All right, y'all, welcome to probably the last episode that you and I are filming together this year.
- [00:07]
B
Let's.
- [00:08]
A
Let's recap a little bit. We will probably end the year around 8,000 subs, which is, to me, that's honestly a dub.
- [00:14]
B
Definitely.
- [00:14]
A
It's a huge dub.
- [00:15]
B
And shout out to everyone that subscribed, but if you're watching this and you're not subscribed, please subscribe for us so we can actually get to 8,000, please.
- [00:23]
A
One thing that's been exciting for me and has been, like, encouraging is the amount of people that are like, this is going to be the channel that blows up next year.
- [00:31]
B
Yeah.
- [00:31]
A
You know, we've really only been doing this for. For just over a year. Like, very. Yeah, like, really just over a year.
- [00:38]
B
We launched episode one in early November of 2023.
- [00:41]
A
Yeah.
- [00:42]
B
So about, like, 13 months right now.
- [00:45]
A
And so to get to nearly 10,000 subs for a podcast that fast, that's a big win. And it's not like we're not doing double episodes half of that time.
- [00:55]
B
You.
- [00:55]
A
We didn't post our clips, and there's a lot of. We did.
- [00:58]
B
We didn't cheat. Like, so many people. Like, a lot of the numbers you see on a lot of your favorite podcasts in this industry, but are they the favorite podcasts among some.
- [01:07]
A
Some of them.
- [01:08]
B
Some. Some lames might like their stuff. But, like, I'm just saying, like, don't believe your eyes when you look at high subscriber counts. The truth. I've actually, like, really locked in on this. The truth lies in the Spotify reviews. Yeah. Like, how many reviews are there on Spotify? And then how many comments are on YouTube videos? And that's why when y'all comment on YouTube videos, like, can't tell you enough how helpful that is to us. Because when sponsors approach us, we can say, like, yo, our audience is actively looking for tools. They're actively looking for tactics and stuff like that. Incredibly helpful. So please keep those coming. And then, I mean, it also tells us, like, what to make for you. You know, the biggest thing is, like, we're. We're just gonna shoot from the hip, always come up with ideas. But if you wanna see content or at least, like, our kind of thoughts on something, then, you know, leave that comment. We'll try our best to make it happen.
- [01:57]
A
Couldn't agree more. I. I do think next year, though, we can have that growth of, like, 75 to 100,000.
- [02:03]
B
Yeah.
- [02:04]
A
Because cracking that first, I think it was, like, thousand or two Thousand. That took a minute.
- [02:09]
B
That was a grind.
- [02:10]
A
That took a minute. And then since we passed like 3,000 or 4,000, it's been growing pretty fast.
- [02:17]
B
The 0 to 1,000 climb, it's tough, bro. Mount Everest.
- [02:21]
A
It is Mount Everest with a bum ankle. That's.
- [02:24]
B
That's the ultimate. Yeah, but the, the thing that was crazy about that is the meme where it's like, we need to stop selling white guys podcast equipment for a minute. We were in that camp, like very. We were.
- [02:37]
A
We. Yeah, we lived in there. We were a resident.
- [02:39]
B
There was certainly like a three month stretch where I was like, shit, Yeah. I was like, that's actually a good roast. But, um, no, it's, it's. I. I think we've got a lot of room to run. Um, one thing we're talking about, I think, and I don't want to blow my load pause is, you know, two episodes per week. Yeah, I think that's one of the bigger things. I just think about my own behavior. The podcast that I listen to, I love it when there's a new one to sample like twice a week. So we're going to try and kick up that velocity as well.
- [03:14]
A
I think. Another big thing that would work really well for us next year. Yeah, it's hot. If we figured out how to really kind of do the, the Andrew Tate style of not content, but how he would blitz TikTok.
- [03:26]
B
Yeah, the clip thing.
- [03:27]
A
Yeah. You would have all these different theme pages just curate or they would create theme pages and they would just. Even if they were leveraging AI and they were leveraging, like tools that would cut down content, they were still able to get out 100, 200, 300 clips, I think, every single day. Like, if we got to the point where even doing 100 clips a month through these curation channels, so there's actually an account that's growing probably faster than any account because they're breaking the rules and kind of creating their own rules. So it's instant Bollywood. And this is in a segment, but just based off our conversation, how we grow the pod. So instant Bollywood. Look at the amount of posts that they have. Look at that number.
- [04:02]
B
I've never seen anything like it ever. Population of New Delhi.
- [04:06]
A
Yeah. And so there was a video that went viral on their page where you could probably find it where ran into Mr. Beast. And Mr. Beast is like, how the hell do you guys have 30 million followers on Instagram? And the guy gave him the rundown, he's like, look, we have all of this paparazzi and that paparazzi like has access to be able to post and like create all the content. And so all the paparazzi is like all over pumping content to them. And they're getting out a hundred posts a day. Guess how many impressions they had in the last 30 days? Nine billion.
- [04:38]
B
That's crazy.
- [04:40]
A
Nine billion impressions.
- [04:41]
B
That's crazy.
- [04:42]
A
And so there is, I bring that all up to just say that there is a playbook of if we already have winning content, which we do. Like we have a lot of content that the hook that you were ripping off a few minutes ago before we started the pot of mine of my viral piece of content, you've hit it 10 times. There is somebody that has curated that video three times already. And every single time they've curated it, it has gone viral and fed me followers.
- [05:09]
B
That's interesting. Yeah, yeah.
- [05:11]
A
And it's the crazy thing is it's one of their only pieces of content that's actually gone viral. And so I think there's a move for us as well. It's like we can create curation channels, pay people to create curation channels, vas to create them, run em and we're just feeding them clips and they're just pumping out things on a daily basis.
- [05:26]
B
It's one of the things that we teach all of our creators is how to basically pirate and other proven concept. So whenever a video has already gone viral, that's a proven piece of content. Like it shows that it'll stop the scroll, the data is there, it showed up to you. And so if you're a brand and you think that that video could remotely apply to any of your content pillars, one of the most powerful things you can do is stitch or green screen over that proven piece of content. Because not only are you going to get sort of that recognization of someone that's already seen the video to also look at what is the take on that thing that caught their attention before. But it's a very proven way to get eyeballs. And it's much easier than coming up with your net new concept, your net new visual hook, whatever that is. No, just steal whatever you've seen on your feed and then make it yours. Twist it. That 3% love it.
- [06:20]
A
So what I got today is I got social trends or brand social trends for 2025. What you got?
- [06:25]
B
I got content that every apparel brand should make. So this is something that has arose. I've been looking at a bunch of different brands, whether it's about blank or shoots. Now, Elwood, it's like depending on what your niche is, whether that's basics or streetwear or wearable art, as it's kind of like one of these emerging new things. There's definitely some different pieces of formats that brands can just, like, laser in on it and put their own style. And I think I'll have some interesting takes on your predictions too, because when you were saying that I definitely have, like, I mean, AI. The AI stuff is out of pocket right now.
- [07:05]
A
I have nothing that's focused on AI here.
- [07:07]
B
Yeah. So I'll have some stuff to talk about because right now, people have no idea that they're getting got. I've seen three people. This account's been going viral. Crazy. Because they're using a AI generator avatar over a green screen video of someone else. Like, it's AI Inception. And, bro, I'm going to the account and seeing people I know following that bitch.
- [07:32]
A
That's the worst. Hey, you're this dumb.
- [07:34]
B
Yo, yo. I DM'd it to them. And I was like. I was like, did you know that this is a fake person? Like, do you know this is not real? They were like, no, they're shook about it.
- [07:43]
A
That's crazy. And so there needs to be, like, the made with AI on all. Anything that's like that.
- [07:49]
B
How do you catch it? Yeah, how do you catch it? You catch that the catch that the mouth isn't moving properly. Like, that doesn't make sense because now you're matching audios. I think it's way harder than people expect at the meta level. They would have already caught it if they could. And also, what are their incentives to stop it? You know, like, that's purely altruistic for them. They don't need to stop if you're not dumb enough. But if you can't understand gullible. Yeah, if you're relatively gullible or. I mean, we're all scrolling passively, you know, everyone's kind of like, not. I don't know. So, yeah, we'll get into it. But I can kick it off with this content every apparel brand should make.
- [08:29]
A
Hit it. Go ahead, steal my hook.
- [08:31]
B
Yeah, well, you know, that's how the game goes.
- [08:33]
A
That's how the game goes.
- [08:34]
B
Hey, copywriting. We both learned from a guy who says the best way to learn copywriting is to trans your favorite shit.
- [08:40]
A
Use it as inspo. Then do your 3% change.
- [08:43]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [08:44]
A
You change one word here.
- [08:46]
B
I added a word.
- [08:48]
A
I didn't even change the same word.
- [08:51]
B
I added a word.
- [08:52]
A
Go ahead, bro. Go viral. Get to 10K?
- [08:55]
B
Nah.
- [08:55]
A
Yeah.
- [08:55]
B
So this is, this is content every apparel brand should make. So number one is skits. This is when you're parent trending audios, when you're stitching videos together. Why do you want to do this? Because customers want to be entertained, they don't want to be sold to. And so if your brand can entertain them, you're earning your spot on their feed. All of a sudden it's not. You're putting ad dollars behind something to just pop up in front of them. They like you. And that's a huge difference for a lot of brands. So you know, someone to study here is dershoots. Their most common format is very simple and it's very repeatable. They use a headline that contradicts you know, what is being foreshadowed in the rest of that video. So basically these skits want to set the expectation that the statement will be disproved later in the video. So for example, they will say no one wants to see religion on clothes. That'll be the headline. The only reason that works is because it's foreshadowing that you're keeping the viewer's attention for a little bit. You're foreshadowing saying this is going to be disproven. Well, what do they do? They show their faith based collection and all of a sudden that's like timed up with a trending audio where the drop reveals the collection and boom, perfect 15 seconds. Probably took them you know, maybe like an hour to make. So if you can find that format which is headline, that's going to be disproven and foreshadows that there's going to be a reveal at the end. You're building curiosity for someone to stick around. You're earning their attention and ultimately earning more eyeballs on your clothing.
- [10:21]
A
Couldn't agree more. I think one of the learnings, even with deshirt. How do you say it?
- [10:27]
B
Their shoots.
- [10:28]
A
Okay. I'm sure it get, it gets butchered pretty often.
- [10:30]
B
Depends on the accent. Like they're. Yeah, they got some British cats over there. It just sounds, it's better when they say it.
- [10:36]
A
So with their shirt me up. You gotta cut that, gotta cut that with that clothing brand. No, I'm just kidding. One thing that I think they do well is, is they're very good at one shots or one shots and like these simple skits. I think nude project is another brand. And I was just on a conversation with Jocko and we're like planning all of their Jocko fuel on the team where we're playing all the 20, 25 content and one of the pillars that I want to have for them is the one shot, you know, where it's basically similar to what you're saying. You know, ours is going to be a little different because it's not like foreshadowing to something that's said. It's more so based on like the season and the show and like the overarching narrative for that quarter that they have. But it is similar to in a way what you're saying where like you're using the text to tell some kind of story. That is the hook and it is like the thing that they're anticipating and waiting for it to get completed. In this case, it is if we're talking about an athlete again playing into Jocko and it being very motivational, inspirational. It's something along the lines of, you know, my brain and it's like, didn't want to wake up this morning, wanted to sleep in. Mine was telling me, like, work out later. And then it's like the next text would say, me and I go rip a deadlift, right? Or I rip a PR or something along those lines where you can figure out ways to integrate product into that. But again, like to take away from what you're saying, it's this idea of these one shots or like these very simple, like two to three shots where you foreshadow, you put that hook and then you're like the solution or like the thing getting resolved is than the product in many ways. And yeah, they do a great job of it.
- [12:23]
B
It's a great opportunity to speak your customer's language. So I remember when you mentioned you were working with Jocko, they said that he started the company because he didn't want stuff on the shelves of supermarkets that he didn't want his kids to personally eat. And so that in itself being a content pillar can be the headline that they're using to foreshadow what they're about to disprove, where they're saying, but nothing on the shelves is actually good for my son. And then lo and behold, it's like they foreshadow what's about to happen with that afterwards. Trending audio ultimately reveals maybe some behind the scenes manufacturing of the product. Maybe it's Jocko formulating on stuff. Give that social proof of the creator. So the point of me saying that is, okay, yeah, this is apparel brands, this is a proven concept for them to earn eyeballs. But you can easily port that exact same format over to a supplement brand.
- [13:18]
A
Couldn't agree more.
- [13:19]
B
Or to any sort of gadget, whatever it is, but the core of it all, dude, your customers especially more and more these days, they want brands as fiction. They want world building, they want all this stuff. Like they want to be entertained, they don't want to be sold to. Yeah, so that's like how you kind of make skits if you're an apparel brand. But how do you make ads if you're an apparel brand? I think there's three core ways that you should be making your content there. So number one is unboxing content. Now this has been a thing for a long time, but how do you actually make it compelling? It's having them basically inject a lot more personality into it rather than just the ASMR style. What I've seen a lot is the get Ready with Me content these days is no longer so prim and proper. It's no longer just a straight perfect edit. A lot of the time people are including their slip ups or they're including where they like, you know, misspeak stuff like that. There's a creator that does that right now. There's that, that it seems like the get Ready with Me content is becoming less heavily produced and more natural. And so I think unboxings is a great opportunity to do the same. Where your unboxing content should actually feel very authentic and not just be this, you know, super quick cut, perfect aesthetic asmr, like closing the box, it's like you're ripping it open like you're trying it on. Be like, oh, okay, like this looks really good. And so, you know, you have to brief the creators to do that because otherwise they'll create the perfect edit. Yeah, that's not what stands out anymore. People want brands to be humanized so you have to have more of a raw feel. So unboxing content, absolutely. One of the easiest ways, especially if you're selling basics, number two is just the styled fits. One of the things when we were, you know, working with Huckberry last year that we recommended to them was, you know, creating these ads that were like six pants for winter, super easy concept, super easy hook. If you're a dude, you're probably like, man, I could use some pants. So all of a sudden, like it's so easy to get their attention and then you're just styling the six pants that you have for winter, making the models look good. All of a sudden it's aspirational. They want to potentially buy those pants.
- [15:30]
A
One thing to Add to that, that I think is very important. And this is something we talk about in cut 30, where it's not good enough to just say six, like six pants. Or like these are six pants you should have in your rotation. What you did right there in that hook is you added a qualifier. And that qualifier is super important. Six pants that men in their 30s should wear during winter.
- [15:50]
B
Yeah.
- [15:51]
A
Right. And adding that those specific layers is so much better because the algorithm is getting so good at targeting people that they're going to understand, hey, you're consuming this kind of content. This, this context is within this content. I will serve it to you.
- [16:05]
B
Yeah.
- [16:05]
A
And so the, the better you can get. Why by adding a qualifier to a hook or even just a rule of thumb, you can make every hook better by adding a qualifier where you do, you're doing it with the hook that you stole from me. Where it is. This is content every brand should make. You added a qualifier. That is this is content that every streetwear brand should make.
- [16:23]
B
Yeah.
- [16:24]
A
And that qualifier is going to work.
- [16:26]
B
Very well, but probably go less. It'll be a more niche audience. Think about it.
- [16:31]
A
Yes, but I bet you it'll drive more results than.
- [16:34]
B
Yeah, definitely. So, yeah, that's one thing. And then the final piece that people should be making is flat lays. And so flat lays are where you have a dark background and you put the clothes on it perfectly. Those are often used in image ads. Whatever. How do you do this? Interesting. Cody Phillips, the guy that we talked about a couple episodes ago, he basically tied his flat lace to his theme shoot.
- [17:00]
A
Yeah.
- [17:01]
B
I thought that was fascinating.
- [17:02]
A
I'd never seen that before.
- [17:04]
B
And it was really, really smart because you're just extending the life that you get out of that investment at the shoot.
- [17:10]
A
Yes.
- [17:11]
B
If you spend $10,000 at the shoot, your sole goal should be how do I get the maximum amount of unique assets out of this investment? Because if you're getting just the video edit, maybe some BTs. Sure, that's good. Top of funnel, kind of even borderline middle of funnel stuff. If you can show some objection handling with showing how the fit is. But the bottom of funnel stuff, what is your best retargeting ads? Those are always going to be product images, dynamic product ads, all of this stuff. And that's how you kind of clean up all that top of funnel awareness. And so what he's doing, which is amazing, is he's using the themes the world building set to still kind of keep that continuity throughout the entire process. So I saw the initial ad Maybe I saw the organic interested. Okay, next I'm going to see like a video of the guy styling it, maybe handling some objections. And then finally the conversion point is. Oh, man. Like I just saw this video, I just saw this image again. Now I'm like ready to go. So I think with your flat lays, like still keep a lot of those same core tenets where it's not just on a gray background, it's not just on a black background, it's actually somewhere. There's so many beach resort wear brands right now. Your flat lace should be on black sand or something like that, or like pebbles, like Maui beach type shit.
- [18:36]
A
You could get so creative there.
- [18:37]
B
You can get so creative, but none of them do.
- [18:39]
A
They just put pants on a paddle board and take it from like a, a top down shot or like something that is just breaking the mold. And I think that's what Cody Phillips did well, is. And, and if you think about it, the piece of content that went viral was the flat lace. That's what Outlander picked up. That's what all the curation pages picked up was. Isn't this one of the best? Yeah. Isn't this like the best lookbook of 2025 or, or 2024 or something like that? Yeah, absolutely. Crushed it.
- [19:03]
B
Yeah. And then so the last thing that every, every streetwear brand should be doing is world building. So you have to be doing themed shoots around each collection. This is a no brainer. In 2025 you need to be pairing. So nude just did new project, just did the Chateau collection. So this is all their outerwear, this is puffer jackets, this is stuff that they did not sell in the, in the summertime. Right. Because there was no demand for it. This chateau shoot had probably been planned for months. They probably went and shot it in like early December. Their content team turned it around super fast and they're meeting the customer in the moment, they're meeting the customer where they are at that time, ready to buy, and they're meeting them there with content. It's engaging. It feels like it should be aired during that time. And so they're doing that for everything they did. Their Playboy mansion shoot was in the springtime, right as summer's kicking off. It's all resort wear, beach stuff. When you're matching up the themed photo shoot with the seasonality and you're chopping that up into a massive amount of content, whether that's ads, whether that's organic, then you're gonna get a much bigger ROI on that investment. But you're also going to really appeal to your brand's audience. They're gonna be like, damn, this is cool. You know, like they, they like are always on trend. They're always right. You want your customer to almost have that expectation that you're gonna nail it. And I think themed photo shoots is a super easy way for people to do that. There's so many talented creatives out there. Like you can really do a themed shoot with like just about your local, you know, photographer and like some models, like, there's just a robust amount of those out. So.
- [20:40]
A
And I think the other component to add to world building and looking at nude project and what they do well with that, with the, the shoot that they just did is they also attach it to like that the lifestyle that their core customer wants. Yeah, it's, it's not just a regular photo shoot. It's like them having fun in the snow.
- [20:55]
B
Yeah, it's like crazy playful.
- [20:57]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [20:58]
B
Like joy rides on the ski mobile.
- [20:59]
A
Exactly. And, and they play into that so well where it makes you want to buy the clothes because like, damn. I kind of, I want you feel like you can beat that if you have this.
- [21:08]
B
Yes.
- [21:09]
A
Right. That being. Or this being clothes. And that's something that I think they do second to none. Like, there's not really many brands that do it at that level.
- [21:15]
B
Yeah. A lot of people say sell the transformation, don't sell the benefits. And what nude project does so well is they sell the lifestyle, not the clothes. Yeah, they're selling this is what your life could look like if you just participate in our movement. And they're doing it through founder led content Bruno Casanova on YouTube. They're doing it through their personal page where they have kind of like the employee generated content side where every single person's a character. And it's this crazy hybrid of they were a clothing brand first, but now they're an entertainment company. Before the move was brands would be entertainment first. This was kind of the original creator economy was, you know, big YouTuber launches clothing brand. I think like full send. Right. Those guys had a huge audience. They would launch their clothing and drops and it'd be super popular. Nude took the other path. And I think every streetwear brand should be thinking the same way. It's a lot easier to put your clothes out there, put them on bodies than run up 5 million on YouTube, you know, and go the other direction. And so like try and get your clothes out there, try and kind of, you know, go viral with short form, build your brand and then all of a sudden you can layer it into more of that long form lifestyle stuff.
- [22:23]
A
Yeah, they're dialed. I. They've slowly become my top two brand this year.
- [22:28]
B
I need to be careful. And they're not two because I'm. I'm necking their team. Crazy. But like, it's so deserved.
- [22:35]
A
I went through this moment and all I got was shit from you.
- [22:38]
B
You know what? Maybe I get big timed by Bruno.
- [22:41]
A
Maybe no Spaniards are different.
- [22:47]
B
Yeah, he would be a homie for sure. Have you watched their YouTube stuff?
- [22:49]
A
Of course I've watched it.
- [22:50]
B
It's like really good.
- [22:52]
A
It's probably the best.
- [22:53]
B
So good at making you love him as a founder too.
- [22:56]
A
And he's like 24.
- [22:57]
B
Dude comes off as the best guy.
- [22:59]
A
Yeah.
- [22:59]
B
Like, it's so good.
- [23:02]
A
I absolutely love their. Their content and their style and the look. The style. Yeah, I was gonna say the look, the style, the aesthetic, the color grading, it's. It's top tier him. And I think when I rate YouTube channels and I look at what were my favorites, what are my favorites, et cetera, I think it's him. And minted him. And Marcus.
- [23:21]
B
Marcus has really stepped up his content recently.
- [23:23]
A
Super.
- [23:23]
B
I did not see any of this like high end production stuff.
- [23:26]
A
Oh, dude. He's been doing it for like a year.
- [23:28]
B
I know. But some finally came up where he was doing like kind of a roundabout way of toeing the saucony story.
- [23:34]
A
Yeah.
- [23:35]
B
Amazing. Like, it's really, really cool.
- [23:37]
A
Don't you. I know you don't like this specific shoe, but like, doesn't it now kind of create that desire of like, okay, I want XYZ from him.
- [23:44]
B
100% shows the power of content. Like, when I saw that as an image, I was like, ah, that blue shoe is kind of ugly. And then I'm just not. Like, that's not my style. Anyway, for reference. Damn. I think you got a pebble in the bottom of that thing. That's tough.
- [24:02]
A
You know what's worse though?
- [24:03]
B
Shit, Having a rock for an ankle.
- [24:07]
A
Your shoes. You can't even wear shoes right now.
- [24:09]
B
Yeah, I've been inside days.
- [24:11]
A
That boy be wearing Nike chunks, dude.
- [24:14]
B
We're going to hit 100,000 subs and I'm still not going to be able to walk.
- [24:17]
A
You didn't even appreciate that one.
- [24:18]
B
What did you say?
- [24:19]
A
You said Nike dunks. Nike chunks.
- [24:22]
B
Fuck.
- [24:23]
A
That one's all right.
- [24:24]
B
It was good. It was good. It was only your 37th joke of the day.
- [24:27]
A
Yeah.
- [24:28]
B
All right, so what do you got? Big, big predictions for 2025.
- [24:31]
A
Yeah. I'm gonna go rapid fire through these.
- [24:33]
B
Let's do it. Let's do it.
- [24:34]
A
Okay. All right, marketers, we know you love the tldr, so let's get right to the point. Here are five things you can get done faster with wix Studio. Number one, you could scale content with dynamic pages and reusable assets. Then number two, you can integrate with Meta's conversion API, zapier, Google Ads and more in just a few seconds. Then number three, which is a given and this is AB test where you can create them in days, not weeks with their intuitive design tools. Then number four, you could connect to tracking and analytical tools like SEMrush and GA4 in seconds and manage all of your client social media from one dashboard. If you're ready for more, then go to wixstudio.com Again, that's Wix Studio. These are the brand social trends for 2025. The first one is the more conversations I have, the more I'm understanding that brands want to be much more strategic on the organic side. And I'm going you're going to see more of a development of the content funnel. We've been talking about that a lot this year, but you're going to see more brands understanding, okay, we need just series and ideas that are meant to go viral. We need to educate the consumer, but we can't be doing it through the lens of like just pure talking head trying to educate somebody on a product. And then we also need bottom of the funnel content where we're testing narratives, pain points, benefits, transformations, lifestyles that then feed the ad account. I think that is going to be a big focus for next year for brands. The next one is character development, exactly what you were kind of talking about with Nude Project. They've done a great job of introducing different characters and making them components of all of their content. I think brands are going to be doing this at a deeper level, but I think that the characters are going to be either, yes, employees, the founder, but also customers, influencers, athletes. All of those individuals are now going to be seen as characters in the cast of this brand and they're going to go a lot deeper with brands or, sorry, with those characters. And instead of just like having deliverables for an influencer or for an athlete, they're going to start saying, hey, this person is very, has a very good personality. They need to have their own content series that we're doing with this person. This person's personality is like, they hate being on camera but they're very good at xyz. Like we need to be doing that.
- [26:37]
B
With this person versus this is really like the evolution of the creator economy to me is monetization for people that are good at getting attention but not for making money.
- [26:45]
A
Yeah.
- [26:46]
B
And who. This is crazy. I got something I'm going to put you on to. So look up McDonald's West coast on Instagram.
- [26:53]
A
You find some of the weirdest accounts.
- [26:55]
B
I do, I really do.
- [26:57]
A
When you tell me about some of these accounts, I'm like, where, where were you searching, dude?
- [27:00]
B
This one.
- [27:01]
A
McDonald's West Coast.
- [27:03]
B
McDonald's West Coast. That's it.
- [27:04]
A
Instagram.
- [27:05]
B
Yeah, on Instagram. So they're a family owned chain, franchisee chain. They got 34 restaurants in Southeast California or southwest California and I think they're in like the Inland Empire or whatever. Squabble up.
- [27:18]
A
Oh, this is great, bro.
- [27:19]
B
So they, they went crazy viral with a just super simple like close up of a, of a quarter pounder, like walking through like fresh number Frozen, answering a lot of the stuff that basically Wendy's would take shots at them for. Yeah, that got my attention and then I started looking into it and they actually have a partnership with this guy named Concrete. So I don't know who Concrete is. I think he's a comedian. But what they do is they collab post with him and Everything is a McDonald's themed skit where he'll say I'm Mick, sorry. Or you know, it'll be like about MC Squabble up. Right? That was basically they dropped a diss track at Burger King and Wendy's with this comedian who was dressed as Ronald McDonald instead of, you know, just doing like their employees at the standard Ronald McDonald. The collab post helps them go viral. And he's a recurring character. He's almost like the face of the brand now. And these guys are the biggest family owned chain now in America of McDonald's. And apparently like they're just, they're, they can't keep people out the door. Like everyone in this community talks about how much they love these McDonald's because once you get all this attention, you're building reputation. All of a sudden you're, you're you're looking savvy. It's not just about the quality of the product. It looks like you're a smart brand, smart marketing. But they already had the McDonald's brand, so this is crazy.
- [28:34]
A
One thing I love, which is this concrete guide, but is they took where the, the Kendrick Lamar song that was popping off was it. What is it? Squabble.
- [28:43]
B
Yeah. You love these Kendrick songs.
- [28:46]
A
No, but they made like a McSquabble up.
- [28:48]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [28:48]
A
And it has 64,000 likes.
- [28:51]
B
For a McDonald's.
- [28:52]
A
For McDonald's. That's what I'm saying. From McDonald's. And it's like, there's no product in it.
- [28:56]
B
Yeah. A dead, stale brand. Right.
- [28:58]
A
It's just the fact that, like, you have the employees there, you have a Burger King guy, and then you have him, like, doing the dance and whatnot. And it's so good.
- [29:05]
B
It's so good. They got the certified McStepper where he says. He says, where is Wendy? Crazy dude. It's actually crazy. But yeah. So, you know, to your point about, like, where is the next stage for brands? I think it's creator partnerships. Importing over the creator as now a part of your brand story.
- [29:23]
A
But you're taking one of my trends. We're getting there.
- [29:25]
B
Oh, sorry.
- [29:26]
A
Getting there.
- [29:26]
B
All right.
- [29:27]
A
Number three, world building. You and I just talked about this, but there is this idea of, right. You create brand guidelines and the whole. Everybody's supposed to follow brand guidelines. I think there's going to be a shift where brand guidelines are just a chapter in the World Building Bible, the World Building book that you create as a brand. That then is, hey, like, when we work with an agency, we work with external partners, whatever. It's like, you need to follow this as a whole that, that even if you're just working on ads, you understand how every touch point affects the other touch point.
- [29:58]
B
Yeah.
- [29:58]
A
We have this conversation with. I'm not gonna name the brand because this is like them beefing with a partner where it felt completely disjointed. Right. On the organic side, they're very motivational, inspirational. And then on the ad side, they're just like, literally completely different. Voice shoving product down your throat. And that affects you like, that affects. Especially when you're spending hundreds of thousands, if not seven figures a month on the paid ad side to get in front of 10, 20, 30 million people a month. And their experience with your brand, if it's the first experience or even the experience that's going to get them to purchase, is that and not what you want it to be. So I think world building is going to become an even bigger trend. I don't think that happens really till the end of the year, next year. But I do think that's another big one. The fourth one is long form content. What we're noticing and what we keep talking about and telling brands to do is short form Short form. Short form. You can like this McDonald's brand, right? This McDonald's West coast, they've dominated short form. What happens next year when there's a lot of competitors trying to copy them? The area you're going to need to invest if I'm them, is now the short form. I mean, sorry, the long form game. Either podcast or YouTube for them, probably YouTube and like some kind of YouTube show. But it is going to be this integration of now looking at podcasts and YouTube shows and integrating that into the organic strategy. And that's going to be another huge pillar for these brands because it's going to take another two to three years for brands to adapt there and actually create good content there like they are doing now on social. There's a lot more moving pieces.
- [31:30]
B
I agree. I think right now we're both seeing intense demand from brands that need short form. Because two years ago we realized that you need a short form. I remember some of our first conversations were around what I was doing with TikTok and Grind and that was very forefront stuff because no one thought TikTok as a performance channel could work. And so we were testing our creative on TikTok and if it worked organically, we would put it into the ad account. It outperformed everything. And so right now I think you're seeing a ton of brands realize, oh, we need short form. We need to create content that actually works on Instagram. Instagram's fundamentally changed. The next wave will be, wow, we need a YouTube series. We need something for when people like, to your point, when I. So I found this account and all I could find in them was Instagram and like one article from a local business journal like four years ago, there was nothing else. The family's very private. Like they don't do anything other than this creator partnership and very social first strategy. I wanted to dive in, I wanted to learn more. I wanted to go down the rabbit hole with them and learn more about this family, learn more about how they own the product. I would have been fascinated to hear more about the business side, how they came to even do this partnership with concrete. That's right. And so I think, yeah, long form is how you build lifelong fans. I think you can really accumulate a lot of fans through short form. But how you really make up super fans, it's like, bro, I mean, it takes, you know, 15 short form videos to get the same amount of attention on you as one 11 minute video for your YouTube.
- [33:10]
A
That's with like pure retention. If you took like the Average watch time of one of those Instagram videos and then the average watch time of each YouTube video. It's crazy.
- [33:18]
B
Yeah.
- [33:19]
A
And also the other thing is, dude, hot ones just sold for $82 million. That is such a simple. It is this. Eating wings is a conversation. Eating wings. Again, great concept, great format, but it just shows the potential. Like they do 30, 40 million in revenue just selling hot sauce.
- [33:37]
B
Yeah. YouTube is a staggering channel. It's so crazy how everyone says people spend all this time. I don't know about you, but when I go home, my TV, I use YouTube, I don't use YouTube TV anymore. Unless there's literally a game on that's happening for news sources, that's happening for entertainment, like, and we're just still in the early innings of that. So if you're a brand, if you're a founder and you're not like thinking about your YouTube strategy in 2025, then you're going to really regret it in 2026.
- [34:07]
A
Couldn't agree more. The fifth trend is focused influencer marketing, which is what you were talking about. I think brands are going to be slashing influencer budgets and cutting their roster. I mean, more than in half. Like 70, 80% of that roster agree and really focused on who are the outliers. And now how do we integrate them into the overarching growth strategy? How do we build them funnels? How do they have their own content strategies, their own email and SMS sequences, their own flows, all of that. I think it's going to happen next year, which unless you want to add to that, it just stems to then part two of that.
- [34:40]
B
Go for it.
- [34:41]
A
Part two is which is your world? I think affiliate marketing is going to have a huge blow up next year. I think there's going to be a lot more gamification with how you leverage affiliates. I think one of the things in the past where if you didn't really have distribution and you were only like, if, if I get hit with an affiliate deal right now, where it's just like, oh cool, you can make 15% commission. But if there's something where it's like, hey, you're this month only for 30 days, you can make 50%, 40% commission and if you hit this target, we're going to give you this, I think that opens up a completely different avenue and potential for affiliate marketing.
- [35:16]
B
I could not agree more. I think we're going to see the rise of these many chat funnels for conversion in a way that is going to be staggering. I'm seeing so many. Just by virtue of the clients that I work with, we have a very health and wellness, make America healthy again type of brand that we work with quite a bit. So everything I see is non toxic, you know, gut health cleanse, like the soil is lost, all its nutrients, all that stuff. And what I'm now seeing is like the savvy creators are creating that guaranteed problem in your head that you're watching the whole video and you're like, damn, like I don't get any magnesium in my diet. And then they're saying comment, comment formula or comment this and I'll send it to you. And it's a product link.
- [36:01]
A
Yeah.
- [36:02]
B
And I think that is probably Instagram's response to TikTok shop is manychat. I'd be shocked if manychat isn't bought by Instagram next year. And that is just like, dude, it's a whole nother level. When I Look at these GLP1 brands, when I look at everyone, your ability to have a micro influencer, tell an authentic story and then use the comment and I'll DM you the link. It juices the post because it sends engagement to it and it also is giving a call to action in a way that is not really there right now. If you're hoping for them to click on the profile and go to the link in the bio. Completely different. If they comment, everyone opens every dm. This is the same thing that people always talked about with SMS being the next big frontier is people go to Inbox zero on their SMS as much as they can and so you're almost guaranteed to get an open and more at bats equals more revenue. And so with manychat like it's the same thing, dude. Like if someone comments and gets that DM that lives there forever, it's going to get open.
- [37:07]
A
I've been having that conversation with brands about their pillars now. Should be there should be email, sms, minichat. Like manychat should be seen through. Like DM should just be seen as its own channel.
- [37:19]
B
I agree.
- [37:19]
A
And its own revenue source because you could push a. A lot of.
- [37:23]
B
I knew a guy through there, I knew this brand that just fumbled this. So historically bad. I think they're called like drop or something. They were so. They were so much earlier in the manychat and they just like tried to do it with the wrong folks. It's so funny. Like they tried to go brand first and that's really more of a creator tool 100%. And by going brands it's like Transactional shopping experience. By going creators, there's curiosity, there's a desire to actually see what they're talking about. And so it's funny how that works. When you try and be transactional, people reject it. When you try and build curiosity and desire for something, then they can't resist and they comment and get it in their inbox.
- [38:02]
A
The one variation that we're doing with a brand is going deeper with an influencer and then doing the collab posts and doing manychat through him and then creating a lead because the products that he's selling are pushing her 325 45. And so then we're creating a lead magnet around him that's like a five email series, but each one is then connected to a product.
- [38:24]
B
Yeah.
- [38:25]
A
And I think that's going to be a huge, huge.
- [38:27]
B
Yeah. I mean it's a great email collection thing. All I could think about what you were saying, that is giving dedicated landers to creators. If you're sending a dedicated lander from a creator that feels so personalized and.
- [38:39]
A
He has his own dedicated lander and bundle that we built out, I think it's going to crush. It's, it's for, you know, Squat University. It's like three point something million followers on ig.
- [38:51]
B
Yeah.
- [38:52]
A
You've seen his accounts.
- [38:53]
B
Yeah.
- [38:53]
A
Or his account. Like, dude, he makes a video and just sends people to a catalog page and it'll drive 500,000 in sales.
- [39:01]
B
Yeah. That's fucked up.
- [39:03]
A
That's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy.
- [39:06]
B
We, we got a long way to go, bro. This is why it's still sweat equity.
- [39:09]
A
Yeah.
- [39:11]
B
Fuck.
- [39:12]
A
Well, that's 500,000 in sales for tier.
- [39:15]
B
Yeah.
- [39:15]
A
So like he's getting royal.
- [39:17]
B
I know, but still, that's still moving weight 100%.
- [39:20]
A
The seventh social trend that I have is brand campaigns. These are going to make a comeback, but they're going to, they're going to occur through the lens of it needs to be a social first branding campaign. I think Cody Phillips is a great example. I think the best example of 2024 has been Anthony Edwards.
- [39:35]
B
Yeah.
- [39:35]
A
Of there wasn't a TV campaign that was put out and like it wasn't just social. Wasn't thought of. Of, hey, how do we redistribute what we're doing here for here? They thought about that entire campaign through the lens of how is this going to perform well on social. As we get into a place now where we're wearing brands and consuming brands on such a trust, like a trust basis where we need to feel connected to that brand and we need to feel like we share the same values of that brand. Those brand campaigns are going to be crucial for that. Yeah, I think you're going to see the rise of that, but it is going to come from this lens of this needs to be a campaign that we're completely thinking about reels and carousels, like through that lens.
- [40:15]
B
Couldn't agree more. I think campaigns now, it's one of the biggest things we talk about with the whole affiliate social commerce thing that's happening is the whole reason you want to build a social army of people that can sell your product so that you can activate a campaign across hundreds of voices rather than just your brand channel and a couple of macro influencers. If you can activate it across 500 people, that's what David Protein did on TikTok Shop. None of the people that really promoted their stuff had any more than like 150,000 followers, which is big, but, you know, it's not a million. And the rate that you have to pay someone at 150k compared to someone that you got to pay at a million is probably like a fifth. And that just makes it unit economics wise. Like it's so much smarter to run campaigns through a massive amount of smaller people. And especially with the way that the channels work now. It's like, dude, you know, the real from the guy that has 4000 could pop off just as much as the person with, you know, 400.
- [41:16]
A
Couldn't agree more. The last social trend that I predict for next year is I usually call it on the pod, like cohesive touch points. I was talking about it too, the CEO of Blenders yesterday and he said it, he made up the best, like word for it and he. What he called it was connective tissue. All the connective tissue for the brand has to be the same.
- [41:38]
B
Yeah.
- [41:39]
A
And what I mean by that is when we think about social and the stories that we're putting out on social, those same stories need to be replicated in email and in SMS and your landing pages and your paid ads. And what I think you'll see next year is a lot more brands going from operating in silos to working cohesively to understand, hey, in March, this is the story that we're telling. How are you telling it? How am I telling it? How are we all telling it? How are we making sure that this is an entire engine, this is an entire race car working together to get to this finish line versus what happens now is like, yeah, we have an e Comm team, we have a retention team, we have an organic team. And nobody knows what the fuck the other person is doing, which is crazy to think about. And so to have and be able to build up strong connective tissue through the different teams, I think is going to be again, something that happens at the end of the year. But I do think it's going to be something that we, we see is like you'll see a social series on, on or you know, on Instagram, but then that series will get turned into not a newsletter, but an email campaign.
- [42:43]
B
Yeah.
- [42:43]
A
You know what I mean? And you'll start seeing that.
- [42:45]
B
But I think one of the biggest hires that people should start to think about is like not chief storyteller, but, you know, someone that's kind of guiding that brand story. Yeah. Because marrying all those different things, your product calendar, seasonality, the theme behind the shoot, and replicating that across to your point, all this connective tissue, all these different touch points, is like a very difficult job.
- [43:11]
A
Very difficult.
- [43:12]
B
And most marketing organizations with the resources that can do that are so disjointed that it's extremely hard to execute effectively.
- [43:20]
A
Yeah.
- [43:21]
B
And when you're someone that's at that size, you're losing so much money by not doing it as well as you can.
- [43:28]
A
Couldn't agree more.
- [43:28]
B
And so I don't know what that chief tissue officer would be, but like the new cto. Yeah, but that's super important. I got a couple of things that I think are going to pop off in 2025. I think drop shipping is back. I like Instagram going all in on small creator TikTok stuff has. In the same way that dropshipping was revived on organic TikTok in like 2021. I think you can actually do that on Instagram right now. So there's this brand, Enchanted Tea. And I went all the way down the rabbit hole. I was like, screw this, I gotta find out how much this bitch is on Alibaba. And they got me with this phenomenal. Just the UGC on their shit was incredible. This video is so simple. It shows a bunch of herbs, shows the draining of it to create the tea. Which plays into so many different macro trends of people are talking about K cups as being toxic. People are talking about things like, okay, go straight to the source. Just say you use herbs to easily produce tea. So that's their problem solution. And this brand has just gone. They just use the same format every single time. Really clear, really clear. Product demo, short form, trending audio. Sometimes like they throw A headline on there. Sometimes they don't even need to. And they have 130,000 followers now. They go viral left and right. They sell the product for $70. It takes you two seconds to look it up on Alibaba and find it for 15. And they're just ripping it. They're printing, they're printing, they're printing. Just driving all this traffic all organically by having an iPhone and a kitchen and some herbs. I don't even know if those are herbs. It could just be. Could just be pros, who knows? But when you check their site traffic, they're actually getting 30,000 hits a month. And this is just a straight drop shipping product. It takes no time to find this thing on Alibaba. You literally search the product, the brand name Enchanta Tea. And the second result that comes up is the Alibaba listing. So people are clearly not searching. They're going to that link in the bio and the knickknack gadget economy that is possible through understanding Shortform. It's brand new. It's right back. And so I think dropshipping is going to make a huge comeback. And then the last one is just. We teased it at the beginning of this episode. But do the AI marketing stuff. The AI avatars are getting good. They're getting really good. And the people that are using them are starting to really understand this. Basically, what you do is the AI person green screening. Because the green screen format's been popularized by so many people, you. And now that's so popular, people are expecting to see it. They're barely paying attention to the person.
- [46:21]
A
Talking to who's talking.
- [46:22]
B
They're not paying attention to that person. They're just kind of there as the narrator steering the ship. The rest of it's B roll. It's all just B roll. Not anything shot net new. And the ability of people to be like, I was a butt doctor for 15 years. These are all the squats that you need to do to grow that thing. That's an exact hook that I saw recently. And the butt doctor in question is an AI avatar, which is unbelievable. And people are liking, saving, commenting on this, and they're taking that to heart and then getting sold some sort of routine or info product or supplement. Just crazy. And I think we're in the early innings of people understanding how to use. I mean, Sora just came out like, dude, you can world build with AI and $100 a month prompts. And did I ever tell you about that gossip goblin thing?
- [47:12]
A
No.
- [47:14]
B
So another Thing that's coming out right now is alternate histories. So Alternate history is really popular on Social. So right now, this gossip goblin guy, to give an example, he is using AI to imagine a world in which the Romans invented space travel. And so he's like, in 380 A.D. the Romans left Earth and they started colonizing the rest of the solar system. And when you start to think about how could that be used for marketing, which is where my brain always goes, you could be doing that same thing for. Ancient alchemists discovered this one herb that would relieve all constipation or would relieve whatever inflammation in the throat. Right. Why I chose those two.
- [47:55]
A
Yeah, bro, that is. Those are two crazy choices. Two Cr. Absolutely. Why inflammation in your throat? Explain this to everybody watching. Who's this? Deep into this episode.
- [48:08]
B
Yeah, deep. Deep into the throat. No, I mean, it's. I was. It was just the one that came to mind because I wanted.
- [48:15]
A
That's the question.
- [48:16]
B
I wanted to move off constipation. I felt like that was a bad one for some reason.
- [48:21]
A
The next one broke from your ass to your throat.
- [48:23]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [48:24]
A
Some sus.
- [48:25]
B
Shit. I don't know anyways, but those are kind of the core ones to me, so. Yeah, I think.
- [48:34]
A
I think we're both tracking. I'm on the same page as you.
- [48:38]
B
Yeah, word.
- [48:39]
A
But I gotta jump. I have a casting call.
- [48:42]
B
Yeah, stay tuned for Alex's next phase.
- [48:45]
A
Yeah.
- [48:46]
B
The natural evolution from Instagram micro influencer to TV to macro influencer to reality TV star. Let's go, baby. At least it's in the business niche.
- [48:57]
A
Exactly. I'm not going.
- [48:58]
B
You could be on some Love island shit for sure.
- [49:00]
A
Not never, bro.
- [49:00]
B
I mean, obviously not anymore in the past. Yeah, yeah. You're great father, but I could have seen it.
- [49:06]
A
Thanks, bro.
- [49:07]
B
Yeah.
- [49:07]
A
All right, guys, that's a wrap on the episode. We'll see you in 2025. Thank you. Like, subscribe, please. We're trying to hit 100k in 2025.
- [49:15]
B
Yeah, big goal. See y'all then. Pe.