Nas Daily, Sarati, and Caspar Lee On Building A Social Media Following

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2021-11-04

YouTube video id: L8HohDjVNMw

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8HohDjVNMw

[Music]
all right
[Music]
okay hello everyone thanks for being
here let me ask the question that's
probably on all of your minds to this
group you guys are all followed by more
than a million people how do you get
followers on social media yes sir want
to kick us off wait you want me to start
come on man okay all right you're out
you're outside that's a tough question
that's why i brought my knitting in case
you asked a tough question i can just
use this the loaded question you could
start i'll start okay well all of us got
followers in different ways uh i got my
followers on tik tok first i think
for anyone who's brand new to social
media and is just getting started tick
tock is the number one place to grow
from there i took my following and took
it to snapchat once you do
um once you do get a following and you
start to understand the analytics and
how to get more views and little
strategic things to put in your videos
you can do it on all other platforms
except youtube for me i struggle on
youtube but they crush it on youtube you
know everyone everyone's different how
they build their following casper what's
the secret for youtube for youtube well
collaboration uh i know you disagree i
disagree that's why again i have my
knitting because when we have arguments
i get nervous and i get to knit my way
through it all right but uh no for me it
was huge
it was collaboration uh i was lucky
enough to be in the early days where you
could give each other shout outs and you
would grow tens of thousands of
subscribers uh through collaborating
with other creators and then further on
in my career i was able to collaborate
with the likes of people like ed sheeran
kevin hart even got to meet the queen a
couple of times i'm not sure if it was
an official collaboration or not between
her and i but to me i looked at it like
one
so collaboration is key consistency
watch time as well uh and reminding
people that they can subscribe it's free
it's supportive um and it's a great way
to receive content notifications yeah
that makes sense i guess that question
is how can this person sitting over
there get a million followers that's the
question
how tick-tock okay so i think it boils
down to three things one be interesting
just don't be goddamn boring
say something scream when you have to
look interesting say something
controversial say something that you
deeply believe in
people tend to follow
two be privileged
have enough money in the bank to focus
on content creation
or or you know like because it requires
a lot of mental effort to create content
all the time and three be consistent
when i when i
got my first ever viral video i made 270
videos that failed
so i made a thousand videos in a
thousand days so that consistency every
single day you gotta make content only
then can you get followers or people
interested in what you have to say yep
now someone brought it up earlier but i
want to ask you which platform to bet on
because
we're hearing all this stuff about
facebook the fact that instagram is no
longer so popular for kids
youtube is in direct competition with
tick tock
i sometimes wonder whether people will
have a future on youtube or instagram
and whether tic tac is the only game in
town
yeah where should people bet and are the
other platforms actually going to
continue to succeed so i'll give my take
and let's disagree
i started my journey on facebook i know
it's not a creative platform but i love
facebook we got over 38 million
followers on that platform in 13
different languages i believe facebook
has the ability to make you go viral
within a day i don't think youtube has
that ability in the last 13 years but
shorts has changed the game the general
answer is this you should be at a
platform in which there is demand for
content but not enough supply of content
tick tock blew up there's a lot of
demand for content but not enough supply
of content creators that's why you make
a video and it goes viral
so now i think tick tock has that
imbalance
youtube source has that imbalance and
linkedin
has that impact i love that
please add me on linkedin that would be
very helpful but i agree it's it's not
just about the platforms it's about
what's within the platforms for example
reels on instagram that was a great way
there was a short supply when these
platforms launched their new competitive
edge to each other
they're competing for the creators to
use that product and they know what
creators like is to get views yeah grow
their audience so when someone brings
out something new even we were talking
about snapchat earlier right when they
kind of started coming back again they
provided great incentives for creators
through the snapchat funding uh through
also giving the audience to the creators
and making it more easy
that's what everybody wants i mean
for me i did i go went from tick tock to
snapchat and i immediately blew up on
snapchat and then i really started
pushing on my instagram reels so i'll
take my tic-tock videos post them on
instagram snapchat tiktok facebook and
my youtube shorts all five and they'll
all have different reactions sometimes
they do great on tick tock and go super
viral and
are horrible on facebook and instagram
because it's such a different
audience so i mean you asked which
platform i would bet on i personally
love snapchat i i know it's different
and
they might disagree because we are
different but
gen z they're all on snapchat and if you
are trying to look for a younger
audience that's where you go the content
isn't the greatest on
on their platform but
you know the content isn't great on a
lot of platforms like netflix you uh
don't like snapchat so
no no no no no i love snapchat if
everyone is listening i love snapchat
snapchat i work with the whole nice
daily i would say this though and that's
a good point sarah is like
what audience do you want yeah yeah
if you want kids
go to youtube shorts tik tok and
snapchat if you want ceos go to linkedin
if you want technology people go to sub
stack if you want uh 25 and above go to
facebook i want 25 and above i don't
care about kids yeah
so that's why i love facebook yeah
because the audience is someone i can
relate to
so i think that boils down to
who what audience do you want but for me
i do all of them all five so i can have
this whole variety because on my
facebook which i have been growing a lot
this year
i do have 25 to 40 year olds and it's
great because i'm pregnant and starting
a family and i'm married and yeah the
kids don't really relate to me but they
do look up to it because they're like
that's what i want so i'm a goal for
people on on snapchat and tick tock and
on facebook i'm like relatable because
they're my age too so it's a nice little
variety
right there's a there's a lot of
business professionals in the audience
linkedin's come up twice which has been
a bit of a surprise
do you guys have any idea what to do on
linkedin that will actually generate a
sustainable healthy audience casper do
you have any thoughts yeah i love i love
linkedin i'm as a creator i took a
slightly different route from a lot of
creators so
um
creator collective capital is a fund i
co-founded
and we did a research report where we
looked in
to um what creators
were doing with their businesses what
kind of businesses were they launching
and
40
of the businesses were fashioned
20 were beauty
and the rest were food and fitness etc
and only one percent were b2b so i'm
like oh in hindsight i launched a b2b
company with my great co-founder ben
jeffrey is called influencer.com
and that's probably why we had a little
bit more success than if i competed with
everyone in the fashion space
and so i am obsessed with linkedin
because as a creator
i get opportunities like coming to web
summits talking saying influencer.com in
front of all these incredible people
hopefully some investors too
and i wouldn't get that opportunity as
easily not being a creator so what i'm
saying is
use linkedin if you're if you're an
entrepreneur become a creator on
linkedin because you can get these
massive opportunities
uh that you just maybe wouldn't get in
other places but that can also happen on
instagram it can also happen on facebook
but what what should people be posting
on linkedin so for me it's been more
personal thing for example i i struggle
with anxiety especially before uh
performing or public speaking hence why
i've brought my knitting also have to
finish this in time for christmas for my
mom
it's a really wonky scarf nice but
opening up about things like that more
personal not just oh my god we made a
million dollars today that kind of stuff
doesn't really work very well i think
people want to see a true behind the
scenes of what it's like starting a
company makes sense
if i were to add to that so two weeks
ago we started a linkedin show for the
first time in five years
uh and my chat with the linkedin
leadership basically made me realize
that in the next few months sixty
percent of the news feed will most
likely become video
images are dead
text is dead
so video is the future let's all agree
on that and then metaverse
uh so if the newsfeed of linkedin is
gonna be right if you you believe the
metaverse is gonna happen hundred
percent okay but you have combat against
dedicated people okay um
so 60 is going to be video again
imbalance nobody's creating video
content on linkedin that's the
opportunity your profile is going to
change i don't care about where you
studied 20 years ago i care about your
most recent post and i think the plot
the profile is going to change as well
to highlight creators a little bit more
on linkedin i also think that on
linkedin because i use linkedin i
wouldn't be here if it wasn't for
linkedin i was invited through there it
separates creators that are using social
media as a business and not just for
followers and likes when i go on
linkedin and i see other tick talkers
people on snapchat instagram that are
really using linkedin and posting
articles and sharing what's going on in
the platforms i automatically have more
respect for them because they get it's a
business and they're not just doing it
to get clout for example and let's talk
about the business side for just a
minute
now people think about social media
influence the first thing they think
about is it's a way to make money on
advertising the second thing that i
think is actually more important is what
else against you we've touched on it a
little bit in this process i mean
you and i well we've talked earlier
about how if you're relying only on
advertising you're dead and so what else
can you use a big social media following
to get outside of advertising and how
can people in the audience apply that to
their business so look people need to
remember that distribution equals money
forget ads
if you reach a million people on the
internet most likely one of them is the
ceo of a company watching your video in
the bathroom and he's like oh
we should use this person in my company
let's give him a hundred thousand
dollars
that's how the world works so when it
came to the story of nas daily i indexed
on distribution i don't care about ad
revenue 100 200 300 million views per
month
and then we built the company on top of
it in which we went to the company
people you've seen the video in your
bathroom now let's work together
and that's why now we're like 120 people
as a company we're venture backed uh we
just raised 11 million for nas academy
the investors also knew the videos and
it made the process of raising money and
hiring people 10 times easier
let's hear from this side of the stage
yeah so uh something i'm super excited
about which is the next stage of my
journey i mean launching influencer.com
we know 75 people
uh and we should say it connects brands
yeah with him so we can yeah so we do
what originally i made most of my money
as a creator doing which is brand deals
revenue through content um
and working with brands directly but
since then i i learned about venture
capital and the opportunity that comes
with that and you spoke about it
yourself and i see creators as the next
big angel investors the next big venture
capital people because they provide more
than just money they're a value add they
know what's about to happen within the
market they know what their audience
wants to see and their marketing channel
as well so they're a great value-add
investor
so at creator collective capital
we're working with the world's biggest
creators to help them diversify their
revenue streams and not just rely on ad
revenue but also venture capital as an
asset class so they can use their their
following to invest in other companies
and help give them reach exactly sarati
i just think it gives you freedom
i think having a following is is very
powerful in a lot of ways and
with me i just started my own fitness
company called sarati body and it's been
really wonderful i want to start a
health and wellness brand after i have
my child that's like my next step um but
we're also all on different levels
you've said you've been ten years in
social media five years i'm a granddad
i've been two years full-time three
years total first year really trying to
push myself and make it
so i'm at this stage of just starting
the company aspect and just starting
trying to really market myself in that
way because you also don't want to push
your followers away there's like a
middle line of how much am i going to
sell to you before you sit and go that's
too much you know so that's that's where
i'm at and in a couple of years when i
come to web summit hopefully i'll have
this like billion dollar company or you
know we'll see but it's a really
interesting um thing that you have that
freedom to do yeah and speaking of too
much uh you all have at certain points
of your life or even today
spent your life making content content
right right everybody here has to make
content for their jobs
and a lot of us burn out i know i have
how have you dealt with the burnout in
your in your work and is there anything
people out there can learn from what
you've done that they that will be able
to help them create but do it
sustainably so
for me it's just diversifying where i
get my happiness from and not relying so
much on what was my youtube channel at
the time
and i used to look at the views every
day and go like oh my god are they going
up or they're going down are they going
left are they going right and i realized
like that's all i cared about at a
certain point and i had to find out what
else in life gave me meaning and for me
a big part of that was meditation things
like
seems very silly but knitting is
something tom daley taught me about
these sorts of things can bring so much
more meaning and i think that people who
are creators they feel like they're in
this rat race because they're constantly
struggling for views against the
algorithm competing and also if they
don't have a diversified revenue source
becomes very difficult when they see
their numbers going down
so
yeah that's my take um
for me i do a couple of things number
one is screen time if you don't have
screen time on your phone i highly
suggest doing it it's something that
changed
my entire view point on social media at
the beginning of the year i was having
really bad mental health problems and
anxiety i mean you're constantly
checking your phone and when you get
thousands of comments and notifications
every day it's like that's where all my
attention goes so from 9am to 9am to 7pm
i get notifications after that i get
none until the next morning and it
allows me to actually
have a job it's like my my nine to seven
that's that's how i do both injuries
yeah and then the other thing is not
finding your worth and your views
everybody does it if you have a viral
video like
the feeling you get is just you're on
top of the world and you you can own
anything and do anything and then when
you have a bad day it just crushes you
so
yeah doing other things that provide you
happiness having good people in your
life and just putting it down for a
second and being like you know what
without this this is this like weird
virtual
thing
i'm still a person and everything's okay
can you be happy creating content on
social media for a living whether you do
it as your own person or whether you do
it for a company the answer is no i
think you can if you try to make content
and you want to be happy it is
impossible
here's why
humans are built for 150 connections 150
friends that's like for the last
thousands of years you have 150
connections max that's what your brain
can tolerate if you're a content creator
all of a sudden you have 15 million
connections
and 15 1.5 million haters
what the hell i'm not used to getting a
million hate messages
yeah no human is built for that so what
do you do find balance oh i don't
believe in balance so i think
i've found balance with it or somebody
else reads it for me i mean i do read it
to a certain extent um you have to to
just see how you're being perceived
online but
everyone is different so we talk about
this and i am very happy in mind because
i've figured out something that works
yeah all right i want to do uh um let's
do a lightning round before they kick us
off stage
a couple of questions for the panelists
number one facebook or meta
meta
better facebook oh i think i it's kind
of scary what's happening okay
um lisbon by day or lisbon by night
lisbon by day we get to be on the main
stage during the day i mean this is my
day
this is my first time here so i like all
of the place like all of the world today
see this is how you guys keep balance
you just chill at night
okay 1 000 followers or 1 000
1 000 followers one thousand followers
uh one million followers on one million
dollars one million followers a million
followers
a million followers yeah
10 minutes your money 10 million 100
million 10 million
10 million followers
1 billion followers
1 million followers 10 beliefs no 10
million followers makes you yeah more
than 10 million dollars if you do it
right
of the right platform yeah not on tick
tock hey you don't know that
i know that
different people when do you stop well
actually we're out of time but just
quickly what's your number and makes you
stop money-wise this is not a mission to
become famous okay this is a mission to
make value
you create value when you create content
therefore you should never stop
i like it
all right that's over time thank you so
much it's been a blast thank you
[Applause]