Tis I, Lord Podcast. Are you yearning to equip yourself with the confidence to record?
Elijah, the skilled podcast professional, is preparing himself for a tale of tools and skill that only a mighty podcaster may employ in one's podcast journey.
Elijah, I do believe that we shall teach our weary wanderer the confidence that they strive to achieve. Shall we start a podcast?
We shall. It's settled. Let's start a podcast.
Let's start a podcast, shall we? My name is Elijah. I'm here with Marie to talk about digital content creation because it's not okay just to post as a podcaster your episode once a week and then disappear.
So we're going to go through the behind the scenes techniques, what different social applications mean and why an engineer wanted to be a digital creator. Is that cool with you, Marie?
Absolutely perfect. You nailed it. Awesome. I'm batting a thousand as the Westerners say, so that's good news. We're off to a great start.
But for you to start, engineering was your passion before you got into content creation. I think maybe you were practicing your yoga, post on your head as you are on Instagram,
and then maybe you had a realization that you really want to just sit on countertops for the rest of your life snapping photos. Is that why you got into digital creation?
It's very close. I would say very close, Elijah. So let me just clarify some things. Engineering was a passion of mine before. I had several passions.
You know, a lot of us with ADHD always have several interests. Engineering was one. And coming from an Asian country or nation family, you're either a doctor or a disappointment.
So I didn't want to be a doctor, so I had to be the other one. But I made it the goal to tell my parents, like, don't be. I'm not a big disappointment because I got into medical engineering.
And that was actually the reason why I got into Germany. So I was working as an engineer in Germany for three and a half years. But actually, even before that, in my university days, I was already indirectly, unconsciously working for marketing stuff.
I was doing graphic design. I was making events. I was doing community management, all without branding it as marketing. So when I was an engineer, like three years down the line, I kind of got bored of it.
And I was like, hmm, what can I do after? So I started doing social media on the side. I started doing community management on the side. And I was thinking, these are actually things I've already done before.
And I am also like kind of like social media obsessed that time. So I was like, oh, this is something I can do. So I said, OK, I quit my job, told myself I'll do one year of a gap year.
Never really did a gap year in my life. So this was time for me to just give myself the pause that it deserves. So I wanted to serve. I wanted to do yoga for a whole year.
But this was the changing point. I got into an accident and I broke my arm, not because of yoga. Ironically, it was because of bouldering and I broke my arm.
So I couldn't serve. I couldn't do yoga. I couldn't do all the things that I wanted to do for that whole half year.
And I was like, hmm, maybe this is the universe telling me to actually focus on my next career. And I was like, OK, what is this next career going to happen?
You know, like, of course, imposter syndrome is there. Everything is there. But then what I did have was my social media knowledge.
And at the same time, I was also working on myself. So I had my profile. My TikTok profile was like booming, grew it to like 50K in one month.
So I knew the strategies. I knew how to geek out and nerd out about these things. And that I use that to kind of like get more clients.
And the clients loved my work, you know, and then it kind of snowballed.
And now having my own like marketing agency, more focused on the creatives part as well, which is the complete 180 of an engineer.
But what I would say is it's still very beneficial because it's crucial.
The soft skills that I get from engineering, the analysis part, the problem solving part.
Those are the things that you can't really get normally in a creative aspect, right?
Creative side of world where we can't really even put metrics on it.
It really explains what goes inside of your mind as an engineer. But do you think in blueprints and designs all the time?
Do you have to develop some sort of flow charts and diagrams and pointers all over the place to get your story scripts down?
Normally with my story scripts, I just, it depends. If it's organic, I just talk from the heart normally.
Of course, there are some, some like, you know, patterns that you need to do. Everybody knows about the good hooks.
Everybody knows what to practice for the hooks and what to practice for the things that you have to say.
And then obviously your call to actions, right? But the best thing is always just like say it out loud.
Say it what you can do and then edit it right after.
When I deal with advertisements where you just have a limited time slot for that, usually 20 seconds to 30 seconds.
That's the time I kind of like do more of a plug and play with my format.
So I have like, I have like the idle format, the results and social proof formats.
I have like different ways. And normally I don't do it with the creatives I do, but I do love making flow charts for my mentor, for my mentees.
So I coach a bunch of like content creators and they have like a lot of questions about like, OK, should I charge this? Should I charge that?
What to do if it's this way? What if it's that way? And I'm like, OK, you know what?
I made this one whole flow chart that became viral in the UGC community actually about like, what if it's like this way?
What if it's that way? And I'm trying to always try to just simplify things.
And yeah, I love making flow charts, actually.
Fantastic. You found TikTok seems to come really easy to you.
You have no issues with that. But is there a particular social platform that just makes your head scratch and confuses you?
To get it moving or have you excelled at all the social platforms?
I don't want to be a brag, but I did. So yeah, I did excel at all social media platforms.
But the platform that I absolutely like just hate to start again is Instagram.
And not because I don't get results, but you need patience with Instagram.
It's not an overnight success, even with my clients' Instagrams.
It's all about consistency. So a lot of my clients, it's like when you start posting basically the algorithm awards consistency.
So your first two months, you have to start posting almost every day.
And even that, it's not going to there's not going to be a lot of reach, a lot of like comments.
But then suddenly the third month, it just becomes like, boom, like crazy.
And I don't know how that works. I don't know when exactly it will be.
But I've done it for like three, four clients already who've been working with me.
And that's why I also have like a three to six month retainer with clients, because it never happens just in the first month in terms of like organic growth.
Right. With everything else, Twitter, I kind of know a little bit about it as well.
And with anything with creatives, it's just really easy, especially to figure out what catches people's attention.
When you say consistent, are you talking about every four hours, every once a week, every day, same time?
Or is there a special sauce that without giving away your secrets?
I like giving away my secrets. Like that's the reason why like clients like to work with me.
Like they know exactly what I'm doing. They just need someone to do it for them.
So for me, what I always do is it's an everyday once a day post. Sometimes you do two times a day.
We don't usually use a scheduling tool for reels, but for photos we do.
And this is coming from a trial and error testing all the time.
You know, I love data, like I said, and from data, that's what I saw that like if you post the reels by yourself manually, that makes it even easier.
And it gives more reach.
Obviously, you're using also the trending audio of Instagram right there.
And at the same time, doing the engagement as well.
So figuring out which times your audience is available is really key for your static posts.
Whereas for reels, which is like a discovery, kind of like already being a discovery platform, it doesn't really matter as much.
But you need to make sure that you're using the right trending audio.
The trending audio and aesthetics seems to be a real thing with consistency on Instagram.
In TikTok, I've heard rumors that it's more organic or just talking off the cuff or just going at something and being more real.
Is there any truth to that or have you found a particular vibe on TikTok?
No, no, no. That's also how I started. I wouldn't say it's all being real.
I know a lot of people who get viral is because they have dedicated scripts and it's like a plug and play.
You know, you just change some wording and everything.
And that's because we know what the audience wants. Right.
And TikTok is all about unhinged content. It's nothing about aesthetics.
Obviously, if you're a brand in photography or if you're a brand in, let's say, content creation, and that is your unique selling point.
Obviously, you have to do something like in the aesthetic side.
But TikTok is more about relatability, about being human and making sure that you're making a community out of the people that are watching your videos.
So the best way to do that is to push out relatable content and to do something viral, you have to make sure that you add a little bit.
You can either do controversy or relatability or inspirational. And that's what the reason why people are sharing.
Obviously, there are also like these point metrics that I can't really like say if it works or not.
But like they say, like, you know, the number of shares is the best metric for to for TikTok to push it out.
Then the number of comments, then the number of saves, then the number of likes is the last one. Right.
So those are also the things that you have to consider.
So when you think about posting, you know, posting a TikTok or if you already posted a TikTok, you figure out in your videos, I was like, OK, there's not a lot of there's not a lot of shares.
It's not a shareable content. How do I make another TikTok that is actually shareable?
You know, but in the whole organic strategy of a brand, you don't have to make sure that every single content that you make is shareable.
Because at the end of the day, what you need is more sales, at least for Econ Brands, which is the reason that I'm making, which is my target audience.
So we would always push out like like an alternate between reach ability, scalability of videos, figuring out how to make it viral and another set of videos, which is more about nurturing the community.
So like pushing out more more content that's only towards the people that are already following us and and like directing them to our websites.
And obviously, these ones are the ones that are not like performing well, but doesn't mean that even though it's not a lot of views doesn't mean that it's not converting.
That's the main thing, the converting or whatever the purpose or desired outcome is.
That's the goal. But a lot of people think reaches the important thing are the numbers.
But you're right. Converting is that big deal, because as a business, you want clients.
Exactly. I mean, a lot of people are selling views.
They would be like, yeah, I can make more videos with more views. And for me, that's not just the views that I'm of course, I'm selling views, but that's not all I'm selling this strategy of how to actually bring more people into your website and or more people to converse with you, depending on what is your your what is your goal as well.
You know, I have some brands where they don't really need more sales, but they need more community, more people to know about them. So a lot. So then I'm pushing out more content that makes people talk in the comments as well, you know, and we're using that comments actually to create more content in the future.
So it's like it's a good thing, actually. It's it's a great effect you're causing. Absolutely.
When people want to reach out to you to get the effect of social media, where do they find you? Normally they found me on my TikTok and on my Twitter.
And these are for econ brands, usually. And I'm also very active on LinkedIn. And LinkedIn is more for people and founders who want to improve their personal brand on TikTok. I also do some consultations.
And, yeah, a lot of I'm more or less everywhere, but those are the three main main platforms that I'm using.
Do you have a consistent handle across all platforms or do people just know you, Marie?
Sorry. My my candle is Guma Mela Studios. That is a G-U-M-A-M-E-L-A Studios. I had to also make sure. Is that correct? Guma Mela is the name of the hibiscus flower in my home country in the Philippines.
And it's something that I've been using all throughout. So if you find Marie with a flower, that's most probably going to be me. And it's it's also in line with my branding, which is like the island girl in marketing.
I'm always the island girl. You've talked about this outside of the podcast. Like I love surfing. It's something that I can see myself all the time. And I also bring the island vibes whenever you work with me.
It's great that you take a piece of your home country with you, even on the digital space, which is really cool. I love that, too. If you want, I'll put it to everything in the show notes, your website, your Instagram's all the handles across the social so people can find the island girl without having to put in too much effort.
Don't want to get lost on the way to the island.
Well, they were more than welcome to visit me in my island. It's always something that I love doing.
I'll visit as long as you don't make me stand on my head doing anything else. I'd be up for it. I can teach you. Awesome.
I you need a lot of patience, but we could try. That's okay.
You talked a bit about LinkedIn, about founders and business people. But is there besides a stuffy, I have a suit and I need to be a bit of artificial, it seems, and be a guru. Is there any kind of specific vibe that you see LinkedIn moving to or that is right now?
LinkedIn changes a lot. And I've been on LinkedIn for less than a year, but more or less 10 months already. And most of the time, I'm just like lurking. I'm figuring out what's the best way.
Obviously, having to make content for LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter and Instagram is a lot of work. So sometimes I'm like, okay, let me just like look into LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a lot of I absolutely love LinkedIn.
Actually, it's it's forget about your idea of what LinkedIn was back in 2017 2018. Because it's completely different. It's right now my whole feed is just filled with absolutely, absolutely chunks of gold nuggets.
I learned more about AI by my LinkedIn friends than I do just, you know, going on YouTube or going on on Facebook. I learned a lot more about copyright thing, which is something that I I need more for myself as well.
Reading posts on LinkedIn, and it changes a lot back in early early 2023. A lot of posts about LinkedIn about your personal life, you know, like just me like loving yoga and loving surfing.
Those are the ones that are actually performing well, whereas now what's performing more is something that is indeed related to your niche and related to what you're working on.
Which is actually hard for me because I have two different businesses. One is this marketing agency and the other is this retreat business that I'm making.
So I'm kind of like putting more about the personal life for the retreats as my passion project and I'm like, LinkedIn algorithm, please make sure that it's related to the work that I'm doing.
But yeah, this is the things that are working. These are the things that are working right now. A lot about like how to post as well. A lot of like cheat sheets are working really well right now.
So make sure that if you're to start on LinkedIn right now, figure out a way to give value and actionable value to the community.
Awesome. So it's going in the right direction, which is great to see. And there is a lot more personal information. Try to be relatable.
I think after the pandemic, people just need to be more digitally aware, be networky or businessy or whatever it is or be more human.
And those hot tips or secrets or even personal stories came out. Even if it is surfing or yoga or you see somebody kooky, quirky Canadian like me posting a camel.
On a Wednesday because I want to entertain myself. And if everybody wants to join me, that's great. If not, then at least I'm having a good time. A good time though.
Exactly. Right now I'm just bringing a lot of people together in real life meetup.
So a lot of the things are really resonating with people because obviously we are the ones who got stuck in our rooms during pandemic, building up our own businesses.
And now post pandemic, we're still by ourselves normally, you know, lacking some connections with other entrepreneurs.
So a lot of people are actually really interested in like meeting up. And it's all because of the posts that we've been doing on LinkedIn.
The media is a little more cautious about Twitter. And I don't know if people on Twitter are networking as much because of the posts, but the media really thinks of Twitter as a dumpster fire.
And I wondered if you have resonated with Twitter, what your thoughts of it are without going too far into the political space and maybe kind of get the vibe if it's a good spot to be in or not.
Great. I would say I'm actually in that to Twitter because it was the start of my freelance career.
I got a lot of clients through there because my target audience were e-com business owners and ad agencies.
So the e-com business owners, the ad agency owners, they're all there on Twitter and they have their own world. They have their own bubble.
Same goes as content creators, UGC creators having their own bubble on Twitter as well.
And right now I'm actually having a hard time trying to rebrand because I used to be Marie the UGC creator.
And now I want to be more than just a UGC creator. I actually have my own agency as well.
And in terms of like the things that we love about Twitter, it's still there and it still gives a lot of opportunities.
It has a lot of ways to network as well because it's kind of like a community as well.
So if you're looking for ad agency owners, the best way, go to Twitter. If you're looking for creators, the best way, go to Twitter.
But in terms of creating like genuine connections, I would say Twitter is my least favorite.
Just because people are easy, because a tweet lifespan is around, it could vary from 30 minutes to just four hours, maybe even more if it gets viral.
But because the Twitter lifespan is so short compared to an Instagram one or compared to a TikTok one,
people are less aware and less intentional about the effects of what they're posting.
So a lot of rants, a lot of negative energy.
I'm not saying that it needs to be a place of butterflies and rainbows, you know, but it is something in that way.
So if people want to go on Twitter, they have to understand that that is the kind of audience or the kind of content that they're consuming.
And me being in the spiritual side as well and telling you I'm like a yoga teacher,
I know that like consuming a lot of this negative energy, you would also have to get it out of your system in some way.
So unless you're really mindful about your thoughts and your actions, those negative energy can also affect you a whole lot more than you think.
Hence, I have those things. Opportunity-wise, it's there.
But to which extent, it's only up to you to figure out.
Have you had a chance to figure out threads?
Have you even bothered to jump on there? Being an Instagram, it's easy to hop on, right?
I did. I did. Yeah, I did for a few three days.
It's technically still banned in Europe. Oh, yeah.
But considering that I did have my Apple Store in Canada and everything's still there, so it was easy.
I'm one of the few people from Europe, you know, who actually have access to threads.
It was amazing on the first few days because everybody just didn't really know how to navigate this app.
And everybody was just genuine. There was a lot of like really funny, relatable content.
And even for brands, you would see really like the social media managers of brands who are actually killing it. They're really great.
And right now, I think I've it's not that I stopped it.
It's just because life happened that I'm just like figuring out and focusing more on where my community is, hence focusing still more on Twitter.
And I would I love to consider myself as an early adopter, but I'm not so sure of also like where these are.
These things are going right now. Facebook, on the other hand, has been around since I think dinosaurs ruled the earth.
I mean, 2007 when I start. So I'm pretty much a dinosaur in Facebook terms.
Is it done? Is it is it gone or is there still appetite for, you know, digital creators and businesses to hop on board?
Yeah, absolutely. I would say I was one of those people who deleted my Facebook.
But then afterwards, I came back. Reason being is the Facebook is absolutely amazing for communities who for millennials up, even for agencies, actually,
because there is already an existing platform to create groups, to search for groups, you know, case in point, kind of like the place, the name of the place, then digital nomads,
because these are the communities that I want to be part of. So I would usually search for Valencia Digital Nomads or Toronto Digital Nomads or something along those lines of groups.
There is a UGC community group with 30000 people from all over the world. And people are also people are also working with each other there.
I'm part of a fractional CMO group in Facebook. And ironically, everybody there is like, I don't like Facebook, but here we are.
Right. Because Facebook is the starting point, the kickoff point for a an easier platform to go through.
Facebook, I would say, is also still working, it's working hard to get the better user experience.
My favorite is still always Slack or Discord. But Facebook is there for searchability.
Glad you said Discord, because Discord is only something a lot of people think, especially if I'm in LinkedIn or business communities, they're not techie.
They think it's for gamers and this weird thing that their kids do while they're on Xbox. What's the benefit to go into Discord beside just communities?
Is there something else I should be looking for? Box.
I mean, and I'm absolutely, I am absolutely a big fan of Discord. I'm a big fan of Discord and Slack. They're more or less the same.
I would say Slack is more towards the professional side, whereas Discord is more on the you can just easily customize a lot of things on Discord.
I'm a moderator of a group with like 30,000 people and bots are just easy because it automates a lot of things. It automates spam filters.
It automates also accepting people in the group, figuring out, for example, if you come into the group, a bot would already give you some messages.
You have verification to do and at the same time you can group people, for example, grouping people by countries or grouping people by however,
like giving them a tag, let's say, of like which country they're from or what specialty they are.
And it's also a sort of instant messaging feature because obviously, like when someone chats there,
you can like the people in that community can either have their push notifications on and it has an easy way to actually get to actually get information as fast as possible.
So those ones in terms of support, in terms of community building for me, Discord is a great tool to have.
I suppose if somebody's creating a Patreon account and this is an extra community, Discord would be probably pretty easy, pretty good to set up so you can manage those paid subscriptions and stuff
when people come into the community, join. Or if you're just a nerd like me, if it's like you, Marie, if you have time for Dungeon Dragons and Theater of the Mind,
a lot of Discord bots come in handy to roll dice and other things and explore. So, guilty, that's my pleasure at home, but that works really well.
So we've covered all the platforms pretty good. If I'm just starting out, whether it's a digital creator or business, what should I be starting to plan?
What should I be thinking about first? If we can kind of wrap it up with that.
Yeah, sure. So let's start as a digital creator because that is a completely different thing as well.
So when you're a digital creator, the first thing you have to do is find the problem in the market, right?
And that's also the reason why I started. I actually started as having... I was lucky enough that when I started, I didn't really know my offers and I didn't really know what to offer to clients,
but they came to me. But now it's completely different, obviously. So find the problem in the market.
Don't create a problem in the market, which is a lot of what a lot of people are starting to do.
Start, find a problem and figure out how you can help them. Once you know how you can help them, create a portfolio of their videos, similar to what you would propose to them.
And if you can, get some results from the videos that you've made. If you don't have any results, get testimonials.
If you don't have, I would actually consider working pro bono to get these because that's the easiest way.
But only for clients that you believe that you want to work with. You're not working for free. You're working for passion.
So those as a creator is something that you really... Like for me, when I started as a creator as well,
one of the things that really jumped up on me is because I actually worked with Snapchat.
And I was like, you know, even if I wasn't paid, I know that this will help me a lot. And it did.
I also interned with some agencies and I learned a lot from them. And even though monetary wise, I didn't get a lot,
but the amount of knowledge that I got and the amount of credibility that I got working for them was a big thing.
So those are the small things that you can do as a starting point coming from zero to one.
Obviously, when you're at one, you slowly go to two, you slowly go to three, four, five.
Maybe you'll end up at 32 and you're plateauing. And when you feel that you're plateauing,
what I would suggest really is coming from experience is to find a mentor or find a coach that can help you,
like that can help you even go further. I know when you're starting out and you're going from zero to one, zero to ten,
it's hard to invest in something. A lot of freelancers, a lot of people who are just starting out,
they don't get this idea of like in order to earn more money, they need to spend more money.
I was one of those people as well. But now I just realized that like the connections and the wisdom I get from my coaches
is so much more invaluable than how much I'm paying them.
And now you don't have to spend your time pulling your hair out or scratching your head or whatever it is you do
as stress relief to struggle through the learnings and the growth, right?
You can accelerate all that, get all that knowledge in a short period of time. So you go back to earning and celebrating you.
Exactly. I mean, really like when you're coming from, when you're leveling up, you won't ever stop having problems.
It's just that your problems will be different. My problems before were getting clients.
And my problems now is actually how to accommodate more clients.
And then maybe in the future, my problems would be also like how to build a bigger team.
So it has different problems, but you have to figure out which ones can help you in different aspects of your life.
And whether you're a podcast or digital creator or something in between,
have all the skills that the Island Girl shares with us, all the socials we understand what to do,
the approaches that we should take and then what to do in starting out.
I think you've helped accelerate everyone's dream to come true now with all your secrets.
And now we'll make sure that people come to you for help when they're ready to pay that mentor for the,
of the plateau-ness that you can offer. So thanks for all this, Marie. This has been awesome.
Do you have any wise words, final words of wisdom for everyone to take on?
Yes, always. I would say, I have so many, let me check.
But right now, based on what I'm feeling and also what a lot of people are feeling,
the best thing for me is don't bring yourself out working for a client that will never care about you.
So I'm not saying that I have a client that doesn't care about me now, but at the same time,
it's just figuring out a balance of what you're working out and what you want your life to be.
And you're, remember that you're the creator of your own life.
So you're the one in charge of your time and you're the one in charge of how your life will turn out.
So I think you should start yourself first and your happiness. Well said, Marie.
Thank you so much for your time. And now people have the power to start a podcast market
and do all the things they've dreamed of. And if they need help, they know where to find the Island Girl too.
All in the show notes, just for you. Thanks again for your time. Appreciate this, Marie. This has been great.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, my daughter podcast.