Social Media Secrets: Grow Millions and Land Brand Deals With Sophie Lightning | #110

Welcome, everybody, to the home front. This is Jeff Duden, and we are here today with Sophie Jameson. Sophie Jameson is a TikTok sensation from way back now. She started in 2019, posting two videos a day. By the end of 2020, she had gained 2 million followers. And then Nerf hired her as their first ever chief TikTok officer. She had success in that role. She was Also the chief TikTok officer at a kitchenware brand made by Gather. And today she has her own creative agency. We're excited to learn what she's doing there. Welcome to the home front. Sophie Jamison.

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Yeah, it's been great. And I've really enjoyed going through all of your content and listening to your interviews and very excited today about what we can learn because people like me struggle to understand what we're doing wrong on TikTok and why we're not instantly viral. I mean, me watching a football game and eating Cheetos seems to be interesting, but apparently not to the masses. But anyway, Sophie, would you share a little bit, maybe some highlights of your journey?

Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to. I mean, you covered it super well too, in the intro. So I started posting on TikTok back in 2019 because of the COVID pandemic. So came home from college. That was my only aspiration at the time, was get into this dream school and then got sent home to be online anyway, picked up the camera, you know, picked up the iPhone camera and was like, instead of consuming content, I'd love to just try to make it. If you scroll back, those videos were horrible. Probably even less interesting than just watching a football game and eating. Eating some snacks. But, you know, it was that two videos a day, sometimes three, sometimes four, and just really testing and seeing what would work and perfecting the craft as much as possible. There's a lot of YouTube tutorials, a lot of learning, and a lot of deleting those videos once I finally kind of figured it out.

And any unboxing videos?

Oh, back in the day. Yep.

What did you unbox?

Nerf Blasters, of course. So all the content was about Nerf Blasters. I had them lying around. It was something I loved. I love the preparation right there. That's the end series I got.

I walked out of my office for this podcast and I got smacked in the side of the head with this today. So I think that's.

That's the brand new award. Pretty new blaster.

How does it work?

Yep, you pull it Back, pull the trigger.

Oh.

One dart at a time.

Oh, geez. That's. It's got a lot of pop.

They've come a long way.

It's got a lot going. Oh, yeah.

And that, I mean, that's on the weaker category too, of things.

Sorry. Sorry, Jen. Anyway, off we go. So, so you're, you're, you're doing all that, you're, you're doing all the kinds of videos that I watched my 20, now 20 year old watch over the years, unboxing videos, product videos, just all of that kind of stuff. So you're all into it. And oh, by the way, you were playing soccer at the time. No.

Yeah. So I had just gotten a blood diagnosis of Von Willebrand, so it's a blood clotting disorder, so I couldn't play contact sports anymore. And I, I'm not even going to lie, I was a very good goalkeeper. So that was, that was a challenging time for me. So that's another reason why I picked up the Nerf Blasters. Can't paintball or Airsoft, but you know, those are just quite. Not powerful enough to leave a bruise. So they were the perfect solution.

Awesome. Awesome. And Nerf did a, they ran, they ran an ad for somebody, for a chief TikTok officer, which was probably the first of its type of.

It was, it was the world's first. Yeah.

And it came across, it came across your screen. And how did you react to that?

I will never forget that I got a, I got an email from my PR rep at Nerf and was like, oh, we're doing this. And then it was like what I imagine is like getting drafted to the NFL or something. Just constant ringing on the phone of people calling me and being like, nerf, just put this out. You have to apply, you have to do this. My optometrist called me, my like old 8th grade school teacher, like people I didn't even know had my number, were sending me this and saying, you need to apply. And I was like, I've already applied. Like, we're good, I got it covered, don't worry. And then, yeah, applied by making TikTok, which was cool. And then had a formal interview. And I'll never forget this either. They, they called me a couple hours later and they're like, can we FaceTime you? We just have to ask you a question. Like we forgot to ask during the interview, but it was actually to tell me that I got the job. And they screen recorded that video, which I'm still like, please delete that. Wherever it is. Because I just started crying on the spot. Cause I was that excited.

That's fantastic. So, so you're. How old were you at the time?

19. 19.

Okay. And you're, you go into corporate and you're dealing with who, who's in the room.

Yeah. So it's, it's the whole marketing team all the way up to the chief marketing officer. I'm working directly with like kind of an associate marketer, head of social type of position.

Okay. And they're staring at you saying Jameson makes the magic. Basically.

It was pretty, it was, it was actually pretty chill at first. It was, it was, you know, we love what you're doing, keep doing it and do it for our channel. But then after, so it was a temp 3 month position and after the 3 months they extended it to be like a year long contract and that's when there was definitely a lot more pressure. This is no longer just like a press grad that we have the chief TikTok officer. It's you know, really go and excel in this position, find influencers, work with them, copyright, plan out the calendars. So the level of responsibility really increased after those three months.

Did that position become more of a regular staple inside of consumer facing brands after that?

Yeah, without that title, you know, without the press grabbing title. Absolutely. That type of position is now pretty commonplace.

Okay. And you did a similar position at Kitchen Maid.

Yeah. Made by Gather. So they have a Drew. Drew Barrymore's Beautiful by Drew Walmart collection. So it was quite different from their Flusters air fryers. It was a good time though.

So content on TikTok, very raw, very real under produced type content did well. Obviously it was, it all started with people just dancing and all of that.

Lip syncing. Yeah.

How has the platform evolved and how have more commercial focused businesses been able to take advantage of it?

Yeah, I mean it's a, it's a completely different app than, than when it started and it is definitely becoming incredibly useful on marketing teams. I always say that you're missing out. It's going to become table stakes if you're not on TikTok. It's. It's equal to not being on Instagram which has become, I feel like almost every brand at least has an Instagram presence. So that front of it, the ability to just reach this incredibly large untapped group of possible consumers and people who are engaging with your content is nothing that we've seen on a different platform. Just that one video really can reach these exceptionally high view counts and the algorithm is just really, really intelligent when it comes to placing the correct content on the right feeds. It's really special. And it's also really changed how brands show up in a lot of ways. They do get to be that more real, less produced, a bit more cynical, silly type of content where we feel a little bit more humanized and connect with the brand on a different level, which I think is so important and is just going to become continually more prevalent. We see it on X, formerly known as Twitter right now, a lot of brands being as, you know, trying to be as relatable as possible and that's just going to continue to grow.

In terms of audience size versus Instagram and X and other platforms. Where does TikTok rank right now?

Yeah, I mean it's right up there, right. They're all super similar. It's more, in my opinion, the amount of content that's being consumed on the app, the amount of time spent on it, which is higher than these other platforms. And then of course that algorithm like the ability to send content more towards people because typically you're not even seeing the people that you follow as content, whereas Instagram, that's primarily what's showing up on your page. You're seeing completely new people and completely new content every single time you swipe pretty much. So just the limit of discovery is non existent.

What do you mean by towards people?

Where did I use it?

So you said the ability to send content towards people on TikTok is different and I haven't heard that before. Usually you're trying to attract people to watch your stuff. Maybe you're doing some paid to try to serve it up to people and I don't know if that's what you mean on TikTok or is it something different?

Yeah, I mean, I just always think about it different. You're going to make a video that you're trying to get served to certain people, but there's also this wild card factor where the algorithm knows like at some point in that video if it's a skit, maybe they've never ever interacted with the product, but if they consume skit content regularly, it's still getting sent to them. So, so that's, that's kind of what I meant.

Yeah, got it, got it. And then con rules around what makes great content. If I was, if I had a company today or a small business, what would you, what would the template look like for me? How often would you tell me to post? How would you tell me to make it? What types of Things would, would we want to post around and you know, give me some guidelines.

I love that question. So for TikTok, I would do three to five posts a week. The more the merrier. But there's this expectation right now of that two a day, which unless you really can support it, and every time you're putting out a video, it's quality. If you're just putting it out to hit a certain number, that's, that's a terrible strategy. So really prioritizing quality over quantity, but still hitting, you know, that three to five versus one to two a week, the first three seconds of your video are the most important. That's pretty true to all social, but especially on TikTok, they are already scrolling by the time you start talking or by the time your video begins. So you have to basically get them to stop what they're doing and remain on the content. That's how quickly people are scrolling through. So that initial hook is incredibly important. Learning from every single video, it's going to differ for each brand. The, the audience that's viewing that content is different for every single piece of content. So looking at the analytics at five seconds in, we lost 70% of viewership. What did I do? Did I look away from the camera? Did I pose a question? And they didn't respond well to the question, what did the, the frame cut? And we're in a new environment. They didn't like the environment. So it's, it's learning as much as you possibly can from each video and then engaging with that community. I would say, you know, reply to as many comments as possible. Listen to what they're saying. If they suggest a video, that's not bad, that's not like stealing from them. Give them credit and make that video. If a lot of people are asking for it, like, some of my most successful content has been completely from the fans. Here's what we want to see. Here's our favorite content. Like, please post this more and really listening and using that. And then trends are another one. I see a lot of brands, that's their entire social strategy. Please don't do that. You cannot force a trend into every single product that you have. It's just not going to work. I like to do one trend bi weekly, but it's super rough. It depends on what's going on and if it relates. If you're really trying too hard, people will know. That's my biggest piece of advice. Don't try too hard to be relatable. Don't try too hard to Be trendy because people are going to call you out. So just be authentic and real and.

Yeah, okay, so I want to, I had hooks and trends as categories of things that I wanted to talk about. So we, we talked about hooks. I do have some. Maybe, maybe let's go back to that first three seconds of a video. So on this podcast, something that we watch very closely is, you know, initial duration, how long do the, how long do people listen before they start dropping off? Now we understand that the shorts are important because I might just be running out for lunch and I've got seven minutes to get to where I'm going to lunch. So I'm going to look for a piece of content to consume in the car. That's going to be a short. I'm not going to load up an hour and 11 minute podcast. I mean, we have hour and 46 minute podcasts. So you know, those have their purpose. But whatever we put out there that we expect people to try to listen all the way through or fit into some sort of a gap, like we understand, like it needs to be good right away. If I log, if I, if I pull up a piece of content on YouTube or Instagram or anything, and if it's, if it doesn't immediately grab me, then I'm, I'm going away from it. And now you do have the ability in the title to create some sort of a fomo. Like, oh, this is what I'll give. If something has a good hook in the title, I'll give it a little bit more time to get, to get to it if I want to do that. But like, so how long is the average tick tock? Like, what's a, what's the length of a tick tock?

20 to 30 seconds is really what the majority are.

Okay, so you got 20 or 30 seconds. The first three seconds has to get them to invest in the last 30 seconds of it. And to your point, there's all kinds of reasons that people lose interest in a piece of content. And, and so in terms of those hooks, like you gave us a couple of great examples, people looking away from the camera. What are some other things that need to happen, absolutely need to happen in that first three seconds. What are your goals for that first three to five seconds?

Yeah, great question. So it's framing up what those next 30 seconds are gonna entail. Most importantly, here's what I can expect. So whether that's through the title or through the opening conversation, copy sometimes too can be really helpful on that. If, if they're Getting bored. Maybe you can grab another couple seconds for them to read your caption and then it will re engage them into the video. So just really framing what's about to happen and then getting to the point as quickly as possible, you can use. You know, there's tips and tricks. Fast transitions are always great, like cutting between. But sometimes that's just not the type of audience that you want to reach or, you know, we're working. If you're, you know, you know, targeting older generations, typically that's less actually of a reason for them to stay. Whereas a younger generation, they really want to see those fast cuts. So it's so much more about storytelling, original content. If it's something that I've already seen somebody do a million times, there's no reason for me to watch it again if I've already seen a bunch of brands do it, if I already know what's happening. So you have to give them something, whatever it may be, entertainment, knowledge, information. There has to be something that they can scroll away and say, I gained this from that video. And it can be a laugh, it can be, it can be entertainment. I was thoroughly engaged for 30 seconds. Or it can be a fun fact or a new product that they want to try or information. But making sure that you frame the video properly and then give them what you framed up is really important.

Got it in our sum. So I'm trying to think about this. If I'm a, if I have a specific business goal, are some clips that you're going to put up, what do you call them? Talks or ticks? Did I just, Did I just show you my age? So that was great. Okay, some are going to be for reach, right? This is entertaining. It's funny, you know, somebody smacked into a wall and crazy thing happened and blah, blah, blah, and like. And that's going to be something that people are going to share. They're going to watch probably more than once because it was really interesting and really cool. So there's just, there's just like reach there. The other side of it is like, well, at what point do we get to product education and how do we. Like, okay, so what, these people showed me this really funny video, but like, what's the point to the business inside of that? So do you break it down into categories where you say, well, this one's going to be for reach, this one's going to be for engagement, this one's going to be liked, shared or whatever, and then. And then here's one. Or do you have to try to get it all in a single piece of content.

Yeah, that. That's a great question, too. So I think the majority of the time for myself and this like that influencer marketing of incorporating product, that's what I got. Forbes 30 under 34. So this is like my area where I love talking about this. So typically it's in the back of my mind. Right. So you want to try to hit as many boxes as you can, give people different reasons to remain on that video. But a lot of times what will happen is we'll have an influencer who is already making content, and then we want to seamlessly integrate a product and that product knowledge into the video to the point where people are commenting. I didn't even know this was an ad. This didn't even feel like an ad. So if we're trying to push something like Link in Bio, you know, that's going to be a little bit of a different. We're going to have a call to action in there. But the video itself still needs to feel authentic to the channel and not like they were just paid to do it. Not like they kind of sold their soul in that situation. So it has to relate to the creator who's doing it as well. And so for me, Nerf Blasters, I'm not going to go do leggings. You know, that's. The amount of legging requests I get is crazy. So I'm not going to do clothing really, on. On my channel, but I'm going to do other blaster brands, that type of thing. And then when you're doing it from a brand perspective, if I'm in house creating that content, I'm definitely thinking, is this one for Reach? Then we're going to definitely form it out a little bit differently. What are they gaining from this? But at the end of the day, it should be pretty similar and still follow those. Those core beliefs.

So it's like Reach, Trust education. Those would be some. Some things, some boxes that you want to check on that. All right, well, okay, so, so. So let's. Let's play a game here. We have a fencing brand called Top Rail Fence.

Okay.

And, you know, if I was going to say that we're going to really focus on that brand for TikTok, then I would have what fencing accidents? I would have people driving through fences. I would have people falling in holes. I mean, what. You know, it would be, you know, here's the way to. Here's the way to, you know, an interesting way to put in a fence pole or something. Like that. But, but something to me, like, okay, that's pretty cool. But it's clearly going to be in and around fencing and it's going to be to try to grow that channel. And then once we have the channel growth, you can maybe do you change the concentration of educational, product focused stuff? Because now people have trust of that channel and they're going to give you a little bit more time. What's the strategy there? To take a new brand that's not currently big on TikTok in any way and then say, all right, it's going to be a six month, eight step, you know, market launches. Am I, am I over the target here?

No. Yeah, it's going to be a sprint. Not, yeah, you're going to go for it. So to, to begin, you're going to post as much content as you possibly can that's still remaining quality, but you're going to try as many things as possible. So if it's a fence, we're going to try skits, we're going to try like asmr, we're going to try instructional videos, we're going to put up those compilations of.

What do you mean by asmr? Is that like combing the hair of.

The fence or like, you know, installing the fence? I'm sure that there's some nice, like woodworking noises or some type of like talk show style, like between the fence with my neighbor playing to those types of things. Skits. I, I always love to do, like bring a sense of humor into it or like my fence is better than your fence, that type of thing.

And then there's a lot, there's a lot of creative. Like this is heavy, heavy creative.

Absolutely. That's how you're going to stand out. The occasional trend sprinkled in there. The occasional, you know, pretty baseline, but then as creative as possible.

Okay, so let's go to trends. When I heard you talk about trends on another podcast. So a trend, an example of a trend would be, and you said it's like if you don't hit it in the first 24 hours, you might as well not do it. So there's, there's some video or something people are doing that has nothing to do with your product and it's just going bananas. And then, so sometimes what I'll see is there'll be a piece, I'll want to see something and I'll keep seeing it, but I recognize it's on all these different people's channel. So I'm liking it, but I'm Liking it on their channel, it wasn't their piece of content. Is that an example of a trend?

Yeah, yeah.

Use of a. Use of a trend.

Yeah, yeah.

What, what, what, what? Like practically walk me through like, like how you use a trend.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So that earlyness is super important. Getting on top of it as quickly as possible. And sometimes it's predictive. Even this is something that it's going to trend. And a lot of times it's either a trending audio or just something completely random. It's usually like this random person posting a TikTok and then all of a sudden it does really well. That's how the whole very demure, very mindful trend came about. Um, and then so you, you see that instantly and then you bring it internally and you say, can I make this fit into a brand? And the very demure, I think is a great example because that can be form fitted into almost any piece of content. Even with fences. You could be like, look at my beautiful blue fence. Very demure, very mindful, like that type of content. Um, got it.

Are we, are we, are we targeted at people or are we targeted at the algorithm? Because the algorithm's going to pick up on the trend and serve it more.

Both. Both. Absolutely. Great point. Yeah. So the algorithm is going to serve it and then it's your job to keep them. And if it's a trend, like you're saying that one, we like to see how it fits. Probably going to watch a couple of that same type of trend style, even if it's with different brands, even if it's the same kind of concept.

Got it, got it. This is, this is, you know, it's not free because time, energy and production and all this type of stuff, but it seems very cost effective. Talk to me about the, the use of dollars. You know, like, is there, is there a lot of boosting? Is the boosting something that is like. Well, if you, if you can get it organically, then that's always going to be better, but you can maybe buy your way into play or how does that work on TikTok?

Yeah, so I, this one grinds my gears sometimes. You can't force it. You really, you, you can't force it. I don't care how many times you throw something in people's face, if they don't want to watch it, they're not going to watch it. So I always say if it's performing above benchmark of the channel, then that's performing well organically, in my opinion. Then we can talk about putting paid behind it because we know that once people see it, they're engaging with it and watching it. So if we have a video that has a 20% engagement rate, that's great. I want to send that out to people, I want to continue that conversation. But I'm not going to put out a video even if I love it, right? Even if I love it, if it's not performing well, I'm not going to just throw money at it and kind of hope and pray for the best. A lot of times what that money is actually going towards is the user generated content or in house content creators. So to come in and make that content or to, to repurpose it. And I also love, you know, influencer collaborations as well. So it's always a good combo, a little media mix. But yeah, never boost something that just because you want to put out for a campaign. Like if we're doing a campaign for a product launch, I'm making five or six videos and then seeing which one promotes performs best and then putting spend behind it.

Got it. That makes all the sense in the world. It's a little bit counterintuitive because if you're producing crap content but you, but you want it to do well, right? You're like, well maybe, maybe if I show it to more people they'll like it. But that's not the case. You're just, you're basically just putting it in people's face and they're saying we still don't like this and you know.

And now we're annoyed.

Yeah, thanks. Now we're annoyed and thanks for the, thanks for the nickel.

Yeah.

When you engage with an influencer, are we paying these people like lump sums? Are we saying we'll do this together and then we're going to boost it or some combination of lots of different, different or, or I guess it could even be some back end, right. If there's a product sale or something with it, there could be rev share or something like that. Probably all those different ways.

Yeah, that's, that's all over the place. So many different ways to, to activate an influencer. But I am incredibly passionate about respectable pay for influencers and understanding their value to the company especially you know, coming from that side. Myself, I still work with brands on pretty large deals for my personal channel. So it's respecting those creators enough to pay them what they're worth up front. Commission is great, but it should never just be commission. It should never just be product. They're actively working on something. They know what they're doing, so trust them. I hate briefs. Please do not write an influencer, a script ever. You are not them. Like, you cannot do it as well as them and always pay them at least even 50 bucks if they're a micro creator, but just give them something.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. We, yeah, you know, we're, we are here on the home front. You know, we've had different sponsorship opportunities. We haven't taken them. We don't want to promote something that we don't use. You know, we, we have a real purpose for what we're doing. It's really to support our franchise owners, to create reach inside of that. So that, and there, there's a real, there's a real race for technology in the home services space. So if I can get an, an owner, a founder of a really cool piece of technology onto the podcast, it helps us get that deal done with them. So there's. That also national accounts. If there's people that, you know, can give all of our franchise owners some work and we need to work our way into that, we can generally get an introduction. But if you can get somebody on the podcast and we spend an hour together, it is. The whole relationship just goes better and farther. And then of course, just exposing, you know, as we, as we're developing reach inside of this, then as we bring all of our brands forth and be able to start doing some of the things like you're talking about there it just all, you know, but like we're very much in laying the foundation.

Yeah.

With trying to create credibility, know like, and trust and those types of things right now. But the other side of it is, you know, to your point, it's, you know, there's a, there's a way to do this and there's a way to. There's a way to go right at it. So, you know, we're trying to figure out, you know, how to take the success that we've had here and evolve that and each platform, fortunately or unfortunately, they're all at different life cycles. They all have different ways that you need to approach them. People are in ways to be successful on them.

Hey, that. I think that's. Fortunately, that's a lot of. That's way more fun. Way bigger of a puzzle to solve. Yeah, absolutely.

So TikTok specifically key numbers that, that you look at. I know that we, you know, I know what our numbers are on YouTube and Instagram and all of that. But what are, other than view duration, what are some of the key things that, that you look at. To evaluate a TikTok account. Did you evaluate our TikTok account before you came on?

I did not. I should have.

Okay.

I could have bought a.

It would have taken a long time, I tell you that. I mean, there's literally dozens of views on that channel. But what do you, what do you look at?

I've been in the trenches with social audits recently, so I, I should, I should have jumped on yours.

All right. But yeah, send me a note, let me know what you think.

We're looking at. Engagement rate, first and foremost, that's the most important thing to me. Are they liking sharing and commenting on this video? Are they engaging with it or just passively consuming it and then scrolling view like the vanity metrics are always such a point of contention. The views and the follower count, they matter absolutely. But they should not be the end all be all at the end of the day. Also, focusing on what makes the brand happy and what makes the person making the content happy. I always like to just point that out too. If you have a really like viral series, but it is kind of painting your brand in a bad light or something you don't enjoy doing. If you're a creator, you don't have to just submit yourself to that. You can always find another solution in another. Another piece of content that performs well. And also dev view count, maybe it just got luckily picked up by the algorithm. It's getting sent out. But then if nobody's commenting on it, then it's. It's really not doing much for you. Follower count, of course, matters. That's people that are, you know, committed to seeing what else you're putting out and maybe learning more. That's going to be the people that you're going to have conversations with. They're going to be commenting on your posts. I also really like commenting in general and then looking at the likes of the comments. So sometimes, you know, I'll go leave a witty comment. There's this rapper, I am absolutely like every single post he has, he has a bejeweled. That's the worst word possible. But he has a diamond like Nerf blaster necklace. So those always get so many likes. Those comments. If I go on a Sophie Lightning and say like, you stole my necklace or something like that, and then when Those are getting 50,000 likes, that's also translating into follower count. So seeing, you know, engaging with other community members and seeing how those posts perform, being witty in that angle. Shares are the most important metric for the TikTok algorithm. So if someone is sharing your post to a friend. It's also a huge compliment if you really think about what that really means. It means I enjoyed this so much that I want to share it with someone else. That's the highest praise I feel like you can get as a creator. So that's. That's a fantastic metric to look at. And yeah, just making sure that it's. I just want to nail this into people, make sure that it's content that you enjoy too. That's like the most important metric. Don't post a video if you personally wouldn't watch it unless it's for a completely. We're talking an extreme brand example or something like that. But most of the time, like, if it's not something you would consume, then people, who else is going to consume it?

Yeah, we learned that lesson on the podcast. And I think there's a lot of AI tools out there, and they're saying, hey, you know, create. Well, you see it, right? Hey, create 100 pieces of content a day using this AI tool. And, you know, we. We had various. It was weird, kind of getting our feet underneath us on the podcast. We had various partners and outsources and things like that. And, you know, hey, look, we can edit the whole podcast and create a bunch of shorts using this AI tool. We would look at these things and it'd be like, yeah, I mean, they. There's complete sentences, but it makes no sense. And we chose to go with a smaller number of releases, but things that we actually list, curated ourselves that were interesting to us. And we're fortunate to have talent on the team to be able to do the editing and to. And to create the clips. They're more underproduced than they used to be, so they don't have all the bells and whistles and things going across them. But it's like, this is an interesting piece. And it just, you know, we started marching right up the hill when we focused on just quality over quantity inside of the podcast. Now, one thing we did learn too, and I'm interested in your thoughts on that, is. And this took a while. I was actually in a marketing mastermind, and everybody in there had had a podcast for a long time, and they said, you know, we gave up on new customer acquisition through the podcast because you can't attribute it really. But so they say we're not using it for converting new people as customers, but it's very effective for convincing people. So not converting, but convincing. And you see things all the time on social media where, hey, click in the Click in the link in the bio and get your free $97 offer to this, that, and the other thing. And I'm like, okay, that would be. If I was interested in that, I would probably click there. Do you have an opinion on that? Are your more successful TikTok channels for, like, small consumer kitchen. KitchenAid. Right. Small consumer purchases, I would assume. I don't know what you. What the main products were in the. Made by gathering.

Yeah. Air fryers.

I mean, yeah, air fryers. Like this thing. I don't know what this thing cost. This. I am holding up a nurse.

999.

999.

Okay.

So, like, like, you know, it's more to remind me that or to convince me that, oh, I've got a kid's birthday coming up and I'm definitely just scribble. You know, now that I've seen people getting shot with Nerf guns in all different ways, I'm definitely going to be buying eight Nerf guns for the party. Right. I mean, I think that's it.

Yeah. Yeah. And this is a. Another constant battle in. In this area is, okay, but how many blasters did you sell? Like, this is great, but how many did you sell? And you have to realize that it's just a different purpose, and it's a very important purpose as well. Like, sure, if somebody's in the aisle and they're actively about to purchase an air fryer, I want them to remember that video and say, I'm gonna purchase Drew Barrymore's air fryer because of that TikTok. That's not something you can. You could never measure that. And that's what affects a lot of people's decisions, especially, like, a regular consumer in the aisle. They're going to remember that one TikTok video and know that this Nerf blaster Sophie Lightning approves of. That's great. But chances are they're not ready to buy a Nerf blaster when they're scrolling on TikTok in their bed and they see that video.

Yeah, I mean, like, you can't. You're not going to buy something you've never heard of. If you are going to buy something you never heard of, it's because you're in the aisle. There's two air fryers there, and you have to pick one.

Yeah.

So now you're going to read the box. You might, you know, you might pull your phone out and go and look at reviews, which would be reasonable for somebody to do, but you're giving them home. Like the. The. The the box is giving them homework to do right there. Where if I recognize the one, you know, hey, man, if I'm looking for an indoor grill and I mean, and I see a George Foreman, I'm buying it. You know, I've, I've, I've always wanted one. I've just never had the opportunity to really have a need for one. But if I get a, if I get a, if I get an indoor grill, I'm getting a George Foreman grill.

And for sure you made a great point there. Because my generation, we're not looking at reviews, we're not going on Amazon in that aisle. We're going on TikTok and searching that product name. So really, if there's a video with 10 million views, even if it's completely silly, if it's using that product, then chances are I would be like, this is the, this is the air fryer I should purchase. So just getting that awareness can then affect people's decisions later on.

Wow. Who knew? All right, so on that, I'm just, just letting that soak in.

I know, I know, it's crazy. I don't, I haven't googled something in very long time.

Really? Yeah, it still works. All right, so let's move into obviously deep expertise inside of the platforms that we're talking about here. But you created Lightning Media and Sophie Lightning was your channel. That was your online name. I read somewhere that it was a whole, that you got that nickname playing soccer.

Wow. Deep research.

Yeah, yeah, Deep research. I went to TikTok.

Yeah. Yep. It was the chant, Sophie Lightning Jameson coming out.

Really? How cool is that? Is there anything better than having your name called out over a loudspeaker speaker at a sporting event?

I mean, hitting 2, hitting 2 million followers was pretty nice too.

All right, well, yeah, I guess that pays better. All right, well, but, okay, so tell us a little bit about Lightning Media.

Yeah, definitely. So it's, it's consulting first and foremost. So social audits. You know, you call me and you'll say, we have 10 TikToks on our post. We don't have somebody here. We can't commit to hiring someone full time. We want to focus on all social. Tell us what we're doing wrong, tell us what we're doing right, help us do it. And my goal, it's almost counterintuitive, is to have them no longer need me in 6 to 12 months create such a well run machine where they understand it. We're going to get them set up on some type of calendar, automatic Posting whatever they prefer. We're going to get a really nice group of UGC influencers who are going to sign for long term contracts and basically create a content ecosystem where they don't even need someone internally creating it anymore. It's, it's through the creators.

Wow, that's fantastic. And then, so then the create. My question was going to be, and you kind of pre answered it was what about the creative? Because you know, it's companies, if they have a creative in the building, you know, you know you're lucky and you can't manage them so they end up getting fired. But right. I mean, because they're, they're constantly. But like you've got to have them especially, especially today. So if you don't have a creative, you know, mindset inside of the company, maybe you've got some regular, you know, run of the mill type product and stuff like that. You can help people get it, get the right influencers that can be creating the content on their behalf.

Absolutely. And doing that speed run trial of finding out what content. So being as creative as possible while I'm there and then honing in on the one or two episodic pieces of content that perform well that I can then say, here's the baseline now continue doing it.

Okay, awesome. Well, I'm interested in a content audit across our various brands so we can deal with that offline if you have availability and then what other kind of stuff. And is that the main focus of what you're doing right now? Are you staying pretty narrow in that niche or what's your vision for Lightning Media?

Yeah, that's a great question. I wish I had a really great answer for you. I have approached everything in life with a very open mind. Kind of just going in and seeing what exactly the brand really needs and then form printing it to them versus just saying here, pay me X amount of money and I'll make 12 posts and do a social auditing call today. So if we go in and they're crushing on TikTok, but they really need help on Instagram reels, bam. Or if they have a really good time, like this is a perfect example of podcasts getting raw footage and they need someone to go in and cut those pieces and add captions and make it engaging, I'll go and do that. So it's, it's everything from content creation to influencer to data analysts to paid media if need be. And then I've been doing also some strategic creative work for agencies so coming up with influencer campaigns saying here's the product, here's the video. Now go do it. And that has been some really, really fun work and great experience as well.

Fantastic. Do you have a sense of where the next big blue ocean's going to be in terms of social media, new platforms, or just new user opportunities inside of the existing platforms that exist today?

Yes, I don't think it exists yet. That's my, that's my firm answer is sometimes there'll be a sleeper app that will suddenly take off. It's been out for a while. I don't think it's. I don't think it's published yet. It's absolutely going to incorporate artificial intelligence. There's just no escaping that.

So what I'm thinking is that is you're promoting lightning.com, which is the next platform made by you. Is that what you're saying?

Maybe. Maybe we'll see. No, but yeah, artificial intelligence. If you are not learning up on that right now, you are going to be missing out. That's kind of just like TikTok in 2019. If you weren't figuring that out, you can still figure it out later. But it's so much better to just get in it early while it's still developing. And I use AI from everything, you know, from make this copy sound better to ooh at five seconds, what should I say? And of course, taking it with a grain of salt. But it can be a really, really helpful asset also for social auditing, too. It can go through your content and give you a. You have this weird thing where every 10 seconds into your video you do a weird cut. Like, you should stop doing that. And it's a type of pattern that I personally would have never picked up on.

Got it. Do you have some favorite platforms? I know you don't want to give away all of your tools in your toolkit, but do you have some that, you know, two or three that people should really consider using if they're not right now?

Yeah. So if you're, you know, posting on TikTok, filming on your phone, it's perfect. And then using Cap Cut. Cap Cut is a great free editing app. You can get the premium trial, but they're actually integrated with TikTok. So this is not proven, but it's. It's pretty much proven that TikTok will prefer you or favor your content if you use Cap Cut to edit. So it's. It's kind of a 2 for 1 deal because it's a great editing platform, but then also you're kind of getting you know, 1 or 2% boost in the algorithm just for using it. Chat GPT, of course, is great. I'll always just throw a copy in there and say, please make this sound better. And then really just studying the platforms themselves, that's, that's what I spent a lot of time doing, is scrolling on TikTok, but trying to be as intentional and conscious as possible while doing it.

Have you started using extra Perplexity AI at all?

I've. Yes, a little bit.

You're. You've dabbled.

Dabbled, yeah, dabbled in it.

I, I find it to be. I like it. I like it for certain purposes. You know, if I was going to say, hey, give me, give me 10 questions. If I'm interviewing Sophie Jameson, what would, what would. 10 questions. It does, it does good in areas like that. But yeah, we use chat. I'll come in and lay down 30 or 35 minutes of nonsense and then we'll transcribe it and then we'll put it in chat and clean up. It won't catch everything that I think is important. So we might have to go back and insert some concepts or some keywords or things like that. But then we can basically load that into a teleprompter and I can run that and it probably cuts it down to five to 10 minutes, but it's clean and it takes out all of my thinking and all of the, all of the nonsense and stuff like that. So we'll do that sometimes. Other times it's good just to, if it's tight, just go with it in its raw form or take cuts of it and go with those raw cuts of it there. But, you know, it's definitely, it's definitely a game because it's as, you know, again, you're trying to do things efficiently, but if you. Efficient, if you efficiently make garbage that nobody wants to hear or see, then you're just wasting your time. It's really an art. It's a great mix of art and science. But people that grew up in that generation, they have a real sense for what's good content and what they will just discard quickly. So you gotta have, I mean, if you're a company out there and you're, you know, you've been doing cabinets or you've been doing plumbing or you've been doing electrical for all this time. I see those people trying to make this stuff, you know, and it looks like old people trying to make stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just, it's almost like it's just not right. You know, it's. It's almost right. And it's a. It's a good try, but it's just not, you know, it just, you know, it takes a lot of work to get it there. But I also think there's a real feel to it.

Yeah. You know, like, you absolutely know that they're trying to do something that's maybe not comfortable for them.

Yeah. And I mean, I see the things that I watch two or three times, and then I'll stop myself and I'll take, you know, I'm death scrolling, like, I shouldn't be. And then I'll. I'll look at it and I'll be like, okay, why did I watch that three times? Like, why. Why did I wait? And it's like, oh, because they put the words in here at this point, but they disappeared just so quick enough that I had to watch it again to read the second half of the thing. But there was something interesting. You know, there was a penguin falling down on the ice while I was doing that, so.

Or what, your whole feed is just people falling? Huh?

Well, yeah, actually, yeah, it's. I signed up for the Three Stooges plan on Instagram, and it's just people getting hit with, you know, pans and things. But this is a reference.

I. I get maybe 5%, so.

Okay, well, sorry, Case. And exactly. Isn't that what we're talking about? Right.

Yes, absolutely.

95% of my audience wouldn't get my Three Stooges reel that I posted, and the 5% that would are actually over on Facebook. But. So. All right, well, Sophie, this has been a lot of fun. It's been. Actually, this has been fun. Is there. Is there anything else that you care to talk about or anything else that you'd like to let our audience know? Any advice? Any final words?

Yeah, I think just at the end of the day, burnout is super prevalent in this industry, especially in that creative role. Whether you're the person making the content, you're just working on a marketing team. So I'm trying to nail this into you as hard as I possibly can, which is make content that you enjoy at the end of the day. Making content is a dream job in a lot of ways, and it should be fun. People can tell if you're not having fun in the video. So whether that's. You need. You're the plumber and you need to hire somebody part time to come make the content for you, or you're a content creator and you need to Take a step back and, you know, really focus on content that you enjoy. Just. Yeah. At the end of the day, make sure that it's true to you and it's true to your brand. If you're an influencer, really, really think about brand deals. That's the biggest piece of advice I wish I had had when I first got started. There are some very questionable brand deals I took at the beginning just because I was excited to be there. So to be really, really intentional with everything that you do, if you're a content creator, for sure.

Nice. Great advice. Last question for you. A little more broad. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be or phrase?

I would probably just say, stay true to who you are and never do it quietly. That's how I've gotten successful. And I know it's. It's super broad, but nobody ever would have thought, you know, that random kid playing soccer was gonna play with nerf Blasters, which would then lead to the Forbes list and all these things. And that's just by being myself.

So I think that's perfectly said.

Thanks.

Thank you for being on.

Thank you.

This has been Sophie Jamison here with me, Jeff Duden, and we have been on the home front. Thank you for listening.

Thank you.