Scott Duffy interviews Nicole Arbour: Strategy For Creating Killer Content

Hi, my name is Scott Duffy with Entrepreneur magazine and Aswan Media, and I'm here with Nicole Arbor today. And.

So I can promise you this is going to be fun. So, Nicole, among other things, you have created some of the most shared, viewed, whatever, branded social media content.

Heck yeah, I have.

You have. In Entrepreneur magazine over at Entrepreneur, we have called Nicole one of the, like, couple of most influential people, right, that you need to watch on YouTube.

Yes, you guys called me one of the top YouTubers in the world. Doing it right, that you should watch or pay attention to. And I love YouTube and I still post on YouTube, but I've mostly taken my stuff over to Facebook because I love that platform. Yes.

So, okay, so I have so much I want to ask you. The first thing I think is.

So the first thing is you like to have fun. You clearly like to have fun. And I'm curious.

When you're creating content for yourself, is that like one of the main things that you're thinking about or what's your strategy when creating this winning content?

What is the message? What do I want people to feel? So for my comedy rants that over 300 million views on those guys last year, it's all about what is the topic that I'm going to conquer. I know people are going to be on this, like, one side of that argument no matter what video I do. So I'm happy to start the argument and let people discuss it in the comment section or on their own pages so that I'm starting important conversations. And even with my branded content, I want to make you laugh, but I'll throw in something that's controversial almost every time just to spark a debate. Because I love debates.

I think a lot of people are afraid of controversy online. They're afraid of getting ripped on Twitter or something like that. So what would be your advice to people that may be afraid to let loose and really share what they feel because of the fear of comments?

What kind of language can I use here?

Anything you want.

Stop being such a pussy. There's either you're being real or you're acting. And if you're acting in real life, I feel sad for you. You gotta fucking go for it. You gotta say what you actually mean, stand for who you actually are, or you're fake. So don't bother doing it. Cause it won't resonate with the audience. If it does, it's probably younger kids. And then you're gonna age out. So if you stay being a real person and talking about what matters to you and Keeping it real, then you're gonna keep your fan base.

When you're keeping it real and you're planning all of the content that you create because you create so much. In fact, how much content do you create on a daily basis?

Every day there's at least a photo. I'm live streaming five days a week. I'm doing my big live streams on my Facebook. I'm live streaming every day on Instagram. I'm doing a story every day on Instagram and on Snapchat. And then multiple times a week, the larger videos on Facebook or YouTube.

Now, for a lot of people, that may sound overwhelming. How do you manage it?

Go. Yeah, you wake up and you go. You do it. You live it. You love it. The coolest part for me is when I'm working with brands, it's not how do I just sell this product, it's how do I make people have a really cool experience watching whatever I'm gonna do with this product. And if I don't believe in a product, I'm not gonna work with it. Cause if I don't like it, they're not gonna like it. That makes me fake. So for me, it's just fun. It's like, oh, my gosh. I got this awesome new thing. I love it. I get to share this with people today. Hell yeah. Let's do it.

So I run into a lot of people that when they're creating social media content, maybe they're starting on, you know, with like an Instagram story or they're doing a Facebook Live. They get really nervous beforehand and they decide they want to script everything out.

Sorry, that was my reaction. Gut reaction. This is like, stop trying so hard. Just be yourself. Yourself will resonate. That's what you have to do. I usually talk straight to camera and the things I don't script get 45 million views. The things I try really hard and script it, it doesn't do as well ever, Ever.

So I can't even like. That's even hard to fathom. 45 million views.

It's weird. It's weird because I don't realize how many people have watched my content until I'm walking in the street or I'm traveling. I'm in Sweden and there's a giant meet and greet of fans, and I'm all over the world and fans are coming up to me. I'm like, oh, oh, yeah. That's just not numbers on the screen. Those are real humans watching that. Cool.

That is so awesome. And we were talking earlier, and you Know that I have two daughters, 7 and 9 years old. And I'm really passionate about women leaders mentoring other women leaders.

Good to you.

Yeah. So if you were talking to women today that young women that were thinking about starting their own business, what would you tell them?

Surround yourself with other women. No offense to men. And I always think that this is a bit of the issue with feminism, the feminism movement right now, which is why I have my own movements I participate in. It's not about being against men, it's about being for women. So encourage each other. Cheer for each other. I can cheer for you because I know I'm awesome too. We're not in co opetition. We're not in competition. We are in co opetition. So work with other girls too. Learn from everybody, but work with each other. Cheer for each other the way that you want to be cheered for. And you're all going to spiral up together and it's a really cool feeling.

That is so awesome. One of the questions that I've always had is I get so many entrepreneurs that come to me and they're about to start their social media strategy around, let's say, a new business and they get totally overwhelmed because they think they have to be everywhere. They have to be on Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat and this and that and the other. What, what would you tell them?

You do?

Yeah.

Yeah, you do. But pace yourself and make a content schedule. You don't have to be crazy about it, but you need to have a specific target. So what are you trying to say? Who you trying to say it to? When are you trying to say it? What are you selling? Are you selling an emotion? Are you selling just a thing? Because those are two different ways to approach it. And just calm down, it's all good. People love the content, they want the content. And if you're just trying too hard to, oh, I gotta put out stuff to blend in because everybody else is putting out stuff. It's gonna show. Just chill.

Awesome. So I know you're doing a really cool campaign right now with women.

Yes.

Could you tell us about that?

Yeah. Woman up campaign is proceeds. We're benefiting UN women. And the whole campaign is Woman up. So it's about being badass women, being fiercely supportive of each other, not being this victim mentality that some female ish kind of movements have. We are the victors. We are not the victims. We work together, we cheer for each other.

We.

We're inclusive of everybody and we're kicking ass.

That's awesome. And where can we find that movement?

You can find that right now on merchful.com womanup. And we have really cool T shirts, sweatshirts, gear, all sorts of stuff. My bag says more CEOs, less Insta hoes. And, yeah, stuff like that. It makes me happy.

Wait, wait, that's your bag.

And then you have your bag.

Did you get your bag? Yeah. Yeah. All right. We're waiting for the bag right now. It's right over there. And there's actually. You had some other cool stuff. You had some other cool stuff.

I did. This is my bag. It says more CEOs, less Insta hoes. This is available on Merchful.com right now. WomanUp. And then inside of my bag. What do I have? I have. I shouldn't. Don't look. Okay. I have the Woman up little makeup kit. You can use it for other things. These are available in all different fun phrases that we have. Also, my favorite position is CEO is another one that we have. Makes me happy. And then we have our shirts. Oh, I met God, she's black is another one of our phrases. Because I thought it'd be fun. And I'm not scared of controversy, as we know. And this guy here, this is our Woman up tee. We have hoodies. We have all sorts of stuff. And join the movement. Let's do this.

This is Scott Duffy from Entrepreneur magazine and S1 Media. Nicole, thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

And wait, where can we find you?

Oh, on the interwebs. You can find me on Facebook. Facebook.com Nicole Arborfans. On YouTube, I'm Nicole Arbor. Instagram, I be Nicole Arbor because someone stole my name, and out of principle, I won't pay them for my account anyways. And then on Snapchat, I'm Nicole Arbor.

Awesome. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you guys later.