#32 - Amanda Natividad: The Future of Marketing in an Algorithm-Driven World

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 00:01

What do you mean when you say the best marketing doesn't feel like marketing?

Amanda (: 00:10

See, nobody wants to be sold to, or you don't want to feel like you're being sold to. And nobody really wants to admit when they fell for an ad. know, like, people just don't want to feel that way. So the best marketing is stuff that it's just happening. Like you're sort of blending in with the conversation someone's already having, or you're blending in with the thoughts they're already thinking, you know?

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 00:40

What do most people get wrong about marketing?

Amanda (: 00:47

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 00:49

So I guess a step before that fundamentally, what, do you define marketing? Like what is marketing for you?

Amanda (: 00:51

Yeah.

marketing for me is meeting people and getting to know people or like, no, it's like getting people to get to know you at scale and get to trust you and of course, ultimately buy from you. That's what it is to me. And so,

When I say people don't want to be marketed to, it's also just nobody wants to feel like they're something that's done at scale or communicated to at scale, even though they know, you know? ⁓ I think something most people get wrong about marketing.

I think one is that there's a certain type of marketer that sees marketing as a numbers game. Like, you just reach more and more people and like eventually you'll get more customers. And I just don't believe in that. I believe you need to reach the right people where they are, or at the very least the people who will influence those buyers.

those customers.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 02:17

you mostly, I think, focus on like larger business type market and like the larger, like B2B ⁓ market. Correct. So explain that to me. Cause that is beyond my, my scope of experience. I mostly work with individuals or people with like smaller teams. So what is the difference between that smaller scale versus more of the work that you do?

Amanda (: 02:26

Yeah.

Yeah. So B2B marketing is really, it's businesses marketing to other businesses. So in my case, you know, I work for Sparctoro, which is we are the makers of an audience research tool. So we help other people, other businesses, ⁓ better understand their audiences. So I'm selling to founders, executives, marketers, right? Maybe agencies and consultants who are doing a lot of client work. So that's, that is B2B marketing to me. And so.

Well, that's what it is. But then within B2B marketing, are, there is also a ⁓ like a sliding scale of like really small businesses to the enterprise, right? Like I'll say that SparkToro probably isn't the best for enterprise because enterprise customers, you know, those, the giant companies, like, I can't even think of a giant company, like, like Chase Bank, for instance, you know, that's a big company, but like,

a major corporation like that, they probably have all kinds of different, ⁓ different compliance needs from vendors. They might want some customized software. That's a very specific market to market to, right? And ⁓ we don't specialize in that, but I think if anyone listening who does B2B marketing in some way knows that enterprise tends to mean like you need to have like sales reps, people to really

go toe to toe with the customer and meet them where they are and figure out some like scalable or even customizable solutions for them.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 04:20

That sounds boring and sterile to me. Right. So.

Amanda (: 04:23

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 04:27

Given that.

And how it sounds like there's for larger B2B plays. It sounds like there's a lot more formality, a lot more LinkedIn level professionalism with stuff.

And almost like a veneer of perfection or this public facing persona of, of hyper competence and, effectively perfection. Yet you just said people don't like feeling like they're being marketed to.

I think that is one of the key mistakes a lot of people make is they make marketing feel like marketing. It makes you feel like you're being sold to. It makes it feel like a presentation rather than rapport rather than a relationship, right? It's a presentation, not a conversation given how sterile and in my opinion, sometimes boring or my assumption boring because of all that professional veneer.

How do you actually do this with people in a way that feels authentic and feels human when it is so easy for those two components to be the first things we sacrifice?

Amanda (: 05:49

Yeah, I mean, this is really what has gravitated me towards content marketing, right? Because content marketing is creating content that speaks to your customers and it speaks to your customers or your audience because you are elucidating pain points that they have. Maybe you're giving names to some feelings that they have. You're providing them with some education, things to help them.

And this is, course, if you're doing good content marketing, if you're trying to create really good and helpful content, I think that's why I like marketing so much because I approach it through the lens of content marketing, because I approach it through the lens of how can I create something that is the most helpful or most valuable or most insightful version of this thing possible? Because I just, I...

I guess it's just like, like creating good content for the sake of good content. And it just so happens that I get to market to other marketers, which is lucky for me because I'm a marketer. So I'm in the weeds all day with this stuff and it's, it's easy for me to relate to my audience because I am my audience.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 07:03

For me, my definition of a creator is if you create something, anything of value, you are a creator. So for me, a creator is a marketer, a founder, entrepreneur, solopreneur, YouTuber, author, all these things. Okay. I don't just mean influencer, which is what I think a lot of people, the picture they have when, you hear the word creator, cause I hear from people all time, like, I'm not a creator. I own a business. And it's like, okay, but you're creating something for the world to hopefully make it a better place.

When it comes to content marketing, when we talk about content creators specifically, a lot of people say content creators really struggle because they don't think about it from the perspective of an entrepreneur. They think, let me make videos and then I will make money off of ad revenue. Let me just make a bunch of social media posts and then hopefully get a brand deal. And that is my only way to, real I'm effectively trying to monetize.

attention, but my product is just attention. I don't have an actual thing that turns into a trap for a lot of people. Cause then it's like, you know, people say, you likes, don't pay the bills. Your audience, you know, doesn't equal your account sort of a thing. How do you strike that balance of content marketing without

Amanda (: 08:11

Mm-hmm.

you

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 08:35

falling into the trap of the online influencer who has a large following, but is actually broke.

Amanda (: 08:42

Yeah, that's really well said. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, like I definitely see that challenge a lot in content creators. ⁓ So maybe what I'll say is like, how do you avoid that trap? I think it's...

I think it's really like, what are you, what is your content ultimately in service to? You know, like if it's in service to just content for content sake, then that's kind of a game that you're choosing, you know? Now it's different if like you have a different full-time job and then on the side, it's just genuine hobby to create content. Therefore you can be creating content for content sake.

because you're not dependent on it to pay your bills. That makes sense to me. You know, like that's totally reasonable. That makes sense to me. But I think if you are trying to create content, but also make it a viable like way to live, you know, I would say, think about like, what are the functions that it's serving? Like, let's say you create or sell a product.

And then you're also creating content to market that product, right? So content marketing, then it's okay. You're what you're doing is you are ultimately trying to drive purchases to the product that you sell. And so all the content you create, or at least, you know, 85 % of it, right. Should be in service to, uh, driving awareness or driving conversions of your, of your product.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 10:27

I love that.

Too many people in the creator space try to build an audience, but don't have anything to like monetize, right? To like, to directly monetize. What that turns into is they have to rely on third party monetization tactics, right? So like I have to get brand deals. have to get ad revenue. So now I, my incentives are misaligned with the work I'm actually trying to do because I now I have to optimize for the most views.

to placate my sponsors to get more views, to get the ad revenue. So then that can incentivize this whole trap of let me be viral. Let me always try to focus on being viral and even the misinterpretation of having a spiky point of view. The original version of that was basically like, like plant your flag, like have a thing you stand by and create content around that, know, own your opinions. But what that

has kind of become bastardized in some circles is a spiky point of view means be controversial for controversy sake because controversy fuels engagement.

you both in your, in your individual journey as a creator, but also the work that you do professionally use, you focus more on like, what is the product or the service now? What content would serve the function to get this in front of more people? So you start with the thing you own that direct monetization strategy, and then your content, it is content marketing, not content for content sake. And I think that is such a huge,

distinction. So when you are working with other marketers, how do you help them avoid that trap of how do you help them understand the function of their content marketing efforts rather than just blindly chasing views and engagement that may not be aligned with the thing they're actually trying to put in front of more people.

Amanda (: 12:33

So that's why I say like, you're doing this content marketing, what marketing function are you serving? You know, like the way I see it is I've always kind of run my content teams as like content as a service, you know, where content is the service is that where content is providing a service to another function of the business. So it's like, for instance, a case study. So content marketing creates a case study that case study ultimately helps the sales team.

or your demand generation team maybe, or maybe some content oriented around how to get the most out of your product, or how to do something in your product that serves a customer support function. So you can imagine there are all kinds of different pieces of content that can do different jobs. So is the job you're doing, is it meant to drive conversion? Is it meant to increase loyalty? Is it meant to drive awareness? If you're thinking of meeting those specific business goals,

And ultimately you're going to get more out of your marketing and you'll be a lot more intentional about the things that you do. Right? Like you're not going to be thinking about, let's just get some content up on social media so that people know we had the lights on. It's like, well, no, but what's that content going to do for you? Is it going to drive awareness? Okay. How is it going to drive awareness? What kind of content are you going to, going to create that is interesting that maybe promotes discussion that promotes

or that fosters amplification in some way. You know, like, what is going to be the reason that people want to engage with it? And as such, that is going to be the thing that drives awareness.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 14:17

When it comes to, I hate the word personal brand. I, instead of personal brand, you know, I tell people anytime you would use personal brand, just use reputation instead. Like what kind of reputation am I trying to build? Will this help or harm my reputation? Because if you think about it as like, you know, a brand of one, it's really easy for you to try to like shoehorn yourself into this persona.

Amanda (: 14:29

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 14:44

And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. If you want to like embody a persona, I can't do that. ⁓ anytime I start to feel unaligned or unauthentic, I burn out really quickly and feel like a, not an imposter syndrome type stuff, but I feel like a fraud. Cause like, this isn't who I am.

Amanda (: 15:01

It's not imposter syndrome, it's like imposter truthness ⁓ in that moment.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 15:04

Yeah. Yeah.

And that's why for me, I always write under my name. I was published under my name because for me that is a filter very quickly of am I willing to put my name behind this piece of content or this idea or this statement rather than trying to hide. ⁓ but it also allows me to not to, to avoid the trap of pretending to be somebody that I'm not.

When you think about people building their own reputation as a solo creator or the figurehead of a company, right? Cause more and more companies are trying to, you know, they're hiring ghost writers. They're hiring, you know, content marketing teams for individuals on, on like the CEO, for example, right? Cause people follow people.

What is your advice or approach to an individual wanting to apply content marketing strategies to build their own reputation?

Amanda (: 16:08

What's my advice to them? ⁓

So I will say that, okay, so there's a lot of content out there, right? There's a lot of people out there, a lot of brands out there. I would say, you know, what is the thing reputationally, you know, what do you want to be known for? Right? And it's, what do you want to be known for? And then how can you create some ⁓ content pillars or kind of guardrails for yourself?

so that you're so that you are writing or creating content in service to that thing. So let's say it's like, I want to be known for like helping people with ADHD be more productive. I don't know. It's weird, but like maybe that's what it is. And it's like, okay, well, well, one, there is quite a bit of content on that already. Okay. What will you, what might you do that's different or maybe even don't worry about that yet.

What do you want to do that, that you feel like you are uniquely qualified to do? What is your point of view? How do you see the world? What is your approach? What are your lived experiences? What are the experiences of others that you know well, you know, like the, like your expertise, right. In your niche, can you define like maybe, maybe like one, two or three, one or two even content pillars. like topics that you'll stay in.

Right. Focusing on like, okay, I'm going to write about, you know, ADHD in working adults. Okay. That's what, that's what my first pillar, my second pillar is, you know, anxiety about not doing enough work or not getting enough done. And then maybe my third pillar is, ⁓ you know, I was diagnosed myself later in life and

So part of what my content is gonna be is about like learning more about yourself and discovering yourself. So there's like three pretty specific pillars that gives you enough room to play while also giving you guardrails for where not to step out of line. And I say that because when you are creating content, especially on a social platform or on YouTube, that's why people will follow you. They'll follow you for the things.

that you say you will give. And so if you say you're gonna write about that and then you deviate, people don't like that, you know, because it's not what they came for. And the algorithms don't like that, right? So this will help you be successful. It will help you set, it'll help set you up for success. It'll help give you like a nice ⁓ set of topics to write about or to create content for. And it'll give you some areas for where not to go.

if you kind of get tempted. it helps you focus basically. then even then like something I say that I, here's something I feel is underrated. The other reason it's important to do this is to protect yourself, to protect your mental health and your boundaries. Because if you start thinking like, no, I want to give a peek behind the curtain of my life. Where does that end? Right? Where does the curtain ever go back up? Like, what is your limit?

You know, and if you start, if you start, if you just like open up like all the boxes and just go, all of this is a free for all. You will not be able to focus and you might even burn out.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 19:52

I love the idea of content pillars specifically as guardrails.

What I found is, you know, I, I struggled really hard early on to, you know, define my niche and you know, my personal monopoly, my category of one also shit because I was just like, you know, I, I contain multitudes. There's so many things that I can, whatever the issue I ran into was I spent 12 years learning to become a therapist.

And I worked alongside medical professionals. So it's like, well, and then when I got into coaching, I was like, Oh, well, you know, the logical move is I can coach medical leaders for high performance fuckery, whatever. And I was like, but I'm burnt out on therapy. I'm burnt out on the medical field. So much of what I had, you know, quote unquote, optimized for, I am choosing to not be an option.

So what could have been my very low hanging fruit as far as expertise and overlap and everything else, I was like, Nope, not going to do that. So I was almost starting from scratch because I didn't, couldn't ride that momentum of, I've already done this. I, Hey, you're, you're the CEO or the COO of a large medical facility. I know exactly what you're going through. I can help you improve your performance or leadership dynamics or some shit. I could have totally, totally done leadership coaching for medical.

professionals, medical leaders, but shows not.

So then it was like, well, fuck like what, what, what are my, my pillars or my, you know, content buckets? Like what are these? Because I'm not doing that. And I spent a long time trying to figure that out. Eventually for me, it was like, well, what are the things I can't shut up about? What are the things that I'm obsessed with that no matter what I do, I can't not talk about. I always come back to these things because these are the things that I am naturally obsessed with.

I have pursued a level of expertise in, and things that are so intrinsically rewarding and motivating for me to explore, I will continue doing them indefinitely. And that for me is like, well, fundamentally, I love psychology, real psychology. ⁓ I love entrepreneurship and I love creativity and like everything that goes into creativity. So those sort of organically became mine.

when I stopped overcomplicating and when I stopped trying to be a public persona and say, these are my things. It's like, what can I not shut up about? Let me just tell people, Hey, Hey y'all, I don't shit up about these things. Take it or leave it. But I especially love your added layer of this is for guardrails, right? So like for me, I'll occasionally talk about jujitsu or something just because I have found that a lot of entrepreneurs

Amanda (: 22:39

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 22:55

tend to also like heart doing other hard things like jujitsu, which is cool. but I don't talk about every little aspect of my life cause I'm not trying to be an influencer. I'm not trying to be a, like a vapid celebrity, but like a lifestyle celebrity. That just isn't what I'm trying to be.

Amanda (: 22:59

Yeah.

Right.

And you're not, and you're not trying to sell like be like me in every way. That's not your product.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 23:17

Exactly.

Exactly. So I liked that the guardrail thing, because I think a lot of people when they're trying to build their own thing.

try to start out as a Kardashian and I got nothing against any of the Kardashians. I don't know any of them, but I see so many people that are like, let me start an Instagram account. Let me repost a bunch of shit all day of the life. Here's a picture of me beside of a truck or a mountain range on the beach. And it's like, ⁓ it's been two weeks and people aren't following me. I'm not a celebrity. I don't, I'm not making 10 K every month. What happened? And it's like, nobody knows you.

but also nobody cares about you. So even if they see your shit, they're like, who is this person? I don't know them. I don't care what value is in it for me.

And that's why I like for you, like starting with what is the product or service you offer? How can you create content that is in service of that? Because there's this other concept around parasocial relationships.

Have you like dove? Have you dove into parasocial relationships as it relates to marketing at all?

Amanda (: 24:30

I I know what it is and I've experienced it a few times, but I haven't done any kind of deep dive. So have at it.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 24:37

I would, I, well, I would love to see like your version of it because I

obviously like, have like the psychology side, but you have like the deep marketing side. So from my perspective with parasocial relationships, fundamentally parasocial relationship is when you feel a connection to somebody, you don't actually know. Right? So we all have like our favorite musicians, our favorite, you know, actors, celebrities, whatever. And we feel like we know them.

because we have consumed so much of their content. We've read their books, we've watched their movies, we've listened to their podcast for hundreds of episodes. We know everything about them that they've put out. So then it's like, if you ever see that person real life, you're like, my God, like, know you so well. They're like, who the fuck are you? Right? This parasocial relationship where we feel a connection to somebody, but it isn't reciprocated or reciprocal because they don't actually know us.

This can be a very good thing because this is effectively how you scale intimacy, right? We kind of touched on that earlier of like, how do you, how do you scale your messaging to where it reaches a lot of people, but to every individual person it reaches, it feels intimate. feels tailored to them, which is really effective marketing. Cause it's marketing that doesn't feel like marketing with parasocial things.

Amanda (: 25:42

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 26:01

One of the things I tell a lot of my like coaching clients and some of the other like bigger creators I work with is people don't follow you for your content. People follow you for you because whatever content you have put out, there's probably a dozen other pieces from other people that are similar that generally say the same things, right? I've like, here's how to be more productive. Here's

Amanda (: 26:10

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 26:29

parenting tips. Here's how to manage anxiety. But the reason people follow you specifically is because they feel a connection to you either because you're a productivity person who's like, hey, I am hella anxious on a day to day basis and learning productivity strategies is one way I manage my anxiety. When things are organized, when I time block, that helps me deal with my anxiety.

Or, Hey, I am, you know, first generation here. So then I had, you know, I've had to deal with all these other things. And that is, these are all part of my story. As I talked to you about productivity, that is what, or even, you know, like we both know Ali, like Ali adult people follow Ali because he's just a fucking warm, generous, kind person. And even like his branding is like, it's bright, it's welcoming, it's warm. So then it's like, well, there are, especially now and Ali is

It's partially his fault. There are so many productivity people out there. Like he, he literally wrote the book on productivity. So now you have all these copycats, same thing with James Clear. You have all these copycats, but people keep coming back to Ali not because of his content, but because it's Ali, you could take his exact script format, everything and put somebody else in it. It wouldn't resonate the same way. And that's my thing. That's the power of a parasocial relationship. That's the power of personal brand.

Amanda (: 27:32

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 27:57

People feel connected to you. And that is a huge asset. If you treat it with the respect it deserves, obviously you can abuse it. Obviously, you know, with, ⁓ all the, like the web three and the crypto and all the shilling, right? Yeah. All the NFTs and that w that was an abusive parasocial relationships where you had these people who had this, this, this following the, this influence over a group of people and say, Hey, if you trust me,

Amanda (: 28:10

Right, buy my NFTs, yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 28:25

here's this thing I'm showing you should totally get it. Like, and now we're getting into like halo effect stuff of if you like me, you'll like this. Cause I like this.

What is your perspective of how individuals, whether they're like solopreneur types or individuals within a company, how can we more strategically, ethically approach building these parasocial relationships with the people we're trying to serve from a marketing perspective?

Amanda (: 28:56

That's a fascinating question. You know, I might say that this it's not intentional, right? This wasn't by design. It just so happens that this is kind of what we're doing at SparkToro. People call us like founder led, creator led, founder because Rand Fishkin is a face of the company, but creator led because Rand and myself, I'm not the founder, right? But I'm a face of the company. ⁓

They call us creator led or like brand personal brand led. And it's true. But I think it's also, I mean, like that is true. But the subset of that is that I think there are people who feel they have like a parasocial connection to us, right? There people who are like, well, Amanda and Rand recommended this. So I really want to try it or like, well, Amanda wrote this post. So I want, I really want to read it, right? There there's a number of people who feel that way. And

Like I said, it was not by design. It just so happened that we ended up being, we ended up being able to foster these kinds of dynamics, I guess. ⁓ But how do you, how, like if I were to reverse engineer this, right? Like how would it be or how would I do it? I think the major thing, the major, major thing is that the inherent product that we sell, the product that we sell,

It is inherently deeply tied to my philosophical approach to marketing. Like the product that SparkToro sells, which is software that helps you better understand your audience. It's an audience research tool. So we help you find the keywords that your audience searches for, the websites they frequent, the podcasts they listen to, ⁓ so that you can do better marketing, right? That's what we sell.

This is the data-backed approach to how I've always intuitively done marketing. So like I've been marketing like SparkToro ⁓ for like 10 plus years before I joined SparkToro without knowing it. So this is an instance where we are just so like deeply aligned philosophically ⁓ with our mission and with our values.

with our core values. So the other piece of this too is we have taken the time to define core values for Spark Toro, the company. And the acronym is BELUX, B-E-L-U-X. And it's boundaries. Like we believe in having healthy boundaries with each other as colleagues and with our customers. ⁓ And as part of that, for instance, we don't offer demos of our tool.

It's only three of us who work at the company. It's not going to scale for us, but we do create a bunch of really good product tutorials, videos, written guides so that people can still get the information. Right? So we're not gatekeeping info. We're just drawing the boundary there. Our next value is ⁓ egalitarian. So we believe in trying to be, trying to make things pretty equitable among people. And we tend to bias in favor.

to small businesses because that's what we believe in. ⁓ The L is long-term focus because we're focused long-term in the next decade. Now that I'm going through this, I feel like I have to finish it. U is uncomplicated. So we like to keep things uncomplicated, right? Just the three of us, you can get all the help articles, all the documentation that you want on SparkToro by searching for it. We don't gate heap anything, like I said. ⁓

And then finally, it's setting an example. So we really believe in like setting or being the example for our audience, for our customers. So when we recommend ways to do marketing, these are only ways that we really, really do recommend. You know, we're never, we're, never going to say like, you should try this thing. I mean, I wouldn't do it, but like, you should try it. I mean, I, what I might say is I wouldn't do it because I don't have the budget for it or because.

You know, I run a different kind of business and I literally can't and it won't work. ⁓ But we really try our best to set an example for the industry in which we're in. And we really do like hold ourselves to these values and we really believe in them.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 33:40

The other piece to that. So I am assuming to some degree, there are other audience research tools out there. They may not be as robust. They may not have the exact pieces you all, you know, spark tour have, but there are competitors to one degree or another for me. And this is honestly how, from a psychological perspective, most people operate. If I am in the, if I am searching for one,

I am going to go with spark Toro over everybody else because I know you, I like you. I trust you. Even if we weren't friends, I'd be like, I've seen Amanda around, you know, LinkedIn or some shit. I like her. She's got fun posts. She seems relatable. You know, I've subscribed to her newsletter for a while. I've, know, whatever. So that is going to sway me. It's just like, you know, if, if you're saying, if you ask your friends for, where should I go eat? And they say, you should totally check this place out. Done. Not even going to like,

Yelp it or all this other shit. Like a friend said, this is, is, you know, worthwhile. I trust my friend.

But there's this other piece of, you know, there are, there are softwares and other products that I specifically refuse to use because their founders are douchey or are some way a, what I consider a trash human being in one way or another. And it's like your product could be great, but you are such a D bag morally, ethically,

Whatever philosophically, I can't do it, right?

I think that's another piece when it comes to the, the power that a personal brand can have. It can be incredibly powerful, but it can also cause a lot of things to crumble, right? It's almost like, I think this one is called like second order conditioning or higher order conditioning. It's why celebrities lose, ⁓ endorsements when there's some sort of drama, like, you know, tiger was when he, did, had an affair or whatever, like Gatorade and Nike or whoever like dropped him.

Amanda (: 35:47

Mm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 35:52

because brands are like, we don't want to be associated with this person and this reputation that they now have. The opposite is also true that that's why brands will sponsor people. That's why people will bring on, you know, effectively an influencer founder, right? ⁓ like, Matina, right? Matina is Huberman's, drink, right? That company, I believe already existed. It's like a Yerba Mate like canned beverage.

Amanda (: 36:15

you

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 36:21

They already existed, but they were like, Hey, let's give Huberman some equity and he'll become, you know, one of the owners and we can leverage his audience and, reach most likely if he had some world ending drama, that part of that partnership might end. Right? So you do have to be aware of that.

Amanda (: 36:39

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 36:46

What advice do you have to people when it comes to managing that level of of influence? Both as a professional, but then also setting up those guardrails for the personal life.

Amanda (: 37:01

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 37:02

Like with great power comes great responsibility, but can also come great burnout.

Amanda (: 37:07

Yeah, which is why I say like have the guardrails for the topics you want to discuss, you know, like if like, I mean, there are also.

I mean, depending on what it is, right? Because there are ways that you can like avoid politics, for instance. Like I think largely if you're in the B2B space because you're posting about business, but then there are other things in life that are like just they are pretty political just because they are. And I think like one example of that is like parenting. Parenting is political, you know? And what I mean by that is like if you were to post about like parenting content, ⁓

Like eventually you're going to have to reveal your politics because everything you advise on is informed by politics, by policy, by the systems that govern our state, our cities. So I call that out because that's also then going to inform which brands may or may not approach you or ones you may or may not want to work with.

Maybe I'll make it little more tactical here. Like if you are deciding to work with a given brand, ⁓ I would say like, are you on board with the brand? know, like, and it's not to say that they have to be a hundred percent perfect for you and you have to agree with everything they say and do, no. And it's also like, depends on the scope of the partnership.

If it's like maybe a one-off and you're like, I'm not sure if I wanna work with them, then like, that's probably pretty low risk, right? ⁓ But if it's a kind of like brand that you wanna establish a long-term relationship with, then maybe then you would be thinking about things like, do I really use and love the product? If this company has any public facing political leanings, how do I feel about that? Do I agree with it?

I think it's thinking about like, maybe how on board with this company as a brand am I? And like, what are my limits? know, like what if they say or do something that I really, that really goes against everything I believe in? Can I terminate the partnership? You know, maybe that's an interesting way to think about it. Like we're always worried about, we the individual like creator brands are worried about the ones being canceled, right?

But it's also like, what if I want to cancel someone else? You know, like, so think about that for yourself too.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 39:55

love that. And Seth Godin, one of the many pithy phrases he has that has fundamentally shifted how I look at life and business is he says, people like us do things like this. And like, that's like one of the simplest, just positioning pieces for anything you create any, whether it's a community, a product, whatever, like people like us do things like this, right? So even like Nike, right? Like

people like us who wear Nike do things like this. So that's when you see the Nike commercials people are running or when they did, I think relatively recently they did some sort of like more body positivity, inclusive campaign, which pissed off some people. And then other people like, Oh my God, I finally see myself on screen. And that was my assumption. Part of the thing of like people like us who care about our health, who care about performance, regardless of our, our external physicality,

We do things like this. We push ourselves. We do hard things, right? And just that simple positioning of people like us do things like this is so incredibly powerful when it comes to how you think about attracting the right people and building your own reputation. So like a simple thing for me is like that I very regularly have reflected back to me. It's like, you're no bullshit.

Like I, if I wanted to like do a whole rebrand, I would be the fucking like no bullshit psychologist or something, which I don't want to do. But so many people like, I, yeah. Well, like people like you're so no bullshit. That is what I value in the people that I follow because people like us do things like this. People like us don't bullshit. We are here to make the most of the time we have. We are here to do the work only we can do. It's no bullshit. And I think that that's just such a powerful piece of position.

Amanda (: 41:29

Hmm. I could see that though. Yeah.

Hmm?

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 41:57

But I do want to switch it slightly. We've, we've touched on algorithms. We've touched on content, content marketing, all these other things. How do you think about

Basically the psychology of marketing in an algorithm driven world.

Amanda (: 42:17

Hmm. You know, one way I think about it is the, I mean, I don't, well, one way I think about it is.

I try to see the algorithms as the things that are trying to mimic human behavior. Now, I know that this is up for a much larger debate because is it actually that the algorithms are dictating human behavior? I don't know. We could probably be talking circles about that for a long time, but let's just go with it with this positive outlook of the algorithms trying to behave like humans. And that's going to be things like, you know,

⁓ links getting suppressed and reach, you know, I mean, like, don't, I don't like it as a marketer, as a person who likes to post, I don't like it. However, when people open up their LinkedIn app, they open up their Twitter app or whatever, they don't open up the app so that they can leave. They open it up so that they can scroll and stay in. So it makes sense in that way, why links would be deprioritized. Now,

it sucks, right? Like if you are following journalists to get news articles and you want to see their latest articles, then you're not really going to see their content. That's not good, right? But other ways to think about algorithms are if you are on threads, for instance, and you engage with a certain type of content, let's say you like to, and you happen to engage with

Air airplane etiquette related to content. You know, people complaining about like, do you, should the person in front of me recline their seat? ⁓ I hate it when everybody stands up as soon as the plane lands, right? When you engage with that, you're telling the algorithm, ⁓ I want to see more of this stuff. So, which is why you might see a lot of rage bait on threads because you might even, and even if you just click on it and read it, that's look.

that still signals the algorithm that you consumed it, right?

And that makes sense, right? If you're stopping to read something, if you're engaging, if you're replying, that, I mean, anyone would reasonably assume that that means you want to see more of that content. Right? So that's another way I see the, the algorithms. Like it's trying to mimic people's behaviors. And so as a marketer, maybe think about like, well, how can I create content?

that is likely to be served to people because it's going to be seen as amplification worthy.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 45:11

And this is what you call zero click content.

Amanda (: 45:15

Right, so the zero click content then is, you know, the content that you were creating that is of standal, it's native to platform, right? So it's the video uploaded to LinkedIn. It's the photos that you embedded in a carousel in Instagram. It's a text that you've written in a tweet. So native to platform content that has a standalone value, meaning like anyone can see it and it'll more or less make sense, right? In that scroll and

further context is optional, not required. Like you can get the gist of something and go like, yeah, cool, fine. Or you could be like, that's cool, I wanna read more. And either way you get at least some value out of it.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 46:00

But this goes completely counter to traditional advice of tease them and then make them, you know, want more. And then you link out or you do, you game the system where, you know, your main post is this, and then you wait 15 minutes and then you, comment. And then you pin that comment with the actual link, right? How do you reconcile that? You're like, this is completely counter to what most people hear.

Amanda (: 46:27

Yeah, I mean, it's hard, right? I get this a lot. Like I get a lot of people asking, well, then how do I get buy-in to do this? So what I say to that is, all right, we know the platforms are all trying to hoard the traffic for themselves. They're trying to keep the eyeballs, the people to themselves. So they're going to kill your reach if you try to send them away. ⁓ You see this in all the social platforms and then even with Google, right? We know now that like something like 60%, perhaps even higher.

60 % of all Google searches end without a click. And then about a quarter of the ones that do end with a click, they go to a Google owned entity, like YouTube for instance. So these platforms are keeping the traffic, leaving very little for us, the individuals. ⁓ And so one, they're already hoarding the traffic. So you kind of have to play, you kind of have to try to beat them at their own game. The other issue is even if you did get the click,

you would still run into the problem of dark social where ⁓ referral strings are hidden from a lot of these social networks. So for instance, for TikTok, if you did get a link from TikTok, that traffic will always be shown as direct, not referred by TikTok. So that's another aspect. So if you do try to tease content and post links, one, you're gonna get...

suppressed in the algorithm to even if you do get the click, you're not going to see it. So what are you supposed to do? What you really should be doing then is optimizing for impressions. So yes, kind of going back to that old school thing, like optimize to get seen, optimize for impressions. And then from there, you know, repeat enough times and people will get to know you, hopefully trust you, hopefully buy from

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 48:20

then how is hope?

not a strategy, meaning what you're effectively saying is was your click content, put it all out there. Don't link out, ⁓ effectively optimize for impressions. And then over time, hope you build enough rapport with people. You build enough of the parasocial relationship that people will then of their own accord go buy from you. Go subscribe to your newsletter. How do you overcome

relying on that hope that is outside of your control.

Amanda (: 48:55

Yeah.

Okay. So here's what I wanted to get at. That is kind of part of it. So here's what I, here's what I ultimately actually do mean by zero click marketing. I don't mean never send links. I don't mean never drop a link. What I mean is don't be dependent on tracking on that link, link getting clicked and tracking that link. Like you can't be dependent on that.

What you can do then, what I say is, so optimize your impressions, right? You're native to platform content that can be consumed the way that it is, that can be valued the way that it is. Create that enough times, right? This will be, it'll ideally, you know, get some engagement and this helps you build algorithmic capital, so to speak. ⁓ Like the more high engagement posts you post,

the more that signal to the algorithm that, people wanna see this content. I'm gonna keep surfacing it. Build up enough algorithmic capital. And there isn't really like a hard number on this, right? So I don't know. I'm gonna say like four or five posts. It doesn't have to be like 20 of them, but we'll say four or five posts. And then every now and then you drop in a link to something. Like maybe it's...

posts one through four, you're talking about ⁓ working through burnout, right? Like how do you do it if you have to do it? And then maybe the fifth post is, by the way, I'm hosting a webinar on how to manage burnout. You might wanna come to it. Here's the link to sign up, right? So that way it's like, you're spreading it out. You are creating that content and publishing that content that people can just get that free value from.

And then every now and then you're sort of cashing in your algorithmic capital of being like, I had this webinar or by the way, I also sell some coaching services. If you're interested, join my email list. You know, those types of things, because I think like, ultimately, while I say people don't want to be sold to people know that they are going to be sold to, right? Like you don't, you don't go around hoping it happens to you, but when it does, you don't want to be blindsided either. You kind of expect it.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 51:19

Well, people don't want to be sold to, but people want solutions to their problems. So that's really, you know, the, the, biggest obstacle for marketers to navigate is how do I offer somebody a solution they're looking for, but in a way that they don't feel being sold to and not in a manipulative standpoint, we don't like be like, we don't like feeling salesy like

Amanda (: 51:24

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 51:48

me as the person with the thing to sell, I don't want to feel salesy. But then on the other end, when you are selling to me, I don't want it to feel salesy either. Cause then I feel pressured, right? It's like, like those people that like come to your door, they're like, Hey, are you looking for like lawn care services? Are you looking for like, you know, shit or whatever, like for us to like spray for ants or something like we get those all the time in our neighborhood. And I'm just like, and like, they're super pushy, right? Now we like, we just, have a ring.

So Rochelle is just like, like the fucking wizard of all is like, who comes here? Like just on the ring and scares the shit out of them. But like that it's, pushing it's salesy, right? And it's like, there were times like I literally was like, I would love to have somebody else just come spray, but you were so pushy and salesy. I know for a fact, I don't want you. Right? So like we don't like feeling sold to, but we do love when somebody offers a solution we're actively seeking.

Amanda (: 52:38

Mmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 52:48

That's the key difference for me with effective marketing. And my thing is, it's like every, everything is marketing. Everybody is a marketer. It's just a matter of, do you know that? And are you good at it? Cause like even in like relationships, right? Like when you're dating or like looking around, you're marketing yourself, you're marketing what you bring to the table, right? In, in friendships, you're effectively marketing your ability to be trusted and you are trustworthy.

You, know, you are compassionate, right? That is market. Like it's just one of those things where if you, if you drill down to the core foundation of what marketing is, everything kind of looks like marketing to a degree, any, any sort of like human to human relationship is, is marketing, right? Because part of it is humans are inherently cooperative to a degree.

We'll simplify. We're inherently cooperative. We want to help people. We want to feel connection. That's what marketing is. It's you have a problem. Let me help. I have a problem. Can you help? Right?

But another piece to this with this zero click approach, you're not necessarily saying over optimized on a single social media platform, go all in on this because you don't own your audience, right? On social, like you don't like your LinkedIn, you can get shadow banned. It can be taken down, anything, right? And then your tens of thousands of millions of followers, you went down to zero.

But it's also this piece of, for me, creating content explicitly for social media is exhausting and very short lived. Cause even if something goes viral, just the lifespan of content on almost any platform is very, very short. A couple of platforms have tried to tweak that algorithm, but generally you're looking at a couple of days max two or three weeks.

Amanda (: 54:49

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

48 to 72 hours. Yeah. Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 54:58

For most of them, yeah, exactly.

But one of your things you talk about is like, you one thing you said was your blog post is not a standalone artifact. It's a starting.

How does that factor into the zero click approach?

Amanda (: 55:14

Yeah. So your blog post is like, it's like the thing that it's, it's like the, it's the, it's the defense, you know, it's the substance. It's the backup for your spiky point of view, you know, and your top of funnel channel, like your social media channel, that's where you can state your spiky point of view. Like here's what people are doing wrong. Here's how you fix it. Boom, boom, boom. And then if you want, know,

By the way, I have a blog post on how to do this, right? It kind of backs up why you're allowed to make those bold claims because you dived into the full nuance. You went through the full approach. You did the research and you're proving it. That's how I see, I see, that's why I see blog posts. I see them as proof.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 56:07

I like that. And that makes repurposing a lot more effective. Cause for me, like I would, I hate making short term, like short form content. I hate everything about it. I would much rather and to my detriment, sometimes I accept that, but I would much rather spend the majority of my cognitive bandwidth on a long form piece that is going to last a long time that may live on my website for forever. That may be on YouTube or podcast episode.

rather than spending two hours on a LinkedIn post, which I've literally done or a Twitter thread. And then it, you know, either it went well or it didn't, but either way I'm just like, that was two hours of my life for something that nobody's going to see in a week ever again. Yeah.

Amanda (: 56:46

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll also just wanted to clarify too. When I say blog post, I guess I shouldn't say that. I should say long form content. Cause maybe you don't have a blog, a blog post. I, what I'm saying, that could be a sub stack post. It could be your podcast, like your hour long podcast. It could be a YouTube channel that you have and you have longer form videos. Ultimately, what I'm getting at is building out the longer form piece thing that. Defends.

that defends your right to say what you want to say.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 57:19

And it acts as an asset like over time, right? Cause then you can interlink. You can like that, like people don't, people rarely send a social media post to somebody.

Amanda (: 57:21

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 57:33

relative to like they will send an article or a level even higher than that is they will ⁓ gift a book, right? Like that's sort of how I see the levels of like, ⁓ you send me a social media post. Like, okay, that's cool. But if you send me an article, like that is like one you're signaling to me that you spend a lot of time with this and you found it worthy. I am much more likely to really engage with this versus like you sent me a quick social media post. There was, that was very low friction.

Amanda (: 57:40

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 58:03

And the value of that, like my perception, the value of that is commensurate with the level of friction it took for you to send it to me, right? An article or like sub stack or a newsletter, you've read it. Then you sent it to me versus like, this, this is fun. Here's a reel of like a monkey sniffing his butthole or something like T like that's easy, right? Or a book. And that's just, it's more signal, right? It's more signal of this is worth

Amanda (: 58:11

Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 58:32

investing your time in. I think that's a really important piece.

One of the things...

I saw or read or whatever around marketing was Lamborghini. Like you never see Lamborghini commercials because people who can afford Lamborghini's aren't watching TV.

Amanda (: 58:55

Mm.

Ha!

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 59:01

whether or not that is factually true, conceptually, I love it because when it comes to marketing content, marketing, things like this too often, I see people either creating content and putting it somewhere where their ideal audience isn't, or they're creating content that is attracting like tire kickers, people who are, or, know, you know, window shoppers like

Amanda (: 59:06

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 59:27

They look, but they have no intent to buy. They can't maybe even afford the thing you're trying to sell. They are in no way aligned with what you're trying to put out. How do you think about that?

Amanda (: 59:37

I hadn't heard that Lamborghini example, so I love that. That's great. I know I gotta hope it's true. Or like if it's true, maybe it's true. then if they have said it, maybe now they say it. Maybe they didn't know that at outset, but now they know. Well, first I wanna say like, I mean, that's the whole thing about.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 59:43

You have to verify I have no idea if it's true or not.

Amanda (: 1:00:01

good marketing. Good marketing happens where your audience is. You know, you're not just posting things into the ether hoping that the right people find it. It's you are posting with intention so that you attract your audience, right? Or you go where you know your audience is hanging out and then you do the marketing there. So one, that is what SparkToro helps you do.

And then here's the thing with like, let's just let's go with a Lamborghini not doing TV commercials because their audience isn't watching TV. It's taking that more broadly. It's what are the things, the actual behaviors of your audience that signals intent? You know, like

One thing I'll say is, so earlier I said that we don't do demos at Spark Toro, ⁓ partly because of boundaries. And that's true. But the other reason is, and here's my spiky point of view. I don't think demos work. don't make, meaning they don't get people to buy. And I know there are gonna be people who hear this or who will disagree and be like, you're nuts. You just don't do demos, right?

No, like there have been early on in Spark Toro's infancy, our founder, CEO, Rand Fishkin. So Rand Fishkin himself got on Zoom calls with tons of people to do demos of the product. And I think almost none of them bought. Because, here's where I will concede something is perhaps it depends

on the nature of the demo slash the nature of the product. Maybe that maybe depends on that. Maybe it just doesn't work in software. Who knows? Because by the way, if demos worked, then would anybody actually buy Salesforce? Right, because Salesforce as a platform is like very much, it's very hard to use. It's not delightful. Like nobody would ever do a demo of Salesforce and go like, that was awesome. I'm gonna buy it.

No, people bought Salesforce or they buy Salesforce because they need Salesforce and they know they need to use it. Right. And it's kind of similar with Sprectorio. And, and honestly, like I'll even go a step further and say, it's already, it's already, you know, like a yellow flag to me. They say, I think the kids say beige flag, but that doesn't make sense to me. I think it's yellow flag. So I've a yellow flag to me when somebody asks for a demo before buying our product, because

On one hand, here's what I think. We have always free accounts, so you can make a free account and just test it for yourself. But also we have month to month plans. So you could also just buy a professional plan or a personal plan for 50 bucks for that month and then just cancel it. And I know not everybody has 50 bucks, but friends, any brand, any like company, any employer you work for.

If they cannot spend $50 for you to do your job, that is a huge red flag of that employer, right? So in the grander scheme of things in B2B, $50 is not a lot. But also, you can imagine $50 is also the cost of like two or three books. It's not an exorbitant cost, period. Anyway, so not only is it a yellow flag if someone asks for a demo, but it's a red flag.

If they then, if they then say like, and I also want to invite this person on my team and then that person and then this person and that person, because then that what that tells me is, ⁓ you don't know who's going to own this tool. And if none of you, and if none of you own it, none of you are going to use it. And it's, it's been true every time. Like the, the times that I've done and of course there are some times that I make exceptions or I'm like, maybe I should just do it or like, maybe this one will be different.

It's not to say that I have never done a demo, you know, but in the rare occasion that I do, like when it's a call like this, I already know like one minute in like, they're not gonna buy. Like this is a waste of everyone's time. So yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:04:32

That's why I don't do consulting calls. Like, so like a lot of like coaches, like, book your free 15 minute, you know, whatever the fuck now I did that early on. And no matter how hard I tried to pre-qualify people, so many people is just, it was a waste of time. It's like, like you said, when the first minute it was clear, they, they either, it was clear they weren't going to buy one way, one reason or another.

Amanda (: 1:04:35

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:04:59

I was like, you know, let me, let me think about it. let me do this. Let me do that. well, could you come down in price? I remember like there was one call. It ended up, we did this, we did the whole call and my, you know, my, my price was everywhere. And then at the very end she was like, okay, so how much is this? I was like, you literally had to like click confirm that, know, the price before you could even book this call. ⁓ she's like, well, I'm a college student and I'm broke and I can't afford that. I'm like, you should have never been able to get on this call with me.

But even people who were qualified, it's just, it's like, this is the function of content marketing. If you've ever done these calls, you're like, okay, these didn't work out. Why didn't they work out? What questions that people have that we could create content to address right out the gate and kind of get in front of all this. So one that's fodder, that's inspiration for future content marketing efforts you do. But it's also separate from that, a function of your content marketing, like, okay, what can I put out?

Amanda (: 1:05:27

Mm.

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:05:57

that will educate people on all of these things. And like you said, like with Salesforce, it's like people buy Salesforce because they know they need Salesforce period. Well, how do they know they need Salesforce? Because of the content marketing efforts. You have, you learn everything about it. You know, the use cases, you know why that is for you or it isn't right out the gate. That I think is a big piece with content marketing for creators at any scale for companies at any skills, like your content marketing efforts.

Largely, if done right, take care of the need for demos or consulting calls or all these other filtering mechanisms. That is one of the primary functions of your content marketing efforts.

This was awesome. I know you need to go.

What last minute advice or insight about marketing do you want people to leave with?

Amanda (: 1:07:02

Hmm

Let's see. You know, I will say this, because I think this applies to everybody, anybody. It's make it as easy as possible for people to know where they should go to buy from you. You know, like put it, put the links in your bio, have bios that describe your offering.

You know, like just make it super clear so that anybody going to your social media profile with little to no context at least knows like who you are and like what you do. And I say that because it sounds like very basic advice, but I'll tell you that there's so many times that I will see a person or a brand's page where I'm like, I don't know what you actually sell. Like there was one that I saw that was like a

Like, know, like a rice cooker, for instance, it was like, do you sell rice cookers or are you a lifestyle blog? You know, like that's probably a good example in that it's like, you would think it would be obvious, but sometimes these things aren't. Or somebody just will write like, you know, marketing consultant. Like, okay, but maybe like what kind of marketing do you specialize in? Or like, why should people trust you? You know, like, like do something, convey something that...

helps people more easily understand who you are and why they should care.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:08:38

of that. And I probably have to go redo all of my bios and homepage. Now you've got a marketing podcast. Correct. Tell us more about that.

Amanda (: 1:08:42

You

I do.

Yeah, so I have a podcast now, it's called Meme Team. My friend Sonia Bechaz and I talk about the headlines, talk about what's trending in marketing, what isn't trending, and we kind of break down the logic behind virality. So each episode, we go through about four topics, like four newsy topics, and talk about why the marketing works or why it doesn't, and what people can actually learn from it. So it's...

It's not so much, here's what Haley Bieber taught me about B2B sales, or here's why Haley Bieber is a master class in brand. Here's why Haley Bieber was uniquely positioned to create and scale her brand road. So it covers more of the nuance behind that stuff. And we also just have a lot of fun along the way. Each episode's around like 40 minutes, so it's not super long.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:09:46

Love it. Where can people go to learn more about you? The podcast, et cetera.

Amanda (: 1:09:52

Yeah, you can find me at Amanda Nat on LinkedIn and on Twitter, Instagram and threads. And you can go to my personal site at Amanda Nat.com.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 1:10:01

And I'll have all the links in the show notes. Amanda, thank you so much for this. This was wonderful. A mini masterclass in marketing is what I will call it.

Amanda (: 1:10:03

Cool, thank you.

Thank you, Corey. This was so much fun.