Show Notes
Watch the video version of this show on YouTube »Maddie Kirby is currently the Senior Social Media Manager for the video journal app, 1 Second Everyday. Maddie started her social media marketing career at Ozwest. Ozwest is an exclusive distributor of Zing branded toy products and the Ozwest toy line in the USA and Canada.
While working at Ozwest, Maddie started growing her personal social media presence. Maddie has almost 400k followers on TikTok. Since joining 1 Second Everyday in 2019, Maddie has been instrumental in leveraging TikTok to organically drive millions of downloads.
Maddie has a bachelor’s degree in advertising from the University of Oregon, and has also worked for companies such as Bytedance, Inc., Egg Strategy, Transition Productions, and Atomicus Films.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How to promote your app with user-created content
- Clever tricks to get your app noticed
- Why TikTok is a great place to market your app
- A great strategy for growing your app’s follower count
Links & Resources
Maddie Kirby’s Links
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Episode Transcript
I like to think of them as content buckets or pillars. You pick three and stick with those for a little bit. Try a few ideas in each bucket. See what's working, what's not. Scrolling through the app is the best way to kind of keep on top of things. And then you have to be able to think really fast and post really fast because these trends come and go.
Welcome to the Sub Club podcast. Our guest today is Maddie Kirby, Senior Social Media Manager at 1 Second Everyday. She began her career in social media marketing at toy company, Ozwest.
While working there she also started growing her personal social media presence, accumulating almost 400,000 followers on TikTok.
In 2019, Maddie joined 1 Second Everyday where she has been instrumental in leveraging TikTok to organically drive millions of downloads.
Maddie, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
I'm also here with David, my guest, which I forgot to introduce in our freaky Friday intro swap.
I usually do the introductions, but that was great. Jacob.
Hey, you know what? I'm very, very, very versed at...
You gotta mix things up.
I'll pass back to David because he's the one who preps all the questions.
Nice.
Maddie and I were on a panel together earlier this month, at App Promotion Summit, which is a great thing to watch. We can link it in the show notes.
It was four of us on the panel and it went really quick, but she shared a lot of really interesting stuff about what she's working on in social media marketing, and working with 1 Second Everyday on their TikTok presence.
So, I wanted to bring her on the podcast to actually give her time to talk a little more about it in the context of promoting apps, because she's been on a couple of other podcasts where they're talking more specifically about social media.
I'm super excited to have you, Maddie.
I do want to dive in. We typically do have more developer focused guests, you know, people that are doing the coding or focused on user acquisition, spending 50K a month on Facebook. And so that's another reason I was excited to have you on the podcast is to just get a really different perspective.
I think that there's a lot of potential in social media marketing. But not a lot of people talking about it in the app space and then...
Or just knowing how to do it, right?
How do you even start, especially if you're a developer-turned-promoter. I think a lot of app creators tend to do the things you were talking about. David does technical channels about buying ads on Facebook or whatever, where's a lot of leverage in social media stuff. If you can do it.
Yeah, absolutely. So, I did want to start with, you got your start in social media marketing, not with an app, which is another thing. It's like you came to the app marketing with such a different perspective, which I think is is really good. There's too many people who are just so narrowly focused in the kind of existing playbook for marketing apps.
So, are there any lessons from your time at of all the places a toy company? Any particular lessons from being at a toy company that you think helped you grow and learn this form of marketing and specifically that apply to subscription apps?
Yeah. I don't know if it's necessarily a lesson or lessons that I've learned. But I think coming from the toy industry, which is also an industry where people don't leave it. They have a lot of people that started in the industry and then just stayed there forever. You have a lot of people that aren't really thinking beyond just what they are normally, what they're used to, I guess, is what I would say.
Is what they're used to, like ads on Nickelodeon.
Yeah, it's definitely commercials. Like when they were still talking about TV and trying to transition out of that, that's really funny that you brought that up, but that's kind of what we were talking about at the time. So I got really lucky and I had a great manager who really wanted me to push people outside of their boxes.
And I feel like I wouldn't have found TikTok unless I was at a toy company, because we were so focused on trying to connect to Gen Z and young people. And I heard some kids talking on our public transportation about TikTok, which was musically then. And I was like, oh, and I just had like my feelers out about it because I was just so focused on kids at the time, and like trying to find this like cool new way that we can connect to them.
And I downloaded it and I was a content creator, too. So I thought it was super cool.
Getting onto TikTok at that time and super early, I feel like wouldn't have happened without being in the toy industry. Also then I was able to take that into 1 Second Everyday and already had experience, which I feel like a lot of people don't really have TikTok experience coming into a company.
Yeah, that's really cool. and so then what, what was the leap like? what, what, yeah, how'd you land the gate hit 1 Second Everyday and decide to jump into that the app.
I was using 1 Second Everyday already, before even looking for a job. so i had already, and i had known about the company the company is amazing and they have a lot of great benefits and they care so much about the people. in the company itself and it's small and, remote. so i was already hoping that they would have a job opening.
Right.
And I, so I didn't necessarily have my sights set on an app. really. it was just, i was interested in 1 Second Everyday, cause i use it. and i also like it because it's content creation and i have a background in that. so i feel like i was able to kind of have this weird experience coming into it.
Yeah, i do want to pause real quick and maybe talk a little bit about the app. and i should have researched, i should have read up on this before the podcast, but it'd be fun to just ask. 1 Second Everyday has been around like 10 years, right? like this is the, like, i think i bought this as a paid app in, in 2009 or 10 or something.
So tell us a little bit about the history of the app itself. and what the app does.
Yeah. so our founder has been recording his life for 10 years now, which is a really long time. and they started on kickstarter actually. and he did a ted talk and that's how a lot of people initially found us was through his TikTok, where he had left the ad. for a year he left his job to go record his life, his 30th birthday.
And yeah. it's, it was amazing and people really connected to it. and it's like a very simple idea. and then he did his ted talk about it and then that's how he launched the app. and now it's just kind of built slowly up, through that. really just being able to have him connect with people. caesar's an amazing person and a really great storyteller and people were able to connect to him first.
And then that's kind of how he built a team around him to slowly.
I love the, i mean, i think, you know, when you talk about. user acquisition or, or, you know, ultimately that's, you know, what marketing or whatever is, right? you want to get people into your business, your app or whatever. it always feels so much easier when you start with the story, right? when you start with like the narrative, the story, then you add in the business or the product later, right?
Because now you have a foundation. i was, i was on the 1 Second Everyday reading the timeline, right? it's all very clean narrative, right? like this person has this story whenever, and then everybody can join in. humans are very narrative driven. right? so we'd like to be part of something that like that like makes sense, right.
That like has an arc to it. so i think it's, i, and i think that downstream that's going to help will help makes apps like once every day be successful is they have this like something that makes sense. and they don't have to just go out and like, oh, you need 50,000 users spend $50,000. right. you actually have a little bit of like organic story there.
Yeah. and speaking of. no worries. so while you were still at the toy company, you started building your own social media presence. so you had, your own personal TikTok account, but then also built up several others. what was it like again, this, as you said earlier, this was a musically at the time before it even became TikTok before he even blew up.
So you're really early to this really cool platform. how did, how did you build these, accounts.
I started off at, on vine and then of course, vinyl. yeah, i know i had started it and then i had a harambe bay vine blow up. and then a week later they announced that the app was shutting down and i was devastated because i was like, here's my shot. i got it. and then, so i was looking for my next place to go cause i was a youtube kid growing up.
So i've always wanted to make videos and i, and i love it just naturally. and i had some friends invite me over to this app called flipagram, which is actually kind of funny because that was a. competitor to 1 Second Everyday at the time. and i didn't even know about 1 Second Everyday yet. and so i was a paid content creator over there to be using their app, and then got on to TikTok and started just posting random, funny videos.
And at the time things were the algorithm wasn't really developed, then it was more you post and then whoever likes your stuff is really important. so if you have somebody really cool and like, that likes your video, your video is going to blow up. and i just had two popular twin girls had liked my video and i had all these people coming over and said that these girls had liked my video and they saw it on their platform or their account.
And then that's how it started. it just started like going up and getting followers. and now, i have, an account where i play guitar. i decided to take up learning electric guitar. and so i built. an audience of 11 k on there in two and a half months. so i'm really like addicted, i guess.
So, yeah, so, so, and do you, do you, you know, i dunno this is more about like personal, just like brand and like building these, these properties. i mean, i do think it's, it's, it's the skill, like, you know, we're talking about developers building their own social media properties. it's like, okay, you got to have a shtick.
Right. i don't know what you'd call it. right. like could learn guitar. so do, do you carry them over from your other properties? you try to like bootstrap them or you're just like, nope, totally greenfield. i'm just going to like, be a guitar person now and like make it a thing. is that, is that more how it goes or.
I mean on my other account, my comedy account, i guess it's always been a really hard thing to kind of stick with one thing that you're into. and some people are really good at that. yeah. definitely not the best when it comes to my own stuff that i, like, i just want to do whatever and kind of see if that works, but that's kind of morphed over time.
And then with guitar, i was just like, i'm just going to record myself, playing guitar and see what happens. and it did well.
Oh, so you don't, you don't, you don't like plan out like, oh, i'm going to do a funny heran bay guitar thing. it's
No, i just do it. it's a lot of it's like improv and going for it and just seeing. i think that being on the platform for so long, i kind of know what's going to do well, and yeah. and sometimes you'll put, you know, five seconds of effort into something and it does really well. and then other times you put, you know, an hour of work into something and it doesn't do well.
This is me and my twitter game.
So you need to give me some advice because like i can, i still can, 11 years in, i, sir, out 13 years in on twitter, i still can't predict what's going to do well.
Yeah, exactly.
So you've kind of been talking about your, your personal accounts. but these things that you're saying, i would assume also apply to company accounts. okay. i would assume growing a company account, you just need to have a similar amount of exploration. so how how have you taken those lessons from your own personal accounts and then systematize them to, to grow a company account and then even pushing back on, on not overly systematizing because you have to keep experimenting.
Yeah, that's a really good question. i think how i tackle it now, since i've been on so many accounts, because i grew one, back at the toy company too, for the stop motion animation toy, and that's kind of my first dipping into that. and we grew really fast. like it's like at a half a million now for followers—t but, i think hat's kind of when i was realizing that there's buckets to these things.
And like, i like to think of them as like content buckets or like pillars and you like pick three, like i'm going to do behind the scenes videos. i'm going to do, some kind of. app walkthrough maybe for 1 Second Everyday purposes and then fun trends and stick with those for a little bit, try a few ideas in each bucket.
See what's working, what's not. and then kind of maybe if the behind the scenes stuff is not working as well, then we won't make as many of that stuff. and then just scrolling through the app is the best way to kind of keep on top of things and make sure that you're experimenting with new stuff, because people are always thinking of really creative ways to make new videos and have these like wild ideas that you don't think could ever relate to 1 Second Everyday but they can, and then you have to like, be able to think really fast and post really fast because these trends come and go. so that's kind of like my system, i guess.
How do, you avoid the. what did that steve buscemi meme that's like, hello, fellow kids. how did, how do you, because that's always my fear too, is like, especially as i get older, it's like, if i'm trying to be hip on twitter or whatever, like, it feels like there's this uncanny valley that brands can really easily get in to and you see it with like bad social media.
Right. is there is, there is a solution just hire people who are actually good at social media or like, or is there like a framework for not becoming the steve buscemi meme?
I think the biggest thing is don't try to make anything that you don't understand already. like don't try to guess. i think i learned that.
I canceled this, the, the, the sea shanties revenue, cat, collab, because yeah, i still don't understand it.
Yeah, it's i think i learned that on my personal account. specifically just as i age and everything. and you get like these young kids on there that are like, wait you're, you're a millennial. that's really old. and then they just kinda like it pierces your heart a little bit. and you're like, oh god, that hurt really bad, but okay, thanks for reminding me.
And it's okay if they do that, it's actually kind of funny and you can lean into it. but don't try to be gen z i think is the big thing when you're trying to relate just as i wouldn't try to be boomers either.
Like you wouldn't try to be somebody else. so it's being yourself, knowing what you know, and like, not trying to guess at it, and you can talk to that generation, but they might just tell you, like, stop, get off the platform or something. i don't know. but there's always people that you can find within the platform that will relate to you too. that's a big thing
How much of this do you think is kind of product social media platform fit? i guess. so my question is like, can you shoehorn a product that wouldn't necessarily work on social media, into social media marketing. so revenue cap being a good example. you know, we are, you know, sharing some videos on twitter and stuff like that, but it doesn't feel like TikTok would be a good platform for us to invest in marketing wise, as opposed to.
Cause because we're an infrastructure tool.
As opposed to, you know, it sounds like even at the toy company, the stop motion animation product was what really hit on social media. did you try other, products within the toy company that didn't hit? or do you have any kind of thoughts on that kind of product platform fit?
That's a good question. we specifically got on to TikTok because of the stop-motion toy. and i think it definitely makes it easier when you have a content creation tool, because we had an app that went with that toy too. and, and really it's all about entertaining people at the end of the day on TikTok and if you can't make entertaining content with your product, then it gets harder. i don't think we tried with other products. we did do a cross-promotion where we would have like a stop-motion toy playing with our other toys that we had kind of thing. and that was a fun way to do it, but we had different strategies for other toys, like influencer marketing or unboxing videos as well.
But i think that anybody can be on TikTok but i also like to ask people, why do you think that you can't be on TikTok and people will say, well it's because kids are on there, it's a kid's platform. and it's really not at all. it used to be, it used to be people just lip sinking. and that's what i had started out doing.
And i was terrible at it. i'm like this sucks. i am not, this is not a good platform for me. and it's really just transformed into a place where anybody can kind of find their, their audience and, and maybe with revenuecat it might be a thing of just trying to explain what you do in a really fun way and unique way to make people excited about it.
There are other developer brands that find success on there. right? there's like a certain language or that, that works. it's just like, hey, you know, for us. and so it's, and i think for any, any, you know, as an app, i think to going back to your point, david, about products, network fit, right. apps in general.
Sit. well, i was thinking about 1 Second Everyday and TikTok, right. you're pointing a camera at your face at something. right. so like you're already, like, they were very like products in some ways. so it's like very smooth transition. but for most apps, it is right. you're there, you're on your phone.
You're doing stuff you're probably bored like here. like, let me tell you about some other application you can use. it's a smooth transition. but then like i still. yeah. thinking about, i mean, we have this problem now that'd be the podcast we do. it's one thing. but then like, you know, for, for blog content and other things, it's really hard to come up with stuff that matters.
Right. that like, like you were saying, maddie, like, so that, that, that, that, that's funny, like you care about, right. that that's what you want do. cause like, at the end of the day, if you're just trying to like chase the meme, it's gonna come off as hokey. right. it's going to come off as like an ungenuine. so. but i think app developers. yeah. i mean, i, i, it feels like we've heard like this whole tick talk as an app distribution mechanism really has kind of something that surprised me too. like it, it blinds, i mean, it's like we, and not just the first order of like we're selling ads on TikTok, this like second order user generated content stuff, which i think is just fast.
Yeah. and i, i think that again, it's, you just have to figure out how you can be on the platform if you want to. and there's really nothing to lose with it too, because it doesn't cost money to be on there and try things like you can have a podcast format on there and you can take clips of a podcast and put them on there.
And people have a lot of success doing that, or just having their, reply with the video feature. there's a lot of different kind of structures that people it's not just. making skits or trying to use popular.
Sounds popular. sounds do well, but maybe that's not for you. i think it's, brainstorming, trying things, seeing what sticks and if it doesn't stick, then try something different.
And if that doesn't, then you can focus your energy somewhere else and realize that, you know, you gave it your best shot and maybe there's a different kind of opportunity that, comes up later or a new feature that's introduced later that works.
On the, on the trend chasing, what are some examples of that with 1 Second Everyday that you feel like came off? well, and, and kind of, how do you, how do you attach yourself to a trend without that? hokiness cause it sounds like you've succeeded at that, but i imagine that it is a hard thing to do.
So any tips on how to do that? well,
We kind of get lucky sometimes. and i, that is kind of like how TikTok works is luck. and i hate saying that.
Favors the prepared though.
Yeah. i mean, it's good that we were onto it. it definitely helps, to be able to, to see what's going on out in the world, but we just had, a wall street journal article that was about this too, about TikTok in 1 Second Everyday.
And how there's this trend going on on, tech talk, where people are making 1 Second Everyday type video. and there's a lot of trends out there that show it's like the 27 video challenge where you have 27 videos and you set them to a song. that's very, we say that's one. when i see vibes, when we ever like share it inside of our slack channel
I mean, the thing is, is like bad posts. nobody sees, right? like,
Yeah, it's kind of, it's like such a tiny thing and that goes back to the luck part of it. and i think being able to, jump on a trend, it's like, you could have a great video and people think it's awesome and you show it to your friend and they think it's great. and it just doesn't do well at the time.
And you could post it two months later and it'll do that.
Maybe not for a trend it's randomness and kind of like just how the algorithm works with wanting to reward you sometimes. but i think where we've done well with, jumping on a trend too, is we had a, a video that took off with, one of my coworkers made, she, she helped me make it.
She was just standing there with her phone and was having somebody else zoom in on her that said i recorded 1 Second Everyday of my life for the last year. and then it just rotated through like really, really fast imagery of the year. and that was the trend of people showing it, but it was like this, we just kind of twisted it a little bit to make it about 1 Second Everyday, but don't ever make it like an ad.
It shouldn't be, it shouldn't feel like 1 Second Everyday is posting it. and that's really cool. we were getting a lot of positive feedback on the posts because people were like, okay, what's the app that you use.
Yeah.
And, and that's not a bad thing. people think that's a bad thing to have people ask that, but it's actually not.
It just means that they think that some random girl posted a video, not a brand.
And I prefer
On your brand account though
On our brand account. we get that all the time.
I mean, that's a good sign of success, right?
Yeah. people don't really read the, they don't read the captions. maybe i'm not sure what it is, but they don't
Yeah. it's really understated on TikTok,
Yeah.
Kinda like floating in the
Yeah. i feel like it's a great thing. when people have no idea that it's coming from a brand, even when it's posted on a brand account and that's, i would say with trends, it should feel like that it shouldn't feel like, like i'm trying to think of an example. like if oreo cookies made a thing, it shouldn't feel like they are just trying to sell you cookies.
It needs to be entertaining. it needs to tell a story. you can't just find an easy way to do it and hope that it works.
So how, how so you've had success with first party content? i have you used like user generated stuff as well. have you tried to, i've seen it a lot of apps do this where they'll, i, we know if we've had it on the podcast, people before who have had like TikTok influencers make videos and then use those as ads.
Have you experimented with any of that?
We haven't used any as ads—something that's kind of weird about 1 second, everyday too. I mean, it also just has to do with us being a small team, with not a lot of money to spend on ads. so we really lean into organic because organic has also done really well for us. so why would we spend a bunch of money?
It's too usually
But my, yeah my manager who used to be the social media manager when she started at 1 Second Everyday started a thing, where they added a feature actually to get more spikes monthly. and that was to make it so that people could mash their month and share their month on social. and then they had a giveaway that went with it and we still have that giveaway.
And that gets hundreds of people to enter by sharing their, their, their month essentially, of 1 Second Everyday and that just keeps that going and just feeds into it. and then the more people that post about us. the more people that download and then the more people that can then post about us again.
So it's just keeping that stream.
Did you have, it does again, post to tech talk as well as like other platforms or is it like specifically. on TikTok.
Uh that's for instagram, actually
Oh, really? cause like take that, sorry. i'm th this is i'm totally like a tick tock idiot, but like you can't actually like post videos into TikTok, right? or,
No.
You definitely can. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no. and we, we share user-generated content all the time on instagram, and we're trying to do that on TikTok as well, but it's, it's not the same because you can't really just share a one second everyday video from a random person. that doesn't mean as much as trying to kind of make it more of that TikTok format or putting a little bit of context behind it so that people understand.
So, and, on the, on the panel we were on, you talked about, how well it's done for y'all at 1 Second Everyday. can you, rehash what you already said, but on here, tell us more specifically about a couple of the posts that went viral and then being able to see the direct results on, in downloads.
Yeah.
So we started arctic talk, in december because we wanted to be able to launch it before the new year, which is our biggest time of the year, because that's usually when people don't. and then, because it's the start of the year, that's a great time to just start a thing for your life and then they'll wait a year to post it.
And so usually we see like this massive spike because everybody wants to post their year. but this time, what was different is that i think it was the day before the new year a girl, i was just randomly scrolling through TikTok and a girl had made a video that was like, hey, i have an idea. what if we just recorded 1 Second Everyday of our life, and then we would have a life movie, and then i went, oh, that's our app.
And it hadn't even been, i don't think it was even at 1 million views yet. and so i was like, i got to do a duet right now. and so i filmed a duet where i just was walking through the app. as she's explaining this idea and people even thought that we made the app because of her idea, like how did you guys do that?
So fast. so then people thought it was like this new cool app. and, it started this like microtrends, through ticks hawk and her video. i think it reached a lot of millions of views. i think it was like 13 million or something crazy. and then ours got, like a million views and then everything after that for a couple of days, it's like a million on our own account because then everybody started translating her video into their own country languages.
And so you had hundreds of people copying her video and just ending up on everybody's feed. and then everybody that had already downloaded 1 Second Everyday and knew about it was commenting inside of those videos saying, hey, download 1 Second Everyday. so they were doing our job for us really.
You know, and that's a sign of a great product, right?
Yeah, it is. it's like we, we talk about it cause we go and it's again, kind of a lucky circumstance of having this girl think of this idea. that's really similar to our app, but also we were able to capitalize on, on it even more because we do edit with it. and then we were able to grow an audience that to like now we're at, i don't even know what we're at 20 k or something on a TikTok, but we grew really fast within that time.
And then. kind of going back to being able to see download spikes is we got a number one in the app store that day for the first time ever had never had that happen. and it just, i mean, it blew the other numbers just away dramatically. and then, now we're able to see these little spikes every month when a TikTok is posted from somebody.
We had one in france and you'll see all the downloads that happened in france. just. and then we had one in argentina and that spiked and uk. so being able to like, see that and also just learn from them, like what kind of videos are they posting? super simple them just saying
I've been recording my life for this long people just think that's cool. cause they're like, you did what you recorded your life for four years. what, how do i do that? and then you tell them how they do it. and then they just, they're all like talking in the comments. it's really cool. and, but we haven't seen them. at all on the other years, it's only this time that we've seen these like massive monthly spikes too.
Didn't, y'all hit number one again in may or something.
We did for a different country.
And i think that was argentina, which we had never done before.
Nice.
Country, but you could connect it back to one second.
Wow.
We've seen, i mean, we had david smith on the podcasts a couple of weeks ago. and his app, would just meth, like exploded because of that. and like, he, it was just, somebody made a video, right? david, that was a story for his, like, it wasn't, it was the same thing. it was like not, they didn't pay for it, somebody to just like, show how to do a cool thing with this guy's app.
Well, i mean, from our perspective, we talked about it on the podcast at the time, but from our perspective, we, we provide his infrastructure for purchases and we were like, what the hell is happening? like, it's, it's, it's amazing. i mean, i don't know it was like computer brain guy, but like what this like interconnected, like we've really like shortened the loop for like the, just like minimal.
Energy to like move around. right? like people can like spike this stuff. and it's yeah, it's, it's it's mind blowing the capex cause we've seen it also, not just, we've just been, we've seen other apps too. like, you know, it's hard to move the needle for our infrastructure because we're thousands of hours.
But in TikTok and like some of these, and to a lesser extent, instagram can still like drive events that show up on our graphs, like what the hell is happening? we had one, it was a paid one car, like a kardashian driven one that obviously it's different because you're paying an influencer. but, but, but yeah, it's, it's, it's incredible.
And maybe back to your point about it being organic, right. versus, or like earned, you could call it too. right. it's earned as organic. watching it and being there, you know, for, for us, the first party, like to, to take advantage of that, i think is as important as trying to be like, you know, creating your own content.
Right. it's
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it wouldn't have gone as well if we didn't have, a presence on the platform too. and i think that just goes to show that you should just be on the platforms and have a voice on the platforms for that moment. you shouldn't be just jumping on. i think there's probably like examples of that with other brands, like, the cranberry juice, like ocean spray stuff that happened.
I don't think they had a presence on TikTok, but then they caught on real fast. but just imagine if they already did have a presence and then people would want to be posting about them more. but i think, yeah, just having a presence on there too, when that's all happening
Oh, i was trying to place the meeting. that was the guy with the skateboard,
Yeah, that's the skateboard.
Sorry. yeah, yeah. no, it's, it was really cool to see that all happen and, and be able to show numbers because everybody, i mean, on the team, has everybody in general has opinions on TikTok. and when you're able to actually just correlate these things with numbers, some people, the people that are number of people were just like mind blown.
They love it. feel like this is great.
It sounds like the algorithm is very capricious though. it sounds like it's very kind of, even, even you even suggested that there's like intentional randomness, like progressive randomness.
There's yeah, there is. but then there's also, i've made a video like the four years that i had captured kind of video where you have something playing in the back, like the app i have in the background and me just sharing my story. i've done that three times, i think. and every time it's done.
So you, it, it also rewards you for doing the same thing over and over, which isn't a good thing and that's how you can get trapped, but it is a nice thing to lean on when you're like, we need a spike.
Let's do this kind of video.
Did you follow the, the widget smith and homescreen customization thing that blew up in the fall.
Hm.
Okay. i was just going to get your thoughts on that, but, yeah, i mean like, like jacob said, he blew up on TikTok in
I know, i know what you're talking about
Okay.
I, yeah, yeah, yeah. when everybody was customizing their screens to make it like a theme and everything.
Yep. yeah. and so that's what jacob was talking about a minute ago was that widget smith was, was kind of the center of all of that and, and, they use revenue, cat. and so it just blew up.
But but that was kind of, just this crazy viral wave where, what i thought was so cool about how that happened. and, we talked about on the podcast, i want to go super into it, but, she basically gave it to tutorial of how to use the app, which is like the best onboarding you could ever hope for. you know, it's like, it is a complex thing to like go set up a widget. and, configure all these, this stuff to get the widgets, to show up correctly.
And it it's all a hassle that you would typically, as a developer have to think, oh man, i need to onboard the user. i need to convince them that it's worth all of this hassle to get some reward out of it. and then she goes and like, i forget it was like 45 second video, maybe even 32nd video. it was like, here's how you do it.
Damn like, or actually i think she said like, she showed that like homescreen at how cool and aesthetic it was. and then, then she showed how to do it. and then she, it was like, she, it was like this perfectly scripted marketing. onboarding thing of telling you how to do it, telling you the result, telling you it's worth doing, telling you, you know, it's worth the hassle of going through these steps and then showing you the steps.
It was just amazing how it wasn't an ad. it was totally user generated, just ended up being the absolute perfect ad because it was user generated. and because it was user-generated she felt like she needed to explain it all and like tell that story. so yeah, it was just a, it was just a really fascinating little blur lip.
And then, and then, you know, a lot of apps have been going viral because of TikTok. since then, i forget there was another, another one recently that was like super random, like some kind of calculator or something that got into the top 100 in the app store.
Oh, that's cool.
Yeah, so it's just crazy.
Have, you all, thought about product changes to try to incent that behavior, to like try and encourage folks to make video as a aside from you mentioned the like sharing thing, but there seems like there could be other ways to kind of. plant some more of those viral spikes
Yeah. something that we're working on. i don't know if i'm actually probably allowed to say what it is because it's not yeah. even secret.
We have things planned where we're thinking about it. yes, we do. we think about ways that we can incorporate it in the app. and we want to think about more ways. i mean, we've had.
TikTokers that have influenced product changes to just even the ability to flip, like mirror their video. i don't know if you know what that trend is, but there was this, effect they had on tech talk that would mirror your face and it makes it look bizarre when you flip it for some reason it's a psychological thing.
And so then everybody was telling us that we need to have a mirror button so they can flip it back the correct way. and we made that change when people were really happy. so we definitely listened to everybody on social about stuff. and yes, we do think about product changes and are trying to think about more for the future to encourage people to post, but definitely making sure that there's no, paywall with that too.
You know, if you want to make hay off of like organic or viral or something like that, it has to be, i've worked on several like viral, organic or viral cheri features like stuff like this, the only ones i've ever had be successful are the ones that are like core to the product, which means like, you have to think about it early.
Right? you have to think about. early on. i mean, you can add stuff later, but like, unless it's like consequential or like it's easy or interesting, like it's not actually gonna get to that viral coefficient. that makes enough of a difference. but, but doing the product work in some ways, it's going to be higher leverage than like trying to make your end video.
Right.
Yeah.
Making the product more shareable. uh
Yeah.
We have those conversations and people try to loop in the marketing team to, and pick our brains about, hey, we heard about this product request and we want to know on a scale of one to 10, how important is this for the success of the app? and like, how much is it going to affect it? and we'll talk about it and be like, well, that filter is not really that important.
You can hold off for like next summer or something. it's, it's having those conversations. they're really important. i think everybody on the team talks together about the features.
What do you think are, are some other ways, and specifically going back to the algorithm that, that helps you stand out. yeah. like so aside from trend chasing, i know the like popular songs is one thing, right? because if you use the background audio from a video that was trending, the kind of audio trends separate from the video, right.
Or separate from topics and things like that. are there any other kind of tips and tricks to, to help your video stand out? even if you're not, you know, doing specific kind of trenches.
That's a difficult one. cause that kinda comes down to like you and your personality and what makes you different as well. and that's a really hard one that can take a long time to kind of flesh out. but if you're not trend chasing, it's kind of playing around with features in the app and kind of seeing new ways that you can play with it.
I know i had a video on my own personal account that was using their voiceover effect that they have, where the text is read out by a woman. and i would misspell the names of like popular celebrities on purpose. and i found out that i could actually drag the misspelling out of the video. you couldn't see it, but it would still do.
It and then i could put the actual person's name so i could make it seem like this voice is just completely butchering these names in the worst way. and it went viral. just like thinking of these like random ways that you can use these features or like tricks is really important and it's super fun.
And people love it so i think, yeah, just diving into using the app itself. there's so many features that go on and new ways that you can use them. and that's how you stand out just kind of making like a little bit of a tweak to something
So i'll, you know, just to look into the future because if it, you know, having seen, having seen myspace and then now, then facebook become cool and not cool. and twitter, i think twitter is not cool anymore.
Probably i don't know. now i'm on there. so now it's my social media of choice and i take talks.
The rising. cool. like, do you have any, like, i mean, imagine you're in a multi-decade career of doing something along those lines, do you, do you think about, or imagine like what, what might be next? or like what the kids, what the kid on the bus might be talking about in, in, in five or 10 years?
All the time. yeah, but they're, i mean, i have been on new platforms all the time too, and they just flop sometimes you'll think it's a great thing. but it's often because people think they're putting out something different and they're really not. it's just the same thing, but looks a little different, different colors maybe, or you can't force people to use an app.
You can only get people to like naturally kind of come over there. and a lot of companies will pay people to come and use their app.
Yeah. to try to get people to come over there and generate fake viewers or a fake users really. and that doesn't work either. so i do think about it a lot. i haven't quite seen that yet for what the new thing is.
I think TikTok has stayed around a lot longer than i thought, because i remember talking about it with people at vidcon a couple of years ago, where we went, when do you think vidcon is going to go? just because we were all scared because of. vine when that i mean, dropped it affected so many people and it impacted them in a positive way too, because some people had already set their sights on, youtube or doing TikTok it's either you chose short form content or long form. so just being ready, don't have all your eggs in one basket. it's kind of like the big thing and be looking and just be aware of what's out there. it doesn't mean that the thing will be the next big thing. it just means you should be aware of it in case it does become a thing
Yeah, i would say like taking your company brand onto very unproven platforms is probably not a great use of time. right? like you want to wait until there's something there.
Yeah, i think it's with, smaller teams. it's definitely us trying to think is an hour going to really be worth it, or is it really more well-spent if it's an hour of me making some tech talks in my apartment, probably the tech docs right now,
Yeah,
Of a random thing, but it's.
But but how do you approach it set then? because there is value in the experimentation. i like seeing what's next. so do you kind of think okay, i'm going to waste. two hours this week, checking out new. i mean, you probably don't timebox it like that, but there is some value in that experimentation. how much are you time?
Are you spending on that experimentation? it sounds like that's, i mean, that's kind of been a theme of this whole conversation is try this, try that, see what sticks, see what happens. so, and there's value in that. so how, how much, how do you kind of view that time? that you're. throwing stuff against the wall.
Okay.
It can really range and not just depends on what apps are out. there are a ceo caesar's awesome at being in the loop with the tech world and kind of seeing what platforms are being talked about on twitter. so twitter still is a relevant thing for people talking. yeah, it is.
Early millennials,
Yeah,
Out of anything relevant,
Exactly. like, he sent us apps that were like, whoa, this is really cool. and even if it's not something that blows up, it can still help us with our app too. and like internally. yeah. we're like, that's a really cool onboarding video. i've never seen anything like that. that's super helpful.
And that, that's just the team being curious about stuff. and i think that's so important. also, if you're in social media, you should just be, i mean, on social media and i am definitely on social media way too much, but that's what i do with my own time too. i'm not like making an account for 1 Second Everyday on every new platform that exists and like trying it out.
I'm trying it out on my own own time sometimes like on my own account. and that's the best way is just to see how you like it and how it's working for you and your friends to you. i can't remember what the app was called. it's like paparazzi. i think maybe that's what it's called.
Yeah.
Now went viral for four days or
Right. went viral for four days or whatever. and it was great. and we were like, well, this is so cool. that's like one of the onboarding videos that were like, this is awesome. it's got like the, the phone was vibrating and stuff while you were like going through this onboarding experience. so it was so cool.
We didn't stick with it, but that's also because we're like, we don't have as many friends as like a bunch of kids do. so maybe that's a different experience in their world. maybe they're all talking about it more. yeah, i think just getting on it and seeing it can be a valuable thing and using it for your own time and actually creating content on the platform is important.
It's not too dissimilar from how developers use new, like coding tools. right? like you try it for side projects. i mean, it's one channel for revenue. cat's talking about our own growth is like, we want to make sure. selling into bigger older companies. it's a little, sometimes it's taken longer route. we'll do it now, but like it's much easier to win.
Like yeah. they'll like inconsequential or less consequential side project. and then, you know, ramp that into something bigger later, right.
Yeah.
That is sometimes a better place for that experimentation.
It's funny. i would say here. an app developers perspective. so we have the tools guy, the social media person at me and me is the app, focus.
So exactly what you were saying is, is how you want to prove out your own app. like i've had apps where i send out a beta and people stop using it like a couple of days later.
And so, you know, when you go onto this social media platform and you're trying it and your own personal use just drops off. then it's clear, it's not a sticky where most people would get on TikTok. it's like they're hooked and they're going.
Will not open the damn thing.
Is to get, like, i got twitter enough in my life through ruining it. like i don't
Yeah.
Other one. yeah.
But for, but for the developers out there, you know, when you send out a beta, you know, your beta people might not be your exact target market, but you should have some level of like stickiness. in, in the app signs of product market fit. but anyways, i do want to talk a little bit and we need, we're getting short on time, but, you're launching a new community, feature with a community manager. or tell me about that. because i actually don't know all the details
Yeah.
I think you mean brand ambassador program, is that correct? that's what you're talking about. cause i kind of, i, yeah i had announced that on the panel that day that we were launching that and we. had over to just like 200 applications for people to join our brand ambassador team. and we have a marketing team of three people to manage that team.
So we had to narrow it down a lot, unfortunately, but we had, you know, over 200 people submitting videos of why they wanted to be on this team. and this team is for us to be able to connect with people in the community, to kind of just start a brand ambassador program, because we've always wanted to do that.
It's been talked about forever, so we just made the leap and we narrowed it down to, 26 people and announced them last week. and so we're getting them all onboarded and ready to go. and we've got like people from all over the world that are ready make some content about 1 Second Everyday but that's kind of the thing is they get, you know, connections with us and can have impacts within the app as well as like free merch and things like that, that are really fun.
And then. we get some content from them in exchange, which is kind of like user-generated and hopefully we'll be successful and we'll see some like, really cool things from them. we're just excited to see what they create.
So, so the, so the, goal is, is to be more directly connected with some of the people who are already creating content in the space. and then, and it's not a paid gig. it's, it's a, they, like you said, they get paid in, in, in merge, and, but i imagine that that's not.
March. you can't put a dollar value on
Right? yes.
Yes. exclusive.
What, what, i mean, what was the pitch to them specifically?
Yeah. The pitch to people, in general, was to be a part of the community to identify as a 1 Second Everyday fan, which we've got a lot of big super fans out there, who've been using the app for eight years to, you know, a year and they just love it. And they just want to be a part of that and really kind of make their own with it.
If they're a writer, they can submit a blog post if they want. If they really like social media, they can focus on TikToks to make for us to post and kind of help give them shout outs. They just really want to have experience some of these kids are, some of them are like kids that want marketing experience.
Some people are older that are just like, I love this app so much. And I promise I will make the coolest videos for you. And here's like what I do. And they're just so jazzed about it. And they're going to get like the younger people that are newer to the app, really excited, guided. So we're just excited to see them interact and everything.
And then get content and like new ideas because I'm just a one person making stuff for social media. And I want to see kind of what people naturally make. We're not trying to force them to make anything. We're not telling them that they have to make this kind of video. It's just whatever they want to do.
And then they can discuss within the community.
So, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce the RevenueCat brand ambassador program.
David, figure out the details.
Oh, thanks.
I don't know what this is just the sort it out for me.
No, this is blowing my mind though. I mean, and again, the whole reason I wanted to have you on the podcast is you just are thinking so differently. I know brand ambassador is it, I just I've seen brand ambassadors. I know the general idea, you know, but I just never would have thought it could work for an app.
So it's so cool that y'all are just trying this new thing and having users help with your marketing.
Yeah.
Then being so like thrilled to do it.
That's just incredible.
So much better too, than like a bunch of like stale Facebook ads degenerated on Fiverr, right?
Yeah. That's mostly how people find out about our app is through word of mouth and people posting about us. So it only made sense. And we knew it was the right time because we had all these people asking if we had a brand investor profile.
And that's kind of like how we sold it to the team too, is being like, hey, people are asking, people are interested. This is the time to do it. And just try it. There's nothing to lose. Let's go for it. See what happens. And then hopefully from there, we'll be able to just keep growing it.
Yeah.
Like awesome connection with our user base.
And what's been so cool about doing this podcast and talking to so many folks is that different things just click for different people. So, if you're listening to this podcast and you have an app that isn't content heavy, you know, maybe social media is not the perfect fit for you. And maybe you're not going to be able to have brand amabassadors and things like that.
But the point is you don't just have to buy ads on Facebook. There are so many different avenues to explore, and this is one really cool way to do something different, and to very cost-effectively grow without just dumping money into ads. So it's so cool. And we do need to wrap up. Is there anything else you wanted to share?
We're going to put links to your TikTok and 1 Second Everyday. But anything else you wanted to share as we wrap up?
No, I think that's it. Thanks so much for having me. I had a really fun time talking about all this with you guys. This is my passion, so it's great to chat.
Well, thanks so much for your time. This is super insightful.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.