Why is branded content so annoying? Welcome to the Muthership Creator Strategy. Again, another favorite topic I love talking about, and it's probably because my whole career in advertising was spent in meetings and strategy sessions discussing how TV commercials were gonna go, and then making the leap into social media and seeing how that changes and how that has really changed the TV commercial industry. But the brands who aren't hopping on it and adapting to the change are very stand out to me when I watch TV now. It's so strange.

But I'll leave it at that because we're gonna talk about social media ads today. And why I wanna really push this home is because in the studio, we've been working on user generated content, and I'm teaching creators how to make good intro videos so that they can get gigs and they can get paid to make content for brands that they don't have to post on their own social media feed, which is key because a lot of creators get into the space. They're pretty decent at making videos, but because of the saturation on the platforms and the algorithms, they're not able to grow the following that we used to be able to grow in 2020, 2021, and 2022. So because of that, this talent is is kind of not tapped into. But with UGC, because you don't need to advertise to your audience, you don't have to worry about how many followers you have.

You could still jump into the getting paid marketplace for content. Okay. So just to introduce being what UGC is, it's so that you don't it's so it's when you it's when you make content for brands that you don't have to post on your own page. Alright? So there's a lot of opportunity there.

But what's happening now is that everybody and their sister, brother, and mother, father is getting into UGC, and they don't have a clue at how to make the content. So all they know is what they like a traditional ad. Let me just describe what I think that is. And it's, of course, reminds me a lot of the one eight hundred number late night TV, that that infomercial style, like, if you have problems with this, get this, you know, that kind of vibe. And as also, a creator that doesn't even have that vibe isn't really a salesperson because that can work for somebody that's really good at the QVC space, and they almost should be a QVC host.

But that doesn't work for everybody. There's not a lot of people that can pull that off authentically. There's just not. We don't have that skill. I don't have it.

Okay? Most people don't have it. So when you're watching ads on social media and it's that, it's immediate, scroll, scroll, scroll, immediate. Boom, boom, boom. I'm done.

So what I'm going to focus on this month in the studio upcoming is teaching people the tricks to the trade of how to make branded content that fits for you so it makes sense and then it doesn't look so advertise y sales y. It's more likely to do better for a brand than that traditional, I don't know, old school, I hate to use that word, but I have to, old school style of ads. And I'll talk about what some good ads are, and I'm gonna try and give you some examples. Let me think who's doing really good ads. Because it usually is when it fits with the person.

I remember, I can't think of her last name, Kat something, but she would always do funny content with her Hispanic mom. Okay? Now she didn't one day just decide to pick up a makeup brand and go blah blah blah blah blah and talk about she involved a conversation with her Hispanic mom, for example. So she was always funny doing that content, and then she would start trying to describe the product to her mom. Okay?

That's natural branded content that fits with the creator's vibe. That is just one example that I'm just gonna give you so I can explain. And I'm gonna also go down one other path, which is when the content you're known for, and this is especially for the creators who are depending on their audience to sell. So there's the UGC space, gotta learn how to make good quote ads that are feeling natural. But there's also the branded collabs where the client is paying for your audience and they want you to promote the product to your audience.

So that would be someone like me with a million followers. A brand might want my the eyeballs that I have on my account, and they would pay me for that. And that is when you post the content on your account. So do you get the two different styles of content? That's important to understand.

Because the people that are doing that, when they're big creators and then suddenly they're given a paid gig, a lot of them don't get it. And I'll not gonna call out a creator team, but there are there's a couple who does a lot of dancing, and they do amazing dancing videos. And then when they got their first branded collab, suddenly, they were doing talking, sitting on the couch, blah blah blah. No one's watching that video. They're known for dancing.

And then all of a sudden, they're sitting down talking. Believe me me when I tell you, the engagement on that is gonna be extremely low because it's not what they normally do. It's not getting fed to their audience who likes the dancing videos. And so it's a twofold problem. It's an algorithm problem, and it's also them not being experienced doing that kind of content.

They would have been better off putting the product on a table and dancing around it and making, like, a routine around it. That's a great example, actually. Okay? Because then somebody's watching the dance and they're like, oh, what are they dancing around? And now their the audience is perked up.

And, also, at that point, they could be dancing around having text on the screen with the product benefits. But we're gonna get into all that. Okay. So let me start. Whoo.

I got ahead of myself real quick. And I also have to pause because I forgot to introduce our creator of the week, Starla, the Pink Chair Salon. Hooray. I would actually go back and edit this to the beginning, but I don't like to, I like the podcast to feel natural and flowy. So we're flowing into creator of the week in the middle.

Hooray. Congratulations to Starla. Woo. Way to make it work. Okay.

Now I can go into my organized bullet points for this episode, which is the mistakes with branded content. Okay. Number one, when it's too scripted. You don't sound natural. You sound like you're reading a teleprompter.

It's not good. Okay? Even if you think, oh, I know I sounded good saying that. You don't. Even when I try to do it myself, the minute I change my tone and I ditch the script, it's me again.

I don't I know that I can read a script pretty good. Even me as a professional, like pretty good. But I still feel when I listen to it, I can listen with a critical ear and know, I just sound like I'm reading. Even though I wasn't reading, I was looking at it and then saying it and looking at it and saying it. Still, when I'm trying to get the words exact, it sounds scripty, so don't do it.

The other point of the influencer content is to make authentic content. So, let's think about it from a brand's perspective. They could hire an actor and bring in a bunch of influencer actors and put up a teleprompter in their own place and they can make that content themselves. They don't need you at home to read a script. If they wanted that, they could do it themselves.

Branded have the brands have the money. They can do it themselves. Which brings me to one other short point that I gotta say. Brands that are buying into UGC content, they usually have a good budget for those UGC videos. So they can hire multiple influencers and then only air or advertise pay put money behind an ad on one of them.

So they can they're almost like playing a bit of a gamble game, like let's get a 100 videos in because we can afford to pay a 100 creators a $100 or something like that. And then they can pick and choose which one works. Because the odds are if they do an if they get enough influencers, they're gonna get one that knows how to do it. You know? I'm just speaking from a brand side because that's what I do in my day job.

And I'm being transparent when I say there's there's different ways to tackle it from you can have an an agency that finds the influencers for you. You can find clients that have an agency that will actually comb through and pick out UGC creators. There's all different things happening in the world of, ads. Okay? And there's money to be spent because brands need to spend advertising dollars to get eyeballs.

That's just the nature of it. And they wanna get eye they know they're gonna get more eyeballs if they have an ad that's working. So try and try and listen to this and really learn. Alright. So next is so one is it's too scripted.

The second is that it just doesn't fit with you. And this is what I was saying before. If you're a cooking creator and all of a sudden now you're in the bathroom doing a makeup video, number one, the algorithm's not feeding it it anyway because it's not feeling natural to you. So if it's a branded collab, it's not feeling natural. If it's UGC, that is not your comfort zone.

Okay? If you're oh, I'm gonna use a good example. If you're a mom and you have kids and you're dealing with in the kitchen, meal preps and things like that, and then all of a sudden you're trying to do a makeup video or a skincare video, it's not gonna come natural to you. It's just not what you normally do. So it's gonna be a tougher one for you to feel natural doing.

And it's not because you didn't do a good video or you didn't have a good plan or an idea. It's because it's not your your sweet spot that you've been naturally doing the whole time. So you want to try and realize that if you're gonna do UGC, you wanna do it in a lane that you're comfortable in so that your your videos are good. And then if you're doing branded content, obviously, your audience wants to see your usual stuff. So there's two again, I'm talking always about this topic in two lanes.

One is when it's just for the brands, and the other is when the brand is depending on your audience. That's two sides of branded content that need to be addressed. I love that it's got two lanes. So when you're trying to think of your ideas, and this is what I'm going to focus heavily on in the studio in the next several weeks, is how to make the content fit. You want to think about how can it integrate with your existing content structure.

For me, I'm gonna give you a really good example because I just did one as a, I didn't do it as a brand collab. I just did it because I wanted to teach that I'm teaching this. It was like a lesson in a lesson. But anyway, I did it with the, avocado oil, cornflower sunflower oils. And I explained, like, if you're shooting a content for a brand, for me, it would make sense to do a tutorial about it.

So I used the opportunity to share about the product while I was teaching, and I can teach you this in my studio. So I used their product as essentially to promote my studio, and that makes sense because I wouldn't be in the kitchen, like, using the oils. My husband would because he's the one who cooks right now in the house. But I wouldn't be. Okay?

I'm not gonna be I did used to do a baking video, but I don't do that now, so it would come out of left field. I surely could work my way back into it if it was UGC and people were not and the brand was not depending on my audience. So I as a creator I'm a good example to explain something actually. I as a creator would have little success making content that is cooking, makeup, etcetera. Little success if it was branded collabs where they wanted my audience.

I would have little success. However, I'm gonna give myself a little ounce of credit that if I was doing that in the UGC space and the client was not counting on my audience, the fact that I could make good quality videos for any type of content because of my experience, I can do it for I can do it for skincare. I can do it for cooking. I can do it for any, because I've worked with so many brands. I can do it for all health care, whatever.

I would be able to get UGC work in that area because they're not depending on my audience. They would just be solely looking at my videos and wanting my video content for their audience. So it's that's where if your skills are good, you can go outside of your lane. But if your skills are not good and if it doesn't come naturally, when you go outside your lane, it's gonna come off as stiff and unnatural. Okay.

Boom. Hope that's clear. Next thing, bad quality content. Okay? No brand is going to hire someone who doesn't have good lighting on the product or even worse, I wish I had a good thing to show you right now, but I don't.

Here's one. Okay. If this was backwards, if the logo was backwards, they don't want content where their logo is backwards, guys. Guys. I said guys.

They don't. Okay? Sometimes I gotta throw in a guys here and there. They don't. Even if you think, oh, everybody knows it's just it's TikTok, so it's backwards.

That's a no. That's a no. And that's a amateur move, and it's a I'm just gonna leave it at that. It's a no. Okay?

When the lighting on your product is poor when on their product is poor, when the lighting on you is poor, when the audio quality is lame, and you're far away from the microphone and you're talking and we can't even hear you, or far away from the camera, not the microphone. Because if you're wearing a microphone, you'll sound like this. You're far away from the camera and you're trying to shout at the camera to be heard. This is terrible. Nobody wants it.

No client's gonna want it. It's annoying. Another one. If the camera is shaky, it gets annoying after a while. So a style that a lot of those crazies are doing, like shake the camera to put it down to start your video.

Fine. Go ahead. Do it. It's terrible. Don't do it.

But if you do it, don't you wanna shake the camera for the whole damn video because no one's gonna wanna watch a seasick movie while they're trying to see what the product is. So tripod. Boom. Do not this is the last point I'll say. Do not speed up your content so that you sound like Mickey Mouse because you can't fit it in and they want a sixty second video and it took you ninety minutes ninety seconds or ninety minutes to make it.

Well, might have taken you ninety minutes to make it. But if it was ninety seconds long and you squish it and it's like or your hands are moving really fast. You know what? It's a no. So if I, on the brand side, would be, Oh my God, I'm going to relate to.

I would be like Simon Cowell, a nice version on American. I'd be like nope, nope, nope. If I was judging the content, they don't want me on their team judging the content, trust me. You don't want me on their team judging the content because I am a bit of a hard ass. And that's what the clients are.

They're looking for quality content. Still good and natural. Still real. It's okay to be real, but know the little things that make a difference. I if you make a mistake and you giggle, I think that's funny.

But if you have no lighting or the logo's backwards, bye. Okay? I love when I get feisty. Next up. For the influencers who are doing it for their audience, like getting paid because of their audience, when when the collab doesn't feel like anything you would really sell, oh my god, it's so obvious you're doing it for the money.

So I struggle with that one a lot because I know people like, oh, they got offered a big paycheck, so they're gonna pretend they really like this. I don't think a lot of influencers pull that off really well, and I think it's, in the long game, it's a bad move. It's it's a bad move because you're you're creating mistrust with your audience. I have a good one to demonstrate this. Okay?

I got those magnetic lashes, and I was like, they look, you know, every influencer was like, these are the greenest thing, going underwater and blah blah blah. They suck. Okay? Now I recorded myself trying them for the first time, so I didn't even know that they sucked until I was into the video a little ways because I was like, oh, cool. They're good.

And then all of a sudden I was like, blink twice. They're falling off. So I kinda got it, but I had recorded the video and I just did it in real time of, like, okay. They're on. Okay.

Oh, they look pretty, and I was looking in the camera. Maybe just for making a video, they don't feel very secure. I was very honest because I'm like, NFW, am I gonna lie to my audience to get them to buy these shitty flaccid lashes for $40 when you could actually buy my studio for $36 a month and get so much more value than the lashes that, by the way, broke also by the third time I tried them? Because I was like, I'm gonna give these a third go. And then they were in three pieces.

Forget it. Forget it. Like, I won't lie. And I just feel that maybe that's why, I'm not doing influencer content. Okay.

Next up. So now I'm just gonna give you tips for branded content in a broad term because what I'm gonna do this month is teach you all of this in a detailed in a detailed way with examples, with, like a checklist of the things to think about and how to come up with your own because the client gives you a creative brief by the way. Hello. A lot of them with the Branded Collabs, they give you a creative brief and then it is overwhelming. Sometimes it's like two pages long and you're like, what am I even doing here?

Ah, it's really crazy. What I am gonna teach you is how to take a product that you've been asked to make content for, look at the points that the client's looking for, and then put it into your own brief that makes your own creative brief so it gets your brain able to think of ideas. So you're gonna think about the story around your product, the problem it solves, explain why you like it, why you're into it, and all that, the personality of the product, the benefits, and those are the things that I'm gonna teach you how to outline and then how to turn into content because you can outline all the benefits and know it does this and does this. But if you're just on your camera saying, it's got this cool thing here. It's got this cool thing here.

It's got this cool thing here. Do I like the way it closes? I mean, you know, that's a QVC ad. Okay, folks? Nobody's watching it.

Very few people are interested in it. Unless you do it in a way that fits you. A comedian could really do good product content, I think, because they would think in a funny way, and that would be a funny they would be entertaining while they are demonstrating a product. Okay? Anyway, more on this in the studio.

Sorry to belabor the point, but if you're gonna jump into this pool of either UGC or you have an audience that is big enough that you think, I'm gonna try and get some branded collabs. If you do it the wrong way, it's gonna be a very short career. Okay? Because and it's also going to be horrible for you. It's not fun after a while.

If you are constantly, like, trying to power out this content, it doesn't feel good for you. So I'm gonna help you with it if you want the help. And I'm excited to help you with it because it's really it feeds my soul because it's what I do for my career. And a lot of times with clients, I don't even get a say as much as I should because they should listen to me more. They should be like, She's the expert.

But a lot of times they're in their own heads about what the product benefits are and this is what we have to talk about is how this plugs into this. Okay? But nobody cares. Anyway, alright, so I digress but I'm going to help you and I am here for it. Have a great weekend.

I'll see you next week. See you in the studio. Get ready, buckle up because we're doing this.