Robert is a B2B Marketing consultant and founder of B2B Creator Newsletter. Robert teaches brands on how to build in-house creators and help busy managers and c-level executives build their own personal brand by capturing, sharing and amplifying their own stories, perspectives and thoughts. *With over 15 years of experience in marketing and social media, Robert created content marketing campaigns featured on Adweek, TechCrunch, and Entrepreneur.
In this episode, host Chris Do sits down with Robert Katai, founder of the B2B Creator Newsletter, as he discusses a transformative strategy for brands aiming to achieve significant growth without solely relying on paid advertising or traditional marketing channels. He emphasizes the shift from conventional approaches to investing in in-house creators. In-house creators, who could be any employee passionate about the brand, are positioned as better alternatives to outside influencers for building authentic connections with audiences. Robert highlights the power of personal branding and genuine content creation as a means to foster trust and engagement with the brand. The discussion covers the increasing costs of customer acquisition, the saturation of AI in marketing channels, and the decreasing efficacy of brand-only social media accounts. Through examples like Apollo.io and SparkToro, Robert illustrates how companies can leverage their employees to authentically engage with their community, resulting in increased brand loyalty, lower marketing costs, and organic growth. The solution proposed encompasses nurturing in-house talent to generate content that resonates with the audience, establishing a human-to-human connection. Robert's insights are framed within his extensive experience in marketing, reflecting a forward-thinking approach to overcoming current marketing challenges.
In this episode, host Chris Do sits down with Robert Katai, founder of the B2B Creator Newsletter, as he discusses a transformative strategy for brands aiming to achieve significant growth without solely relying on paid advertising or traditional marketing channels. He emphasizes the shift from conventional approaches to investing in in-house creators. In-house creators, who could be any employee passionate about the brand, are positioned as better alternatives to outside influencers for building authentic connections with audiences. Robert highlights the power of personal branding and genuine content creation as a means to foster trust and engagement with the brand. The discussion covers the increasing costs of customer acquisition, the saturation of AI in marketing channels, and the decreasing efficacy of brand-only social media accounts. Through examples like Apollo.io and SparkToro, Robert illustrates how companies can leverage their employees to authentically engage with their community, resulting in increased brand loyalty, lower marketing costs, and organic growth. The solution proposed encompasses nurturing in-house talent to generate content that resonates with the audience, establishing a human-to-human connection. Robert's insights are framed within his extensive experience in marketing, reflecting a forward-thinking approach to overcoming current marketing challenges.
Robert Katai: Hey, everybody. My name is Robert. And in this video, I will teach you how to go from an unknown employee to a, let's say, a top celebrity that will make your brand skyrocket.There is a moment when you are investing a lot of money, let's say in paid advertising, and we can see that the cost per click is getting higher and higher and the press release, they, you won't get any clicks on that. And maybe people are not reading press releases lately. So what if you will invest in your in-house creators, in your employee, and they can be paid?
Maybe your talent magnet and getting new people to your team. Maybe then can spread the message of your company. And even they can just like, let's say, build up your brand and also creating an audience and creating a loyal community directly to your brand. So here's a guy I was working with it. He's a consultant and he's also a sales consultant.
And after free posts on LinkedIn, he gets free leads. And one big contract that is now working for the entire year on that big contract. And that was very interesting because the guy who connected with him, he said that I wanted to connect it with you because I liked your mindset and what you wrote on that LinkedIn post.
In this video, I will cover three ideas. The problem that is around us, that paid marketing is getting higher and higher, that AI is flooding every paid marketing channel, and people are not trusting anymore in brands. The effect that we can see is that brands are getting a bigger struggle on growing their brand pages, and they are creating content and they are fighting with them in this noise. And the solution is investing in your in-house creators that can be your employees. It's owning your audience and building up your media company. I have 17 years in marketing, and now I think that I can call myself a creator. I'm also the founder of B2B Creator, the newsletter, and also the company. And I can say that I teach brands how to build in-house creator programs.
And, uh, I can say that I'm somehow the proof behind of my advice because what I will teach you right now is what I lived and what I observe and what I see around me that is happening. So what's very interesting is that these days like every brand is producing content and we all know these funnels about the awareness and about the consideration and people are just like how brands are think right now.
And that's the consumer's journey that marketers believe that people are consuming the content. But in the same time, if you are going a little bit downside, consumers are not just like in a funnel, they are everywhere. And If you are just producing content on one platform, it's not like you're putting those consumers in a funnel because those consumers are, let's say, opening maybe in five minutes, all their social media platforms, reading one newsletter or an email or listening for a podcast.
So that's somehow the yesterday mindset. And. What I want to talk with you is that there's one truth that we need somehow to be aware of that is that consumers are aware that they are marketed. And these days I'm talking to, let's say, marketers, entrepreneurs, creatives, designers that wants to show their work.
And they think that if they are putting themselves or publishing their work, people will come to them. But the consumers are somehow aware that brands are marketing their products to them with their content. And that's one truth. The second truth is that people trust people. And from my perspective, people trust more people than they trust brands.
And here's this guy, Nick Huber, who wrote a tweet a few years, I believe, less than year when he said that all his accounts, all his companies that are having their Twitter profile, he changed his brand name with their CEO names, and now he can see a boosting in their sales, in their engagement, and even in their followers because people don't want just to connect with brands on social media. People want to connect with people on social media. And that's very interesting when we are looking around how people are consuming the content that people are publishing and also the brands are publishing. And the third through is that people follow more people on social media than they follow brands.
So here's somehow this balance that brands, they want to be in front of people, but people don't want to consume their content. If it's not, let's say a more likable content or more engaging content, or we all know that inspiration or entertaining or even educational. So here's a challenge for you. And I somehow want to challenge you right now, because if you take your phone and you are looking, let's say take Instagram or take TikTok or take LinkedIn, whatever. It doesn't matter. Just look at how many brands do you follow right now on social media? Just look at your following. How many brands do you follow on social media? And this doesn't matter, like your company that you're working there, or maybe the ones that you are consuming every day, the brands that you like, the type of content they are consuming versus how many brands people do you follow on social media?
And that's very interesting because we can say that social media is getting more and more social. So what does this mean right now is that there's a big problem. The problem is that building brand pages on social media and organic is very, very hard because the platforms, they find out that, okay, these brands, they want to grow their businesses.
So these brands, they are having money to invest in these platforms. So we will, let's say scale down their reach, their engagement. So if they want to grow, they need to invest money. So the organic growth on social media is getting harder and harder and harder. If you are a brand and you want to grow your page, let's say on LinkedIn, or even if you want to grow your page, let's say on, on Instagram or, or, or on Facebook.
And the second one is that Influencers, they are working with more and more brands. And lately the influencer are asking more money and somehow they don't build, let's say a loyal trust audience because today maybe they are working with brand X, but tomorrow they will work with brand, I don't know, B or C or D or A.
So what does this mean is that their audience, they don't trust any more because it's very, let's say it's a problem for them as influencers and content creators because they are changing their brands. And I heard this talk about these influencers, they are somehow the walking billboards of digital media these days.
So that's the second problem. It's the context. And the third problem is that Patrick Campbell, he wrote on a tweet, a tweet thread last year, and he found out that the customer acquisition costs increased by 108.9%. That means that you really need to invest money. So now we are having these effects and there are a few effects that we can say we are seeing around us.
So money will dictate the competition in paid marketing and everything around marketing, how much money you will invest in your, in your platforms. That's how much money you will get from the platform. So it will be, let's say the big brands can win in that, but the small brands, they need to be creative.
And there will be a solution that where I will talk with you about it. So the second effect is that AI will flood every marketing channel. And yeah, we can already see these, let's say AI generated content. And I'm, I'm not saying that's a problem. I'm just saying that the AI will flood more and more content.
So if you will see the content that is published by a brand page you don't know if that will be like a human created content or it will be like a brand, like an AI created content. So, and the third one is that business will fade because they will avoid the conversation from human to human. And that's really a big problem these days.
So that's also an effect, but there's a solution. So now that I presented you the problem, the context that we are living, there's a simple solution. And here's what I'm recommending right now, is that we don't need to create more content. We need to cultivate in-house creators. So let me give you an example.
Your company can publish one type of content on, uh, let's say a multiple channel, but you can't have like a company like a brand and you can't have like, I don't know, five different LinkedIn pages or 10 different Instagram profiles. You only can have like one Instagram profile or one, uh, let's say LinkedIn page if you are, let's say a small-medium company.
If you are changing the game, you can just like, hey, what if we are cultivating these in-house creators and everyone, one of these in-house creators, they are having multiple pages. Like you're working with free creators and you're having your in-house free creators. So now You are having three type of creators that are publishing on three LinkedIn pages with different audiences.
And now you're multiplying your audiences and let's give you an example. There is Apollo IO. So Apollo IO right now in the software as a service let's say industry, they are having the most engagement on LinkedIn. And why is that? Because they are employees. They are creating content day by day by day.
And they are not just like, hey, you should buy from Apollo. You should buy our software. They are building up their own audiences. And whenever Apollo is launching a new service or a new feature or they want to announce something and these people really loved, they are enjoying working there, they will get this idea.
They will get this topic and they will spread it because they believe in this company. So that's one benefit of having in-house creator or spreading the message from in-house from your company around the multiple audiences. Here's one benefit, the content talent. And we all know Amanda, Amanda Natividad.
So I didn't know who was Amanda before she joined SparkToro. And when Rand talked, Rand Fishkin talked about her on Twitter and he welcome her to the SparkToro team, I was like, okay, let's follow Amanda and see what is she doing? How is she creating content? And then Amanda started like creating consistent content on her Twitter and on on her LinkedIn.
Even before that, she already started, like, creating the content, but after she was, like, hired at SparkToro, she took the SparkToro blog, and she took the, the, the SparkToro newsletter, and she took the SparkToro social media account, and she started making very conversational content. And now, Rand, Even if Rand is a talent on creating the content, now he multiplied the SparkToro audience by bringing Amanda in the team.
And now Amanda is having this creator DNA in herself and it's publishing the content. And she published the zero click content and everybody in the marketing industry, it's talking about the zero click content. And now Amanda, she's, let's say, the face of SparkToro. And This is the one benefit when you have like an in-house creator, you have the content talent that is understanding the platform, that is understanding the audience, that is understanding the struggle.
Let's say the ICP, the ideal client profile, and that creator knows how to create the kind of content that is building a bridge between the brand and the audience. And the second benefit, it's a distribution channel. So look at when Amanda started like publishing the, the zero click content. And these are some data from BuzzSumo that when she started like writing the content and after she published the SparkToro zero click content, they started getting more and more backlinks.And because it was, let's say, say a very interesting topic she started getting more traction and maven.com invited her, okay, you can do like a cohort about content marketing. And then other companies invited her in their podcasts, in their webinars, even at their conferences. And guess what was her topic of presentation?
It was zero click content. And in her presentation, what was very interesting is that every time she discuss about the audience research, the importance of understanding your audience. And whenever she gets to that topic, she went directly to SparkToro. And now we have this, let's say the content flywheel where you have this in-house creator and it's changing the game.She's not like doing the press releases or just like, hey, okay, let's write a copy and everybody will, will read it because we are publishing it and we are boosting with advertising. It's more humanly. So that's the second benefit. The third benefit of having an in-house creator, it's an audience builder.
Now, if you look up SparkToro Twitter profile, they are having like 21,000 followers and only free following. But the way they are creating the type of content is more directed to their audience. And their email newsletter is getting like 60,000 plus emails, people subscribe. And now let's understand the SparkToro company.
Behind the SparkToro company, there are only three people. There is Rand Fishkin, who's the CEO. There is Amanda, who's the VP of marketing. And there is Casey, who's the CTO. And yeah, they are working with different consultants, but there are only three people behind this amazing product and amazing, let's say, content that they are publishing and Rand and Amanda, they are the in-house creators that are creating the type of content and they are putting their name there.
So. Whenever I will get like an email from SparkToro, I know that it's from Amanda or I know that it's from Rand because they are the one behind that are creating and publishing the content. And, uh, they are bringing new talent. Like let's say whenever they are inviting for an office hour or for a webinar, there is Amanda that is connecting with their guests.
And now I'm having this familiar face that I trust. And because I am following, I will watch this webinar because Amanda is now friends with Brittany and okay, Brittany will, will say she will present her idea to the SparkToro audience. So that's the fourth benefit of having this in-house creator. There's the solution of the second one.
The second solution is the founder creator, like what you're doing right now, Chris, with The Futur, you are the creator and you are the founder of The Futur and you are presenting whatever you're doing at The Futur. And you're, let's say like a funnel bringing the new leads and take, for example, there are a lot of example from ConvertKit, we can see that Nathan Barry, whenever he's talking about ConvertKit, whenever he is talking about the new features, he's just putting up the content and building up audiences and creating build bridges between his audience and ConvertKit.
And there is Noah Kagan. What's very interesting, every time when Noah went to lately to a podcast interview discussing about the Million Dollar Week book, every time he had like an, uh, an AppSumo t-shirt or an AppSumo hat, and that bring a lot of brand awareness for his company. And then we have a Support Shepherd, where is Nick Huber and Shaan Puri whenever they are creating content.
And maybe let's say whenever Shaan is publishing for My First Million, there in the description, there is a link between the My First Million audience and the Support Shepherd. And just like you, you are the type of the founder that is having the creator DNA. Whenever you are going to a workshops or whenever you are going to a presentation and even these kinds of discussion, you are taking these snippets and you are creating the type of flywheel content that is bringing you new followers, building up the audiences that next will be, let's say, the user and the consumer of your content.
So Let's take Peter Caputa, who's the CEO of Databox. So Peter, he wrote a very interesting LinkedIn post, and he said that he's posting on LinkedIn daily. And what's the reason? Why is he posting daily on LinkedIn? Because the Databox is like a big company right now. So, And he doesn't like, hey, I don't have time to post on the social media because I need to manage my team.
So these are the reasons that I took from this idea because he wants to share his vision because he wants to collect directly feedback. He wants to learn from others. He wants to connect with his consumers, evangelize the product, validate the ideas. So these are the kind of, let's say, the reasons why a CEO for this kind of company is publishing daily.And I believe that today he wrote a post that he started like publishing twice on LinkedIn. He's doubled down on his content, just building up his audience and doing all this stuff that he wanted to do with DataBox by distributing content on LinkedIn. So that's why I really believe that the in-house creators right now are getting more and more traction, more and more credibility than the outside influencers.
And my third solution for our earlier mentioned problem is that you as a company and you as a brand, you need to build your own media platform. And that's very interesting because. I'm looking around myself and I see these smart creators and these smart founders that understand that I'm a media company right now.
Publishing the content is not just a way of doing stuff because everybody's doing, because I'm now creating the type of content that is connecting me with my prospects. And going back to Rand Fishkin, he started like creating these five minute whiteboards and he started educating his audience around their audience and around their user, let's say problems.
And it's, it's a five minute episodic content. And every week he started like publishing and you go on their website, you can watch this video, you can read the transcript and just like triple down on the content creation because SparkToro is not investing money in paid advertising. I believe that SparkToro right now, everything they are doing, it's organic content because they are having these faces, the founder face and also the talent faces as, as Amanda is right now.
And then we have, uh, HockeyStack. So here's HockeyStack. And what HockeyStack have done, They created their own platform where you can go and it's like, let's say like a Netflix for B2B marketers, B2B salesperson. And you can go right there and watch all these shows that are, let's say directly for the marketers problem, directly for the marketers need.
Because I want to learn in a different way. And they are, let's say, tackling the idea of, okay, we can be funny. We can be entertaining, but in the same time, we can just like point out different perspective about marketing, different perspective about sales. And these are the ideas and these are the topics their audiences are struggling day by day.
And that's how they are building up their brand. That's how they are building up their audience and their community. And episodic content is not something that you're putting. It's, it's creating this element of anticipation of content consumption. That's why when I'm subscribing to a YouTube channel, I have this perspective of, I want to see next week, another video, and I want to see maybe after two weeks, another video, and I need this anticipation of content consumption as a consumer, but also from the other part as a content creator, if you're just publishing content without that kind of strategy that Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose are discussing in this all the marketing, that's not content strategy. That's just like pouring out content without having a purpose. So here's my advice on build your own audience and how can you build your own audience by creating this attention flywheel.
And I divided them in three simple parts. So you're using social media to attract the audience. And now we, let's say with the short videos and let's say with the short content, you are attracting the audience on your own profile, on your own, let's say, post and you're engaging with them and then you are maintaining with the newsletter, with the podcast, with the episodic content. And after that, you're moving to where you are converting these audiences by giving them the product and the service. And, uh, yes, you can attract attention with social media. So I have my friend Joseph Hill and he created like a slide deck where he gather all the ultimate, let's say LinkedIn ad library.
And he created like a Google slide where you didn't have to download the ebook. You just had to ask him, hey, give me this Google slide. And he just sent it over. And I found out that he started, let's say, like a template in how he's creating this type of content and attracting his audience's attention and you can see that he's having this introduction where he's saying that, hey, I spent like 100 hours on screenshotting the best B2B ads on Google or maybe on LinkedIn. And then he's showing you like, what can you get in these slides? And after that, he's moving to how can you get it, the conclusion and the visuals, and I'm moving back because now I can see that he's having like 3.5K comments in one post on LinkedIn. And that brings him the kind of attention he needed to now launch his own B2B ad company.
The Futur: It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.
Chris Do: Are you committed to making 2024 your best year in business? We want to help you make it happen with expert guidance, a supportive community and exclusive trainings. The Futur Pro Membership was created to give you everything you need to take your business to the next level. Go to thefutur.com/pro to learn more and join us inside. Okay, back to the conversation.
The Futur: And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.
Robert Katai: The second example, it's a team Davidson and team Davidson. He's using the short videos. Publishing on LinkedIn and creating, let's say a movement around talking about B2B problems, B2B marketing ideas, B2B marketing struggles by cutting fruits and just like making it a little bit funny, but also interesting and engaging enough for him and his audience.
That's another example that where you can get like a boring industry and a lot of people are saying that B2B it's boring. And he said like, okay, let's make boring funny. How can you maintain attention with the newsletter? And that's how you maintain attention these days. And I told you about SparkToro and I'm getting back to SparkToro because even I don't want to be at the mercy of the social media algorithms. I want to control the type of content that I want to consume. So I'm subscribing to these emails and that's how a creator it's maintaining the attention, not just only publishing on social media and playing the algorithm game. They are creating a connection in the email where they own their audience. And that's how SparkToro is doing right now with their email. So you won't see here like, hey, you should buy from us right now. It's not something like whenever they are launching a new feature, here is our new feature, buy it, we are giving you discounts. And that's how they are also maintaining attention with their webinars, with their office hours.
And like I told you with the whiteboard and even with the Spark Together event. And that was very interesting with the Spark Together because their value proposition was, you can come, you can watch the event, but we won't record it and we won't send the record. So it will be a one time event. The presentation that these speakers will share here, they won't share it anymore on any stages.
So it was very unique perspective from the type of company that SparkToro is building up right now in their industry. And how can you convert the attention you are giving them the product and the services? And, okay, now I love, uh, SparkToro, and now that I, I'm following Rand, and I'm also following Amanda, and I'm, uh, subscribing to their newsletter, I now want to try this product.And there is a CTA, a call to action that I love from a creator is called Justin Welsh. And he had, I don't know if he's having any right now, but he had this great CTA where he said that whenever you are ready, you can buy from me. And the idea on whenever you are ready, that's because he's building up his audience and he let the audience and he let the client to decide whenever.
Now I'm ready. Now I want to buy from you because you gave me so much value. I want to give you back and I want to buy from you. So these are my conclusions right now. And the first one is I believe that right now life is too short to work for a company that doesn't value employee personal brand. And, uh, If a company doesn't understand that when an employee and it's building up their personal brand, they are somehow, let's say, afraid that, hey, maybe this employee will go away or maybe this employee, they are not, let's say, grateful for working for us.
But there is an opportunity on letting these employees build up their personal brand. And now they can be the voice of their company. My second conclusion is that a powerful vision encourage a culture of in-house creator. And whenever I can watch around me and I can watch the companies like Lavender AI or the ClickUp companies, they are encouraging people to create content and just like building up their personal band and being the in-house creator. And here's an example. Like, I really love how Dave Gerrard, he build up his personal brand by creating, let's say these type of content with David Cancel, who's the CEO of Drift. And they created like podcasts, different events, writing up. He even wrote his book, uh, Dave Gerrard, and now he's building his B2B marketing community.
But that was very interesting because David saw in Dave Gerrard, this, let's say the kind of person that can share whatever the company is doing and share the company's, let's say, perspective and vision with his audience. And if we go back years later, we can see that Dave started like talking about what Drift is doing.And he was just like not presenting the press releases and just like sharing the blog posts. He had his own opinion about the market. And that's how Dave started building up his personal brand. And now he's building his B2B media company. And the third conclusion is just like, you don't just create content and publish there.
You are cultivating in-house creators. And that's the idea that even Jay Acunzo discussed with his community. And lately I saw the guys from the Marketing Against the Grain. Where they say that paid advertising are asking more and more money and the influencer, you don't trust anymore in them. So why not cultivate these in-house creators in your company, like building up these programs.
So your employees that understand the industry, that understand the product or the service can easily create content. We only need some education, some training, and just some direction. I believe that when you are investing in your own employees and they will talk about the company product or the company service or the industry struggle, they can share, let's say, a more trustworthy and the bigger authority between the company and the audience.And, uh, your employee, they are the, the brand's MVP. So stick to that, take care of them and make sure that they are happy. And when your employees are happy, your company will get even more and more traction because your employee will talk about your brand and whatever your brand is, your, whatever your company is doing, and also build up your personal brand.
It's the by product of helping other people. That's I really believe that whenever I hear that, hey, I'm building up my personal brand and I'm just going on these person profiles and I can't see any comments on their profile. I, they are not engaging in comments. They are not going and helping people.They are just like bragging God, but they are saying that they are building up their personal brand. That's not building up your personal brand. That's, it's just like feeding your ego. What I really believe it. Building up your personal brand, it's the byproduct of helping others. Like whenever you are going in comments and helping people or going in DM and whenever they are asking you for something, just like directly maybe and connecting with someone or connecting with your content that maybe for you, it's something like usual, but for them, it can be like a solution for their problem.
Chris Do: How is what you're talking about with in-house creators different than, say, the traditional brand evangelists, who are content creators, who are hired in-house, who talk about certain things? How do you see the difference between those two things?
Robert Katai: The in-house creators, that's very interesting, and I'm thinking a lot about this stuff, because there are the brand evangelists, there are the in-house creators, and there's the third one, there are the brand ambassadors.So these are, let's say, very different because with the brand evangelists and the brand ambassadors, they are investing money and they are having these kinds of schedules and they are very intangible. Like you can't touch these brand evangelists because they are having one purpose, to promote the brand, to promote the company, but the in-house creators, they are having in their DNA to create content around the problem to create the content around, let's say the brand around the industry. And they understand the industry better than these brand evangelists, because these in-house creators are more directly to the audience.
They are more connecting directly to their audience. Most interesting is that you don't need to have like hundreds of thousands of followers on LinkedIn or maybe on Twitter to be an in-house creator. You can start with your 200 people that are following you around on LinkedIn and just discuss about how your company is helping maybe a client or how your company can solve a big problem or industrial problem, but the brand evangelist, they are going on the stage. They are writing the books. It's more like a, more like a press related strategy. And what's interesting is that I saw lately that consumers are more and more aware that these kinds of people, they have one purpose to market them. But the in-house creators are having another purpose to help. And there's a big difference for me.
Chris Do: From a practical point of view, say, for example, like right now, I run a company, I have a decent sized social media following. And let's say one day I wake up and I say, I don't want to run a company more. I want to become an in-house creator for one of these brands.Do I then start a new profile or do I use my existing profiles and become an in-house creator? Does the content I made before make sense now in my new role as, say, as a creator for SparkToro?
Robert Katai: You can be like very transparent and I'm, let's say, a more transparent person and I, I really believe in, hey, I'm starting this new role. I really believe in this new company. So from now on, I will start discussing about these topics. So if I can help you just let me know. And I saw these days, I believe one creator and I'm, it's just like in top of my mind that he said that, hey I'm starting a new role. It's a new company. I know that before you knew me about, uh, that I was the marketing manager for this company.
But now that after a lot of this conversation with these managers and the founder and the CEO, I somehow believe in their vision. So from now on, I will start discussing about this topic. And it's not like a very, let's say, complicated idea. You just start like It's just like starting like a new strategy, like a new behavior.
So if I want to go on a diet, I will talk with my friends. I will say like, hey, from now on, whenever you will see me with a donut, just tell me that stop with that donut because I want to be a new person. And it doesn't mean like before I ate those donuts. Now I, let's say, want to start a new life. So that's, that's how I see it right now.
Chris Do: I understand. So I've been working on content, teaching people how to run their creative business. And if I go to SparkToro, I'm going to be talking about something very different. But as you and I know, not all jobs last forever. So in two years time after I start, they have changes in direction or I don't want to work there anymore.
What I'm going to do with this period of like, talking about SparkToro related problems, building community around it, helping people solve problems, do I then go back and delete all that content? Because it's gonna seem really strange.
Robert Katai: No, no way, don't delete those content, because those content are your thoughts. So you're not just talking about the product. You're not just talking about, let's say, the service. You're also talking about yourself because that's also another benefit of having these in-house creators because they are more like human, let's say, related content than having these brand ambassadors that they need to share the content or they need to, let's say, write something about the product.
And whenever you are writing this content about the product, about your life, about your struggle, about the industry, you are building up, let's say, this authority, and people are starting following you. You are a great example. And a few years ago, you wrote a lot about, let's say, what you've done with Blind.
But then you change it on The Futur. You didn't delete your post about blind because if you go back, you can, we, you also have those, the Blind company, right? And that's interesting because you just change it and you didn't like, hey, I don't feel it. I will change it. I will delete it. You don't change the direction.
And that's the part of who you are. And people, they want to see transparency. And if you are, let's say, changing the company, that's great. There is a risk and I understand companies maybe will say like, hey man, there's a risk to invest in these people that maybe they will go and maybe they want to, to change the company and maybe they will go to another company.
That's great. Because now you can say like, okay, I invested in these companies. And whenever that in-house creator will say like, hey man, I will go to another company. Okay, is there any chance you can do a shout out to our company? Like, Hey, I will leave this role. Here's an open space. Whenever, if you feel like let me know. And now it's more likely to build up and find the new talent around your old, let's say, in-house creator.
Chris Do: Well, so here's the thing, though. As a thought leader, as a content creator, I often actually go in and prune content that I don't think is the right vibe, or I've grown and I don't want to talk about that anymore, so I literally go back and I delete stuff all the time.So you'd have to go pretty far back, and I'm not sure there's anything left where I'm talking about Blind. Right? So I've gone through, because here's my thought process. If somebody's interested in following me on social, they're gonna look at a few things, and if it feels like it's all over the place, they're not going to follow you.And this is the advice I generally give people, like, you can't be all over the place. Because they kind of know, it's like, are you a food guy? Are you a tech person? Are you a business person? If you food tech and business, it's very confusing for the audience. Because the person who tunes in for the food stuff gets turned off by the tech stuff and vice versa. So, I think there's a natural pruning of stuff. And so you're just saying, you don't have to change anything about you. Whatever you do consistently before you become an in-house creator, you can continue doing after. Is that about right?Robert Katai: Yeah.Chris Do: Okay. So if you never edit and you're always transparent, don't edit and always be transparent. If you're more curatorial, then you can continue to be that way. And that's not going to be a problem.Robert Katai: Yeah, I don't see it like A or B. It can be also A or it can be also B, but in this, that's maybe how's more comfortable for the creator. And if for the creator, that's comfortable to delete these, let's say the old content, that's fine.If people will ask you like, hey, why did you delete these old, let's say posts? Because now I want to change my, my life and that's okay. But if you want to let them right there. For example, I was, let's say, a content marketing manager for a SaaS company, Creatopy, former Bannersnack. So I created a lot of content around that.I will, I created guest posts. I spoke at conferences. So now I need to go back and just like delete them. For now, it's like, okay, it's there. So if I said something that maybe it wasn't for right there, or maybe it's different mindset from what was a few years ago, that's okay. If not, then I won't delete it.
Chris Do: Okay, I'm excited. I'm a content creator and I want to be placed inside of a company because this sounds great. Sounds like a dream job. How much money can I make doing this? Like what is the salary for someone to do this as an in-house creator?
Robert Katai: That's really depending on how can you, let's say, talk with your manager and how much money and how much results can you bring on the table. So I believe that you can maybe get maybe 25, 35, even 50 percent on your salary right now with this strategy, because if you are showing the marketing perspective, the business perspective, and also maybe you can just like, let's say, track the measurement of them, this even can help them, let's say, save money on, hey, don't invest in that press release, invest those money in my content. Let's see how it will go.
Chris Do: Using 20 to 30 percent increase on the amount of money you're making, right?Robert Katai: Increase. Increase. Yeah.Chris Do: So ballpark figure though, what kind of numbers are you hearing between this number and that number in us currency? What are you thinking?
Robert Katai: let's say $3000, $4000 per month. But that's only by just doing your job and in between you can create content and connect with your audience. So it's just like having a hobby on creating this type of content on your own platform. And you can make your manager happy.
Chris Do: So now let's say that I'm a brand and I'm watching this video and I'm very excited. I'm like, oh my gosh, what Robert's saying is making total sense to me. I need to bring somebody in. What do I need to be prepared to find the right person? Like who, what are the top three traits you look for in considering someone to be an in-house creator for your brand?
Robert Katai: So first of all, they need to be passionate about the product, the brand, the service. The second of all, you need to go out on their social media. Let's say, and if they are starting, let's say, creating the type of content and maybe sharing your company's ideas, you can go from there. And the third one, you can go and talk, discuss with them. Hey, you have a voice, you have an idea, you know, the industry, what if, you, we are training you to create the type of content that will help you engage with a bigger audience? And maybe we can just do like a webinar with you because you understand the industry. You don't need to be a marketer. You don't need to be a social media manager. You can be, or a customer, you can be, let's say a software engineer. You can be, let's say a designer and just discuss about the UI and the UX behind your SaaS and do a webinar. So if you can bring like 100 designers on that webinar, there's maybe your next hire and, uh, or maybe your next colleagues that want to work with you.
Chris Do: Okay, so underneath that is they probably have to be somewhat sociable, at least on social media. They have to be a good communicator and they probably have to like talking to people and they love the idea of writing and creating content. Is that about right?Robert Katai: Yes.
Chris Do: Well, this is a real interesting take on this idea of personal branding mixed with corporate branding and a novel solution and something I had not heard before. Hey, Robert, if people are interested in building in-house creator programs, how do they get in touch with you?
Robert Katai: They can follow me on LinkedIn and they can write [email protected], or they can go on my newsletter and subscribe to my newsletter, theb2bcreator.com.Chris Do: Thanks very much for sharing that with me, Robert.Robert Katai: Thank you very much for inviting me.
The Futur: Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The Futur Podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple podcasts. It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefutur.com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.