Steph Taylor
Steph Taylor is a digital product launch strategist for business owners who are tired of selling services, and want to scale with their first digital offer. Whether it’s starting a podcast or selling a digital course, Steph helps her students reach more people, grow their audience and become the go-to in their industry. She’s host of the Socialette podcast, with over 1 million downloads to date, and has taught more than 100,000 entrepreneurs how to launch their own podcasts and digital products. In her spare time, Steph enjoys adding new plants to her indoor jungle, and making wine, peanut butter and coffee disappear (#magic).
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Transcript
Danielle (Scrunch) (00:10):
Amazing. Steph, thank you so much for being here on the Scrunch Creator Economy Show.
Steph Taylor (00:16):
Yay. Thank you so much for having me, Danielle. I'm so excited to be here.
Danielle (Scrunch) (00:20):
I am so excited. I was just saying, I've been a longtime stalker of yours through a mutual friend of ours, so when I saw an email of yours come through the other week, I was like, oh my God, we have to have you a part of the first season of this show. So thank you so much for generously spending your time. But why don't we just kick off with you firstly, so let's tell everybody what it is you actually do.
Steph Taylor (00:46):
Oh, I hate this question because I do so many different things,
Danielle (Scrunch) (00:49):
<Laugh>. That's okay. You're a good a slashy. Someone told me this. You
Steph Taylor (00:53):
Love that. I know. And it's like when you first start a start a business, you're like, so you, you get that elevator pitch, so perfect. And then as you go, you kind of add more and more things to it. Yes. <laugh>. So I guess the simplest way to say is I am a digital product launch strategist, so I help, I work with businesses and creators to launch online courses, memberships, group programs, that kind of thing. I'm also the host of Imperfect Action podcast, which is bite-sized episodes on really just taking that imperfect action in your business in marketing to grow it. Because if you don't take that action, you're sitting there waiting for it to be perfect, nothing happens. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And then I also recently started writing a newsletter called Web three for marketers, because I noticed that there were a lot of marketers who were like, oh, this web three thing sounds cool. Are there potentially jobs for us in there? And then also business owners who are like, oh, how is this gonna affect how we market our business? Yeah. And creators as well. Like, how is this gonna affect the content we're putting out there? How is it gonna affect our audiences? All of the things, which I'm sure we're gonna talk about <laugh> at some point in today's episode.
Danielle (Scrunch) (02:03):
Absolutely. Oh, that is incredible. So obviously you're a business owner yourself, so you intimately understand this challenge that you now solve and, and help and empower other people. But has it always been that way? Were you always a business owner, or what did you do before that?
Steph Taylor (02:20):
Oh, no, I was a co an accountant for a while. That was fun. <Laugh>, I don't talk about it much. It was four years of my life that I don't really want to remember that much. <Laugh> no. So I, I kind of had that stereotypical corporate role where I was sitting there in my corporate cubicle headphones in listening to business podcasts, and I was like, okay, one day, one day this is gonna be me. I'm gonna have this amazing idea, and it's gonna be the product that makes millions of dollars, and I can quit my job and I never have to be an accountant again. Yeah. I had dream
Danielle (Scrunch) (02:52):
A dream. That's right.
Steph Taylor (02:53):
<Laugh>. And I had, I had an idea. I was like, cool, okay, I've just quit sugar and there's no sugar. It's really hard to find sugar-free snacks. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, like they create a sugar-free snack subscription box. Mm-Hmm. It solved a problem that I had, but I didn't really think about product market fit. I didn't really think about whether there were enough people who wanted this product. But I created it. I launched it about two months into the business. I quit my job way before the business was profitable, but it was, I was in a very toxic kind of situation at work, and I just realized like, this is not where I wanna be. Yeah. so before the business was profitable, I basically had no income coming in. I was living off my savings. Two months later, I had to go and get a job. And that was where I fell into the world of marketing.
(03:37):
I, I've been doing, I'd been doing a bit of social media for like, freelancing on the side mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, but this was my first proper marketing role. I went back to uni, I studied advertising. I stepped into the startup in their sort of digital marketing coordinator role, let alone never having coordinated any digital marketing other than my own business. And then from there, close down that business because it just wasn't making money fell into consulting, marketing, consulting, thought I wanted to grow an agency, realized I didn't wanna grow an agency, because when you run an agency, you are not doing the marketing. You are managing people. And that, for me, I realized, oh no, I enjoy the marketing side of it. Mm-Hmm. fast forward a couple of years, I built, I, I launched my original podcast, which was called Social mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And the problem with that was I was the generalist marketing person.
(04:33):
I was talking about Facebook ads one day, Instagram, the next email marketing the next day, Pinterest the next day. And everyone was coming to me for that free advice, but nobody was buying my courses. Nobody wanted to work with me. Mm. And it wasn't until I sat down with a business coach and she said to me, you know, you wanna, you wanna launch all of these different courses, it sounds like the thing that you enjoy doing most is launching. And I was like, oh, yeah. And I'm really good at it, and nobody else likes it. Nobody else is really that good at it. Yeah. so that's kind of how I fell into what I do now. Like, it's the typical, very much rollercoaster, lots of twists and turns and pivots along the way. And I've been doing what I'm doing now for the last two years, and I love it. I'm so happy now. Oh,
Danielle (Scrunch) (05:17):
Wow. That's incredible. I, I love to hear that story because, you know, I think sometimes we think that we need to pick the perfect thing straight out of the gate. Oh,
Steph Taylor (05:27):
No. And
Danielle (Scrunch) (05:27):
We go, oh, that's how, that's my passion in life, and that's how I wanna spend my days. But it never, ever works out like that.
Steph Taylor (05:35):
No, no. And I put so much pressure on myself as well with that first business. I probably held onto it way too long. Yeah. I, I basically, I was packing and shipping orders because until you are sending out like a thousand orders a month, it wasn't really financially worthwhile for me. Wow. To bring in like third party logistics. Yeah. So I had to be there to pack and ship these orders, which meant that I wasn't actually getting the freedom that I quit my job for. Mm-Hmm. And I clung to that business. I thought it has to be the right one. I've quit my job. People. Yeah. All, all the people I used to work with, every time I see them, they're like, oh, how's your little business going? Oh, <laugh>. And there was just so much pride and ego wrapped into that. Yeah. And if I had quit that earlier, I think I actually would've maybe fast tracked a little bit sooner, but because I thought it had to be that one, it had to be that thing. It had to be that one right decision. Mm. That slowed me down a lot.
Danielle (Scrunch) (06:30):
Wow. I, I think that's incredible because I don't think that ever ends, and I'm sure you have this in your launch course and launch training is that ongoing learning and optimization is the key to, to growth and scale. You know, you, you rarely get it right on the first date is about looking at what you've done, what's working, what's not working, do more of the stuff that's working, try new things. Yeah. I'd, so I love that story. That's awesome.
Steph Taylor (06:58):
Exactly. And like, I think, I, I, I think don't, people don't focus on that enough, like the iterations mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, it's such an, anything that you're doing is an iterative process. Whether it's creating free content, whether it's creating products, whether it's services, whatever it is, you get it out there. Hmm. And then look at what kind of feedback you're getting and then refine it, get it out there again. Yes. rather than sitting there trying to make it perfect before you put it out into the world.
Danielle (Scrunch) (07:25):
Yeah. I love that. That is so good. So you now work with creators, businesses, people who want to so they, are they generally digital based businesses who are going through that launch process?
Steph Taylor (07:37):
Yeah, so it's generally, my most common client is a client or student. Cause I also teach this in a course format is generally somebody who's been either a freelancer or some kind of service based business. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> a copywriter or a designer or somebody who has hit that income cap. They can't take on any more clients. They're burnt out. They don't wanna put their prices up too much more. And they're thinking, okay, how can I actually help more people make more money and be more, offer that kind of more affordable tier for people to work with me? And that's usually when they're sort of ready to add a course or templates or some kind of digital product.
Danielle (Scrunch) (08:19):
I love that. So, and so you mentioned you could do it in a course or a one-on-one. What do you find is best for people who are just starting out? Or is it about how quickly they wanna get everything happening?
Steph Taylor (08:31):
Yeah. It's how quickly, and whether you are a DIYer or whether you want somebody to do the, the hard thinking for the thinking in the strategy. Yes. The course kind of teaches you how to create your own strategy, whereas the one-on-ones I do the strategy for you. That's
Danielle (Scrunch) (08:45):
The difference in amazing. Oh, I love that. Because I think that, you know, I'm, I'm actually a huge believer in short cutting your success <laugh>, you know, so courses or one-on-one and they're getting it done for you. So I love that you have that option. So, okay. So let's fast forward a little bit because I'm currently on your web three email list, and I know that everyone tuning in is wondering where the heck the world's going. So talk to me about Web three, because we see that word everywhere now. And, you know, everyone's got their own, I guess, perspective on what it is, where it's going, how it's gonna affect different industries, but what is it
Steph Taylor (09:26):
<Laugh>? Yes. That's the million dollar question. Right? So if we think about, like, we think about the kind of different stages of the internet. We had Web one, web two we're currently kind of, most of, most of what we do online is web two. Mm-Hmm. And then Web three is what's currently emerging. So Web one was back, oh, like, I don't know, 20, no, not even 20, like nine in the nineties. Mm-Hmm. And everything was re you could just read web pages. You couldn't really contribute. There was no such thing as social media yet. It was just freed only,
Danielle (Scrunch) (09:58):
It was very ugly web pages
Steph Taylor (09:59):
And stuff. Yeah. And if you wanted to create, yeah. If you wanted to create your own stuff and put it on the internet, it was actually quite a big process. You couldn't just put up a blog mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you had to go and like, you know, rent don rent hosting space and figure out, and
Danielle (Scrunch) (10:12):
You had to learn how to code back then Yeah. As well. Like, it was like really, really
Steph Taylor (10:16):
Tough. Exactly. And then Web two came along, and that was when we started seeing things like MySpace, Facebook. Now we have Instagram, all of TikTok, all of that is, has basically made it really easy for anybody to publish to the internet. So we can consume content, we can read that content and we can publish. Yes. The problem with Web two though, is that most of it is currently owned by Facebook, Google, apple bite Dance owns TikTok. Who else, you know, like there's those main corporations that own basically everything we do online. Mm-Hmm. They own our content when we post it out there, they own our audiences. They use our data to advertise to us. And they don't care about us as the creator. They don't care about us as the consumer. Yes. All they care about is keeping consumers coming back onto that platform so that they can serve them more ads, make more money.
(11:10):
Mm. And that's where like, that's where I get really excited about Web three, the creators. Because Web Three then brings in this new concept where actually it's not owned by corporations anymore. It's decentralized. It's owned by the people who are using the platform. And what, I don't think people, that, that's like the common definition, and what I don't think people emphasize enough about Web three is it brings property rights to content. Digital, digital assets. Right. Online assets. Mm-Hmm. We can now have property rights to those. So when you are a creator, putting some kind of content out there Yeah. You are no longer saying, oh, hey, Instagram, take my content. You can use it however you wish. You still own that content.
Danielle (Scrunch) (11:55):
Yeah. Wow. I'm so glad you said that. So, no, I've never heard anybody say that before. So that's a really interesting thing because I, I know like every so often people on Facebook and Instagram go through this funny phase of like post a post that says, dear Facebook, you do not, you're not allowed to use my content. And it's like you're Oh yeah. You're an idiot because you signed up to the terms and conditions
Steph Taylor (12:18):
<Laugh>. Exactly.
Danielle (Scrunch) (12:19):
So I'm very like, so that to me though, says there's a whole lot of people who really don't want these big corporations owning their data or they content. So super interesting that Web three is going to actually tackle that problem.
Steph Taylor (12:33):
Yeah. And it's not just audience, it's not just content and data, it's also audiences. Mm-Hmm. So like, as a creator at the moment, yeah. You might hate that TikTok, is that you might hate the TikTok algorithm. You might hate what Instagram's doing, but you stay with it because that's where your audience is. Yes. And yeah, you might have an email list outside of that platform. You might have other smaller audiences, but wherever your primary audience is, whenever you move somewhere, you're gonna lose a few people. You can't take them all with you. Yeah. So Web three actually brings in that you, you would own your audience. Wow.
Danielle (Scrunch) (13:08):
Which is cool. That's so cool. Because I think it ties into my next question Yeah. Which is how important communities will be in this new Web three era. Do you have thoughts on that?
Steph Taylor (13:22):
Yeah. So it is, it's really interesting because we're only just starting to see like some decentralized social, you know, web three social platforms starting to emerge. And those are a little bit more similar to what we used to with social media. But on the flip side, what's already been happening in Web three space is these communities. So yeah, you might, you might be familiar with them, you might not be familiar with them, but what has happened a lot over the last few years is somebody will come along and they will launch an N F T collection. And don't worry if you FT collection mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And don't worry, if you dunno what NFTs are, that's okay. Don't worry about that too much. But they'll launch a collection of NFTs and anyone who owns an NF t gets access to the community, which is usually a Discord server. And if anyone's used Discord, it's like Slack, but just really noisy. It's horrible. Yes. <laugh>
Danielle (Scrunch) (14:10):
<Laugh>
Steph Taylor (14:11):
And, and Discords not a web three platform, it's still a web two platform. So there's no real web three community platforms that are that great yet. Yeah. So what happens is people have built these communities, and now they've built, they've built almost these they're, they're like, quite some of them are quite niche. Mm-Hmm. But the problem is, at the moment, the niche tends to be people who are interested in web three or decentralized finance or making money with crypto. Like it's all of these barely niche communities. Yes. But in the future, that offers a lot, it offers a lot more potential ways to build out a community because, so it's, it's quite hard to explain without going into what NFTs really are. Mm-Hmm. If we think of an N F T as like a property, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So it's an object if an intangible object on the internet, and you own that intangible object. Yep. without going into like all the different nuances of it.
Danielle (Scrunch) (15:07):
And Well, and I think everyone's kind of starting to get vaguely familiar with it more in terms of, in the art world. So I guess, you know, we see all the crypto punks and the world of women, and so I think from a, a ownership over digital art people are, are kind of starting to wrap their heads around. But this sort of utility element and then the community element, I think is kind of where you're going, which is the, okay. It's not quite happening yet, but we now have the key to get there.
Steph Taylor (15:36):
Yeah. And, but the really exciting thing is, so there's NFTs over digital art and there's all these different collections that people are launching. Some of them are art, some of them are not art, some of them have utility. But what's really interesting that something, so there's a decentralized social protocol. So they have, they're like the, if you think about how like WordPress is the thing that you can build a website on top of, they've kind of taken care of all the code and all of the stuff that you don't wanna deal with, and you can build a web, a website on top of that. Yeah. Yeah. Lens in some ways has done that for people who wanna build social media apps on Web three. Oh. So a developer can go in and create a web three social media app. Yeah. And anybody with a lens handle can use any of those apps and their followers go betwe go between the different apps so they can post on one app. Wow. And the followers on that can see that their content can also go between those different platforms.
Danielle (Scrunch) (16:34):
Wow. So,
Steph Taylor (16:35):
So that's the first sort of, wow.
Danielle (Scrunch) (16:36):
So the, so your lens handle almost becomes like your, like me, like it's kind of like my identity in the Web three world. So I can go between all of these web three communities and still be the same person
Steph Taylor (16:48):
Between the web three social apps. So there are, there are other kind of, there are other things that, other tools that are starting to look at, okay, what's gonna be your web three identity. Mm-Hmm. but that's a whole different kettle of fish. Yeah. <laugh>. So with with Lens,
Danielle (Scrunch) (17:03):
We're gonna need wine for that
Steph Taylor (17:04):
Conversation. I know
Danielle (Scrunch) (17:06):
<Laugh>. Yep.
Steph Taylor (17:07):
So with Lens, and there might be other ones that do this in the future, lens just seems to be like the most promising one right now. But with Lens, what happens is if somebody follows you mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, they get a little N F T that says that they are following you, they get your follower N F T.
Danielle (Scrunch) (17:23):
Yep.
Steph Taylor (17:24):
So what then that opens up is the possibility for a creator to say, okay, well here's my community. You have to be following me to be able to access this private community.
Danielle (Scrunch) (17:35):
Mm.
Steph Taylor (17:36):
Or when you post a piece of content on Lens, somebody can collect it and they get a little collector's, N f T of it, they own a little collectible of your content. Wow. And you could, that opens up the possibility of only people who have collected this piece of content can access the private community. Or it also redefines what we think of communities. And like, this is going down a lot of different rabbit holes. So please stop me and ask any questions.
Danielle (Scrunch) (18:01):
No, no, no. Keep going. Keep going. Yeah.
Steph Taylor (18:03):
<Laugh>, so it's also Web three is also redefining what we think of community. So in our current world, we think of a community like a Facebook group or mm-hmm. In the current Web three World, we think of a community as that Discord server. Mm-Hmm. But what it actually means is that communities in Web three can be completely platform list. So they don't need to be based around one particular group or one particular platform. They can be anywhere on the internet. So they can be it can be that people who are part of your community unlock access to a gated podcast, for example, a podcast that only community members can access. Yeah. Or somebody who holds a particular N F T can access your blog post that you published that long form blog post or the videos that you published. Mm-Hmm. And it might be that the community is on several different platforms. So it really opens up like a whole different definition of com of community to what we have previously imagined.
Danielle (Scrunch) (19:03):
Yeah. Wow. So what's the implication then, for creators and brands in this new world? So we're kind of going, I feel like we're kind of going, holy crap, I just set up my community on what I thought was my community on Instagram or, you know, whatever platform, social platform. And then everyone said to me, well, you don't own that community, so start an email list. And then now everyone's saying, well, that's still not quite, you know what things are gonna look like in the future. So how do you think that brands or creators, perhaps need to prepare or change their thinking to move into a Web three community landscape?
Steph Taylor (19:48):
Yeah. And, and look, it's worth saying that it's, it's still very early. Yeah. And you don't need to go and rush and delete your Instagram account and move everybody off the lens like, that's <laugh>. No, please don't do that. And I still think your email list is gonna be valid for a very long time. I don't, the big question is, what will Meta do with Instagram? Will they try and compete with some of these decentralized platforms? I don't know. They will still own it. That's always the problem. Yes. So don't go and do anything rash <laugh>
Danielle (Scrunch) (20:19):
Good. I like that. That's, that's the first lesson here. Yes.
Steph Taylor (20:22):
Yeah. I think the very first place you can start though, is starting to look at what are some of the communities out there and how can you interact, how can you join them and see what they're doing? I'm in an awesome one called B fff. They, they kind of, their aim is to get more women into the web three space. And they have done an awesome job. They have, the community is in Discord. Yes. But by being a community member, by owning their different NFTs, you unlock different perks. You can come to their different masterclass. They've done a really great job of, I guess like, you know, putting that that N F T as like the key to their community mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. so they're a really great one to see how that could potentially play out in your business. They're also a really good one to learn from. And then I guess the other thing would be starting to think about what that could look like in your business, because you want what a community in Web three could look like in your business, because it's not about the, it's not about building a community for the sake of community. Yeah. It's about, yeah. Right. It's about what value is somebody getting in this community that they're not getting elsewhere.
Danielle (Scrunch) (21:31):
Mm. Oh, that is such a good point. Because I feel like, and, and it's interesting that you talked about the women in Web three Lens. Not to be confused with Lens, the platform we just talked about. So it's really interesting because, so as somebody that runs a female founder community and is getting interested in Web three and NFTs, so I've started joining women in web three communities. That's a big question that I have, is what I, what is everyone actually doing differently? You know, or is everything a lot the same? Same at the moment? So I absolutely love that you just said, okay, don't just start a SA a community for the sake of starting a community. What value do they actually
Steph Taylor (22:16):
Get? And that's the problem that there's, that is in the web three space right now is everyone has just started these communities for the sake of it. There are so many women in Web three communities, and most of them are really average. Yeah. Because what's happened is the community, they've funded the community by issuing these NFTs Yeah. Which is like a one-off payment. Right. They've got this one-off cash inflow, and they might get so sometimes when you, depending on the N F T, when you sell it, the original creator typically does get a royalty, but it's a pretty small percentage. Mm-Hmm. so other than those royalties, they're not getting a whole lot of cash coming in, which means they can't really afford to hire a community manager. They can't manage the communities properly, and they kind of fizzle out. Yeah. Or they just become noisy. Yes. And that's, that's why I really like BFF because they have put the resources in to create and manage a community really well. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So yeah. Making sure that that community has a point of difference and making sure that, you know, how you're gonna keep running that community, keep funding it as well. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you can't do it for free forever.
Danielle (Scrunch) (23:23):
Yeah. And that's really interesting too, because I guess that goes back to it's still a business. So if you are selling these NFTs to help fund a community, like you are essentially starting a business. So you do have to have a longer term strategy on Yeah. How you'll keep funding it, how you'll keep supporting it, why people should buy them in, in the first place. What's the longevity? You know, I think that there's, we don't wanna throw everything we know about business and marketing out just to jump on the new web three community bandwagon.
Steph Taylor (23:56):
Exactly. And it's like Web three is like, I think everyone thinks of like, oh, NFTs are the product, but no, the actual product is what they, what that N F T gives them that access to. If we're thinking about it in this way, if we're not thinking about it in a digital art way where, you know, you own that art, but if we're thinking of it as in the community lens, it's like, again, not lend the platform. But if we're thinking of it in under that community now,
Danielle (Scrunch) (24:19):
We can't stop saying that <laugh>
Steph Taylor (24:21):
Then, then it's like, okay, so the, the N F T they're buying is not the product. They're not buying it because it's like, oh my goodness, it's an N F T, like that that hype is done. People are no longer buying them just because it's an N F T. They're buying it because of what that means for them. The same as, you know, they're not buying online courses because, oh my goodness, it's an online course. No, there's so many online courses out there, they're buying it because they want the outcome that it's giving them. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So being really clear on like what are they getting? And then how are we gonna keep running this as a business? And it doesn't have to be that you, it doesn't have to be like subscription membership kind of community. It can be that the only people in the community have access to your product drops. It could be that only people in the community can apply to work with you. Only people in the community get access to something else that they can buy from you. Right. So you can have, that can be your income stream as well.
Danielle (Scrunch) (25:16):
Yeah. I love that. I think that, yeah, it's kind of really hard at the moment to separate, you know, the hype from what we actually need to be thinking about long term to, because I think it's not about yeah. Burning to the ground. Everything we've built to date, it's about how do we adapt as creators, as business owners, as marketers? How do we actually adapt to new technologies?
Steph Taylor (25:40):
Yeah, exactly. Not burning it to the ground. I love that. And I think it's really hard to separate it from the hype, because that's what we see in the media, right? The media isn't posting, Hey, this this podcast, there's an awesome podcast called Rehash. They created basically an N F T based podcast. Oh, cool. Yeah. So people, their community who hold those NFTs, they can vote on what guests the podcast has, all of that kind of stuff. So they kind of own that podcast collaboratively. Mm-Hmm. But the media's not really writing about them. They're writing about, you know, this brand did this N F T release and you know Gucci's partnering with this person, New York Fashion Week's doing that. Cause those are the exciting, those are the exciting stories. But that's kind of capitalizing on the N F T hype, which I don't think really shows creators, business owners, how we can use that for ourselves.
Danielle (Scrunch) (26:34):
It's really funny that you said that. So I hadn't heard of the podcast that's community owned and run through NFTs. I had heard of what's, what are their names? Miller Kuni and Ashton Kutcher have done it with a show and the community,
Steph Taylor (26:50):
Oh, I didn't know this.
Danielle (Scrunch) (26:51):
Yeah. I can't remember. I'll put it in the show notes. But it's something like, the community actually gets to vote on characters on outcomes, on it's it's like a cartoon. Like it's an animated Yeah. Thing. So they, they can do it a little bit more real time. But
Steph Taylor (27:05):
The community, I know which one it is. Yes. Yeah. Okay. I didn't know it was Mil Kuni and Ashton Kutcher, but I didn't, I did know about the show. Yeah, that's right.
Danielle (Scrunch) (27:12):
Yeah.
Steph Taylor (27:13):
So, and there's also one where it's a book, there's another one that oh, really? They've done this as a book and people have been able to vote on the plot for the book.
Danielle (Scrunch) (27:21):
Oh my God. It's so cool. Right? Like, so when we think about it in that context where, you know, as a business owner or a creator, it's so important to build content and products and services that are aligned to what your community wants. Right. You know, what do your customers want? You need to talk to them. That's kind of how you grow business because you're actually creating solutions for them. I feel like this is like the next level to that. So it's actually, you know, and as business owners, sometimes we, our ego gets in the way a little bit and we don't actually survey our customers. We just go, I know what they want and build things. But this really puts ownership into the hands of our communities or our customers if we, you know, used to call them that.
Steph Taylor (28:09):
Yeah, absolutely. And like, there's another web three concept, which I won't go too in depth into. It's called a Dao decentralized autonomous organization. I always forget those words mixed up. And basically what that is, is where your customers could potentially own your, your business with you. Yeah. And that they'd own a little chunk of it. They can vote on it almost as if they're shareholders in a company. Wow. They're not really but they can vote on that. And that's how that podcast has set it up. So like they're, yeah. Their listeners are the, the owners of those NFTs are like their most engaged listeners. They get to vote. What do we want the show to be about? What sponsors do we wanna take on? Your customers could potentially tell you like, oh, we want those shoes in red. We want you to publish this blog post on your website or whatever. Like, we want you to work with this model to style your product, whatever it's gonna be. Hmm. They get to feel like they're part of that.
Danielle (Scrunch) (29:02):
Yeah. That is so cool. I love that. So then let's think about it from a marketer's point of view. So if we're you know, I guess as marketers, we're, we care right now about building our communities. We care about, you know, the content we create cuz we're trying to sell more stuff. How does, how are things gonna change from like traditional marketing point of view?
Steph Taylor (29:28):
I do think it's gonna be more community based. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I think instead of the focus that we've had over the last 10 years or so of building a massive audience Mm. Suspect that the shift is gonna be, it's a smaller community rather than a massive audience. Yes. I think in terms of actual practical changes to what we do, I think a lot of the tools we use are gonna start to slowly integrate web three in what they do. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And in five years time, we probably won't even call it web three, it'll just be the internet. Like, it's just gonna be how we do things. Yeah. But you and, and the consumer won't actually even realize that what they are buying, the little access that they're buying to your community, they won't know that that's an N F T, it's just gonna be a checkout process where they buy a thing that gives them access to your community. So I think a lot of that's,
Danielle (Scrunch) (30:18):
I mean, that's interesting too because, so in the early days of NFTs, you could only buy it with crypto and crypto wallets, but I've started to see now different platforms helping you just buy NFTs with a credit card.
Steph Taylor (30:32):
So Yeah. And a lot of them, a lot of them are the ones that have partnered with the big mainstream brands because they know those mainstream brands have really mainstream audiences who don't have a crypto wallet. They don't know where to buy a Bitcoin. Like, you know, they probably don't. They're like, what's a Bitcoin? What <laugh>, what's an Ethereum <laugh>? Yeah.
Danielle (Scrunch) (30:51):
<Laugh>,
Steph Taylor (30:52):
You know, they don't know those things. So they they don't have a wallet to pay for it. So they've made these platforms where yeah, somebody can just go and buy it with a credit card and it's gonna become, the rest of Web three is gonna sort of follow suit. Yeah. It's gonna soon be that you maybe don't need a, a wallet to have a lens handle to hold your lens handle. You don't need to sign in with your wallet every time you want to buy something or do something on Web three. It's just gonna become integrated with how we do things.
Danielle (Scrunch) (31:23):
Yeah. No, I, I really, yeah, it's a really interesting point because, you know, and I, and it's such a huge shift, web three I think, but you know, every time, say if we kind of backtrack, you know, every time a new social platform comes out or every time a new technology comes out, we all kind of lose our minds a little bit. Then we go, oh my God, we've gotta now be TikTok stars, or we've gotta do this, or we've gotta do this from a, like, as a marketer. And, you know, but it is incremental, like the shift in, okay, no, actually no, this is just a new type of content that I'm creating. This is what the algorithm's saying, blah, blah, blah. I feel like it will be a slower shift. I think there's all this hype happening around it. We are, all the language is different. So Web three, NFTs Doos, like, we're just going, what the hell do I have to get my head around? Yeah. But I think you're spot on. Like, I actually think it will just incrementally happen and all of a sudden will be like, yeah, this is the way it is.
Steph Taylor (32:19):
Yeah. And it's actually been really interesting. I've done a lot of like reading and writing about Lens and like Web three social in general. Mm-Hmm. And like at the moment, it sucks. Web three social sucks because everybody's on there talking about NFTs, talking about crypto, talking about Web three. It's this web three echo chamber. Mm-Hmm. But what they, what they really need is they need a big creator with a big following to say, I'm deleting my Instagram, I'm deleting my Twitter, I'm deleting my YouTube, I'm deleting my TikTok. Mm. This is the only place I'm gonna post now. Yeah. Kind of what Spotify did with Joe Rogan. Right. They got a lot of, a lot more people listening to podcasts on Spotify because they made him exclusive. Yes. You know, for better or for worse <laugh>. Mm. Totally. That's, that's what happened. So it's almost as if one of the web three social platforms needs to do that before we're gonna start to see any kind of mainstream adoption. And cuz like at the moment, nobody who uses Instagram is gonna go and use Lens because unless they wanna learn about crypto and Web three because the content sucks.
Danielle (Scrunch) (33:22):
Yeah.
Steph Taylor (33:23):
And no creator is gonna willingly give up their audience and move to Lens unless they have some kind of incentive.
Danielle (Scrunch) (33:30):
Yes.
Steph Taylor (33:31):
So it's like chicken or egg, right. One of them has to come or catch 22 even like one of them has to come first and who is it gonna be?
Danielle (Scrunch) (33:37):
Yeah. Wow. So you obviously need to create the marketing strategy for Lens and tell them <laugh> <laugh> how to get this right.
Steph Taylor (33:44):
Oh, they've got a pretty good, I I think they've got a pretty good marketing strategy. Like their, their whole launch and rollout and everything. Like, it's still really hard to get a lens handle, which is cool. Oh, really? Yeah.
Danielle (Scrunch) (33:54):
Yeah. No, I've literally been like notes taking as we speak of all of the platforms that I've gotta go and check out now. So, good. So let's leave leave the listeners with maybe just one piece of wisdom. So and maybe perhaps it's not even for like the Web three debacle that we're about to get into. So let's think about, so listeners are creators brands and agencies. What do you think the number one thing creator businesses should be thinking about right now, whether it be to do with their marketing, their launches, web three coming, you know, what's the one thing that everyone should be thinking about right now?
Steph Taylor (34:34):
Yeah. Okay. So this is actually something that I have as a marketer, I've shifted my own perspective on as well. And that is that we need to shift from thinking about content as marketing mm-hmm. <Affirmative> to thinking about how our brands are being creators. So the creators are already doing a great job. They don't need to worry about this. Yeah. But marketers have been just creating all of this content for marketing and it's contributing to so much noise. It's Mm. It's a noisy, noisy place out there. And like 90% of content, probably even plain, 9% of content just falls flat. Yes. And you look at the people who are getting that cut through, they are getting that reach. Those are the creators who are putting awesome content out there. Mm. So marketers need to be more like creators now.
Danielle (Scrunch) (35:18):
Oh, I love it so much. Steph, you are incredible. Thank you so much for Thank you. Joining us today and spending your time on the Creator Economy Show.
Steph Taylor (35:28):
Thank you so much for having me. And wow, we went down a lot of different rabbit holes.
Danielle (Scrunch) (35:31):
I love it. It was.
