Christina Garnett on Marketing Twitter and social media communities

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Christina Garnett is a Strategist with courses about social media on Hubspot Academy and work featured in the Next Web, The Startup, and Better Marketing. Christina's tweet encouraging people to join and introduce themselves to Marketing Twitter went viral, igniting the community and prompting over 2,300 replies. Brian Bosche and Christina go behind the scenes to talk about Marketing Twitter, the rise of niche social media communities, how to add value on social media, and how brands can better work with online communities.

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Full Transcript:

Brian Bosche:
Hey everyone, welcome back to creativeBTS. This is Brian Bosche, and today I am so excited to bring on a special guest, a special marketing Twitter guest, Christina Garnett, strategist who has courses featured on social media and social listening on HubSpot Academy and has work featured in the Next Web, the Startup, Better Marketing. Christina, welcome to the podcast.

Christina Garnett:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, this is exciting because we've had marketing Twitter momentum through the pandemic, but you sent out a tweet that set the marketing Twitter world on fire last week. Do you want to talk about that tweet and kind of what instigated bringing the marketing Twitter community together?

Christina Garnett:
Sure. As you know this, the marketing Twitter is not new. I definitely didn't create it, but it saved so many people this year. There's been a lot of people who they've connected one at a time, they've connected in groups and marketing and social media community, this has been a really tough year. I mean, it's been [inaudible 00:01:08] when you're working insane hours and you're working on platforms that are 24 hours a day because someone's awake somewhere in the world. It's just been a really high stress situation. A lot of people are burned out and a lot of people felt alone and marketing Twitter from, it was like different pulse points that kind of created the swell. And then this just kind of like, I really felt like it was leading up to this. I can't take a lot of responsibility for the tweet because I felt like it just needed that final push.

Christina Garnett:
You can look at like Julian from Adweek, his post about, he did a thread asking people if you do social for brands, basically come here and introduce yourself. And I feel like that was such a key starting point because, and you know this, couple years ago, if you were talking to someone who worked for a competitor, that was treason essentially. You can't have drinks with them, you can't talk to them, let alone on Twitter where people can actively see your conversation. Like what are you talking about? It's scary and it's become very different nowadays especially with this community marketing Twitter and how I see marketing Twitter is it's really become this group of people. Whether we call herself marketing Twitter or we just happen to be marketers on Twitter, creating this really positive space where you can say what sucks about work. And you can say, you can drop best practice tips and also hype each other up. That's been the best part of it for me-

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, the positivity is so nice.

Christina Garnett:
Is amplifying others. It's so nice. And like someone messaged me yesterday thanking me for it and I was like, "Twitter is healing. It's like the nature is healing me [crosstalk 00:02:53]."

Brian Bosche:
Well, some parts of Twitter are. This part of Twitter is. I don't know about some other parts.

Christina Garnett:
Yeah, this part I am swimming. I'm staying in this pool. The other pools, I think it was like Saturday. I was like, "What else is going on at Twitter?" I spent like five minutes like, "Nope. Going right back."

Brian Bosche:
Nope. Not doing scrolling today.

Christina Garnett:
No. It was like that meme from Troy and community where he goes in with the pizza and the room is on fire and he's just like, "What has happening?" Yes. And I was like, "Oh, we're leaving this. Turn around, do a U-ey."

Brian Bosche:
Well, I love that you said-

Christina Garnett:
But it's been really nice. Yeah, go ahead.

Brian Bosche:
I love what you said about this has been, there's been a foundation that's been building and growing from lots of different contributors. And that's what I love about these communities on Twitter is everyone's contributing and there is no kind of fence or barrier. Even if you don't have that many followers, you can still contribute and be an active participant. And your tweet, you're right. You built on that foundation and kind of ignited thousands of people to respond and share their story and get involved. And if we want to go back to your professional background a little bit, you started as an educator, you're now a marketer. And it's not like you own the marketing Twitter community and like, hey, let's bring everybody together. You are just a marketer that's contributing. So talk a little bit about your professional background leading to this.

Christina Garnett:
Yeah. I started off as a, I was an English major in college and taught math for five years, which was very interesting. Basically I went to Davidson college, went to a job fair and you put on like a name tag this is where you went to school and what your major was and they needed a math teacher. And so they talked to me and were like, "Well you went to Davidson, you're smart. Do you want to talk?" Wound up interviewing, getting the job, kind of fell in love with it. And I find that what I did because the majority of the students I was given ... my first year was in public. My last four years were in private and I was given the kids that no one else wanted. I was given the kids with learning differences.

Christina Garnett:
I was given the kids who were struggling. And I find that that piece of my life, it continues to, like that's the thread for me is at one of the schools I taught at, we went through the Orton-Gillingham method, which was a specific way to teach to people based on their learning style, which if you think about it from a marketing perspective, you're personalizing content. So it's easily consumable and approachable for the person that ... That nugget which I didn't realize was a seed for me was very much a seed that I would continue to grow through my life. And so I find it interesting that that's all I did with this tweet. And I want to make it clear like I don't own marketing Twitter. I don't think anyone does. It belongs to all of us and that's why it's so beautiful.

Christina Garnett:
I love the people who like I said, Julian pushed it, Vicenzo, he was and is such a still a bridge. His Twitter lists are fantastic. He continues to connect people to make sure that he's creating these really strong, impactful professional relationships in the space and it's really beautiful to watch. You created the Slack channel. There's all these people who've been doing this. And so because there was a community already there, the only thing that was missing were the people who didn't feel like they belonged. And either because they didn't feel like they qualified or they didn't think that they had enough followers. And so all I did, what I think is that I basically said, "This is your community too." And so that's why, if you look at a lot of the responses, a lot of them were I've been lurking for a really long time, but I didn't know how to interact, or I don't think I qualify, but dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. People were ...

Christina Garnett:
And we see this even when we apply to jobs, we self reject and we're like, "I see all these people being amazing and they have all these likes and they have all these followers and they work for all these amazing companies. Who am I? If I go and try to talk to them, they're not going to want to talk to me. I'm a nobody." And so I really think that if that tweet hadn't had ... like the key of that entire tweet was the 1000 followers.

Brian Bosche:
Under a thousand. Yeah.

Christina Garnett:
Because it specifically, it was a personalized invitation to those people and they've never had a personalized invitation to them on Twitter. They all felt unworthy because that was the benchmark. And as marketers, we can all agree or maybe not all agree, that followers is a vanity metric, but we all chase. We all chase all day long because in a sense, there's still always going to be that person that sees value as follower account. And until everyone agrees to not accept that and that that's not the benchmark for success, there's always going to be that thing about like, do I have enough clout? So for me, I find that we all kind of, we all planted different seeds in this community and I got to be the one that did the inclusion one.

Christina Garnett:
And I'm an INFJ by nature which is the advocate, which is just like another thread. I find that that's like ... So I definitely don't own it. I definitely am loving, loving the connections that are made. And that's the beautiful thing about it too is now that these people are connecting, they get to do their own thing. I've had people ask me like we should do a conference, you should do it. And I'm like, "That's the thing is I don't own this."

Christina Garnett:
As long as you are taking what you find from marketing Twitter and you're using it a positive way, do it. Create your list, get engagement, awesome. Create a conference, do your thing. Awesome. But keep the vibe. That's my only thing is keep the vibe because that's why it's so special. And that is why it has to be protected in order for it to scale and do well. It's kind of like when a small business or a startup has a really great culture and then it scales and it loses its identity and then that's what breaks it, same thing here. Do what you want to do, connect, engage, ask questions, become friends, do Zoom calls, do everything. I don't have to be invited at all, but keep the vibe. That's so crucial to me.

Brian Bosche:
So are you saying I can't accept a multimillion dollar sponsor to sponsor the Slack community? Because I'm going to sell out in the second, Christina. I will ruin that vibe [crosstalk 00:09:37]. But before we launch into marketing Twitter, one of my favorite books of the year was Range by David Epstein, which is talking about not borrowing, but you get different experiences in different fields and that helps you as you kind of combine all of those different skills and learnings and experience. And it's so fascinating to go from teaching and trying to have that personalized lesson for each person. Is that kind of what drew you into the social media listening, the advocating for different people by listening to what their needs and desires are and kind of finding what those audiences are? Is that kind of what drew you into that side of marketing?

Christina Garnett:
Not really.

Brian Bosche:
Okay, great. That was a great transition, it just flopped, but that's all right. What drew you into it?

Christina Garnett:
So when I met my husband, we were dating. It's a few things. My husband when we started dating, he would mention, he's like, "I don't know why you're in teaching and not marketing." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" So I would do what we all do when we see an ad or we see a print or we see a campaign or we see a tweet or we see whatever, we deconstruct, we optimize, we play in our head, we redesign in our head and I was doing that just naturally. And he was like, "I don't know ... like you're fixing it. Why are you not ... You're fixing it in your head for free in our living room, why are you not getting paid for it?" I was like, "Well, my degree is in English. I'm a math teacher. This is my life. We're fine. We're good. I'm where I'm meant to be."

Christina Garnett:
So that's one. Two, branching off of that, at Davidson, there's a class that you have to take before you can declare as an English major and it was my least favorite class. And it is the most important class of my entire life. And as an adult, I'm like, "I know exactly why you made me take that." So it was on critiquing theory and I'm 18 walking into this class thinking you're going to tell me what kind of thinker I am. You're going to put me in a box and how dare you put me in a box? And I'm a deconstructionist and I'm in that box and I've decorated and made that box my home.

Christina Garnett:
And at the time I was offended and I was like, "I'm not going to believe in any of this. This isn't me." And that's the thing. That's that deconstructionist. I start breaking things. I have no control over it. It's just how my brain works. It's just naturally how I start doing things. Number three is I joke that when I was little, I loved Alice. Alice in Wonderland or Alice's adventures in Wonderland is my favorite book of all time. People want mansions, my be rich dream is to have a first edition of that book. Never going to happen, but that's my carrot. That's the carrot. And Allison's-

Brian Bosche:
Mine's The Supersonics by the way, if anyone's interested.

Christina Garnett:
You're [inaudible 00:12:31].

Brian Bosche:
Mine's might be a little more expensive as a [crosstalk 00:12:31].

Christina Garnett:
But it's funny because I ... and I joked about this during like the beginning of a pandemic. And I was like, "As a child, I loved Alice and here I am curious and just surrounded by nonsense." It's like here I am and that just curious to a fault is what really pushed me through social listening. And then that deconstructionist side of me is the other part that's really kind of tweaking and breaking and reconstructing. And so I feel like my career really, it almost, it sounds completely nonsensical until you put that whole path together. And you're like, "Of course she's an English major that was a math teacher that's now strategist because she's married it now." So long story short.

Brian Bosche:
That makes a lot of sense. My social listening story was so good too. You might want to borrow that for [inaudible 00:13:22]. So you've been in this community for a while, obviously through HubSpot. HubSpot's done one of the best jobs of building the marketing community around their different product lines. And so-

Christina Garnett:
I love them.

Brian Bosche:
It's amazing. I mean, at Slope, we used HubSpot for everything and it was so nice. Yeah. I love the HubSpot. Shout out HubSpot for startups. You save a lot of startups a lot of headaches. So love you HubSpot, love inbound conference which just I miss conferences so much.

Christina Garnett:
It's like Disney world. Oh, it's like Disney.

Brian Bosche:
Imagine just being back in Boston, thousands of people around you, no social distancing or masks, it doesn't even seem real at this point. But this is all to say that you've been in this community for a while and a participant. So talk a little bit about what are these micro communities on Twitter? How do they happen? We have ad Twitter, start-up Twitter, MBA Twitter, there's all these little micro communities. What are they? And kind of when did you start seeing them pop up?

Christina Garnett:
I started seeing them a few years back. It wasn't as kind of weaponized is probably the best way to describe it as they are now.

Brian Bosche:
Or labeled maybe.

Christina Garnett:
Or labeled, definitely labeled. They first started looking like cliques, like most things it's a clique. It's two or three of the cool kids, really good followers, everyone knows them and they're talking. They tend to have like you're starting to see like topic specific conversations. And then as people are determining how to growth hack their accounts, they're like, "Oh, well, I need to determine who I am, what I talk about and kind of what people can follow me for." So then that ingrains it even more. So now you are like, you have niching accounts. And so you wind up having like there's sports Twitter, like I'm a part of hokey Twitter.

Brian Bosche:
It's not even contained to Twitter too. TikTok has also, there are so many different communities on TikTok-

Christina Garnett:
There's like Harry Potter TikTok and [crosstalk 00:15:12].

Brian Bosche:
Yes. Lord of the Rings, Photography TikTok. There are so many. Yeah.

Christina Garnett:
Yeah. But I think what it winds up doing is that we all feel unique in our own way for better and for worse because we're like, "See I'm special." And then like on our best days, we're special. On our worst days, we're weird. And because of the way social ... that's the one thing that's been very interesting is because of social media and because of also modern media, it's cool to be the geek. It's cool to be the nerd. Like being a Marvel fan now, of course you are. Being a Marvel fan like my husband and he as a child and he's-

Brian Bosche:
My comic book days.

Christina Garnett:
Very different, very different, very different. So it's cool to be the nerd now. And it's cool to self identify as weird or interesting or special, things that were definitely not validated let's say, decades ago. So you have social media that's being able to do this. So we're able to express ourselves individually and then we get the extra validation of someone saying, "I've loved that too." So then you get validation that you're not weird and then you find someone who wants to be a part of that with you. And I think that this year has shown the most, especially because we're socially distancing and because most of us are home and things have shifted so much that our likes and dislikes tend to be the only thing we get to keep to ourselves.

Christina Garnett:
And so a lot of us have retreated into the things that we love most. So like a lot of people are watching all the Harry Potter movies again or they're watching all the Marvel movies again, or they're going back to things that ... they're going back to nostalgia. They're going back to things that really mean a lot to them. I had a conversation with Pat from Drift and we were talking and what was really interesting was-

Brian Bosche:
You're not going to believe this, Christina. He is my next guest on Creative BTS.

Christina Garnett:
I love him so much. I love him.

Brian Bosche:
Quick preview, yeah, Pat's great.

Christina Garnett:
He's amazing. But what's interesting is that we were talking about nostalgia and he made such a really good point. And he said, "What's interesting is that nostalgia is last year, because so much has shifted that we even looked back at like what we did in 2019 and we're like, 'Feels like 20 years ago.'" And so we're doing that. And so now you have these sub-communities where we get to really enjoy things. I mean, there's a reason why you're having like tell me how old you are without telling me how you are. And then what it turns into is this nostalgia fest. That's why it works. That's why that thread grows. You may not consciously know it, but it taps into a part of you that wishes that you were there. And so it's such a beautiful way to define others. And then there's also the parts of Twitter and I'm guilty of this too, which I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but salt mate Twitter, where we just collectively just drag stuff. We just hate together.

Brian Bosche:
It's a good venting for any community.

Christina Garnett:
It is. It is. They're definitely like I joke that I collect Libras and Scorpios and the Libras ground me, but the Scorpios are my salt mates. If I'm going to vent about stuff, Scorpios are my people. I'm going to find them, we're going to talk. But it's just really interesting these subsets, and I think what's happened is that that tweet created two things that you kind of alluded to. There's that inclusion with that 1000, but also-

Brian Bosche:
Yup. That was a key.

Christina Garnett:
But also naming. Really identifying, oh, this is a thing. Let's do it. And now we have like there's a community Twitter that's trying to be built, an e-sport Twitter, start-up Twitter. And you know this, those people are there, but sometimes you just need an invitation to be like, we need to meet all in one place purposefully.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Well, I think that was the key. Like you said, the inclusion in naming, like hey, if you have under a thousand followers, you may have just felt like you could lurk. And it was like so many people were asking like, "Can I apply to marketing Twitter?" It's like there's no application, it's all community driven. So on that-

Christina Garnett:
Yeah, let's do it.

Brian Bosche:
What are the best ways for people to participate in these communities? Because there aren't guidelines, there's just a Twitter feed. So what are some best practices that you've seen of people actually participating and adding value to these communities?

Christina Garnett:
Absolutely. So the one things I've seen, where I would start is I would decide what do you really love talking about when it comes to Twitter or about marketing or about whatever, and this is what a lot of the new people are going to realize, this is not short game. This is long game. You might've gotten like 3000 new followers, but you're still going to have to add value. You're still going to have to make those connections. You have to foster those relationships. You have to nurture them or they can leave. It doesn't become ... So the people who try to game it for followers are going to lose those followers really quickly, because they're not doing it for the right reasons. So find out what you love talking about, what you absolutely like it's been a long day, you're doom scrolling Twitter, and then you see something that catches your eye that you want to talk about.

Christina Garnett:
And even though you're emotionally and mentally and physically drained, you're here for it. Know what those three to five things are, because that's where you're going to naturally provide value. You're going to naturally want to conversations. And then I would search those keywords. Like who's talking about those keywords? Who do you agree with, not agree with? Are there interesting conversations? You don't have to enter into everything. You also don't have to enter into the only things that are viral. But find the micro conversations that you really want to be a part of that you have something to say, and then have those conversations. And I think the other thing would be like it's totally okay to disagree with people on Twitter, just don't be an ass about it. Like I've had people who-

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, discussions are good. Discourse is good.

Christina Garnett:
Discussion is great, but people will do things and I'm like, "There are so many other ways you could have disagreed with me. You don't have ... it doesn't have to be vengeful."

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. You don't have to make it personal, especially when it's professional.

Christina Garnett:
No. Exactly. So I find that if you go in there and you have those conversations and you bring value and you share your knowledge, because I firmly believe that we can all learn from each other, marketing changes daily and it's seen no greater shift than it has this year. And we're literally all around for the ride Hoping that 2021 will be better, but knowing kind of in our hearts that that midnight strike isn't magical and it's going to take a while. So we're all really just learning on this ride together. And I find that if you're truly curious, that's why I think curiosity is the most important skill for anyone really professionally, because it will keep you humble. Because if you're curious, then by nature, you understand that you don't understand everything. You don't know everything hence you're curious for more.

Christina Garnett:
And so if you're always looking for knowledge, then you understand that it's not always inside of you. You have to look for others. You have to see what's out there. You have to open yourself up to other conversations and other opinions and then make those decisions for yourself. But I would say dive in, be positive. You don't have to be sacred sweet, please don't be sacred sweet because that's just as much of a red flag for me, but go in and be friends. If you're really worried, like if you're really worried, do a Twitter chat, because those are meant for that kind of discourse.

Brian Bosche:
Yup. There's a lot of guidelines there. They're easy to participate.

Christina Garnett:
It's easy to participate. There's a lot of guidelines. It's meant to be answered. So instead of you responding to someone and being like, "Why are you here and why did you say this to me?" They're like, "Oh, okay. This is this person's participating." And some of the most incredible people run those chats. Like Madalyn Sklar for Twitter smarter, not only will she welcome me with open arms, she'll follow you, she'll share your content. She's such a great amplify. Like amazing. I love her. Brianne with the pop chat-

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, love pop chat.

Christina Garnett:
Amazing. Such great energy in such a really great way. If you need an emotional re-energizer, she's perfect. I love her. So I think for the people who are worried about stepping in, Twitter chats are great. And I'm glad that they're starting to come back into their own again. I just think community is such an important step for all of us right now, because we are all trying to find our footing and none of us want to be alone right now. A lot of us feel alone.

Brian Bosche:
Well, I think you make a good point where a lot of people when they start tweeting more, maybe you've been lurking, you do a few tweets a month and you're starting to get into it more and be more intentional with how you're contributing. You think about what can I tweet to get responses or get those reactions? Because that's just the dopamine hit, you get the notifications and you're-

Christina Garnett:
Yeah. Unless you had what I had.

Brian Bosche:
Oh my God, you broke Twitter. Yeah, if you've ever viral, it's crazy.

Christina Garnett:
I was like, "Listen, turn the water off. Turn the water off, please."

Brian Bosche:
It's a little scary. Like the first time I went viral and TikTok, I was like, "This is terrifying. Are people can recognize me on the street? What's going on?" It's not true people, but you over index on what can I post instead of where can I respond to? What conversations can I join? And then even spending a lot of time in your DMs, message people. That's really what unlocks it. That's kind of the secret of Twitter is DM people, say that you appreciate them, what you like about their work, introduce yourself. And it will go so far because then they are much closer to you to actually respond and have those discussions and you're just not a Twitter icon in their thread.

Christina Garnett:
That's true. No, it's very true. It's very interesting to me that Twitter is what LinkedIn wishes it was or thinks it is and I completely agree with the DM statement. That is where the magic happens. Like the DMs-

Brian Bosche:
People don't realize it's like unlocking Twitter is just sending people short DMs.

Christina Garnett:
Make friends, go in there and text them and just be like, "Hey, just wanted to ..." And also granted there's creepers everywhere, but the creep ratio on Twitter versus LinkedIn, it's insane to me.

Brian Bosche:
Or Instagram. Yeah. It's much lower.

Christina Garnett:
Or Instagram. Like my creep level in my DMS for Twitter, it's low. It's low. And it's people just chatting and it's not the sales pitch that you get on LinkedIn emails. It's not that I want to be your sugar daddy on Instagram. In Twitter, it's like, hey. It feels like a text from a friend and it reads like that and it's so nice. Those have been my favorite notifications, the DMs just being like, just wanted to say thank you. I'm like, "No, thank you." Because that thread happened because people responded. It could've died. And I didn't purposely put it out there to make a thing, it was very much I woke up seeing the positive people in my thread and I was like, "I wish other people could wake up and see their Twitter feed like mine." Because my Twitter feed that morning was just like-

Brian Bosche:
So nice. Yeah.

Christina Garnett:
So nice and soothing and nothing is on fire. I was like, "I want other people to feel this because it's so different than what we've been feeling and seeing the rest of the year. And that's been a lot of the takeaway is that it transformed their feed, which transforms their day." I mean, you are what you consume. So when you're constantly being fed negative content, it just, it buries you. It drags you. It just it weighs you down versus now where someone can say, "Hey, I need you to vote on this." Or hey ... I have like one girl said, "I have a presentation I'm doing. Can you just send me some positivity?" And then her whole thing was just like love. And I'm like, "How do you not feel invincible when you have an entire army of strangers that have your back and be like, 'No, you're going to crush this. You're going to be good.'" It's amazing.

Brian Bosche:
Yes. Because everyone's stuck at home for the most part. So you actually have it virtually. And so other than that kind of virtual community that you're joining where we're all locked down, what are some of the other benefits that you see from investing? Because it's investing time. You're saying, "I'm going to be thoughtful about how I participate in this community and contribute on Twitter." What are some of the benefits you've seen from actually joining? What can people actually get out of these?

Christina Garnett:
People can get jobs.

Brian Bosche:
Not that that's the focus, but yes, jobs is good.

Christina Garnett:
Jobs is good. Tori did a ... also a member of marketing Twitter. She created a spreadsheet where people could go in and add who they were, if they were looking for a job or businesses, if they were hiring. I had someone that I showed that Google doc a few weeks ago with somebody. And she wrote me like I want to say Friday and said, "I just want to let you know, I just got a job because of that thing that you sent me." And so by me, by Tori, by marketing Twitter, she has a new job which could change her life. And that's the thing is like when you're investing in that community, you may not realize it, but you are slowly investing in every single person that touches it. And by investing positivity and by investing like amplification and purpose and jobs and things like that, what you're able to do is you're creating this powerful network where we all ... that's the thing, we all want to make each other better.

Christina Garnett:
The internet is a really big place and there's room for all of us. I don't want us to go back to that zero sum game. And I feel like that's what a lot of people thought, like I'm not going to help this person. I'm not going to retweet that person because I want my tweets to be better or I don't want that person to be successful because that person could get the job that I want to have. There are so many opportunities out there. Like I said, the internet is a really big place. I think the beauty of this community is that we finally, I think we finally collectively have realized with the year that broke us all, that we need to help each other. And I think it's been a really beautiful thing. It's genuinely even without the tweet, it is my favorite part of 2020.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. I mean, when we started out, there was a lot more, hey, I want to meet more people virtually on these Zoom calls and these marketing Twitter Zoom calls. And I did one with Shan and he was-

Christina Garnett:
He's awesome.

Brian Bosche:
He's amazing. But his advice for me is be visible. Like just the fact that you're on Twitter, that you're participating in discussions puts you in the 1% of marketers. Just out of curiosity and learning and trying to engage with people, you're really separating yourself. So you're right. You're not competing with everyone on Twitter. You are competing with the entire world, if it's for a job specifically, and you're just learning and becoming visible. So it's so valuable to actually participate and learn and just show your curiosity. And you're right. It's been one of my favorite things of 2020 too is oh, I can just have phone calls with anyone I want at anytime because it's 2020. And I don't just need to have happy hours with people who live down the street. Yeah, go ahead.

Christina Garnett:
Those have also turned into some of my favorite people. Like something good happens, something bad happens, I hit my Twitter DMs before I hit most of my in real life friends because I'm like, "My ride or dies or people I haven't even been in the same room with, which is really interesting."

Brian Bosche:
Well, you find your community, you find the people who really connect with you and you don't have to restrict it to just your local community. But shifting gears here, there are, so we started out with lots of community building, goodwill. Now let's figure out how to monetize these communities, Christina, as we always do, only half joking. But there are these communities that exist and us as marketers kind of see this as a trend coming out of 2020 in the pandemic, even more so. So what can different brands do to contribute or to be involved in these communities?

Brian Bosche:
So if you are a startup vendor and you want to be involved in startup Twitter, I mean, HubSpot's been in there for a long time. If you are in media and you want to get involved in MBA Twitter, what are some of the ways that you've seen brands contribute positively to these communities? And where can you try that line, where you don't want to come in and buy the marketing Twitter, Slack community, which it is for sale, if anyone wants it. But how do you go in there and add value to these types of communities as a brand?

Christina Garnett:
Employee advocacy. 100% employee advocacy. We've seen it the same thing before. If you're not like the McDonald's and like the aviation gyms of the world and you're just starting out or you don't have that presence, your current employees, those are the best culture pieces you have. They are the best voices you have and they're more likely get more reach than your brand. Because a brand does it ... If a brand had done my tweet, it'd be like oh, it'd been like an eye roll and I'd be like, okay, fine, whatever corporation. You would have had like the spidered memes being like, shut up brand. But when a person does it, whether it is or not, it immediately feels more genuine and authentic versus a brand does it. Because when a brand does anything, there's always this idea of like, it's calculated, whether it is or isn't.

Brian Bosche:
It's part of a corporate annual strategy where they're-

Christina Garnett:
It is a campaign. There's a strategy. There's going to be a deck about this in a couple weeks. Yes.

Brian Bosche:
There's a campaign code for that tweet that it relates back to.

Christina Garnett:
Yeah. So it automatically feels calculated. So one of the best options is to really leverage and empower your current employees to be the voice of that. So when they're going into communities, they still represent your brand. Most of the people on Twitter have where they work as a handle or they mention it in their tweet, but they're able to be an ambassador for the brand and that reflects if they do a good job, it reflects positively on the brand. Because if so-and-so has hired this person and this is how this person talks to others, and this is how this person behaves and engages in how they share knowledge, it becomes an immediate reflection of the company.

Christina Garnett:
So if someone's tweeting stuff and they're brilliant and they're helpful, then what am I going to think about their employer? That they're brilliant, that they're helpful. It becomes an extension. So the easiest way to do that I would say is that the brand I see doing this the best and it's on LinkedIn and I see it a little bit on Twitter is Unilever. Unilever does an amazing job especially on LinkedIn with employee advocacy. They do a fantastic job.

Brian Bosche:
I haven't seen this. What do they do?

Christina Garnett:
So they have like their chief human resources officer, Lena, she's constantly in LinkedIn sharing, amplifying, liking the company posts, but also like responding to others. They have other members that when they have campaigns that come out, their team is sharing it too. So you're not just seeing it from the brand level, you're seeing employees that are sharing it and then it becomes a Testament of look at how proud I am to work for this company [crosstalk 00:34:59] doing. So you get two things, you get the brand message that the brands wants out, but then you also hear someone say how purposeful it is, how proud they are to be a part of it. So you have positive sentiment and the brand messaging altogether. And so I love what they're doing for employer advocacy. I think they're doing an amazing job, but that's what it takes.

Christina Garnett:
And that's the easiest way to get through that barrier is to have your employees speak for you. I think employee advocacy ... and we're seeing this for better, for worse. I mean, look at what happened to Coinbase this year with the black lives matter movement. When they were told that they couldn't for it, they revolted. And they were like, "I understand that you don't want to be political, but I don't see this as a political thing. This is how this is important to me. And if I can't speak about it, then this isn't the company for me, this isn't the culture I thought I was signing up for," then they leave. And so I think that's what you're going to continue to see is this employee advocacy, because when a brand makes a message, especially when it's controversial or political or whatever, like motions at all of 2020.

Christina Garnett:
But when you see this, those brands, their employees are looking specifically to their comms team and to their leadership and saying like, "Okay, this is how you feel? Okay, cool." Does that align with me? Does that align with my values? Does that align with the company I want to be with? And it creates a very interesting perspective because what's going to happen is you're going to have those where the employees don't feel like wow, that's definitely just disconnected from where I am versus others that create that small army for you. And now they're sharing all of your content and they're making sure that it's saying, they're making sure that everyone is able to get that lift because they are so proud of what's being said. That's a really powerful thing and that's what builds that community that people want to be a part of is it all comes down to this emotional connection. Just like at its base level is do we connect? And we connect-

Brian Bosche:
It's easier to do that for humans than for a brand logo. What would you say to brands who are hesitant to really pursue employee advocacy and almost employee influencers, because they can't control their entire message? I see a lot of brands that are scared of opening those doors, and they really lock down what their employees can say about the company on social media. How would you describe the benefits to them to kind of unlock that channel? Because I think it's definitely under utilized. You see Morning Brew has done an incredible job. They have the emoji.

Christina Garnett:
They did a great job. Yup.

Brian Bosche:
You see Fast doing this with their employees. So how can brands open up this door a little bit more?

Christina Garnett:
I think it's tied into another question that companies are having right now, which was when everything went remote, there were a lot of companies that were like clawing to keep them at the office so they can basically babysit them at their desk. And there was a conversation of, and this is tied directly to that, if I have to be at my desk in this building for eight hours a day where you can see me and that's the only way I can do my work, then you hired the wrong person. If you were really worried that you will open this up and it will create problems, then you've hired the wrong people. If you hire people that have your passion, that have your mission, that understand the culture, that are also understand the goals of the company, that's the thing too is so many have this wall.

Christina Garnett:
And it's usually around middle management where they know what they're supposed to do, but they don't know their why. They don't know the direction of the company. They don't know what the goals of the company are. They don't know what it means for them. What are they doing today? What does that mean for what happens in a week from now? And because they're not given that information, they're just doing what they need to do to get through the day, instead of empowering them to be a part of the future of that company. So the same reasons as remote workers, as well as this, if you were hiring the right people, they will champion you without them being told. They will-

Brian Bosche:
And you're proud of them. You give them that vision. You get them to buy into the direction. Yeah.

Christina Garnett:
Yeah. It's so powerful and it opens up things. I mean, imagine if companies invest in their people the way they invest in their advertising, imagine the earned media and the earned impressions that you get versus spending thousands, millions of dollars, hoping that you get even the reach that you get and-

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. From your passionate employees who are sharing their work and proud to work there.

Christina Garnett:
Exactly. And it creates so many different pockets. So you get people talking about you, that's positive sentiment. That's reach. That also shows people that like, hey, I would love to work for them. Can you imagine working somewhere that makes you this happy? You also have, but your shareholders are saying that too. The potential customers are saying that too, because no one wants to work with someone that's mean to their people. So you not only get ... you also get to strengthen your applicant pool. You get to strengthen the potential future partners and customers you have, you get free advertising, you get positive sentiment. So those net promoter scores are going to eventually shoot up. It's just, it creates-

Brian Bosche:
That's a lot of good.

Christina Garnett:
I know right. That's a lot of good reasons. So what you have is you have, you're creating this positive ecosystem fueled by the people that you trust to do the jobs. And now a part of their job is to celebrate what they love most about working for you. That's huge. That's priceless in most places.

Brian Bosche:
What can brands who maybe don't have an employee base that's very active on social media, what can they do to reach out to maybe different influencers or voices on social in those communities that don't work for them? Have you seen that work well? What are some good approaches to that type of a strategy?

Christina Garnett:
I will say this. So one of the things that I found really interesting was audience, which is a tool for audience intelligence. I've been talking to them about blog articles and things like that. And so we already at a back and forth and they said, "Hey, just wanted to thank you so much for that tweet. It blew up. It was really, really cool. Just wanted to share some data about what we pulled from it." Didn't ask me to do anything. Didn't say anything else, just said, "Hey, I thought this would be really cool because I'm a data nerd and I did." And thinking logically, this is a girl who shares stuff, we're going to give her stuff and see if she shares it and that's what I did. So I shared it and-

Brian Bosche:
Also arming the different influencers with things they might want to share.

Christina Garnett:
Yeah. And having it make sense. Some of the best things that brands do that I really like is that they prove to me that they've been paying attention. That's where I find like it all comes down to personalization and paying attention because what happens, and we've all gotten them, when they're like, "Hey, I saw that you worked at such and such in your LinkedIn email." And then I'm like, "Why would I connect with you? You spelled my name wrong." Or my favorite one is I see you work at so-and-so, what do you do there? I'm like, "Do you know how scrolling works?"

Brian Bosche:
You didn't look for two ... I still get, I get so many vendors-

Christina Garnett:
Did you just scroll for two seconds?

Brian Bosche:
I get so many vendors still trying to sell me stuff for Slope. And I was like, "We got acquired two years ago. Just scroll down to my current role. I'm clearly not at Slope anymore." Unbelievable.

Christina Garnett:
Like please do two seconds of research.

Brian Bosche:
Just two. It's even in my job title. Like what are you doing? Yeah.

Christina Garnett:
Yeah. That's the thing. So I prove that you pay attention, prove that you are timely. So you're not telling me about what I did last year, but you're able to be like, "Oh, I see you're doing this." And then showcase how it can be mutually beneficial. I find that if you come from a place of I want this to be a partnership versus I want to pay you money and you do this, it needs to feel like a partnership versus transactional. If it's purely transactional, they're going to do exactly what you asked them to do, nothing more, nothing less and then that's it. And then you have to hope that-

Brian Bosche:
So maybe start informal, yeah less transactional, more informal then maybe see who rises to the top to do those formal engagements with. That makes a lot of sense.

Christina Garnett:
Yeah. And find the people who are already passionate about the stuff that you do, because having numbers is great, but it's not the end all be all. If they don't talk about what you do or in that kind of realm, they could be in marketing, but you could be like an SEO firm.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Totally different.

Christina Garnett:
I'd rather you pick an SEO person because it needs to make sense within their ecosystem. So what I like to think about is let's say that you had them do an ad. If you remove the ad, like the little disclaimer from it, does it look like something they would tweet without you talking to them? And if it doesn't, then you pick [crosstalk 00:44:32]. Like it's not going to work. It needs to feel like it was organic, but you decided to throw money at it instead of we're throwing money at it with reasons.

Brian Bosche:
It's a clearly promoted post. Yeah.

Christina Garnett:
Yes. It needs to feel natural because if it doesn't feel natural, I don't trust it, organic or paid. I don't trust it. It has to make sense. So I would definitely really find those people that make sense for you. I think a program that's done a really good job of that is Adobe Insiders. They've done a fantastic job. They found people who would use the products. They found people with numbers and they found people that genuinely are excited about the stuff that would be done at like Adobe Max and all these other conferences so that I know that those people are getting to do that and they're getting perks and swag and all sorts of things for doing that.

Christina Garnett:
But because it's aligned with what is already valuable to them, then I know they're not going to lie. They may just not tweet about like if something sucks, they just probably won't tweet about it. But if something's amazing, they're going to blow it up. So I think that's a really great example. If you're thinking about how do you work with influencers, I would look at the Adobe Insiders program. They do a fantastic job of selecting key people. And also the group is diverse, which I really like too is really picking strong creators that match that industry so that when you see that content flow through, it just makes sense. You'll be like, "Okay, that makes sense on their feet."

Brian Bosche:
Yep. I'm in the rush insiders group for their video editing tool for lay people like me who aren't diving into Premiere Pro and After Effects. And you're right. It's just, we have a Facebook group, they're constantly asking questions on the product side, on the marketing side, getting our advice, everyone's sharing best practices on those groups. It's really nice and it's corporate sponsored. So it does go into that realm, but it's still really effective and valuable because it's a tool we all use and want to build off of. Makes a lot of sense. All right. To finish this off, every podcast I do a parting shot. So I'll delay for you, it's kind of what you want to leave the audience with. So Christina, what is your parting shot on the Creative BTS Podcast?

Christina Garnett:
I hope that the marketing Twitter, that it continues to grow, but I hope that you all embrace long game, long game always. And that those followers that you keep adding, those are all humans that you can be interacting with, that you can be connecting with. Those are relationships and potential relationships. So I hope that this little blip grows into communities and relationships that I may not even see, but that they're growing and they're building because it's really, really powerful and I would just say like community over competition always.

Brian Bosche:
Yep. Yep. Those are people, not just numbers on your follower account, engage them. I love that. Anything to plug, where can people find you?

Christina Garnett:
Sure. I'm on NotChristinaG basically everywhere. I write a lot on Medium. And if you want to check out where I work, I do visual intelligence as a senior insight strategist at Vizit. You can find us at V-I-Z-I-T.com and thanks for having me.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Thanks so much, Christina. Have a good one.

Christina Garnett:
Thanks for having me.