Stitches & Picks S1:Ep 4 - Project Check-ins and Mastermind Discussion
Watch the YouTube video version above or listen to the podcast below!
Episode 4 - Project Check-ins and Mastermind Discussion Video/Podcast Transcription
[This transcript has been lightly edited to ensure readability]
- [Intro]
Dave Dougherty:
- All right. Hey, there. Welcome. I'm Dave.
Kristen Juve:
- I'm Kristen.
Dave Dougherty:
- And today we are just going to hold our master class.
Kristen Juve:
- We're going to riff.
Dave Dougherty:
- A mastermind group. Yeah. Because that's kind of where we're at with everything that's going on. So, hope you are well and everything is going well in your world. Kristen, what's been up with you?
Kristen's Experiments with TikTok
Kristen Juve:
- So, I actually have still not spent a ton of time on my knitting business, but there have been some really unexpected positive things from that. So, I've been allowing myself space for my mental health to get back on track with that which has been going awesome.
And I'm really, really excited because I feel like I'm no longer on this roller coaster where, like, things get really good and then things get really bad. I'm now just, like, steady along and it's…I can rest and I can be productive all within the same hour. It's like a whole new world opening up to me. And I know, like, that sounds just total…that sounds bizarre to people, especially people who don't probably deal with mental health, especially severely, but I can.
I can actually, like, "I'll knit for 15 minutes and then I'll put it down and have a cup of tea and, like, play with my…" That's just part of how it is right now, which is really exciting for me. So, I'm very, very happy. And in my knitting for fun lately, I've been seeing, like, new ways to, like, interpret things and understand and, like, honing some of my skills that I just haven't been doing lately.
So, it's been a huge benefit because I've been…as I'm sitting there knitting, I'm looking, I'm, like, visualizing how the skills that I'm using right now could be used in a future pattern of mine that I've gotten back of my head. So, I'm starting to do, like, that planning work and that's kind of what I actually love about knitting too is, like, your brain can be doing one thing and processing or listening to audiobooks or whatever or thinking about your future vacation or whatever.
And so that's been really nice too. So, I've made a lot of progress on some other, like, knitting projects that I've needed to get done. I've got some deadlines because of baby showers and things of that nature. So, yeah.
And then I've been playing around with TikTok a little bit more too. I am on TikTok for knitting but I'm exploring a little bit more of other content creators as well as posting… Halsey, come here. Lay down.
The door is shut, so she's very unhappy about being stuck in here.
Dave Dougherty:
- Just to be clear, that's your dog and not a kid.
Kristen Juve:
- Yes.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yes.
Kristen Juve:
- A dog. I figure we could edit that part out a few. I was trying to leave enough space.
Dave Dougherty:
- It's fine.
Kristen Juve:
- So, in playing with TikTok I'm posting still and I'm actually just posting, like, bare minimum stuff of what I think is still going to be interesting to my, like, 24 followers or whatever. And I'm just trying to de-stash a lot of my yarn and it's been a really interesting experience because I don't get that many views and people already want my yarn.
So, it's like targeting the right people. And I don't even know how, obviously. I'm obviously using hashtags and trying to make sure that whatever hashtags I'm using kind of lines up with the yarn that I'm showing. And obviously, it's a huge win for people because I'm like, "I will literally pay to send this to you," because I just don't want this yarn anymore and I want it to go to a good home and I don't… I'm doing it kind of an experiment.
Like, I don't kind of care how much money I'm sinking into this. The first round was expensive, so I will not be going to the place that I went to ship them out last time. I'll be going to USPS next time and seeing that that kind of helps me with pricing. But it's been fun to, like, re-home some yarn and, like, kind of be part of the community and meet some people on TikTok. I think there's a lot of, like, younger folks on TikTok who are like, "I want yarn. I want yarn."
And I remember being a knitter or a crafter and not having the money, so I'm like, "Yeah, here, take it." So, it's been really cool.
Dave's TikTok Experiments and Changing Perspective on the Other Social Media Platforms
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. It's been interesting to see the engagement. I mean, obviously, I'm not your target demo, but I do follow you on there just to, you know, keep track of what's going on and it's been interesting to see the success and the comments on there just because it's a totally different world from mine. And, yeah, I'm still totally in the test and see stage with TikTok. It has definitely changed my perspective on some of the other channels which has been an interesting thing. Facebook is totally, you know, for the foggies at this point.
Kristen Juve:
- I finally converted you.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, no. I mean, it's there, but it's… For what I do during the day, you know, the international reach it's there on the platform, right? So, when you're doing global things, you have to love it.
Kristen Juve:
- It has its uses.
Dave Dougherty:
- It totally does. But calling that out, though, it's interesting because the things that I typically sort of curate my experiences towards, like, on Instagram, I am finding that many of those personalities or companies have not started on TikTok yet.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, it's really interesting to see early-stage things, right?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- I mean, we're still at the early stage where, you know, junior high school kids are doing most of it, and then, you know, just wait until grandma shows up and starts doing TikTok then, you know, by that point it'll be over.
Kristen Juve:
- I think grandmas on TikTok they're adorable. I think like large companies, how I'm seeing them activate most frequently on TikTok is influencers, which makes sense. They're scared to commit the time and the money to it if they're not exactly sure what they're going to see. So, why not pay somebody to kind of make the content and handle that first? It has that level of removal.
But it's interesting to look at in terms of, like, a small business because you still can use influencers on any platform even if you're not on it for your small business. And you don't have to go with the influencer who has 2 million followers. You can go with an influencer who has 2000 followers.
And if they line up to your brand and your business and your goals, your mission, like, it makes sense.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, I was reminded of that recently with something I was working on where we actually sat down, we talked target audience, what's the audience size? Where are they at? How are you developing them? And I think that's just an easy thing to get lost on a lot of people, you know, because it's, "Oh, I have to do TikTok. I have to do Instagram."
Kristen Juve:
- Right.
Dave Dougherty:
- You feel like you have to be on the platform and you jump in without thinking strategically about, are they even there?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right? Like, especially with the guitar stuff, yeah, there's some guitar lesson things, but it's still, it's a lot of young kids showing off or, you know, people showing you how to play particular things even though, you know, that copyright algorithm hasn't totally been put together.
But I think that's the interesting thing with TikTok with the music background that I started up with that has a unique bend to it. So, I don't know. It's still fun to play around and just experiment and not to know what should be working. Right?
Concerts Online and Machine Head's Electric Happy Hour Case Study
Kristen Juve:
- I think because I follow you, my “For You” page has been occasionally getting, like, musicians. And I ended up… There's these two musicians and I don't remember their names. They don't know… For as far as I know, they don't know each other, but I've been on both of their lives. Like, they've been doing lives and they just, like, play live and it's just, like, it's so cool. It's this experience where you get to really feel the music.
One guy is like a…he's a jazz musician. And I like jazz, but I'm not like, I don't listen to jazz radio or I don't go out of my way and, like, find jazz songs on any of my apps or whatever because he's so talented that I was just like, I was mesmerized.
I was like, "Okay. I'm going to follow him because I want to see more of his stuff. I want to like…" If I'm knitting, maybe I'll just turn on one of his lives or something and just sit there and listen to his music. And then this other young woman had this beautiful voice and she would sing and play guitar and, like, she'd do covers of things and she had, like, one of her own original songs. And I was on her live too and, like, I learned so much about TikTok and what lives are like and what people can and will do.
And like, it was just… It's fascinating because it is almost like a… It's way… For some reason, it feels way more in-person than any other virtual event that I've been a part of. And I don't know if it was like the video quality, the sound quality, you know, the fact that it's on your phone and it's full screen.
I don't know. I'm sure that all contributed to it, but it was, like, it was way more personal and way more interesting than sitting on, like, a Zoom call.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. Well, yeah. That's the expectation of the Zoom call, right, or the Google Meet or whatever it is. Yeah. You expect to be disappointed with a web conference.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. Yeah. You expect it to be like part of the audience where you don't feel like it's personal, right? It's not a one-on-one. It's a one-to-many conversation. And on TikTok, it feels one-to-one. Even though you know other people are there and you're seeing, like, their comments and, like, sending roses and whatever else and you're like, "I know I'm not the only one here, but, like, yet I feel connected to this person."
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. That's been one of the more off-putting things for me though.
Kristen Juve:
- Interesting. Why?
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, so, I was going to say, I think the intimacy comes in because it is the person just playing in their own space while performing and so it feels more intimate because it is just, you know, sparks. Right? But when you, like, look at the background and you realize this is their living room, this is their bedroom, this is, you know, whatever, that part of it to me has been slightly off-putting where it's like, you know, I'm not invited into the house, yet here I am.
Kristen Juve:
- But you are invited into that house by proxy of them, like, going live.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well yes, by proxy and… So, this is me fully recognizing that there's some traditional thinking that's, you know, running through my head.
Kristen Juve:
- That's right.
Dave Dougherty:
- But also I like the showmanship of live music as well, the performance of it, right?
Kristen Juve:
- That's right.
Dave Dougherty:
- It's not just sitting around singing around a campfire, that's great. But that's not the level that I really like. I like it when you have the pyro, when you have the lights, when you have, you know, loud amps to the face. The production of it. Right? There's something to be said for that too. And that's just, you know, my preference is the bigger shows.
Kristen Juve:
- No, that's totally fair. I think there's definitely a lot to be said for that showmanship and the entertainment aspect of it. It's funny, as I've gotten older, I feel like I've steered away from that. And maybe it was pandemic. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm like every time I go… I'm like 5'2 and, like people just… The 6'5 guy walks in front of me and I'm like…
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. You need, like, front row, first balcony.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah, but then you get shoved into, like, whatever, even when it's like… I don't know. I do like live music a lot, though. So, I think that's probably part of it for me is, like, it's…that and, like, during the pandemic, there wasn't as much community and there wasn't, like… I don't… Nobody in my household, like, really plays music like we used to, but not anymore.
We, like, obviously, will play music on an app. We don't, like, play an instrument or…
Dave Dougherty:
- One of the saving graces for me because live music is such a thing for me, it's really cathartic and I love it. It has been actually… There are some fantastically shot full live concerts on YouTube, so I discovered some of my favorite bands.
A lot of the big European festivals, like, there's Hellfest in France, Resurrection Fest in Spain, Download in the UK, they've all been shooting 4K TV quality video from, like, 2015 on. And so you can find performances from a lot of really cool bands from, you know, then until now doing a live set and, you know, getting that experience without, you know, having to be there or whatever.
Kristen Juve:
- Nice.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, that's been one of my sort of secret things throughout the last two years is doing that. And I will say… So, one of my favorite bands is Machine Head. They're out at San Francisco. When everything got locked down, they started what they're calling Electric Happy Hour.
Kristen Juve:
- Okay.
Dave Dougherty:
- And it's actually kind of a cool use case, you know, for, you know, doing something digital or being slightly innovative. They have a studio that they do all their rehearsals in that they do their recording in. And they just went out and they bought a bunch of, you know, lighting and recording equipment, video cameras, and all that stuff and they started live streaming Happy Hour performances where they put on a two-hour show every Friday and they've done it for the last, like, two and a half years where they do a different set every Friday.
Kristen Juve:
- That's intense.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, I mean, they're playing a lot of their own stuff, but then they learn new covers.
Kristen Juve:
- Okay.
Dave Dougherty:
- And there were some weeks where they stopped because they're working on a new record, but those have been cool. So, if you want, you know, go to YouTube and look up Electric Happy Hour, you know, Machine Head. But they've been live streaming to Facebook. They've been live streaming to Twitch. They've been live streaming to YouTube.
Kristen Juve:
- Twitch.
Dave Dougherty:
- And they call out. They'll stop in between and they'll check out all the comments and do the emoji walls and, you know, whatever else on the different platforms. And it's been kind of fun because, to your point, that experience of being kind of intimate is, like, you know, you're right next to the lead singer, so it's like your front row.
But then you're seeing, you know, bands or back and forth where it's the singer and the bass player, and then behind the wall of amps is the drummer. So, every once in a while you see him doing this, you know, like… But yeah. And then you have that live music feel where you have the lead singer going, "All right. Beers up, beers up, beers up."
And it's just, like, a lot of energy, which has been fun. So, seeing that kind of thing, getting the live music that way, I think, is a really interesting way of, you know, not only developing the audience, but then…
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- …getting the audience that you already do have and finding new ways of creating some revenue. Right? Because a lot of these bands now, even the ones that, you know, got the record deals before Napster and all the streaming stuff happened and now you can't make a living, you know, the middle class of those artists are now having to be innovative and having to, you know, come up with new ways of doing things.
So, I hope some of this stuff will stay.
Learning to Communicate with Your Audience Through Experimentation
Kristen Juve:
- I think it will. I think this is a whole new… Now that people have experimented with it and it can be a revenue stream, I think that's a whole new element to all of this. And I think given the society we live in, that's a huge indicator for us as we need to understand those revenue streams.
I will say, like, we're kind of talking around, like, audience and we're kind of talking around revenue streams. I think what's interesting to taking consideration for smaller businesses, a lot of times, like, trying things, trying a new social media platform or trying a new way of connecting with your audience doesn't mean that it has to be something you stick with either.
I think there's nothing wrong with trial and error. So, like Twitch, I know that there is some sort of audience on there for knitting. I just don't think it's that large and I don't think it's the, like, crosshairs of the audience that I'm looking for. So, like, I'm not going to spend time on that.
But if it's ever a place where I get to where I'm interested in it, like, I would totally experiment on that. And the kind of cross-section of audience and revenue streams. And I think this is something we kind of touched on before too of, like, brainstorm. I brainstorm, like, 26 different revenue streams. I wanted to be very intentional about what revenue streams I was going to have because that's the time and effort I'm putting into my business.
If I diversify too much, if I constantly try to update my content on Twitch and TikTok and Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, and then between, yeah, you can reuse content, but having to reformat it or having to tweak it a little bit because your audience is slightly different on one platform versus the other. It's a waste of time.
You can't be everything to everyone on every platform, especially with a small business.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, we've talked about that too where strategy is not knowing what to say yes to, it's what you say no to. That is what strategy is, right?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- And, yeah. The content expectations are totally different depending on the channel that you go to. Right? Like, when you say knitting on Twitch, I'm like…
Kristen Juve:
- I know. You're thinking, like, "No way."
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, I'm just, like, immediately bored because I'm like, "What would that be? Would that just be, like, watching people knit?"
Kristen Juve:
- Probably.
Dave Dougherty:
- Is that a thing?
Kristen Juve:
- Yes, that's a thing.
Dave Dougherty:
- But again, that's not my… I'm not part of that audience, so there's no way that… Meanwhile, I could sit and watch people debate whether or not, you know, the tubes that go into… Well, not that amp, this amp. The tubes that go into this amp. If I re-bias the circuitry into a different tube, how will that change the sound?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right? And oh, by the way, that factory in China no longer makes those, so you actually have to source them from, da da da da da… Right?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- I totally like that. But, you know, it's like me and 1,500 other people.
Kristen Juve:
- Right.
"With Me" Trends on Social Platforms and YouTube
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. Well, actually, so that's a question for you because there is one of the things in the pandemic stats, you know, keeping up with what was going on with, like, YouTube and those things. There was that whole With Me movement that was suddenly doing really well on YouTube.
Was that kind of a big thing within the knitting community where people, you know, study with me or knit with me or whatever?
Kristen Juve:
- It's been showing up on multiple platforms. YouTube tends to be more of the "I'm going to specifically look up one technique that I've only done three times and I forgot because it's been two years, so I need to, like, remind myself how to do this." Or this pattern has a very specific way of doing a cast on, I need to know exactly what I'm doing so I don't screw this up.
But it does show up on, like, Instagram. It does show up on TikTok. I don't think… It's funny because, like, I couldn't knit while I was pregnant, which was in the pandemic because I had really severe carpal tunnel. I loved to watch people knit because it was like I was getting the view of just their hands and just doing it and it was like… It reminded me of exactly what I was missing.
And I was just… I would sit there and I'd just, like, listen to whatever music they had on there and I'd watch them knit. I don't think it's as prevalent because I think knitters are able to just knit and see their own knit and they're able to, like, control their own environment.
Are they listening to an audiobook? Are they watching TV? Are they listening to music? Do they have tea? It's a full more… When you can control those elements, you're not going to sit and watch somebody else. But it is really interesting to dabble in a little bit because I think there is not a huge market for it as, like, a way to do content, but it is a, I would say, not a high-value content piece, but, like, medium.
It's way better than someone just following a trend and being like, "But I'm making it yarn." And to me I'm like, "Cool." Swipe. So, have you found the play with me, like, any guitar stuff that… No, nobody was really into it.
Dave Dougherty:
- There's some interesting jams on TikTok where somebody will, you know, lay down something and then say, "Hey, you know, solo on top of this," or, you know, something like that.
Or, you know, you do the duets with, you know, two people start singing and they do harmonies and whatever. Like, that kind of stuff is cool to see. But again, there are different types of players, right? For me, I'm kind of a gearhead and I'm a technique geek. And so…
Kristen Juve:
- You're sitting there critiquing people? Is that what you're saying?
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, no. I…
Kristen Juve:
- You don't have the right equipment and your hands are wrong.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, no. I mean, they're doing their own thing, right? I mean, that's the thing with guitars. Finding your tone… I think we covered this in a different one. Finding your tone is really important in the guitar community because that is how you express yourself. That's how you show yourself to the world. So, finding the right amp, finding the right guitar, finding the right pedals and stuff to get the sounds that you want to convey what you're thinking and feeling is an important part of the journey because it's not just, "Okay. I know how to play these chords now."
It's, "I know how to play these chords in the way that I want to express them." Right? That's the next-level kind of stuff. There are a lot of people that get lost in the rabbit hole of it, though, you know, where, you know, there's no better sound than a 1965 Fender, you know, blah, blah, blah because that was the pre-CBS buyout. When CBS bought them, then, you know, they just went to s**t.
It's like, well, okay, fine. Fine. I mean, I would agree with them, but it doesn't ultimately matter. Right? Because if you like it and you think it sounds good, great.
There are two guys that I love to watch on YouTube and they have a show called "That Pedal Show" And it's these two British guys [one’s actually Australian] who are so nerdy about guitar pedals and tone and whatever else, but they are the exact opposite spectrum of what I like to do.
They are, like, vintage everything, right? Like, they want the ‘65 Strat. They want the old, you know, 1980s Marshall Plexi amps. Anything that's old to get that kind of classic rock sound, they're all about it. Whereas for me, I don't like that sound.
That's not how I express myself, but by watching them, it's just fun to see two friends give each other a hard time, while playing guitars. And I've learned a lot actually about, you know, pedal order. And, oh, I prefer this sound rather than that.
And through watching them, I've been able to basically cut out a whole section of, you know, the guitar gear market because I know that, you know what, that's great for other players, but that has nothing to do with the way that I want to…the way I want to sound and the way I want to express myself.
Knitting and Guitar Gear - Tools and Their Effects on What You Do
Kristen Juve:
- As you're talking about this, I'm, like, trying to line this up with knitting and there are, like, a few things, for sure, that line-up. And it's like, there are different types of knitting. There's, like, lace knitting and fair isle and sweater knitting and hat knitting, like, objects and techniques. The hardware piece is different, though. I mean, you find what you're interested in, and then you kind of stick to it, but you don't really… It's usually the material of the needle.
Dave Dougherty:
- I was just going to ask that. It's got to be like drumsticks where, you know, different wood has different sounds, different, you know, whatever.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. I'm obsessed with bamboo needles because they're more sustainable than wood or metal, but also they, like, grip your stitches a little bit better, and so you just don't have them slide off, which a drop stitch is very much a thing. And if you're curious what that looks like, go on my TikTok because I dropped multiple stitches and then show you how to fix it.
So, yeah. But it's interesting because I think in your world, there's so much more gear.
Dave Dougherty:
- Perfect example. You have the ever-classic…
Kristen Juve:
- Oh. Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- …Dunlop Tortex 0.88 millimeter pick, pretty standard, whatever.
Kristen Juve:
- Okay.
Dave Dougherty:
- Then you have this other Dunlop one that is much smaller, yet much thicker and has a sharper point. Does size matter? Yes. Does thickness matter? Yes. And what you use here will affect the tone through the whole signal chain and, like, different picks are better for…
Kristen Juve:
- I don't know what the signal chain is. Wouldn't that just be notes?
Dave Dougherty:
- No. So, a signal chain is from your guitar…
Kristen Juve:
- Okay.
Dave Dougherty:
- …the guitar cable, into the amp, and then out the speakers.
Kristen Juve:
- Like a little signal.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right.
Kristen Juve:
- Got it.
Dave Dougherty:
- And then anything you put in between like guitar pedals or, you know, whatever else.
Kristen Juve:
- Sure.
Dave Dougherty:
- Because what you have here hits the string, and so that quality of hitting the string affects…
Kristen Juve:
- That makes sense.
Dave Dougherty:
- …the whole rest of it. I've been experimenting with different picks for… Like, this black one, I cannot use my acoustics unless I'm doing, like, single note runs. If I'm sitting in strumming, I have better picks for that.
Kristen Juve:
- We should have named our podcast "Strings and Things," so we both have strings. I was like, "Strings. I literally have strings. I have strings."
Dave Dougherty:
- Actually, that white coffee cup is nothing but guitar picks.
Kristen Juve:
- That makes sense.
Dave Dougherty:
- I can just reach up and grab and stuff…
Kristen Juve:
- That is a budget binder folder and that below is also some sort of, like, little trapper keeper, both little needles, different sizes, long, short, different thicknesses, all made out of bamboo though, because that's who I am.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. A bit crunchy.
Branding and Community Lessons From Bands
Dave Dougherty:
- Okay. So, for a business podcast, if anybody is still with us, congratulations.
Kristen Juve:
- You learned a little bit about knitting and guitars.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, so, here… The thing about this, though, just to kind of continue on the riff, I think a lot of that thinking has influenced the way that I approach marketing or branding.
Kristen Juve:
- Ooh, interesting. Tell me more.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, especially with the whole "find your tone" piece where you know a metal head when you see a metal head, right, because you kind of look at the stereotype and you go, "Well, yeah." Or the punk rocker or, you know, the indie guy, right? Each genre has its own particular look.
So, right off the bat, there's that. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. That's just the way the industry is. Right?
And then, like, the gear that you use. So, I tend to use traditional body shapes for my guitars, but a lot of people like, you know, the really crazy pointy things or, you know, the different non-traditional body shapes.
And all of that creates the image that's on stage. And if that image on stage does not match with the music that's coming off of the stage, right, there is a mismatch with the audience.
Right? And again, right or wrong, this is kind of the way it is.
Kristen Juve:
- I see the connections you're making, though, here. Keep going.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, it's with any of the logos that you create. Again, it has to be within the lane for…
Kristen Juve:
- The branding.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, exactly. All of it.
Kristen Juve:
- Everything you're describing is the branding of a band…sub-elements to the branding of a band versus branding a business.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. I think, you know, brand, you could just put the brackets around the R and that's really exactly what it is, right, where the R is optional.
Kristen Juve:
- See? We're just coming up with all sorts of names today.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. So, I think that has influenced that, and then, you know, paying attention to those details, right, because when you are writing a song, you kind of know… God***mit. Why is that not blocking him?
Okay. Okay. So, when you see a particular song or a particular band live, you know what to expect and you kind of know what audience is going to be going to that particular artist. And that's just a really good, easy visualization where you've all been to, you know, a baseball game or a concert and you've experienced this, right?
There's a certain dress code when you go see, you know, a baseball game, right? There's a certain dress code when you go see a basketball game. Some people adhere to it, some people don't, but it's just, you know, en masse, that's the way it is. And you need to speak to that audience in order to actually attract them.
Right?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. And when you're talking about this too, I'm also thinking of community because not only are there, like, visual cues, we're talking about visual cues in particular, to an audience, to a band, but also, like, as part of the audience, you can identify other people within your own community. Right? Like, it's interesting to kind of think about this too in the virtual world of, like, on social media or other community spaces where I would say a lot of people are using social media as their community spaces, just easy access and barrier to entry and things of that nature.
I guess those two things are the same things.
Dave Dougherty:
- Strategically perilous, but yes.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. So, the virtual aspect to that, like, what are the signals? What are the signals of a small business or personal branding that people put out there that make it, you know, "Hey, I'm a part of this community," or, "Hey, I'm actually trying to be someone in this community."
And I've actually thought about this a lot, in particular, for Instagram because I didn't want to show up with the Instagram polished profile.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right.
Kristen Juve:
- There are a couple of leaders in the knitting industry and they have beautiful profiles that are very, very intentional. And while I do think that they're beautiful profiles, I also feel like there's a level of authenticity there that just doesn't exist. And it's not who I am. It's not how I want to show up in the world.
And so I've consciously made an effort to when I take a photo of one of my pieces or whatever, it doesn't have to be perfect even though it bugs me that it's not, or, like, it's not all the same color scheme for 50 photos so you end up with this a really curated, you know, album or whatever. It's like, "Hey, this is what I'm working on, so this is the color that I chose," or the lighting is not perfect or whatever.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, yeah. And then, well, you have people like me where you mistrust that perfection.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. That's a thing.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. It truly is who you want to attract. And especially, I mean, the horror stories that we've heard about, you know, people who have not thought of this intentionally and then have built an audience who they realize they don't want to be a part of the audience that they've built. And then what do you do?
Because you have, you know, this entity that you don't want anything to do with, but it's the only thing that's paying your bills, so, you…
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. That's almost worse than having a really horrible boss.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. Yeah. And I think too, I mean, it's not just on Insta, it's not just on, you know, building the audience, but, you know, the search engines and, you know, with machine learning and the AI and all that other stuff that's happening right now, those are getting better at finding the language that certain communities are using, finding the different signals and the content that those communities are interested in so that if you are not matching those things, if you are not showing that you are of the communities, then you just won't rank well for those things, right?
It's not just about pounding keywords anymore, it is the totality of what you're creating and how you've set it up.
Kristen Juve:
- Totally.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, yeah. I mean, having the brand itself and then having all the communications that you have go out, showing that, you know, you're of the thing that you are speaking about is really important.
Kristen Juve:
- I feel like we could spend a whole hour on communication, written, verbal, whatever for your brand. If it is not intentional, then it can very much… It's instrumental. I think… I mean, in the way that you see people show up and they are either inauthentic or they misspeak or they're suddenly canceled or whatever, you see it all the time of people, like, not really processing what they're saying, what they're putting out there.
And it's kind of funny too, like, say this because, like, we're just kind of riffing on stuff and we haven't really liked. But when you put out a copy, when you put out a statement, or when you put out… When you put yourself out there, there's very much potential to have a backlash or have people not agree with you or say something wrong and it's scary, but, like… And I need to take my own advice on this a lot of the time.
It is part of it. Like, you don't get anywhere by staying silent, you don't get anywhere by… And, like, literally, like, saying this to myself right now.
Dave Dougherty:
- My son with board games, he hates losing. Granted he's only four and a half. Hates losing, but I'm like, "If you're willing to play, you're willing to lose."
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- That's just the way it is.
Kristen Juve:
- And it's good for…
Dave Dougherty:
- It's a hard lesson to learn and you're not gonna…
Kristen Juve:
- And we're human. We're all going to lose occasionally whether it's a board game or saying something stupid. That's literally what it means to be human.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- There's nothing… I think it's really about how you recover more than anything else. Side note, I know I was totally that kid though. Like, we played Spoons. Do you know what that is? It's a card game.
Dave Dougherty:
- I think I may have played it once or twice, but I really have no recollection of it.
Kristen Juve:
- It's here nor there. We played Spoons a lot when I was a little kid and whenever I would lose, which was often because there were five of us in our family, and I was the littlest, I would throw the biggest fits. And it took me a while to, like, figure out how not to be a Spoons loser.
Dave Dougherty:
- See, I got around that problem. Like, we played UNO a lot when I was a kid. And my way of getting around that was before they entered into a game with me…
Kristen Juve:
- You stacked the deck.
Dave Dougherty:
- …I would say, "Hey, just so you know, I tend to cheat." That's one of my aunt's favorite things, like, she brings it up all the time about how, you know, this little six-year-old is like, "Well, yep. I cheat. Do you still want to play?" Cool.
Kristen Juve:
- At least you were honest about it. You were like, "That is what you're getting into." That says something. My brother would not tell us that he cheated. We play Yugo a lot too and he completely stacked the deck multiple times. Cheating. But, yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- All right. Well, I think this has been a fun one, at least, for me.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah, agree.
Dave Dougherty:
- I hope it comes across to the rest of the audience. Like, comment, subscribe, and let us know what you thought. If this conversation sparked any ideas in your head, by all means, you know, share them. If you have any ideas that you want us to riff on, by all means, let us know and we will look forward to discussing those on a future date.
So, see you in the next episode.
Kristen Juve:
- Bye.
