Stitches & Picks - S1:Ep 6 - Social Media
Watch the YouTube video version above or listen to the podcast below!
Episode 6 - Social Media Video and Podcast Transcript
[This transcript has been lightly edited to ensure readability]
Kristen Juve:
- Hey, hey. Welcome to Stitches & Picks. I'm Kristen.
Dave Dougherty:
- I’m Dave.
Kristen Juve:
- And today I'm really excited. Our topic is social media. I'm particularly excited because this is, like, my background. I kind of came up in the world of social media, into digital marketing in my 9 to 5. So I think we have a lot of good things to jump into. We started talking about this because Dave and I, coincidentally, which maybe is not coincidentally both this week have been working on more of social media strategies and things of that nature.
So you were telling me about, like, you're playing with Shorts, YouTube Shorts.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. So I think in, you know, a previous episode we talked about how, you know, most of my content strategy is, you know, do the big thing and then chop it down into smaller bits.
Kristen Juve:
- Reused content.
Dave Dougherty:
- Exactly. You know, and that way, you touch it once, it's just done. And then, you know, you can come back to it later, like, way, way later. So I've built that into my process, right? I record these 20-minute videos or longer, and then, you know, chapter them and find the right moments and pull them out. But they're all captured at the horizontal frame rate.
Kristen Juve:
- Oh, yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- Whatever that is. Not frame rate.
Kristen Juve:
- So you're shooting landscape and you're not shooting with two cameras at the same time, so you're having to go in and then post-edit.
Dave Dougherty:
- So I am. I'm doing a two-camera setup for the guitar stuff. Right? So you get the hand and the full body image, you know, you get the full context and stuff. So that is part of the setup. But, you know, once you get all the editing and stuff in there, it is... I mean, I'm optimizing for YouTube and people consuming via YouTube.
Right? So then when it comes down to getting into shorts or reels or, you know, even just finding stuff for TikTok, I have those, you know, landscape areas, but shorts and reels and everything else wants you to do the vertical.
So there's been a bit of a challenge just to play around with it because I thought, well, you know, I'll just cut it in a certain way and then, you know, zoom it out or, you know, drop it into Canva and just have a black background with the little, you know, the horizontal piece in the middle. And it's not perfect, but it's something, right? And you're doing the thing. You know, progress over perfection, right?
Kristen Juve:
- Oh, yeah. No, it's applying appropriate effort. I feel, like, is a great way to, like, think about it. And I was going to ask you, like, how did that work? Because when I was in social media for my 9 to 5, like, three years ago, Canva didn't have that type of stuff. And you couldn't just, like, drag and drop stuff and what... And then, like, you had to like recut it. And we had to pay agencies to film in three different modes at the exact same time.
And it takes a ton of work whether it's editing or actually filming to create the content to get it correct for each platform. People miss that, I think.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. And I mean the main reason I didn't want to do Reels or TikTok or anything like that from the get-go, is that the story that diminishing return, right? You only have a post that lasts for, you know, six hours and then it's done, or 20 minutes, and then it's done, right? Just because of the platforms and how much they like to show your content on their platforms.
You know, but then, like, last, was it, I think on December 21 [2021], there was a stat that TikTok was the most visited webpage over the Google search bar. You know, for the first time, since people were tracking that kind of thing, the Google search page was, you know, something other than number one.
Kristen Juve:
- I love that t needs to surpass Google in order to get on your radar.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, it was one of those, like, I knew I had to do it, but then when you hear a stat like that, I'm like...
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- I have to stop fighting it. I just have to accept it and do it.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah, you do.
Dave Dougherty:
- So it was interesting because, you know, like, I have things scheduled out. I know what the content I'm going to be producing over the next quarter is, in terms of the videos and the shorts, and the newsletters, and here's how they all tie together. And, you know, I do the planning that way.
Limitations of TikTok's Scheduling Feature
Dave Dougherty:
- But TikTok, when you load it into...to do the thing, they will only let you schedule two weeks out. And that is really obnoxious for me.
Kristen Juve:
- I didn't know that. I've only been putting stuff in drafts and then hitting, like... So, okay, that's super interesting.
Dave Dougherty:
- And so, it happened to me a couple of times today. I'm not going to say that I'm an expert. I'm flagging it as something interesting that I discovered that I'm going to look more into. But the two-week limit really bugs me. Instagram has a limit itself as well in terms of how far out you can post, but it's, I think, like, a month and a half, two months, you know, rather than two weeks.
Kristen Juve:
- It's a little more reasonable.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. I mean, because if I have all the content, I don't want to be coming back every week to then, you know, push, publish. Right? I want to have it set up and sent off.
Kristen Juve:
- They're probably just running in sprints and they want you to plan out two weeks sprints for your content.
Dave Dougherty:
- Good for them. Yeah. I'm just not going to incorporate that into my reality. I'm sorry. I have...
Kristen Juve:
- That's fair. That's fair.
Dave Dougherty:
- You know, when we've talked about the balance of all these other things, like, I cannot be logging in and doing social every day for, you know, more than like 15 minutes.
Kristen Juve:
- I mean, at some point, that's the dream. Right?
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, I think so. I mean I want to be involved a little bit, like, I want to answer questions, but I have no notifications on my phone because, you know, to the other conversations that we've had, I have to balance things out. I have to be present for the people I care about. I'm not just going to, you know randomly post things.
Kristen Juve:
- Absolutely. I don't have notifications either. We've never talked about this.
Dave Dougherty:
- Really?
Kristen Juve:
- I don't get Facebook notifications and I don't get TikTok notifications. I think I do get Instagram, but I literally, like, none of them provide any value for me whatsoever. And so, I just ignore them and I don't care.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. The ones that really annoy me are that, "You know, so-and-so posted a video." I don't...
Kristen Juve:
- Oh, I know.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. I don't care. Why would I care about that?
Kristen Juve:
- If I care, I'd be on there looking for it. Thanks. Bye.
Dave Dougherty:
- Although that could just be us being curmudgeonly.
Kristen Juve:
- I mean, it could be. This is the second time today I've been like, "Oh, am I an old?"
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, we are. We're just coming to terms with it I think.
Kristen Juve:
- I am.
Dave Dougherty:
- We are. We are.
Learnings from BGO's Social Media Postings
Kristen Juve:
- What else did you learn with scheduling because now that you have this two-week scheduling thing on TikTok, I need you to tell me all the things so that I don't have to go through it myself.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, just the main promotion for us at BGO really is, you know, Facebook and Instagram just because of the cross-posting, you know, do it once be done. Right?
And then we're getting into TikTok just because, interestingly enough, I have enough data now to say this, we are living up to some of the stereotypes in terms of who the audience segments are based on the channel. So with Facebook, all of the people who are organically liking...because I'm not doing any ads yet, right? I'm just promoting the stuff as it comes organically, right, and...
Yeah. ...it is, I would say, 35-plus would be the age range - probably higher than that. But I wanna...there are a few people. And so, that's on Facebook. It's a little bit younger on Instagram. Seems to be more bots though or like more...
Kristen Juve:
- On Instagram?
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, I'm using bots liberally in terms of, like, spamming, you know, spammy - accounts or that kind of thing.
Kristen Juve:
- Oh, got it.
Dave Dougherty:
- You know, like, being tagged - in the comments or...
Kristen Juve:
- It's not like I've never seen a bot on Instagram. I have. I've seen many.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right, right. You know, like, I was just tagged on some comment on, you know, buy a bunch of followers. And I'm like, I will never do this. So, of course, you know,...
Kristen Juve:
- It's disgusting.
Dave Dougherty:
- ...reported the comment and blocked the person. But, yeah, so Facebook and Instagram, you can do, you know, two months out.
Kristen Juve:
- Okay. Pause. Facebook and Instagram you're posting from Facebook, like, the native Facebook poster.
Dave Dougherty:
- I'm doing the creator suite... Yeah, the creator studio...
Kristen Juve:
- I did social media for my 9 to 5. I should know what they're called. I don't even remember it. Like, I don't remember it. I have pushed that out of my mind. I used to be paid social media.
Dave Dougherty:
- There's been so many changes - and stuff though I think that's one of the things.
Kristen Juve:
- Dude, they change them all the time. And I did paid, I did paid social media. I put money behind ads. I did not do organic strategy. Although, in theory, all of your page should follow, like, work in conjunction with your organic to some degree. I can get into that in a different day if we want to, or I could talk about that today.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, yeah. Well, we'll see where the conversation takes us.
Kristen Juve:
- We'll see.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, yeah, I mean, the interesting thing for me, at least my social strategy with BGO really was test the assumptions, right, because five or seven years ago when I was in the agency world and I was doing this for, you know, clients, it was a totally different ball game. Right? You could buy Facebook ads for like a cent.
Yup. And the pages were a big thing. The groups weren't even really a thing.
Kristen Juve:
- Groups were not.
Dave Dougherty:
- I don't know, like, Instagram really wasn't a thing yet either. I mean, it was kind of, but not really.
Kristen Juve:
- It was not for the olds and it wasn't for ads or for, like, yeah...
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, and I was working with B2B and some, you know, eCommerce clients, so it wasn't, like, super high for that, at that point.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. Definitely not. Wasn't a thing,
Dave Dougherty:
- But I knew that, you know, what worked then... like, I knew enough to know that what worked then would not work today. And I've tested that out through the curation of other people's posts and I've, you know, put those out on Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is awful for us, so I've stopped.
Kristen Juve:
- Twitter is not my platform. I am not screaming into the void and I'm not in politics.
Dave Dougherty:
- But if you're looking to get to, you know, PR professionals or, you know, the media, it is your platform.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. That's true.
Dave Dougherty:
- You know, so to have a presence there, you know, could be important if you need...
Kristen Juve:
- It seems like there's some holdover for, like, maybe IT folks and other, like, pockets of places, like, not only hobbies but professions and stuff too. So it definitely just depends.
The Platforms, Your Audience, and the Lifecycle of Bands Informing Your Strategy
Kristen Juve:
- Your earlier point about the audience lining up with who you would think would be on those platforms, I think is a really interesting thing to examine because it's like if you want your audience to be a particular...if you're aiming specifically at a, like, 35-plus because they have more disposable income, especially in this time of whatever, like, then, you know, maybe you want to put more effort behind it in one way or the other. And it's, I think people always think, "Oh, I want to go after the youngest generation."
It isn't a bad strategy. Because the youngest generation tends to be, like, the influencers and they have a lot of power in word of mouth and reposting and things of that nature, but they don't necessarily always, and depending on what market you're in, don't always have the power in purchase if that's what you're after.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, and it's funny, So this aligns with a conversation I was having with a musician friend of mine. We were talking about sort of the life cycle of bands. Right? And there's a thing called the, you know, sophomore curse, which is like, you know, most bands will get to the second record and then die.
Kristen Juve:
- Oh, okay.
Dave Dougherty:
- Because it takes 10 years basically of gigging and being with each other to get, you know, signed, and then all of a sudden you're like, "You know what, I'm sick of being in a band with you."
Kristen Juve:
- That makes sense.
Dave Dougherty:
- You know, but of the band, let's just say the band stays beyond two years and, you know, is like Metallica, Bonjovi, Aerosmith, you know, like, those bands with huge longevity, right? In general, you have...when they come out and all the teenagers love them and then they grow up with the band, and then all of a sudden they start having kids and the attendance drops at the concerts.
And then there's this dip where, oh, you know, babysitters are hard. You know, the taste in music changes, you know, with the kind of cultural zeitgeist. And then, all of a sudden, if you can hold on during those years, all of a sudden those people can start going to concerts again and they want to bring whoever they can to those concerts. So then, you know, boom, you're selling out stadiums or, you know, whatever else again.
Kristen Juve:
- That's such a long life cycle. I actually was talking about something similar with my sister. So she runs her own business and there is a seasonality. And, like, I think we see this in marketing all the time, but we don't talk about it very much, which is... And my camera's... Okay. We don't talk about it.
Like, obviously, knitting there's seasonality. You can look...if you want to know any seasonality, go on to Google Trends and type in your most broad keyword about your niche and you are going to see that seasonality. You know what one thing was not that I would just mention, coffee, coffee did not have a seasonality to it. Not surprising people love their coffee year-round.
You're going to find out a lot of information about that. And you need, like, I think when people see that it's not just marketing, it's understood that if you are, like, e-commerce, you're potentially going to see a dip in your sales during that time too. So you have two options, you can roll with the punches, or you can figure out what's the driving force behind that.
In knitting, it's going to be like, it's warm outside for a lot more places. So people are not going to be knitting sweaters or scarves, or mittens, or hats. Maybe if they're really into knitting, what will they knit? Tank tops, headbands, like, things that they can actually wear and in lighter materials? So, like, then you could offer up deals on different things and you can either combat that with your marketing, or you can just roll with the tide.
Dave Dougherty:
- Or you can set up your marketing by hemisphere so that you have your winter collection for six months, you know, in the north or in the south, and then just take the learnings and improve on them and go, yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- See. So those bands really what they needed to be doing was be like, we have a tot play area where we'll pay for...you can send your kids to this place for free. Not reality. I know because...
Dave Dougherty:
- Do you think, you know, Beyonce would not have the same sort of allure if she had, you know, a play place attached to the...
Kristen Juve:
- Probably not. Yeah. There is that whole, like, finding, like, look to it as well, but...
Dave Dougherty:
- Although, but it is interesting because when you talk about some of these, you know, bigger people like, you know, Beyonce, who I think just released a new record, I have to double-check. But one of the ways that they maintain the relevancy is to just do guest spots on other people's, you know, songs, right?
So you get a marginal, you know, revenue thing, you know, from guesting on somebody's thing, but, you know, it at least keeps you in the front of mind of people. And it's the same thing with...you see that with the influencers and whatever in the B2B space too, you might be pushing your own course or your own blog or your own products, but, you know what, if you can jump on somebody else's podcast or somebody else's, you know, YouTube channel and provide value that way, not only are getting a new audience, a potential new audience from them, but your own fans will see that you're continuing to work and, you know, you're still there.
You're not just fading off into, you know, the distance for three months and then you know, oh, whatever happened to so-and-so.
Kristen Juve:
- Exactly. So it's a different tactic for a different strategy, realizing that your sales may not go up, but you're right, the idea then is my brand. I still want to be in the front of people's minds. I want to be relevant to them. How can I do that? I mean, they're going to put my time and effort or my money behind other tactics besides just getting in front of them to make a sale.
And I think one thing that we forget a lot too, is when we do that, we expect the same returns and it's not. When you have a different strategy for that type of, I'm going to call it a campaign because it's a different time, right? Like, it's a different frame of reference. You have to just measure it differently in your head too. And I think that's really hard to do when you're doing your own thing because we're so focused on the sale. We're so focused on the very end, the very bottom of the funnel, trying to get people to actually, like, purchase, but that isn't necessarily always what's best for us.
And it's not what's necessarily best for our mental health too when you're thinking about, like, the reality of things and kind of getting that, like, arm's length distance so you can have a really healthy relationship with what you need to do in order to eventually continue to get that sale.
- Right. You know, and no matter what sort of philosophy you go under, with the marketing funnel or, you know, HubSpot has the flywheel idea that it's, you know, this sort of virtuous cycle. Either way, you have to get new people into that particular system of thought. So, I mean, even with our day jobs, the biggest argument that I have in my 9 to 5 of...it's not just about the bottom of the funnel because you need new people - going into the top.
Kristen Juve:
- Exactly. Exactly.
Dave Dougherty:
- And then the experience you have, you know, throughout the customer journey then all of that plays into it, you know, but the perfect example. So, like, I know how to build out a sales funnel for the guitar stuff, except I don't have anything to sell. I just have the knowledge content. At this point when we're recording this. But the interesting thing is, so I've had my music out for, you know, forever and a day.
And, again, I've never done any ads, I've only ever done the local gigs and whatever else, but through posting the videos for guitar and reactivating some of the social media stuff, even just reposting the BGO stuff onto my personal accounts or my Dave Dougherty media page, I'm seeing increased streams globally, not just in the U.S.
So the vast majority of my stream money comes from Europe and China, for whatever reason. Never done a gig there, never done any press there, never done anything other than just, you know, here you go, check it out.
Right. So is it totally attributable? No, but when you look at the months that things come up, it's because I've been putting out the content with this other thing, and people are naturally curious and will dive in a little deeper. So, you know, it's a virtuous thing.
Kristen Juve:
- That's a really great point for you. I haven't thought about that for my stuff. If people like diving deeper or to, like, validate, or just be interested in it. So that's going to be interesting to see how that kind of populates.
Dave Dougherty:
- You sound almost, like, nervous about that.
Kristen Juve:
- I'm kind of.
Dave Dougherty:
- Like, what do you mean?
Kristen Juve:
- I mean, I know exactly what I have out there, so it's just like... I don't know, I think it's because I haven't been super great about even my personal presence on social media, and, like, some of that's very intentional. Like, I don't post on Facebook, like, anymore. I have friends that I still...
I still go on there because there's a few, like... Actually, ironically, I don't know, it's the whole group thing actually has a really... they've done a good job. I hate to say this. Like, I hate to say this. They've done a pretty good job with groups and people do utilize them. And there are quite a few that I've gotten really great information from and connect with people on.
But, yeah, in general, like, I don't post a ton, so it's kind of, like... I probably should start to think about that as a piece of this too and just not completely neglect it.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, and it's funny because, so, you know me well enough to know that I tend to overthink everything. And before I launched BGO, I took two months, I think and I went through every Twitter post under my personal account that I had done from, like, 2007 until whatever the date was in 2020.
And I got rid of anything that would be, you know, moderately offensive or the, “Oh, that was young Dave. He didn't know that would be offensive.”
Kristen Juve:
- You no longer agree.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, exactly. And so, because it was, you know, to that point, if people are curious, if they find me, if something happens and I need to, you know, be in front of a news reporter or something, and I have to say something, I don't want them to say, "Oh, tell me about this tweet in 2007, when you made a joke about, you know, the French." And I'm like, "What?"
Kristen Juve:
- I mean, that did happen to a bunch of YouTubers. So it is in the realm of possibility that, like....
Dave Dougherty:
- Exactly. And it happened - And that's bull. Like... to Kevin Hart and it happened to, you know, whole bunch of comedians, so. Yeah, it might not ever happen and that's cool. You know, now somebody's probably going to play “gotcha” with me.
Kristen Juve:
- I mean, better to get it out now. Right?
Dave Dougherty:
- Exactly.
Kristen Juve:
- So I'm going to his profile to find something.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- Don't worry though.
Dave Dougherty:
- So I mean, I went through and I made sure that I was comfortable with what was showing at least, you know, to that time. And I made sure that, you know what, I'm going to take down a lot of photos of me and the family because, you know, people don't need to see that. You know, my Instagram doesn't necessarily have to be that…
Kristen Juve:
- Side note. The best thing I ever did when I had my daughter, I created a shared album. I have an iPhone and most of my family all had iPhones. So, like, it worked out really well, created a shared album and I posted all my baby pictures in there so that I didn't have to broadcast to the world my baby unless I wanted to. It was very, like, I wanted them to be able to see every single picture, every single emotion, every single everything, but I didn't want the rest of the world.
I didn't want the rest of the world to have 24/7 access to me. And that was a personal choice I wanted. So highly recommend doing that because they can still like and comment and stuff in the shared album, but you can control who can see it. And it's not owned by Facebook. Sure, it's probably, like, Apple property, but whatever, like, you gotta draw a line somewhere.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. I did something similar. So I have shared albums for vacations and we have one for Anders and so the things that I do post with him are very, very selective. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's something to think about. You know, is it necessary to go through a huge chunk of your life to go through it and get started?
Absolutely not. I would say get started and there's, you know, plenty of things, you know, for...
Kristen Juve:
- The emotional whirlwind that you then have to go through.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, yeah, there might be some of that. Yeah. So a long-winded way of saying it's a personal choice. Might be interesting to go through and look back at history as a history buff. I kind of like that kind of stuff. And as a writer, it's complete fodder for, you know, the creativity.
Kristen Juve:
- That's fair.
Dave Dougherty:
- But there are plenty of memories you don't want to revisit. And, you know, God forbid they're on a social platform forever.
Kristen Juve:
- I did a pretty good job I think of deleting a bunch of those right after I realized that those memories were not something that I wanted to take with me into my future. So I think I did a pretty good job on a bunch of that stuff, but I'm sure I'll be proved wrong at some point. My daughter will be, like, 18 and being like, "What's this?"
Oops.
Kristen Juve:
- So, no, this week when I was looking at so I was looking at Canva... Okay. I'm blown away by Canva and I don't...
Dave Dougherty:
- Isn’t it great? Yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- I don't want to be a stand, but, like, Canva's great. Like, this is bulls**t how great it is. And they did not pay me to say that.
Dave Dougherty:
- Although we're happy to partner should anybody in Canva, you know, be listening.
Kristen Juve:
- Very happy to partner. So I have a bachelor of fine arts with an emphasis in photography. I have been in Photoshop since 2005. Nope, even before that. I've been in Photoshop, like, when Photoshop Elements were around and it, like, you had to download on your computer...all of that stuff.
I have CDs of Photoshop. Yes, CDs of Photoshop. So I did not even comprehend that we would get to a point in our technology journey in which, like, you could literally just drag and drop and template. Like, all of it's there.
And so, I went on a rabbit hole the other night and I was like, okay, I had already out listed out my content strategy, at least in higher-level terms of, like, here's how my brand is. Here's how I want to show up. Here's what I want to do. Part of my piece is, like...and I say this, and part of me is like, ugh, because saying it out loud makes it real.
And I don't feel like I am totally ready to make this real to some degree because I recognize the time commitment that this takes, but, like, I'm going to say it. And I'm going to say it because you know what? I've said stuff before, and then it doesn't make whatever.
So I recognize that social is a really great place to create a community. We've talked about creating community a hundred conversations before. And I actually think that that's probably the biggest and also the most interesting part about creating your own side thing is you can have this community of people who are like-minded, are interested in the same things you are. It's also really freaking scary.
Anyways so that's part of my strategy on social media is to create more of a dynamic where it's a community. One of those items is that, on Instagram, I want to do those polls that are in stories. And it's been really daunting for me to think about doing that. I have it listed, as my content plan. I have how it could complement other things and how it could help me really inform my designs, or I could like...
There are a million things. I could do a poll on, do people like to create seamless sweaters or do they actually want to sew up sweaters. And while it wouldn't be, like, an overarching survey with a really good sampling set, it still is really interesting to partake in that conversation and get some of that data. So I was in Canva and I'm seeing all these templates of questions and I'm like, "Oh my God, this is so cool. Like, this is so cool."
And I think one of the most daunting parts also weirdly enough is, like, the photography aspect. And I think we probably kind of talked about this before of, like, I have really high standards for my photography and even when it's for, like, a really basic thing. And because it's such a high standard, I just feel like no matter what I do is not good enough.
And so, I don't really want to put it out there. Like, I'm willing to put out my knitting, like, the actual patterns and I'm not trained in that. Right? Like, I'm comfortable putting that out into the world, but putting my photographs out into the world, not comfortable for me. So I was really thrilled to find that Canva had these templates and, like, graphics and pictures and stuff that I could utilize already that I don't have to, like, put time and effort behind other than making sure that it fits into my content strategy.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right.
Kristen Juve:
- Because I don't then have to worry about the pictures as well.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, and I've...one of the big takeaways from the last couple of years of doing this is, you know, now more so than any other time with the tools that are out there and the free stock photos that are available the burden of the creative is so much lower.
Now the other problem is there's been plenty of times where something that I've thought about using, I then see in somebody else's newsletter or, you know, things like that. And it's like, hmm, not going to use that anymore.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah, I mean there are like three pictures that I see everywhere.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. But I mean, that was the big daunting thing. Like, I first had the idea for BGO I think in 2014. And when I started asking...you know, working at the agency, we had a video guy, so I started asking him about video production. "Okay, what do you need? How do I need to do it?" And he started listing out all this stuff and I'm like, "Oh my God, this is like $10,000. I don't have $10,000."
You know, just because you needed a computer that had such massive processing power that that would be the dedicated machine for video.
Kristen Juve:
- Yup.
Dave Dougherty:
- And, you know, now everything has gotten so much better that you don't have to. Right?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, you know, I think that's great. I think more people should be, you know, creative and dive into things. You know, now it's just the psychology of it. Like, you are preventing yourself because the tools are out there.
Kristen Juve:
- Exactly.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. And I could not...And it almost makes it harder in some ways because you have to confront that and not just be like, "Oh, I can't."
Kristen Juve:
- Right. And weirdly enough, like, and this is kind of how I feel about is at like my 9:00 to 5:00 too people are like, "I can't do that." I'm like, "What do you mean you can't do that? There's like...Google it." And I shouldn't say my current 9:00 to 5:000, my current 9:00 to 5:00 people are really great about that. But other places I've been they're like, "What's this?" And I'm like, "Google. Google it."
Dave Dougherty:
- I heard an interview with David Sedaris recently. I think it was on the new Conan, you know, Conan Needs a Friend podcast, which is hilarious, if you need something silly - in your life.
Kristen Juve:
- I have not even heard of this. Okay.
Dave Dougherty:
- It's him unfiltered, which is really interesting. And it's just silliness and awesome.
Kristen Juve:
- Is it refreshing or scary?
Dave Dougherty:
- It's silliness and awesome.
Kristen Juve:
- Okay.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, but he was interviewing David Sedaris and Sedaris apparently had to change the title because Walmart wouldn't take his new book based on the title that he had previously. So they changed the title. And he's like, "I'll change the title, but I want, like, a really creepy clown on the cover." So then the way that he talked about it was the publisher started, you know, sending all these happy, go lucky, you know, clowns.
And he is like, "No, none of that."
Kristen Juve:
- It's like, no, an actual creepy clown.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. So then they're like, "Wow, this photo is really creepy. Like, where'd you find it?" He's like, "I Googled creepy clown, you know, 50s?" And that was how he found his book cover.
Kristen Juve:
- Well, like, that has IP behind it. Like, please tell me they paid the...
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, I don't know any of the background stuff. I'm only saying what I heard on the podcast because it's...
Kristen Juve:
- My worry is like, oh my God, that person didn't get paid.
Dave Dougherty:
- Oh, I'm sure they did all the proper things because it's a major publisher. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, if David Sedaris is, you know, doing the same thing, then all right cool. Then, you know, somebody who's at the top of their game doing the same thing, then I'm going to do it because why not, you know?
Kristen Juve:
- I literally looked at these templates and was like, oh, that's a close-up of knitwear. Like, I could do that. I could just also take the one I'm looking at and use that.
I think it's partly like I really like…Although the... you got stuff too. There's a lot in it. There's a lot into that.
Dave Dougherty:
- I think the big thing for me is getting the right...getting consistent look and feel. That's what I'm more concerned about.
Kristen Juve:
- Oh my God, yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- With, you know, getting my own shots or, leveraging some stock photos because, like, you know, I couldn't do the website. Like, if I had to do all unique, you know, guitar photos, I wouldn't have been able to launch it. Like, you know, being able to leverage some of the free stock photo things that gave me full rights to do whatever with the images, which is really important, make sure you have, you know, all of those rights otherwise that will bite you in the bum.
Kristen Juve:
- Yes. If you type in, like, "Free photographs or freestyle photography," there's, like, a ton of places that will do...have free ones. There's the...It's...you'd have to almost, like, feel like go out of your way and be really, really lazy to, like, use something that's not available.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. But, so, yeah, I think it was just an interesting experience, you know, finally leveraging that. And, you know, part of the thing that made me feel okay with it was just seeing every client that I had and, you know, big enterprises to small creators, you know, using it.
And it's just like, well, why am I getting in my own way? You know?
Kristen Juve:
- That's a really good way to think of it. I'm getting in my own way. I'm still like, even saying that I still am like, "But you can do the photographs." Like...
Dave Dougherty:
- But you're not so that's...
Kristen Juve:
- But I'm not. But you don't need to, like, be, like, you're not doing it. You're going to use stock photography and cheers until then, and then you'll reassess or...
Committing to Original Photography or Using Stock Photos Services?
Dave Dougherty:
- Okay. So that was an interesting ordeal.
Yeah. So our platform, for whatever reason, put Kristen into a loop in my headphones, so I couldn't hear anything. And then, it took a whole bunch to troubleshoot, but none of that matters if you're listening to it in real-time. So we'll continue on to the conversation wherever it left off.
Kristen Juve:
- I think I was saying, I think I was on a loop on the word or so I think what I was saying was that I either need to, like, commit or just commit to, like, doing my own photographs or just use stock photos and just be okay with it. So I need to make a decision on that.
Dave Dougherty:
- I think the thing for me when I did it was I wanted to do my own photos. Right? But, again, I didn't have the time - Totally. because I knew it would take so much time and I knew I didn't have the right equipment for it. And I would just have to experiment with, you know, shooting all the guitars that I have. But the problem is I like high gloss finishes on my guitar, which is not conducive to, you know, amateur photography.
Kristen Juve:
- I was just saying, like, I can handle that sh*t. I did my, like, babies, like, milestone photos, like, professional photos. So I feel like I have this thing that I have to live up to. I don't. I know I don't. I know I don't.
Dave Dougherty:
- I think the one thing is because you're not doing it fully professionally, you know?
Kristen Juve:
- But I have the full equipment. I have, like, everything I need.
David Chang on Creativity, Starting a Business, and Whether or Not There are Peaks in a Career
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. Yeah. Then it does go back to your, you know, your question.
You know, and it's interesting because I've been in a rabbit hole of David Chang for a little bit in terms of, you know, watching all the shows, and then I discovered he has two different podcasts that he does.
Kristen Juve:
- I love David Chang! So much! Momofuku for life!
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, you can buy his noodles now. His latest book was really fun. I love the idea of a cookbook without any recipes. So check that out about home cooking. But I found an interview that he did with JJ Redick from the NBA who is also kind of a big foodie and media guy and just a really interesting character.
But they had this fascinating discussion on chefs and creativity and peaking, you know, whenever you take something to a professional level, right, there's eventually going to be a peak in your career where you were the most innovative, or you were the highest performing or, you know, things like that.
And it was fascinating to listen to Chang saying, "Yeah, I think it's like 27 to 35 or something," - that he thought chefs...
