Speaker 1: (00:25)
What's up guest? This is Jacob. I'm content AI manager and founder of Content AI Tools. Welcome to a new episode of the Content AI Show, where I speak with experts around the world for, uh, yeah, for the master of how to create content with AI technology. And I'm excited to speak today of Kate Bradley Chans, who's the CEO of Lately ai, which is a cool tool. And already the interesting part of this is I, it has so many tools, and lately AI is one of the first that Yeah. Markets also the ROI of, of contents, which is not a big thing for many other software companies that I, uh, tested so far. But, but we'll speak about this and also about your journey. Welcome to the Showcase. I'm very excited to speak with you today.
Speaker 2: (01:12)
That's so, uh, interesting that you're saying that We're gonna dive into that tomorrow. I, and I know it's true. So, um, thank you so much, YAV, and hi everybody. Welcome. And hope you're, um, hope your pre holidays are going. Okay. I mean, we're, we're all getting that, that feeling of, that the rush onto the big, you know, to-dos. And so I feel like that the pressure of, um, December is on mark by people. It's,
Speaker 1: (01:37)
Yeah, mark, mark is awesome. Okay. I should know, mark. You, you, you know, mark, can
Speaker 2: (01:45)
I tell? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know each other from social. I mean, the power of like, you know, being friends via likes and shares. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: (01:53)
He's, yeah, he's, yeah. Mark is doing really cool stuff. He was also my show on the More on the web website. So I have two types of shows. One is web free live show format, and this is more content ai, so AI technology that helps me to create content. And, and Mark is very involved in the Tilt community by Joe Pulitz
Speaker 2: (02:15)
For sure. Yep. Yeah, I know Joe too. We're all, it's a, it's a, it's a small family, but, but, um, or mighty, you know, mighty together. So my brothers and sisters ,
Speaker 1: (02:27)
Yes. All brothers and sisters. Cool. But back to you. Okay. So, um, yeah, I wanted to say something about the holidays. It feels like after Thanksgiving until Christmas, it's like everybody is hustling
Speaker 2: (02:42)
Yeah. Something, right? The gas is on. Yeah. I feel that pressure too. And it's really like when I was, when I ended a marketing agency, the only time year that I got off was when everyone else was off. It was that week between Christmas and New Year's, you know, and, um, I thank God there's no emails to, to answer .
Speaker 1: (03:03)
Exactly. Thank you. Oza, mark Yakus, the bridge of power. Appreciate the sentence. Thank you very much. Okay. Can you maybe in a nutshell, describe your journey? So why is AI as a big thing for you? So would be really curious about your journey, how this evolved, and maybe there are different steps on the journey when, when you realize the power of AI for, for you, for your company would be just, um, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: (03:34)
Yeah. Well, so the fun part of the journey as you were reading online is that I used to be rock and roll dj, and my last gig was broadcasting to 20 million listeners a day for accent and satellite radio. So that was a wild ride for sure. How I got from there to AI is, seems like a big old zigzag, but as my friend Chris Bro once said, really, when you look back and you're able to connect the dots, that thread is, is right in line, you know? Um, so along the way, and there's, there's sort of interesting bridges, um, between all, but I, I did own a marketing agency and I ended up getting Walmart 130% ROI year over year for three years in spreadsheets. Remember those things? Hi, raise your hand if you're in spreadsheet.
Speaker 1: (04:25)
You mean
Speaker 2: (04:26)
Excel? Yep, exactly. Um, and at the time, the idea was, you know, how do I, how, how do I help this? There were 20,000 marketers involved across for profit, non-profit in government here in the us and it was Walmart and Bank of America, um, at and t, national Disability Institute, United Way Worldwide. And we were all working together. And I came in from radio land. I'm not very polished, yakup. I mean, you've known me for a few, few seconds and I think you can already tell, like, you know, you could put a, a business suit on me, but like , you can't really clean me up that much, you know? And so here I am, I waled into this room and everybody's kind of used to being stiff and not particularly, um, flexible, you might say. And I was just overwhelmed with how much, what a mess it was.
Speaker 2: (05:18)
Nobody seemed to, to understand not only what marketing was happening, but of course how it was doing. You know, what were the results. But, but we couldn't even worry about the results until we understood exactly what was going on. And so I started organizing us in a spreadsheet. I did it by myself. I went home and I did this for my own mind, and then I brought it to the team. And, um, you know, I think at first they were like, who is this person? Who does she think she is? Um, but they, they managed to sort of get on with the program. And what I ended up doing for them was looking at this repurposing idea, if we have all these people creating content, there were thousands of people creating all kinds of content. It seems still that it was falling through the cracks and that people still were feeling as though they didn't have enough content, but it's only because they didn't, they didn't know it existed. Right. Um, which is a common problem for, for companies in general. And so that idea of repurposing, um, came about, this is before Gary V, by the way, sorry, Gary Friends, um, . .
Speaker 2: (06:19)
And you go
Speaker 1: (06:20)
Ahead, sorry for interrupting, but can you, when was this process where you have those Excel sheets spreadsheet? When was
Speaker 2: (06:27)
This thousand? Like 11 or,
Speaker 1: (06:32)
Okay. Very early.
Speaker 2: (06:34)
Yeah, like, like MySpace was still a thing. Twitter was just barely happening. You know,
Speaker 1: (06:39)
Facebook grew,
Speaker 2: (06:41)
Facebook was there, nobody was really doing a lot of messaging on LinkedIn. Um, but Twitter was really the place where we were. Twitter and Facebook were our biggest focuses at the time. And then, you know, we were doing other marketing too. We were doing newspaper ads and radio media tours and all this other stuff. I pulled together that content as well because in my mind, all of it could be translated into something else, you know? So when we built lately, um, you know, this idea kind of evolved because at first we built a platform that had a spreadsheet that matched every feature I had. I, or every feature that had, that matched every spreadsheet I had built for Walmart. That was the idea, let's bring this system together. Cuz it was a pretty big, I mean, it wasn't just, I mean, imagine like, I had a spreadsheet for every social post we ever written.
Speaker 2: (07:31)
I had a spreadsheet for every video anyone created and then people repurposing the video. It was just this, you know, I was a crazy person, ocd, right? And then I was able to, I at the time, sorry, I'm gonna go back this. I took the analytics and I literally drew them a graph of all the graphs on top of each other so they could see the analytics and generally the waves and peaks all matched up, right? And we didn't need to hire some agency to analyze if it was working or not. You could see that it was working. Here's the website traffic, here's, and then we could, we could, we knew what we were trying to help people file their taxes so we knew how many, how many people were filing our taxes through us, right? So we could actually really measure this. Um, with lately what we saw was that big kind of feature based platform we built.
Speaker 2: (08:17)
There was this one feature that everybody used the most and they liked a lot. And it was the ability to take a blog at the time, push a button, and have lately parse it up into a bunch of quotes with a link back to the full version. Right? Now that was interesting yuk, because there's something sexy about the inside of a long four piece of content. That doesn't happen often in the headline. People are bad at titling things because they do what we are all taught. Title it appropriately so people know what the subject is. So for example, um, I'm gonna pick on you today, sorry, um, an interview with Kate Bradley Turners, nobody knows who that I am, right? Like, you know, so, so it's hard to get people to come to this, right? But instead, as you were pulling out in your LinkedIn, um, post like how to get a 98% sales conversion, that's interesting, right?
Speaker 2: (09:07)
So that was, that was my idea. Um, and when we saw our customers kind of caught me onto this, we were able to pivot and change the product and listen. And eventually we actually didn't know it was ai. That's not where we started. Um, we started with this problem of like, what do I write and how do I know it's working? But as, but we're marketers, right? So we know how to spin it. And as AI and content creation became more and more prominent, we actually realized this was what I, we were doing. And then we tripled down on, you know, we now have an AI engineering team and all that kinda stuff. Um, but one of the, and, and I'm sorry for vomiting, should I stop? And you can,
Speaker 1: (09:45)
I I, I will interrupt if there a question in my head. Just don't with the flow. You're,
Speaker 2: (09:53)
You're so gracious. Um, so, you know, with Walmart, the idea was a blog, but then here we are into today, there's videos and podcasts and all that. So lately quickly, um, evolve to be able to include that, those pieces of content as well. How can we repurpose any kind of long form content into dozens of social posts? Now, they're not just dozens of social posts, it's social posts that contain the exact words and ideas and phrases that your specific target audience will, will, it'll make them convert, it'll make them engage. And it learns any brand voice. So it's producing content in your brand voice or in an individual voice, right? So if there's a whole lot of heavy duty lifting, and that's why the results aren't just like, great, they're great, right? We have 12000% increased engagement, 98% sales conversion, 200% more leads, 84% time saved. Because that's the difference between artificial intelligence and just plan automation.
Speaker 1: (10:57)
Yeah.
Speaker 2: (10:59)
So one more thing that we learned, which was, at the time everything was about owned media. How can I repurpose my owned media? And then I had an idea, cuz as a startup entrepreneur, I don't even have time to create my own earned media. Like I'm a great writer, I have lots of things to talk about and say, but I just don't have four hours to write a blog, for example, or even host my own podcast. But guess what? I'm a fun guest and I don't have to do any prep to be on the show. And what if I ask you for the file afterwards? So, so now I have a piece of long form content that I can run for my own ai, and guess what? I'm gonna drive all the traffic back to you. I'll get 40, 40 posts out of it. So it's a huge win for you. You get a ton of promo for me after the fact promo, which is way more valuable than in the moment. By the way, we know we'll get eyeballs here today. That's nice. But I, I care about the eyeballs later cuz it's exponentially greater. Yeah. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna use this content. Like I don't care if we have two listeners or 20 million,
Speaker 1: (12:05)
I think it's very smart. And to some degree you are exactly doing what I am doing manually. So after, after we, we stop the recording, I take the video file, I use an AI called victory to create video snippets, audiograms, and I'm, what I'm doing different is I'm using automation tools to repurpose the content. So I'm saying for example, what is your story, Kate, about ai? And then I'm uploading this video and then saying, 30 days later, rep repurposed this. Yeah. Share this again on the same social media channels that I have. So that I, so I'm filling the channels because nobody knows what I posted 30 days ago, right? But you, but you, I'm doing what I'm doing manually. You're doing completely with ai. So that's what I got now from your explanation, is that,
Speaker 2: (12:58)
Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And, and also by the, we'll, we'll give you a transcript for all that content too. So we'll automatically transcribe the audio and the video and you can repurpose that into a blog. We can run the blog back through lately. Um, and then the other I think really key component is, and, and by the way, good on you for even doing it manually, um, is that it's, it's not just clipping up the video, it's clipping up the video or the audio in the places where it knows that there are the ideas and words and phrases that specifically will convert the audience you're targeting
Speaker 1: (13:34)
, right? That's, that's pretty interesting. So how is it, is that AI giving me a suggestion or is it just I'm typing in the target audience that I want to reach out to and this is automatically done by lately or?
Speaker 2: (13:49)
Yeah, it's even easier. So, so, um, we, when you connect your social channels to lately, hey Chris, we instantly will, um, analyze everything you've published. It goes back for about a year, sometimes more in some cases, but up to a year generally. And we're looking at everything you ever published on, on whatever channel you've connected to lately or as many as you like. And we can study the messaging that got you the highest clicks comments and shares. Now we know what that messaging is, and now we break that messaging down by word idea key, key phrases and sentence structures. Now we have a writing model that belongs to you. It's unique to you in your voice, and no one else. The writing model can be curated by you. So you can do what you said, you can give inputs and, and help it along. But right from the start, it's pretty smart.
Speaker 2: (14:40)
And then, um, at this time it also, again, already knows what works for you. So it can target that audience for you, right? It can, it's very clear what it is. It has the patterns, then you feed it the long form content and it learns even more. The more you put in, the more you get out. And the more you train the ai, the more you spend time with it and say, Ooh, ai, this was a weird thing that you pulled. Let me edit it and make it right. Or, Ooh, such a good one. How about I add this hashtag here and the AI starts to learn, um, even faster.
Speaker 1: (15:14)
That's cool. I like that. You also have a scheduling. So this is, this is also something different so far that I realized when you compare lately with other tools. So I have one tool for creating block articles. I have one tool for creating deep fake videos. I have another tool for content, um, automation and, and, um, yeah, the the distribution part. But you also, you, you can create a content basically also the text production and connect your social media accounts and distribute the content, right?
Speaker 2: (15:52)
Yeah. So it's a full service marketing management scheduling platform. And we, sorry for the plug for ourselves, but we also do, um, an employee, employee advocacy. So we have like employee advocacy, we have, um, a feature that lets you syndicate the content you create across unlimited social channels. So that's a big thing we found with our enterprise customers is this desire, of course, for everybody to tow the company line online. But how do you get them to do it, you know, without them kicking and screaming. It's, you basically do it for them is what happens. So that's the service we provide as well. That's all automated.
Speaker 1: (16:33)
Yeah, I'm, I'm just fascinated about the roi. I think because this is, as a creator, it's sometimes very hard to define what is your time worth or how do I get the return on investment? And you basically promising it to some degree that you will get a return on investment because you know what, what your target audience is, right? So, so you can, you can pivot the, the communication to, to target to, to the target audience so that it's very clear that you reach the right people. Assess.
Speaker 2: (17:11)
Yeah. And it all has to be part of a mindset shift, right? So yeah, it's not you. If you do what I tell you to do, you will see an average 84% time save, 200 more clicks, 82% more, you know, xyz, whatever, long, long list of good, good things. Now, the do what I say is this, it's a new workflow, right? So you either create content or you, or you ask for it, it's found content, uh, uh, sorry, earned media. Like someone's written about you. Someone has your own show or found content. Maybe you have a great article about marketing, thought leadership you want publish on LinkedIn or talk about on LinkedIn. So any, any of those kinds, you run it through lately. You let lately take out 40 posts of the 40, you are gonna just kind of workshop 20 of them, make sure you give the AI an extra little boost and help and what, what's, what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 2: (18:07)
You publish all 20 of those posts and then you rinse and repeat, right? So if you do that, that's when we'll, we'll see that super high engagement. Um, and the proof is in the pretty, pretty quickly. Like it's garbage in, garbage out, yo up. So, I mean, if you are a terrible podcast host, I mean, I'm not gonna be able to make you any better. You're not though. You're amazing writer. We already know that. Um, thank you. But like, if someone's a poor writer, for example, I'm not gonna take what they, I'm not magically gonna make them any better. Um, it just doesn't happen that way. The AI has to have a really solid stepping, stepping ground because it's only a robot after all, you know? But our promise is that when AI and humans pair up in this way, so when the human takes the time to help train the ai, that's when you see that super high engagement and the results that, you know, make your eyeballs pop out.
Speaker 1: (19:05)
So when you mean, you mentioned workshop, workshop, the content. So this means I am filtering and looking, I I'm making basically a content audit. Yes. Where I'm, where I'm checking, okay, what worked in the last 12 months? Where do I get engagement?
Speaker 2: (19:22)
Um, no, it's even simpler than that. Like, so, um, or you can do a couple of things. Number one, whatever lately spits out. So whatever social post that it generates for you, look at each one of them. Now, it will do things like start with a non-sequitur, for example. It might grab a sentence that has everything you like in it, everything it knows that you want or that your audience wants to read. But the sentence might start with, for example, okay, now you can't start a social post with, for example, that's weird, but the AI doesn't know that. So if you have to tell it, you have to delete that part, you know, and it'll start to learn, oh, maybe don't pull out stuff like this. It, it also will, by the way, start rearranging content for you and like do some rewriting. We just launched this feature, um, a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 2: (20:09)
So here's one of the things I saw it do. It knows that using you, the word you is generally good practice in social because it's talking to everyone as opposed to, I, you know, I is very selfish. And so I saw it like, write the word you a few more times, extra times . Cause it's like, this is good, this is good. You, you, you, and then whatever you do xyz whatever, whatever else was there. So it's, it's, it's trying, you know, to, to learn it just needs those guardrails, um, from you. The other thing that you can do to sort of chime in and help it along is we surface word clouds that are the words, literally the words and ideas that your audience is liking care and engaging with. So you can, and, and lately is gonna ask you, it'll say, Hey yca, um, the word, um, human surfaced 20,000 engagements in two posts.
Speaker 2: (21:07)
Do you want us to look for more content with this idea in it? And you can say yes or no, you know? Yeah, yeah. It sounds so, it sounds that simple. That's all. It's that simple. But the hard part, I mean, you and I were talking before we hit, we hit live here. The hard part is, it's that simple for, for marketers who understand that you can't wave a magic wand, right? Magic doesn't exist. Sorry to, to bug everybody else out. You know, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, but, but, um, , you do have to put effort into it, you know, and this is that human, this is, this is what I got from Radio Yakup, right? So the reason that radio fits into my space now is my, um, Uber Power was turning listeners into fans and creating this understanding that I can take you on a journey and you, the listener feel as though, um, you've got a voice during my show.
Speaker 2: (22:11)
It's a two-way conversation. Now, that's not true. I'm wielding the mic, I'm picking the songs. I'm not asking you for your opinions or to come in and tell me what songs to play or anything like that. But I got so good at it and I, I was also a fiction writing major. And of course I'd written thousands of commercials for radio. So I, I knew also about how words translated on radio. Not only words that I was saying, but words that I was writing into copy. I I also ran the production department, which is like those creative drops you hear between songs that identify at the station. And so I, theater of the Mind was something really important to me. It was the fun part of the job was that like, how do I create this world in your mind as a listener? Like that you're, when you tune in experience, yeah, when you turn into my show, you're coming somewhere else, right?
Speaker 2: (22:58)
So think about how that same process happens when you're reading a great novel. You know, you check out your, your brain has this leader of the mind imagination, this understanding of what this world is. It's something that you can't get in video because a video gives you everything. It's the full kimono, so to speak, right? But when I was, I was, I was reading, um, you know, this is Your Brain on music that, that book about the neuroscience of music and what clicked was when your brain listens to a new song, Yaka, it must instantly access every other song you've ever heard in an instant. It's trying to index, it's starting to look for, for familiar touch points. So it knows where to index that new song in the library of the memory of your brain. And so of course it's tapping into nostalgia and memory, all these things.
Speaker 2: (23:48)
It's just defaults. It's, it's, you know, you have this feeling because that's what's actually happening as you're listening to a song. Similarly, your voice has a sound to it and meaning it also has a frequency. There's a musical note to your voice. And so if I read a piece of text from you, any kind of text, I hear your voice in my head. And it occurred to me that if I want people to do what I want them to do in writing, cuz I do all, all writing is about an objective. I should try and trigger memory and nostalgia and emotion through the writing and make sure that people hear the voice I want them to hear in their hands. Same idea when you're able to do, sorry, last thing. Those components, particularly memory, nostalgia, emotion trigger trust and trust is why we buy hey, hobby.
Speaker 2: (24:48)
Um, so if you know that trust is why you buy, then this whole experiment is about that. Like every piece of content, this is why the human has to jump into the ai. Nobody trusts ai. I know that, and I don't expect you to, but when you, it's like why? It's why mistakes are so beautiful, right? When you send, when you send a mass newsletter out and you make a mistake, people love it. , you're dying of embarrassment and they're like, this is amazing. They reply to you, right? It's the same idea. Um, you want that little genta quo that, that, that, um, that peace the piece that the human fills in, right? Like in, in the theater of the mind. That's what I'm trying to get for you to do with the ai because I know the value of it. 20 million listeners, right? Not know, not just a few listeners. Like my Uber power is turning listeners into fans, and I can give you the same power if you prescribe to my, um, my mindset.
Speaker 1: (25:55)
That's cool. I just, I hear a lot of passion for the radio life. So I worked as a former journalist, as a, as a, as a digital editor. And, um, I, I was just curious why you left then the, the radio and your your own thing. But we also have a question maybe, um, how to produce content scale for wider audience is by hobby toaster. I hope I pronounce your name the right way. Maybe we can jump first of this question and then
Speaker 2: (26:28)
Sure. Yeah. Hobby. Um, so definitely get the replay and rewind and we talk about this exactly. But I created an artificial intelligence platform that does this for you. So you upload any long form content, push a button legally will instantly atomize that long form content into dozens of social posts, and they will all be targeted towards the audience of your dreams. And they will be in your brand voice or your individual voice and it's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1: (26:56)
also, also the, the concept that you also mentioned about, um, recycling content pieces. So taking, for example, this, uh, interview and creating shorter snippets out of it, um, or quote cards or things like that that you can, uh, use. And I think the thing, so many people are very good in creating a content, but they don't think so much about the distribution part. That's also some things so that they, if you wake up and have this feeling, okay, what I'm going to post today, then you have a struggle in my opinion. So you need some content plan in advance where you know, okay, on these days, on these time, I'm going to publish this A, B, C, so that you just relax and know, okay, the slots are filled to some degree. I think thinking about this is also important.
Speaker 2: (27:49)
It's very important. I mean, one of the things we created was that you can literally push a button and our AI will take, let's say all 40, post it great for you and it'll schedule them out for the next two months saying, you know, one every three days, there's all kinds of different cadences you can choose from. And just push a button and it'll do it for you for the reason that you said. Um, but the second thing I wanted to talk about, which you also just touched on, was that it was a great way that you said it. Like people will go through all this effort to create something wonderful like a, like a podcast or a video, or they'll have a conference for God's sakes. And then what happens to all the content at the conference? Nothing, nothing happens to it, which is terrible, right? And it's,
Speaker 1: (28:32)
For example, not thinking about video assets after the event if you don't have to video assets, it's a, it's a lost event. Nobody will know and recognize.
Speaker 2: (28:43)
That's right. And it's, there's a mindset shift here because they think that everything was about the moment, the event itself, but it's not about the event itself. There's all this after that, I call it. Yes. Um, post mo promo versus post mo. So there's, there's the post mo is yeah, like post promo, I guess it's like the long tail, right? So the long tail is, is the idea that if you, if you think about trickle, trickle out marketing, if you think about all the little pieces, the the sum of the little pieces, if you're able to leverage them, adds up to so much more than that one event, right? It's exponentially bigger. And that's part of the, the fandom as well. So when you can light up all those individuals and make them feel as they, this, you're creating a wave, like I can see it in my mind, right? You're creating, uh, your, your own, um, kind of grateful dead type of, right? You're empowering everyone to participate, not just the the main You're
Speaker 1: (29:49)
Building building a community, basically.
Speaker 2: (29:50)
You're building a community. Yeah. Like, and, and that was, and hopefully hobby, we answered your question. Um, but the, the radio part, um, the, I'll give you the, an the honest answer is, um, I was sexually harassed into such a hostile work environment that I have. I became partially disabled as a result of PTSD from that experience. And, uh, I had to get out because I couldn't function anymore. And, um, it was crappy.
Speaker 2: (30:27)
But life pushes you into and high, you know, anybody, like I was in pain for a long time and I wasn't listening to the pain. My body was trying to scream at me and say, this, this thing is not working. You gotta find a new way. You know? Um, and I eventually, I manage to find the new way, but to this day, I, I, um, so I don't type like you do, I can't type at all. I use, um, dragon naturally speaking, voice activated software, another great ai. And, um, I, I cheat so I hear how I sound all day long, right? Cause I'm always talking to my computer and my, my team, God bless them, they've gotten to know that. So the drag dragon doesn't make, um, it doesn't make typos, doesn't make them, you know, but it makes like sound alike mistakes. So, um, it might say instead of vc, venture capitalist that might hear feces, right? Horrible, you know? Oh my God. But, um, yeah, so hobby has another question we can tackle.
Speaker 1: (31:38)
Yeah. By the way, thanks for sharing those, um, insights.
Speaker 2: (31:41)
Hopefully somebody else, we help somebody who's in pain and they'll listen to their pain and make a life shift.
Speaker 1: (31:48)
I mean, yeah, it can be starting point for something greater cooler. I mean, you started your own company and we're speaking about lately. That's cool.
Speaker 2: (31:57)
That's pretty cool. ,
Speaker 1: (32:00)
It's a good idea to use human avatar and AI video content. I try to issue seal course with human avatar as a teacher, but cross has been accepted because of that.
Speaker 2: (32:11)
Yeah. You know, so the, the answer is, I don't know because AI is a pretty large, um, kind of arena and I only know a lot about one part of it, which is around the social media content creation for organic social media. Um, so, you know, I I, I can't tell you cause I don't know anything about those algorithms and, and how it works. But my guess is yes, I mean, there's lots of marketing studies where I'm sure you've seen, seen this too, um, is like, they'll show a picture of a bunch of texts and like, um, a cartoon or something like a, like, um, you know, a graphic of a cartoon. And then they'll show the same text with a graphic of a human. And like you can see the heat maps of when people click is like way more with the human. Um, and by the way, it, it, um, more than doubles when you get the human looking at the text on the page. Isn't that so interesting? So we're really drawn to a human over anything, any other kind of image. It's cuz we are narcissistic by nature. I mean we all just part of the deal, right? We're we're looking for ourselves and everything.
Speaker 1: (33:25)
Yeah. I'm not sure if I really understand hobby's, um, question. Um, but um, yeah, I, I would see it the same way like you, uh, described it. So if pos if possible stand in front of the camera and put the effort and create something with a real human, there are deep fake software that I also use for, I mean, there are companies out there, they just don't have the time or they don't want to be in front of the camera. Then it's, I think a good option because creating videos with, um, AI generated, um, avatars is, is a good way to just create videos because it's better to have two videos instead of having nothing. So that's, that's my, that's my thing when it comes to seal. I'm not sure if, yeah, I didn't really, maybe you can be more specific about your question. What exactly you, you need of the, um, what you want to create, for example is, is is the online course that you want to create or was it, what is it exactly? I think this would be more helpful, yes. Okay, cool. Very chatty today. That's cool.
Speaker 2: (34:46)
Yeah, yeah. So,
Speaker 1: (34:50)
Okay, so just follow up with the question. If, if, if it's not very clear and then we can try to answer it. Thank you, by the way, for the question.
Speaker 2: (35:00)
Yeah. You know, and Chris has a good point here that the, about the frequencies of the different platforms, like this is something we get asked a lot about. It's so interesting to me. Like here we have, we're we're focused on artificial intelligence in this amazing platform where that can, you know, essentially generate content. Not out of nowhere, but it, it feels like that even though that's not case, it comes, comes from a, you know, really succinct place. Um, but then the question is, well how often do I publish and why would I want so much? Why would I wanna promote this podcast more than once? That we get that question a lot and let alone 20 times. Oh my God. And I think, think people forget that , you know, no one, no one is just sitting by your feed waiting for the next thing you do. No one is ever, you have to get them with both quantity and quality. It has to be. So when I was, you know, I'm 48 when I was doing the Walmart project and the um, even before that, I guess the number was seven times, that was the old marketing adage was seven times, right? You had to hear, watch or read something seven times for to sink in. Now it's 12 to 14 times.
Speaker 1: (36:11)
Cause through so many people are sitting, they need more touch points.
Speaker 2: (36:16)
That's right. Yes. And it's what's interesting, and I wonder if you've seen this in your work, it's not only the quantity, of course it's the quality, but the variety is a big one. So the, again, the old way was same, same, same all the time. Have a coconut and a smile, have a coconut smile, have a coconut and a smile. However, we've learned that humans are, and I, and I had to change my tune on this by the way. Um, humans are multifaceted and we want to be enlightened. We, we want to be inspired by all the things we're interested in. And we've found that because lately is, is generating, let's say 20 ways for you to promote this podcast, the same podcast that, um, the customers will actually engage with multiple pieces of content around the same, because it looks different, it feels different, it's highlighting a different section, you know, um, so that, that cadence piece becomes more, more and more important for you to, to obviously to to hit it.
Speaker 2: (37:14)
You know, you want all the, all the quantity out there, but then the variety is a big one. Cuz most people are like, oh, well I can just have the, I can just pull the headline and, and then that's it. And you're like, well, , I mean, what the, the thing is, and, and I meant to touch on this earlier, the thing is, what is your objective? Like if your objective is just push something out there for the sake of pushing it and you don't care if there's any result whatsoever, then by all means do that. Right? But if you actually, I mean, and I said this previously today, and what I am always trying to get people to do something for me. That's what, and my, my poor team will be like, yes, she's so annoying. Cause I'm always thinking about , like how do I make you do this thing faster, better at all?
Speaker 2: (38:01)
Like, whatever it is. Like all communication is about getting somebody to do something. All of it. You want your kid to do their homework, you want your husband to take out the trash, you're trying to get the job, you're trying to make the sale, whatever it is. And so if you back into social, like the exact same way, so let's, like my objective is click or share. Those are the only two that I could possibly have in this, this game that we're talking about. Organic social. So is the content I'm creating going to make you do either of those things? If what you write is check out my podcast with, you know, somebody and it's, that's not gonna gonna happen. There's nothing in it for me. I don't find any value there. Why would I share it and why would I click it? But instead, if you're like, um, in just 60 seconds, learn how to get a 240% increased engagement in a way that'll make your jaw drop off the floor. I don't know, that seems interesting to me. Right. That's some resha and a click right there.
Speaker 1: (38:59)
Is there a limitation of the social media account? So are there social media channels that you have on lately? So I read Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, so what is, for example, Instagram and, and TikTok?
Speaker 2: (39:14)
Yeah, so as far as I know, the only people that have access to TikTok is Hoop Suite. So we don't yet, but we do integrate with Hootsuite. Um, but yeah, Facebook, um, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter and both company pages on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. Yes. Um, and then somebody on my team can correct me if I'm wrong. I know we have some integration with YouTube. I don't know what it is, but we definitely do as well. Um,
Speaker 1: (39:41)
Yeah, I I saw it on the, I think on the enterprise. Yes. One of the bigger plans where you integrate YouTube. I just read that one.
Speaker 2: (39:50)
Bless your heart. You're so thorough. Um, so yes. Um, the Twitter is the, is a place that works. We, we see most of our customers flocking to when they're using lately because it does withstand quantity so well and they can easily test there and see that. So it's pretty handy to like just have a channel that can again, like tolerate, you know, so much. Um, you know, on, on LinkedIn it's one a day. So you have to be a little more judicious about what you're, does everybody know that you don't post more than one once a day on LinkedIn? Um, cuz the algorithm dings you, which is stupid, but it's how they, they're all, um, you know, for us we can, the, the mini videos can be published on Instagram, which is great. We find that our customers who are heavy just picture based, like if all they do are producing pictures of the meal, the food, for example, that they create. But there's no long form content to go with it. There's no like, interesting discussion about, um, thank you Kristen. There's no interesting discussion about, um, let's say how to make the finest piece pizza dough in the world. And we've tested it in 50 countries. Like if there's a blog about that you are winning, but I can't make social posts out of an image cuz there's no text there. Everything has to be boiled down to text, at least in a transcription at some point for, to give the ai, um, you know, a jumping off light
Speaker 1: (41:21)
Was how did you, when, so D two was big in the media a couple of weeks ago, so was the big thing where you get excited and thought, well maybe we can also use image generation lately. Or, or is this this not not on the agenda,
Speaker 2: (41:39)
It's not not on the agenda, but like we, you know, do do one thing really well first and then move on to the next thing. And it goes with marketing too, right? Right. Yeah. So let, let's get there. Let's make sure that, I mean, you know, I got investors who wanna see what I want, which is yeah, that results. Exactly. Let's make sure the whole world is using lately as it is for us and then we can deliver them some more stuff.
Speaker 1: (42:06)
Yeah. Maybe also not a tough question, but I'm just curious how Twitter, because you mentioned several times Twitter, how it changed forever. Musk.
Speaker 2: (42:18)
Yeah, man. Oh my god. , you know,
Speaker 1: (42:23)
Yeah,
Speaker 2: (42:25)
Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, we're, we're watching it just like everybody else is. Um, right now he is not affecting my business. But, but I mean there are much bigger companies for me that if than me, that if something happened there, they would all freak out. Um, so I'm not really worried about it. I mean, eventually not all of these, I mean, I imagine everything ebbs and flows. Everything has a birth and a death. So one or more of these platforms will eventually go away or evolve. It has to happen. And then we, the, the royal we of, of all humanity will evolve too. We'll find another one. You know, and our job at lately is just to, um, you know, provide you with the best experience that we possibly can and, and be where the fish are jumping and the fish are still jumping on Twitter despite Elon and his madness. .
Speaker 1: (43:25)
Okay. Good answer. So, um, hobby came back to us, is it a good idea to use human avatar as a teacher?
Speaker 2: (43:33)
Oh, I see. Yeah. I, I don't know Bobby, I, I don't, I honestly don't know the answer to that question cause it's not my space. Um, yeah, but I'm sure there's lots of data on it. I mean, I, every child I know has an iPad and I mean, I, I've learned my twelves times tables playing Cente, the arcade game all through the eighties, cuz every 12,000 points you got a free man. So, I mean, I think that, you know, any way you can creatively affect, um, education Go for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: (44:07)
Yes. How we go For it? For it just, just share, share the videos also in the comment section so we can check it out. As long as you don't violate any feelings of other people or any rights of other people. Just, just to make sure. Okay, cool. I also read, um, the vision statement on lately, but I'm
Speaker 2: (44:34)
So nice of you. Thanks. No one reads that. I mean, you know.
Speaker 1: (44:39)
Yeah, I do. Just my homework. Um, so, but can, could you describe on your own words, so what, what is, what is the plans? What, what are, what do we want to, what would be the ideal scenario for the next two or three years in your opinion?
Speaker 2: (44:55)
So Kristen was actually just reminding me about that I sometimes need to do a better job of taking my own medicine today. And that, that mission is a good example of it. You know, we treat our, so this idea of humans and AI together pervades throughout everything. It's how we are as a tiny company and how we treat each other. It's how we treat our customers when before you're our customer. And afterwards the motto is make a make a fan, not a sale. I mean, we want the sale, but make a fan and the sale, I should say, um, but make the fan first, right? Because, um, we not a day has passed in three years, yo up where someone on social has hasn't written about us spontaneously every single day. We, we create fans and we leverage that, um, that, um, social proof, obviously the other, but it has to start within.
Speaker 2: (45:50)
So it's my job to, to make a fan of each member of my team. Sometimes I'm good at it, sometimes I'm human and I'm not very good at it. Um, usually I apologize, or usually they tolerate me for some reason, which I, I really appreciate. Um, because we ebb and flow, I mean this, this journey that we are on as a team is a startup journey. And that is much different than create just having a nice business. Like I've had that already and I know what that's like. Um, but it's incredibly stressful and I have to surround myself with people who buy in to that and who will, who will support not, it's more than just support. I mean, like, I can't, I will fall over without these people. They're, they're literally holding me up, you know, them and my acupuncturist, chiropractor, trainer, therapist, , tequila, like all these other, you know, medical things we have.
Speaker 2: (46:49)
Um, so what you read is about, um, that like creating a community, you know, this is my uber power. Can I, can I create a community? Can I create a different place to work? Where I worked in, I worked at a couple of, um, very large corporations and I remember what it was like to really hate going to work, right? That's a bad feeling. And I don't want to create that place. Um, and I hope I'm not, you know, I I, and if I am, I apologize. I've certainly done, I've certainly, I've certainly bullied people before, you know, I've certainly like been so frustrated with them that like, you know, I've take it out of them. And then it's hard because as a leader there's sometimes you have to be like, like, like, like sometimes you have to set examples. You just do. You know, you can't always be a pushover.
Speaker 2: (47:47)
Um, but, but other times you have to ask for help and you have to create an environment where people want to help you. I, I was reading some LinkedIn posts where somebody said like, when the boss comes in the room and like her boss came in was like, oh, here's this problem. How are we gonna fix it? And she's like, bye we, you mean you? Like this person was like not involved. And I thought, that sounds like hell to me. Like, if I can't ask these, I spend more time with these people than anyone in the world, more time than with my husband. Like literally, if I can't ask them to help me and to know that they will, then what the? Why am I doing this? You know? Um, but that, that's what that mission is about. And when I wrote it, I thought, I'm not being touchy feeling or anything, but I thought, can I create a place where there's this kind of respect?
Speaker 2: (48:39)
Like I, you know, I've had, I have employees that have come to me from other places that they've been just on, from wherever they are. And like, you can see it, it crushes people. And like I had, I've had to say to people before, the worst mistake you could possibly make is still gonna be great. Like, that's how, that's why I hire you specifically cuz I know that about you. And that's what people did for me. Like my Aunt Ette and can Lee uphold these two women that I worked for at different places? Both of them like, let me fail. They knew, they knew that the worst thing I could do would still be great. And they gave me the, um, ability to do that. And they weren't, they weren't embarrassed. You know, , I'm embarrassed now cause I, I remember some of those failings. Um, so yeah, I mean I think like you can see how this is all connected, right? How, how we are together, um, is how we treat our targets, how we treat our customers. It's how our AI is designed to work, you know, human, human, human. Like it's all about, I mean, the nice guy doesn't ne necessarily win, but the nice smart woman certainly does.
Speaker 1: (49:58)
I like that. How big is your team? Just, just curious because I already, I'm already connected with some of team members and they were also super helpful with this life broadcasting.
Speaker 2: (50:11)
Yeah, they're really nice. They're seven full-time and six part-time.
Speaker 1: (50:16)
Okay. And all in the US or where, where are
Speaker 2: (50:19)
They? No, we've got, um, four Canadians now and um, we've got one in, um, London. Are you, do you live in London? Vanessa? I think she's in England or London. I, I know, well there're two, you know, she's, London is in England, but I don't know what town she lives in. Um, so yeah, we're, and then we have people across the country as well. Denver and, and, um, New York and Boston and Jersey. So it's a pretty, we've never worked in an office, ever. We, um,
Speaker 1: (50:48)
Completely remote.
Speaker 2: (50:49)
Yeah. Like we've been to accelerators where like you come together for a short time, you know, that kind of kind of thing. But um, yeah, it's, it's kind of nice in that way because we, everybody works extra hard to of remember that we're humans or remind each other that we are because we're not together. And you do, it's, you have to, you know, our slack is where we live, you know, we joke, uh, slack, we share pictures about our events going on in our personal lives. Everybody follows each other on social. Like, you have to do that to remember that. And I'm guilty of this a lot too. Like I'm, there's a human on the other side of that slack message that's driving you up a wall, right? . So you have to just sit back, go to social, see what's happening in that person's life and be like, oh, okay, they're just maybe having a tough day because we're dealing with this, we're never back off and you know, let it go.
Speaker 1: (51:51)
Yeah, that's, I I think especially for remote teams, that's, that's important. I, I don't believe in this. So there's a generation in Germany or worldwide where I think, um, you have to meet the guys in the room. But I think that's a mindset shift, like, like the one that you mentioned already, that there's this control thing in your head and you have to, but yeah, I don't know, it's maybe a generational thing, but I'm also full in this remote thing because I can connect with people like . I, I mean how big, how big are the chances that I could interview you on some conference or something. I mean that's very hard and, but you have to find other ways how to connect with people for the socials and, and yeah, and also do other things like physical presence or something. I don't know, to um, combine the digital world of the real world to some degree.
Speaker 2: (52:51)
You're right. I mean we have, usually we have an offsite once a year where we all get together, which is super fun and we have it because of Covid, you know, and that's been kind of weird, but it does make a huge difference. It's the difference between, um, like I, I notice it afterwards. Everybody is much closer, you know, afterwards, which is great. Um, and so I think there has to be some, you know, general contact, but I don't, I feel like otherwise being in an office is a huge distraction and a time waster. That's how I personally feel. I don't want someone to come bug me. I mean, mean I've got enough distractions here. I'm just trying to get my list done. The ever never ending list, you know? Um, besides, because because I wear a microphone all day, I can't be in an open space. I have to be in a, a private room. So I'm in my own room. I can't talk to you anyways, you know, so, um, but anyways, we gotta probably wrap it up here, I'm guessing. Yes. Any other burning, um, burning AI related questions or
Speaker 1: (53:53)
So far? I'm just curious to see the demo next week and
Speaker 2: (53:58)
Oh, cool. Who are you meeting with? Chris?
Speaker 1: (54:00)
Yes, Chris.
Speaker 2: (54:01)
Chris is so nice. Chris was also in radio for, or he's still in online radio, but he's got a melty voice, so watch out .
Speaker 1: (54:10)
Okay. We'll see. Um, other than that, so where should people go when they want to get in touch with you or what's lately?
Speaker 2: (54:19)
Uh, thank you so much by the way. Okay. Um, so lately is double do AI and um, I met AI Kate on, on Twitter and um, please, please let me know, you heard me here with Yucca. You can find me on LinkedIn too, but if you don't tell me you heard me here, then I'm gonna not know who you are when you're asking me for request. And then, oh my God, someone just taught me this phrase like this has happened to you, someone will connect with you, they'll ask you for an action, you accept and then they, they're selling you right away. They like just dump right into it. And um, Vanessa, my teammate today told me that's called um, pitch slapping,
Speaker 1: (54:57)
Uhhuh pitch, pitch slapping,
Speaker 2: (55:00)
Pitch slapping last. So like they're, they're pitching you right without even knowing you. So you accept the request and you're not accepting a request cuz you want them to sell to you. You think, well maybe I'll get to know this person. It seems like we've nice. Yeah. And then the first thing they do is they, they pitch you some stupid sales thing.
Speaker 1: (55:16)
I get 60% of the contacts, um, are doing this on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: (55:23)
Yeah. They don't know. They don't know that you gotta break the ice. You know, like yeah I know that you want somebody from like of course, why are you asking me to connect? I know it's coming eventually, but Jesus Christ work up to it . You know,
Speaker 1: (55:36)
I mean doing these live shows is just way more better way to introduce or get in contact with somebody. Yes. And then after afterwards pitching than just directly pitching. I mean no way that I'm going to do this, but yeah,
Speaker 2: (55:51)
It's amazing. Yeah, they don't know. I wonder how do those people have dates? Like how did they they know .
Speaker 1: (55:59)
That's
Speaker 2: (56:05)
Awesome. Well, um, Yucca, thank you so much. I love meeting you today. I really did
Speaker 1: (56:11)
Thank you for your time. It was really cool and I'm curious about the next steps and seeing all the demo and yeah, hopefully to hear from you soon again. Maybe another session, maybe deepen in some areas of lately. Maybe I have another questions, but I also use it myself. We'll see. Sounds great. Oh, cool. Kristen, also enjoyed the session. Thank you guys for your months and yeah, see you on the next episode. Thank you and bye-bye.
