Phil Ranta is has built his career on supporting the creator economy & influencers through his time at FullScreen, Facebook Gaming and now as COO of We Are Verified. His digital experience has lead him to become a Top Voice on LinkedIn. We tap that experience in this podcast to better understand what is happening in the B2B influencer world. Read, watch, listen below.

In this episode of The Social Standard Podcast we discuss:

• How One B2B Influencer Saved His Company
• AI’s Potential Impact on Influencer Marketing
• Why LinkedIn is replacing networking

Listen: Apple or Spotify

Watch:

 

Transcript

What’s up guys? Welcome back to the Social Standard Podcast. My guest today is Phil Ranta. He is the Chief Operating Officer of We Are Verified, a digital management company helping creators build really interesting businesses. Hope I got that right. You got it right. So Phil’s a really interesting guest and we’re kicking off today a series that actually explores B2B influencer marketing through the expertise and experience of people in the B2C influencer space. So Phil’s an awesome person to have this discussion with because he has been around forever in this space.

So you know I think what’s really interesting is you were number nine at full screen right? At full screen yeah, first head of a network. That’s right and so you were the, and then you’ve done a whole bunch of other things but I think another highlight that a lot of people would know would be you headed gaming creators for Facebook for a while. I did yes. As well and then you’re back to the influencer space now and you’ve done a whole bunch of interesting things in between. But welcome first of all. Thank you, thank you for having me this is fun. Yeah and I think you know as we explore the B2B influencer world through the B2C influencer

You have a really interesting story about a time when you were at Wormhole and it’s sort of this vegetation meets power line meets B2B influencer solution. Yeah I’d love for you just to tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, we had built a really interesting metaverse technology Social metaverse you can hold up your phone. You can see everybody else who’s on the product So think of like Facebook except instead of a feed. It’s the world, right? This would have been 2000

19. Okay. So not too long ago. Because and I know that because we, I left Facebook and went over there and then the pandemic happened. Right. At that point we said, okay well we might have to push back our launch plans a little bit but this will all pass in a couple months. Lo and behold it did not. Right. So now all of a sudden we had the social technology. We had funds raised around launching and scaling the social technology and we had nobody who was going to be social in a way

Naturally, we’re not going to just pack up our things and go home. We’ve already raised the money. So we transitioned it to be B2B, like an actual solution. Like any good startup. Right, exactly. A pivot, right? You got a pivot. I mean, my whole career has been spent in digital content, B2C stuff. So for me, it was a very ill-fitting suit. But I was brought in as a COO, but then I became CEO when I was there during the pivot. And you have to figure it out, right? Because you’ve got investors. You have a fiduciary responsibility to try to make that investment work. Absolutely.

Jessica Phillips (02:28.9)
virtual real estate. We were doing tours of homes that agents could spin up really quickly and then have the metaverse drop-in of avatars that they feel like they’re walking through it, have the real estate agent drop in as an avatar. They could talk to them as if they’re actually walking through the home. That’s interesting because I bought a home in the middle of the pandemic. There we go. I could have totally used that technology. Yeah, 100%. It’s a really cool way. I mean we already have Matterport and things like that with virtual 3D tours but you don’t have the sense of actual space and being there

layer built on top of it. Then we also started working with vegetation control and power lines and utilities who needed something that allowed them to access cameras to see when tree growth, lidar to see if there was tree growth hitting the power line. So we figured it out. We made it work on the B2B side. Naturally since I have left then because once the company was doing well, it was time for me to take a step back because it was not my world at all. But B2B saved us

Interesting. Yeah, and you said, I mean specifically, because it was, if I remember, you had this issue where you needed cameras, something to do with cameras, right? You need to be able to like, they were doing everything manually. Yes. Right? The power lines, the power lines, right? We’re going, the power companies were going through and trying to manually have people walk up and down lines to see what was happening. Where is this need? And you said, hey, we have a technology. Oh, 100%. That can solve this. And frankly, as you start looking at a lot of businesses, institutional businesses, it’s shocking how much technology

feels like it’s in the 90s. There’s a lot of people in clipboards out there and you say well at this point they must have a CRM right? What is it really like everybody in real estate has a different MLS that holds a database of their stuff and it’s like yeah that’s how old school it is. Just like in the influential world everyone lives and dies by Google Docs. Oh for sure. It’s like technology is great but everyone’s got all their stuff. Yeah and whenever we talk to a technology where we’re like yeah we’re using Google Docs, they’re like oh we’re gonna make you so much more efficient and then we trial it and it

Exactly, but you said I think one of the things I thought was interesting was you found a B2B influencer Oh, yeah, that spun this up for you guys. So all of a sudden you’re like, okay great So you have these that you have the power company, but there was a problem What was that problem remind me of like there was vegetation that was growing too close to the power lines It would knock out power. You couldn’t quite get people. There are some groups right and get aligned Well, it’s really hard to figure out who Controls that world. Yes, so we were able to find somebody who had kind of the number one podcast on vegetation management micro niche but like though I guess the America’s foremost expert on this stuff yeah and they were able to come in and really help us out so we created a joint venture and now we’re

Isn’t that amazing? I mean one B2B influencer, or one influencer that impacts the B2B space took you guys from like shaky ground to like actually having like sizable revenue. Absolutely. Well, oftentimes there is kind of, in almost every company, there’s that like one or two missing pieces that if you had in line it would go from a failing company to a thriving company. Exactly, and this was that for you guys. Totally. Well, oftentimes they go to market, right? Because it’s very easy, I know that

this but it’s very easy to find holes in the market and then figure out a solution. It’s really hard to execute and scale. Oh absolutely. I think that’s, and influencers are a great way to do that. And I think you really hit on the head there something that I find to be true with, especially within the B2B influencer world, is that it’s not about vanity metrics. It’s not about finding the vegetation person who has a million followers. It was about finding that one guy who owned that niche. Right. And the power of that.

Exactly and I think probably you guys were able to do that because you came from the creator world And you saw that and you recognize it as an opportunity It’s right always been my secret sauce is like I am somebody who executes by finding people who can execute better than I can Execute and then doing a deal with that is the gold standard of a CEO well, yeah, you have to be you have to humble yourself enough to say like What’s the most efficient way to do this and it’s seldom? Well, I’m gonna stay up late every single night and grind this like that’s a bad CEO

CEOs would do without a COO. Yes, that’s what I’ve found myself, even in that situation where I’m like, what am I doing? Yeah, totally. I’ve got to figure this out. So yeah, exactly. Well, that’s super cool. I mean, I think it’s a great example of just the power of B2B influencers. I mean, and that is the world that the social standard is starting to play in a lot more with clients like Adobe and Zendesk and Veridesk and more. But you have a strong POV on the B2B space. And I think one of the things that in our preliminary conversations I thought was really interesting

Jessica Phillips (07:07.288)
talking about. Listen, you know, it’s not B2B influencers are part of the pie, but B2B has got to take a step back. Yes. And they have to look at this as like a full funnel approach to social much the same way that you see B2C organizations doing that. Right. So give me a little bit of feedback like in terms of like what you think makes sense for if a B2B marketer says, yeah, I want to be an influencer, what are you recommending that they also do? I mean at first they just have to stop thinking of B2B influence like B2C influence. It’s

It’s not about scale. It’s like oftentimes when you’re doing a B2C campaign, they’re like, what’s the reach? What’s the engagement rate? What’s the demos? What throw all of that to the side? Right. When you’re doing B2B, it’s like, what’s the goal? What kind of deals you want? Who influences the influencers? Who’s actually a thought leader and who’s somebody that people just follow. Right. There’s a big difference between a Tony Robbins and a Gary Vee in a lot of ways. Right. So you got to find like the right emotional match to it. And then how do you do a partnership where there’s real buy in?

But also do they have the pipes to actually get the message out in a smart way, right? A lot of people who are B2B influencers, they might have a newsletter, but another one might have a LinkedIn page. And you have to say, well, which reach is more powerful reach, right? Exactly. And oftentimes it’s the newsletter because that’s deep, deep engagement. LinkedIn, it’s kind of like people can scroll through. Yeah. I mean, I think that would be akin to creators who have created communities off of Instagram or YouTube or wherever, right? That’s a strong base. Like I know.

channels with like social media managers because I want to know what they’re talking about what they’re seeing what their trends are doing and so that’s a very powerful tool whereas I can follow you know folks like you in the space as well and get kind of more of a broad perspective on what’s going on so I think you have a nice 10,000 view sort of strategy and then you’ve got the nitty-gritty totally and I think you could definitely get both in B2B but I do think that it is it’s something that’s growing and has been growing I think from where I sit the last sort of I would call it really

six months you might say more like year and a half two years but it’s something that we’ve been asked to do by brands like you know Intel everybody wants us to come in and do B2B and we’ve always said look it’s just there’s just not enough scale there historically and it’s such an expertise that like we were we were off to the races on B2C there was so much to do there and there’s still so much to do there right but now it’s like all of a sudden you’re saying hey great you know digitization just like you know what happened at wormhole sort of pivoted you guys I think the digitization of everything has pivoted

Jessica Phillips (09:36.848)
and they have to be in a platform, and what platforms make sense? Like, you know, is the CMO of an AI company gonna go out and start a YouTube channel? Probably not. Right, but would they start a LinkedIn following? Of course, are they on Twitter? Probably, so to me all those things sort of ladder up to make this really interesting time for B2B, and then you have Twitter, which I historically always associate with B2B marketing. Right, often it’s. They’re going off the rails, right? Right, exactly. We don’t know what they’re doing.

a little bit. Double down LinkedIn. Yeah, well so I actually am really, I’m really bullish on Twitter in the long run. I think that’s probably a different perspective than most people would have. Sure. But I am bullish on them in the long term and I’ve never been bullish on Twitter, which is funny. Really? Interesting. I’ve never liked it. I always thought, you know, what a waste. But now I don’t think that. I don’t think that at all. I think that they’re so far behind that they could get ahead.

That’s fair. When you’re far behind, you can take big swings. Exactly, and they have to. They’re backs against the corner. But regardless, I think that’s what I always view as like the traditional B2B marketer. And then the rise of LinkedIn has been honestly astounding in a lot of ways. The community is really incredible. The way that people share. It’s just poised to be, I honestly think it’s like the Facebook of the professional world. Well, for sure. It’s getting there really quickly. And thank God I was, I started getting really into LinkedIn. So it was actually my New Year’s resolution from 2016 to 2017.

because I came back from a networking event in that December and even though it might not have looked like we were in a networking event together last night and although it might not have looked like it at that when I don’t know anyone in the room you will never meet someone more awkward than me. I need like a way into conversations or else I’m like I don’t know how to do the like, I’m Phil you don’t know me but like I’m just bad at it so I came home from a networking event I felt like everyone knew each other and I didn’t know anybody and I felt like such a goon and I’m like I’ve been doing digital stuff

doing and then I was like alright my new user resolution I’m gonna post about my digital expertise every single day in all of 2017 and I did that on LinkedIn and suddenly I got this I think I got like 10,000 followers and I did like 450 sub posts that year and I got an incredible amount of followers including like the president of Nintendo and I like all of these random people I was like I cracked it these are people I literally couldn’t talk to at conventions are untouchable and now all sudden they’re reading my posts every day.

Jessica Phillips (11:59.188)
Yeah, so I just kept doubling down on Twitter and now here I am, you know, 12 years into my LinkedIn journey and I’m sorry I said Twitter before, LinkedIn. I’ve doubled down on that and now it’s like I barely go to networking events. I mean I’ve got a two year old and a four year old so I barely go to networking events but I barely, all of my business is inbound now. I hardly ever go outbound. See and that is a story that I hear consistently and it’s interesting that and specifically around LinkedIn. Yeah. I don’t hear it quite as much around Twitter although I’m sure it’s there. Sure.

LinkedIn is in this sort of, like we have been, we’ve been in this space for a while, right? So you’ve seen Facebook, you’ve seen Instagram come up in Snapchat and TikTok and like all these sort of things. So you know there is this magical time where you can actually build a following on a platform. And that, in my opinion, is where we’re at with LinkedIn now. Totally, 100%. I mean, my following, I have not been doubling down on my following as hard in the past two years as I did previously, but my following has grown a lot faster. Well, you’re already at like 23,000, I think I looked this morning, right? Maybe almost 24,000? It’s gotta be around there. That’s big.

I mean it’s oftentimes people will point to other people that started after and they’re like look they have 200,000 people and I’m Like yeah, but my number one company of followers Apple my number two is meta my number three like these are real followers my number one Job title that follows me as founder number two is CEO. I’m like cool I have I have 23,000 and other people have hundreds of thousands, but mine are super digital Founders CEO focus people, but it’s coming It’s even that trend we’ve seen and B2C where it’s like niche down If you really want to have an impact on your

you niche down and you start to talk to people. And I think that with LinkedIn, it’s a natural niche down platform. Right, because a lot of these posts, it’s like even if you have a viral post, it’s not gonna be seen by all of LinkedIn. Whereas TikTok, that’s not the case. You could basically sweep the nation, sweep the world with one post. I think Zach King got one post, he had 1.3 billion views or something like that. So it’s doable, right? But that’s just not what LinkedIn is about. And I think that’s good. I think they absolutely fall into the community side of apps, whereas I think like YouTube and Snapchat,

YouTube and TikTok fall more into the entertainment side. Totally. And frankly, everybody talks about the future of social is building community. And I agree. I think even more than building community in terms of the marketing side is to build loyalty. And loyalty is oftentimes something people don’t talk about because it makes it sound like the followers are subservient to the talent. But that’s what marketers want. They want a little subservience to the talent. A little bit, yeah. And I think that’s people idolize people who they think are interesting.

Jessica Phillips (14:28.708)
I think that that’s a natural progression. I get semantics maybe a little bit wonky in that term, but that’s definitely, I mean that makes sense. Let’s throw semantics out the window. Let’s look at Taylor Swift or what she is. Taylor Swift’s followers are followers. It’s a parasocial relationship. She’s untouchable, she’s not talking to them, but that’s what makes them so powerful is they will live and die by conspiracy theories around her and every beside it. Yeah, Swifties are strong. Yeah, and who had done an article recently about the, it’s like Swiftonomics, about how when she goes somewhere,

it changes everything. It’s like sort of like the Super Bowl, you know, or the Olympics. You want to get her into your town because the ripple effect that she has on tourism, on restaurants, on hotels, on everything is outrageous. Well look at her following. It’s the most valuable following for marketers. It’s teenage girls. Oh, 100%. And wealthy teenage girls because it’s very expensive. Oh my gosh, I know. I wanted to go to the concert and I was like, I’m not, sorry, I’m not going to do this. It’s just too much. I’ll listen to it on Spotify.

and Christmas because that’s what it took. And even that was like, I got a little cheaper because I had a little way in, but it was still like the most expensive concert we’ve ever gotten tickets for. Oh, a thousand percent. And I saw Beyonce in a Dodger Stadium and that was pretty expensive. Oh, totally. But Taylor Swift is next level. Oh yeah, for sure. But I mean, would I have gone if I could get my act together and get a bunch of girlfriends? Of course, of course. And I saw a lot of people doing it. And my whole Instagram feed is basically, you know, my for you feed is stuff. Totally, everybody’s seeing that, yeah. It’s so interesting. But maybe Taylor Swift is on LinkedIn. I don’t know, I’ll have to check and see. Maybe.

Mr. Beast is on LinkedIn. A lot of creators are moving over there because they realize it is a lead gen opportunity, right? Which is so interesting. And I think to me, and we can debate this a little bit, but to me that’s why LinkedIn is sort of, I think, poised to be, if not already, the darling of B2B marketing. From a paid standpoint, because I’ve seen a lot of stats that show really good stuff in terms of baking in LinkedIn paid ads in terms of your, for everything. Sure, sure. I mean, I know even as an agency,

spent money on Google, we’ve spent money on LinkedIn, it’s always better on LinkedIn. Google is just honestly a total mess. Well you can segment on LinkedIn by job title and industry. Exactly. It’s just so specific that it’s gotta win. Yeah and that’s why it’s so expensive. Right of course. So that’s a little bit of a downside of it, but I mean I just think that this is where the conversation is heading is all on LinkedIn. We’ve had great success. We just did some stuff for Zendesk the other day, it was really impactful. I don’t know, I mean what’s your,

Jessica Phillips (16:58.348)
your POV on influencers that are B2B focused on LinkedIn and like…

Do you think it’s where do you think we are in the trajectory? I think that so we’ve done a couple of smaller campaigns on LinkedIn. So I’ll talk about the pluses and minuses. The pluses are yes, you can get very specific and very targeted. You don’t need a lot of, you know, following in order to be valuable. The downside is threefold as I see it. One is LinkedIn is an incredibly personal platform. So a lot of times they’re like a lot of creators say I have to care about the brand in order to do it. But on LinkedIn, it has to be.

almost like something you would say already and you’re just getting paid to say it. It’s got to be deeply personal because like your personal brand is so tied to LinkedIn. So I went out with a pretty good campaign once and I got 40 no’s before I got one yes with pretty good rates. Yeah because it’s just like people are like I mean half of them outright said I don’t do paid on this like this is about me getting economic opportunity for my business and that’s worth more than any shout out. Yeah that’s fair. You totally got that. Two is the prices are so

because if you’re talking to a CEO of a company they’re like I don’t get out of bed for less than 20 grand and it’s like if you’re going to him with a $2,000 campaign they’re like no it’s not even worth my assistant writing this for that. And then three is LinkedIn as a platform is just not attuned to influencer marketing in such a way that it like yes it will probably stand out and be shocking but it could also be seen as cringy and weird right so which can change once the culture of LinkedIn changes that’s gonna take a little while

to have a little bit of the scars on them. Like they’ll have to take the arrows for everyone else. That’s interesting. So when you were reaching out, where these were much smaller creators. No, they were huge. Really? They were huge. See, we’ve had almost the exact opposite. Really? We’ve had the bigger the creator, the more receptive they are. Now they are expensive and they are busy. And so, you know, I think that we always caution brands, say, look, B2C influencers, we can turn you something around in two days if we have to. Right, totally. Right? But B2B, I mean, no. You know, these guys are busy, they have schedules.

Jessica Phillips (19:04.496)
get in and get into their content planning division. But we’ve had people be really receptive to it. That’s great. Now it’s been more, for Zendesk for example, it’s been more of like AI stuff and everybody needs to be out there and talking about things. And I think that a lot of it is the way that you do it as well. Because to your point about loyalty and all that, I think there’s a lot of that on LinkedIn. And people are, yeah, are they really sort of precious about their personal brand and all this sort of stuff? Sure. But the reality is like, if you can have,

a strong authentic partnership, why would you not do it? Totally, yeah. And if it’s something like AI that’s part of the cultural conversation, I would say it’s easier. Yes, totally. So I think that being tactical about what the brand and the brand message is, it almost needs to be a LinkedIn-y, LinkedIn zeitgeisty thing. Yes, 100%. Or else it’s much harder. Gotta be a full strategy, no question. I mean, and you also, but people on LinkedIn are all about learning and sharing knowledge. And so I think if you can approach it from that standpoint,

like, hey guys, go check out. Right, totally. You know what I mean? That’s, I think, where as a B2C influencer marketer, you have to throw everything out. Totally. Right? You can’t approach with that same sort of style of talking. Because the way that influencers on LinkedIn speak to their audience is much different. Oh, for sure. For sure. And so laying things out, informing people, doing all that, I think all that’s super important. Because when you look at the B2B funnel, the sales funnel, it is very long. Right?

And you don’t just get to, sure, if I am a L’Oreal, I can sell a bunch of lip glosses because it’s no sweat off anybody’s back if it doesn’t work because it was 15 bucks. Of course. But here we’re talking about huge SaaS solutions in a lot of cases. You’re looking to get 10 new customers. Yeah, exactly. And you’re talking about millions of dollars, potentially. And you can’t just remove the product if it doesn’t work well. So there’s a lot of research that has to go into this beforehand. And what better way to do that than to go into LinkedIn, see what people are talking about, and then also these like, people are calling it dark social.

But where you do it in the DMs and you’re talking about that stuff and that I think is really powerful on LinkedIn So many people that I have talked to have said hey a lot of the business that I’m getting on LinkedIn It’s not coming from people who are interacting with me right or have like really they’ve only seen a post one or two times Yeah, and that’s those are the people that are converting. Oh, yeah, my in males are fantastic Yeah, because oftentimes people will just search Influencer marketing or influencer management and then I’ll just pop up through them and luckily I’ve got a top voices badge

Jessica Phillips (21:34.176)
stand out a little bit and then it’s like they’ll reach out and just say hey I don’t know if you’re the solution but I think you can point me in the right direction and sometimes I’m not the solution I do point them the right direction but when I’m not it’s or when I am it’s like it’s literally people just saying here’s my money please take it and solve my problem for me which is the dream. Yeah exactly and that it’s more of a you know it’s a pull versus a push strategy and that’s really sort of where I think we are in marketing right and it’s again that’s something new I always say everything is a cycle that’s just where we’re at in the cycle of this. Totally. So I see that as a

big powerful, a really big powerful thing. And I mean, you know, there’s just, there are a lot of groups, there are a lot of communities, there are a lot of interesting things that are happening. You know, you said you’re a top voice, right, on LinkedIn. That program is massive. It’s great, yeah. And you’ve even said, LinkedIn has done a lot of meetups. Oh yeah. With that program, right? Yeah, we’ve done meetups, we’ve done like Google meets, where they’ve kind of downloaded us on things, like they send a newsletter that says this is what’s trending, this is what we’re talking about. Like, it’s a full-fledged program. They’re doing a great job.

managers there. Cayman’s my partner manager there. He’s killing it. He’s fantastic. But like a big part of what they’re doing right now, because he focuses on the crater economy stuff. He’s trying to get actual craters to come in and actually talk LinkedIn in the way that LinkedIn is. And I think that it’s a noble pursuit for that. It’s something that everyone’s curious about because they’re on social media to talk about business. So why not talk about the business of social media? Exactly. Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. And I mean, I think, you know, you even have Reed

Jessica Phillips (23:04.816)
company. He’s on there. He does a great job. Oh yeah. And Ezra, who’s my former boss, who’s the president over there, is still… Yeah, Night Media is doing a fantastic job of all of their employees. Yeah, but that to me is like the business side of like behind closed doors of how Mr. Beast does things, or how these big name creators do things, I think is really, really pretty interesting. And I see a lot of social media managers on there, talking shop in a lot of ways. And so, you know, you think about those guys.

says four out of five of its members are business decision makers. Wow. So that feels a little high to me. That does. But you know, I mean it’s sourced from LinkedIn so of course they’re going to be a little bit more. But you know I think it also depends because if you include, I think 54% of their users are 30 to 50 and about 65% are 24 to 35. So there’s a little bit of overlap there, that’s why it adds up to more than 100. Sure, sure. But you know a lot of that, if you think about it, you have these social media managers,

people, excuse me, social media individuals who are influential in some way there, they’re all talking about things and tools and all that sort of stuff. And so really, these guys are decision makers as well. Because if they’re figuring out what scheduling tools, what social listening tools they want, like I don’t make those decisions, the people on my team that are going to use the product, they’re the ones that are empowered to make those decisions. For sure. So even though it might be like I’m the target, I don’t think so. Actually, you probably want to talk to my AMs. Right. And get their buy-in.

Yeah, well like what does it mean to be a decision maker these days? Yes, oftentimes the frontline people are like our talent managers and account managers are in place They really are decision makers because I don’t have time to dig into every little deal So and you’re not gonna be using it anyway, right? So it’s like if you’re if you’re using it and this is what you want. Sure. Go ahead. Sure, right? Um, so I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff there, but I also think that

when you’re looking at things like construction management software. Is LinkedIn the right place for that? I don’t know, probably more Twitter. But kind of finding those audience demographics, I just think, to me it’s like, look, LinkedIn was in 2019, they were 645 million following, and I think that that’s right when Microsoft bought them. Another 930 million global users. That’s a lot of growth. I think by 2026, I believe, they’re estimated to be like 7.7 billion in revenue. That’s double from where they are now.

Jessica Phillips (25:26.408)
So all signs me points up and to the right on LinkedIn, but I do think you’re right There’s some tactical things we’re gonna have to figure out and I think if we lean on our knowledge from the B2C space when Influencers were new right and didn’t know exactly how to navigate the waters or what you have the boon of micro influencers Influencers coming up words like these guys are doing another job, right? It’s not just like I’m here I’m a social media influencer with four million followers It’s like I have a day job here and then on the side

understanding how those what speed bumps we hit working with those individuals I think can be applied really well to B2B stuff. Oh yeah and figuring out how to talk to businesses because like Adobe will get it right but if you’re talking to the vast majority of businesses about B2B they still are doing the million dollar builds at conventions and they’re saying well they’re 20,000 construction people are gonna walk through my booth and therefore it’s that and it’s like telling somebody that they can get a hundred thousand for a hundred thousand

and construction people to engage with the newsletter, with the link, you know, it’s such a different story. And a lot of people are Luddites out there. They’re not like full Luddites, like I’m not gonna touch a cell phone, but when you start talking about digital marketing, their brains melt out of their ears. And it’s all about like, how do you talk to them in their language? It’s the hardest part of influencer marketing in like 2012 was going to Pepsi and being like, all right, YouTube is not just sneezing pandas anymore. Here’s what it is, and here’s how, you know, it was a really hard conversation to have.

It’s like when you had to explain to someone what an influencer was it was like, oh my gosh And now here we are right and you’d hear the same thing for every single marketer. What a world My grandkids he watches the YouTube all the time and like what is this really a thing? That’s crazy You’re like, yes, it’s really a thing, you know, yeah Well, that’s what I think is so interesting about tick-tock to read is that you have now those people who have like grown up Weren’t on that sort of stuff all their kids are using it and so they see the power of it Oh, yeah for sure. But yeah, I mean look I think it’s an interesting space

a lot to do.

Jessica Phillips (27:27.786)
And I think the reality is we’re just at the beginning. Oh yeah. It’s still, all of digital media is still early. And I feel like I have to constantly remind people of that. You know, that’s a good perspective, because I don’t feel that way. Oh really? I mean, I understand that that’s the case, but I don’t feel that way because it is the world that I live in. Sure, yeah, absolutely. But it’s, you know what, really, broadband has only really been pervasive for less than 20 years. And social media really didn’t start taking off,

years ago. Like yeah I got Facebook when I was in college. I was part of the college rollout but it was 2005. That’s not that long ago. And I thought it was weird. I was like I’m not gonna post photos. Yeah it was a dating site at University of Michigan. It’s like everyone could put in their class schedules, see what girls or guys were in their class and be like you want to sit next to me? Like that’s all Facebook was back then. And lo and behold like it really, I mean even 2012 or 2013 I wouldn’t say that we arrived. It wasn’t like brands knocking down our doors until like 16 or 17.

Yeah, that’s true. So that’s really B2B like LinkedIn like you said. Really the past year or two is when people actually started coming up to me and being like, hey, you don’t know me but I saw your face on LinkedIn. That wasn’t happening in 2019. But it is happening now and I think it’s interesting too for those of us who have been in the influencer space for so long. I never dipped my toe into trying to be an influencer. It was never for me. But doing it on LinkedIn, I’m all in. It makes perfect sense. You can share your thoughts.

I have expertise, I have something of value to offer, and I don’t have to stage everything, every part of my, it’s not as much of a lift. But I will say, one more question for you on that is, when you think about content on LinkedIn, do you think that this sort of edutainment style trend that we see on TikTok with short form video is ultimately gonna be a fit there? Not less gimmicky, I would say, of course, but just more, I would think more like John Stewart.

Right, you know that you don’t have to be funny. Although maybe that’s actually a great this is maybe a great segment for you right, but um Do you think that video and educational short educational videos are ever gonna make sense? I think there’ll be a space for it But I think that it probably should live it should be most successful in separating from the feed, right? It’s kind of like the same way that Instagram realized that reels needed its own little thing because some people just want to look at pictures I think that linkedin there’s gonna be a fair amount of people who first of all are flipping through linkedin at work

Jessica Phillips (29:57.36)
and don’t want loud videos coming up all the time, or they just want the information quickly, so they wanna roll through. I still think the most powerful stuff on LinkedIn is going to continue to be infographics, text. But yeah, I think that there probably will be video influences on LinkedIn. I think that LinkedIn learning is probably gonna combine with the feed eventually. That makes sense, yeah. I am very bullish on this, and I say to anyone who listens, I think job retraining is gonna be a huge market in the next 10 years. How do we make education cheaper?

or need to upskill because of AI, or gonna need to figure out how to, how do you do that for $100 instead of $15,000? It’s gonna be huge. I think LinkedIn’s gonna be a great home for that if they can get it right. Yeah, that’s probably true, right? And it ladders up nicely with the jobs. Right, absolutely. Functionality, so, yeah. Yeah, maybe. Either that or it’s gonna be. That might be my next startup, we’ll see. Hey, there you go. And there are, I think there are a lot of startups out there right now even that are doing educational-based stuff. Totally.

So it makes sense, even universities. I mean, they have kind of figured that out in a lot of ways, although not.

effective enough. Exactly. They need to figure out like if I’m putting all my classes online why am I charging people 40 grand a year to go here? I think they need to figure that out. Exactly. That’s actually something I say all the time. It’s like look if you want to be in social media or marketing don’t go to college. I feel terrible telling young people not to go to college but I am telling them not to go to college. Yeah, me too. Okay you’re gonna leave with $120,000 in debt and right now entry-level employees are getting hosed harder than I’ve ever seen them get hosed in terms of the cost of living versus entry.

And like me, as somebody who handles hiring and does a lot of venture level employees, part of that is because I literally can’t pay more because we’re going to be trading them on their feet. They’re not going to be revenue generating right away. So it’s like we find ourselves in this very awkward situation right now. It’s true. Yeah, it’s definitely true. I mean, I feel for people for sure. But it’s an interesting world. So, okay, my final question for you is why do you post on LinkedIn? I know we touched on it a little bit earlier, but now that you’re sort of where you’re at, why do you continue to post there?

Jessica Phillips (32:00.28)
that? I think it’s still at its core economic opportunity. No matter what business I’m in, it does help me make my life more efficient in a time where I need life efficiency. I need to be able to pick my kids up from daycare every day and then spend some dad time. If I can save two hours of outreach by doing a half hour post on LinkedIn every day and I save that hour and a half, that’s huge to me. But also I think that I am taking pride now as a thought leader in the industry. It like de-risks me. Let’s say that we are verified, it’s

if I disappears tomorrow, right? I need to get another job fast. I’ve got two kids in daycare and I’ve got a wife who’s on strike right now because she’s in the WGA. I need a job fast. My LinkedIn presence is going to make people have me be a bit more top of mind. My resume comes across their desk, they’re going to go, oh, Phil Ranta from LinkedIn, I’ve been following from here. I think about that or even just putting the open to work thing and saying, hey everyone, I find myself without a job. I’m an awesome operator. I have scaled businesses. We’ve had big exits.

Like I need to have that funnel. Yeah, I think that in my nature I’m a risk-averse person which is weird that I moved to LA and went to the digital market in 2006 because that’s like risk but now that I am where I’m at I’m like I think it’s because my parents came up very poor and then when I was young Like my dad didn’t go to med school until I was already born. So like for the first half of my childhood It was like struggle work work. I still have that instilled in me that it’s like

any day AI could come take my job and I’m gonna be working at Taco Bell again. So how do I keep myself from going and working at Taco Bell again? I need to be a thought leader, I need to upskill, I need to get soft skills, I need to get hard skills, I need to learn how to… like I’m constantly thinking about this stuff probably to my detriment. I’ve got anxiety problems in case you can’t tell from the way I talk. And this helps like assuage those anxiety problems. It’s like LinkedIn feels like I’m being proactive about my career all the time.

That’s the line. That’s the line that took me a long time to get there, but I got there. That is the line, my friend. Yeah, and LinkedIn needs to grab that. You need to be in the advertisement for that. Oh god, that would be wonderful for my career. Wouldn’t it? I’ll hit up Cayman about that after the podcast. Yeah, let me into that conversation. Oh, totally. Let me get in there too. I feel you, it’s like the same thing. You’re like, oh shoot, literally, as an entrepreneur. It’s like.

Jessica Phillips (34:18.797)
I know, and at any moment, clients could leave, things could happen, stuff could shift, and you always have to be thinking about that. And I think that’s what’s interesting about maybe our generation versus the younger generation, which hasn’t had that experience in life yet. And so they’re very much kind of go with the flow. And I think one of the things that I talk a lot about is, hey, look, it’s nice to have all these side hustles now and to do all these things, but a little bit later in life, if you decide you wanna have a family, you don’t have time for side hustles, my friend. You gotta have one hustle,

It’s got to do it. It’s got to nail it, yeah. And as an entrepreneur, I feel for you because I don’t think I’ve been a part of a single company that’s exited. I mean, I’ve only been part of three companies that have exited, but where at one point we weren’t like, do we have to close the doors? Oh, a thousand percent. It will always, and no matter how much people at networking events will be like, I’m an entrepreneur and everything’s great, we’re growing and rubbing to the right. Every day they’re like, if I don’t fundraise by April, I’m out of business. So if we don’t close this account, I’m going to have to fire half my staff. That’s the thoughts that are going through everybody’s head.

So that’s where LinkedIn kills it is like you have to have constant efficiency and outreach, you know Yeah, and you build this you build this presence whether or not you’re an authority or not The fact that you show up every day. Yeah is enough. It’s like you fake it till you make it in a lot of ways but I think that that’s the trend that brings LinkedIn kind of full circle back to interesting things because you as An influencer. It’s like yes, so you obviously have a job full-time job, but you are influencing The people that need to be influenced at Apple at Google at meta

I think it’s really interesting to have this sort of moment in time where you can capitalize on all of this knowledge that you’ve built up. And I think that’s why the B2B influencer space really is just so powerful. Yeah, and I still feel like I’m faking it every day. Everyone does. Because in the digital world. That’s why you see all this imposter syndrome stuff on content everywhere. Our business, things change so fast that anybody that says it’s stable is lying all the time. Because what if TikTok goes away tomorrow? Exactly. What if AI launches a programmatic offering that makes it completely worthless?

for us to have the skills we have. What if AI influencers grow so quickly that the whole lower tier of creation goes away and is controlled by three companies? These are not Terminator 2 never gonna happen situations. These are things that could happen in the next six months. Oh, 1,000%. I think we were testing chat GBT to see if they could find influencers for us. Totally. And somebody had done it and they had sent it to us. They’re like, oh look, we found all these influencers. And my head of sales was like, oh shit. What’s going on here? And I was like, give me that.

Jessica Phillips (36:48.432)
So I look, I’m like, these are all fake. Right, totally. They’ve made them up. None of these people exist. Chagy BT is not looking for the right answer. It’s looking for an answer. An answer, exactly. And not to say that it won’t get better at it, but the reality is the search and social are converging no matter what we do. So I think as long as you’re ahead of it, and as long as you know how to use these tools to your advantage and thusly your client’s advantage, it puts you at the forefront of it, and it makes you a value add to all businesses, to all brands, and potential future clients. Oh yeah.

learning AI to de-risk my career. I don’t even know if I believe in all of it. I’m learning it because I think it’s an existential threat to me feeding my family down the line.

And so I’m learning it out of fear. So I guess you have two options. You learn AI out of fear or you start a garden. 100%. And you live in LA so the garden’s not as, you know. They can’t do it. Yeah, my survival garden is not able to exist in Los Angeles. Oh, that’s so funny. Oh my gosh. Well, Phil, it was so nice to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. And I guess for everybody out there, give Phil Ranta a follow on LinkedIn so he can feed his family. Absolutely, please do. Thank you for having me. Thanks.

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