- [Narrator] People like to buy from other people.
Never is this more true than on social media,
where most brands come across as inauthentic
and, therefore, ineffective.
You can overcome this by choosing a face for your brand.
Deciding who is going to be the star of the show
is a difficult, strategic decision.
Let's run through the the various options
with their relative risks and rewards.
First, let's cover industry expert.
For example, Ramit Sethi from "I Will Teach You to Be Rich."
Now, Ramit is an expert in this field,
so the content he produces is very high quality
and that earns him a lot of trust.
The downside of this approach is that
most experts aren't media trained.
They're not as good a communicator as Ramit is
and they don't always have the time to invest
to get better at that.
One that's slightly different,
but usually also still falls with the founder
is the founder cult of personality.
A good example of this for me is Gary Vaynerchuk.
Now he is also an industry expert,
but the main reason people listen to him
is because of his charisma.
He has a lot of power to inspire action.
But one downside of this is the time investment
from a founder is very costly.
Gary is always hustling.
You know, not every founder can keep up to that level.
So, as a founder, if you don't feel
like you can keep up that commitment,
one option is actually to delegate to a star employee.
Classic example of this is Scott Rogowsky from HQ Trivia.
He became very famous and I'm sure
that he was much lower cost in terms
of time than the founders.
The other good thing about this
is that it can be very high in professionalism.
So, if this is the only thing they're doing
and they don't have other founder duties,
then they can really train and get very, very good at it.
The risk is what if they decide to leave?
So, Scott actually did leave HQ Trivia and it did lead
to a big drop in brand equity for that business.
The final one, and probably the most expensive one,
is celebrity endorsement.
One great example of that is Kim Kardashian,
who promotes several different products.
And she has incredibly wide reach
and very heavy engagement from her fan base.
And so any product that she promotes could instantly
be selling millions of units overnight.
The risk of this approach, though, is lack of loyalty.
People are getting a little bit cynical
about celebrities promoting things and, you know,
they're somebody who might not actually keep talking
about your product for a long time.
There's also risk of scandals.
So, for example, if you choose the wrong celebrity
and they do something bad in public,
then that scandal brings negative press
on your brand as well.
Choosing who's going to be the star
is an important, strategic decision
and it's not easily reversible.
But without a real human face to your brand,
it can be hard to connect on social media
in any meaningful way.
It takes time to build up a brand and each option comes
at risks, but now you should be equipped
to determine which option is right for your business.