IFH 784: Mastering the Art of Connection: Kristen Maldonado's Journey Through Pop Culture and Social Media
49:18 Share

You are listening to the IFH Podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork.com. Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, episode number 784. Cinema should make you forget you're sitting in a theater. Roman Polanski.

Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood, it's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, how to turn your independent film into a profitable business.

It's harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films. From predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who prey upon them, the odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker. The old distribution model of making money with your film is broken and there needs to be a change.

The future of independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the filmtrepreneur. In Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, I break down how to actually make money with your film projects and show you how to turn your indie film into a profitable business. With case studies examining successes and failures...

This book shows you the step-by-step method to turn your passion into a profitable career. If you're making a feature film, series, or any other kind of video content, the Filmtrepreneur Method will set you up for success. The book is available in paperback, ebook, and of course, audiobook.

If you want to order it, just head over to www.FilmBizBook.com. That's FilmBizBook.com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host, Dave Bullis. My next guest is a pop culture content creator and reviewer, and she's the social media manager for MTV's Total Request Live.

In this episode, we're going to be talking about social media, Wendy Savage Twitter accounts, running social media for a multi-billion dollar company like MTV, all that good stuff with guest Kristen Maldonado.

Yeah, for sure. I was part of the radio station in my school. That was like the main, the main like journalistic thing that I was a part of. And actually, it's funny, I didn't really start out in journalism. I was always a theater kid. So I actually went to school for three years studying theater. And then I was like, you know, like, I don't know, I don't know.

I kind of like to talk about entertainment too, not just participate in it, I guess. So from there, I switched my major, going into the end of my junior year of school and got into the radio station and kind of just did a whole 180 of where I was going career-wise. So being a theater kid, what were some of your favorite plays that you did while you were in college?

Oh, we did Rent, which was fun. What else? Even before then, I had done like Rocky Horror Picture Show and Aida. I'm a big fan of like contemporary musicals. So, you know, like R&B pop sounding music.

So, you know, I actually – and you spoke of the radio station. I actually helped out not a lot, not a lot at all. I don't want to take away from anybody, but I used to help out with the radio station at the college I worked at from time to time. And one thing that I actually –

always said was this would make a perfect web series. It would be a web series about a college radio station just because for the people that actually really enjoy it and make shows and stuff like that, it almost suits it. You know what I mean? You kind of have all your cast of characters right in there. You know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, for sure. I mean, you have that newsroom aspect, but then you have the music aspect. So you can get sort of like...

You know, I'm trying to think of like what news related television shows are out there, but maybe even kind of like a 30 rock, but like college level, you know? Yeah. It's almost, you ever see the TV show Frazier?

I've seen a little bit of it. Okay. Well, you know, he's a radio psychiatrist. And since radio is still around in that sense, it's just – I think it would be funny if he had almost like a college radio station like that. You know what I mean? And I think it would work in a different way. But just make it a web series. Make it a web series.

That would be cool. So you graduated and you ended up going and you graduated from college and you ended up applying to MTV, correct? Yes. So how did that process work? I mean, did you hear about an internship or something in like your senior year?

Well, I ended up staying an extra semester because I switched my major so late. And in that semester, I did an internship at Viacom, which is like the parent company of MTV and a whole bunch of other places. And I was interning at Teen Nick and Nicktoons and the 90s or all that. And from there, I kind of like.

reached out to people and was like, I want to learn more about what people do at MTV or at other companies within Viacom. And this one guy that I reached out to actually responded. He was the only person to respond. And he said,

I met with him. He told me about what he does. And I happened to bring my resume because I'm that person that's like, oh, just bring a million resumes with me just in case, because it wasn't even an interview. And he took my resume. And then he also suggested places like other places within MTV that we're hiring. And I applied to those and I didn't get them. And then he reached out to me and was like, oh, actually, we're hiring for a PA right now if you're interested. And I was like, oh, of course, of course. And I applied and then I got the job. So...

The rest is history, I guess. Yeah.

So it's about networking. It's about getting your name out there. And it's awesome, too, that you got to choose your internship because I know a lot of times working – because I've worked at a college. I also obviously – I worked at the college that I graduated from, and I've seen it before where I couldn't pick my internship. I had to have one that was selected for me. Really? Yeah, yeah. They picked it for you?

Yeah, they basically would give you what you had to do. And so...

later on I heard that you could actually if you came to them with one they would they would let you do that but what happened was with me they gave it to me and I ended up like interning at an insurance um uh insurance uh whatever store whatever location whatever you would call it and um I was doing a lot of cold calling so I was like I don't think this is a good internship

Yeah, that's so interesting. At my college, you got three credits of an internship. And so what people would do was they would do some for no credit just to get experience. And then they would do like you could put the three credits to however you wanted. So they would do like three internships with each credit. So I think at school I ended up doing maybe like seven internships just because I was like, I want the experience, especially because I thought I was so late in the game, you know, switching my major.

So, but that one at Viacom was my last one, which landed me my job. So I'm very appreciative for that one. So what are some of the things you did at the internship at Viacom?

Um, some of the things that I did, um, I did a little bit of writing. I remember I got to write, um, an article about Degrassi's, I think it was their 300th episode. Um, so that was cool cause I'm a huge Degrassi fan. So that was like one of the huge perks of getting to work on Teen Nick stuff. I was like, I love Degrassi. Um, and then I got to help out with some of the social media posts. Um, what else? Um,

I'm trying to think. So, Kristen, I'm not very cool and I'm not very hip. So what exactly is Degrassi? It's like a Canadian teen drama. That's what Degrassi is. Oh, okay. It's an excellent Canadian teen drama that's been around for years. It's actually where Drake...

first was discovered you know he back when he was Aubrey Graham before he was like you know Drake the rapper he played a character on this Canadian teen drama show Degrassi oh wow see I didn't know that and I'm glad you clarified that too because when you said Drake I was like Drake Bell from Drake and Josh who's also excellent so but

But you see, that's cool because you had to do something you liked. And so when you do this internship, you were able to continue with it because you became the coordinator of digital strategy. So let me ask you this. How were you able to stay in that position? I'm sorry, how were you able to sort of parlay that into another position?

Well, that just happened to be well, another part of my internship was working in like the content management system for Nickelodeon shows. So we would like build out the episodes within the website so that people could watch it online.

So that was like a big part of my internship. And that was actually probably my least favorite part of the internship. But that was the part that that was like the job that MTV was looking for as a production assistant. They were looking for people that would be able to like build out episodes in their content management system. And I had a little bit of experience with it. So that really helped me actually get that job, which is funny because, you know, so this was like, you know, five years ago now. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

And now back to the show. When I first started, our job was literally to build out, you know, full episodes and clips online. And now our job has completely changed. And it's someone else's job to do that. And we mostly do like the social and digital strategy around TV shows. So it like really, it changed a lot over the, you know, over five years.

Yeah, because, you know, now if you look at Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and Instagram, which I consider to be the big four, I know some people like Snapchat. I don't like Snapchat. I don't really like Snapchat either. I'm glad you don't like it either because I sit there and I'm like, you know, I love social media and I heard so much about Snapchat and I'm sitting there going, what is this, you know?

Yeah, I think it's, it's more of a personal kind of account. I feel like, you know, people, I feel like Instagram story is a place that's a little bit more polished, whereas on Snapchat, you can like, send a picture of like a goofy face to your friend and it disappears. And like, it's fun in that way. You know?

Yeah, it's I don't know. Maybe I'm just looking for like a more of a maybe didn't speak to me right away. It's like a marketing tool. You know, that's what kind of I was looking for. It's kind of like that old saying, if everything looks like if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense because you can't even really, you know, search for people on Snapchat. Like it's a lot harder than like if you're just on Instagram, you know.

Yeah, and Instagram and Twitter are probably the most friendly social media channels. And to tie all this in, you just touched upon building a strategy for a TV show. And I'm really interested in that because sometimes when a new movie is coming out, they'll follow me and maybe they'll send me a message and sometimes they won't.

And, you know, some, I always, you know, when I ever see, I see a new movie coming out, I always try to, you know, if they, if they follow me or what have you, that's, that's great. But I'm always wondering, you know, what is the end sort of the end goal of that? Um, with a TV show, obviously a little, it's a little different because that's a continuation. So, so Kristen, if you could, and I, and I, I mean, please feel free to give me as much info as possible. Cause I'm really, I really like this stuff.

What are some of the things that they do or maybe even tell you about when they when they when they say let's build a strategy around a new TV show? Yeah. So, I mean, the main our main goals really are to, you know, bring awareness to the show, you know, get people to engage with it and to really tap into like strong and passionate audiences and build a community and

So when we're coming up with stuff, you know, we're thinking about digital video, we're thinking about social content, and we're just trying to see, like, what's going to, like, what is, like, the voice of this show and how are we going to, like, resonate with our audience? Like, who is our audience? And so those are things that we're really thinking about. And, you know, we're using all the different platforms out there, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Musical.ly, and just, like, creating, engaging, and, you know,

impactful content where we're really paying attention to like trending topics and, and what's like popular right now, you know? Um, and just, you know, trying to be authentic voices. I think that's like a huge thing right now in social, you know, in just like,

The way you present yourself on social media is just to like, you know, be an authentic real voice. And I think that's something that we really put into, I mean, every show that I've worked on, you know, you don't want it to be like, this is a robot talking to you. Like there's a real person behind there. You might not know who it is, but like they, they have a personality. They have,

you know, likes and dislikes. And their goal is to, you know, kind of fan out over the things that you're fanning out over, you know, so like, on other shows I've worked on, it's maybe, you know, fanning out over a specific show that has, you know, like a, you know, maybe it's a scripted show that has like a specific storyline. For TRL, it's, you know, we're tapping into

you know, the artists that we love or the influencers we love and trying to connect with people who love it as well. Yeah. So that's something I always worry about too, is whenever, whenever,

you have a channel people worry about being spammed but they don't wanna follow you and all the sudden they're just getting spammed by DM's which you know doesn't really happen anymore because Twitter changes rules but for the other DM's but you know they don't follow channel just to get hit with constant stuff like a robot like you said you know like hey you know watch this or etc so

You know, what are some of the things that you do to avoid that, you know, for a new show? Because I imagine it's kind of like a balance because you can't show too much footage because you want people to watch it on whatever, you know, medium it's on. And at the same time, you want people to be aware of what the show actually is. Yeah, I think the balance there is like finding little ways to add like tune-ins in places that like are not...

overtly like in your face kind of, you know, so it's like you can enjoy the content, but oh, by the way, it has the tune in at the end of the video, you know, or, you know, if, you know, putting out a card with like, who's going to be on the show and putting the tune in there or giving it to talent to let them kind of share with their audiences. And I think when you have like good talent on the show, that have their own fan bases, you can rely on them to kind of help

as well, like make people aware that they're going to be on or that, you know, the show exists.

So do you think, Kristen, like this is why a lot of the times, you know, like shows or maybe get rebooted or because, you know, or the movies now you see it's a lot of Marvel movies, a lot of DC movies, a lot of superhero stuff. Do you think that one of the strengths of that happening is when you do social media marketing for something like a show like this or a show that's based on an existing property? Yeah.

You don't have to really introduce people to what it is. They already know what Batman and Superman is. They already know what... Even like Drake coming out with a new CD. They already know what that is. I think in some cases it can definitely be a strength. In other cases, it might be coming back at a time when people are not familiar with it. I would say a great example is Guardians of the Galaxy. People love that franchise, but...

Before it came out, people were like, what is this? And if you were a big comic book fan, you knew who the Guardians were. But if you weren't, it's like, why are they making this movie about a raccoon and a tree? You know, like, what is this? And then they were able to turn that into something that people love, you know, like a franchise that people maybe even as maybe even more popular than Avengers, you know? Yeah, it's...

Yeah, I always wondered about like that, you know, how to actually, you know, market like new TV shows and things like that. Because even marketing this podcast, for instance, it can be a little bit tricky at times because, you know, again, people don't want to be spammed to. And sometimes it's kind of hard because you want to get the...

you want to get the message out, but at the same time you're like, well, I don't want to spam too much. And then how, you know, how, how many, how, you know, how, how many tweets are too much? And do you tweet too much? I would, I would definitely say the big thing that I've learned in my career is like quality over quantity, a hundred percent. Like you could post something a hundred times and it,

You're going to not get as much reach as like the one or two times you posted it and just like had really great, you know, copy or really great visuals around it, you know. So what's something that you've seen, Kristen, with one of your campaigns that just has really taken off? Like was there like ever a video or a photo you maybe posted on like Twitter or Facebook or YouTube that is just, you know, not even just going viral but just has been very popular? Yeah.

I worked on Ridiculousness for a while and there was a bunch of times when we'd have viral clips that we cut and made them a little bit shorter and made them more memeable that would get millions upon millions of views and that's always a really cool feeling. It's probably mostly due to the fact that it's a funny viral clip but

Yeah, I would definitely say that's, that's one of the times where I've seen something do really well. A lot of times it's, it's about just like what that content is and just like putting a good spin on it, you know?

Yeah, you know, that's – I've noticed that too. Just, you know, if you know what channel you're on and maybe making the media for that, that's something I've noticed too is if you're on Twitter, Twitter has a different way of people – how they consume it. Same thing with YouTube, same thing with Facebook, same thing with Instagram. For sure. You know, it's kind of like people expect a certain type of media when they go to those channels. Definitely. And, like, it's, like, always cool, like, learning, like –

as you go on, like what works best where like maybe square videos do better on certain platforms or, you know, just regular 16 by nine videos do better on other platforms. Just even like small things like that can have a big impact on a video being seen. And another thing is like posting things natively. Like you, if you're on Facebook, for instance, and you post a link to a website, like there's a

There's a good chance that like YouTube is not going to surface that. Sorry, not YouTube. Facebook is not going to surface that as high as if you had like, let's say you had a video and you literally uploaded it to Facebook. That will get more reach. Even just like certain language use, like saying share this or like this or watch this will bring things down because Facebook. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

And now back to the show. Can see that you're like overtly, you know, overtly promotional when their main goal is to, you know, kind of have people more sharing things personally, you know. And I think that's why things like Chewbacca mom can can go viral and trend because it's like a fun native thing that like, you know, it's not like someone being like, watch this, you know, promo this. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And so one channel I thought has done really well is Wendy's. Have you ever seen their Twitter channel? Yeah, they're very sassy. Yeah, it's amazing how well they've done. And I'm always like, man, all of this from a fast food Twitter channel. I can't believe it. Yeah, I mean, when you have someone who has a really great voice...

and brings that to the table and can really channel something that, you know, that people are interested in. You know, people go to see like what's Wendy's going to say next, you know?

And that's kind of a question I was going to lead into you with is when you want to change a voice, because I mean before that, I'm sure the higher-ups at Wendy's probably said, all right, look, we're going to get social media channels. We have no idea what we're going to put on any of them, but you're told you have to have all these channels, right? You got to have Facebook. You got to have Twitter. You got to have all these channels. So –

Where does that person come in who finally just says, you know what? I'm just going to talk crap on other people and I'm going to do this. I can't imagine some managers signing off on that. You know what I mean? Because everyone is so careful nowadays because that's what social media is, right? Everyone owns marketing now with social media. So I can't imagine a manager at some point being like, you know what? Yeah, just go balls to the wall and whatever.

I just always wondered, you know, where that shift came in and who actually approved that if anyone did, or if some, some social media manager at Wendy's just went off with it one day and it ended up being a hit and they just kind of stuck with it. I mean, my only thought, you know, I think, um, I think working on a brand like Wendy's or like, um, versus working on a TV show or a movie is that, you know, I, I agree with you. It's very surprising that they would let a brand like that, um,

kind of go ball to the wall and kind of take that big leap. But I think they must have higher-ups on their team who –

you know, are very innovative and are really looking at what's going on, like, trending-wise and in pop culture and are like, you know what, let's try this. And then, you know, sometimes when you take that big leap, it works. I don't know exactly who, you know, would approve that on their side because I'm not sure if, like, Wendy's themselves, like, have people that are, like, a social team that runs it or if they use an outside source. But if they do, like, you know, they obviously...

are open to taking leaps. And to me, that means they're an even more innovative company than, you know, than even just that. So I think that's awesome. Yeah. It's, uh, we should tweet them and actually ask them that, you know, I shouldn't even theorize that we should actually ask them like, when the hell did this shift come in? And I'm sure they're probably by now it's probably like, Oh, that was somebody who want to go. But, uh, but, uh, I always wondered that if somebody on their last day, uh,

grabbed a Twitter channel at some company, even like Wendy's, and just said, you know what, I'm just going to do whatever I want to do now. And that's happened, too. The last day at someone's job, they've taken a Twitter or Facebook or whatever, and they've literally just not only held it hostage, but they've also just tweeted out random stuff.

Yeah. I don't know. Did you see Spike TV's, like, their last hurrah on Twitter? They recently changed to Paramount Network, and they did this really awesome Twitter goodbye where they just kept tweeting all these things about, like, they were like, oh, it's my last day as a Viacom employee, so, like, I'm going to tweet whatever I want. And it was a social strategy that they did, and it was so funny, and they became, like, a...

They became a, what is it, like a Twitter moment. And they were trending all over the place. And it was really, really funny.

See, and that works well too, because people I'm sure were probably thinking themselves, wow, this is, you know, so this, this, this person is going to either go out guns blazing or they're going to actually, you know, tell some like kind of like trade secrets or something. You never know. Right. Yeah. They, it was all like part of their strategy. So it was planned, but there were so many people commenting being like, oh, whoever's doing this is going to get fired or like, but it was all part of their, their whole, um,

you know, good like goodbye like You know going out type of thing and it was it was really hilarious. I

I see. That's really cool. And I'm going to link to that everyone in the show notes. I'm going to find that. And, uh, also we'll, uh, we'll also link to that Wendy's channel. But, um, so, so in, uh, in, so now in 2017, you got to be made the manager of social media at MTV's TRL. So how did that happen? Um, I would say it was, it was kind of like I was working on the show, um, and

And like before it like really jump started and I was kind of doing it on my own with

with another coordinator and it was like so much that they were like, Oh, we're going to make a whole new team. That's just going to work on this. Do you still want to be a part of it? And I was like, yeah, of course. So it is kind of from there I moved over. Um, and I was just really thankful that I, you know, am able to be a part of this, you know, huge reboot. Like it's such an iconic show. So, um, that's kind of how it came about, I would say.

Yeah, it is an iconic show because I remember watching TRL when I was in high school and just seeing all the different, like, you know, the countdowns and stuff like that and Carson Daly. You know, it's just, yeah, when I saw that, I was like, you know, I'm glad it's still on, but then I saw it's being rebooted. Yeah, yeah.

A complete reboot. It's different, but it's still a lot of fun. We have a lot of great guests come through all the time. So it's great. So now when the show's running, as far as social media goes, are you getting a lot of people saying different things like, hey, are they able to vote for stuff?

We do have a little bit of voting. Right now we have a top three countdown of what's going on in pop culture. And so people are... I would say it's more like they give their thoughts on the number one topic. So for instance, the one that we just had recently was they were talking about Kim Kardashian's recent nude photos that she released. So the question was like, is she doing too much? Should we just mind our own business and let Kim do whatever she wants? Which is like, you know, people can...

kind of cast their votes and share what they think and leave comments. And then they'll talk about it on the show and they'll like actually bring up fan comments and they'll be able to like contribute to the conversation. Yeah. And the Kardashians, they kind of have social media locked down, right? Especially. Oh yeah. Yeah. They're, they like own it there. They are everywhere. Everything they post does so incredibly well. Yeah. They're just everywhere.

So let me ask you this, Kristen, just as we talked about all the different shows and stuff like that. How do you handle Twitter trolls or trolls in general, people who just tweet you or message you or whatever and say, hey, listen, this stinks or whatever. And they just make sort of these whether it be like arbitrary comments or just something that's trying to sort of, you know, ruffle feathers. How do you handle like people like that?

Are we talking specifically around television shows or just in general, like online, like dealing with haters or either? Well, I was going to say specifically about TV shows. We mostly we don't answer because you don't want to kind of jump in and cause like a whole, you know, fight with someone when like, you know, we're we're we're just focused on doing our job and getting the content out to people who want to have it, you know?

Yeah, and that's a good strategy to have. Because I remember one time I was talking to a friend of mine who's a social media strategist, and he pointed something out to me, and

He said celebrities just tend to focus on the negative. And if you look at a lot of celebrities, they will answer a lot of negative stuff. They always sort of respond to negative stuff. And then it came out, celebrities read mean tweets. And I'm just like, so much negativity. But at least the mean tweets, they can make it a little bit funny. Yeah. I mean, there's always going to be hate out there. I think it's just like paying attention to the people that...

you know, are positive and that actually enjoy your content because the people that don't like it are not the people you're targeting, you know? And I mean, like on my YouTube channel, I've experienced like getting hate on stuff. And my strategy there is like kill them with kindness. If someone doesn't like something that I said or that I posted, my whole thought is like, you know what? You still watched it. So that's fine. Like, that's great. Like, let me know what you think then if you don't like whatever it is, you know?

Yeah, and you did start a YouTube channel. And I mean, I've seen some of the stuff you have on there. You know, you do some review stuff and you also, I saw you actually had like some celebrity interviews. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

So I wanted to, you know, I know this is, this is kind of sort of like an interview show. It's more like, I always consider it more of a conversation, but you know, so I mean, what is it like, you know, I mean, do you do the YouTube? Like do you, do you try to upload at least once a week? Yeah. I try to upload as many times as I can, like at least once a week. But if I have more things that I want to cover, just, I try to be as timely as possible, you know? So would there ever be a point, Kristen, where you would start uploading like every day?

I don't think I have the time right now for that. I wish that would be awesome. Like that, my goal really is to like grow my YouTube and whatnot, because I love talking about, you know, television and movies and books and music. And I wish that I could just like spend all my time talking about that stuff. But you know, there's all, you know, all these other things I have to work on as well. But it's a lot of fun. Like that's, I've been doing it for four years now. And

I don't plan to stop. I just like talking about things and, you know, hopefully other people will talk back, you know? Yeah. You know, I was actually, uh, I just got the book crushing it by Gary Vaynerchuk. Uh, do you know Gary Vee?

Gary, oh wait, VaynerMedia? Yeah, VaynerMedia. Yes, yes. So I just got his new book, Crushing It, and I just came out today actually, and I've been just making little notes here and there about different things. And he talks about people who do social media full time. I mean there's tons and tons of people.

If we went down the list of all the top YouTubers and everything else, the landscape has sort of broadened. And especially with TV now. Episodic things are everywhere, but it's also very segregated in terms of what the shows are and what medium they're on. For every Game of Thrones on HBO, you have...

Stranger Things on Netflix. I almost blanked out there for a second. I almost forgot. I couldn't think of another show. I'm like, you know, it's the golden age of TV and I'm like blanking out on shows now. But, you know, and you see all these different, you know, channels like... And you see all these, you know, wonderful, wonderful shows. And you just kind of wonder about things that fly under the radar. And then you also have your content creators like you and I, who, you know, I do the podcast and you have a YouTube channel. You know, it's just...

I think the two things that everyone sort of gives it as advice for all this stuff, for everything I just said, just sort of encompass this, is to create a brand and to do it very well. And

those two components are to create a brand you'll have your own voice and also just you know be unique as possible and to do it well you know is all the technical left brain sort of things where it's like you know make sure the framing is correct the lighting is correct stuff like that and I mean so have you noticed that too because I know you obviously probably have friends that do YouTube a lot have you noticed that those components of creating a great media across all the channels

Yeah, I mean, I think, especially as you like continue making things, you can like see the difference in like, you know, the audio or the video quality. And it like feels good to, you know, see not just yourself, but even just like how I guess like in the world of social media and content creation, like everything has been like elevated and people are making really beautiful content like all the time.

Which is something that like a few years ago, you know, people were just like in dark rooms, like with little lamps on them to try to like, you know, make their own content. So it's the quality has improved so much. It's like amazing. Yeah, I actually had a friend of mine. He ended up repping the do you remember the Numa Numa guy?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

and it just spiraled out from there. And then my friend, and that's when he and my friend met, and he was one of the original YouTube viral video hits and YouTube celebrities. And he started to parlay that for a while, and he doesn't do YouTube anymore at all. And his channel is actually run by that same friend. But it's just interesting, again, reading that book.

uh, about, you know, all the people that kind of go in and maybe they have one or two hit videos and then they kind of, you know, like some guy I see a lot of is Casey Neistat. Um, I'm sure. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. I actually saw him once walking his like daughter in the streets of New York city. I was like, what was he vlogging?

I don't know if he was. I just know he was pushing a stroller. So maybe he had something on him that was recording. I imagine he can't record anything now in the streets of New York. I imagine if he walks around, everyone just walks up to him and starts talking to him.

Well, I mean, me and my boyfriend were walking and he was like, my boyfriend was like, Hey, what's up? And Casey responded. And I thought that they were friends or something. And I was like, who's that? And he was like, it's Casey Neistat. So nobody had seen him then at that point. I don't know if maybe a few more blocks away, he got mobbed. See, and that's what I mean. Like, I can't imagine he goes, cause I saw a video that he was doing when he was reviewing a camera that I actually was looking at buying and he actually reviewed it. And I was like, wow, it's, it's actually a 360 camera. And, um,

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it sounds like all his fans are kind of like his friends, you know, where they're all just like, hey, what's up? What's up, man? Yeah.

Good seeing you as he rides by. And that's kind of what you want, right? You want to have that brand where you kind of like, you know, it's, it's, you notice it and you want to be able to interact with it. Right. So, and I think that's kind of what, you know, the Kim, the Kardashian brand, I mean, look, you know what they've done and they, you know, uh, love them or hate them. They still have that brand, that brand image, that brand name. And, you know, they make a ton of money just doing, doing, you know, just being Kim Kardashian. Yeah. Just being themselves. It's, it's crazy that you can like, um,

you know, make a career in being yourself nowadays. That's so cool.

Yeah, and it's always that magical word to influencer, right? So you're kind of always wondering, you know, what is that influence? Because I mean, like, even when you're doing a TV show on Twitter or Facebook and you're, you know, you're as a show's happening, you know, you're maybe you have a tweet chat going on and you, you know, you're trying to influence people to watch or to interact with the show because when they interact, they have to watch more. And when they watch more, they want to interact. You know, it's kind of like that, that kind of zigzags back and forth.

And I think that's too with what's everyone's kind of is looking for is how to sort of leverage, you know, starting a YouTube channel. Like for instance, you, Kristen, like you started a YouTube channel a few, you know, four years ago and have you been able to sort of, you know, leverage that or use that to, to sort of maybe, um, Hey, you know, Kristen gets, you know, you get invited to an event because I say, Hey, listen, Kristen has this YouTube channel. She's in all this other stuff, you know, should we invite her to this, to, to, to this event? Um, has that happened to you yet?

Not really. I've had a couple of small opportunities of like, oh, there's a book subscription service that once sent me a box to try and review for free, so that was cool. And Tribeca Film Festival, I go to every year, but I didn't really get that opportunity through doing YouTube. I got it through something else. So I would say right now I'm kind of just doing my own thing there, but I would love the opportunity...

to like cover more things or, you know, whatnot through my YouTube channel. I think that would be awesome. Yeah. Cause I, I didn't mean that the way it sounded, by the way, it hasn't happened to you yet. I'm sorry. I'm working, you know, working towards it. Cause sometimes I've had friends who they've started a channel and

And I mean, for instance, I started a podcast before this one years ago on a whim. And you'd be amazed at the people that I had just not only following the podcast, the Twitter channel we had for the podcast, but people would follow it and they would ask to come on the podcast. And these are people that were on TV.

And I'm like, there's no way this is real. Like, there's no way. And then, yeah, it turns out it was real. It was completely real. And I'm like, holy crap. Like, why my little podcast at the time? And it's like now all these people who are on TV, like who are on like different chef shows, different other shows on History Channel, Discovery Channel, all of them, they wanted to come on my podcast. I was like, what the hell am I doing? That's awesome. Yeah. And so that's why I'm kind of like, you know, if you have persistence, you

it's amazing what could happen. Cause I mean, I, the average podcast, uh, last seven episodes and gets 50, 50 downloads per episode. So, so that's three 50. And I don't know what the average Twitter or YouTube or anything other analytics are, but you can kind of see it though with podcasts because not only am I in this medium, but,

You can see when people just start things because they want to see how it works and maybe they have an idea and there's a lot of fervor and a lot of energy and they go for it and it kind of fizzles out. And then all of a sudden you just see it's like a relic. It's like a ghost town that nobody talks about anymore. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Yeah, I mean, I think that people do that on other platforms also, like YouTube, where, like, you start out thinking, oh, I'm going to make these videos, and it's going to go viral and get a million clicks, and, you know, it's going to just, like,

blow up and then it doesn't and then a lot of people stop um because it's like this is not going where I thought it would and my goal is to never be like oh I just gave up you know like I think that I have I'm like slowly growing and I I mainly started my channel because I wanted a place to talk about pop culture and you know you know as a journalism student you know I was always um

You know, I wanted to be an entertainment journalist and whenever I went to panels and things, they would always say, if you want to do what you have to do yourself, no one's going to hand anything to you. So I was like, well, no one's going to just let me be on air. So like, I'll make my own channel where I can be on camera and I can talk about what I want to talk about and we'll see what happens. And I've gotten a few like little opportunities to do things, um, outside of my channel, like hosting wise, like, um,

I've done a few videos for MTV and a few videos for Glamour. And I hosted a recap show for MTV's Faking It when that was on, which was really awesome. And I would love to find opportunities to do more stuff like that. But yeah, it was more for me to have a place to talk about the things that I want to talk about that I love. Yeah, and I think that's...

one of the things with social media is obviously, you know, you can sort of run the channel the way you want to run the channel, you know? You don't have to answer to anybody.

and you can just sort of do whatever you wanted to do. That's, you know, and like, you know, you started that YouTube channel and, you know, I started a podcast. I mean, it's just, you know, you just want to, you just sometimes have to just go out there and just do things. Yeah. And you know what I mean? And just, Hey, this is what I want to talk about. This is what interests me. Somebody once gave me the advice that if you can just get a thousand true fans and

and they each pay, I forget what the amount was, you could easily just substitute that for your day job, like right off the bat. And once I heard that, I was like, wow, that's actually pretty cool. You know, if they were to just whatever, buy your services, buy t-shirts, whatever. It hasn't quite worked out that way for me, but still, it's a cool theory, right? Yeah, and I think, you know, it's, I think it's,

It's very commendable to like kind of do stuff like this on your own and like, you know, not rely on other people and, you know, you're putting it out there. And if people want to check it out, then they can. And, you know, you can even if it's not a huge community like my community is not that huge. But there are people that that do have interest in hearing, you know, what I have to talk about. I'm sure what you have to talk about. And then that's like a cool feeling that there's people there that do want to have that conversation, you know.

Yeah, and it's, you know, and I think more and more, I had on here, oh, I forget his name, I can't believe I'm blacking out, but he actually works with Pixar, and we had him on the podcast, and he actually said, he goes, I think in five years, you're going to see this huge influx again of people just starting this stuff again, and what's going to happen is people who didn't start it five years ago are really going to regret it, but people who started it, you know, five years earlier regret

already going to have built-in analytics, you know, they're built in, you know, numbers and everything like that and built-in audience rather than just starting fresh, you know, from scratch. I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I already regret and I'm kicking myself for not starting my stuff earlier. And it's because I was too nervous, you know, I was like afraid to put my voice out there. And now I'm like, oh, whatever. Like, I'll talk about, you know,

the things I'm interested in and just like hope that people, you know, we'll listen. But before I was like really scared to do it. I'm like, what will people think? Like, especially like what will people I know think, well, they think it's like lame. There's like, you can't really worry about everybody else. You got to just do the stuff you want to do. So did you get any blowback, like any, any friends or colleagues or anything where they, when you say mentioned that they, you know, people, you know, I think it's lame. Did you get any blowback at all from any like friends or anything like that?

- Not really. Well, when I first started, I would,

I would like talk about pop culture and then I would like sing and stuff in my videos. And I did have a friend that was like, yeah, that is kind of lame that you do that. And I was like, whatever. And then I slowly, not because of what they said, but like just because it worked better for my videos, like stopped, you know, like doing, adding that like singing element. But no, I just do that at karaoke, you know. But otherwise nobody's, you know, I feel like I get like some,

decently good feedback of like, oh, I see your YouTube videos. That's really awesome that you're still doing it. You have some cool content out there. So...

Yeah. Do they actually like it? Meaning that do they like it, give it the old thumbs up? Because I have friends who I post stuff on my personal Facebook page, which has kind of become like a mix of both. And they'll say stuff to me like, oh, yeah, I saw you were doing that and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, how come you didn't like it then? How come you didn't say anything? You know what I mean? Yeah. I feel like my real close, close people will like it, but everybody else probably just looks at it and...

And scrolls past and is like, yeah, I saw that, which is fine. You got to know who your true fans and friends are. Yeah. I don't know. I always think it's weird if somebody sees something and they don't like it. You know what I mean? And the same thing with people that would be, if anything ever became of this, like something big, like if you got famous or if you got money from it. Oh, then they'd be like, hey, I've been here the whole time. And you're like, no, you haven't been.

Yeah, exactly. I'm always like, I got to make a mental Rolodex of those people. You know what I mean? You got to watch those people because they're the vultures. The minute you fail, they're there to kick you while you're down. But the minute you succeed, they're there to help you. Oh, yeah, we've always been there for you. Yeah. Yeah.

So, Kristen, we've been talking for about 45 minutes now. Just in closing, I wanted to ask you one question, and that is for anyone starting out on social media now, what advice would you have for them?

I mean, I would say the best advice that I've ever gotten, which I mentioned before, is just like do it yourself and hopefully the opportunities will come. So, you know, if you want to run certain accounts, maybe start building your own accounts, make a website, start talking about the things that you want to do.

that you want to focus on, maybe try to volunteer somewhere. If, if there's an organization, you know, that like, you know, maybe can't pay you, but you can volunteer. Maybe it's a, you know, a charity or a band, a local band or something like that. See if you can help them with their social media and kind of get that experience. Um, and, and,

Always go for the internships, especially if you're in school. Do as many internships as you can. And I think from there, your work will speak for itself. Yeah, and that's really good advice. And I know a lot of times when anyone starts a channel, it's kind of like, what do you post online?

Something I've learned, and just to sort of piggyback on what you said there, Kristen, I think posting is obviously, it's not really a strategy per se. It's more of just being consistent. But what you're going to post...

Hey, I'm going to post something that, you know, now maybe a quote and then the next and then the next post is going to be something else. Maybe it's going to be some other piece of information that can actually help them or, you know, what have you. So it's kind of going back to Gary Vay. It's kind of like that, you know, left jab, jab, jab, right hook, which is give, give, give, ask. So it's kind of like, you know, you always help, you know, making sure that if people follow you, they know they're not going to get spammed. You know, they're going to get something of value. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

So, Kristen, speaking of online, where can people find you at online? You can find me everywhere at Kaymaldo, K-A-Y-M-A-L-D-O. So I'm there on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook. If you add a one at the end of that, you can find me on Instagram and Snapchat. Yeah, I'm all over the social webs, the interwebs. Kristen, I want to say thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me.

I want to thank Dave so much for doing such a great job on this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes at indiefilmhustle.com forward slash 784. And if you haven't already, please head over to filmmakingpodcast.com, subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for listening, guys. As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive. Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at IndieFilmHustle.com. That's I-N-D-I-E-F-I-L-M-H-U-S-T-L-E.com.