Everyone Hates Marketers | No-BS Marketing & Brand Strategy Podcast

[00:00:00] Amanda Nativida: Why does somebody need to read this? That's usually enough to carry me through to write a hook because once I'm thinking about why do they need to read this, then I don't write the things like are you struggling to get more leads? Like that's not interesting and not fun. I don't think anyone reads that and goes, oh, I need to read more.

[00:00:20] ​

[00:00:20] Louis Grenier: Bon and welcome to another episode of Everyone Hates marketers.com, the No Fluff Actionable Marketing podcast for people sick of marketing bullshit. I'm your host, Louis Granier. In today's episode, you will learn how to become the c e o of your brand's content instead of just a content marketer and get some real results for your business.

[00:00:46] My guest today is a content marketing. Powerhouse, an unstoppable creative force, A Twitter Jagger note, an influencer. Uh, I'm joking. Uh, she's the VP of marketing for Spark Toro, is Run Fishkins latest, startup. Uh, she used to be a tech journalist. She has 10 years of experience in marketing across many, many different fields.

[00:01:06] She has her own, uh, newsletter. She speak at events. She has a cohort based course. She's contributor to Adweek and she's also a trained chef. She talks about cuisine and cooking and marketing and all of that. I honestly do not know how she gets everything done. Clearly also very generous and kind human being.

[00:01:23] So, Amanda, super happy to have you.

[00:01:26] Amanda Nativida: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for having me, Louie, and thank you for the generous introduction.

[00:01:30] Louis Grenier: That's the only kind thing I'm gonna tell you now. So let's fucking

[00:01:33] Amanda Nativida: Oh no.

[00:01:34] The problem with our obsession with algorithms
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[00:01:34] Louis Grenier: so don't you think that the kind of obsession that many people have with algorithms, you know, on Twitter and LinkedIn and whatever, uh, leaders to create shitier and Shitier content,

[00:01:46] Amanda Nativida: Sometimes yes, and I do worry about that. I think. there's an overall problem with people's, or I'll just say our, because we can all be guilty of this with our inability to see nuance. So when people, when some people are saying, Hey, you need to create content that hooks people, that gets people to click and read and enjoy and you know, retweet and share.

[00:02:11] Then there are other people who receive that and go, got it. Full bro mode. I'm doing it

[00:02:17] Louis Grenier: And it's funny because I know exactly who you're talking about. Um, so this lack of nuance very important here that you're saying, because I know a lot of things that you share, a lot of insight that you share is nuanced. But in today's world, I guess where. Things are very binary.

[00:02:31] Choosing between high-quality content and "clickbait" content
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[00:02:31] Louis Grenier: It seems, you know, it's either against is either you hate or you love and, and all of that. People are not really used to nuances anymore. Is that your kind of view on it?

[00:02:40] Amanda Nativida: I think so. I think there's also just this. I don't know, maybe it's an age old debate among creators where people feel like you have to choose between creating amazing high quality content and creating content that appeals to the lowest common denominator.

[00:02:57] And there's no in between. And I'm here to say there is an in between, I think it's important actually to find ways to kind of lean into each side of those things as needed.

[00:03:08] I think you can care about both and you don't have to choose. And I think anybody who chooses is really just making a false choice.

[00:03:15] Louis Grenier: Right.

[00:03:16] Amanda Nativida: Like they're making a false choice of thinking like there has to be one. When I think you're shooting yourself in the foot, if you think you have to choose one. You have to lean into moments, I think there are moments when, depending on what your goals are, right? And your goals. As a business marketing team, whatever, they change month to month, quarter by quarter, whatever it is you might have when you're starting out, you might be thinking about like, I need to just, I need to grow my audience.

[00:03:44] I need to grow this email list. I need to get more people in the door. How can I do that? And so a good way to do that would be to focus on impressions and by focusing on impressions. What I'm also saying is, Focus on creating content that is meant to get seen by people. So create content that's native to the platform.

[00:04:03] It doesn't require people to like click to a landing page and put in their email and then sign up for the thing and then wait for the thing to show up in their inbox. Like, no, that's too much friction. Don't worry about that yet. That can, that can wait a little bit. Just make it as easy as possible for people to learn from you to people who, for people to know who you are, and to see your content, boost your impressions, right?

[00:04:25] And then over time, as you're, as that is working, you can also then think about, well, what makes me defensible? So at this point, I'm bringing people in the door growing my audience, but why should they stick around? Why should they really trust me? What makes me as this thought leader defensible? And then that's where you have your high quality content, right?

[00:04:45] Maybe your, your 2000 word blog posts that dive into the nuance of strategy versus tactics or what it actually means to do effective nano influencer marketing. I don't know, whatever it is. Those are the things that people, all the people who really care, or the people who are like, mm-hmm I don't know about this person.

[00:05:05] They notice that stuff. Then they're gonna click. Those are the people that are gonna read more, or they'll, over time, they'll see like, oh, okay, this person actually does have something to say. They actually can defend all these like viral posts that they managed to come up with. And then you're using these things to kind of feed each other.

[00:05:24] You bring people through the door, and then you help them stay with your high quality content.

[00:05:29] Louis Grenier: if I had to rephrase to make sure I understand what you're saying is that one piece of content on its own, can't do both.

[00:05:37] Amanda Nativida: It can if you repurpose it accordingly.

[00:05:39] Louis Grenier: Right, but Right, exactly. So, but on its own, when it's in a specific place, it's either this or that.

[00:05:49] unless you repurpose it. So that's when it becomes interesting. So that's when, if you have a 2000 world, uh, world blog post, that's like very, high value. longer to digest, longer to understand in depth, but then repurposing it into like a, a Twitter thread that touches more on the emotions of people, like surprising them or whatever.

[00:06:07] Like a very tiny little thing. Then it becomes the, the other type. Is that, is that correct?

[00:06:13] Amanda Nativida: Yeah, I think so.

[00:06:14] Louis Grenier: You think so?

[00:06:16] Amanda Nativida: Yeah, well maybe. Maybe. I feel like what we're talking about now is now it's becoming nebulous and I think it'll help if I give an example. So here's an example. I I sometime, I think last year I wrote this blog post about audience personas. Where marketers are always taught that they should be, they should be creating buyer personas, but I think it's too shortsighted.

[00:06:37] Here's why. You actually need audience personas. Here's what they are, how you can make them, and what makes up an audience persona. Now, maybe somebody listening to this, they might think that's kind of interesting. Broadly speaking, wait, marketers, founders. Creators, solopreneurs are probably as a whole, are probably like, what?

[00:06:56] Like what is she even talking about? Audience persona. This sounds kind of boring and wonky. I don't want this. Right. If I'm pitching that, like, here's why you need this audience persona. New word. Because it's, you know, more encompassed. It's, it's more inclusive of your audience beyond buyers. Okay. I get it.

[00:07:13] But you said encompassing and I'm bored. Right? Like, there, there are a lot of like wonky details there that sound boring. Um, It's a, it's a longer blog post that I have, but with it I have a couple of like jokes or rants or things in between. And the punchline is, a fake buyer persona slide that I made about myself.

[00:07:33] And it was all like, uh, part of the way the blog post is written is it kind of leads up to that as like, here's what you don't want. You don't want this stupid reductive persona called marketing Amanda, who like loves coffee. Like, that's not useful to you. It doesn't help anybody. And that's like kind of fun or funny, right?

[00:07:53] Uh, you, or like meaning, like you reflexively understand that. That was what? That was something that I used to hook people in. So it wasn't even the intro of my blog post, it was the conclusion where what I then did was I just, took the screenshot of that or the image of it, and I posted that on Twitter as like, Hey everyone, I made you a buyer persona slide.

[00:08:14] Feel free to use this template as a joke. And then that got people, some people laughing, right? People were like, oh, that's great. Like, I wanna see more. And then they followed it up with like, here's, here's the food for thought behind this, or like, here's why this is a bad idea. So it kind of, it covers the feeling overall, or that like, here's why buyer personas are reductive and not useful without actually saying it, right?

[00:08:40] It's like, it's saying it in the form of a joke. And then people will see that they kind of un, they understand what I'm getting at. They understand the itch that I'm scratching, and they'll go, oh, okay, now I'm gonna go read your blog post.

[00:08:51] Louis Grenier: so your tweet was actually, uh, I made this by your person, a template. Feel free to steal it. That's it. Right? And the image then, and you kind of need to click on the image, and this is when you understand that it's kind of a joke, right? So a lot of jokes and stuff like that.

[00:09:06] And then the reply to that tweet, which was, roughly an hour after was the actual blog post. I think it's a really good example of both, which is, the longer stuff to make people think and that it's definitely not gonna go viral. I mean, it could, but like, it's not really, and the other thing for impression that gets, a lot of quote unquote eyeballs.

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[00:09:24] How does Amanda seem to "do it all?"
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[00:09:24] Louis Grenier: you know, when I was preparing the episode, I was thinking, how the fuck do you manage to do your job as a VP of marketing for a young startup, have a family, you know, friends, whatever, interest in cooking and all of that stuff, plus being, an absolute powerhouse when it comes to like your own.

[00:09:43] Personal brand air quote, right? your newsletter, your tweets, you know, your LinkedIn. I mean, it's really amazing to see from an outside perspective, and I know for a fact that many, many, many people are wondering the same thing. How the fuck does she do it?

[00:09:58] Amanda Nativida: well, the first thing to know is I don't do it all. I have many, many days, most days where I feel like I fail miserably because I only did two out of the five things that I hadn't set out to do in that day. So that's the first thing. But the second thing is, I think with that, that means that when I choose something, I really choose it.

[00:10:20] if I'm in full spector mode, startup gotta build out some onboarding sequences, gotta look at some, look at, look at the homepage, provide some edits, like that's my world for the next like six hours. And it's only that, just like on weekends for instance, on. On Sundays, and this is every Sunday, and I missed this past Sunday and it is completely messing up my week.

[00:10:45] Every Sunday I do some level of meal prep for the week, I make some quinoa ahead of time for salads. I chop up and, wash and dry. I wash, dry and chop up all my fruit. kind of organized some of my vegetables. And plan the menu for the week. And I put it in my calendar where I'm like, last night it was Thai fried rice with shrimp.

[00:11:06] That was it. And I have all the ingredients in my fridge. And I don't think about it, right? Once I, once I do it on Sunday, I spend a couple, I spend a couple hours, it takes a while, that's my Sunday. I do all of it, put it in the calendar and don't think about it. And then next day, you know, it's Monday.

[00:11:21] Great, what? What's for dinner? And then at five 50 the calendar invite pops up and it says, you're making this. And I'm like, all right, let's go. And it's done in 30 minutes. And that's kind of that.

[00:11:31] Louis Grenier: What helps a lot is that you do have a experience as a, as a chef, right? Or I mean, you know, your, you know your

[00:11:37] way around the food, right?

[00:11:38] Amanda Nativida: that does help. Yeah. Yeah. Having, having already some proficiency helps, but I do make a lot of the same things pretty often, so what I'll do helps is I'll buy enough quantity for the whole week of dinner, I'll either make a big batch and then we have it like every other day. I also get sick of leftovers, so every other day we'll have that.

[00:11:58] And the days in between, I'll have the other thing that I have prepared. So it's really just like two meals a week, and then maybe Fridays we order takeout.

[00:12:06] Louis Grenier: Right. So you, you avoid making. Too many decisions every reworking day it sounds like. Right? Like that seems like, you know, it could be a big burden for like when, when you have a family you have to think of, what the fuck am I cooking? And all of that. that removes some of the hurdle. But that's clearly not the secret.

[00:12:22] Even though you don't have secrets. I know it's gonna be quite hard work and discipline and routine, but still. and B before as well. I mentioned in the intro you do also, you used to be a journalist, right? A tech journalist. So not only you know how to cook, you know how to write.

[00:12:37] those are two skills that are extremely valuable into this world, uh, which adds to the fact that I think all of your skills are compounding to, to where you are today. anyway,

[00:12:46] A typical week for Amanda
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[00:12:46] Louis Grenier: what does a typical week for, Amanda looks like then after Sunday? Like, what do you tend to do?

[00:12:51] Amanda Nativida: Well actually, you know, the, the Sunday thing that carries over throughout the rest of the week in that different days are generally used for different tasks. So Monday tends to be my ramp up day. so Mondays will be no meetings if I can avoid it unless, something comes up. Right.

[00:13:07] If, if Rand or Casey at Spark Toro are like, Hey, do you have time to chat? Of course I always do that, but we just, we don't have a, we don't really have a meeting culture, so then we can talk about that next. So Mondays are ramping up, preparing some content, or, or like doing it boring administrative stuff, getting through email that's ramping up.

[00:13:25] Tuesday we, Tuesdays and Wednesdays tend to be more of production days where I'm writing a lot, publishing something or scheduling something. Wednesdays slash Thursdays, mostly Thursdays tend to be, speaking days. So like podcasts, webinars, meetings. Those kinds of things tend to be on those days.

[00:13:44] And then Fridays tend to be planning for the next week. Um, so I, I do batch some content on Fridays, or I try to at least, and then I start thinking about my newsletter.

[00:13:54] Preparing a few pieces of content
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[00:13:54] Louis Grenier: So I'm taking notes here. Uh, I'm not looking at you because I'm not, because I'm rude, but because I'm taking notes. so Sunday meal prep and just like, you know, chilling, Monday the ramp up and you said prep a few pieces of content.

[00:14:05] What does that mean?

[00:14:07] Amanda Nativida: so for preparing some pieces of content, that kind of tends to be personal stuff like on my own accounts where I'm thinking, oh, what should I say this week on Friday? It's more of the Spark Toro content that

[00:14:19] Louis Grenier: Okay, so what should I say this week? This is one of the biggest thing of people, like, you know, I, I'm not gonna say anything original. Uh, every, everything has been said before. I'm afraid of being mock. I'm afraid of being criticized so you have all of those fears of people, but you clearly have a way to, kind of face those fears and challenge them.

[00:14:36] So tell me about what, what's your process to find out? What do you want to talk about?

[00:14:41] Amanda Nativida: gosh, many times I feel like I'm in a rut, so there's that. Um, but other times, For Spark Toro, a lot of times what will inspire me are the customer success emails. So people who are writing in asking questions or sharing what they've done, that usually inspires me to write something else. Because sometimes, you know, oftentimes people will write in with a question like, oh, how do I use this to, or How do I use Spark Toro to find people I can, do some partner marketing with?

[00:15:10] And then I think, oh yeah, I can, I can answer this. And then I type out a nice email and then I go, oh. This should probably become a blog post, and then I start preparing it for that or repurposing it for that. So that definitely helps a lot. Other things that help me are either looking at replies to things, replies on social media, or thinking about my own replies, like when I scroll through the feed and if I don't agree with something, I'm not very likely to comment on that person's profile to say, Hey, I disagree for this reason.

[00:15:41] I'm more likely to essentially invisibly subtweet it, where I'll just create my own content about it as a separate standalone topic and say, here's what I think about this thing, and I feel like it's more productive.

[00:15:53] Louis Grenier: like 52 minutes ago you posted, uh, some of you are using charge PT for your replies on each shows, which is clearly a, based on your own experience, Uh, anyway, this is where we get to the meat of it and this is when it becomes very interesting.

[00:16:04] So, you say that kind of, you know, off the cuff, you know, the replies and, and whatever. It seems like, it sounds like from, from, from right now that you don't have that much of a process that you're like winging it, but I'm pretty sure you're not. So let's just split, uh, just for a sec, the personal and spectrum.

[00:16:20] Where does Amanda store her content ideas?
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[00:16:20] Louis Grenier: So let's start with the personal stuff. You said Monday tends to be more the personal stuff. So do you have any places where you store ideas? Do you have any places where you prioritize ideas or is it genuinely. posting something today because I just thought about it.

[00:16:32] Amanda Nativida: I do have places. Um, I, I use Evernote for all my note taking. It is not sexy. People will laugh. They will say they don't maintain that anymore. I've been a paid user of Evernote since 2012, so I, I just, it's hard to let go and as long as the search function works, it's fine. So I just, I basically just have three, I have three main folders or notebooks that I access in Evernote every day.

[00:16:56] It's info Create and Spector. So whenever I take an information, I dump it in the info notebook whenever I'm writing a draft or just writing down an idea for something that goes in create, and then everything spector related goes in the Spector notebook.

[00:17:10] it's basically intake versus output. So anything I learn about, any idea I get, anything that originated from somewhere else that I didn't make up that's like, oh, I'm gonna reference this later. That goes in info.

[00:17:22] Louis Grenier: Okay. we're getting somewhere interesting. Okay. So you do have this habit. Clearly you've been a subscriber of Evernote for like, more than a decade, which is how long you've been in marketing. So you, you seem to be someone who really knows how to. Have like systems and like routine, knowing the importance of, of doing things regularly.

[00:17:39] The difference between "Oh shit that's good" and "Oh shit that's nice"
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[00:17:39] Louis Grenier: So talk me through what makes you put something in the info notebook. You know, like what's, what usually happens? Do you do that on purpose, like going through stuff or just when you stumble upon a nice piece of content, you're like, fuck yeah, I need to put that there.

[00:17:54] Amanda Nativida: it goes in info, if either I see something and go, oh shit, that is good. Or, oh, I need to remember that. Not if it's, that was nice. If it was, that was nice, that just I read it, whatever, I move on. But if I have that, oh shit, I need that. I need to keep that for later. That goes in info. Or if I know for certain, That I'm going to reference it, so it tends to be a recipe.

[00:18:17] For instance, if I see a recipe that I like, that I think I wanna try, then that's going in the notebook because I refuse to go back to that blog and go through their ad network again and deal with the popups. I just copy and paste it into a notebook and strip out the ad copy.

[00:18:33] Louis Grenier: okay. Important question. Is there any of the everyone hate marketers episode in that notebook?

[00:18:39] Amanda Nativida: There is not, but I don't tend to have notes from podcasts. It all just tends to be, uh, I didn't want to lie to you. It, it only tends to be, um,

[00:18:53] Louis Grenier: Yeah.

[00:18:53] Cuz I would've

[00:18:54] Amanda Nativida: essays

[00:18:55] Louis Grenier: and why did you like it?

[00:18:56] So mostly written stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:59] Amanda Nativida: and it's, well, the difference being that when I listen to podcasts, I'm on the go, I'm in the car or I'm, I'm driving or I'm doing something.

[00:19:06] So I'm not really taking notes. I also do use note, the notes app on my phone. And if I have a couple of moments of like, oh, I have to reference that, um, And if I get out of the car and still remember it, I'll scribble it down in, in a note and it doesn't get organized.

[00:19:20] But it, I think the act of writing it helps me remember it because I do, now that I think about it, I do have some notes on your April Dunford episode, and it was, it's like just scribbled like some phrases here and there, and I'm like,

[00:19:30] Louis Grenier: Finally. Yeah, that was a good one. do you write down every single idea you have that pops to your head?

[00:19:37] Amanda Nativida: Only if it's good.

[00:19:39] Louis Grenier: How do you know if it's good?

[00:19:40] Amanda Nativida: either if it sticks in my craw and I, and I just like, Sort of can't stop thinking about it. Like I think about something while I'm brushing my teeth and then a couple hours later it pops up again. Then I'm like, okay, it's bothering me in some way, or it's sticking to me.

[00:19:53] I should write that down. gosh, this is so unhelpful. But sometimes it's just. You know when it's a good idea, like when something has, like, when it feels like it's writing itself in your brain when you have an idea and you're like, oh yeah, and then it needs to have this, this is the outline, here's the conclusion.

[00:20:08] Or it's just, oh yeah, I could, I could write that thing. And then also that would lend itself well to that graph. And also, doesn't it remind you of that meme about that, about the girl from the burning house? Like that's kind of funny. Like once I see some of those elements coming together in my brain, Then I write it down.

[00:20:24] Cause I'm like, okay, I have something here. This is gonna be worth pursuing.

[00:20:27] Louis Grenier: So it is very helpful because I think, I think one mistake that one could make, Is to really treat what we're talking about here as an extremely rational, uh, system to thinking stuff. So like the, the brain, the 5% of the time on the brain. We actively think through stuff, but most of it, most of the time it's system one, which is, Automatic 95% under the radar.

[00:20:47] Right? I've learned that throughout the years, I think the best, most talented people or, or the ones who are seen to be the most talented and the most creative, lean on system one a lot by leaning on their, their intuition a lot and leaning on, how their body responds to stuff, right?

[00:21:04] How does Amanda lean on her intuition?
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[00:21:04] Amanda Nativida: Yeah, well, maybe the other thing to add to intuition is, you know, at this point in my career, intuition isn't just, it's not just a random feeling. It comes from, it also comes from 10 years of marketing of, so it comes from those feelings of like, oh, I, I remember this feeling like I, I remember I fucked up that thing in one time.

[00:21:27] I'm never doing that again. And so you have that, that hone, that intuition that tells you, Uhuh, these are the warning signs. That thing you messed up on, you're going down that path again. Don't do that. like learned experiences that you feel in your soul.

[00:21:42] Louis Grenier: Yeah, that's actually very well put. so the three notebooks info creates doctoral. So then You're just, you seem to be writing a lot,

[00:21:49] right? Am I, am I correct?

[00:21:51] Amanda Nativida: Yeah.

[00:21:52] How to turn ideas into actual content?
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[00:21:52] Louis Grenier: how do you turn those ideas that you put in those notebooks into. Twitter threads, LinkedIn posts obviously repurpose quite a lot. But you know, when we talk about the original piece, how, how do you get there?

[00:22:05] Amanda Nativida: So when I am writing it, I usually draft in the platform that I'm in. Or at least I at least start it because I think for, just for me, that that helps me put my brain into that platform. Like if I'm drafting a, a thread for instance, but I also will use the Twitter native app and I do that so I can see how the text is laid out in, in the thread format, which is important because that's how readers are gonna see it.

[00:22:32] So I'll start doing it there. And then at some point I'll usually, um, draft it in like Evernote, Google Docs or Lex, which is an AI writing tool. But I, I like the writing tool part of it. it's a very minimalist text editor and I think it's beautiful. kind of same with LinkedIn.

[00:22:50] Well, LinkedIn, I'll just draft directly in the LinkedIn box cuz I, I, I treat them as like, 100 word blog posts. but anything for long form, like a blog post, I either draft, I usually draft it in Lex.

[00:23:03] Louis Grenier: you are known to. know how to fucking write, like let be. Uh, yesterday I interviewed the guest and she mentioned you, I think as one of the main resource, to follow, like for someone who, who, who's really like, who knows their stuff and seemed to have a way with writing. Right.

[00:23:18] And, uh, I then I told her that I was talking to you today and she was, uh, losing her shit. I had to like, I had to, to calm her down and everything. She was hyperventilating. So I'm curious about this, and I know the answer you're gonna give me, roughly. I have an idea, but let's, let's try it anyway.

[00:23:34] How does Amanda write such good content? 4 insights.
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[00:23:34] Louis Grenier: how do you write good content like that?

[00:23:37] Amanda Nativida: All right. I wanna, now, now I wanna try to surprise you cuz you said you think you'll know what I'm going to say. So now I have to surprise, in a sense. I write for myself it's not that I'm always a target audience of something that I'm writing, it's that I get bored easily. I tune out easily.

[00:23:56] I usually skip the intros of blog posts in general because I just don't need to. I don't need it. It's no secret that marketers today like, I don't need to read that. So, I write for that. I write for the person. I mean, it's not for me. Then maybe I write for the person who doesn't wanna be there. So that, that's one.

[00:24:15] And my, I, so I, which means I keep my intros very short. They're typically only like a, maybe a couple sentences and I dive right into the, into the topic. I'm much more excited about writing something when I have examples that I feel confident nobody else has.

[00:24:32] It's, it's more fun for me. And so those examples then tend to be things that come from my own experience, because nobody can compete with you at being you, right? Like only you know your stuff best. So if I've tested something or seen something firsthand, I'm excited to use that as an example.

[00:24:49] what does not excite me is, Using some kind of external tear down case study where somebody says, here's how Masterclass did their SEO strategy, where I'm not interested in that because unless Masterclass were to say it themselves, they were to say, here's how we did it. I'm interested random person outside of that team saying it not interested.

[00:25:13] So I don't use those types of examples.

[00:25:15] Louis Grenier: I love that. I wasn't expecting that answer. I thought you'll be, it's just experience and it takes a long time and blah, blah, blah. But no, that's a very good kind of cue into, into your thinking. I. Try to do the same. Right. I'm, I'm very much the same.

[00:25:28] I just, I just can't deal with like, any type of bullshit or just, I don't, don't wanna waste my time anyway. And, and I think most people are like that anyway. Uh, but the second thing you said, like those internal stuff, like getting excited about my own examples or examples that no one else have ever gotten, that really speaks to me.

[00:25:44] Cuz that's why I try to do a lot, which is like, you know, featuring small business that no one has heard of or like even solopreneurs and whatnot. All my own experience, as you said. Um, but there's something there. It's funny, you know, those tear downs, I know what you're talking about. You know, those tear downs of people who, who are not in the company, right?

[00:25:59] And they just try to get data from like, third party software that we tell you roughly the traffic and then roughly the social media stuff. And then, it's just missing the core of it, which is like usually what, what is the most important? So I get you. So you have like the writing for, for the people who don't wanna be there.

[00:26:16] Using real tangible example from your own experience or like stuff you haven't seen before. anything else on that?

[00:26:23] Amanda Nativida: not afraid to not publish. So if I'm, if I'm writing something and I get maybe a quarter of the way through, and I just have that feeling of, I don't know where this is going, like I don't know where, I don't know where this is leading up to. I don't even know what examples I'm going to use here.

[00:26:40] Is this even worth writing about? Like, should I complete this? And that's sometimes a feeling. I, I, I, I had that feeling maybe half the time where it's like, uh, I don't think this is that good. I think in the end, if I forced it and said, just finish it, I think it would be okay. But I don't strive for. Okay.

[00:27:00] I strive for better. Better than, okay.

[00:27:04] Louis Grenier: Okay. So from your, for your personal stuff, do you have a like content calendar or a cadence that you kind of seek to.

[00:27:12] Amanda Nativida: I mean, for my newsletter, it basically is when I can do it, when I have time and when I feel like I have something worth, worth it. That what? That's worth. People's time. That ends up being monthly or so. Um, And then for Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Instagram. I guess I would just say I'm trying to shoot for three to five times per week of posting something that I think is, uh, insightful, novel, amusing.

[00:27:38] Louis Grenier: And you repurpose that, right? So I mean, if a T Twitter thread goes well on Twitter, obviously it's easy for you then to repurpose it on LinkedIn,

[00:27:46] Amanda Nativida: Yeah, definitely.

[00:27:47] Louis Grenier: it's really one I want, I want to dig a bit further here because, you definitely stand out, right?

[00:27:52] Using templates vs. heuristics
---

[00:27:52] Louis Grenier: Like you have a voice, you know, and it's, it's all of those intangible things that I'm trying to like break down, which is difficult obviously. Do you have like, I don't know, a list of hooks that you use or like templates that you use? Or is it just your brain, your good examples? The fact that you know you're writing for yourself, that makes it good.

[00:28:11] Amanda Nativida: I have fewer templates and more, um, heuristics I guess, or frameworks that I think about. in the case of hooks, I mean, you know, there are lots of existing examples out there, like examples by Caitlyn Burgoyne, Julian Shapiro. Hooks that are in the realm of like shock and a right, or like counterintuitive counter narrative.

[00:28:32] So that's one. I do kind of think about that,

[00:28:34] The ONE question to ask yourself when creating content
---

[00:28:34] Amanda Nativida: but mostly what I think about is why does somebody need to read this? Why do they need this

[00:28:41] and that? That's usually enough to carry me through to write a hook because once I'm thinking about why do they need to read this, then I don't write the things like are you struggling to get more leads? Like that's not interesting and not fun. You know, that's derivative. I don't think anyone reads that and goes, oh, I need to read more. It's just what makes someone need something versus go, oh, that's fine.

[00:29:07] Louis Grenier: what are the typical things, let's say maybe the top three that tends to happen? Like what do they actually need? What, what do you tend to lean on?

[00:29:14] Amanda Nativida: I, I will, I will kind of lean into absolutes as a hook, an absolute meaning, like, um, let's see. A recent one that I wrote was something like, there isn't a one size fits all social media strategy, but if I had to give one, here's what it would be.

[00:29:31] Louis Grenier: Mm.

[00:29:31] Amanda Nativida: So that's a little bit of an absolute, a little bit of absolute ha, but, that, that has somebody thinking, okay, well there's only one.

[00:29:39] What is it going to be? And then I kind of dive into some of the nuance explanation, and then I tease for what's, what's to come, what

[00:29:47] Louis Grenier: Okay. What else?

[00:29:49] Amanda Nativida: else there is sometimes, oh, here's another one, where if it is. a coined phrase that I have, like a phrase that I made up then that, that I can, I can usually tie that to something that somebody would need to know. Like, I think it was last year that I did a blog post on something. I coined with a friend, co Haynes called Permissionless Co-Marketing.

[00:30:11] Louis Grenier: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:11] Amanda Nativida: Which, which is like, you know, it's sort of a catchy thing, but it's, it's a, it's a ta, it's a name for a tactic that a lot of people already do. And so the way I introduced that was something like, there's a marketing tactic that a lot of people are doing, but you've probably never heard of it.

[00:30:28] Louis Grenier: Hmm.

[00:30:29] Amanda Nativida: It's called permissionless co-marketing. So that has somebody thinking, what's the tactic? Wait. Huh? Wait, what is that name? Okay, I'll read more.

[00:30:39] Amanda's writing process
---

[00:30:39] Louis Grenier: Nice. do you have a, like a place in Evernote where you have all of those for is like just to remind you, or is it just in your head?

[00:30:46] Amanda Nativida: It's just in my head as, as I'm writing it. Um, I usually get my, you know, shitty first draft out, and then I try to put it down for a couple hours, come back to it, and I come back to it with like a stranger's perspective of why does somebody need this? Like, is this boring? Can I get to the point in like half the time?

[00:31:04] Louis Grenier: So roughly three to five tweets or LinkedIn posts roughly per week. Right. And that's, that's your personal stuff. you also have a day job and a family obviously you need to optimize your time. Like, do you have a, a content calendar agreed with, like with Rand in term of, you know, what you're gonna publish next? Do you have a cadence agreed with them? what's the deal?

[00:31:23] SparkToro's social media calendar
---

[00:31:23] Amanda Nativida: so I do, I do have a, a social media calendar for Spark Toro, and I usually filled it in on Fridays, and it's even as simple as like, Here are some of the topics we have and at this point, because we have so much content built up at Spark Touro, a lot of it is repurposing. So I'll take some of our old tweets, rewrite some of our blog posts or aspects of our blog post into like 100 word snippets.

[00:31:48] that'll be part of it. Rand records a lot of video, so I'll schedule those into the calendar as well. I don't schedule or I don't automate a lot of it, or I automate very little of it. well, largely because the functionalities of like, Scheduling and Instagram are just not great, but LinkedIn is pretty good, so I'll schedule there.

[00:32:08] But this calendar is, it's mostly for me, right? It's mostly just so I stay organized so I stay honest to a deadline. And so that when I'm don't know what, what to do on a give a day, I can just look at the calendar and go the calendar and think, oh, I'll publish that thing. Great. Done. Um, so I, I can, I own that, manage that.

[00:32:26] Uh, Randy and Casey can see it. I don't even know if they look at it, but, but they can, they can look at that. and then as far as what I'm doing, like daily or weekly at Spark Toro,

[00:32:36] Trying to "ship something" every day
---

[00:32:36] Amanda Nativida: I try to ship something every day and ship something is pretty vague, right? It could be, a podcast appearance.

[00:32:43] That's the thing that I'm shipping today, like the thing. and then. In any gi in any given week, I have a longer project that I ship, basically, it's whatever work that takes me, like four to eight hours of dedicated time to do.

[00:32:57] I try to have that ready on Fridays, whether it's for publishing on Sunday or whether it's being like, oh, hey Brandon Casey, like I drafted all these automated emails. For our onboarding sequence, like that's the thing I'm shipping, that helps me stay productive in some way without beating myself up too much if I have a bad day and don't, don't feel that productive.

[00:33:20] Louis Grenier: what, what it sounds like is that you are, A talented copywriter, uh, and therefore also content marketer. And so you're able to create as well as plan and you're not just like strategy planning shit.

[00:33:33] No. You're doing both. So you're kind of a, you are definitely a, a CEO inside the startup when it comes to the, the content. That's what it sounds like. If you had a team you had to do fucking one-to-ones every week and whatever, you probably wouldn't be able to do this anymore.

[00:33:47] Amanda Nativida: Right, exactly. I mean, it is a very special kind of role that I'm in, in that, you know, I have a lot of autonomy. I get to make a lot of decisions like. Like a VP would, but I, I'm also very tactical, right? I'm writing blog posts, I'm writing email flows. I'm responding to customer support tickets, but all three of us are doing that stuff.

[00:34:07] Louis Grenier: when we summarize how you're able to do it, I think it's, it's also part of the context you're in, right? Like it's. Rand V 15 is obviously one of a kind. the aura that he has in the marketing world makes it, I think, easier for you to do your job as well because like he has so, so much trust and following that, you know, it's easier to amplify, right?

[00:34:26] You have huge advantages, competitive advantage, but it doesn't remove your, your talent, for being able to create shit and all of that. So actually that helps a lot to understand how you do it. what percentage of your time would you say you spend on like the big picture stuff?

[00:34:39] Like strategy and, and stuff like that.

[00:34:42] Amanda Nativida: Hmm. I would say maybe less than half.

[00:34:45] Louis Grenier: And so what does it mean then for you, like when I said word, word strategy and big picture? Like

[00:34:49] How to get most out of the content she produces?
---

[00:34:49] Amanda Nativida: yeah. Where I struggle to answer that is all the tactics that I do, I, I do through strategic lens. Like it's not, hey, write a blog post. Okay? The blog post is done. Whenever I write a blog post, it's, what can we get out of this blog post? Or maybe it's, what can we get outta this webinar?

[00:35:08] Right? I'm not just running webinars or running or writing blog posts or posting on social media. I'm always asking myself, well, what else can we get out of this? So like a couple weeks ago, we had. You know our good friend, Asia Agio, co-founder, our founder and CEO of Demand Maven, a growth marketing agency.

[00:35:25] Um, she, co-hosted an episode of Spark Toro Office Hours with me. talked all about growth, uncovering growth opportunities, jobs to be done, interviews. And like even went through a case study of one of her own recent clients. So great session, but I was already thinking like, well, what else can we get out of this?

[00:35:43] Right? Like as a, as a business. So then it became, all right, well, I. I have to send the follow up email that has the recording of, of course. But I really wanna send that when I have a blog post written, because I do wanna take all this and write it into blog post format, and so have these two things be very complimentary assets.

[00:36:02] So one, it's a blog post based on her session. And it's also nice for Asia, I hope, in that she doesn't have, she doesn't have to do extra work. and then I embed her presentation into the blog post that anybody reading it can get value from both because I didn't summarize the entire session. I took, I took parts of it, what I felt like were the most salient parts and wrote it into like, I think 1200 or 1300 words, much more in the video.

[00:36:26] It's like an, you know, it's like a 45 minute presentation, so it's quite long.

[00:36:30] Louis Grenier: how did you write this one for example?

[00:36:32] Amanda Nativida: so sometimes I use transcripts, but I've found that I do better or I'm faster in my work when I just take good notes during a

[00:36:40] Louis Grenier: Right.

[00:36:41] Amanda Nativida: and then I just come back to it later and flush it out. So I was able to write this pretty quickly. I made notes of like slides that I thought like, okay, great.

[00:36:49] I'll embed this slide in the blog post this, this is very visually appealing and also thought, oh, this is a good, I, I know this is gonna resonate with our audience, or they ask about this stuff, so I'll make sure to write about this. And then as I'm, you know, as I'm taking notes, I'm already thinking about like, okay, here's a general outline that I'm thinking of.

[00:37:05] It's gonna cover customer research, audience research, growth, bam. Like how, here's what you can do next. It was pretty easy and, and like, look, Asia makes it easy for me, right? Like she's the one who brought the original content. All I had to do was repurpose what she said.

[00:37:20] Louis Grenier: Yeah. Well, it takes skills to do that as well, to be able to, to identify what is important, what is, what is not, and, and write it. And you, you need to love the act of writing, even though no one really loves it. Loves it. It's

[00:37:33] Amanda Nativida: No, that's true. That's true. Because I think what I described also, there's, I'm sure there's somebody listening to this thinking, oh my God, I can't imagine anything worse than what

[00:37:41] she described.

[00:37:42] Louis Grenier: I mean, I, I mean, I love to write, but I hate to write and there's certain things I like to write, like small daily emails, but this kind of stuff, it just, I just can't do it. So I admire you for that. I told, um, my guest yesterday, that you were probably gonna be one of the biggest.

[00:38:00] I don't wanna use it, I don't wanna use the word influencer because we both know what, what, what it actually means. But you will become one of the biggest marketing source of influence, in the next a few years. Because of that, I think you have an intersection of skills that makes you extremely good, um, because you're a copywriter at heart, you know, journal is copywriter and you understand all of that.

[00:38:22] So, Yeah. I'm sorry. To give you a compliment, you were not expecting this one. I, I, I said I wouldn't, say more, but I do, I definitely have this kinda feeling that it's, it's very clear. So that's, I think that that explains all of it. And at the source of it, if I had to break down how you're standing out and how you're able to do all of this is really the.

[00:38:39] it starts with the, the writing, the, understanding of, each platform and making sure you create something native for each so that people stay there and, and you play the game of the platform as well as making sure that people like it and always thinking of repurposing and getting more juice out of it.

[00:38:53] Amanda's involvement in SparkToro's strategy
---

[00:38:53] Louis Grenier: just to go back to the strategy briefly, positioning, messaging, stuff like that. Right. Are you involved in that? Um, Yeah.

[00:39:00] Amanda Nativida: Yeah. So we do a lot of that together. I mean, ultimately Rand owns it right as the ceo. But we do have, like I'd say about quarterly or so in person meetings where we meet for a couple days and hash out a lot of the stuff. Uh, we also do rely on the help of some really talented consultants and agencies like Gia Loudy and Claire Troop, I forget the funnel.

[00:39:23] They've been really helpful for us in improving our onboarding sequences, so we rely on them. To help us with a lot of the strategy too. and then we implement it. We'll also be working with Asia Rangi, on some growth marketing. So I'd, I'd say like a lot of the strategy that we do is stuff that we do together.

[00:39:42] Uh, we decide on it together, we bring our points of view to the table and then. How we divvy it up kind of happens naturally or in an, in an obvious way. Like obviously all the tech stuff, like building things, Casey does that I guess for me and Rand, it's a little bit like things can kind of be split, split up however, but if it requires like much deeper, deeper knowledge of the product, then usually that's the thing he would take on.

[00:40:08] Or even if it's just whatever lends itself better to each of our respective worldviews or points of view or experience, then that also informs how we divvy up work.

[00:40:18] Louis Grenier: let me just, recap a few things that you said that I found incredibly interesting. you first talk about the nuances between. It's either good content or it's either shitty content, but actually no, there's an in between. You can do both. Like you can, you can attract eyeballs to, talk, like a fucking marketing guru and make it good.

[00:40:34] Right? and then you talked about your, your week Sunday meal prep. Um, Monday ramp up, no meetings, Tuesday, production days. Wednesday publishing, Thursday speaking days. Friday planning, patching content newsletter and stuff like that. and then, yeah, you mentioned you have your, those three notebooks on Evernote, like the info, the creator sparko, info is, tends to be the stuff that, information that you see that you, that you find really interesting.

[00:40:57] You're like, oh shit, it's that good. Uh, the create is more like ideas and stuff that pops into your head as well as the actual writing of things. And then specal stuff, I guess that's more like, everything else related to Specal. and then just to, to go back to what I asked you. You know, when I ask you are you, what makes you that good at writing?

[00:41:12] And I was expecting a well just experience answer, but you didn't. Uh, and you say, yeah, write for the person who don't, doesn't want to be there, which I think is very interesting as well as you get excited when you get to write about examples that no one else can. Give, either it's your own story or maybe someone like a company that no one has talked about.

[00:41:30] and you're not afraid not to post, which again is like testament to your experience. and you aim to, publish three to five times a week for your own stuff. And then you tend to ship one thing a day for Speco as well as a bigger project every week. And then strategy tends to happen with Rand every quarter also when you meet up.

[00:41:47] Amanda Nativida: Yeah,

[00:41:47] Louis Grenier: summary?

[00:41:48] Amanda Nativida: I think it is. I think it's great.

[00:41:50] Top 3 resources recommended by Amanda
---

[00:41:50] Louis Grenier: yeah, people like that, so that's why I do it, you know. Um, great. yeah, we're already past. The cutoff time, I could talk about, uh, about you. Yeah, I could talk about you for hours, but I could talk to you for hours as well. Um, so the last few question I tend to ask every guest, uh, what are the top three resources you'd recommend listeners today?

[00:42:09] Amanda Nativida: Uh, so I like to recommend some of my favorite resources are One Demand Curve. they're an agency but also a like education platform for marketers. They have a lot of really good, long blog posts, playbooks, and they also have a growth marketing course also. Great. So, Highly recommend that. Um, I also recommend, uh, grow Class where, uh, I think it's Grow Class, grow class.co, where, um, you as marketers, you know, can learn super discreet, um, tactics in within marketing.

[00:42:42] So it's not just like, here's how to do growth marketing. It'll be like, here's exactly what you need to know about Google Analytics Four. So super, um, specific things that's also helpful. And then the third one will be, Lenny Richey's podcast. Not that he needs extra eyeballs, but that's, uh, a podcast that I often listen to, to help me think about. Being the CEO of content, because that show is all about like businesses, growth, marketing, product, and I think understanding all of these things help marketers think more holistically about their work.

[00:43:16] How to connect wiwth Amanda
---

[00:43:16] Louis Grenier: Where can, uh, listeners connect with you, learn more from you.

[00:43:20] Amanda Nativida: I am. I'm on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram as Amanda Nat, so you can find me there. Um, you can also find my newsletter@amandanat.com and then Spark Toro. Check out Spark Toro to help you do better marketing and find your sources of influence.

[00:43:37] Louis Grenier: or your influencers, whatever you call them.

[00:43:38] Amanda Nativida: Yeah. Or influencers. Yeah.

[00:43:40] Louis Grenier: Fucking hate influencer as a term. Uh, yeah. Amanda, you've been great. Thanks so much for sharing all of those nitty-gritty details. Um, And yeah, it's, it's good to talk to one of my adults, you know, so,

[00:43:51] Amanda Nativida: Oh my gosh, Lily, I, I'm like,

[00:43:54] Louis Grenier: I'm fucking with you.

[00:43:55] I'm fucking with you.

[00:43:56] Amanda Nativida: thank God,

[00:43:59] Louis Grenier: All righty.

[00:43:59] Amanda Nativida: thank you for having me.