The Miner: Issue 3

Hello beautiful people! It's time for your weekly dose of OMG, LOL, and WTF in influencer marketing.

Can I be really real for a second? These are hard AF to make. The amount of coal I have to dig through to bring you gems is unreal. People just type up trash and post it on the internet. This whole thing is an unmitigated disaster (bonus points if you got that reference.)

So when you're done reading this if you could email it to a friend or share on social, that would be amazing. You could also buy me a coffee. Disclaimer this isn't real coffee, but the concept is pretty cool.

It's been a while, so let's get into it. The FTC guides makes this issue a longer one, but it's worth it!

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

💎 The big news in influencer land is the FTC FINALLY updated their new guidelines. While you absolutely must read the full guide (it's only eight pages so no excuse) here are some key takeaways:

• You must make it obvious when you have a material connection with a brand. That means there's a personal, family, employment or financial relationship. Whether you get paid cash money, free products/discounted services, or it's your best friend's company, that should be super clear from your post.

• Tags, likes, pins, shares, etc. are endorsements for a brand or products. I don't like this, but that's what the guides say so co-sign with care.

• Disclosures must be hard to miss. Don't add it after the caption break, don't mix it in with a bunch of hashtags, make audio and visual disclosures, and repeat them often if there's a live stream.

• You DO NOT have to use #ad. I mean WHAAAAAAT? Take that Mark and allegedly suppressing our content based on hashtags. There's a lot of sample language but simply saying thank you X for collaborating with me on this video/post/story looks like enough.

• Don't lie. It seems like common sense, but they dedicated a whole page to it so...

• Pretty much it should be impossible for someone to consume your content and NOT know it was an ad. People try to be slick but don't do it. The FTC will make an example out of you and then you'll end up in this newsletter.

💎 YouTube wants creators to get on board with COPPA. The news drop was scary and confusing but it really only applies to creators whose content appeals to audiences under 13. Sure anyone might like your haul, but unless you're doing it a Journey's you're probably in the clear. If your kid is hosting the video then they're talking to you. You have until 2020 to comply but as it shakes out I'll update you.This video is a good place to start.

💎 The influencer landscape is changing. Your content doesn't need to be beautiful, comments matter more than follower count, finding your tribe is has never been more important, and if you're a man or an old lady now is your time. I absolutely loved this post from Mae Karwowski of Obvious.ly and the whole Follow Me series from The Cut.

💎 Made.com opened a showroom for influencers to take photos in. This is very similar to Village Marketing's penthouse in NYC. Brands are FINALLY starting to understand what makes for a win-win situation. You don't have money for me to post about that chair but you'll give me a free hour in a dope apartment to take whatever photos I want? I'm in.

💎 Jade Sherman is a bomb.com agent and was featured in INFLUENCER. She's the youngest partner at Abrams Artists Agency and also made Business Insider's list of top 18 talent agents for YouTubers. (Full disclosure, AAA was my first job, I'm signed with them for INFLUENCER and I've given Jade a LOT of money lol. But we've had a meal together and text often so we're actually friends IRL.)

GOLD MINE

💰 There are four main paths to becoming a multimillionaire and it's no surprise that the fastest is also the hardest. I was on path two and Alexander was on path three, but now we're both on path four and it's the best.

💰 Whether you're creating content or a product/service people are always telling you to "niche down." There's a difference between a niche product and a niche market and the niche down doesn't have to be permanent. But regardless of your niche you need to diversify your revenue stream. Here are the six models you should know.

💰 I absolutely love Freddie Harrel. If you are not following her you should. But I am super excited to see that her new company Radswan is being positioned as the Glossier of the black hair market. She crowdsourced information from her audience to build her company and it's paying off big time. Counting down the days until she hits unicorn status.

💰 The happiest I've ever been is right now and that's because my business flows with my lifestyle. It's less about balance and more about a wholistic approach. Stephanie Perry's job kept declining her requests so she quit. Love how she kept up her new lifestyle.

💰 Tax season is already waving at us from across the street. If you want to know how you can deduct your influencer expenses this is a good primer.

💰 Kylie went and sold 51% of her business to Coty for $600 million dollars. That family is a freaking machine and I want them to adopt me. Coty then turned itself around and is up for sale. Unilever is one of the big names checking them out. With this plus the LVMH/Tiffany news, everyone should be ready to update their pitch address books.

BLACK LUNG

⚫ It's flu season so it seems logical that Walgreens would run a campaign around flu shots. $200 for something you were probably going to do anyway? Sign me up. But we all know the internet has no chill and anti-vaxxers were doing the absolute most. Guys it's #sponcon. Is NOTHING sacred anymore?

⚫ Clemmie Hooper was tired of the haters so she created a secret account to fight back. But in classic shero-goes-to-far-and-becomes-the-villain style she got caught up, started attacking other influencers, and blew her cover. In INFLUENCER I asked the icons how they dealt with haters. Clemmie definitely needs a refresher.

⚫ You know the scene. You have your personal item and your carry on because you refuse to pay to check your bag. But when it's time to board the overhead compartments are full and the airline offers to gate check your bag. What they don't tell you is that they're not responsible for your valuables since you didn't check you bag the standard way and gate checked bags are the most likely to have items stolen from them. Umm yeah. No thanks.

⚫ Mommycon San Diego was yesterday but a ton of vendors were missing after learning the estranged husband of the founder was charged with possession of child pornography. There's so much to unpack from that statement alone but that's not what I want to focus on here. When you add people to your business, whether they're friends, family or strangers you employ, you sadly become responsible for their actions. In today's cancel culture you have to be VERY careful. She was estranged from her husband and this STILL came back to bite her in the ass. She'll recover but your business may not. Stay vigilant.

That's it for this week's edition of The Miner. Don't forget to join the Carbon August facebook group and get your community on.