Transcript
Hey hey hey hello everyone this is the flow state podcast. today I’m joined by the wonderful Lotty Wiltshaw. Lotty hello welcome.
Hello thank you. I I enjoyed that hold music i was that was pretty fun.
Thanks very much of my own creation that one as well. You know just when I was supposed to be doing probably something more important but did that instead. I’m glad you’re enjoying it. It’s good good warm up good warm up. I feel like hold I feel like whole music is like we need more of it. It’s like it’s disappeared a little bit.
Do you know what it’s funny you say that because I was having a conversation with somebody about the classic old music tunes of the I think it was like mid to late 90s and then into 2000 to 2010. And then I found a load of videos on uh it was either YouTube or Instagram of people who’d recreated some of them with like an 8bit synth which was I enjoyed way too much to be honest. It was like amazing just reliving the horrible memories of being on the phone for them but yeah there’s not really much going on now is there. There’s no We haven’t really got any There’s no elevator no but no one’s on the phone anymore are they really? It’s all video it’s all video calls and how would you where would you put them? You’d have to Where would you put them just in a chat bar I guess. The chat box maybe that’s where they could come back when you’re trying to talk to a human and you’re just incessantly saying talk to a human and just into a little chat. You know hold video it’ be quite cool yeah. Maybe ideas there i do miss it a little bit as well. Could be a new business avenue there Steu. I hold that thought nobody steal that idea putting that in the box putting that in the box for later quick get it copyrighted.
So other than coming up with you know hold music based business ideas Loy as it’s your first time on the show give me a bit of an intro to well not me because I sort of already know what you do but introduce yourself. Who are you what are you doing what is Shop Blast Media all about tell me all the critical facts?
So yeah Shop Blast well we’re a content creation company based in Leeds in the UK. And possibly the greatest city in the world surely. Leeds some might say. Love love Leeds it’s a great city. Um but yeah we’re a sort of we’re a small team really sort of small and niche. So a lot of our work is primarily targeted around the industrial sector. So most of our clients are sort of industrial manufacturing engineering type companies. And we produce content for them. So obviously content for things like brand and awareness but obviously the other side of it is content for more internal communications. So all the typical health and safety type stuff but the interesting health and safety type stuff. So not the boring stuff that switches you off the more creative stuff. So um I like it yeah. It’s been um it’s been a blast really last 30 we’ve just celebrated our 13th birthday.
So I saw that yeah congratulations.
Thank you. So yeah we’re um Whoops we’re in our teen um er a now so it’ll be interesting to see what um what happens next really. I was sort of saying to someone the other day I was like I feel like when you start your business you have those sort of early volatile years when you’re starting and it’s like a baby you know coming into the world. And then you find your feet and you groove a little bit don’t you? And then ultimately now we hit the teens it’s like when you’re trying to grow and scale up and get to the next stage. I feel like we’re going to have more of that volatile state again so I see quite a lot of challenges coming up but you know it keeps it real keeps it interesting.
How you feeling about it given that you you know like the the 10 year mark I hear is a big one as well when you sort of break through that you know the decade? Are you um feeling good about your awkward teenage years as they’re coming up?
Yeah I mean we’ve set we’ve sort of really set a plan for some serious growth I’d say over the next several years. So we’ve you know w e’ve increased the team we’ve we’ve put in more resource we’ve upscaled of all all of our kit. We’re leaning into a lot of AI. We’re looking at a lot of new tech. You know we’re sort of exploring different technologies. So I think yeah I’m I’m excited. I think there’s a lot for us to learn and I think there’s going to be quite a lot coming into the our space that’s going to shake things up a little bit. We’re going to get some dystopia going on so it’s how you navigate that. But I think obviously once you’ve been in business 13 years you you have a you know you have a good reputation you’ve got a good client base. So ultimately um I think that should sort of set you set your stall out for the future and see see what it brings. So yeah I’m optimistic.
No I’m glad I’m glad to hear that because I’m uh you know obviously one of a few you mentioned a few things I’m keen to to dig into like around the whole creative world. But I think it’s nice to hear that you’re feeling positive about it because I’ve been a bit doom and gloomish about the whole um you know sort of encroachment of AI tools onto the world of the creative arts. And like I think you guys are in an interesting space where you’re blending together working with companies that make like very hardcore like real stuff in the manufacturing industry right which is like irreplaceable physical things that you can’t just be like “Oh computer can do that.”. Um but then obviously you guys are you know you’re communicating what is happening in a very much more intangible digital form that’s just like under under attack from a lot of different sides so. Um yeah I think first I guess first and foremost like how are you you know what is your current take on like AI tools and the way that they’re being used in your world at the minute? So I know you’re mainly video right but you’re still doing a fair bit of like photography as well or are you uh where are you guys at and how are you like how are you using it where are you seeing it sort of being helpful or possibly being not helpful at the moment?
Well it’s all video content creation. So there’s there’s photography that we we generally you know if we’re out to sites we’ll plug that in and bring in a third party generally to deliver that. I I think they’re definitely two different art forms of those. You know you get content creators and photographers and they are whilst you might have some of the same kit they are in their true creative sense they are separate um disciplines. I think with AI it’s it’s an interesting area. I think that there is a lot of concern within the industry and within the creative industries about where it’s going. But I I think that’s across the board in general. You know everyone’s like AI is going to take our jobs and you know yeah maybe maybe long term it will do. Um you know if you think about the point of you know this whole concept isn’t there a singularity and once AI reaches you know surpasses human levels of IQ where you know where’s the trajecto ry where does stuff go?
I think in terms of creative so much of life and what it means to be a human being is connection right. So it’s connection with people it’s connection with your audience. So at the heart of all content really, you know if you’re looking at things fundamentally around building trust it’s connection. So AI is a great tool. I think there’s huge benefits of using it. We use it a lot and we’re leaning into it very very heavily because it’s it’s coming full force so you have to fully embrace it. But I think if you’re confident in your sort of your understanding of content in the sense that is nuanced and it is storytelling and it is about human connection AI can’t replicate that. It’s it’s derivative right? So it learns from what it knows. So you know true creativity true authenticity true human you know feeling that’s that’s always going to sort of play a part I think and that’s that’s the human job is to facilitate that. AI is a great bolt-on for like speeding up your workflows putting in automations. It can do a lot of the the grunt work. And as time ticks on I’d like us to see how we can build AI agents particularly in postp production to you know do some of the grunt work instructed by us the humans. Um to sort of be able to speed up and add a lot more kind of value really to our client base. And then we come in and finesse. We do all the you know the nuance stuff all the creativity all the you know we know what it’s like to be human right because we are human. So how how is AI yes it could learn that in theory but you know if you’re talking about we get to this dystopia where you’ve got robots walking around and you’ve got people people whilst there will be people that go for the robots people are still gonna want people aren’t they really?
Yeah yeah yeah i’m I’m I’m with you there. I think like um there’s a few there’s been a few amusing examples of exactly what you’re talking about over the the past few conversations. Like someone was saying like you know we might get the Wall-E version of the future right where everyone just turns into a weird human blimp because you forget like you know it’s like the sort of Disney version of the Matrix I guess yeah. Um and I was like “Yeah maybe.”. That was pretty I mean it kind of became great i guess it’s bit of a you know happy sad film. But then someone else was just like obviously the classic Terminator Matrix view which is pretty depressing and fairly terrible. Um and then uh I was reading like I think I sent you a bit of this before we jumped on like you know the current um view of big tech in the US which is like funny and also a bit tragic in that I didn’t realize but like you know the reason that um US technology companies are trying to hoover in all of creative work from from forever is because they’re scared of China and they’re scared that they’re going to fall behind. Um which I was quite surprised about when you were like great so you want to continue to just steal everyone’s creative work becau se you think you’ll make less money seems to be the the general the general view there. Um but it’s reassuring to hear that you’re still you know I like the faith in just kind of look we can still use these tools to continue to be more human instead of like just becoming slaves to like weird robot workflow and artificially generated garbage basically which seems to be we’re going to get a lot of an alarming rate right?
Yeah it’s going to flood it is going to absolutely flood the market AI creative content. But so much so that I think people will get turned off to it because it’s not it’s not real. So whilst it can fulfill a lot of it can fulfill a lot of things and that’s why I very much see it as sort of a hybrid way of working. I think there’ll be space for both you know for sure. Um but where you really need to kind of build more brand loyalty and trust and credibility you you want to see people. You want to see stuff happening on sites. You want to see products. You want to see real things. And actually I think there might be more of a shift back to the long form content because one of the things I was listening to on a recent podcast they were talking about that. Um it was it was a Steven Bartlett one actually and he talked about when he presented on stage a lot of the time it was the streamers that got the biggest claps the biggest you know attention when someone entered the stage. And a lot of the time they’re streaming for what five six seven hours like a full day. People are obviously spending their time with these people and again it proves the connection point right? So it isn’t the really quick chopped form quick cut edits. It’s like the long deeper meaningful connection stuff. So I think I feel as long as there as humans on the planet humans are going to want connection because that’s Yeah that’s what we live for is connection at the heart of what we live for it is connection with each other.
That’s it yeah. So and look I mean I totally agree. I think and if you’re not doing that like what you know what are you even doing right? It’s it seems kind of futile to be uh you know just plugged into the internet 24/7 if it’s not to actually interact with each other right? And like I think um without getting too distracted on a rant about the the current state of the internet you just touched on something that I did want to ask you about which is um longer form content and building that. You know like you were saying just sort of building that um relationship and sort of the establishing trust with people and you know explaining the nuts and bolts of what you’re doing. Um well I have quite a lot of I don’t want to say trouble but it’s often I I’ll say challenging with a lot of the people that we’ve been working with over the past couple of years to get people to be bought into that like bigger narrative around things which is I find a bit of a shame because we work with a lot of like um quite complex software businesses which is um you know there’s parallels with like manufacturing in that a lot of them are very complicated to sell in like the you know the sort of very like involved behind the scenesy infrastruure ruury type products. So you need to kind of know a lot about how they work and what you want to do with them and there’s a long process to bring them into a to an environment and an infrastructure which seems ripe for me to do you know the kind of thing that I would imagine you guys would be doing right? Where if you go to a manufacturing client and they want to tell the story of some you know some weird thing that you don’t even know exists but supports like half of human life. You know like like what do you think about plumbing? You like nobody apart from plumbers nobody thinks about plumbing much unless it breaks right? But without plumbing we would just not have showers or baths or hot water or taps or whatever right? So a lot of work goes into maintaining that but you you know you and I you’d be like well water comes out of a thing tha t’s I don’t need to consider that any further right?
So um I did have a question at the start of this the the question I was going to ask you was when you’re approaching this with like you know with your clients and how you guys look at this like um how are you how do you approach sort of helping people to you know build those narratives around what they’re doing around a potentially quite boring you know product or application of something to say look like where is the you know the interesting human part of that? Because that’s kind of what we we are often struggling with with like the flow state clients as well is like they’re often you know software software right like only certain people get excited about it. So we’re like right but what’s the you know what’s the human side of this where’s the benefit for me like as a possible very much removed end user? Like how do you guys like approach that I guess is the Yeah it’s a good question. I think it’s all back to storytelling isn’t it if you want to get people bought into something you you’ve got to tell stories. Is trying to tell more stories around products and services and understanding I guess how the information is what type of information you want to get out there and ultimately then what format is it best going to be suited to. I mean obviously we’ve seen a lot of ar the rise recently of podcasts so this is all again is going back to that long form content isn’t it? It’s the thought leadership it’s it’s the opinions it’s the you know the full narrative around the piece. But again you know so much of it is is people are kind of not necessarily just talking about their products and services they’re just talking with more open interest and then you know telling stories. So that’s ultimately then how you build connection back with your audience and and thus a community around your business because ultimately I think that’s where the value for businesses is going to be. You know longer term with brand it is looking at you know the the community side.
There’s one thing that’s sort of trying to get the reach the impressions the attention following the trends doing the quick cut stuff to kind of hook and grab people and I think there’s a there’s a need for that in businesses as well. But again it depends what your positioning what your aim is what your ultimate objective is. Um you know it’s like I mean I I spent time last night I went out for dinner with a with a client. Now this client um he told me that we’ve known each other for 9 years and this is the first time I’ve met him in person.
Oh really physically brilliant physically in person.
We’ve worked on cool numerous projects together. And you know we had dinner we had you know we had 2 and 1/2 hours time sitting down and we talked about so many things a lot of things that I I that we just wouldn’t have talked about if we were in a different setting different location in an office on a call. And again it’s all it’s all linking back back down to that um connecti on side and that’s you know it’s just spending time with someone isn’t it? So yeah you know if if there’s ways of trying to look at how you can authentically do that through your content and capture some of that and capture people’s imagination by you know telling stories and and bringing them on a journey then ultimately they’re more likely to go you know what that company’s got a bit of something about them. They’ve got something that I like. I don’t know what it is it’s just a gut feeling. They might be able to help me with X Y and Zed. So it’s that’s kind of a long-winded way of answering your question but it’s I don’t think there’s one quite a long question there’s no right or wrong answer. I think it’s just looking at you know what works and what typically feels right.
You know yes and I think something in relation to that as well that I think is a current challenge which I’m keen to hear what you think about as well is like we’re and it’s a live conversation for us at the moment becaus e obviously you know running the podcast like is great because I like to talk and I like to talk to other people who like to talk so it works perfectly. But um we’re going through this at the moment where you know we need to sort of start doing more of the haven’t really done a lot of the you know shorter cut stuff. Like I really played the algorithm game in many social networks for a Well. Um mainly because it couldn’t really be asked and didn’t have to but now you know we’re in a similar position to you where sort of looking to scale the business a little bit you sort of have to start doing it. I don’t just want to throw loads of money down the digital advertising toilet because I don’t think you know at our stage it’s particularly useful. So the challenge we’ve got which I know we’ve spoke about briefly before as well is like um it feels a bit distasteful to me personally to have to then be like you know YouTube we know that shorts work really well. So now we have to be like you know from this this conversation how do we create a few you know sort of provocatively titled short videos that we can fire out so we can take advantage of like where YouTuber focused which is pushing like you know short form video because it’s you know what generates the money. Or you know with LinkedIn we spend a lot of time on there so how do we do more corporately boring stuff which is basically like Facebook from you know the 2010s now. So how do we how do we spin it for that is I find it quite hard reconciling our own um sort of brand position and how we want to represent our business and team with you know those formats where you have to be like look if we’re going to do this organically which is where we focus you have to sort of play the game a bit in those environments and unfortunately there’s no real way around that unless we want to just spend a ton of money like you know pushing our messages to people which we don’t want to do. So uh I guess my questions to you lot are do you think y ou know do you have the same feelings about it do you do you think that you know is that just sort of a bit of you know self um so what am I looking for here? You know is is that just like you just got to hold your nose and do it or is it an actual issue and it should be something you should be concerned about? You know as a as a team who do a lot of brand building stories yourselves like is that something you come across?
Yeah I mean we’ve really upped the game on that um side I would say more recently. Because obviously we’re in a fortunate position right as content creators we have a lot of content. We have all our clients content. We have content that we can create ourselves so we we’ve you know we’re surrounded by it. And I think recently we’ve had to sort of make a decision about what’s you know going to work best for us and ultimately I think so much of it is it is experimentation. I think people get too bogged down in making sure they’ve got everything and making sure it’s right before they before they get started. And this stuff takes so long particularly organic stuff it takes so long to build. So you’ve just got to get started. And I think the more again it’s back to the authenticity part the more authentic and raw and real it can feel the better really. I mean there’s there’s obviously there’s place for polish which is important. But you know when you’re talking about socials I think you’ve just got to you know I mean I release sort of try and release brand like personal brand content i’ve just started my own channels and try and do that every M every week and it is it’s literally I’ll have some talking topics and I’ll just talk. I’ll just say what I think and it’s not it isn’t rehearsed it’s not pre-planned it’s just my opinion on it. If people like it they like it if they don’t they don’t but it’s it’s unique to me because it’s me and my thoughts. And I think that’s what’s important for businesses as well is yes okay you’ve got you’ve got to have some understanding of you know what will work on Tik Tok versus what will work on LinkedIn is different from how it’s maybe cut edited packaged up. So yes there’s a sort of let’s say a template you’ve got to work to that’s going to help you if you want to push it organically. What you’re actually saying and doing I think you’ve you’ve got to find you’ve got to find your own vibe really. There’s no point trying to go oh well that worked for that company over there so we’re gonna we’re gonna do that one thing and kind of chase chase the trends. Let’s just take that we’ll take all really because no one knows no one can sit here and go “Oh yeah I’m going to make the the next trend piece.”. No one no one knows. They just they organically come out of nowhere because someone has thought you know what this is funny or it’s a moment or whatever it’s captured something that’s unique and then it’s obviously then gone viral and that’s you can’t really recreate that. You’ve just got to be real to yourself. And yes understand h ow can you position content so you know you’re not making content and that not putting it in front of the right audience. You know that’s important because otherwise it’s not going to work right? So you need to understand where your audience is. But the more you put out there and just get going with it the more the audience really is going to tell you what content it wants to see. Because you’ll find from the data and the stats. So that’s that’s what you have to check is look is look at the impressions look at the likes look at the comments look at you know what’s the information that’s coming back. And then you can start to find out what kind of things work. Like for us we know a lot of our behind thes scenes content works really well. People want to see production. They want to see real people with cameras on site. And you know we’re not plugging what we do we’re just showing people what what we’re doing and that’s of interest to people. Like that stuff always tends to outperform other things t hat we’ve done you know. So it is the more raw gritty you know this has been set up over here or that’s not quite worked out over there. We’ve given opinion on this over here because it’s just it’s just life. It’s just unfolding dayto-day stuff and that’s what people tend to like for us but everyone’s different. So you’ve just got to you got to put lots of bits out there look at the data look at what it’s saying understand the nuance between the platforms but ultimately be real in your approach be authentic to yourself.
I think that’s um you I mean you touched on a number of pieces of advice that I think are really like really sound there as well that. Um I’ve been given and you know have heard over the years which um are really interesting. So if I’m if I’m recapping you correctly as well like it’s just getting started number one is like the key thing right? Like I think um even winding way back to my SEO days of like you just got to do stuff and then see if it works or not. Like I’ve I’ve spo ken to so many people who just can’t get over that like first hurdle of oh I might look a bit stupid or say something and someone might disagree. And like I know we’re in a very um highly how would you describe it like volatile um environment at the moment online with online discourse. But I like you said I think if you have an opinion you can stand by it like people may well disagree it’s not it’s fine. You’re not hopefully going to be you know killed over it. Like you might get shouted down from idiot who just spend all their time on the internet but like who who cares.
Well there’s trolls everywhere aren’t there? It’s that’s life you know.
Exactly yeah. And like you would hope most people would be reasonable enough to disagree with some useful commentary and not just something stupid. But um yeah I think that’s a really interesting one and and to your point like yeah just I think people seem very afraid to just test stuff as well. Like I know it’s can be a bit scary when it’s got your ow n face or possibly brand attached but I’ve just found like you know you’ve got to not be afraid of looking like an idiot every now and then to get anywhere. Um because if you are too scared of a bit of embarrassment you you know you’re only ever going to sort of achieve whatever you’ve achieved and stay in whatever state you’re in right? Like there’s no way to really progress anywhere without doing something stupid every so often. Um which you know you may well disagree with but I think you know no it’s it’s got where I am by doing several stupid things so far i can stop doing them now.
Yeah and you’ve got to you just got to start somewhere. I went to a conference it was back in April and it was this woman was talking about how she built so she had a massive social following and um the content she she was putting out was amazing. But she she showed everyone in the conference the first video that she put out and it was super basic pretty cringy. Um you know and she played it and it’s sort of l ike you look at that and you you know you see here this is like eight years eight eight years down the line of of consistency and building on you know her own platform and it’s just a lot of hard work. And obviously you know online you get a lot of the the polished finished article when you see a lot of established you know established sites and and and channels and platforms. And You know it’s and I think that is what puts people off because they go well I can’t be anything i’m never going to be that. But they might be but it’s understanding it’s it doesn’t happen overnight it it takes time. It’s like if you’re going to the gym right you you know you start training it it’s two three four years down the line until maybe you’ve you’ve changed your entire physique. It takes a lot of effort and hard work over and over and over again. So yeah the key thing it is it is and you hear it all the time is just getting start started. And Steven Bartlett his his quote to quote him he said embarrassment is the cost of entry and it’s so true. It is true that is the cost. But if you can get around that and just think well you know you’ve got to work on your own agenda then go for it. What have you got to lose?
Well that’s it right? And like Steven is an interesting one actually because I’ve um I remember like first listening to his um before he before anybody he even heard of social chain. You know and he he’s a great example where he on his early podcasts I remember him saying don’t direct quote me on this that he used to record them like with his phone like under a duvet in a cupboard or something like when he first started probably yeah. He was like you know super basic just recording a little you know sort of well diary which is what it was. Um and I remember one of his early ones he was saying like he was walking down the street like you know just filming I think himself or something or recording something it was like people you know looking over and being like what the fuck is this guy doing? But he was like you just like you say you just got to do stuff that other people either are either afraid to do or haven’t thought of doing. Um and you know he’s look at what he’s grown from just following following his I mean obviously he’s intelligent enough to know what he’s doing right like grew social chain. But um yeah like that that basic starting point everyone’s essentially got a multimedia mini studio in their pocket now. Like it’s not like there’s any shortage of the tools. Like if you’ve got a smartphone it’s got a pretty decent set of cameras and an all right microphone and like it’s not hard to find a quiet room is it? So um yeah i think a lot of so many of the barriers to entry have been removed. Like and as you would well know being in in um you know film and video production like that go back 10 20 years it used to be mad expensive to even consider getting into film right? Whereas now you’re like just pull your phone out your pocket great. Do one of those crap shaky hand videos that are on the news all the time people who don’t seem to be able to like point anything in one direction but like it’s it’s all it’s all there now it’s true it is.
Sorry that was a bit of a tangential rant there about the poor quality of casual observers of events but um yeah I think um coming back to what you said there lot like I think um just about getting started and getting moving. Like how do you find um coming back to that you know founder content putting your own face in front of the camera point do you find um that you guys are doing more of the you know your standard more corporate approach to filming where it’s more just as you were saying before showcasing the people the processes products whatever people are doing or are you doing some more of that more personal people driven stuff is it a bit of a mix? Like how are you what’s the you know what’s all that look like for you guys at the moment?
It’s it’s a blend. So the the personal branding stuff for me I think we only set up two months ago so the Okay so my personal brand channels are really really very much in their infancy. So we’re still looking at kind of what’s working on those. But I you know again we’ve had really good feedback so far good traction. There’s there’s a couple of contacts and you know potential projects I think that have come out of that just in the last sort of eight weeks of people that you know I’ve met from a while ago that have seen more of that stuff and then reconnected. So that in essence that’s it’s early conversion it’s showing that it’s working. I think with the the brand stuff um a lot of that’s being delivered by the team. So we have a lot of the team involved in terms of you know presenting different bits of information. There’s behind the scenes stuff. We talk about jobs that we’ve done. We celebrate successes. We look at milestones. You know capturing office daily site life. You know it’s it’s a little bit of a blend yeah. It’s a blend of of different things but again I think you know we we know as well again you can look at the stats of past businesses where there is founder or director brand content alongside a brand it does p it personalizes the brand right? So that loops all the way back round to connection. Because people are going to connect with a person with a feeling. You know versus you know I mean obviously people connect with a brand but you know to establish a brand is so much about you know a movement and community and being associated to that and that that takes time. And it depends what kind of industries you’re in as to how much of that that you’re truly able to build. You know like Apple Classic, you know but again Steve Jobs he he was so alongside it. So it’s you know Virgin we we’ve seen it over and over again where if the founders are very very present i think it gives the brand a lot more meaning. It humanizes it and I think that’s important. So yeah I it’s something really that I know I’ve needed to do for a while and I’ve put off becaus e embarrassment is a cost of entry. You know you’re just like no do I have to? But you know again if we’re advising clients right? So you know this is about me practicing what we preach. It’s like okay well I can’t talk to a client about you know let’s set you up with a channel and we could do some of your content like this if I’m not doing it if I haven’t got anything to show for myself. So I think it’s important because obviously that builds you know more social proof in terms of what you’re doing. And obviously then you’ve got the potential to say well actually this already in eight weeks has generated this amount of business for us. It’s converted this so we know it works even in a a really small following so far. You know it’s it’s having a positive impact so we just got to kind of keep building on it really.