What makes video a growth engine?

Knyckolas Sutherland (00:02) I saw a post recently that said like the same response, 10 minutes out versus an hour out versus a day out versus a week out is gonna have a hugely different impact, right? And so you really wanna be on top of those things. Ben Ard (00:38) Welcome back to another episode of content amplified today. I'm joined by Knyckolas Knyckolas. Welcome to the show. Knyckolas Sutherland (00:43) Hey Ben, sounds good. Thanks for having me. Ben Ard (00:45) Yeah, Knyckolas, I'm excited. This is going to be a fun conversation. But before we dive into the subject for the day, let's get to know you. Tell us about your background, all that kind of fun stuff. Catch the audience up on who you are. Knyckolas Sutherland (00:57) Yeah, for sure. So a little bit about my background. I, in college, ⁓ you know, focused on a lot of different different types of studies, focused on things like material science engineering for a while. I was working in different types of labs, but really wanted to get more into the people space. I was tired of just beakers and furnaces. And so I actually ended up majoring in cognitive science concentrations in linguistics and behavioral economics. And that took me into the crypto blockchain space, a lot of different types of companies I've worked with. like data routing companies, data storage companies, most recently crypto infrastructure. organizations and I really got into the B2B space because I think as a consumer I really love you know consumer marketing and growth but B2B was always a little bit opaque to me and you can't really participate in B2B unless you're one of the B's and so it was really interesting for me to ⁓ hop into the space. I've primarily worked at like pretty like a relatively small organizations like for me 300 person company is big. I was talking to a friend recently who works at Citi and he said that they have like 200,000 people and I was like that sounds like a country so I don't know I can manage that kind of thing but I've worked in teams where I was the second higher up to companies that have worked at like that are 250 people so when it comes to the ⁓ content game and my take on it I'm very like hands-on used to being pretty you know high quality but like relatively lower budgets and really thinking about the customer and the focus on the types of individual stories that can make an outside impact. Ben Ard (02:32) I love that. That's awesome. Well, Knyckolas, when it comes to content, there's so much going on nowadays. You've had such good experience. You focused on the B2B side. Where's your mind at right now? Like, what are you really focused on today when it comes to content? Where does that really naturally lead you? Knyckolas Sutherland (02:50) Yeah, I think for me, some of the things I've thought about recently in this year is sort of, I think, capitalizing on existing trends, thinking about what's already moving on the timeline on socials, combining that with education, right? And so I've done a good amount of stuff with surveying, whether that's nationally in America or ⁓ also outside, know, globally. ⁓ really finding ways to, especially in the B2B space, educate the decision makers at some of these companies that are in the C-suite, director, VP level, and really putting into their hands, especially in the types of industries that I work in, which are very opaque to the people on the exterior and specifically within crypto, there's been a move within the past two years specifically into getting outside of the crypto bubble and making this more palatable and understandable for wider audiences. And so I think a lot of it is how can you be very specific and curated with the content that you're creating and thinking about the types of form factors that will really, really pop off on the timeline. And so I've done stuff that's very specific or very story-driven that really speaks to the use cases and the people behind it with B2B. Sometimes you can get lost in the spreadsheets and the bottom lines, but really at the end of the day, what you're trying to do is improve people's lives. And so if you can get down to the bottom of those things and really make it curated for one person, I think that's the kind of content that'll break through. Ben Ard (04:17) I love that. That's so cool. So at the very beginning you mentioned kind of following some trends and then also creating content for people. How do you find those trends and how do you know if it's appropriate for your business to follow those and do it in appropriate way? I mean, obviously there are really like cringe worthy opportunities to do that, but how do you kind of find and optimize those in the proper way? Knyckolas Sutherland (04:29) Ha Yeah. Yeah, for sure. think the best way to find and know what everyone's talking about is just to be terminally online. And so like you kind of have to be a little bit plugged in. I think really the thing to note, because it's probably too easy or too obvious to just be online and on your phone all the time, is like knowing when to plug out or how to be intentional about those things. And so you really want to be following the tastemakers, be following the people that are usually on these trends. ⁓ I saw a post recently that said like the same response, 10 minutes out versus an hour out versus a day out versus a week out is gonna have a hugely different impact, right? And so you really wanna be on top of those things. And then the second part of that question I think is to know whether something's appropriate, you really have to understand your brand and also your customers, right? And so not only... who are you currently and obviously your brand should be a reflection of your customers and their tastes as well, right? To make sure that those things align. But if you as like the head content person, head marketer should really have an idea of where those boundaries are and how much you can play with those things, right? And so if you're, I saw something recently with Sam Altman doing an interview and he was talking about the trade-offs between something that's great for growth versus something that's great for the organization or society at large. And he took a jab at Grok saying that, hey, we're probably not gonna get into making like sex bots. And that's probably okay for him because they have a very joking and very culturally immersed brand, right? But if you're working with financial institutions, And you probably don't want to come across and be pushing that type of content out to the masses. so I think understanding what space are you in? What are you responsible for? At the end of the day, organizations like that have a big responsibility and affect people on a big emotional level. But it's like, hey, are you responsible for people's health data? Are you responsible for people's finances? And they're going to expect a different level of respect and control and consciousness in your responses that I think is crucial for you to be aware of. And so I think that it's interesting being in a no-holds-barre environment where you can just let things hit the wall. But I think it's also really interesting to, ⁓ I think people say creativity thrives within boxes, because then you really know, ⁓ cool, I can't go outside of these lines. And so really well defining those lines early on before. the event or the trend happens so you can work fast. It's probably my golden rule, right? You don't wanna be discussing it right before you hit send. You wanna know before you even write it. That's okay. That's probably not right. And this one's right on the borderline, which is probably where the magic happens. Ben Ard (07:27) Yeah, I love that. And I've always loved the phrase, you know, creativity loves constraints and all that. I 100 % love the boxes and all of that. When you look at trends, I feel like there's two buckets and maybe there's more than I'm not thinking of, but at least there is current news that applies to your industry, things like that, you know, regulations, news articles, you know, common events. And then there's actual trends and content itself. There are themes and formats and things of that nature. Knyckolas Sutherland (07:32) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ben Ard (07:55) Are you for a business to business? you more focused on kind of the format or kind of the cutting edge news, the information for those kinds of trends that come out? Knyckolas Sutherland (08:06) I would say it probably has to be 50-50. If you really want to be on the ball, you have to be watching the space and seeing what the other best of the best are doing and start incorporating that into your core competency. Right, like if you know, and I think that's more on a quarterly basis, you don't wanna be saying, hey, can we do animated video? mean, that might be played out, that might be new for some people, like, you don't wanna be like, the day something pops on the news saying like, hey, can we use VO3 to generate artificial intelligence videos? That's not the way you wanna be doing that. So think like quarter to quarter, you wanna be like, okay, cool, let's add this to our toolbox. And then day to day be. on the trends and also I think ⁓ anticipating when things are coming down the pipeline, right? example, in Myspace, there's a lot of influence between like the legislative happenings that are coming down the pipeline. Those are things that don't just happen spur of the moment, but do make a big news flash when they finally do cross the finish line, right? And so you can sort of prepare that piece of content for when it eventually does happen and then have it ready and rolled up and dolled up, ready to go. And so I think that's the way I would think about it is like, hey, do you anticipate, do you test new form factors of content? I mentioned earlier, like, survey data and getting that direct from the source and being able to help executives understand, like, you know, word on the ground where they're going to be able to see best efficacy of rolling out new products, right, that might be relevant to your business. Seeing and testing that in 2024 showed us that that was something that was like very, was moving the ball along, right, and we were able to create loads of different types of content from research reports to small infographics that would go up online. So that's a really efficient way to collect a lot of data and then disseminate it in multiple different ways. You can put that into a video, put that into a single little piece of artwork, you can put that into a long case study, send that out to loads of different people. But then you wanna also be able to roll that out if there's a big announcement or a new product release from your team or if a new piece of legislation is made within a specific vertical that you've done a survey in. And so I think that's the way I would think about those content formats. think content trends maybe is a little bit different, right? Because there's form factors for content, but then there's just also the language that you use, the specific types of parlance, specific types of like, hey, this is the new meme for how we say this in a text way. And those, think, are a little bit ⁓ easier for you to... stay nimble on and evolve with. And I think that there it's really important to have a agile, efficient team, really great communication and back and forth between creative and have dedicated resources that are on demand for that kind of thing. And a team that understands that, hey, time is of the essence when it comes to getting some of these things out. And so that's sort of in my head. where I think about these things and I think also just being creative, right? So like, you don't always have to like follow the trends. How can you be a trailblazer and sort of like put things out? How can you sort of like break the mold or combine two things that are happening and put them together in an interesting way. Ben Ard (11:14) Yeah, I love that. So with the timely nature of this content, like you said, it matters so much between one minute, five, 10, an hour a day a week. Do you feel like the boxes that you talked about earlier about here is what we can and can't do allow you to move faster and kind of avoid some of the approvals and things like that? How do you like it? Cause in a business, a lot of times there's a lot of checks and balances. There's a lot of issues and it feels like if you have really well defined boxes of Knyckolas Sutherland (11:17) Yeah. Ben Ard (11:42) Here's what we can post without approval. Here's the guidelines. Everyone feels comfortable with it. It seems like you might be able to move faster. Have you found that to help? And if not, what other tools have allowed you to kind of really take advantage of a timeline and a circumstance where people kind of like to have approvals and a little bit of a process. Knyckolas Sutherland (12:02) Yeah, I think it really depends on the organization. know, some places you can put a toe over the line and pull it back, you know, and apologize and move forward. Some places where you just can't, right? And those industries and those companies grow in a slightly less meteoric way as a result, right? You probably don't want your Financial infrastructure organization going viral too often, right? You probably want that to be a pretty steady growth. Whereas if you're working with like a CPG brand or a brand that works in a slightly different ⁓ space, yeah, we'll take that quick hit of popularity and attention and we'll try to convert as many of those customers as possible and get those followers in. And so I think sometimes the box is, hey, no, this needs to go through compliance. because we need to make sure that this has all of the right legalese that goes out with it. And I think some companies are willing to move quickly and take that risk because it matches their business model. But I think that all comes down to strategy and understanding your space and understanding your team. metaphor that comes to my mind is like, sometimes the marketing team is a little bit of, like has a little bit of a handcuff on them. But like, that's why, you know, it's fun to go watch an escape artist because, you know, like it wouldn't be anything without the handcuffs, right? And so like, if you can make it happen in that type of environment, then you can probably make it happen anywhere. And I don't think that ⁓ it's less interesting because of it. You know, sometimes you'll play, sometimes your drills for ⁓ like basketball is like, hey, we're only using our left hand today. and that's just gonna make you better in the long run. And so I would look at it less as like a hindrance and just more of like a context of the business itself. Ben Ard (13:42) That's an awesome mentality. think that's so cool. I love your way of looking at it. So we're running out of time. We're getting close to the end here. It goes by fast. Knyckolas, I want to shift gears just a little bit. In the pre-call, you had mentioned that you had a post recently go viral. How did you make that happen? Talk to us through that process. I'd love to hear that story. Knyckolas Sutherland (13:55) Yeah. So on this one, and feel free to cut this if it's not relevant, because this one was less of this is more on the personal side. But I think this was and is more I think like on the type of content I'm making for like, like music and like stuff outside of the B2B space. But I think recently on TikTok and IG, I had over a million views and like like a lot on like since this past Friday, so past four days and it was a post for I'm gonna send it to you. I'll send it to you on LinkedIn. Yeah, no, % it's good. But pretty much the post and I have notes on this because I've been sort of like trying to collect in my brain like what are the pieces like because you're trying to like learn the algorithm remain true to yourself but also and the message that you're trying to push out but once you see something Ben Ard (14:29) It's legit. I want to see this. Yeah. Knyckolas Sutherland (14:47) I think sometimes people will be, there's a little like a voice in the back of your mind if you never really have hit that like stratospheric like, ⁓ cool, like something's really gone. You're like, is this mic on? Like, what am I doing here? But then when you finally get something popped, there's like a feeling of like, yeah, cool, awesome, like this works. And then a slight like sobering feeling of like, wait, then like all the other content actually just was not working. know, like I actually have to be better. And so this post was silly. was like my friend asked me to sub for his soccer team. I play soccer a lot in Bushwick, in Brooklyn. And he was like, oh yeah, wear a pink shirt. Like we wear it. like, I have like a couple of like band t-shirts. I was like, I don't have anything pink. And I was like, oh yeah, I'm pretty sure I have like a band t-shirt. Like from the artist, pink. I went to my closet, pulled it out and it was like gray and like had like a couple flecks of pink on so I like, whatever, I don't have anything. Went to the field and like, made a quick little like TikTok, IG video out of it of like, filming the team, filming like the other subs that had properly worn like proper shades of pink and then just me looking like confused and people like loved it. Like I put like her, one of her like audios in the back of it saying like, I've made mistakes before and like, know, stuff like that. And it was, was loads of people being like, oh, he's, understood the assignment and that kind of thing. And I've never seen, like every time I open my phone, it's like, like, like 50K more likes. And it's just flying. But now I have to go back to the drawing board and be like, OK, cool. What am I doing next? Green Day? What's going to be the next thing that pops? I think just experimenting with personal stuff, personal content, also is some of the ways that as B2B marketers, we can take the edge off of, oh, we're not allowed to go post whatever we want for our B2B business. what saying? You can flex your creative skills and then get stuff out there like that. Ben Ard (16:23) Well, I think it's a perfect example of someone who's obsessed with understanding how the algorithms work, how people work. I mean, it's all an algorithm and algorithm is for like a platform. People have algorithms inside themselves about what they find interesting and want to engage with. But like you said, like the idea of diving into a subject. So fully being a part of that, that's how you find these opportunities to really make a splash in your space. Knyckolas Sutherland (16:30) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ben Ard (16:50) And that might be in B2B that might be in your personal stuff. It doesn't matter. think there's just really this nature. was saying, okay, cool. Like I really need to ingrain myself. And I thought it was so cool that you said, well, I kind of have to reevaluate all my content now because none of it popped off before, but this is what really hit home. Okay. Maybe I didn't have the right picture of what my content should be like. Now I really need to know and take those insights. And so if you haven't had those moments, Knyckolas Sutherland (17:03) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ben Ard (17:17) for business or personal content that is like the perfect call to please experiment more because you haven't quite found it yet, you know. Knyckolas Sutherland (17:19) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. Yeah, it's all a learning game. And it's, I love ⁓ content and marketing just because it's such a big combination of, hey, how can we be creative? How can we, you know, bring joy to people? How can we get attention? And then right after that, I'm diving through the analytics and seeing, yeah, cool. When was the drop off rate? When is the, you know, so that's why it's such an interesting and fulfilling ⁓ career space for me and hopefully many others. Ben Ard (17:48) Yeah, I love it. Awesome. Well, Knyckolas, we have run out of time. Thank you so much for your insights. This is absolutely amazing. For anyone who is listening and wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you? Knyckolas Sutherland (18:00) Yeah, for sure. My name is a little bit funny to spell, it's K-N-Y-C-K-O-L-A-S Sutherland, S-U-T-H-E-R-L-A-N-D. Pretty easy to find given such a unique name. So look me up on LinkedIn, look me up on Twitter, on X.com, and feel free to reach out. I would love to bounce ideas and learn from more people. Ben Ard (18:22) love it. For anyone listening, Knyckolas's contact information will be in the show notes. So just scroll down, click there and connect with Knyckolas. Again, this has been amazing. Thank you, Knyckolas. I am so grateful you were able to record with me today. I love your approach to content and thank you for sharing with the audience. Knyckolas Sutherland (18:38) Appreciate you Ben, thanks for having me. Have a good one.