FaintFlex Vol. 6 - YouTubers Join the Podcast Wave 🌊
Expect to see more podcast networks backing emerging digital stars.
YouTube Star & Social Media Personality Emma Chamberlain (via Instagram)
FaintFlex is a newsletter covering new media & personality-driven startups.
The number of YouTube stars & personalities expanding into hosting their own podcasts has skyrocketed since last summer.
It’s a natural transition for young personalities to grow with their maturing audiences by incorporating more substantive, “talk show” style content to supplement their hit-driven YouTube channels.
And the success of Joe Rogan’s podcast proves that it can be a very lucrative career move.
The latest internet star to join the wave is Emma Chamberlain, a 17-year old YouTube personality who grew to 1 million subscribers in less than a year (2017-2018). She’s since grown to 7.4 million by posting multiple lifestyle vlogs, fashion lookbooks, and skits to her channel each week, in addition to her viral Twitter commentary.
Chamberlain’s new weekly podcast is titled Stupid Genius, where she asks herself a puzzling question each episode like “Why do onions make us cry?” and gives herself three chances to guess the right answer.
I listened to her first 30 minute episode which aired this week, and it’s a mix of comedy & education. I have a feeling her fans will tune in more so for her commentary, than for the questions per se (which can be easily Google searched).
Regardless, it’s interesting to see her evolve into a podcast host so early in her YouTube career - a trend we will continue to see play out.
Who’s behind the production?
United Talent Agency (Chamberlain’s agent) formed a podcast network for digital stars last summer called Ramble, in partnership with Cadence13.
As more digital stars consider expanding into podcasts, I expect to see more podcast networks like this emerge to support them.
Media Companies are Influencer Accelerators
Ellie Schnitt is a Barstool Sports blogger and host of her own weekly girl-talk podcast titled Schnitt Talk. Prior to launching her podcast last October, Schnitt was a recent college grad and micro-influencer with 64k Instagram followers and 280k+ followers on Twitter.
In just 6 months after starting Schnitt Talk with Barstool, Schnitt has grown to 101k Instagram followers and 328k on Twitter - an asset she can leverage for opportunities beyond Barstool.
If I were to compare startups to creators, I’d classify digital media companies as the accelerators for micro-influencers. It can be harder for smaller creators like this to scale their content & followings by themselves.
However by tapping into the greater Barstool platform, knowledge, & resources, all Ellie has to do is focus on creating great content that resonates to realize growth.
There are a number of unique mid-tier YouTubers who would thrive with the platform of a larger, aligned media company. One that comes to mind is 22 year old Sudanese-American fashion, beauty, & travel vlogger Shahd Batal.
The FaintFlex Radar 🚨
Alyssa Coscarelli (pictured above) is a former Refiney29 fashion market writer who just quit her job to focus on her influencer career full-time.
Ex-journalists turned influencers are always interesting to me because they’re a bit more professionalized and have a general understanding of how larger digital media companies operate. They’re also forced to create real valuable & engaging content consistently without the crutch of relying on their physical attractiveness.
Let’s not forget that Emily Weiss was a fashion contributor for Teen Vogue and W Magazine before launching Into the Gloss and Glossier.
Michaela Okland (pictured above) is a popular comedic Twitter personality & founder of the social media account @SheRatesDogs - a safe space for women to share laughable experiences in the dating world. She started the account in December 2018 and it already has 201k followers on Twitter.
Similar to Kofi McCalla, I always pay attention to creators that can build personal followings, as well communities around things that are an extension of their identity.
You can tell by looking at the SheRatesDogs mission statement that Michaela is very thoughtful about using her platform to build something meaningful and has expansion projects in the works.
One fun future thing we’re working really hard on right now is figuring out how to do branded pepper spray, which is the product I really want to pair with a nonprofit for women. I also want to start adding video content. There’s a lot more I wanna do with SheRatesDogs, but there’s also a lot more I wanna do as myself!
-Michaela Okland in an interview with Adolescent
She’s friends with other personalities like Ellie Schnitt and ex-Vine star Sara Schauer, and will be graduating from Arizona State University this year with potential plans to move to LA. Definitely one to watch.
Interesting Reads
5 Tips every brand can learn from toy & entertainment companies.
Which companies are likely to spawn new media mafias?
Lil Nas X has crowdsourced his first album from fans (album art, song snippets)
Social commerce in the U.S. appears to be picking up beyond Instagram.
Could this be the next launchpad for up and coming YouTubers?
Influencers are using Escapex to directly monetize their super fans.
Select Management & Next 10 Ventures should have been included to the Influencer Incubator Landscape I published last week. Let me know who else should be on my radar. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful weekend!
- Aaron