Iris Coker and Betina Goldstein: Not All Creators Are Creative

Not all creators are creative…

This was a key takeaway from our conversation with Iris Coker, Director of Global Influencer Relations and Social Content Strategy at Kate Spade, and celebrity nail artist and content creator, Betina Goldstein (@betinagoldstein). 

On this episode of the Fast Traack, Iris and Betina discuss the importance that creativity and originality play in brand and creator partnerships — especially as the creator economy continues to evolve. 

During the conversation, Iris and Betina also share

• Their journey of breaking into the creator economy
• The biggest myths for both marketers and creators 
• How AI will start to play a major role in creators' jobs

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Have a question for us? Email ft@traackr.com.

Transcript

Taylor Rodriguez:

You're listening to the Fast Track Podcast. Hear the stories, strategies, and insights for the changemakers in the creator industry. I'm Taylor Rodriguez, global head of Customer Success at Tracker. I've been in the influencer marketing industry for over a decade, and have a long history of advising brands on how to work smarter with performance-driven strategies. What I've learned is that, over the years, it all comes down to people. Ultimately, you can do everything, but it's the relationship between the brands and creators that makes or breaks an influencer marketing program. This is why I was so excited to have the opportunity to talk with Iris Coker, director of Global Influencer Relations and Social Media at Kate Spade, and Celebrity Nail Artist and content creator, Betina Goldstein.

Iris and Betina have such a fun and collaborative relationship, and it shows in the content that Betina creates on behalf of Kate Spade. You can pause this episode and check out Betina's amazing 3D nail art. She's done for Kate Spade on our Instagram at Betina_Goldstein. In this episode, we dive into how Iris and Betina grew into their careers and the advice they would give to marketers and creators who are just breaking into the creator economy. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Iris and Betina. Enjoy. Obviously, landing in the influencer marketing space can be a unique journey for everyone, and so we'd love to learn just a little bit more about how you entered the influencer space. So maybe you could give our audience a quick, five-minute trailer of your career and how you landed in the position that you're in. So Iris, I will pass it over to you first.

Iris Coker:

Yeah. I had kind of a fairly traditional route to get into influencer marketing. I went to school for marketing, and this is going to age me tremendously, but social media wasn't even a piece of the curriculum that we talked about. In my first role, I was doing marketing for a salon, like a local salon in Columbus, Ohio where I'm from. Then, it was like Facebook pages, and it was setting up this Facebook page for our salon, and it felt like really innovative. From there, I moved on to the agency world, where social really started to blow up. I was very fortunate to work for an agency that believed in social and created a social practice.

It was kind of, I don't want to say first of its kind, but it was pretty far ahead of the curve. I had some fun clients that we got to really launch their social presence, so Kohl's, Purina Cat Chow, Victoria's Secret. We played a big role in getting social media off the ground for these brands, which felt really exciting. As part of that, we started to realize that there was a lot of power in mommy bloggers, which that's who really owned this space at that point in time. And so, we were partnering with a lot of mommy bloggers, especially around the Kohl's work, and then it just turned out one day I was talking with someone on my creative team, and I was like, "What if we paid this cat to post something for us? Do you think that they would do it?"

Taylor Rodriguez:

So you were the start of animal influencers?

Iris Coker:

It was me. Yeah.

Taylor Rodriguez:

I love that it was a cat.

Iris Coker:

I think the cat's gone. I think the cat passed away now, but it was called Taco Cat. I remember specifically, because it was a very cute cat. I remember us huddling together, and I was like, "How are we going to write this email? What are we going to say? Do you want Purina Cat Chow?" I don't even know. You know what I mean? So it was just one of those moments where we started to see the value in using influencers. At that time, I don't even know if who were calling them influencers, but we started using-

Taylor Rodriguez:

You probably weren't.

Iris Coker:

Yeah, but the agency I worked for was actually one of Trackers first clients, because we started to realize that we've got to tap into this ecosystem, and Tracker was one of the first platforms out there doing it. And so, we brought Tracker on to help with discoverability and looking at these greater ecosystems, where it was a very new idea of, "Here's Betina, but who follows Betina? Who's in her network, and how do we tap into those people as well?"

From there, it really just kind of stayed within the retail world, working in brand strategy, working in marketing, and just kind of always being influencer adjacent until I got to my role at Kate Spade, and got the opportunity to really take a look at what we were doing with Influencer, expand it, and help it to help put Kate Spade's brand story into the hands of these creators, and going beyond just the fit checks, which don't get me wrong, I love my fit-check girlies, but having that fun, creative expression, and bringing that Kate Spade wink to the content, which is really where Betina came in, because her content is exactly that Kate Spade wink. She'll do a really chic nail, and then all of a sudden at the end of it, there's a cigarette on the nail, and it's just like, "That's so cool," and it's very us, not the cigarette, but just the idea of, how can we make this give it an element of surprise. Yeah.

Taylor Rodriguez:

That was amazing.

Iris Coker: 

The cigarette nail is so cool. I love it. I don't smoke, but I love that nail.

Betina Goldstein:

I don't smoke either, but I was like-

Iris Coker:

You don't smoke either.

Betina Goldstein:

No. I was like, "This sounds fun."

Iris Coker:

It's so fun. It's very French coded, and I love, absolutely love, working with creators. It's my favorite part of my job.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Amazing. Thank you for sharing. That's awesome. And Betina, on the creator side, obviously, I think creators maybe sometimes don't think, well, maybe I guess Gen Z might grow up thinking, "I'm going to be a creator one day," but in my generation we did not think, "Okay. I'm going to be a creator one day," so how did you start with content creation? How did you find yourself here? How did you know that nail art was going to be your thing that you did?

Betina Goldstein:

I actually started off in TV production, so it was a completely different world, and kind of the same; I mean, social media wasn't a thing. I mean, just Facebook, but Instagram really started whenever I was starting off my career. At that point, I was mainly in fashion, so there was really not that much nail art that was happening. I mean, if I went on a shoot for any brand, it would be either a clear, transparent nail, or possibly a red if I got lucky. But really there wasn't, I think, as a focus on nails when it came to fashion and nails in that way, I don't think. I mean, Iris, you probably? No? it's probably the same? No?

Iris Coker:

Yeah, no.

Betina Goldstein:

It just wasn't a big thing. Maybe in some editorials, you got a black chipped nail, but it just wasn't what it is now. And so, when I got started in fashion, I remember one of the makeup artists was like, "You should start your Instagram and put your work up there," and it was mainly more at that time, it was to showcase my portfolio, showcase the jobs that I had been on, campaigns that I had worked on, and editorials. Then, slowly I started teaching myself how to do nail art, and I started putting it up on Instagram, kind of just my own work. I spent all this time doing it, and I'm just going to photograph it, and I'm not a hand model, so it was kind of figuring out how to best photograph my own nails. I was my own model, my own photographer, and my own nail artist.

And so, I was just trying to do that, and I posted it, and at that time, magazines picked it up online, and that's kind of how I got started. I just kept pushing and pushing myself to create new things, and I think that grabbed the attention of Chanel, who I had previously been in talks with, but more for editorial side. And they brought me on as one of their artists in 2019, and I just started working with different brands, like Kate Spade, and I'm thrilled to be in this space, because it allows me to be so creative and just think outside of the box, especially with a brand like Kate Spade. It just really ignites so much different designs for me and inspiration, creativity. Mainly, I work with celebrities, and I'm on set, working red carpets and things like that, but I do then do creation, content creation for brands, so I'm not fully just content.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Okay. Do you ever think you'd ever go that route?

Betina Goldstein:

No. I mean, no. It wasn't something that I thought it was going to be in shoots and whatnot. I don't know. I don't know what I really thought, because it kind of just one thing led to the next.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah, amazing. And so, how did you two start working together? How'd you find each other? How did the beginning of this relationship start?

Iris Coker:

Yeah. I mean, it's funny. I used to work for Express. One of my first gigs when I started there, and this is very funny, because I've never done this before, but I was in charge of producing a fashion show, and I had no idea what I was doing. It just kind of fell within my purview, and so here I am trying to produce this fashion show. To add another kink, Expresses is in Columbus, Ohio. The fashion show was actually taking place in St. Louis, because it was with Karlie Kloss, and that's where she's from, and she wanted to host it in her hometown, which was really sweet. But Betina, actually, the first time I met her, our production company who, I don't know, I guess I can say this is my fiance's production company now. That's how we met, they were producing the show for us.

Betina Goldstein:

And I did the nails.

Iris Coker:

Yeah. Betina did the nails. She had worked with his production company for years on multiple shows and that kind of thing, so that was really my first interaction with her, was at this fashion show. Then, we didn't get a chance to work together again until, here I am at Kate Spade, and Betina just happens to be doing these really amazing nail art that just felt so right for us, that I reached out to her, and I was like, "I know you usually work with Chanel. I hope you don't have an exclusive, because I would love to work with you." Yeah.

Betina Goldstein:

It was the best.

Iris Coker:

So that's how we met, and it's been so wonderful knowing her all these years and being able to finally work with her.

Betina Goldstein:

Likewise.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Well, and it's amazing, because it sounds like the relationship really evolved naturally, and there have been a lot of opportunities to find that brand fit with the amazing capabilities that you have, Betina, so those are often the best type of creator relationships.

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Taylor Rodriguez:

So in terms of superpowers, what are your superpowers, and how have they allowed you to get to where you are today?

Iris Coker:

I mean, I just love people. I am an innately curious person, and I am, for better or worse, chronically online. I don't know. It's just like I'm a people person, and I think that this is just such a role for a people person, is to be partnering with creators, partnering with artists, partnering with influencers, and really just finding those synergies with our brand. The thing that I enjoy most is being able to give the creator power to say, "Here's the product. Here's kind of the brief, but what do you want to do with it?" I don't know. That's kind of a roundabout superpower, but I just thoroughly enjoy people and spend too much time on TikTok. I don't know if that's important, but we'll say it is.

Taylor Rodriguez:

It is a superpower.

Betina Goldstein:

But I think that's why I love working with you so much, is because you do allow, you're like, "Here's the product. What do you think?" And it's so liberating, and it really does allow me to fully do my most creative potentially and give it to you. I think that's when everything kind of just works out. I think if you put creators in a box or creatives in a box, not even just creative, then I think you're going to get a product that's going to be, every time, very similar. So if you put all of your creators in that same little box, you're just going to get the same content every time, so if you are able to really allow the person that you hire to do what they do best, you're going to get the best result in the end.

Iris Coker:

Yeah, 100 percent. Yeah, totally.

Taylor Rodriguez:

So speaking about creative control, I think that the authenticity piece is really important, right? And I think that we have really savvy audiences now who have spent a lot of time online, and I think that it's very easy to tell when brand partnerships have been overly briefed or the creative process is really controlled. So Betina, how do you react to potential partnerships, where maybe you don't have the freedom that you need to really deliver your best work, but you also, I'm sure, want to deliver a great product, so how do you navigate a situation like that?

Betina Goldstein:

I think I always like to stay really true to myself, and I'm not just creatively singular. I don't know if that's how you say it, but it's like I have different versions of myself, so I can do the 3D, I can do the 2D minimalist. That's where I started, so I think it's kind of reinventing myself, staying true to myself, while fitting into whatever box, if they put me in a box, what that is. I think that that's kind of maybe my superpower, going back to that, is just being extremely malleable, but still sticking with my own identity.

If somebody was to be like, "I want you to do a blue nail with blue dots," I would kindly pass, and I would say, "You know what? That's just not going to work out for me, because you're basically telling me what I need to do and I'm just executing, and that's not what I get hired to do. I get hired to create," and it's okay if there's guidelines or if there's things that you want me to stick with, but let me create within my own version of that.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Version.

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah, okay. Makes sense.

Betina Goldstein:

So I think there are ways to navigate.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah. Definitely, definitely, definitely. I think it can be tricky though, because I think a lot of brands, historically, are probably not very comfortable with giving that freedom away, but again, I think from being in the space for a while, it's very easy to spot that content that doesn't feel authentic to the creator and feels overly scripted, so it's always interesting to hear the other perspective on that. So what are some myths about what you need to make it in the creator industry? Iris, let's start with you.

Iris Coker:

I mean, from my side of things, I think there's an idea that you have to be a creator yourself to be also on my side of the table, which is leading creators and leading an influencer program, and that's just not me. I'm not a creator. I have 1000 followers on Instagram. It's really just my life. I think I have two TikToks that I tried to make, and they're both of my dog, and it's just like, I don't know, I don't think that you have to necessarily be doing, be a creator to be a leading influencer, but I think you do have to be in it in as much as following along and being on TikTok, being active, being on Instagram, being active, but not necessarily having to do that yourself.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Content creation is really hard.

Iris Coker:

Content creation is so hard. I have so much respect for our content creators.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Me too.

Iris Coker:

It's not just taking out your iPhone and shooting a video. It's a lot of work. It's the lighting, it's editing. There's so much that goes into it. It's even the creative concept piece of it.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Right.

Iris Coker:

We'll contact Betina and say, "We have a Heinz collaboration coming up. What do you think of that?"

And then, for her to come back and say, "This is my interpretation of how I'd like to do this," all of that requires so much time and energy, and I just have so much respect for that, because that's just, not everybody can do that.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Right. And what about you, Betina? You, obviously, have probably a unique perspective. What do you think you need to do? What are the myths about making it, and what is your perspective on actually being able to be successful?

Betina Goldstein:

I think one of the biggest things that has come up in conversation recently has been to overshare your personal life. I think that you are able to be a content creator and be kind of private and limit access to everyone. I don't think that everyone needs to give off every single piece of information that's going on in their life or just everything. So I think that that's a really big misconception, and I don't think that you need to do that. I think that you're able to create content, the content that you want, without kind of, do you know what I mean?

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah. Bringing your personal into it?

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah, just oversharing everything.

Iris Coker:

Save that piece of yourself, right?

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah. I think that's where I think the struggle is for a lot of content creators now. It's like if you're doing nails, do you have to show everything about your life or do you have to also share, I don't know, random things? It's like you don't really need to, so you can be successful without overdoing it.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah. It's funny, I actually saw a TikTok this morning about this guy who was saying, "If you're a creator online, and if you're sharing everything about your personal life and you're sharing, let's say you have a romantic relationship, and you're showing us all the glitz and glam of the relationship, and then you break up, you should be obligated to share everything about the breakup."

Iris Coker:

Oh, don't worry. The TikTok audience will find out all of the tea about the breakup and everything.

Betina Goldstein:

Everything.

Iris Coker:

There be all the videos about it.

Taylor Rodriguez:

They will, but it's interesting, because if you bring people along that whole entire journey, but then all of a sudden say, "Please respect my privacy," it's like, "Well, nothing about that entire journey for your audience was private," right? So where do you draw that line?

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah. I think it's difficult, and I think it's maybe mainly fashion influencers, and maybe the moms, they tend to have to share a little bit more of that, but I think that you're able to do it on your own and find those lines that you want to cross and not cross. I think that, again, it's just up to you. You don't need to do that to be successful.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah, agreed. So what advice would you give to people who are looking to grow their career in the space?

Iris Coker:

If you're looking to grow your career, I think it's really important to be out there and be networking. Go to the events, go meet the creators, attend the panels. There's so much of this world is done online, and the best relationships that I have with my influencers, with agents, with creators are ones that I've made when I get to meet them in person and go out for a coffee, or I've met them at a networking event. There's something that's still so special about that human connection, so I would say if you're looking to start your career, don't do it from behind a screen, even though the career that you're hoping is this, is on your phone, human interaction is so important, and people will remember you, and they'll want to work with you because they've had that conversation with you, so I would say don't shy away from the networking events. Go to all of them. Go to as many as you can, meet as many people as possible, because a lot of these relationships will come back around for you in a positive way.

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah, I agree with you. I think especially for people like me, that don't really show their face too often, they just see a hand, so I think going to these events really puts a face to the hand and the creative. I'm like, what's the movie? Adam's Family? You know the hand? That's me.

Iris Coker:

Oh, yeah. Yes, that's you.

Betina Goldstein:

That's me. So I think I agree with you. I think going to these events is probably one of the biggest things that you could do, network.

Iris Coker:

Yeah. Even at, Taylor, the Tracker event in New York a few months ago, my team came, and while I'm on this panel, they're making connections with people in the audience. That we continue to work with. And I'm just like, "Yes, this is how you do it."

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah, and the event was amazing, I think, because it was the first time that we brought creators to the same space. So I think there's definitely, I think, an opportunity to foster more types of those, because obviously we work with brands, right? But creators play such an important part of the ecosystem, and so there is this very human element, where we need to hear from the creators and what they're doing. If we can offer an opportunity to bring all of those parties together, then it's an amazing, amazing opportunity, so hopefully we'll be doing more of that in the future.

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah, and I think if you don't have access to going to events, or I think it's important to reach out to brands and take the initiative to reach out to them, because they don't know you exist if you don't reach out to them and ask them if they're looking. Be proactive about reaching out to brands.

Taylor Rodriguez:

So how do you go about reaching out to a brand?

Betina Goldstein:

I mean, you can contact them via social media. If not, you can try and see if you can find who their social media manager is and send them an email. I mean, there's different ways, but I think the easiest way is probably reach out via social. This way, they can just click on your profile and see if it's a good fit.

Taylor Rodriguez:

And so, what do you say like, "I am inspired by your brand. I've been loving it"?

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah. "I love it." "I have a great concept. I would love to connect with you and see if we can partner together, collaborate."

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah. You have to put it out into the universe. Otherwise, you never know.

Iris Coker:

Yeah. We've hired people that way. We've found influencers that way. And also just creating content for the brands that you love. Just doing it because you love-

Betina Goldstein:

Organically, yes,

Iris Coker:

Organically, yes. "I love this brand so much that I'm going to start creating content," and that gets noticed as well. We have one of our influencers that we work with on a seasonal basis, and that's how we started working with her, is that we noticed that, "Here's this woman creating all of this really great Kate Spade content, and she's actually getting a lot of engagement. She would be what I would consider to be a micro influencer, but with a crazy engaged audience, and we noticed her and reached out to her, and now she's someone that we work with frequently, so those things definitely happen.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah, fantastic advice.

Betina Goldstein:

And I don't want to overstep, but I think that sometimes I think people are like, "Well, I don't have that many followers," but I feel like sometimes, if you're creating great content, that could be so valuable to a brand, because content is king, I feel.

Iris Coker:

That's right.

Betina Goldstein:

When I have a brand of my own and when somebody creates content for it, I'm like, "Oh my God. This is amazing. I will send you product. What do you need?" You know what I mean? That's incredible. It doesn't matter if they have 100 followers or if they have 100 million followers. I think if you are creating really good content, then don't feel like your followers need to be limiting to who you reach out to or whatever.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Well, not only that, but there's so many different ways that the brands can also use that content in other places, right? So it's not just purely about the content that you might be creating on social, but there's, I think, brands are getting really creative in thinking about the ways that they can integrate that content within other areas of their marketing organization, and maybe Iris, maybe you have a perspective on this.

Iris Coker:

Yeah. I mean, we love a lot of usage. We use creator content all over the place. I mean, if you think about the different touch points, we've got E-comm, and we've got paid media, and we've got email, SMS. There's all of these different places where we can put that content, because at the end of the day, consumers love to see creator content. They're down with brand institutional assets, but when it comes to creator content, these are the people that are in their feed every day, and they love to see that with their favorite brands, so I completely agree with that. Even if you do have a smaller following, just keep at it, truly. It can all come together for you.

Taylor Rodriguez:

So moving over to trends, what trends are you seeing right now that you think are too hyped?

Betina Goldstei...: Oh, I hate the trend talk, to be honest with you. I don't love trends, because again, it just puts you in this box. I don't think that, creatively, I don't know how to describe this, but I understand maybe we were talking about this. Butter, yellow nails are a trend. Basically, yellow nails are a trend right now.

Iris Coker:

I don't know what you're talking about.

Taylor Rodriguez:

They look amazing.

Betina Goldstein:

I spy butter, yellow nails on you, but I think colors, I think now everything, especially with press, itching to just put out things all the time, trends are just, it's just too much. It's like blueberry nails one day. Then, the next day it's like butter, yellow nails. I mean, don't get me started on the names. It's just too much, so I think that if you're following trends constantly, you're just going to get sucked into this war. I don't know. It's just too much.

Iris Coker:

You're just going to be chasing it always.

Betina Goldstein:

You're just going to be chasing it, and you're not going to really create anything that's authentic to yourself, whereas you're not going to be able to build a brand like yourself, right? Think of yourself as a brand. So you're not going to be able to build a brand if you're constantly just chasing trends or if you're copying everybody, right? You're like, "Strawberries are in right now. I'm just going to do a bunch of strawberries." You just have to create your own space, be authentic to yourself, and stick with that. Reinvent yourself, but don't just go chasing, because then you're just going to fall in line with everybody else, and it's going to be very difficult for people to set you apart from everybody else, I think. So I don't like trends in general. They're like, "What are the trends?" I'm like, "I don't know."

Taylor Rodriguez:

So Iris, it might be interesting to hear your perspective, because I feel like a lot of brands, they do try to capitalize on the trends. I know some of the customers that we work with, they even have trends team, where they try to understand, what is the pulse that's going on with social right now to understand what our audience is gravitating towards? So Iris, what do you think about trends?

Iris Coker:

Yeah. I have a love-hate relationship with trends. Obviously, we need to be part of it, but I think that there's truth for brands in what Betina just said, because it would be weird if you saw Kate Spade jumping on the eyebrow blindness trend, right? And that was a huge trend.

Betina Goldstein:

What is that?

Iris Coker:

It's actually kind of a mean to your old self trend, but I'll quickly tell you.

Taylor Rodriguez:

It's hilarious.

Iris Coker:

It's actually really funny, but people will post to the Gnarls Barkley "Crazy" song basically like, "Why didn't anybody tell me?" and then they show flashbacks of their, do you remember the really drawn-in brows were very in? Very thick, like when we were all learning about contour and make-up?

So it's eyebrow blindness, and so it's like, "Why didn't anybody tell me this?" I think I saw another one that was like, there was another one too, but it's like primary. So anyhow, long story short, that's eyebrow blindness. Everybody here has great brows, and I'm sure we always have, but I think it would be weird for us, as a brand, to hop in on that kind of trend. So you really have to understand your brand ethos, who you are, what do you stand for, and what trends do make sense. I don't want to say we don't hop on trends, because we kind of do, like the Coquette trend made a ton of sense for us, which I'm sure, Betina, you hated, but it worked from-

Betina Goldstein:

No, no, no. I, actually, don't mind those type of trends. Just, you know what I'm-

Iris Coker:

I know.

Betina Goldstein:

You know what I'm saying.

Iris Coker:

I know. I know exactly what you're saying, but that's the thing where we're like, "Okay, Coquette is trending. We're Kate Spade New York. We have bows, we have pink, we have girly things. This is definitely a trend that we can be part of, and it will feel authentic," and guess what? The content took off. So I think that that's the filter that I have when trends come my way. So when my team brings me, "Here's a concept and here's a trend we'd like to hop on," there's always that filter of, "Does this make sense for us, or is it just a really funny trend that we want to be part of?" And that's kind of the line that we walk there. So I won't say that there's any trends that I'm sick of. I think it's my own algorithm. I don't know if I could hear another Sabrina Carpenter song, and it's my own fault, because I engage with that content and that's what I get, but I think the TikTok algorithm is just, it's on another level.

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah. I agree.

Iris Coker:

Yeah.

Betina Goldstein:

I do like creating off of something that is become popular, if it is in the fashion world, Bridgerton was kind of a really big deal, and creating nails kind of inspired by that, I don't mind that. I just think, in the nail world, it could be super specific, and then all you're seeing on your feet are the same design over and over and over and over again, like the glazed nail thing, and it is just too much, and people get bored with it.

Iris Coker:

It's very much the core of it all, like Grandpa Chic core, or Cottage Core, or whatever.

Betina Goldstein:

Coastal Grandma.

Iris Coker:

Coastal Grandma. Those types, I think what you're getting at, is we don't have to name it. It's a linen shirt. Anybody can wear it. It's not coastal grandma, that kind of thing. I get what you're saying.

Taylor Rodriguez:

But I also think, Betina, if I'm reading between the lines, I think also what you're trying to say is that, from your perspective and what you do, you have a certain look and feel for the type of content that you are making, and you don't necessarily need the blueberry nails or the butter nails, or whatever in order to continue to create that content, right?

It's more about your craft, and your look, your aesthetic, and the style of content that you're creating, versus the creators who are just hopping on those trends just to try to get views, right?

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's always kind of like you want to be the first one there. You don't want to be the last one there, so I think that 3D, for me, I started in very minimalistic designs when I first started out, and it was like that's kind of what I wanted. That's what I like, is the more minimal nails, and once it started picking up, then everybody on my feet that I would look at would have the same nails. It was the same design.

So it's like, how do you reinvent yourself within staying within your own artistic aesthetic and move away from that? So I think it was the 3D, and I just kind of started sculpting it and making it into my own way. It's not that I invented 3D nails. There have been 3D nails for years, and it was just kind of adapting something like that, but to my own style and my own aesthetic, and then, that kind of, I feel like now I'm seeing so much food, sardines, and 3D nail art now, and that's kind taking off. So it took a few years, but now it's trending on that.

So I think if you just stick to yourself, you create the trends for yourself, even if it's not cool at the moment. That's what I think. Be ahead of it. That's what I think makes you successful, because you're always going to be ahead of everyone else.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you're unique and authentic, than you are, right? Because it's your own.

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah, and if Blue is like, everybody loves blue right now, do a blue nail. It doesn't matter, but just do it within your own, like create something of your own with the blue nails.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Right. So a little bit of a shift, Iris, if you were given $1 million for your influencer marketing budget tomorrow…

Betina Goldstein:

Give it to Betina.

Iris Coker:

I would hire Betina.

Betina Goldstein:

I would tell her to build a house out of a sculpting gel.

Iris Coker:

Yes. That's it. That's what I would do.

Betina Goldstein:

That's it. I read your mind.

Iris Coker:

$1 million.

Betina Goldstein:

I read your Mind.

Iris Coker:

Yeah, that's it. Okay, podcast. Done. I would really love, love, love to invest in deeper partnerships with our creators, so that can be anywhere from product integration, bringing the creator in to help co-design something, or something along those lines. What I'm noticing is creators are so much more than just on the screen. So many of the creators that we're working with are extremely artistic, extremely smart, ready, and willing to do more and take on more, and it's budget constraints, really, because we see the power of influencer and creator. I would love to be able to do deeper partnerships, whether it's events, or I mostly am in this product and co-creation within the brand, which feels really exciting to me, even if it's bringing someone on to help guide with trends, to help work with my team, our design team, or our merchandising team about, "What's going on? What are your followers like? What are you liking right now?" Because a lot of these people are leading the trends, to Betina's point, and why wouldn't we want to tap into that in a deeper way?

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah. Of course. I mean, if they already love your brand and know your brand, they probably have ideas about things that would work well or things that they would want to do, and they can probably do it, to a certain extent, when you engage them for content creation, but maybe not fully to the extent of integrating them from a product, either like from the very beginning, the brainstorming phase. I think that's a really expensive endeavor, yes.

Iris Coker:

Yeah, it's not cheap.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Difficult to do, RIGHT? But if you can do it, what an amazing opportunity.

Iris Coker:

Yeah. I mean, that's the dream, to be able to create this full ecosystem with your influencer and creator partners. It just would be incredible.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Right. Agreed, agreed. And so, Betina, if a brand came knocking on your door begging to work with you, what brand would it be and how would you want to work with them?

Betina Goldstein:

So it's funny, because when you send me these questions, I had one in mind, and it's not in the fashion space. It's not in the beauty space, and I was like, "Oh, that would be my dream," and funny enough, from the time that you sent the email to now-

Iris Coker:

Stop it.

Betina Goldstein:

They reached out to me.

Iris Coker:

No way.

Betina Goldstein:

I have created content for Portia.

Iris Coker:

Wow.

Betina Goldstein:

Honestly, it was the craziest thing that could have happened, and I created already. I don't know when it's going to go live, but it was unbelievable to create that. Yeah.

Taylor Rodriguez:

So the Tracker podcast is helping to-

Betina Goldstei...:

Yes. Essentially, yes.

Taylor Rodriguez:

 Manifest partnerships into reality.

Betina Goldstein:

Yes.

Taylor Rodriguez:

So who knows? Iris-

Iris Coker:

Maybe I'll get $1 million.

Betina Goldstein:

Well, maybe I'll build a house for you.

Iris Coker:

Thank you. Thank you.

Betina Goldstein:

On the beach. On the beach.

Iris Coker:

I'm going to send this to my CFO and see what happens.

Taylor Rodriguez:

We just have to will it into existence.

Iris Coker:

Yeah, yeah. That's it.

Betina Goldstein:

I like working with brands outside of my bubble.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Right.

Betina Goldstein:

So I think Kate Spade was one of the first, not the first, but one of the first fashion brands that I started working with that had nothing to do with beauty, right? So I worked with UGG and a couple other ones, and I like the way that it pushes me to think differently. It's not about the product of the actual nail product. It's about the other ones, so I tap into a creative side that's completely different from what I'm used to.

Iris Coker:

Yeah, and I mean-

Betina Goldstein:

It inspires me in a different way.

Iris Coker:

 It's completely new, right?

Betina Goldstein:

Yes, yes.

Iris Coker:

Which is the whole, entire-

Betina Goldstein:

And it's a different reach. Yeah, yeah.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Amazing, amazing. Well, I'm so excited to see this content, so congratulations.

Betina Goldstein:

Thank you.

Taylor Rodriguez:

It's very exciting. So to wrap it up, we're nearly done. We are hoping that you can share with us some predictions that you have for the creator industry this year. What do you see coming our way? What should we be prepared for?

Iris Coker:

I mean, the creator industry is just continuing to grow. I mean, I think that there's been a resurgence in interest on Snap, and how are we working with creators on Snap? I think that we're seeing that platform start to kind of bubble back up again with Gen Z.

Yeah, and it's really exciting to me. I love that platform for creators, because they've got such a great rev share program, but I think we're just going to continue to see creators integrate deeper with brands. Being in campaigns, I don't know if you guys just saw a couple months ago, but Sirius was in a Caudalie campaign, who is a creator that I adore. I think seeing creators kind of pop up in unexpected places for brands, I think we're just going to continue to see more of that. There's just so much value in working with them in a deeper way, so that's my prediction/also my hope. Really, I love to see the way that this industry is just evolving. I just think creators are just going to continue to just drive culture forward.

Betina Goldstein:

I mean, but the AI thing...

Taylor Rodriguez:

Tell us about the AI thing.

Betina Goldstein:

I mean, I think that certain creators are going to be replaced by AI, and I think certain creators cannot be replaced by AI. I think that we're not going to know what that is until it starts happening, but I think AI is going to be a little bit harder to grab those jobs of the creatives, versus not all creators are creatives, I think, personally. I'm not putting anybody down. I'm just saying.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Betina, you're entitled to your own perspectives.

Betina Goldstein:

I don't want to get heat for this later, but I think that there's so many different creators, and not all of them are creative. I think that some of those creators will be replaced with AI, So I think, for me, it's interesting to see who those will be and what that's going to look like.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Right, because I know we have seen an increased trend towards creators leveraging AI tools to either create content or to help streamline, because as we were mentioning before, content creation is a huge amount of work, and so it'll be interesting to see how AI is continued to be integrated in the space, and you're right, maybe some creators-

Betina Goldstein:

Some of those might go in-house, right? If Kate Spade needs creators, and they're creating AI models, maybe that'll become an in-house thing, instead of outsourcing to other creators on the platform that are doing AI. I don't know.

Iris Coker:

Disclaimer, we're not.

Betina Goldstein:

We don't know.

Iris Coker:

But we don't know.

Betina Goldstein:

But we don't know. Well, in future.

Iris Coker:

These are predictions.

Betina Goldstein:

We don't know. These are predictions.

Iris Coker:

Yeah, that could definitely. I mean, there are brands that have already started replacing their eComm models with AI models.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah, of course. Of course.

Betina Goldstein:

Yeah. I think it's silly not to bring it up, and not to think that a lot of creators jobs are going to go away, because I think that everybody needs to kind of see where they need to be focused on. Is it focusing on creating AI models? Because it's a completely different space. You know what I mean?

It's a completely different task instead of skills, so I don't know. Maybe.

Iris Coker:

Time will tell.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah. Let's regroup at the end of the year and see.

Betina Goldstein:

Sorry. I don't want to be doom's day here. It's like-

Iris Coker:

No, I don't think it's doom's day so much as it's just like AI is already a huge part of a lot of our lives.

Betina Goldstein:

Yes, and I think sometimes it's not stand back and let this go away. I think it's like, what are you going to do in order to stay on top of it, and how are you going, again, to reinvent yourself, and is it going to be learning how to create AI models that are going to be the creators?

Taylor Rodriguez:

Right.

Betina Goldstein:

I mean, you could do that, right? You just have to learn how to do it.

Taylor Rodriguez:

Yeah. I mean, I feel like if we think about something that we were talking about, sort of at the beginning of our conversation, was around the start of social media, I don't know if you guys remember, but the start of social media, there was a lot of fear about what you put online, how you put it online, or how brands are supposed to engage, like creating those initial Facebook pages, I was in the trenches with you, by the way.

I worked with brands who are very afraid to even create a Facebook page, and so I think we'll obviously see how it evolves. It's obviously not going anywhere anytime soon. It's only going to continue to gain speed, but it'll be interesting to see how it continues to evolve in the creator space, because I agree. I think that there will probably be a little bit of a shake up with how creators leverage AI and how brands are also leveraging those tools, so we'll see.

Iris Coker:

Definitely.

Taylor Rodriguez:

We'll see. Time will tell. Well, thank you ladies. This has been a super interesting conversation, and we're always happy to have you on the podcast, so thank you for joining us.

Iris Coker:

Yeah, thank you.

Betina Goldstein:

Thank you.

Taylor Rodriguez:

And we'll hope to see you guys again soon. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Fast Track. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. During the episode, we did mention Trackers impact events, which are in-person events for marketers and creators to learn and network with one another. If you're interested attending, we have our Impact London event happening on September 10th and our Impact LA Event happening on October 1st. Please look in the show notes for more information. If you're listening to this episode after those dates, no worries. We hold these conferences regularly, so take a look at the show notes to find out when and where our next Impact conference is happening. And more importantly, if you enjoyed this episode, brighten someone else's day by sharing this episode with a friend. Thanks again and see you next time.