Employee Generated Content: How Brands Build Authentic Influence as AI Floods the Feed

In Podcasts, The Business of Marketing Podcast by A. Lee Judge

Employee Generated Content: 5 Proven Strategies Marketers Need Now - with Heike Young

AI made it simple to produce a high volume of content that says very little. That is exactly why human voices have become a brand’s most valuable distribution channel. On this episode of The Business of Marketing, Heike Young, founder of Heike Young, Inc. and a former content leader at Salesforce and Microsoft, joined hosts A. Lee Judge and Rocio Osuna to talk about employee-generated content, why authenticity still matters, and how to build a program that does not collapse after the first month. What follows are the ideas worth keeping.

Why Human Content Wins as AI Floods the Feed

Authenticity went out of style as a buzzword long before it lost any of its value. Marketers grew tired of the word. Buyers never stopped responding to the thing itself. Long before AI content flooded our feeds, Stackla found that 88% of consumers say authenticity is a major factor when they decide which brands to support, and that number lines up with how people actually buy. We trust peer reviews and real voices over polished brand statements.

AI raised the stakes. It gave every team a faster path to generic content, which means the brands that put real people forward stand out even more. Employee-generated content, often shortened to EGC, takes the expertise already sitting inside a company and lets real employees share it in their own voice.

Lee frames the human and AI relationship as a formula, and the order matters. The human supplies the viewpoint and the context. AI comes in after that as the organizer and the production multiplier, never the creator. As Lee put it, “The creation part is reserved for the human. Otherwise, you’re not saying anything new or anything engaging to humans.” Quantity and quality can coexist, as long as a person owns the idea first.

Create Because You Feel Called, Not Forced

A lot of LinkedIn advice tells creators to pick a narrow niche and never leave it. Heike built her audience by ignoring that advice. She makes videos because she wants to make them, and that instinct has guided her better than any plan built around the algorithm.

As Heike puts it:

“You shouldn’t create content because you feel forced to. You should create content because you feel called to. And that goes for brands as well as people.”

The point holds for large teams too. When creation comes from obligation, the work turns robotic, and audiences can feel it. Heike has never produced her best videos under pressure from what she calls the algorithmic gods. Her strongest work shows up when she has time and space to think about an idea that actually means something to her. Pressure produces volume, and care produces the content people remember.

The Audience Is the One God Worth Serving

Business adds a complication. Lee described it as serving two gods at once, the algorithm and the business you represent. At some point an executive asks what a video has to do with the bottom line, and the answer cannot be “it was fun to make.”

Heike’s resolution is direct. The one true god for a marketer is the audience. She credits a Salesforce manager who told the content team their job was to be the audience’s advocate, because no one else in the building is. When the product team or the PR team pulls content in another direction, the audience has no one speaking for them. Serve the audience well and the algorithm tends to follow, since, as her friend Zoe Hartsfield says, the algorithm is just people scanning a feed.

This connects to a measurement problem Lee has lived. He influenced Salesforce and HubSpot purchases in part because he listened to their podcasts for years, and none of that influence ever showed up in an attribution report.

Lee made the point plainly:

“We’re talking about a podcast that affects the bottom line of businesses, even though it’s damn near impossible to trace.”

The content was working the entire time. The tracking simply could not see it. That gap is the reality of content that builds trust over the long term, and it is why short-term measurement so often labels good work a failure.

Where Employee Generated Content Programs Break Down

EGC is new enough that almost no one has mastered it, which Heike sees as good news. A scrappy team with a small budget can do this well because the competition has barely started. There is a first-mover advantage available to teams willing to begin.

The most common failure has a name. Heike calls it the spaghetti cannon: a leader tells employees to start posting, fires content in every direction, and waits to see what sticks. Two missing pieces cause most of the damage. The first is content themes. The second is a calendar.

Themes give people a lane without boxing them in. Heike warns against getting so prescriptive that employees feel they cannot add their own flavor, since that is a fast way to make them stop posting. A calendar ties the content to moments that matter: market moments like a season your customers plan around, company moments like a product launch, and audience moments worth showing up for in real time. Posting a week after the event is a missed opportunity. Coordination is the work, and it is worth doing.

Scripting can quietly end a program before it has a chance. Lee shared a story about a client in the finance industry where the legal team scripted employee videos so tightly that people refused to use the words. The company produced around 200 videos, then watched the effort fall apart.

The employees wanted to participate. They would not read legalese onto their personal profiles. A few wrote their own scripts, most got pushed back down by legal, and the program died. A great idea lost to over-control.

Heike’s fix starts with a document most companies forget they have. Revisit the social media policy. Many were written around 2005 and have not been touched since, even though companies now pay employees to post and stand up entire employee influencer programs. She is careful to say she is not a legal expert, and her advice is practical: review the policy as a team, make it clear and readable, and spell out that employees can post from their personal profiles unless they cross specific lines. A current, legible policy lets people check where they stand and take part with confidence.

Reps Beat Tech Stacks

Speed from scripting to camera is built through practice. Heike made roughly 300 videos last year. A video that once took her four or five hours now takes about 20 minutes, and she credits the reps rather than any fancy tech stack. She got incrementally faster every single time.

That history matters for anyone hesitating to start. Heike did not begin with props or editing skills; she barely knew how to cut two clips together. So the advice is to start small and resist comparing your first attempt to someone’s five hundredth. A five minute creative outlet, done consistently, is enough to begin.

Rehearsal does not make delivery fake. There is a difference between a robotic script and a well prepared talk delivered naturally, the kind a practiced speaker gives. Lee spent years in radio and learned to read a live script as if he were simply talking with you. Getting the words right is one level. Communicating naturally is the level above it, and it comes from doing the thing over and over.

Rethinking the Webinar as a Show

Webinars earned their stodgy reputation honestly, with ten minutes of housekeeping notes before any value arrives. Heike reframes the format as a show. Build your core idea, your premise, first, then decide what shape it takes, whether that is an interview, a webinar, or something with no clean label.

A live format gives you a chance to show rather than only tell, plus a community element that recorded content lacks. Heike recently ran a session where she played a guessing game with the chat and traded questions back and forth with attendees. She had a better time, and the audience likely did too. The goal is to build something that feels like a joy to create and consume rather than a chore on both ends.

Continuing the Conversation

You can connect with Heike Young on LinkedIn, where she works with brands on employee generated content workshops, speaks on B2B social media and video, and runs content sprints with teams that want an outside creator’s perspective. Mention that you found her through the podcast.

The Business of Marketing is produced by Content Monsta, the producer of B2B digital marketing content.

Feel free to contact the hosts and ask additional questions, we would love to answer them on the show.

Full Transcript

Click to open the full transcript here

HEIKE YOUNG
0:00

For me, my LinkedIn video story started when I was on maternity leave with my second baby. I was very personally and professionally burnt out at that time. I was really at a professional crossroads because I didn’t actually know what I wanted that next chapter to be. I probably made 300 videos for social media last year. I’ve done a lot of reps to where it now takes me maybe 20 minutes to make the same video that a couple years ago would have taken me four or five hours. Like, I’m not, I’m not exaggerating. I can be so much faster now at creating than I used to be. I definitely think that more folks could benefit from this idea that you shouldn’t create content because you feel forced to.

HEIKE YOUNG
0:42

You should create content because you feel called to. And that goes for brands as well as people. And the last thing I would say on this topic is simply I have never made my best videos because I felt like the algorithmic gods like were on top of me.

A. LEE JUDGE
1:01

Welcome again to the business of marketing. I’m a Lee Judge.

ROCIO OSUNA
1:05

And I’m Rocio Suna.

A. LEE JUDGE
1:07

What’s going on today, Rocio?

ROCIO OSUNA
1:08

So with the explosion of AI slop, we are seeing a massive push for original human generated content in the business world that is fueling the rise of, you know, employee generated content or egc. Our guest today is a huge proponent of helping employees showcase their unique voice, expertise and insights. Before we get into her story, let’s talk about EGC actually works.

A. LEE JUDGE
1:30

Okay, so EGC is employee generated content. So tell me more about that.

ROCIO OSUNA
1:35

So yeah, a report from Stackla found that a staggering 88% of consumers say authenticity is a major factor when deciding which brands to support. I absolutely love this trend because it taps into how buyers actually behave. We rely on peer to peer reviews for everything now, whether it’s service, a product or a software, incorporating EGC strategy into a brand campaign is incredibly effective way to build that trust. As I’ve said before and seen time and time again, people buy from people, not brands. What’s your take, Lee?

A. LEE JUDGE
2:06

Yeah, and it’s funny because, you know, at one point we were tired of saying the word authenticity. It became cliche, but it never became any less important. I think we’re just tired of hearing it, especially in the marketing world. Maybe not so much outside, but it’s important. And then I think there was some fuel added to the fire when AI comes along because it gave us more chance to be less authentic. And so recently I’ve been working with a lot of clients who and I’VE been working on my talks actually lately that I’m doing in the fall, and they’re around basically human and AI content and how to keep the content authentic, even though we’re using AI as a tool. And I present a formula that I believe is the solution to not only maintaining the human aspect, but also allowing us to have quality and quantity at the same time. And the equation looks something like this.

A. LEE JUDGE
2:56

It’s human viewpoint plus context and then AI. On the end, AI is just the organizer and the production multiplier, but not the creator. The creation part is reserved for the human. Otherwise you’re not saying anything new or anything engaging to humans. And engaging to humans is kind of what we’re talking about today with our guest. So let’s go on to our guest today, who is this Rocio?

ROCIO OSUNA
3:23

So she is someone I admire and had the opportunity to meet at, you know, last year’s Content Marketing World. She headed a LinkedIn workshop and she inspired me really to come back to LinkedIn video because of her workshop. You know, she’s the founder of Hike A Young Inc. A former head content at Microsoft and Salesforce. You’ve seen her LinkedIn and TikTok videos and she sits at the rare intersection of three perspectives most guests do not have at once. Enterprise content operator at Scale Creator with real distribution and independent advisor selling into the same buyers she used to be. Check out our conversation today with our guest Heike Young Heike. I want to start out by saying that I’m a huge fan girl.

ROCIO OSUNA
4:02

You know, I love your newsletter. I consume all your webinars, your content, your videos. I’ve been to an event where you’ve been and spoken at your workshops. All that stuff is great. I, you know, I’m a working mother as well and navigate that same space with small kids and really wonder how you do it. You know, what is the actual secret for getting everything done without burning out? What kind of back end structure, time blocking or production workflow do you have in line to make sure your personal brand stays so consistently published?

HEIKE YOUNG
4:36

Well, if you comment AI on this video, you’ll get my personal tech stack to answer that question. I’m just kidding. Thank you for the kind words. That’s very, that’s very nice of you to say, but I think actually the best compliment that you have given me is that you have started to create content of your own and you begin to, you’ve begun to put your voice out there and more and more and you have let me know before that I was kind of a Part of inspiring you to do that, and that’s like just the ultimate best compliment anybody could ever give to me is just like using any of my content as a jumping off point to make something yourself. I think, like, when you are a working mom, actually having a creative outlet is one of the best things that you can do for yourself, for your relationship with your kids, for your relationship with the rest of your family. I think that when we are working moms, it’s so easy to deprioritize anything that feels like fluff or extra. For me personally, having LinkedIn and having content creation as a way to share some of my ideas with the world and just like function as a person outside of what I do for my job and for my household has been such a gift. So, you know, I really do try to recommend that to people I know.

HEIKE YOUNG
5:49

Sometimes it seems crazy, like, how can I possibly fit in one more thing? I can barely brush my teeth or I can barely. I can barely take a shower every day. I’ve totally been there too. So don’t take on too much. Don’t use my advice as like, you know, oh, she’s telling me I have to do one more thing. I’m not saying that. I’m saying start small. Even if it’s a very small creative outlet, something that takes five minutes every day that you can do.

HEIKE YOUNG
6:10

Doing that and just like functioning as a, as a whole person outside of those other roles you have, wow, what a great way to also be a good example to your, to your children. Like, wow, mom is. She’s so creative and she’s so brilliant and smart and she’s so good at all these things. Like, they’re going to be so happy when they see you in your element.

A. LEE JUDGE
6:28

I want to ask about that part though, because I’ve been creating video on LinkedIn for a long time as well. But when I look at your stuff, I think, you know what, I respect the effort it takes to do what you’re doing. Because I’ve done lots of videos and I could think, well, you know what? She’s not mailing it in, that’s for sure. I mean, I may plan what I’m going to say. I may plan an idea, I may clip it from a podcast, but you’re fully scripting two or three people that you’re playing all three roles of changing personalities and outfits. That is no low effort to create content, especially when you’re focusing on business versus just, you know, for TikTok fun. So where did you decide to, to put that much effort into it. Was it a period where you had more time and now you’re committed to it, or is it just like you said, that you’re a creative outlet?

HEIKE YOUNG
7:22

It depends on the video and it depends on what’s going on in that moment in time in my personal life. For me, my LinkedIn video story started with when I was on maternity leave with my second baby. I was very personally and professionally burnt out at that time. I was really at a professional crossroads because I didn’t actually know what I wanted that next chapter to be. I was very, I was very inspired by a lot of the content that I was seeing on TikTok or on YouTube as I was scrolling with my baby, you know, watching my baby at 2 or 3 in the morning, and I was just like, wow, what if I could bring some of the entertainment that I’m seeing on these other platforms to some of these ideas that I have of about marketing and where things are headed in terms of marketing careers? And so, I don’t know, I just like all these things started to combine in my head. What you see now, though, is a much more clear reflection of that vision than what I had two and a half years ago. So make no mistake, when I started doing this two and a half years ago, it was a very bare bones, simple operation. I did not have props.

HEIKE YOUNG
8:27

I barely knew how to edit a single video together. And so, you know, don’t compare whoever’s listening to this. If you’re kind of thinking about maybe doing something similar in the future, don’t compare where you are now to somebody who’s done this hundreds and hundreds of times. I probably made 300 videos for social media last year. I’ve done a lot of reps to where it now takes me maybe 20 minutes to make the same video that a couple years ago would have taken me four or five hours. Like, I’m not, I’m not exaggerating. I can be so much faster now at creating this stuff than I used to be. And that’s just through the time.

HEIKE YOUNG
9:02

It’s not through any fancy tech stack or anything like that. It’s just simply through taking the time to do it over and over again and getting a little bit incrementally faster every time. So that’s, that’s a big part of it. Lee is simply practicing. But the other part, and some of you may relate to this, you mentioned how I’m playing multiple characters and I’m writing these scripts. I’d say the other part is that there’s really no Links I wouldn’t go to, to make my point, and I’m sure some of you can relate to that. I have gone to a local restaurant and borrowed a menu so I could make my house look like a restaurant. I have driven all over town to find the right backdrops and settings for my videos.

HEIKE YOUNG
9:45

It’s probably like a personality flaw or a trait, depending on how you’re looking at it. That’s just kind of. That’s in my DNA.

A. LEE JUDGE
9:54

Yeah, I noticed the effort. The effort does not go unnoticed.

ROCIO OSUNA
9:57

My God. And it is amazing. Every video I, you know, I’ve learned from you. You’ve said it. I have learned from you. And I also write transcripts for my own videos. And the amount of time it takes to plan everything out and verbatim write every single word is insane. The amount of time it takes, and then the amount of time it takes to actually write a post for that video itself, it’s just, it’s continuous amount of time that you take.

ROCIO OSUNA
10:22

But it is creativity, as you mentioned. It is something that helps you balance out life, having that outlet to create something. I haven’t gotten to your level yet. I don’t, I don’t know about the wardrobe change and stuff like that. I think that’s incredible. That’s even like another layer of like, how incredible you’ve gotten at your, at your gift, because it is a gift. Like, it is a really great gift. And I’ve learned so much from you.

ROCIO OSUNA
10:45

And I think, Lee, as you were talking, you know, we, we’ve seen a span of. Of people that use LinkedIn video. When it first came out natively and to where it is now. I think it was Goldie Chan who mentioned that, like, I think the 2018, 2019 was like the native users, it was a beta users, and then the third wave was around, like, shutdown, Covid shutdown. And then this is the third wave where we’re seeing a new generation of new LinkedIn video users taking it on and doing their own spin. And I love, honestly seeing, you know, the era of how everything has changed over the last, what is it, six years, seven years of LinkedIn video?

A. LEE JUDGE
11:23

Yeah. Well, I got to say, you’ve. You’ve been consistent yet evolved. That’s something I think I see different from other creators because, you know, I consider myself one. But then we, you know, we talked to Goldie Chan last week, and, you know, I’m connected to a lot of creators.

HEIKE YOUNG
11:39

She’s awesome. I just had lunch with her a few weeks ago here in la. I’m blessed to be in an area where sometimes I get to. Due to people flying into LA or whatever it might be. Goldie actually lives here. So we, yeah, we coordinated a little meetup and she is just like so delightful in person. So yeah, I love to hear that. Go on.

A. LEE JUDGE
11:57

She is, yeah. Luckily I’ll. We’ll be Both speaking at B2B marketing process this year, so I’ll get a chance to meet her in person and chat some more. But yeah, I was saying that you, you’ve been consistent but you’ve evolved and I appreciate that as well. And in fact, I think, and maybe this is a burden, but I would expect from you to see more than one personality. Is that something that you feel like it’s a burden you have to keep up now?

HEIKE YOUNG
12:20

It’s funny, you know, I think like there’s a lot of really well intentioned advice that tells you to niche down on LinkedIn and pick a niche, pick a lean, stay very consistent to your topics and that’s it. And I have never followed that advice. I have always been making these videos because I wanted to and there wasn’t some grand business strategy behind it. A lot of times there wasn’t even a content strategy behind it, to be honest. It was just an idea that I had and I wanted to execute it and so I did. I’ve always felt like if you are called to create content, if you’re the kind of person where you feel called to do it, you should give us the privilege of hearing your voice and you shouldn’t box yourself in. I think sometimes people try to say, oh, well, I’m this type of creator, so I can’t do this or that. And I’ve always been really surprised when sometimes I’ve gone outside my lane, done a different type of video than maybe what people would expect.

HEIKE YOUNG
13:23

And that video performs extremely well. And I’m like, whoa, it’s got a thousand likes or whatever it might be like. I’m really amazed by the performance of this. So I try to be true to the types of content that I always want to create and kind of use that as my compass forward. And for me, I feel like if I’m not having fun, my audience is not going to be having fun. If I feel forced and overly, if I feel like I’m overly, like guided by what the algorithm wants or what I think people want to hear, it becomes robotic and people can tell. And so I don’t really make content that I think the audience will want to see. I really kind of base it off of my own personal interests and my voice and my philosophies and the things that I feel called to share and do.

HEIKE YOUNG
14:11

I think that works for every B2B corporation. No, I think in business, when you have business outcomes and a whole team behind what you’re doing instead of one individual creator, of course things change, and they should. But I do think even folks at larger B2B marketing teams could definitely, I definitely think that more folks could benefit from this idea that you shouldn’t create content because you feel forced to. You should create content because you feel called to. And that goes for brands as well as people. And the last thing I would say on this topic is simply, I have never made my best videos because I felt like the algorithmic gods, like, were on top of me saying, hey, you haven’t posted a video yet this week. Heike, you better post a video so you can be consistent so that the algorithm. No, no, that’s not how I create my best content.

HEIKE YOUNG
15:04

I create the best videos when I have time and space to think about ideas. Something that really speaks to me personally and just like, like something that I want to put out there in the world. And so I try not to, like, put too much pressure on myself around, oh, it needs to be. To be a skit or it needs to be this or that. I kind of changed what I do as, as my interests have evolved and I think in general, like, I actually was looking at a podcast recently and I forget what podcast this was. Sorry, I wish I could. I’ll try to find it and maybe you can link to it in the show notes. It was about how basically content creators have like a three year shelf life.

HEIKE YOUNG
15:41

There’s probably about three years that you can create your same type of content before it’s not really relevant anymore. And I’m not sure how long I want to be doing this. I don’t know if I want to be a grandma and still making videos. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I don’t want to say no, maybe I will. I have no clue. I’ve been watching a lot of hacks recently and Deborah Vance is an icon of mine for sure.

HEIKE YOUNG
16:06

But I would say you have some type of a shelf life with any video style that you create. It’s going to be good for a while and then people are going to be kind of looking for something else, right? And we see this even in popular media and entertainment and tv. Any show that you watch, like, there’s different episodes and different formats and shapes that they Take over time. They adapt, the theme song changes, they add new characters to the cast. And so if you’re creating content, whether for yourself or for a brand new, it’s always going to be iterative. And so the question is just kind of rather than, oh, well, what should I create? Like, what is the algorithm? The algorithm’s like, you know, pushing me down. It’s like trying to force me to do something rather than creating from that place. I think the question is more how can you create something that really doesn’t feel like work to create or consume, but instead it feels like a joy for everybody, for you as the creator and then for the audience enjoying it as well.

ROCIO OSUNA
17:08

I think that’s a video in itself right there.

A. LEE JUDGE
17:10

It is. That’s why I let her keep going, because that’s an awesome clip. If you’re a marketer struggling to create content that’s truly unique to your brand, here’s the key. Your experts and executives are your most valuable content assets. Conversational content like videos and podcasts featuring your team stand out above all of the content. So if you, instead of creating content that sounds just like your competition, start leveraging the unique voices inside your company. Thought leaders and authentic conversations build credibility and engagement. At Content Monster, we specialize in remote content production, meaning we coach your people to be comfortable on camera.

A. LEE JUDGE
17:50

Then we capture and produce high quality videos and podcasts featuring your team and customers. No need for expensive production crews, long production plans, or complex setups. Want to see how it works? Visit content monster.com today to learn more. I want to dig into that because you mentioned satisfying the algorithm gods, and I think especially in business, we have to serve. This sounds blasphemous. You have to serve two gods, which is the algorithm God and the business that we represent God. So I know your answer is probably kind of a before and after. Before being Salesforce and Microsoft and after being Haika Young Inc.

A. LEE JUDGE
18:31

These two separate worlds, Right? So you can answer on both sides of that. But how do you do all the things you just said, like, be yourself, not serve the gods, do what content feels good, but at the same time, at some point, you know the executive is going to say, so Heike, what does this mean to business? Like, where does this connect to the bottom line? Why are we doing this? Is it just for fun or does it help our business sell something? How do you answer that? Maybe before and after.

HEIKE YOUNG
19:01

I think that when you are creating on behalf of a brand, it’s very easy to get distracted by all the different gods. To continue with your analogy, because not only do you have the algorithm gods, and you know, all of the things that you were just saying about how your folks internally may be asking you about, how is this connecting to our business goals? And I think sometimes as marketers, we start feeling like the internal people are the audience instead of the external people. And so you forget that you’re actually creating this for real human beings and not for your boss and your boss’s boss to pat you on the head and tell you a good job. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with that. We all need a paycheck. If what you need to do right now is create that content to make your boss happy and you’ve got some. Some specific career goals that you’re working toward, I don’t begrudge you for that at all. I also think there is an opportunity as a content leader to step up and think about all of these demands in a different way, and that is to be the audience’s advocate, and that is kind of your ultimate job.

HEIKE YOUNG
20:07

And so I would say if there is, like, a one true God as a marketer, it really is your audience. And I had a really good boss at Salesforce who always told us, as the content team, your job is to be the audience’s advocate, because nobody else is standing up for the audience. Nobody else. If you’re on the content team and you’re letting the product team push you in one direction, or the PR team or whoever it might be, nobody in that room is advocating for the audience and their experience. And so I would really say by standing up for the audience and by being their advocate, you’re also going to be winning the game of the algorithm. Because my friend Zoe Hartsfield always says, the algorithm is just people. It’s just people, Right? And so, yes, you can complain about little changes here and there. Oh, now the algorithm seems to be prioritizing this or that.

HEIKE YOUNG
21:00

It’s really just people that are scanning these feeds. At the end of the day, it’s just a real person on the other side. So if you can center that and prioritize that, I actually think your career as a content marketer will grow and you will prosper. Because the more that you do that and you show that the audience, hey, the audience did or didn’t resonate with this. And, like, here’s why. I think that internally, that audience as well, the leaders and your boss and your boss’s boss, I think that they will all see what’s really going on, and they’ll be like, oh, this is the person who prioritizes results. They prioritize the audience, they prioritize what’s going to perform best with real people. And so I do think that it ultimately helps your career.

HEIKE YOUNG
21:44

And you know, kind of going back to your original question, yeah, I think like creating content for myself personally radicalized me as a content marketer because I saw for the first time what content creation could be like if it was your idea to feed all through the process and There was no 50 Google Docs of approvals going back and forth. There was no pitch decks. Yes. There wasn’t all the approvals. It was just like I had an idea the next day it was live. Like there wasn’t a bunch of middle people along the way. It was just like, I had a plan and then this is when it got published. And it didn’t take a month to get a campaign live or whatever.

HEIKE YOUNG
22:28

It might, might be a month might be fast in some companies. So, you know what I’m saying? I think like, as we are creating content, I’m not suggesting everybody out there, like become a content creator and you know, that that might not be the path for everyone, but I do think it’s like finding those pockets of innovation in your org where you can ship things faster and show a better way. And then once you do that more and more, maybe that becomes 20% of your job and then maybe it’s 50% of your job and then like along the way you’re kind of showing, hey, I got buy in on this project. It performed really well with our audience and now look what it’s doing. And that’s what I used to try to do when I was in house when I was at Salesforce. I apropos today’s conversation. I started the first branded podcast at Salesforce. And so I had this idea back in the day.

HEIKE YOUNG
23:16

I mean, this was like, gosh, like over 10 years ago. I had this idea to do a marketing podcast for marketers from, um, Salesforce. Since I was working on the content team, I was like, I’m going to host it, I’m going to create this whole thing. And it was like I had zero budget. My boss really didn’t want me to spend all that much time on it because I had like a whole other job I was supposed to do. By two years later, I had grown the podcast to, you know, a six figure audience, et cetera. It was almost my entire job. This was probably like 2015 or something.

A. LEE JUDGE
23:50

You know, it’s possible that that’s. Were you a Part of that, like, was your name anywhere in that or were you just behind the scenes? It’s very possible that I knew you from that before I knew you from LinkedIn, because I was a Salesforce admin around that time and getting into podcast, and there’s a very good chance I knew Heike Young before I knew.

HEIKE YOUNG
24:07

Yeah. Did you know that guy Michael Gearhart, that used to run a Salesforce podcast as well? He did the Salesforce Admins podcast and he co hosted that with Jillian. With Jillian. And they were like a great duo, but I also guessed it on their podcast sometimes, and that was like the Salesforce Admins podcast specifically. My podcast was more for the marketing side. But, yeah, you know, it started out as something that was more of like, a little side project, and nobody really wanted to give me any resources or time to do it. And then over time, it became like almost my. Almost my whole job.

A. LEE JUDGE
24:39

I think that speaks to podcasting a bit, because I was a marketer who was a marketing ops person, a sales ops person. So I was in, you know, Pardot and Marketo and Salesforce and HubSpot and all those things, listening to these podcasts from this big brand. I’m listening to Salesforce, I’m listening to HubSpot, all those things, and there was no way to track that. I was doing that. There was no way to track. Did he influence a $100,000 purchase at this global brand of Salesforce? You know, those were. Those things were happening. I’ve influenced Salesforce purchases, HubSpot purchases, and I’m listening to these podcasts.

A. LEE JUDGE
25:18

And as a marketer who’s always, you know, working with other marketers frustrated with measurement. That goes to show you’re talking about back to 2015 16. We’re talking about a podcast that affects the bottom line of businesses, even though it’s damn near impossible to trace.

HEIKE YOUNG
25:35

Yep, I didn’t agree.

A. LEE JUDGE
25:36

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A. LEE JUDGE
26:08

Get your copy now@aleadjudge.com cash. Now back to the content.

ROCIO OSUNA
26:14

So about content creation, I really like what you were talking about. Content creation within the corporate world. You’re a huge Proponent of employee generated content. And I really enjoyed that graphic you made in your latest newsletter and on LinkedIn. You know, 10 ways to motivate your team to post on LinkedIn where you warn leaders against launching programs that essentially are spaghetti cannons, as he called it, where you just tell employees to post without a plan and see what sticks. So when companies try to launch an EGC or pgc, you know, people generate content, which is something a haikai ism that I’ve adopted initiative. What are the most common operational mistakes you see people make?

HEIKE YOUNG
26:54

This area. That’s a great question. This area of employee generated content, egc, it’s so new, I see almost no one nailing it right now. That’s actually a really good thing because I think if your team, even if you have limited resources and a very scrappy budget, you don’t need much to really do well and knock this type of strategy out of the water. You’re not competing with people who have years and years of experience doing this. Like almost everyone is brand new to it. So there’s a first movers advantage to doing this. I work with a lot of different teams on developing EGC programs.

HEIKE YOUNG
27:34

A lot of times these are like kicking them off and pilots and just getting them off the ground for the very first time. And so I see it all. I think I’ve worked with six or seven teams this year on coaching them on building out these types of strategies. And it’s often people that are just like they’re starting from almost nothing. And so I think the spaghetti cannon is one of the biggest things that I see. Right. So people will bring me in for a content training, a LinkedIn training, a workshop. And one of the biggest mistakes I see, and this is actually something that I want to start warning people of more and more is like they basically have me in for a workshop and they haven’t thought through what the content themes are even going to be.

HEIKE YOUNG
28:11

And I’m not saying that these need to be the most fully baked themes of all time. I actually think getting too prescriptive is a way to make people not want to post because they don’t feel they can add their own flavor to it and their own spice and you know, their own personal seasoning, you know what I mean? So I’m not saying you should do that. I don’t want you to write posts for people. I don’t want you to overly script them in any way. I do think you should have themes and I think the other big miss is not having a calendar. So these These EGC posts are the most impactful when they are aligned to market moments and audience moments and company moments. So I’m going to use an example of each market moments. This could something like, let’s say you’re an E commerce company and Black Friday is like the biggest time of year for your clients.

HEIKE YOUNG
28:59

You should be mobilizing your team around Black Friday and around that entire seasonal motion. That is a market moment you want to capitalize on. Next would be like company moments. So any big product launch, anything that’s happening inside your company, getting people to post about it like in real time so that it’s not happening a week after the event, it’s happening in that moment. And it takes some coordination to get this right, but it’s super important to do. And then. Sorry, what was the last one? I just lost my tripod.

A. LEE JUDGE
29:31

Don’t worry about it. I have a question that I wanted that you triggered with, with me.

HEIKE YOUNG
29:35

Okay. Okay.

A. LEE JUDGE
29:36

Because I was thinking about a former client of ours who, because you mentioned having a theme, like having an idea of what you want to talk about before you bring someone like you in to coach them into, to mold them. I had a client once who, now, given this was a very regulated industry, it’s in the finance industry. And the law team was heavy on the scripting. So there’s two problems here, law and scripting. So they, they scripted it out so tight that the employees didn’t want to say it. They’re like, I would never say this or that’s too strict, or I feel like I’m reading legalese here. And the company had an initiative to create and we ended up creating about 200 videos for this company. But the problem is, and it didn’t last very long, unfortunately, because the employees started seeing what the others were being forced to do.

A. LEE JUDGE
30:30

They’re like, I want to participate, but I ain’t reading that. And some folks wrote their own stuff and only a few got through the filter. Most of them got smashed back down by legal and said, oh, you have to say this, this, this and this. And the program died out. It would have been a really great EGC program, but it died out because everybody’s like, look, I’m not going to read that legalese and then put it on my social platforms, you know, and you don’t want to put on the company platform. So there’s such a. There’s such a, I guess a continuum of go do whatever you want to do to read our legalese to where a lot of EGCs, I think die in the legal department?

HEIKE YOUNG
31:10

Yes. So one of the other things I really advise teams on when they’re starting to go down the path of creating one of these strategies is to simply revisit your company’s social media policy. A lot of companies created a social media policy in like the year 2005 and they haven’t looked at it since. And it’s a different world. Companies are, they’re paying employees to post content. Major companies are standing up employee influencer programs. This is not the same world that it used to be. So just revisit that social media policy.

HEIKE YOUNG
31:45

I am not a legal expert. I’m not going to tell you exactly what needs to go in it, but I would say look at it again as a team for today’s ecosystem, today’s environment and landscape and the social channels that exist and update that thing to just make sure it’s very clear. Hey, employees are allowed to post what they’d like to from their personal profiles unless it violates, you know, X, Y and Z. Make sure it’s up to date and that you actually have a great, legible, understandable policy in place so people can check that and make sure, oh, hey, yeah, it’s not a problem for me to create some content on the side and to be part of this EDC program. They can kind of like vet where they’re at. I have seen a lot of social media policies that were written for a different day and age.

ROCIO OSUNA
32:26

I always think though, with employee generated content, you know, speaking of legal industries, the pharma industry, they have such huge red, you know, regulations against xyz. Right. So how do they even share if, if there’s even. I can’t even think of anyone in the pharmaceutical industry doing any kind of employee anything. Right. Because, you know, I’ve worked in the pharma and biotech industry. It’s very much, you know, you go through a long process and review. So like you said a bit ago, where you love being in a position where you can think of an idea, tape it and then push it out, it doesn’t have to go through, you know, 50 different signatures for it to go out.

ROCIO OSUNA
33:03

The pharma industry, oh my goodness, how do you even go and do a program there? Do you, do you even try, do you even tap into that industry?

HEIKE YOUNG
33:11

Well, it’s a great question. And you know, what if somebody’s listening to this and you are, we work in healthcare or pharma and you want to have a consulting call with me, I would love to dissect this Because I’m not sure. To be totally honest, I’d say most of my clients have been in the tech space. They’ve been in software as a service. And I haven’t had the opportunity to look into it too closely in terms of like some of those industries that you mentioned. My guess is that in some of these regulated spaces, yes, you would need to treat this with a much higher degree of scrutiny in terms of what the employees are posting about. But I would also go back to your goals as a company and your objectives for social media. You probably have some different objectives if you’re in that position than what you would have in your AI startup.

HEIKE YOUNG
34:05

And the goal is just getting your message out to market as quickly as possible. And it’s a speed game. And like, you’ve got to get out there and because all of the other big players with tons of investor money are all doing it. So I would say let your goals dictate your strategy. Don’t let your. Don’t let. Just like everybody else is doing this. And so we’ve got to do it too.

HEIKE YOUNG
34:26

Dictate what you’re going to do.

A. LEE JUDGE
34:28

Yeah, I can actually lean into that a little bit, Rocio, because we have a client that is in the pharma industry and the way they approach it is more like they know that their customers have viewpoints on certain things. Sometimes the information isn’t correct or it’s trend or whatever, and they use their experts in the company to say, hey, we know you’re hearing about this, but here’s the truth or here’s how it really affects you, or this is in the same class of drugs as that. They’re just stating facts from a consultative standpoint and not getting into the medical like diagnosis of something. They’re just saying, look, here’s information, let us help you understand it better. And then they stop there. And that’s one way that they create EGC content.

HEIKE YOUNG
35:15

Okay, that’s fair.

A. LEE JUDGE
35:17

So Heike, you’ve been, as I say, on the inside and on the outside, that’s something that we have in common, is that we spent so many years in corporate and now we’re on our own. So what are some of the things that you saw being spent on or time wasted on maybe in corporate that now as a business owner on the outside you would not spend money on.

HEIKE YOUNG
35:45

We could just have a whole podcast with multiple seasons. I was so excited. We can do like five seasons and a movie about this topic because it is so rich and there’s so many differences in what one person can do in a business versus a whole team. And I will say before I share response to this, there’s so many things that are great about being in corporate. One just being the ability to have other experts to collaborate with when you have different problems. And so I’ve been really lucky working at companies like Salesforce and Microsoft where we had these huge marketing teams. And so it’s like no matter what challenge I was dealing with, there was probably somebody in the company who was an expert and could help me resolve that thing for free without me having to pay for that for their consulting services. And so like, let’s say I was having a problem with a Google Analytics dashboard and I’m like, oh no, I can’t get this thing to load.

HEIKE YOUNG
36:42

And it’s like, problem. It’s giving me all these problems. There’s people in the company who are experts at exactly that. And I can get some time on their calendar and say, I need, need some help. And then like, we go from there. Wow, what an amazing benefit to working inside a company as a team of one. Nowadays, if I have a problem, it’s like, tough luck. I mean, you know, I can go hire somebody to help me out, I can ask my network.

HEIKE YOUNG
37:07

But there’s a lot of days when I’m just kind of like wasting time on things because I’m one person and I’m trying to be every single function for my business. So yes, there’s certainly downsides. And in terms of like time wasters or budget wasters in corporate, I’d say as a small business owner now, I just don’t have time for things that don’t move the needle for me. Like, if it’s not going to bring me customers, if it’s not going to be fun for me to create in some way, if it doesn’t have a clear benefit at the end of the rainbow, like, I’m going to start this thing and I know there’s going to be an end if there’s not like a very clear benefit and like a what’s in it for me? Me, I just don’t do it. And in contrast, in corporate, we spend a lot of time spinning our little wheels and it’s like, why are we doing this project? Oh yeah, because somebody’s boss’s boss heard in a webinar that we needed to do this strategy. So I guess like we are supposed to now and, oh, it’s on somebody’s career plan that they wanted to do it and so that’s why we got roped into this, but we don’t actually agree. Agree with it. And yet we have to do it anyways.

HEIKE YOUNG
38:12

There’s just a lot of like doing things that don’t have a very clear benefit because you were asked to do it. And that’s part of having a big kid job. You’re in a team setting and you gotta be a team player. So it’s not always bad to just like be helping other people if that’s the goal. I think sometimes though, in corporate, there’s not really a clear goal. And that’s where you start to see the real differences emerge between how fast a small business can move and then like the bigger the corporation, sometimes it gets bogged down in these tasks. That’s like somebody suggested we should do this ages ago. We don’t really even remember why.

HEIKE YOUNG
38:53

And yet here we are.

A. LEE JUDGE
38:54

Absolutely.

ROCIO OSUNA
38:55

Budgets. Budgets.

HEIKE YOUNG
38:56

Switch to.

A. LEE JUDGE
38:58

It’s a different one. It’s your own budget too. That makes sense. Exactly.

ROCIO OSUNA
39:01

That’s exactly it.

HEIKE YOUNG
39:03

Yeah. If it’s your own budget, you’re like, well, I’m not going to, I’m not going to prioritize that. And on the flip side, in corporate, I mean, I people, you know, I’m a consultant now, so I work with lots of different teams and I work with teams all the time that are just like, oh yeah, you know, we’re, we’re grandfathered into this deal or we have a contract with this or that tool, even though we don’t think it’s so great. And like, that just wouldn’t really happen to me as a small business owner, to tell you the truth. I would just, if I didn’t see value, I would just be like, nope, I’m not, I’m not spending a dime on that thing.

A. LEE JUDGE
39:36

Well, in terms of crossing content with value and having a business to make sure it makes sense, that makes me think about webinars. I know, Rocio, you had some questions about webinars. I know Heike, that’s your thing. You good at that. So Rocio, what was your question you had about that?

ROCIO OSUNA
39:54

So I’m a sucker for webinars. I love webinars because for the most part, it’s a free way to learn and network with others. And I think you’ve mentioned that it’s an incredible way to serve as lead generation tool for marketing teams. And you brought up something before that. You know, that teams should focus heavily on leveling up their existing webinars instead of constantly trying to launch entirely new shows or content formats. What are the core components that Actually make a webinar stick with an audience nowadays.

HEIKE YOUNG
40:26

Yeah. And I want to congratulate you, Rocio, because you just said a sentence that’s never been said before in English, which is that you love webinars. So congratulations.

A. LEE JUDGE
40:35

That’s.

HEIKE YOUNG
40:35

That’s so great. And I’m not lying. You’ve seen me at your webinars. You’ve seen me at several other ones, so.

A. LEE JUDGE
40:40

Hi. They do exist. They do exist.

HEIKE YOUNG
40:43

Yeah.

A. LEE JUDGE
40:43

I didn’t know.

HEIKE YOUNG
40:44

You’re a trailblazer, for sure. Pioneer of webinar territory. So good for you. No, I think that webinars are just a show, and they’ve kind of been given a bad rap as this stodgy, boring, corporate, you know, experience. You gotta watch the slides, and the first five minutes are just the introduction person being like, let me go over a few housekeeping notes before we dive in. And then that takes forever. You know, it’s like. It’s like 10 minutes, and you’re like, where is the value? Where is the meat of, like, what you promised that, you know, that I would be here to attend.

HEIKE YOUNG
41:21

And yet at the same time, we have all these teams that are spinning up new series for YouTube, new podcasts and all these things. So I would just converge all of these strategies around your premise. You can go watch some great content from Jay Kunzo and Brendan Hufford about content IP and your premise and developing your core ideas for your content.

ROCIO OSUNA
41:42

Right.

HEIKE YOUNG
41:42

Like, go make that first and then figure out, how does this take shape? Is it an interview show? Is it a webinar? Like, how are all of these pieces complimentary? A webinar doesn’t have to be so bad. You have this amazing opportunity to show and not just tell. So unlike a text post, a blog post, an ebook, you really have a chance to show people on video, make them very engaging and show them. It could be slides, it could be other illustrations. Like, the sky is kind of the limit for how you might do this. And so I would just encourage people to think about it more as a show with added benefits. Like, there’s a community element to webinars as well. People are commenting in the chat.

HEIKE YOUNG
42:25

I recently did a webinar. It was a virtual event webinar. I don’t know what it was. The lines are blurred right between all these things, which is, I suppose, at the core of what I’m saying. But I recently spoke in one of these situations where I just played a game with people in the chat and I just looked at by gas and a bunch of questions. I Had them guess. And I went back and forth with the people in the chat. I had a way better time as a speaker because I was getting some feedback from people.

HEIKE YOUNG
42:52

I can’t see their faces. I don’t know if they’re enjoying what I’m saying. I’m getting feedback from them in the chat. I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I’m guessing that some people enjoyed that more than just having to sit there and listen to me talk and talk for a half hour. So just as one example that I share, there’s so many ways to make these things more exciting and interesting than the traditional ways that we’ve been doing webinars. So just kind of imagine reimagining it. Imagine reimagining it. That’s as kind of of redundant.

HEIKE YOUNG
43:21

You know what I mean? Think about how you would take your core ideas and regenerate them through a virtual live event of sorts. And maybe you call it a webinar, maybe you don’t. Maybe you call it something else.

ROCIO OSUNA
43:33

So speaking of Jay, the advertisement of those webinars has gotten interesting because I specifically remember signing up for Jay’s webinar with Wistia because of the.

HEIKE YOUNG
43:46

That was such a good webinar.

ROCIO OSUNA
43:47

My God. I don’t know if you saw this, Lee.

HEIKE YOUNG
43:49

Yes.

ROCIO OSUNA
43:49

He literally went down a slide. You know, that really dangerous slide. Is it Boston? Where like people get injured? And he threw out, like, he pretended to go down it, but obviously it was a dummy. But it was a whole pull in to like, you know, sign up to the webinar. And the moment before that, he went in with a Wisti employee into like a really cool bike thing and he saw the bike. It was amazing. I’m like, okay. I literally registered because of those two videos.

ROCIO OSUNA
44:15

Like the ads for, you know, webinars are getting very interesting. And generally that pulled me in.

HEIKE YOUNG
44:22

Yeah. And when he presented the webinar, I went to the same one. So shout out to Jay and shout out to Alistia for your great content. I went to the same one because I just like, I’ll attend whatever Jay does because he’s so good and I always learned something from him. But as he delivered the content, he was just, it was like so well put, practiced, and so well rehearsed. And in like a good way, because I hear you, Lee, which is like, we don’t want to overly script people and we don’t want to make them feel like they’re reading from this robotic script and that they don’t have any license to be themselves. But I also. There’s like a yin and a yang to this.

ROCIO OSUNA
45:01

Yes.

HEIKE YOUNG
45:01

There’s a difference between that and what somebody like Jay does, which is shows up on camera with a very well prepared, beautifully delivered speech that feels more like what you would hear from a really practiced comedian getting up on stage or.

A. LEE JUDGE
45:16

Well, because you expect it. You expect someone who’s an expert at speaking to have rehearsed and have rehearsed beyond getting the words right and into the realm of actually communicating with you naturally, which is another level. It’s one level to get the words right. It’s another level to communicate naturally. Like for me, I did radio for years and I can read a live script as if I’m just having a conversation with you. And that’s a skill. That’s not something that you can just pick up day one.

ROCIO OSUNA
45:49

And I can attest to that because I learn every day from Lee. Like, I generally, I had to, I think I had to tell you that I was like, everything that you do seems so natural and like, good. And then you brought in the experience and having done it just like you Heiked, you know, you’ve done 300 videos. You’re obviously very good at it now because it’s the experience thing and that really, really shows in the content and the things that you deliver.

A. LEE JUDGE
46:12

So, Heike, before we go, I want you to tell us, you know, how can we find Heike Inc? How can we work with you? What’s going on with you?

HEIKE YOUNG
46:21

Great question. LinkedIn is always the home of Heike Young Inc. I’m always on there. I’d love to meet anybody that is listening to this. You know, add me and say that you found me through this podcast. So I know. And then I’m like, yes, like, must add that person. The finger goes right to the, to the accept button.

HEIKE YOUNG
46:41

I do try to keep my first degree connections a little bit more. People that are like a friend of a friend and not just somebody that I don’t know. So definitely do that. And I would love to meet you all on LinkedIn. And then, yeah, some of the ways I say there’s like three big ways that I’m working with folks right now. I am working with brands on employee generated content workshops. I am working with brand. And those are like, I can either come to you in person or I do them virtually.

HEIKE YOUNG
47:05

And we kind of kick off your entire AGC program. I am doing speaking so I can come speak about B2B social media. I can come speak about video. I can come speak about people generated content or any of this stuff at your event. Again, in person, online, virtual event, webinar, whatever you want to call it. We can worry about that later. Just let me know and we can, we can collab and figure that out. And then I’m doing content.

HEIKE YOUNG
47:28

So I do content partnerships with brands. I also do sprints with teams that kind of just want like an outside creator POV on their social videos. So I can come in, work with your team and just shoot around a bunch of ideas and kind of work on developing out a bunch of your social video plans for the year. But yeah, I’m based in la. I hope to, I guess I’ve met both of you guys in person but would love to hopefully I’ll you see see you guys in an event sometime this year. Will you all be at Content Marketing World again?

A. LEE JUDGE
47:55

Yep. Speaking there.

HEIKE YOUNG
47:57

Hoping, fingers crossed. Okay, cool. Yeah, I’m hoping, I’m hoping to go to that one too. And I’m not sure what all events I’m going to for the rest of the fall. It’s like, I feel like it’s so last minute with events like I never know until the very last minute and they’re like, I guess I’m going to go.

ROCIO OSUNA
48:09

So I’m the same.

A. LEE JUDGE
48:10

Well, we look forward to seeing you there. And again, thank you for joining us on the show today. It was such a pleasure.

HEIKE YOUNG
48:15

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

ROCIO OSUNA
48:16

Thank you.

HEIKE YOUNG
48:17

Thank you, friends.

A. LEE JUDGE
48:18

All right, that was a great conversation with Heike. So once again, thank you for joining the Business of Marketing. I’m a Lee Judge.

ROCIO OSUNA
48:25

I’m Rocio Suna. Catch you next time.

A. LEE JUDGE
48:27

Catch you next time.