Strands of Genius: Ryan Lewis + Social Media Trends 2023
featuring: an interview with our guest editor and a research report
Welcome to the Bonus edition of Strands of Genius! On Fridays, we’ll be publishing interviews from our guest editors, and sharing a research report. Thanks for being along for the ride. Oh and by the way, you look great today :)
:: STEAL THIS THINKING | RESEARCH REPORT ::
If you had to draft a basic social media strategy back in 2019, what would’ve been the focus areas? Instagram for the cool factor? Facebook and YouTube for scale? A triple H content model? Test runs on niche platforms? Brand fame generated through influencers? With all this being optimized for paid distribution?
In most cases, this approach was pretty much the default. And it worked, allowing meaningful and sizeable reach to scale effectively. Today we’re facing a different reality. One that’s dominated by TikTok’s growth, a certain counter-culture among online users and widespread saturation.
:: DIVE IN | THE INTERVIEW ::
RYAN LEWIS, SENIOR EDITOR, WORLD FAMOUS
>> Ryan Lewis guest curated Strands on June 29th, 2023. Read it here.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what keeps you busy. How did you end up doing what you’re doing today?
I'm the Senior Editor at World Famous in Seattle, Washington. We're a project based agency that was founded on integrating our strong production background with agency creative and strategy. We collaborate with brands to get to better work faster.
Most of the time, I'm making 30 second spots for either a big brand like Amazon, or a small emerging brand where we get more creative involvement.
Growing up I always wanted to be a movie director and then fell into advertising once I found out that was a good career path for making videos. I love the constrains of making a short 15 or 30 second story, combined with the high quality that good advertising demands.
As my career has grown I love editing more than ever before (I'd like to think it's because I've gotten better at it), but I am always looking for more opportunities to evolve as a creative.
What excites you most about what you do?
I never thought I wanted to work at an ad agency. I've heard stories about how big agencies treat their internal production studios as little factories for award submissions, new business pitches, and pet projects. Not the most aspirational environment, I thought.
Our agency treats the production side as a creative asset, and are tightly integrated with writers and designers even as early as the concepting phase. This has been an exciting step in my career to think and answer questions outside of "which of these take do you like?".
The hybrid creative worker trend has been emerging for some time now as technology is always expanding and evolving media's reach into our lives and advertisers are constantly adjusting. Exciting (some may say terrifying) new technologies like AI are evolving what it is to "be a creative". I personally love to think and problem solve, so I’m excited for these new challenges.
I think AI can be an exciting new tool for two main creative tasks: Brainstorming and replacing rote, mundane tasks. That frees me to focus on the big picture, like "what are we really trying to say here" and find creative solutions to get there. Now, THAT's exciting!
What beliefs define your approach to work? How would you define your leadership style?
Whether I’m working on a project by myself or with a team, I approach every project with same three principals.
1. Be clear.
Establish clear priorities and make sure they don’t conflict with another priority. When working alone, focus on the main message and make sure all creative decisions serve that goal. When leading a team, give a clear "what" and "why" but let your team figure out the best "how".
2. Be collaborative.
This goes up and down the creative process. Be collaborative with your clients to make sure you are aligning with their needs. Be equally collaborative with your team. The creative leader should focus on the big picture. Does this story work? Is this telling the correct message? Let your team focus on the details. Avoiding micro management at all costs. This give your team ownership and pride over the work they create. Do not let yourself get pulled into the nuts and bolts otherwise you loose your greatest benefit, your ability to provide the 50,000 ft view.
Do not fight client notes and feedback; your client wants to make the most creative and effective work possible too. It can be tempting to try and empathize with your team and complain about client notes, but that actually demoralizes from making great work. Sometime to be the best collaborator you need to read between the lines of what is being said and challenge your client with a more effective solution. The key is to figure out what they are getting hung up on, but that doesn't mean their notes are wrong.
3. Be helpful.
Provide resources. Fight for the resources you need from your leadership team or focus the priority to make the most of what resources you have. Ask the right questions to anticipate and stay ahead of problems. Protect your team from the back and forth of distracting high level conversations, but make sure you are still providing important context as the what and why evolve.
What has been the most rewarding project you’ve worked on and why?
It was a PBS documentary that captured first hand accounts of WWII from both the American and French perspective. It was the first major project of my career and probably only project I've worked on where I could combine my film major with my french minor. Professionally it transitioned me into being a full time editor, plus it was cool to be part of a project that was capturing stories that would have otherwise been entirely lost.
We are big believers in diversity -- Not only because we believe in equality, but because we also think it’s better for business. The Black Lives Matter movement has shaped industry conversations around both global injustice, and also lack of representation in our industry. How do you frame these kinds of conversations, both internally and with clients? Is there an emphasis on action, or are the conversations really more about communication?
Diversity is super important. The creative process requires that we think outside of the box, so welcoming, recruiting, supporting and listening to people that look, think, or act different that ourselves feels like a no brainer.
There is a long history of societies all around the world actively marginalizing communities that are different from themselves, so we must equally be active now to do whatever we can to heal past injustices. We talk about this openly at World Famous and are always looking for ways to improve our recruitment and outreach to minority or marginalized communities and we also focus on female leadership and career development as we have a long way to go to get to appropriate representation on our industry.
Switching gears a bit, how do you find time to balance personal interests with your career? Do you believe work/life balance is possible? Anything you’ve implemented that you recommend that others try?
Your life is mostly made up of the habits you follow every day. You will do what you plan. That's why it's so easy to always tell your friends "we should hang out more", but it doesn't happen until you actual make time to see or talk to that person again.
This is why I am a huge advocate of routines, you can do something daily, like taking a walk at 2pm every day (big fan of the 2 o' clock walk), but also make sure you're planning bigger moments of recovery into your life.
I always try to do one big thing a year, one medium thing a month, and one memorable thing each week. Our work lives will ebb and flow but they'll never stop moving, so that's why it's so important than you constantly have these routine breaks built in. No matter how crazy work gets, you have recovery built into your life.
Someone once told me, "always have your next vacation planned" and I think that's pretty good advice. It's the same reason I plan my next day before I go to sleep at night, it gives you a guide post to work towards BEFORE you're too tired to plan it. When motivation wanes, you will have a plan and process to help you, and moments of travel, rest or adventure to recharge your soul along the way.
What’s your media diet? Where do you find inspiration?
I love the term "media diet" because we really are what we consume. It's important to be mindful of the inputs into your life, because if you're not paying attention, just like your food diet, your psyche can accidentally get full of junk. ALSO like a food diet, you need to keep it well balanced.
We should all strive to be informed, thoughtful citizens, neighbors, and dinner party guests.
That boils down to being informed on national news, local news and fun little odds and ends.
Even though I'm a pretty liberal dude, for national news I like to keep a balanced view of what's going on in the media. Something like a New York Times / Wall Street Journal split gives you a US center left/center right view of what's going on. I just found that the Financial Times has an iOS app called "FT Edit" that will just give you 8 articles a day on big topics that I normally don't find elsewhere. So cool! Goodbye endless scrolling.
Local news is even more important since it affects more of your day to day and you can also have an impact on what happens in your community (vote in your local elections, folks!).
And for your fun odds and ends, I love newsletters (like this one!) and I tend to do deep dives into different interests over time. I follow Tim Ferriss' advice and study things "just in time, not just in case", and so my consumption follows whatever is going on in my life at that time. About to move, let's do a deep dive into architecture! I found the topics more engaging and more memorable that way. (PS - Architectural Digest's YouTube page does awesome break downs on specific architecture styles. I recommend starting with "Architect Breaks Down 5 of the Most Common New York Apartments").
What’s the best piece of advice/knowledge you’ve stolen, and who/where’d you steal it from?
I‘ve stolen and modified a quote that goes something like "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter". I guess it's no surprise that an editor would point out that things are better when they're shorter.
It can sometimes take great effort to make things shorter, but distilling an idea down to it's simplest and clearest existence is one of the most powerful tools that all thinkers in all professions can use.
Whew! As my dad likes to say, "I've already told you more than I know" which is a pretty funny phrase when you think about it, and one I think he also stole from someone else. How relevant to include it in this newsletter
You can keep in touch with Ryan on LinkedIn.
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co
@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob hangs out on instagram
@ashley also writes for deaf, tattooed & employed