How To Become A Top Crypto Influencer in 2022 | Crypto Influencer Marketing Lesson

Ty Smith0:00

What is up, guys? Welcome to another episode of The Crypto Marketing Show. I'm Ty Smith. With me today is Altcoin Sarah.

Altcoin Sarah0:09

Hi. Hi, Ty.

Ty Smith0:10

Today we are going to do our first-ever influencer spotlight episode. So I'm really interested to talk to Sarah about what goes in behind the scenes and the history of being a content creator in the crypto space. Before we dive in, let's do a little intro for you, Sarah. You're a content creator. You've been in the game for, I don't know how long exactly, years though, because we've known each other for quite some time. Over 60k Twitter followers, you've worked with dozens of brands in the crypto space. So I'm super excited that you're here for the first episode that we do with an influencer. All right, cool. Let's dive right into it. I mean, what first got you into the world of creating crypto content?

Altcoin Sarah0:56

So thank you, first of all, Ty, for having me. I'm actually honored to be the first one. I didn't realize that I was going to be the first one of the series, so it's actually a big honor. Like you said, we've known each other for years now. So it's great to come on the show and actually speak to you because we've actually not met in person. It's always video of crypto, isn't it? So I got into crypto exactly four years ago, just around November time 2017. I was following loads of different accounts on YouTube who were creating content, and me and my partner, we used to go on walks with our dogs, and he would sort of make jokes about me being a content creator. Then we started thinking like, why won't I start doing it then? So I created Altcoin Sarah. I was part of Altcoin Buzz as well at the time. That sort of kicked off. People started agreeing with me. Of course, some controversial stuff went viral a couple of times. That's pretty much how it all started. I never started creating content with the idea of having a large following. It's something that just happened because I consistently kept creating content. So if anyone's asking for advice on how to do it, just be consistent with it. That's all I can say. What got me into crypto, well, I think it's sort of like everyone starts at the same point of hoping to make a moon bag, get rich, and get your Lambo. So that's what initially got me into it. But then after investing in pretty much every possible shitcoin back in 2017 and having lost a lot of money because of that during the bear market between 2018 and 2020, I actually started learning about the space and what actually blockchain is, what Bitcoin actually is, what is actually inflation, because I didn't know the word, but I didn't know how important it was to actually understand it. Because they don't really teach you those things at school. You just sort of expected to know what it is and just get on with the adult life. So once I started educating myself, I realized how massive this space is going to be once everyone starts learning and understanding how wrong the way things are right now will just change the world.

Ty Smith3:30

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I feel like there was, there's different waves of people who got into crypto, and I feel like you were part of this cohort, the same around the same time that I got into it, and a lot of, kind of this cohort of influencers and stuff that we all kind of work together now, that really got in it before it was just like a way to make a lot of money. It was like, inflation is really becoming a problem, we have to address that, we need to search for other alternative assets that are going to allow us to keep our wealth rather than solely lose 6%, whatever it is a year now. It's cool.

Altcoin Sarah4:03

It's crazy. It's crazy what's currently happening. I keep telling to my friends to get into crypto, that they're going to lose their money, that it's just, if you're not getting a pay rise that is greater than inflation, you're essentially taking a pay cut. And until people realize that, I think there's going to be more and more difference between the poor and the wealthy. And that is my mission, to make people realize that they need to start investing. If they don't want to go into something as crazy as crypto, just anything, just start investing and being your own bank, making sure that you have your money taken care of, because no one's going to do it for you.

Ty Smith4:44

Yeah, exactly. And it's easier now than it was before, because when we first got into the game, DeFi wasn't so much a thing as it is now. You couldn't just put your money in Aave or Compound. You can now, which is kind of cool. So I know you said you kind of, it's funny, there's always like, whenever we talk with influencers, there's like two categories. There's people that are really in the side of social media marketing and they really made a concerted effort to become an influencer from the start, and then there's these other people that kind of fell into it and just happened to grow a big following. Which category do you think you fit into?

Altcoin Sarah5:15

Oh, I just, it just happened. I'm the second category, the latter one. I don't really know when and how it happened, but it just did. I remember when the first project reached out to me to do some marketing with them, and I said, 'Guys, I have no idea what and how and how I can help you.' I liked the project, so I sort of did it for free. Then as I started creating more and more for them, more projects started reaching out to me. And as I started working with more and more, I started gaining more experience as those things happen. Then agencies like Coinbound started partnering up with me. And that sort of just picked up. It's really difficult for me to say when and how it happened, but it just happened. I was just consistent, I was posting daily, and I wasn't really thinking about it. It wasn't any sort of strategy. I was just sharing my thoughts, and it just happened. It really just happened.

Ty Smith6:17

So would you say the, my next question, my team always prepares a list of questions before we go into any of these episodes, one of the questions they prepared, and I'm curious, was what contributed to the success of you on, let's say, Twitter most specifically? What do you think contributed to your success? It sounds like consistency and posting daily. Is there anything else?

Altcoin Sarah6:39

Yeah, honestly, just staying true to what I believe in and being honest, I think mainly, because very often people tend to post only their wins, not their losses. I, up to this day, will share the ridiculous things I've done back in 2017. And that sort of authenticity, I think, is what made people want to connect with me. Because I never claimed to make my millions immediately, that I bought the moon bag, that I bought exactly the bottom. I never claimed that. I was scared when Bitcoin hit $3,000. I was sort of, I became sort of skeptical, like pretty much everyone did back then, right? We bounced back from it, and everyone's loving crypto right now, maybe not exactly, but crypto did bounce back. And that's exactly what I think helps people make a connection with me. I'm just being honest, truthful, and showing them that I might have a big following, it's nothing I ever planned, it just happened, and I also make mistakes. I made potentially every single possible mistake back in the day. I also made loads of great wins, I don't want to say I always invest badly. But there is so much that I have learned in the meantime that I'm aiming to show people what you can do to make sure you don't end up with the losses I did, losing 99% of what you've put in, for example.

Ty Smith8:06

On the side of being a content creator or an influencer, what kind of challenges do you deal with?

Altcoin Sarah8:14

That are part of being a content creator?

Ty Smith8:16

Yeah, like we find that people have this kind of fallacy, the non-content creators, they think, 'Oh, these people, they just post some tweets and they make a ton of money and they live the good life, there's no challenges at all.' But I've found that behind the scenes, there really is struggles and there really is challenges with creating an audience and being consistent and posting every day is easier said than done. Some people have that skill naturally, and some people, probably most people, don't. Is there any challenges you've faced along the way?

Ty Smith8:17

Yeah, we find that people have this kind of fallacy, the non-content creators, they think, 'Oh, these people, they just post some tweets and they make a ton of money,' and they live the good life, there's no challenges at all. But I've found that behind the scenes, there really are struggles and there really are challenges with creating an audience. And maybe being consistent and posting every day is easier said than done. Some people have that skill naturally, and some people, probably most people, don't. Are there any challenges you've faced along the way?

Sarah8:47

I mean, we have to be a little bit realistic. It does take 24/7. Crypto is a never-ending market. I am constantly on my phone. And the other day, I was out with my family, and they literally just asked me to... they literally took my phone off me because I was constantly messaging, agreeing stuff, coming to some arrangements with other projects. And it's just constantly really affects your personal life. And maybe it's bad on my behalf that I let it overtake so much of my life. But that is the biggest challenge for me, is how time-consuming it can be. And if you don't have the right people and the right network with you, then you're really going to struggle long-term.

Sarah8:48

I mean, we have to be a little bit realistic. It does take 24/7. Crypto is a never-ending market. I am constantly on my phone. And the other day, I was out with my family, and they literally just asked me to... they literally took my phone off me because I was constantly messaging, agreeing stuff, coming to some arrangements with other projects. And it's just constantly really affects your personal life. And maybe it's bad on my behalf that I let it overtake so much of my life. But that is the biggest challenge for me, is how time-consuming it can be. And if you don't have the right people and the right network with you, then you're really going to struggle long-term.

Sarah9:28

So, I'm not trying to get any pity from anyone or anything. I am just answering the question. And also the fact that you have a big following, it makes people think that you know it all, that what you say is correct, that you're never wrong. If I'm wrong, I am going to be crucified for it. You know, all the drama that keeps happening on Twitter especially. Things can get nasty, you know. Once I tweeted something, I was walking, right, and I was tweeting, and the autocorrect corrected something and made a whole sentence sound like I had no idea whatsoever what I was talking about. And that went viral. And I had to deal with it.

Sarah9:29

So, I'm not trying to get any pity from anyone or anything. I am just answering the question. And also the fact that I have a big following, it makes people think that you know it all, that what I say is correct, that I'm never wrong. If I'm wrong, I'm going to be crucified for it.

Altcoin Sara9:30

So, I'm not trying to get any pity from anyone or anything, I'm just answering the question. And also the fact that you have a big following, it makes people think that you know it all, that what you say is correct, that you're never wrong. If you're wrong, you're going to be crucified for it.

Altcoin Sarah9:31

I'm not trying to get any pity from anyone or anything. I am just considering the question. And also the fact that you have a big following, it makes people think that you know it all, that what I say is correct, that I'm never wrong. If I'm wrong, I'm going to be crucified for it. All the drama that keeps happening on Twitter especially. Things can get nasty.

Altcoin Sarah9:44

Once I tweeted something, I was walking, right? And I was tweeting and the autocorrect corrected something and made a whole sentence sound like I had no idea whatsoever what I was talking about. And that went viral. And I had to deal with it. And I think people often forget that behind those big accounts are real people, real emotions, real feelings. So whenever you're hating on someone, you have to remember that we are all just people and we have our own lives as well.

Altcoin Sarah10:12

And not everything's always beautiful because you have a big following. It doesn't mean anything. It's just so much responsibility that sometimes it's just overwhelming altogether.

Ty Smith10:30

Yeah, there's people have like this love-hate relationship with influencers I found where it's like a little bit of jealousy gets played in there and expectation to be perfect. I've seen and it requires some mental toughness I think on the side of content creators that people don't necessarily give the credit for.

Ty Smith10:48

So of course this this podcast we we and my background we we focus specifically on marketing. I'm an influencer marketing is huge in crypto. I'm curious where you see influencers playing a role in a crypto marketing strategy.

Altcoin Sarah11:07

So before we get on with that question, I actually I don't want to say I hate it because it's a strong word. Hate is a strong word. But I really really despise the association that the word influencer brings into the space because people often like whenever I hear the word influencer, my first thought is who am I really influencing? So I sort of prefer being referred to as a content creator or KOL if I'm being fancy, right?

Altcoin Sarah11:27

So having said that, I completely forgot what was your question, Ty. I am so sorry.

Ty Smith11:39

How you see, I'll rephrase it instead of saying influencer, I'll say KOL so we can be fancy. How you see KOLs playing a role in marketing strategies in crypto?

Altcoin Sarah11:53

I think I think it's massive because how else, there's so many what happens most of the time when brands come to me, they have an amazingly developed roadmap. They've got dev teams. They've got all the tech guys are taking care of things and they are ready and they're good to go. And all they keep thinking is why is no one investing into us? Well, how are people going to know about you if you are not going to invest into marketing, if you're not going to get the word out?

Altcoin Sarah12:24

And that's where where I think the problem comes because we get paid for creating content and very often it's hard to justify or reason why we choose certain projects to work with and some of them not. And we can't predict whether a certain project is going to succeed or not. We do our best with due diligence to ensure that it's not a scam, but we can't always have an influence. There are some certain types. That's why we always say do your own research. Whatever we say, it's not financial advice. Do not take it for word. Remember, we are not the one pressing the buy button when you invest into the project. So I think it's important to understand that influencers can help bring the awareness to the projects, but we can't do all the work for everyone.

Ty Smith13:13

Got it.

Altcoin Sarah13:14

Yeah. So what happens most of the time is the project is developed, like the background is there, the background work with the dev team is done. And very often the the projects that do really well are the projects who actually don't have a lot of marketing, unfortunately. Because the team is so focused on developing that no one actually knows about the project. And it's very often the project that I become a part of and that's where I come and help them. I do my best to help, but there's only so much a person can do.

Ty Smith13:48

Exactly. It's like the biggest shame in our industry that sometimes the most innovative technology lacks any marketing.

Altcoin Sarah13:56

Exactly. Like, we've seen like I'm going to name a few projects that, they've done very well thanks to massive, massive marketing, right? Like we've got Dogecoin, we've got Shiba Inu, we've got SafeMoon. Like all those projects, they became so such a high market cap purely because of the hype and the marketing it brought in. But when you actually look into it, well, it's quite questionable what they're actually challenging and influencing and changing in this world. Do you know what I mean?

Altcoin Sarah14:24

Like there are just certain projects that get the hype right, but then once the hype is gone, people start actually questioning like what's going on? Like why are we buying into this? People are buying into meme coins because they're hoping it's going to be the next Dogecoin, that they're going to make the money on it. And most of the time everyone ends up losing it because the greed kicks in. Yeah, it's a different story then.

Ty Smith14:47

Yeah, it's it's because there there's so many now segments to crypto. It used to just be like everyone had a crypto, there was utility tokens and people were building apps and then tokens were involved in those apps. Now there's a whole subset of just pure meme coins. Coins that don't even claim they do anything and people are still buying them. For what reason, it's just gambling in my opinion. I think most people will agree it's just gambling at that point. But there is something to be said about some people just want to gamble and that that's fine. But they all have very different marketing strategies these days.

Ty Smith15:20

So about a month ago or maybe even sooner, you announced that you were coming on as CMO of Defit, the digital fitness token. I'm curious to hear if you can talk to the transition from content creator to CMO, what that process has been like.

Altcoin Sarah15:37

It's been one of the crazy. I need to point out that prior to that, I was creating content and I was still working as a senior engineer, as a highways engineer. So crypto wasn't actually my full-time. When the CMO position arose, I just I knew it was like a hint from the universe, like it's like stupid thing I believe in, that it's time to just bite the bullet and go full-time crypto because it was something I've been thinking about for a very long time. I could have done it two years ago. I just really enjoyed being an engineer, so I haven't done it.

Altcoin Sarah16:12

So I handed in my notice a month ago and because I had a lot of annual leave, I sort of finished this week. And so it's been like my first week of full-time crypto and it's been the craziest time ever we've had.

Altcoin Sarah16:26

Because Defit, they've not had anyone responsible for marketing. I met the guys a year ago when they launched with Ferrum and Wifedai. And I helped them with marketing on that side.

Altcoin Sarah16:40

And me and the founder, we sort of stayed very closely in touch because we both were into fitness. If anyone follows me, they know I'm a bodybuilder, an aspiring professional bodybuilder. And that sort of connected us really closely. And then when all the app and the web app all become almost ready to be launched, they needed marketing.

Altcoin Sarah17:05

So also with the fact that they've got a CX, a first centralized exchange listing coming up, they need someone who who knows the people, who knows what's going to work and what doesn't. And that's where I come in. I've not worked with a team before when it comes to crypto.

Altcoin Sarah17:23

I'm not going to lie, it's rather challenging having to deal with our graphic designer in India and our Telegram managers in America and the CEO is actually in France, Kevin, so it's very close time zones. But we've got teams all over the all over the world and it is extremely challenging trying to get things done. But luckily, thanks to me being an engineer, I've worked in a team before. I was responsible for some guys doing certain tasks. So I'm used to it.

Altcoin Sarah17:56

It's more of a management tool in a way, but at the same time we're using because four years in crypto is a lot of time. Like you said at the time, I've worked with many projects, many agencies, many exchanges reached out to me. So the fact that I know the people makes things sometimes very much easier to ensure that we get the right marketing out.

Altcoin Sarah18:20

So we've got a strategy ideas. We're going to come up with a strategy after Christmas for 2022. For now, for Christmas, we've got a first centralized exchange listing. I can't say who yet, but it'll be posted hints and we'll make it a big thing because those guys deserve it.

Ty Smith18:41

Awesome.

Altcoin Sarah18:42

Do you know what 360 Wellness is?

Ty Smith18:44

No, I really don't know too much about it, but feel take the take the stage and let me know. Educate us.

Altcoin Sarah18:51

Awesome. So 360 Wellness is the best way to put it is think of MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, and any other social media platform you use for tracking your fitness. What 360 Wellness does, it brings it all together and allows you to keep everything together. It brings also the opportunity for all my trainers to use the platform for classes.

Altcoin Sarah19:15

As we know, training during pandemic has become quite common to do on Zoom, Google Meet, whatever platform people want to use. So there are also opportunities like that. And to allow for the payments to take place, we have created Defit, which is the gamification token of the fitness industry.

Altcoin Sarah19:35

So we're currently onboarding some ambassadors if they're interested in joining us. We've got some amazing rewards for the people who will be joining us and helping spread the word. Like I said, the web app is almost ready to be launched. We've had some mishaps, but from what we've heard, it's one of the most advanced platforms, even better than Trainerize. So it'll be interesting to see how it all goes, but from what I've seen, it's it's definitely the project that I'm proud and so happy to be a part of.

Ty Smith20:11

Yeah, it seems like a seems like a great fit considering your your fitness background.

Altcoin Sarah20:17

Exactly. Like I still can't believe that this is like my life. Like it's great because we've got meetings in the morning and and sometimes my workout actually takes longer than it should do. And I'm on a treadmill, doing my cardio and the guys are just talking and I'm taking off my boxes, I'm having stuff agreed. I'm honestly living my best life and all I keep thinking is why haven't I gone full-time crypto earlier? The fact that I can do crypto and fitness just blows my mind.

Ty Smith20:50

That's awesome. Oh my God, the happiest person ever.

Ty Smith20:53

Yeah, I mean that that's how I feel also. Like I I feel I was like born to do marketing and I love crypto and I but it's like crypto allowed everyone to just kind of challenge the way they were living their their lives and and just empower them to live the life they wanted because you can do like fitness plus crypto, crypto plus marketing, crypto plus accounting, like whatever it is that your interest is, parallel it with crypto and you can build like a really successful living.

Altcoin Sarah21:20

Exactly, exactly. And like I never thought of myself ending up in sort of marketing aspects of business. But I've always created content. Like on Instagram before crypto and I knew what it was. I always posted stuff and I got a decent following on my personal account there. I no longer post because I just don't have time and I created my Altcoin Sarah to also focus on that.

Altcoin Sarah21:44

But it's it's always creating content was always there for me. Always enjoyed it. And just honestly, it's the best thing ever. Just sharing your thoughts and people enjoying it and agreeing with you, disagreeing with you, challenging the status quo. Oh, honestly, it's the best thing. Like if anyone don't really worry about the fact that you are not growing or if you want to be a content creator or not, just just do you. Do you, be authentic and that's how you grow your following.

Ty Smith22:17

Okay. Yeah, I was going to as we wrap up this episode, I wanted to ask you if there was any more actionable advice that you have for someone that's looking to become a content creator in crypto or a KOL.

Altcoin Sarah22:27

Yeah, so honestly, just just don't worry. People are going to hate you, they're going to love you. No matter what you do, what you say, who you work with. Just as long as you're happy and what you do is true to your values, you will succeed. It doesn't work otherwise. If you are enjoying what you're doing, it's going to work out really well for you. I think that if you're aiming to be a big account and you sort of get trapped in the idea of doing things for clout, you're actually going to end up doing the opposite because it'll just be obvious that you're being fake and just want the attention of people. Some people might disagree with me on that, but just be authentic and be happy and have a good vibe only and it'll all work out for you.

Ty Smith22:59

All right. Well, we'll wrap up on that note. Thank you so much for being here.

Altcoin Sarah23:04

Thank you so much, Ty. And say hi to everyone in the Coinbound team from me and have a great weekend.

Ty Smith23:10

Thanks, you too.

Altcoin Sarah23:11

Bye.