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Gigi Robinson's Audience, Revenue, and Operating Stack
Breaking down how this multiplatform Gen Z powerhouse runs her content, speaking, and brand partnerships businesses.
The Creator
Photo by Gigi Robinson
Gigi Robinson is a multiplatform creator, public speaker, model, designer, photographer, and entrepreneur who talks about socially-impactful topics like chronic illness, mental health, body image, and women in business, as well as the Creator Economy. We met via LinkedIn, where she is a voice of the Gen Z creator community.
Let’s dig in!
The Business
Breakdown
Observations
Gigi's business is primarily B2B. She's hired by brands and companies to:
Create and promote content to her audience, and
To speak on a variety of topics, including chronic illness and mental health.
Instagram drives 70% of her business, despite only housing ~10% of her audience. This implies:
B2B content, influencer, and speaking buyers spend a lot of time on the platform, despite my preconception of Instagram as a B2C platform, and
The size of her audience is not the driving factor for her buyers.
As a photographer, I've always loved Instagram. It's been so much fun for me, and I just think that it really yields the more traditional side of influencer marketing...
That's definitely key for me to continue to build, and I've always said that when I work with brands, I actually shoot 4K on a DSLR, like a fully produced photo shoot, for my ads. I've never strayed away into the iPhone-level content for ads, and it stuck out. It's really paid off. It's what's scaling my brand now. This year, knock on wood, if all things go well I will land the biggest deal I've ever landed, with Nikon, which is literally so full circle for me. It's like - you stuck it out. You stayed the course. You did the work. You did your 10,000 hours. Finally I'm at this point where all the dots are connecting.
Brands and buyers seem more interested in what she has to say and how, than how many people her content reaches organically.
It's not the performance marketers who are reaching her, but the brand marketers.
The quality level of her work also helps her stand out, as she shoots 4K with a DLR while her peers are shooting on iPhones.
LinkedIn brings in 15% of her revenue despite being ~3% of her audience.
Clearly, the audience on LinkedIn has B2B spending power!
Linkedin is not necessarily a brand deal platform where you would do an ad on the platform, but it's the people that you meet and the connections that you build...so I have been on Linkedin for years.
She sometimes gets brand and speaking opportunities directly from platforms, via her Strategic Partner Managers.
Having direct platform relationships can literally lead to revenue. This is my first time hearing of this, especially for a sub-1M-scale creator.
Her #1 audience platform (Snapchat) makes her absolutely no money (yet).
I haven't done any paid content on Snapchat. It's something I'm open to and looking for, but I just have literally no idea how. I don't even know if there's a standard for that...from my experience, people don't do Snapchat ads, but my metrics are insane!
I've connected Gigi with someone from Snap, so hopefully she gets into their monetization program and this story changes for her soon!
The Stack
Content Creation
Editing - Adobe Creative Suite
Asset Management - Google Drive
Design - Canva + Adobe Express
I try not to fix what's not broken. I think all of these things work really well and I'm not going to force my team to use things that don't make sense or that are more difficult.
Podcast Production - Riverside
I think it's just the first one that I went on that I liked...
Other reasons:
Riverside's Self View isn't off to the side and so doesn't draw gaze away from the camera
They've advertised with her
They have clip editing features she likes (but doesn't use because she has an editor)
Podcast Distribution - Anchor
It's easy
It's free
She's shopping around for a podcast monetization deal that will likely include hosting, but it was a great place for her to launch and grow initially.
Business Management
Communication - iMessage
We're iMessage girls. I've tried Slack. I had a team subscription, and it just didn't stick. I think the girls are just... they're youngsters, Gen Z, and they're like "I'd rather text you, it's easier". I have a million group chats based on projects, based on location, based on our team meetings.
Bank - Chase Business
That's what's the most local and most convenient to me. It works, and I honestly didn't really research...I just walked to the bank and I just opened the bank account.
It seems convenience trumps specialization for Gigi, on the banking front. It wasn't even something she thought about
Credit Card - JetBlue Mastercard, Karat
I love JetBlue and I fly mostly to LA and West Palm Beach or Miami for my trips, so it's just easy and I get great points. I get to fly places for free, and it just works for me...I do have a Karat card and I use it every now and then. Just...I'm not finding a value prop there, like other than another credit card, and I also have a Discover card and I have an Apple credit card that I use.
I'm sensing a theme here - again, convenience trumps specialization
Finances - QuickBooks Online + CPA + Financial Advisor
You guessed it...convenience
She started out doing her own bookkeeping, but now has a CPA
QuickBooks lets her track bills, send invoices, and even get paid directly (though she dislikes their 2.9% credit card processing fee)
Team
Representation - Collective Speakers
Sees value from the credibility of a speaking agent + their bringing her business
Has spoken with other agencies and management companies, but opted to have her day-to-day team handle the rest of her business because she finds negotiating brand deals to be pretty straightforward
Content & Operations
In 2021, I interviewed my friend London Lazerson...he's a total baller, and I interviewed him on my show and I asked:
"What is your biggest piece of advice to scale your business as a creator?"
And he said:
"Delegation"
Gigi employs a team of young, female college students - all part-time and paid $15+ hourly - who work with her to produce her content, manage her socials, and deliver on her brand deals. They include:
Copy editor - Penn State
Video editor - U Washington
Executive assistant - NYU
Executive producer - NYU
Multimedia producer - Parsons
Designer - Parsons
By delegating work to a part-time, up-and-coming team,. she's able to scale herself beyond just content creation, and can source more business opportunities for herself. In my experience, this makes her an outlier among video creators, many of whom are less willing to outsource aspects of production and would prefer someone else handled their business.
I'm curious if this is a generational trend. Do millennial creators look up to Artists, while Gen Z creators look up to Entrepreneurs? 🤔
Next Time
Next week, we’ll cover key learnings from my conversation with Gigi, including quotes, insights, and my own analysis. Free subscribers get three (3) learnings from every creator conversation.
If you’re a member of my paid Superlogic subscription, though, you’ll get access to an additional 6-10 learnings from every creator. Three (3) of this week’s seven (7) additional learnings are included below for Superlogic subscribers. If you’re looking to really learn as much as possible from each conversation, I’d encourage you to become a paid Superlogic subscriber.
As a bonus, paid subscribers get to see who I’ve got scheduled for upcoming interviews, and can email me to submit questions for them. Subscribe and check out the list below!
Thanks for reading, see you next week!
Thanks for being a paid subscriber! Your membership makes the amount of time and energy I’m investing into executing and analyzing these creator conversations worthwhile. I am grateful for your partnership! Here are your 3 learnings for this week:
1. Snap's audience is huge, highly-engaged, and worth nothing (unless you're well-connected).
...the metrics are so much more engaged, like the average view time is 15 seconds - it's so much more than any other platform. It literally blows my mind. 31.3 million views in the past 28 days from 562,000 unique viewers, with a total view time of 4,000 days...but it's not monetizable yet, which is interesting.
Snap is by far Gigi's biggest platform, in both followers and actual viewership. It's distribution algorithm is powerful, and her content seems to resonate well with its Gen Z audience.
However, monetization on Snap is still widely unavailable; you have to be among the select few creators and media companies that Snap's internal gatekeepers deem worthy of monetizing. If you are, you can make a TON of money...or so I hear from companies like Jellysmack, Overtime, and Doing Things Media, as well as about creators like David Dobrik. My own efforts to syndicate and monetize creator content on Snap, back in 2020-2021 while running Wheelhouse DNA, didn't result in much ROI.
Ironically, Snap is the one platform where Gigi didn't have a partner manager, and therefore couldn't get monetized.
I connected her with a colleague at Snap. Hopefully, by the time you read this, she's making some money on the platform!
I'm bullish on Snap as a business, and really hope they open up monetization to all Creators on the platform. This can only be good for their business, if YouTube, Twitch, and other creator revshare programs are any indicator.
2. Pinterest is a sleeping giant.
I actually love Pinterest when I stick to it. I have a very small audience. But if you do stick to consistently posting on Pinterest, you can get up to like 500,000 viewers a month if you do it really well and you make a trendy board. And I've done that before and I literally have like 85 followers on Pinterest, so it's really funny...but I mostly use that for my creative stats and like my internal team building stuff. Not for anything that's public facing...I've worked with them as well, in terms of, they've paid me to be a part of an ambassador program...and I didn't even have one k...big thing to note there is that anyone can do it.
Gigi's Pinterest audience isn't worth counting - literally, it was an afterthought and I didn’t include it in the breakdown - and aside from a sponsored post deal with them, she hasn't made any money off them. That said, her observation about how on-trend boards can amass huge viewership is interesting.
I'm not sure how one would monetize those boards. Affiliates? Can creators do that?
I need to talk to someone who makes a living on Pinterest. Please hit me up if you know a creator that does!
3. Being first is often enough.
Gigi uses Riverside to record her podcast. This came up because I use Zencastr, and we talked about which is better. She told me she like Zencastr a lot, but prefers Riverside, and I asked her why. Her answer was simple but deeply revealing:
I think it's just the first one that I went on that I liked...
There were other reasons:
Riverside's Self View isn't off to the side and so doesn't draw gaze away from the camera
They've advertised with her
They have clip editing features she likes (but doesn't use because she has an editor)
That's to say - the product is good. But so is Zencastr's, so is Anchor's, so are many others.
The first thing she said was that she used Riverside first...and it seems like that was enough.
Likely, she got used to using it, and then after that, everything else would have just...been different. Why change?
For creators, my takeaway here is to put in energy into researching and selecting tools and partners, because switching is hard once you're used to something.
For companies, my takeaway here is to focus on creators who WOULD benefit from using a product like yours, but ARE NOT currently using any similar product. It's likely easier to get them to start than to change.
Thanks for learning with me! Next week, you’ll get four (4) additional learnings on top of the 3 free ones that everyone will receive, for a total of 10 learnings from this conversation with Gigi.
Upcoming interviews include:
Jay Clouse - One of my favorite metacreators, Jay and his Creator Science business help aspiring creators go from amateur to professional. His approach to his stack is one that would make Jeff Bezos proud, so you’ll find the discussion valuable!
Bryce Adams - One of the top creators on OnlyFans, generating over $6M in annual revenue with a team of 20. Her story and approach is absolutely fascinating!
Maya Lê Espiritu aka MaiStoryBook - Maya is an elementary school teacher-turned-creator who makes wonderful supplemental educational content for parents, children, and other teachers. I learn a lot about a segment of the Creator Economy that doesn’t get much coverage, and I think you will to!
Tejas Hullur - Tejas is Gen Z’s metacreator, educating an emerging generation of entrepreneurial creative minds through his own journey. He tries to be a “non-regrettable view”, which I love, and there’s a more lot to learn from him!
I’ve already done these interviews, but still have plenty of time to follow up with additional questions.
Other creators I’m talking to but haven’t scheduled yet include:
Jerry Won - Jerry is the outspoken big brother of the AAPI creator community, who has parlayed his advocacy and voice on LinkedIn into a lucrative speaking business. He now also teaches other creators how to become speakers themselves through his mastermind program, and I can’t wait to chat with him to learn more about his model, processes, and partners!
If you have anything pressing you’d like to know from any of these creators, please email me at [email protected]. I can’t promise I’ll get every question answered, but I can promise that I will do my best to get the most relevant, interesting ones!
Thanks again for being part of this community. See you next week!
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