In this episode of Tag Me Podcast, we’ll be learning social media tips from Beauty Influencer & Beauty Brand Owner, Deepica Mutyala. She will be sharing how she became a beauty influencer and how she uses social media to build a community-driven brand. If you are interested in learning how to build a brand on social media, tips on connecting with your digital community, advice for working with brands as an influencer, and other social media tips - stay tuned.
Deepica's Social Media:
Instagram @deepica
YouTube Deepica Mutyala
*I love this YouTube video she made about her YouTube journey & future plans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yntEWfYsWes
CONNECT WITH US ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/tagmepodcast/
In this episode of Tag Me Podcast, we’ll be learning social media tips from Beauty Influencer & Beauty Brand Owner, Deepica Mutyala. She will be sharing how she became a beauty influencer and how she uses social media to build a community-driven brand. If you are interested in learning how to build a brand on social media, tips on connecting with your digital community, advice for working with brands as an influencer, and other social media tips - stay tuned.
Deepica's Social Media:
Instagram @deepica
YouTube Deepica Mutyala
*I love this YouTube video she made about her YouTube journey & future plans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yntEWfYsWes
CONNECT WITH US ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/tagmepodcast/
Audrie: 0:08
welcome to tag me a social Media Podcasts will be CA nightly, with successful people in brands on social media to share their tips on best practices. With you, my name is Audrey, and in this episode we'll be learning social media tips from beauty, influencer and beauty brand toner Deepika. She'll be sharing how she became a beauty influencer on how she uses Social Media's ability, community driven brand. Stay tuned because social media handles are least for you. In the episode note, Thank you for turning in a Let's Learn a Thing or two about social media from Deepika. She is a beauty, influencer and now beauty brand owner of Live Tinted. She's been on the morning show and featured in publications like Folk and Cosmo. She had a Mac global campaign, and honestly, her list goes on and on. So let's find out how she went from beauty influencer to the founder and owner of a beauty brand with the help of social media platforms. Let's welcome Deepika to the tag me podcast.
Deepica: 0:57
I am so appreciative of how you just said my name.
Audrie: 1:00
I love that I learned how to say it. So for anyone listening the D is actually a T age. Let's practice Deepika
Deepica: 1:07
Audrey like you have no idea nobody ever takes the time to do that. I just say deepika because I'm so used to it at this point. But it's deepika Yeah,
Audrie: 1:14
I think it's so important especially. And I mean in any industry to address somebody by their proper names. So now I make it a point on calls or in meetings to ask people, How do we properly pronounce your name and they actually love
Deepica: 1:24
it? It means the world. I done national television where I've been butchered by multiple talk shows. But, you know, everyone means well, yeah, thanks for having thanks
Audrie: 1:35
for being on here. I'm so excited,
Deepica: 1:37
so fun. And what an intro. I I will totally take it. That was asleep.
Audrie: 1:40
I'm really so proud of you. And I'm so happy and I can't wait to see where you go. So for people listening who may not know you in a nutshell, describe who you are, what you do and how you got started. Yes,
Deepica: 1:52
I'm Deepika and I am Currently I love saying this part because I'm very proud because this has been my dream since I was 16 years old, the founder and CEO of the Lift Him, Did you? I love saying it just because it's It took a lot of freakin work, a lot of hard work and a lot of steps to get here. But lived in Did is a beauty brand focused on diversity and inclusion in the beauty industry, and we launched as a community platform first. I just thought that was really important to story. Talents share the stories as we were developing the our first product, Andi. We're trying to keep that like community aspect to the brand going, and it's just, like, so fulfilling for me, because before that, I was a beauty influencer. So I got, you know, sent every product in the game. I got put in as the token brown girl in multiple global campaigns, and it was so incredible. But I always felt a little unfulfilled because the 16 year old Deepika, who grew up in Sugar Land, Texas, just so badly wanted to see more of myself. And like the beauty like the in the Beauty Isles, when I would go to like the grocery stores, I would just see the exact same blonde hair, blue eyes. When I go to school, I'd see the blond hair, blue eyes, you know, groping in Texas. And so I
Audrie: 3:06
just wanted to
Deepica: 3:06
change that narrative. And so here I am at 30 hopefully doing my best to do that.
Audrie: 3:11
I think you're doing your best, and I love that you shared that. You really covered a lot. But there's something's missing that I want to touch on that I'm so share. But I definitely want to get into how you build a community first. And then that led to a brand. I think that's so cool. Hated that on Social. But let's get back to the beginning. As I left college. Yeah, you moved to New York from New York. You moved to Ohio, and this was
Deepica: 3:34
also its opposite Opposite college. I went to Ohio. I lived in Columbus, Ohio, over nine months, and it is so funny that you lived there. Yeah, I
Audrie: 3:43
grew up in Ohio for anyone. Doesn't Mel
Deepica: 3:45
so funny? And then I started my block, their skin deep blob dot tumbler dot com,
Audrie: 3:49
And that's when you were working with Victoria Secret right
Deepica: 3:51
again. Victoria's Secret at the time, and it was like my stepping stone to get to New York because Victoria's secret, Victoria's Secret Beauty and I went into that interview and I got it. And I was like, You know what? This is gonna get me to my dream beauty job one day, So I took it. And while I was in Columbus, I had a lot of free time. So I started blogging. Clinic was like the first brand that I did, I got, like, three products from and I was like, Oh, my God, I have made it on Ben. I just I've always been a person who never had to, like, wait to make my dreams happen. I was like, I don't care. I'm 22 years old. I want to create this brand. So I remember seeing this company called Shoe Dazzle. Do you remember it? I d'oh! So the idea is that they, like, send you shoes and it's based on a profile that you fill out. And it's like a stylist is picking out this product for you. And I just remember thinking like, Why doesn't this exist for the beauty industry? And so I bought a Ural called makeup trunk dot com, And I was like, Oh, my God, I'm gonna create this thing where a beauty expert is going to curate a box of products to send to you based on a profile you fill out. And I called my cousin, who's now working with me on Tended, which is so ironic and full circle to think about. But he was like my Harvard cousin. Everyone else in my life was a doctor, and so he was the only one that got the entrepreneurial spirit. And I was like, What if we started this innovative business model for the beauty industry? Disrupted everything. And he was like, All right, let's do it. Yes, I knew he had all the context for the investment side. I knew the beauty industry. I was like, Let's do this. It's like a few days later, he was like It does exist. It's called Birchbox, and they're killing it. So it was kind of like if you can't beat them, join them thing, and I wanted to learn everything I could. So I quit my job at Victoria's Secret within nine months out of college and moved to New York city took a pay cut because that's what happens when you go work at a start up. But I did it because it was New York beauty industry startup. Entrepreneurial, too badass founders that went to Harvard Business School that I knew I could learn so much from.
Audrie: 5:51
And I thought,
Deepica: 5:51
like, worst case scenario at the end of the day, no matter what, they had enough funding for me to have a job for the next year. And I was like, Deepika, you just need to get to New York City. And when you get there, you're gonna network your ass off and it's gonna be fine. Even if the company, for whatever reason, doesn't end up like continuing on, you'll be there for a year. You'll make your context. You move onto your next step.
Audrie: 6:11
I love that.
Deepica: 6:12
So I took the risk and I moved.
Audrie: 6:14
And while you were there, I know this because I stalked her Social Media's and I watched a video about her on YouTube, called My Story, which, if you haven't watched, I'm gonna link it for you in the episode notes. It's inspiring. It's amazing if you want to be a beauty blogger or you're just stuck in, you know, wondering what you want to do with your next move. Careerwise Check it out. She does things outside the box, and she creates opportunities for herself and using social media to help create those opportunities. So in mentioning that, let's talk about how when you were at Birchbox when you were looking for influencers to build an influencer marketing campaign, you were looking for someone tented and you couldn't find anybody. So you thought, Why don't I make a video and then you made one and it went viral
Deepica: 6:58
was crazy was my second video I ever posted on YouTube because of exactly what you said. I was like, There's nobody who looks like me doing this and it's just silly to me. It was like, Okay, there's this country across the world with two billion humans there, says beauty industry worth billions of dollars. And then there's thing popping off called YouTube where there's people making billions of views on videos. And there was nobody connecting the three of those together. And I just felt like, you know what, Deepika? I didn't go into it with, like some crazy strategic mind I just saw a hole and I was like, At the end of the day, at least my girlfriends, who text me every single day asking for beauty tips would have a source to go thio on DSO. I started it in my second video I used on my iPhone. I held it vertically instead of horizontally, black panels and all. And it got picked but picked up by Buzzfeed and it went viral. And I think it was because I was sharing a tip that was so relatable to so many people around the world, men and women. And it was how to hide dark circles. And I used a red lipstick to do it. And so people were like, What the hell is this girl doing? It was like crazy. It was a crazy visual, but again, this
Audrie: 8:01
is like this is like
Deepica: 8:02
pre Clickbait. I feel like this video started all the crazy kind of like click baby things because all of a sudden you see red under my eyes and then you see this like you know, it's like the aftereffect, and it's just, like looks amazing or whatever. I never in a 1,000,000 years would have thought that video would get 10 million views.
Audrie: 8:19
You guys, if you didn't hear her first video that went viral was made on her phone, it was vertical, not horizontal. So this is something I also learned from Matt and from you two. And everyone I know in this industry is yes, You can have all the bells and whistles to create content. But if the content isn't good, yeah, it's not gonna be great. But you can also have the best content ever. You could be taking it on your phone vertically. Put it out there. And if it's a message that resonates to people on its information of value, for sure it'll do great for sure. You know, obviously we need that visual aspect for it to kind of engage someone initially. But I also
Deepica: 8:54
think that and I know it's such a buzzword now, but that authentic nature of not trying really resonated with people. It wasn't strategic. It wasn't trying like I could have not posted that video. I came close to not I was like, Oh, crap. It's like not film the right way. Let me just do it again. But I was like You know what? Just get started. You go like you're you're in your second video. I didn't even have ad revenue activated like I didn't have like, a photo for my I
Audrie: 9:18
mean, I didn't know
Deepica: 9:18
what I was doing, but you have to start somewhere, right?
Audrie: 9:21
Yeah. And you
Deepica: 9:22
never know what's gonna happen. Like I could have never in my wildest dreams expected the today's show to email. Me too. Come on air to do the segment on live television and have my sister be my model in my back, Dad backstage with Kid Rock. And I literally quit my job today. I got the email from the Today show, and I'm gonna do the beauty influencer thing full time.
Audrie: 9:40
I'm so happy that you did that, and it just skyrocket you in other situations in ever since. And you have you social to create all these opportunities. But I love that you mention your parents who are so supportive of you they make cameos and all your social. But for parents out there who have kids that are telling them Listen, maybe I don't want to go to college. I do but know that when I study business. I actually want to be a YouTuber. I want to be an influencer. What would you share with those parents in terms of how they can support their kids? Because we all know. I mean, we're both in this industry, and we know so many people in this industry that are super successful. How can they best support their kids?
Deepica: 10:13
It's like it's a good point because I think especially for foreign parents, it's just such a You came to America to achieve something and create a stamp in the world, and you want to give your kids every opportunity there is out there. And so, for the first thing I'll say is like parents like, I get why you're concerned because it is scary. Being an entrepreneur is scary, and I do think that like, it's so exciting seeing and I'm not even seeing myself just like the friends that were around and everything that they're doing it justice so inspiring and I think will make the next generation of parents more comfortable with letting their kids do things that are non traditional career pats. Like my whole life. I was supposed to be a doctor if I wasn't a doctor. It was a lawyer that wasn't a lawyer. It was an engineer. And it wasn't any of those things. It was like Go find a husband, you know, like that's just what I was trained. So when I did this, I'm very, very fortunate that my parents just had such a self belief in me. My story was just like, so crazy. When I quit my job, I went home and my dad already knew and I didn't know he knew. But he heard through the Indian grapevine because that's like our lives. But he told me to come into the study and I was like, Oh, my God. And then, um, he handed me a check and he basically was just saying, Don't think of this is me giving my daughter money. Think of this as me investing in a business I believe in. And I like cried and I was so dramatic and I like toward up and I, like, handed it back to my dad. And I just was like all I needed to know was that year behind me on that support system was took me through all the rocky hard times which you know and I know was maybe once a day it's not even like once a month or once a week or something. The highest highs and lowest lows happen when you're building your own business on DSO. To have parents that were like that meant the world to me. So what I would say to parents out there is like all that you can do is support your kid along their journey. And I understand that like you have to also this thing, you have
Audrie: 12:06
to give him
Deepica: 12:07
credit because at this end of the day, you can't just go to your parents and say I want to go be an astronaut and then, like, expected to happen tomorrow, show that you're being serious about this. Every step of my journey has led me up to where I am today. At 16 years old, I was like, I'm gonna be I want to have my own beauty brand in college. I did a, uh, in college. I did a internship at Loreal, which is the world's biggest beauty company. I left college and I worked at Birchbox, which was the hottest beauty start up at the time. I had a video go viral. I got asked to be on the today show and so I quit my job and did the beauty influencer thing. And then I was like ham gonna start my own beauty brand. So I kind of like, gave my parents checkpoints to be able to feel confident that this wasn't some wild dream that came out of nowhere. So
Audrie: 12:50
I would say, Be
Deepica: 12:51
kind, your kid support their dreams, but also like give them the resource is Thio When I say resource is, I don't really mean financial. I mean that support system to feel confident to go for it. But make sure that they're showing that they really are serious about this. I think that's the most important thing. And this is really advice, even for the person that's going to their parents. Don't just go to your parents tomorrow and say you want to do something, come to them with a plan, like come to them and
Audrie: 13:16
then you know it makes it easier
Deepica: 13:17
for them. They just want the best for you. That one of the day. Your parents, they might not know that because they just don't understand, Like for my parents. They didn't know that this world could even exist. That their daughter could ever be on TV or in a magazine or run a beauty brand was just like, almost like a It was like a joke. Like what? Like what does that even mean?
Audrie: 13:37
I don't I don't blame
Deepica: 13:38
them for that, though. You know you don't know what you don't haven't seen before and exactly is going to take people being the one to say they're going to be the game changer to make it so it's easier for other people to do the same.
Audrie: 13:49
I agree, but I think this goes
Deepica: 13:51
back to like. The core of all of this is that I truly attribute everything I have to the self believe I have in myself because 100% somebody sees that Weatherby, your parents, your friends, investors, employees, potential employees, they want to be a part of that energy and that whatever you're creating, people want to be a part of that journey on. And so it's almost like if in the beginning you're having self doubt, it's almost a gift to convince yourself to remove that self doubt and just have this belief in yourself of like, failure is not even an option. Like I'm not even like it's like, not gonna not happen. So, like, you either get on board and support me. Um, period,
Audrie: 14:31
Yeah. No, I only I feel like to be successful in this industry or any. Really, You have to believe in yourself. You're always gonna be your biggest fan. You have to take action because if you're not, then you know people are going to see that. And you have to be consistent. Yes, because there's so many people but be consistent in something that is true to you and that makes you different. Yeah, and you'll be great. That's the
Deepica: 14:51
thing. I think that that's a really good 0.2 is like focus on what makes you different, because that is your differentiator, right? For everyone out there who says there's a 1,000,000 beauty brands already that exists? It's too cluttered of a market. It's like, really, because I haven't seen any that speak to a South Asian woman and really, because I haven't seen one that's truly inclusive, that finally includes everyone who's ever felt left out of the beauty narrative. I really haven't I truly don't didn't feel that way. Yeah, and when you focus on your truth, it is so obvious. Other people you know, if you're trying to fake it, you can get a lot. You could get as far as you can for a minute, but longevity won't be there.
Audrie: 15:26
Yeah. Oh, what's really
Deepica: 15:27
true to you? And that's the long game.
Audrie: 15:29
Well, that's how you got started. And that's what's so great you found a hole and you made content and has actually your most viewed video to date on YouTube. I love that. And then the ones
Deepica: 15:39
beyond, like the second most viewed and the third most viewed are all still true to me. It's all relating to my family. It's all relating to be Indiana. It's all relating to tips and tricks around me. And when I grew up in what I needed to know what the beauty part like a beauty enthusiasts.
Audrie: 15:53
I love that. Yeah. So what community did you build first?
Deepica: 15:57
It was YouTube for sure. Like to me, I used Instagram at that time as a way to promote my YouTube channel. Like it was like, Oh, let me just post a picture here. I didn't really have a strategy for Instagram because also at that time, brands weren't really paying Instagram like they were for YouTube. I feel like that climates changed. Instagram is now, like on its own, like you could just get paid for, like an Instagram video instagram Post. To be honest, and I'm sure we'll get to this. But like, I don't really do that stuff as much anymore because what tended it's just like beauty. Influencer stuff is still important to me because in the camp, but now I'm just, I guess, a lot more picky because time is so brushes and I've worked to get to a place like I can be picky now, but it took a long time ago Lara hard work to get to that point. But now it's like time is finite. So if I'm doing a campaign, I have to be so passionate about what it's about. And now, sometimes Instagram is easier to do it because YouTube is a production as you know, it takes a lot of time and resource is. But, um, for the funny thing is, when I launch live tinted, it was the opposite. I started it as an instagram page. Um, and it was really just a storytelling narrative. Every single day I posted a story. I kind of wanted to take the humans of New York model, but apply it to a beauty industry like that. Really? Was it? I loved the narrative of hearing riel people's stories on humans of New York, and I just was like, You know, nobody ever goes and reads a full block post these days. So I treated every single instagram post as a block post and told the story directly on instagram and the following just started to grow from, You know, I will say, And I'm gonna be real about this. The first I would say 5 to 10,000 followers we got. I attribute to me. I'm already having an audience and my my friends supporting and my influence, her friends getting us there, I would say from 10 to 100,000 was fully organically through the live tended voice and community and people recognizing that this space needed to exist, which is so exciting, like I'm so grateful to get that first jump start because, you know, it's this tough chicken and egg like you need to get legit for people to want to follow you. But how are they gonna follow you if you're not legit? So it's that tricky, you know, back and forth. But I think what you said is important consistency every single day posting something and something that people wanted to follow. I just felt like in the beauty space there wasn't enough positivity then. So I felt personally on my on just being a beauty of Windsor. So I
Audrie: 18:24
wanted to tell the
Deepica: 18:25
stories of real people. It wasn't about beauty. Influencers was just about like what you hadn't seen in the beauty industry before it whether that somebody with a bit of Lego, whether that's somebody who's mixed race, whether that's somebody who, uh, you know, I do. There's just so many narratives. And the 1st 1 I did that also is another example of me not caring about perfection. Um, I was like, we have to get this grid to like, 15 posts and make it look beautiful before we share to the world that lived, tended exists. But that was like, you know what? Screw it. I couldn't find a South Asian woman with deep pigmented melon and in her skin. So on my stories, I just said, Hey, guys, I'm working on a project and I'm searching for somebody who is a deep, rich, beautiful, melon aided brown girl because I had seen it in the black community. But I hadn't seen on the Internet. And I was searching and searching. I was like, You know what? Let me just ask my loyal community, whose writer die to help me find this person because I wanted to launch with that person's face on the grid because I felt like that was such a true important part of the color is, um, narrative of lived tended. So I just put on and I was like, Pleased, use hashtag live tended on any photo you find of this woman Within minutes, there was hundreds of people using hash tag. Love tended on photos trying to help me because it is so and what? What that showed me was that I wasn't the only one craving this sort of space where you saw people of all different beautiful Hughes on one page, just in their raw rial for me, didn't it? Wasn't like this beautiful photo shopped anything it was beautiful because it wasn't Photoshopped and I wanted more of that on the Internet. I didn't see it on the Internet. And even when we were brainstorming what this brand was about, I laid out like, ah, 100 photos on the ground with the team and we were looking at it. Anyone who had dark skin, Waas wasn't smiling. Um, um, anyone who had dark skin was black. Everyone who had dark skin was black, which is incredible, right? Because I would say, five years ago you wouldn't have even seen that. But what about everyone else? And so we launch live tended with this mindset of live tented for every shade in between, for anyone who's ever felt left out of the beauty narrative. And I think the cool part was that, like it started with a hashtag on my instagram stories.
Audrie: 20:43
I love that I love so much how social media can be a platform for community building but also like championing each other through community on social media. And I know a lot of people can say, you know, I'm off social media. I'm taking a break. It's such a bad place, but I really think it's what you make of it. I think social media is a tool like everything else that exists in this world, and you can use it to support people, support yourself and champion other people. Or it confuses a tool where you are judging. You're comparing yourself and other people on your putting negativity out there, and I love that use in a way to build yourself and other people up. And for years, brands have been paying so much money for market research and, like you just said, you went on social and asked to your community, Hey, can you help me do this? And that's what I love so much when I work with brands and you know they're asking me to build their influence or marketing programs or, you know, what's the next best thing we should be doing for their audience? The first thing inside of them is Have you asked your audience yet what they want from you on social media ax and they all tell me No. And I'm like on your social media asked the question. What do you want to see from us? Yeah, what kind of events do you want from us. What do you want us to post on? Social Boom. There you go. The other thing you touched on which I think is so important. Like a lot of my friends in this industry, I know how hard you guys work to create content. I know all the money you invest in content that sometimes does it make that money back. How much you pay for photographers, videographers, that wardrobe your hair and makeup your nails. The list could go on and on rent a studio. It can cost up to a couple grand. So I love that you touched on monetizing on YouTube and I know you not so focused on brain deals now, but when you were, how were you monetizing? Because it is so And it's not that it's just about the money, but it's a little job like I would never ask someone to do their job for free. So just like content creators, we don't want you guys to do your job for free. Yeah, so for people creating YouTube videos, what is the best way for them to monetize
Deepica: 22:44
the biggest thing I did in the very beginning? Waas. I tapped into my network and I say this because I think you know that people say to me like, Oh, well, how did you build that network? But well, on when I left my job at Birchbox to do the beauty of the ones who think full time, I was my own agent manager, lawyer assistant production is the assistant makeup artist, hair stylist, editor. The list goes on. You have to. In the beginning, I was my own publicist. I had a fake assistant at email and I would just mass email out two brands. What what I used to do on email. Now people could do in the D. M. But like that wasn't really a thing then it was like such early days of the brands like beauty utilizing social media. But I e mailed every contact I ever had and said, I'm reaching out on behalf of my boss Typical beauty, Allah, to potentially have her work with you. She's a today show expert, and I've done the Today show one time, and I was like, You know what I mean? Like it was, You have to fake it till you make it kind of like it's a total Fake it till you make it thing. And I, um I did that as myself on an assistant at deepika dot com email and eventually, for every 100 people I e mailed, one would respond saying yes. And I remember one person came back to me and it was bustle and they were like, We're doing a cover girl campaign And I was like, Great, amazing. I could pay my rent this month. That's great, because I literally quit my job, not knowing how the hell was gonna pay my next bill, But I just again had that self belief of like this is going to work out At some point on DSO they called me and they were like, Oh, so like, what's your eight? And I was like just threw out a random number. I had no clue, and they were like, Okay, great. And I was like, Oh, damn, I could have said double that triple that who even knows, right? But you just learned through going through it. All I knew was I had a number in my mind that I felt would be worth my time, like going to that shoot for a full day takes away a full day of me hustling, creating content or not even just green contact reaching out to more brands. So what was my time worth? And so that's the number I shared. Don't Don't be bitter about the fact that you could have gotten more out of it because now you know, and then you learn for the next time on DSO that literally was just one after another after another and I had no clue what I was doing on set. I remember they were like telling me like I would just sit there and smile because that's that's me. I'm just like a girl who smiles other t that the camera And they I would see these like there was two other beauty influencers on set or sorry, fashion influences that were way bigger than me on dhe. They knew they were twirling and spinning and slaying and smi zing and all the things. And I just was like, I know how to smile with teeth. I don't know how to do all the like, whatever things that you see on the ground now, but I just learned through doing it, you know, like I just did it. And then I did another one and then that taught me to do the next. And so what? I would tell people now who are like, How is it that I monetize on my YouTube and stuff is you gotta show brands that you are actually passionate about their brand, and it's really easy to do that. Like, don't expect to get a campaign with Gap If you've never talked about Gap like yes, don't get me wrong there are the one off times where they will email you and say, like we love for you to be part of because they love your vibe. But the chances are it'll be like you're the odds are in your favor and you're the one that will put on your Instagram like and tag Gap saying love these things cause then now you're on their radar, at least on their social media persons, right,
Audrie: 26:12
100%. So when I look for talent to do sponsored content for the brands I work with, I actually go to the brand and I I looked to see who's tagged them before what talent it is, and if you've already mentioned the brand. Of course I want to use you and put you into the deck because you ready, like the brand. I don't really want to find somebody who's never mentioned the brand doesn't wear the brand isn't familiar with it. It's just more
Deepica: 26:36
work. There's enough talent and influences out there to, like, get that, actually, genuinely loved the brand. So why go to somebody who doesn't 100%? So I mean, I would say Step one is literally to be the brand advocate yourself. And like Step two is, don't be afraid of GM them. Who knows? They may not respond, but also
Audrie: 26:54
they might worst case scenario. They don't respond or they say, No, you tried. So aside from doing that, our ways within the YouTube platform that you can monetize a video with like I honestly, I'm still learning about YouTube. So it's fascinating to me when I get people in the show like you were mad or other people in the world. What are ways that you can monetize with ads or all that stuff inside of you two Got it
Deepica: 27:15
for me. The science of YouTube in that way wasn't how I've been. I monetized in the early days it was through. Sponsorships got so for me, the amount of money I was bringing in through AdSense was like uber cash. It wasn't paying my rent. It would just wasn't enough, right? And like I told you, the video that got 10 million views I didn't have ad revenue even activated. So that would have been the one that I probably would have gotten, like a nice check to pay my rent that month. But like these days, like it's still to this day. My ad revenue is less of a focus for me because then I start to think about, like, strategic content, and I just really want to focus on content. Why did I Why did this success quote unquote like start in the beginning? I wasn't trying to overthink what I put out there. I just did what I thought was true to me and a tip that I thought the world would benefit from the
Audrie: 28:04
second you start to,
Deepica: 28:04
like, dissect the data and this is just for me. I'm sure there's a lot of people who like to dissect the data and say, OK, this does well let's do more of this. But sometimes I do videos that, for example, the first time I did a vlog with my parents like by no means that I think people would like it. But there is a video on my channel that has over a 1,000,000 views of my mom watching my Loreal commercial that was on TV. And it was like a two minute video down on an iPhone that my dad recorded cause he thought it was so cute seeing my mom watching by Loreal commercial for the first time. And it has a 1,000,000 plus views. And
Audrie: 28:35
that just taught me like the same thing My
Deepica: 28:37
first video taught me. Quality is not as important. The quality of the video is not as important as the content you're actually putting into that video.
Audrie: 28:45
Yes, you know. Yeah. And I love that in all your videos. At the end, you ask for your audience is feedback, which is so important? I even asked the podcast audience like I'm not making this for myself. I'm I'm creating this to help people learn more about social media and pick the brains of people like you. Enter those conversations so people can learn. So when you got feedback, it was positive and sometimes not so positive about how would you deal with this stuff that wasn't so positive,
Deepica: 29:10
I think have generally pretty thick skin. It really scares me for, like, kids who are, like 17 on YouTube and stuff. And I'm friends with some of the ones that, like have I blown up to an extraordinary size. That's just like crazy. And I remember specifically meeting with one and just like where they were. Now
Audrie: 29:28
you know what I
Deepica: 29:29
could say? The name, It doesn't matter because he's he's a great person. Like I feel comfortable saying the name because the story is so powerful. I met James Charles like before he actually started a YouTube channel. We were on a plane and going to Gen. Beauty and we were both sitting in the back row and I just like the plane was delayed and we started talking and he had 40,000 or something followers on Instagram and he was like, so excited about going to Gen Beauty and I remember he was like, should
Audrie: 29:55
I start a YouTube channel? And
Deepica: 29:56
the first thing in my brain was like 1000%. Are you kidding me? Like there's a whole generation of kids who, like would die to see someone like you who was so just themselves on camera and he's such an artist, like every single look on his page was such an artistic like to a t like, just beautifully done that, like I think, video just to start and just to do something because I kept saying that I was like, How
Audrie: 30:21
I got
Deepica: 30:21
started was my iPhone a bubble blah. But he's such an artist, you know, and I think that's the difference. So he was such a perfectionist, and lo and behold, his style worked for him, and he did make beautiful videos. And I think like in a hot second later, the next time I saw him, he was like half a 1,000,000 views, a 1,000,000 subscribers. And it scares me for people like him. When I've seen, you know, this kid was like came to New York for a Jacqueline Hill, Becca, that first event they ever did, and he slept on my couch and he brought brownies because his mom made it to thank me for letting him sleep on my couch. But I just felt like a 17 year old kid who, like, was going for his dreams, you know? And it was it Was it scary to see they kind of hate somebody like him gets. That's the reason I bring any of this up. It's fully to say like he's very strong and he has a great like mother behind him that, like, protects him, and I have that, too, and I think that's how I get through. All the negativity is that I have this release great squad of people, which includes people like yourself, that just there so positive, you know that, like make you realize at the end of the day what the comments that you see that are negative is not really a reflection on you. It's that person projecting their own personal negativity. And I think when you remind yourself that, and I think even the young kids that are getting on social media don't get so affected by that and focus on the positive things right, like that's what I did. I was like there were girls telling me that I changed their lives. I made them feel like they could finally go for their dreams. They could finally tell their parents that they wanted to go into not even just beauty industry, but just seeing a nontraditional career path. That, to me, was my focus. So who cares if somebody called me fat? I never cared if, like people said things about my physical appearance because I feel comfortable stuff, I feel comfortable enough with myself to where it didn't affect me. What did affect me was when people would say things about, like, my work ethic or like like, you're I'm not doing enough because then I felt like I truly wasn't doing enough and it would get to my head and I would be like, crap do I need to do to videos a week? And people were like, Well, if you're a full time YouTuber, there's YouTubers out there who drop a video every single day in, like, you know, and I've seen it. But I also was building myself as an honor expert, and what people didn't see on YouTube was that every single day I was out there going to events, trying to meet with Brand so they would want me to be in their next campaign. I was out there trying to get the Today show. Dr. Oz. Good Morning, America, Rachel Ray E. News to, like talk about me because for me personally, I love, live tell if I love live everything editing and doing things that were more stylized wasn't me like that's why again, my red lipstick video. It wasn't edited like I just, like, put it out there. The editing and making things that were more like in a show format just wasn't who I am at my core on DSO It really made me feel defeated. Honestly, there was many of times where I felt like I just wanted to quit because the one video a week people would say wasn't enough, and I felt
Audrie: 33:10
like I was giving as
Deepica: 33:11
much as I could give. So I think the negative stuff wasn't hard for me when it was insulting me or my physical appearance. But it was tough when they would say, like
Audrie: 33:23
things, widest career. Yeah, things about my career. Every content creator is doing the best they can in that moment. And just like every other person, this world, with whatever job you have, you go through highs and lows. You have a lot of energy or you get tired. I sometimes run into walls where I lose inspiration. So I have to find something that makes me feel like I'm having fun to get re inspired. It's natural to go through those things, and I think, also imagine
Deepica: 33:47
being somebody who was working in an office of, like, 75 employees surrounded by other people. I lived with somebody I had a boyfriend in all at once. I was single. I moved in by myself and I was working for myself. So somebody who's an extra Burt right that I thrive on the energy of other people, too, all of a sudden have all of that happen at once. And so I'm waking up and just getting out of bed was hard. It was like an effort because I knew I was getting out of bed to consistently be by myself all day and just, like, motivate myself to go to that event and motivate myself to go film that video. But like there wasn't a person forcing me or checking in on me. I had to be the own person checking in on myself.
Audrie: 34:23
Yes, so I I started this podcast to re inspire myself to force myself to get out, because for a while I'd stopped going to events. I I kind of felt like I hit an inspirational wall on DSO In doing this, I'm now networking again so much more. But with people I actually like feel so inspired by and people outside of my bubble of in L. A or outside the beauty and fashion influence our world. And it's so cool to pick the brains and talk to people in this industry that are doing really cool things. And I get to share that information on here with other people. And I love that. I love that so much because people do me all the time asking me about social media questions, and I'm like, Let me just create a platform where all of you can get the information. I'm so happy I love doing this. Okay, so tell us, what are you working on now? So now we
Deepica: 35:08
are. Last year we took the time to really, like, figure out the company which people don't understand. Like all the behind the scenes of like getting a company together is a mainly the operations. Like what you see externally won. The INSTAGRAM with the launch is like 1/16 of Like All the behind the scenes of the operations manufacturing the vendor relationships, the team building and investors and getting all that together. So I finally feel like this year we have it together, and but the goal is a lot of new products this year. The most exciting launch that's coming up it is in the next few weeks, and I we have, like, an event having I sent you the invite for, um, this the launch, and it's just really exciting because I'm incorporating my culture into it.
Audrie: 35:52
I'm so excited isn't open to the public. It's an influencer
Deepica: 35:54
event because it's our 1st 1 ever.
Audrie: 35:56
We've never had it even crazy for me
Deepica: 35:58
that we're throwing an influencer event because, like what? Like I used to go to these and now my brand has one to invite other influencers, and it's like it's just gonna be a really cool moment, because and you'll see when you're there. But like it's, um it's going to be done in a way that I've never seen a beauty brand to create an influence or event, and that's my number one goal and it's gonna incorporate my culture. And I think culture being a fundamental Dina of this brand is so important to me.
Audrie: 36:24
I'm so excited to go the event one I love that you built a product based off a community that you created on social, and you found a need for that community. So that's so cool. I think if you have an online community and you're right now providing them support, whether it's just, you know, making content that can relate to them, come up with a way to make a product.
Deepica: 36:43
Yeah, and it's so crazy. It's like when you're creating a beauty brand, you know, it's like, Where do you begin? Where do you start? And it was like Deepika. You answered your own question by creating a video that went viral with 10 million views where people were so fascinated with color correcting under your eyes. So then I took that, and then I asked the live tinted community. I literally just asked them What's your number one beauty concern? And they said hyperpigmentation. So between my video between my audience just Helling me. We wanted this product.
Audrie: 37:09
So if you're an influencer your talent, you're looking to make a product. Make sure you're posting stuff related to that product. Yeah, not about the product of the brand. But if you want to make a snack post about sex before even make your sack brand. But also like, don't even just like strategically do that. Really? Sit
Deepica: 37:24
down and think about what is true to you. What would you want to obsessively use every single day? That because once you launch this product, you will talk about it every single day and you need to just love it.
Audrie: 37:34
I love snacks and chocolate. So you guys hurt here If I launched into those I love it. Anyways, I like that. You also mentioned your influencer event coming up. So now that you're on the other side, you were once an influencer. You still are. But you work with less brands cause you're focused on tinted. What do you now consider when creating influencer events? And when working with influencers? Since you were on the other side before
Deepica: 37:58
Great question. First and foremost, the first thing I do is I don't do the fancy male or packages and stuff cause to me. I know how much waste I did with that, and I would just throw it into the recycling thing. And some of things weren't even recyclable, so that was really frustrating. So first and foremost is our packages air Very simple. We focus on the quality product. If you create a quality product, people will talk about it. It doesn't matter what the fancy Miller comes in. The second thing I would say is that I want to create an experience that people feel in their heart, and I hope that that comes through in the event. It's not just gonna be our whole brand is not about. It's about a movement, and I want people to feel that come through at the event. I told people to bring their husbands, families. It's gonna be a family affair because family is such a big part of my life, and I hope my trying to get my parents to fly in for it. We're trying make that happen. So I think the personal touch is Keith. So any any brands that are listening is like that. Personal heart and warmth really resonates when people have to go to a 1,000,000 events in a week. I want them to leave, remembering something in their heart, not just liking in their hands.
Audrie: 39:01
I love that. And I also love that you touched on the packaging. It doesn't need all the bells and whistles when I open things and there's so much product like packaging left over. I feel so awful like I get it. In the
Deepica: 39:11
beginning, people felt like they had to compete. I get it, but, like, kind of, I guess. But I think the biggest thing to me that would be the kind of thing people could do is a handwritten note that's personal. Oh yeah, Happy birthday. Or like I saw you were running out on social, so I wanted to send you another one, or this color made me think of you because you always wear this shade to me. A handwritten note and the product is the sweetest thing you could do. Is that again hits your heart.
Audrie: 39:35
So now that you're on the brand side, what would you tell influencers in working with brands like, How can the best support when a brand, it's like taking the effort to send products and maybe it's not always has a budget behind it, but like inviting you to event. What would be some nice etiquette from influencers supporting? And
Deepica: 39:54
I'm going through it now because we don't have a big budget. I mean, we're very much like every dollar we like look at and stuff like that. So I'm so grateful that we have such organic growth from people who just believe in what we're building. And whenever we see that, like I could care less. If you have a following, I could care less. If you have 1000 followers versus 400 followers versus 150,000 followers, I am all about people who are want to support the cause of the movement of lived him did. And so if you're creating content that resonates with our message, we are going to reach out to you. And so we look at the hashtag attended every single day. We look at the tags every single day, and we're doing takeovers with people like, I think that's the important part when your community German brand, you can't just say here that it's like, what does that even mean right, so like it's important for us to spotlight creators on our channel. So we do takeovers on a weekly basis, things like that. So if you want to be featured and those things use the product and show that you like the brand and then we want to grow with you, you know what I mean? So I would just say, like, create quality content and wrecking. Look at the brand and and see what kind of content they make. Kind of understand the kind of content content you'll make.
Audrie: 41:05
Yeah, that's a great idea
Deepica: 41:06
for me. Personally. Our brand is very raw and real. So it's not like we have to have the perfect grid and everything like that. Um, and so it's it's a little easier, but
Audrie: 41:14
think about lighting. You know what I mean? Just look at
Deepica: 41:16
the brand's page as a step 12 what you should be doing.
Audrie: 41:20
I love that. Okay, So I asked the tag me audience what they wanted to know about you. Okay. Before you had a team, how did you keep content ideas fresh and flowing?
Deepica: 41:28
Oh, man. Um, I feel like this is an unfair answer, but I have a 1,000,000 ideas I can't sleep because they're like, always flowing in my brain, and they're just like it's actually the opposite problem. I have too many ideas, and I don't know where to begin with them. Yeah, I
Audrie: 41:43
know the pick up personally and she always had so many ideas and she's such an inspiring person. So if you ever need inspiration, just head to one of her social platform. All watch any video and you'll feel inspired. Next question for new creators is strategy and consistent look and feel of content more important than volume. I think you touched on this because you said that quality is more important than quantity. It's and it's
Deepica: 42:07
the Met. It's literally the message behind your product. Oh, it's the message behind the content you're creating because I was just looking at Mariana's patient and she was talking about how is the great important is like because obviously she has the most beautiful girl in the entire world. And for her brand, I do think it's important, like she is that vibe. She's the aesthetic. I go to her page to get inspired at the same way I goto a magazine like Vogue to get inspired for me. I think people come to me to see the raw riel side of Instagram. And I love that because that's who I truly am. You know what I mean? So everybody has a different vibe. It's more so about finding your story, your niche. What's true to you? Staying consistent to that And, um not budging. Like, stay true to that.
Audrie: 42:48
Yes. Not everybody needs a perfect feed, But if that is your brand Yeah, do that. Okay. Next question. What toller strategy do you use to plan instagram content? So I used to,
Deepica: 43:00
like use, um you know, um, plan Lee and things like that again when I was more when I was doing the influencer thing, like, full time, 100% of my life. And I was like wanting to make sure the grid was good. Everything was scheduled at this point in my life. Live, tended and myself used Trillo. It's a tool that really makes it so you can Yeah. It's made my life easier. I've used a sauna before. I've used we use black as
Audrie: 43:25
a company. I also love slack love me, some team and you want to follow everyone's progress and just stay on the same page, if especially for all in different locations and you don't report to the same office. Slack and asana are also a project management tools.
Deepica: 43:40
I feel like Slack made it so I'd stop texting employees, which was really a habit of mine. I I'm texting culture. We're in it now, but slack made it so it all went there and there's an app for it. So it's it feels like you're texting, but you're putting it all in one place, so all work related things go there.
Audrie: 43:56
Yeah, I'll link all of this in the episode notes, including tinted so people can check it. Okay, so now we're going into rapid fire questions, which means we're basically done. That was so quick we could
Deepica: 44:05
talk for hours.
Audrie: 44:06
I didn't really talk to you forever. I want to have you back on already because there's so much we could talk about Who is someone on social media you would love to collaborate with?
Deepica: 44:14
I think Mindy K. Ll ng to me is that is the essence of what lived handed stands for. And I've had a lot of support from the South Asian community people wearing our product, but and so she's one person that we've sent the products to, and I feel like I'm a step away from making that happen. And so I'm excited. I feel like I I am putting into the world that this year she will be an enthusiast of our brand,
Audrie: 44:37
who is a brand on social media. You would love to work with either partner with tinted or yourself in general.
Deepica: 44:43
Well, I think me this year, and I was telling you this a little bit earlier. I finally feel like I'm back in the fitness game. The two years that I was building live 10. Did I really just. It wasn't about myself. It was about building this company and I didn't care. And I think there's a time in life for everything and myself wasn't me for the last two years, and now I'm
Audrie: 45:01
back on it. I worked out this morning,
Deepica: 45:03
and I feel better than ever in terms of like endorphins, so I would love a fitness partnership.
Audrie: 45:08
Me to class past Soulcycle. I love me some class that you too. I love, um, Where can people follow you on social?
Deepica: 45:18
It's at DEEPIKA on all channels on dhe. Then at live tended on old channels to I'm I did just get home, take Doc. But I don't think I'm gonna take it to me. Just this fun. So, like, I'm like, I don't know. I just wanna have fun with it. But that's not on my daily. I do in a ton of instagram stories.
Audrie: 45:34
If someone wants to work with you, how did they get a hold of you? Info
Deepica: 45:38
at live, Tended is the best place to go. Um, and yeah, on a daily basis, I sit down with my team and look through it.
Audrie: 45:44
Perfect. Okay, Well, if you're a wellness brand a workout brand class past Soulcycle, reach out.
Deepica: 45:50
Yes. Holler at your
Audrie: 45:51
girl wants to work with you. Thank you so much for being a guest on the tag me podcast.
Deepica: 45:55
You're the best. Thank you.
Audrie: 45:57
If you want to follow the pickle on social media, her channels are linked to you in the episode nose. Thank you for listening to this episode of tag me If you enjoyed it, give us a shadow on Instagram at tag me podcast. Let us know what you want from the episode make sure subscribe. So you're always up to date on tag me episodes. If you have feedback on the podcast guest suggestions, including topics or you want to be a guest Visit us on instagram at tag new podcast and click the email button for side in rdm This podcast is for you. So please let us know how we can improve. We look forward to hearing from you and connecting with you on social Don't forget to tag me.