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Social Fabric Sessions: E16 AJ Vernet · The Marketing Brief

• Brian: Hello and welcome back to the Marketing Brief Podcast. I am your host, Brian Aquan, and we are here with another special subset episode of the Social Fabric Sessions. And very excited today to have my friend and the founder of Social Fabric here, AJ Vernett. AJ, welcome back into the pod. AJ: Thanks, buddy. It's a pleasure to be here today. Brian: Yeah, it's always good to see your face and have a g n have a nice conversation. AJ: I know. We need to do more of that in real life too. Brian: We we we we do a lot of it, but you get pulled in a lot of different directions. But that's what we're here to talk about. How do we get people out of their houses? How do we how do we meet up and and have these real conversations in person? AJ: Exactly. We get them doing the social fabric meetups. Brian: How so give me the state of the social fabric right now? Where where are we? AJ: Technically, we're in month 10. Yeah. In fact, if you remember, a group of us advertising folks were in Japan skiing last January, and we Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: decided to officially launch the WhatsApp with our friends in the US. And, you know, I think we're almost 400 people strong, all organic, 10 months in. With a major about thirty percent of them on this WhatsApp channel, which I know you're enjoying, and and we're on together and and we're conversing and sharing information and kind of chatting. And it's it's really interesting, what it's become, you know? I Brian: Yeah. It feels very supportive. I really like the community seems very supportive of people giving, like people offering to help understand a subject, underst you know, AJ: Yeah. Yeah. Brian: try to figure out who's the person to talk to about a certain thing. I I find it very supportive. No. AJ: Well, here's what it's not. It's not a sales channel. A lot of people think it is. And I've heard a lot of people say it's a lot of sellers. It's actually even not. I've done a poll. It's like 50-50. It's Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: half sellers, it's half senior execs leadership. we did say you had to be senior in your career originally because the premise was to reconnect with people that have moved away from LA or San Francisco, and Corey and I were just thirsty for that in Real-time connection. That's why the tagline is executives in real life. And the goal was to bring them a song online and to kind of start chatting again. So I have people in New York, I have one in Italy, a friend who moved there. And we're all chatting, not all at the same time. And sometimes it goes down a rabbit hole with some of the members. I've I've noticed. We have to rein it back in because it gets too fun and personal. but in general, I never saw the fact that. 10 months out, organically, we'd have this many people jump on to the social fabric. I never thought we would have a platform like a the newsletter and the interaction and open rates of the newsletter is like 50% plus, way, way past that. Corey has the stats. I never thought we would have the dynamics and social and the onboarding that we have, which has all been kind of automated with these amazing executives coming on and going on to our Instagram. Following us on LinkedIn and then joining the WhatsApp. And I never thought we'd have local chapters. I didn't see that coming. And then I saw one person after another raise their hand and say, I want, I think it was Brett who was like, I want, I want this executives in real life. Brian: Phoenix. Yeah. AJ: And I never thought, you know, we we did that one happy hour and like 25 people showed up. And then we did a coffee meetup in LA and like 55 people showed up. And what I saw, and I think you saw it too, was People are just starving to connect. Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: And and I use the word starving because I think, you know, I'm in my house, you're in your house, we're Brian: Yeah. AJ: gonna be here, I'm gonna be here for the next four or five hours doing meetings, and then Brian: Yeah. AJ: maybe I'm gonna run out. I actually have one in real life meeting today. And I think people want that camaraderie and and the same thing you get from social. You want that little dopamine hit of being in person and and feeling somebody's energy. And that's what the social fabric is really doing. Brian: Yeah, it's providing that platform. four four hundred people. Yeah. Four hundred people is not insignificant. That is really AJ: top of that yeah and and then local yeah it's almost with Brian: good growth in in the first ten months. And I've seen the same thing you have of just members raising their hand and saying, I want to build a local chapter in Phoenix. I want to build a local chapter in Atlanta. Shout out Meg Wells for doing that. Like that's really AJ: Can't wait. Brian: cool and happening very organically. AJ: Yeah, we have somebody that just raised their hand for Boston. I have somebody Brian: Nice. AJ: that just raised their hand for Chicago. So we'll be doing that. I know Jordan is doing San Francisco with our friend Debbie. And Jeff is is doing New York with our friend Ryan, who so like I love it. It's all organic and everybody's doing this for free. And the platform and the movement is meant to be free. And now I think that we've seen enough of the the interactions. I've gotten a ton of requests for more experiences, the taco tour that we did at South by, which was actually a sponsored event. It's the only thing we've done, but we needed to cover the cost for the car and and the tacos at the four Michelin starter. Brian: Got pay for the tacos. AJ: It was so good. That was one of the most fun events I've I've had. Lalo Tequila sponsored it, actually, if you want to know Brian: Nice. AJ: the truth. And they gave us a ton of awesome beverages. But like people want more. So we're starting to think about this. How do we scale it? And the chapters was the the most realistic thing. And the goal is to roll them out everywhere so that people can be together and more. And then I think where we're going with it is more things like the Taco Tour. We're gonna do more I'm a real big sports fan like you. And so like at the end of the day we I believe that it all started us skiing in Japan with nine other advertising execs. That was the common theme, right? We all worked together and became friends. And now I still do deals with some of these people. Brian: Sure. AJ: shout out to Todd Barish for having a birthday that got us all to go to Japan, right? Brian: Yeah. Thanks, Doc. AJ: But if you think about it, I've been doing these B2B meetups for for folks for the last five or six years, ever since I left the WSL. Been doing surfing and skiing adventures. And we started Sundance and brand storytelling around the fact that I was taking people like you at the time on Brian: Yeah. AJ: a weekend to ski and sundance, and we're bringing that all back. So we're gonna launch experiences officially where we're gonna offer members curated trips in 2027, you know, Brian: Nice. AJ: where we can all be together for maybe an extended period of 36 to 48 hours doing something fun that allows us to bond. And then because we are all online and c getting information and and learning about each other and what our needs are and the social fabric is helping, it's really interesting. If you look in the chat, you don't see it, but a lot of people are telling me personally that they're doing meetings, like sales meetings. I I know someone who's literally targeting all the new members and then and reaching out and saying, Hey, I'd love to, I'd love to have a chat with you. And in that chat, she is Essentially pitching her services in a in a in a in a mild way, but a lot of people are saying it's so great because she's also learning about me and then making multiple connections. That's the key. This Brian: Yeah. Right. AJ: community is not about me or Corey or anything. We're just happening to be the like the match that kind of lit the fire. This is really about all of these people and helping everybody with what they need. Connecting to a person, a place, an entity, and whether it's getting them a job, a consulting job. I think it's all going fractional. Like I just see where the the world's going. I see how people are trying to apply traditionally to jobs and things like that and and finding it hard. I mean, I know me personally, like a year ago, I was like, what am I doing? And I got bored with consulting and doing this B2B marketing Brian: Yeah. AJ: thing for people. And I knew some things were unwinding. And my wife's like, you should go get a job. I'm like, God, I haven't had a job in so long, a real job. I usually start a company and I applied. I got actually I had CEO of somebody make a call to somebody and I still couldn't get a job. And they're like, this guy's the perfect person. And I saw I got so frustrated. I think I applied for a hundred positions because I thought that's what I wanted. It's not what I I Brian: Yeah. Right, right, right. AJ: really wanted. I'm not opposed to having a job. I'm just saying Brian: Jobs are great. AJ: I couldn't get through. And now in social fabric, I had somebody ask me yesterday, hey, I need an intro to somebody you know. And and I they have this position. I think I tagged you on something too recently. And as I start to see that, what I'm doing is connecting friends. and other companies that I know and that brings me just pure joy. But that's Brian: Yeah, yeah. AJ: happening a hundred times X inside the fabric now. And I didn't see that. I can't see it. Which is why we're putting technology into the social fabric next year. So Brian: Yeah. Well that's exciting. Do you want to talk about Weaver? That's an exciting wrinkle. AJ: Yeah, Weaver, it's up on the website. Weaver was an idea that was brought to me by another social fabric member that it what if we could introduce AI technology to help with networking at events. So the premise that we originally and it's built and and we're about to launch it into the WhatsApp. So anybody seeing this, if you go on the social fabric, sign up, you can have Weaver for free when we launch it. It will not be monetized in if you're a member of the social fabric. That's a That's a cool component. And Weaver's sole goal is to take a look at you and ask you a bunch of questions about yourself and what things you're trying to accomplish and what you're looking for. It's not a job. So if you say I want a job, it's not gonna do that. But if you say I want to meet people in sports, I want to meet people in media, I wanna meet people who, do haiku or or or or work in the Japanese market, right? Like I don't know why I said I don't know why Brian: Haikus. AJ: I said that, but I did. But it will analyze under a certain harness conditions, which a harness is like a basically a project box that we put things in, and it will get to know Brian and it will know that you Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: worked in sports and you worked for POW, which you're wearing that lovely hat, and I love it. And I I can't wait for winter to be here officially. Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: and it will start to say, Okay, Brian, what kind of things are you looking for? Well, I'm looking to connect to brands that sell winter gear. Right. And it's then going to cross-pollinate everybody inside the social fabric and inside the social fabric's extended network. And it's going to be like, hey, here's the people we can introduce you to. And then you're going to have to give it a valid reason. And the AI is going to be a link between you and those people, convincing them that they should take a time to meet with you. And there's a couple of other degrees that are going to happen, meaning AI is going to dissect and say, hey, AJ knows somebody that what Brian wants to meet. Would you help him? And it's going to. It's going to help Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: you make that connection. But AI is going to, in a passive way, not allow you to bombard the other person. Doesn't matter what Brian: Okay. AJ: they are, who they are, what the position they hold. It's going to tastefully get them to agree using logic. Or dis, or say, hey, this person tapped out. Let's try another route. You Brian: Yeah. AJ: need AJ to make a call and or or another member. Brian: Yeah. AJ: Now, that's the essence of it. Brian: So it's like this it's like the social lubricant that alcohol used to be for all of us. AJ: Yeah. Exactly. Brian: D and in terms of a use Well, I was gonna ask you in terms of a AJ: It's gonna do that, but then the original premise was can it do it on site at an event? Because Brian: Right. Use cases, yeah. AJ: what I see happening is, and we talked about this before, is a bunch of people come to our events. New York is when I really saw it. I I looked around the room and I didn't know how many people there were there for the social fabric. And that's my bad. I need to put signage up when we do events. And I've learned that since then. But Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: there was 60 people in the room that were all there to network for us. And I was like, my God. And that's when I really realized that Weaver, if if you had been given Weaver ahead of time and you could say, who's going to the New York social fabric or who's going to CES? And then it started to cross-pollinate those people who are registered against your goals. And then it would help you make an intro. And the goal is if I'm going to show up and be somewhere in real life, how do I not just talk to my friends and think I network? That's that's true. That happens. You and I have done it. We sat in a room once Brian: Right, right. Yeah. yeah. AJ: over our grit, and we just don't talk to anybody else. And we think, that was great. I saw Brian. I caught up. I already know Brian. What about the other nine people that I don't know that I need to meet because maybe they can change my life? I've I recently saw something on social and I realize it to be totally true. You if you stay in motion and you stay out there bumping around and talking to people. random acts happen and things just just somehow fall into place. And I'm trying to enhance that. I'm trying to increase Brian: Yeah. AJ: that. I want someone to go to an event and get 10 new meetings out of it. And Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: and then have 10 options. One's gonna maybe pan out. And I realize what a lot of people, our friends, are doing and what I've seen at a lot of these meetups and and other networking things I go to is people are sitting there. And they're listening to content and they're talking to themselves and they're on their phone and they're very siloed, even though they're surrounded by people. Brian: Yeah. AJ: And they don't have enough random acts of bumping into somebody and getting a random conversation that's meaningful. And weaver is just gonna help take that out of it. It's gonna, it's gonna be a social lubricant. Yes, you are right. That's a good word for it. And it's gonna how you you're coming into a room now and you know that you're gonna meet 10 people somewhere on that. premise and just enough about them that they match with what you're trying to accomplish and those two things are just gonna help. That's that's the whole goal. Like this community and this technology and these experiences and things we're gonna do, it's all gonna be just as good as everybody puts into it. Right? Like that's a that's a thing you've seen it too. People like Meg Brian: Yeah, yeah. AJ: and Dodie and and friend Zach and Jason and and I'm thinking Garrett and Alex and there's it's amazing. I have this new community and they're all vocal. Joe Epstein like vocal Brian: Yeah. AJ: and it's growing this community so quickly and people are in general Brian: Yes. AJ: just appreciative and helping. And that's what we're doing different. That's the essence of this is like, no I'm not trying to be LinkedIn. LinkedIn I love Brian: Right. AJ: LinkedIn but it's white noise at the moment and I get vulnerable Brian: Yeah. AJ: and I'm Brian: Well, I love I love the idea of Weaver in preparation for going to an event, going to a conference, and really getting myself a plan for going in there. We all know it's easy not to do something, right? AJ: Yeah. Brian: And going and doing something is sometimes scary for some people. Some people are better at it than others, introverts, extroverts, ambiverts, whatever. But I do know that nothing happens if you don't go, right? So showing up is great. AJ: Exactly. You gotta show up. Brian: Yeah, you gotta show up. And this tool helps you plan and almost make a deal with yourself and almost commit to yourself of you know what? I found five great contacts that are gonna be there that are gonna help me learn about like creators in the sports space, which is something AJ: Exactly. Brian: I need to learn about. So now I've got another incentive for for actually going. And that's really what you're trying to do is build incentives to overcome the complacency of of not going to the event. So I really AJ: Yeah. Brian: love Weaver as a preparation tool for. We're going to events and and conferences. AJ: Well, you and I have talked about this before, and I apologize. You're an introvert, actually. and Brian: I am, yeah, yeah. AJ: and I'm a total extrovert, as Brian: Yeah. AJ: but I still get super nervous about meeting random people. Like I'm always thinking, like, what is the first thing I'm gonna say? Because and I play a game that was written by Andrew Carnegie. It's like my mom gave me this book, I think, in college. It's how to win friends and influence people. Brian: Yeah, yeah. AJ: And I remember the one thing about this, and I think I've talked to you about this before, actually. So I apologize if I'm being repetitive. Brian: It's okay. AJ: But at the end of the day, the quicker you can identify with somebody on some level, so you look at their yeah, there's a common ground. And that Brian: Common ground. Yeah. AJ: is always the most nervous part for me. Yeah, like, but if Brian: Trying to f trying to find the common ground. Yeah. AJ: I could find out you surf or ski or you Brian: Right. AJ: know, you you're a creative person, you like photography, whatever, then then we have some common ground and then Brian: Mm. Yeah. The shoulders go down. You AJ: Then we can expand and I just yeah. Brian: relax. You're like, okay, now we can have a conversation. AJ: Yeah, because that's it. And the best relationship I have to this day is I taught somebody how to ski or surf, or we went on a trip to Costa Rica together. That's actually Chip Russo, Todd Barish, myself, Marty Funk Fuse. We all went down to Costa Rica on a six-day surfing, intertubing, motorcycling trip. This is 25 years ago. I'm still close friends with every single one of them. And if I pick up the phone, they're all gonna call me back. And I'm trying to bring more of that to the table. As we go through this next phase of life, I believe that that's so necessary to feed your soul, but also to feed whatever you're trying to do with yourself. And I think it's gotten so automated, and we just talked about AI automating something, right? Weaver. But the social fabric's main focus is to help people like achieve whatever it is. It doesn't have to Brian: Interact with other people. Yeah. AJ: be work. It could just be I want to meet more like-minded people. Now we put we put some guardrails around it, but I think we are gonna actually launch an under 25 version because I think this is like a mentorship program. I think Brian: Yeah. AJ: I think we'll always stay away from too much content and trying to become an event company. But Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: that said, I think you and myself and Corey and all of them are helping people do proper B2B. and as it grows, like once we push past thousand people. first quarter of next year. And then we should pass 10 chapters. And Brian: Yeah. AJ: and and it's all word of mouth. I I think it's just super exciting. I will say this, to anybody listening to it is our goal is actually to help other event companies. You know, help our local organization like Think LA. Help people like my friend Danny Fisherman at the room put some butts in seats to make sure that there's a great dinner. Help our friends over at brand storytelling or, you know, You know who inspired me to go on this whole journey? And I don't even think she knows it. I know she'll never hear this, but is Shelley's Alice at the female quotient. Brian: Okay. AJ: Like I saw what she was doing way back in the day, pre-pandemic, and I was like, this woman is so spot on. Like she has nailed it. She understands how to put a room together and have the right elements of networking, content, people, you know, in the right place. Brian: Yeah. AJ: And I think the social fabric is going to help our members understand where to show up and be and create these fun moments, but really we're helping other companies. It's a it's an interesting premise. Everybody else is trying Brian: Yeah, very complimentary. AJ: to be me, me, me, me. Even brand innovators, like if they've something unique, hey, social fabric, let's meet up here. Let's do this moment. Brian: Yeah. It can be AJ: Five. Brian: very it can be very complimentary because really we're just just AJ: Yeah. Brian: making the connections between people. AJ: Yeah, that's what it's meant to do. That it's Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: meant to inform and guide. Cause that's I think the biggest problem. And we've we've said it twice already. I think a lot of people are stuck in this way and COVID changed a lot of behaviors and everything got Brian: Yeah. AJ: automated and it needs to go back out into real life. Gary V's screaming this through all of his content that the analog moment is here. It's you know, we we need to get out, and he's right. Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Humans are choosing AJ: He's he's totally right. So Brian: to do that. AJ: So yeah, for ten months and this is our part time gig, I like to think Brian: Pretty cool. AJ: it's really cool. And and Brian: pretty cool. And it's it's it's being it's growing through its membership, right? It's it's not from anything that we're like setting goals that it has to happen by this date. It's like, this is growing through the members who join and who they bring in and really is growing like a true organic network of executives, which is what we wanted. AJ: Yeah. And and people are sharing. And everything we just talked about, the tool, the technology tool was that member that pitched me on the idea and he was spot on. And but the experiences, the more meetups, the local chapters, the discount access to tickets, you know, for some things. Like we just all went to an event together in LA and we all met up. that Brian: Yeah. AJ: That that was great that somebody had a discount code that got twenty-five of us in and went. That's all happening because people are asking for it. There's Brian: Yes. AJ: it's it's rare that there's no business plan written behind it. And I know anybody Brian: Yeah. AJ: is this gonna think that's stupid, but it's not. Sometimes you gotta let things just show you what they are. And Brian: Yeah. AJ: I think the social fabric's meant to become a movement. And you know, if we get lucky, Brian: It is. AJ: maybe we'll do it in London. So You and I can go over there, do some more Brian: Yeah. AJ: podcasting. Maybe we'll do and start one in Japan. I am working on a project in Hong Kong. Brian: Okay, I'm in. Nice, I'm in. AJ: I know you are. Brian: Yeah, no, I saw it work when we were at that creator IQ conference. And going there with people that I knew from the social fabric would be there was another motivator for for me to go. And then also I knew there was a comfort zone for me there, right? Like I can land in a nice soft landing of talking to Justin Henry and talking to you AJ: Yeah. Brian: and talking to Jordan and everybody who was there because I knew they would be there and I knew I could. I could then use that comfort zone to expand and go talk to other people because I can always come back to you guys. AJ: Yeah, that's the that's that's it. You have just articulated it. And that's what I saw in New York. In New York, we just took over the Ace Hotel lobby. There was nothing Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: official. I can't believe how many people were there. And I didn't know the full scope of it because I didn't do it a traditional way where we sponsor a room, we know, we have an RSVP list. It's almost flash mobby in a sense. Brian: Yeah. Yeah. AJ: and and we'll have to adjust as as we as we get going. Brian: Yeah, it'll it'll go wherever the members take it, right? AJ: That's that's the point of the whole thing. And I'm Brian: Amazing. AJ: still so appreciative that you do these podcasts. And I hope anybody Brian: Love it. AJ: watching this like calls you and and does more of these because I think it's a great way. Like that's the other thing. We want to promote every single member. Like, I don't think people realize that you can write an article and publish it on our platform. You can get on a podcast. You can talk about what you're working on. but Don't hard pitch it to anybody that doesn't want to be pitched because that's not cool. Right. But we're not telling you not to ask. we're just saying do it the right way and learn about the person Brian: Absolutely. AJ: first. Brian: Yeah. Relationship before transaction. Because what you have might be interesting, but there's nothing more interesting than you as a person. And that's what we're always AJ: Yeah. Brian: interested in first. AJ: I don't know. You've been in this career a long time, so have I. And then I've known some people. I knew one person ten years before I did one deal with her. I probably Brian: Yeah. It happens. AJ: pitched her a hundred times and I did the traditional agency lunch and learns. I went to like she moved agencies, I went every time. And then one day she called me up. She's like, I have a deal for you. She's like, It only took Brian: Yeah. It's the right time. AJ: me ten years. But she was my friend. We became friends over that time. And I Brian: Yeah. AJ: I Think I think that's the point. If you genuinely like people and you like what you're doing and you're meant to be in this industry, some people should not be in this industry, right? I like it. So do you. these are our people. I think you can do it all the right way and and make a living. And it's getting harder out there. That's another thing. Like it's musical chairs out there right now on the work side. Like I'm throwing Brian: Yeah. AJ: an event. In January for someone that's having me curate a room for them real high end. I can't tell you what it is, but essentially the guest list is turning over four times because everybody's like getting laid off. These are senior people or they're switching jobs Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. AJ: and it's like nuts. Yeah. Brian: Yeah, lots of movement. AJ: But you know, just gotta work harder. Brian: Yeah. But what stays is your relationships, right? I've I've I've been laid off. AJ: Yeah. Brian: I've been at many different companies and you always know the real relationships because those are the people that you stay in contact with after that job is over and jobs are going to come and go, but you can build relationships, you can continue to build your network and and and and continue to add to it as you go through these career changes. AJ: Ex exactly. And so that's what we're trying to do is map that out and then help. Brian: Yeah. AJ: So Brian: We're here to help. So go to the website and join if you haven't, right? Thesocialfabric.us AJ: Yeah. Brian: and apply. We love to we'd love to hear from you. Come to one of our meetups in LA. We're at we're at zinc in Century City, the fourth Friday of the month. And there are chapters. Like you said, there's what, five or seven chapters coming? AJ: Atlanta, Phoenix, San Francisco, New York, LA, Austin, Chicago's next, and then Boston. So we'll be eight by the end of the year. That's crazy. Brian: And Boston. So if if you're in one of those cities, find that meetup. And if you're not, maybe raise your hand. Maybe say, Hey, I could I could find a a place that people could meet up for coffee. Yeah. AJ: We'd love that. Yeah. I think it's done wonders. I have to say, this whole experience has done wonders for me reconnecting with people that I haven't talked to in years. it's actually it's it's super it's helped. So if I'm finding the benefit and I'm hearing about other people finding the benefit, we want somebody, more people to come in and and join Brian: Yeah. AJ: us. Brian: And I've enjoyed spending time with you too. So that's been a nice bonus. Thanks for coming on the podcast AJ: Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. Brian: and giving us the update of the social fabric. AJ: Yeah, it's been great. I love what you're doing. All right. Brian: Awesome. Well, to all the listeners out there, stay curious. Find your community.