Latest / Talk Commerce / Building Global Content Strategies with Shaheen Samavati from Vera Content
Transcript
- Brent Peterson (00:01.806) Welcome to this episode of Talk Commerce. Today I have Shaheen Samavati. She is with Vera Commerce, Vera Content. my brain is all combobulated this morning. Shaheen, go do a much better introduction for yourself. Tell us your day-to-day role and one of your passions. Shaheen Samavati (00:21.064) Yeah, so I'm Shaheen Samovadi. I'm co-founder and CEO of Vera Content, where we help brands create and manage large-scale multilingual content creation projects for audience across Europe and beyond, which basically means we work on blogs and social media pages for different markets. And one of my passions, I'd say, is just learning and sharing knowledge. I'd go with that. I feel like that's a common thread in everything I do and it motivates me. Brent Peterson (00:44.75) That's great. Yeah. And we discovered we're both in entrepreneurs organization. You're in Barcelona. I'm in Minnesota. We both don't live in our home cities. So, um, and, but I'm, I'm actually in Minnesota now, but, uh, and that's why I'm wearing a vest anyways. So we, we found already found some commonality plus content. So this is great. All right. So before we get started though, I've already prepped you for this fantastic joke that I have, and you're just going to give me a rating eight through 13. So here we go. Shaheen Samavati (00:54.824) Yeah. Shaheen Samavati (01:04.838) Yeah, definitely. Brent Peterson (01:14.53) My wife and I are sitting on the couch watching TV and I hear a realizing I left my phone in the kitchen. get up, go to the kitchen to check it. And it's a text from my wife. Please bring the popcorn on your way back. Shaheen Samavati (01:30.26) I'll give it a four. It has to be eight to thirteen. Okay, I thought it was like zero to thirteen. Okay, well, I'll go with seven. Wait, eight. I'm a words person, not a math person. Brent Peterson (01:34.926) Oh no no, it's 8 through 13, you can't give it a 4. Brent Peterson (01:42.946) All right. Thanks. I appreciate it. Right, right. Got it. All right. Okay. All right. So tell us a little bit about your business and how you got into it. Shaheen Samavati (01:55.526) Okay, this clearly is like some psychological test, not just a joke test, but anyway, I'm not going to think too much about that. How I got into my business. you started to share a little bit about my location, but I'm actually based in Málaga, Spain, but my business is based in Madrid. And I'm a member of the Barcelona chapter of EO, so all over Spain, but I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio area. And so not that far from Minnesota, kinda. And basically my background is in print journalism and I worked in newspapers before moving to Spain to do an MBA program like a while ago now. And after that, I've been working in like corporate communication and marketing roles where in like European companies. And basically I saw really working in Europe, like obviously the need for for English natives, that's how I got my foot in the door in some of my first jobs in Spain, but also the need for multilingual content across European markets. And I was working with providers, with managing those kinds of projects in-house in the past and decided to launch my own agency to offer that service because I thought I could do it better. And now I've been doing that for 10 years. So that's where I am. And obviously we've grown the business. So I was part of the EO accelerator program and that helped me a lot in in kind of scaling my business to where it is now. So, yeah. Brent Peterson (03:20.012) Awesome. Did you start with EOA Cleveland or where did you start Accelerator? wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I also started an Accelerator. I had a business before this business and I started an Accelerator and it was such a fantastic program. It really helped launch what we needed to do to get to that next level. I mean, that's a completely different subject and I have a different podcast for EO, but I think that's for the... Shaheen Samavati (03:23.982) No in Barcelona too, so... Shaheen Samavati (03:41.94) Yeah, we should talk about that on there. Brent Peterson (03:44.814) For the listeners who don't know, EO Accelerator is a program, if you're more than a quarter million dollars, it helps you to, it gives you a coach and it helps you get to that next level. So, and it's such great value. You know, the dues are very low. And I remember at the time thinking, you know, if I go to something like Shop Talk, I know there's a Shop Talk Barcelona, which is in the e-commerce space. You know, the ticket for Shop Talk is $3,800. And at the time, the accelerator program in Minnesota was like 1900. And it was like, oh my gosh, it's such a great, Shaheen Samavati (03:59.06) Yeah, absolutely. Brent Peterson (04:14.786) The quarterly days are just like, the quarterly days are what made it for me. we'll talk about that on a different time. Shaheen Samavati (04:15.016) Yeah. Shaheen Samavati (04:20.754) Yeah. And if for a lot of entrepreneurs, like at a very early stage, it seems like a lot of money, but the value is incredible considering there's a lot of volunteers involved and you get to learn from people who've already scaled their businesses and people are really willing to help you. that had a huge impact on the growth of our content. Brent Peterson (04:36.446) Yeah, perfect. all right. So I do want, let's talk about content and you know, I, did recently or, or in April I purchased this content company. I know we talked about my other company content basis, which was AI and then humans, but the new company that is, all about human content. And after chat GPT, the company has really, really struggled. And I'm wondering, are you seeing that same struggle with a lot of your clients who say, Hey, I can just do all this by myself. I don't need a human anymore. Shaheen Samavati (04:53.843) Mm-hmm. Brent Peterson (05:05.87) to help me with my content. Shaheen Samavati (05:08.348) Yeah, I mean, we've definitely seen a lot of changes. Like we still, I mean, we continue to grow our business this year, but maybe like the nature of some of the work that we're doing is like, obviously we're having to adapt to the market and having to integrate a lot of these AI processes into our own processes. And also, yeah, I'd say like some of the types of projects we did in the past, we're seeing less of, but we're seeing more of other types of projects. So being a bit diversified, I think has helped us a lot because we do. like I mentioned, not only blog content creation, which I would say there's still demand for, but there's a lot of higher expectation of efficiency than ever before. So that's sometimes, that puts more pressure on the team. And like, it also means we have to be really strategic about how we use the tools, but still get like exceptional results. Because obviously when companies come to us, it's because they want more than what AI has to offer. So we really have to go above and beyond to like get them to really match their... brand voice or offer like thought leadership because they are paying for that human content, but they also want it like cheaper and faster. So, and actually some aspects are not, have not really been sped up by AI yet. So it's like, you know, managing that and managing the expectations with clients has definitely been a challenge. But then on the other side, we also do social media management and so, and kind of like local, localization of social media content. I'd say like, straight localization we've also seen less demand for recently, but we're seeing more demand for UGC video content creation and more for influencer partnerships. And that's something we've really grown on that side of the business. Because I think our core competency at Vera is really managing the local teams who are in each of these international markets. And so being the eyes and ears on the ground. So yeah, we've expanded beyond not only having local writers, but also having local video content creators and you know, having people on the ground who can make those local partnerships as well. Brent Peterson (07:03.884) Yeah, that's so cool. I think you hinted at some of the AI integrations that you had to do. And I know that traditionally we build by the word. I think now words are, I can't sugarcoat it, but words are cheap now, right? I think it's harder now to build by the word as it has in the past as a regular writer. And writers are under pressure to deliver more for less. And I'm sure you're seeing the same thing. Shaheen Samavati (07:15.634) Mm-hmm. Shaheen Samavati (07:22.12) Mm-hmm. Shaheen Samavati (07:31.184) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We do bill by the hour in our agency, but definitely, obviously, we're being compared against per award prices for certain types of projects. yeah. And the amount of time that's expected to create an article now is less because of all the tools available. So it's like having to manage that, Brent Peterson (07:51.786) My experience has been also around the expectation of you mentioned time, the amount of time to deliver, also, you know, one thing that I did when I started content basis was I, we said that we're going to, we're going to create the content with AI, but then we're going to edit it with a human. And the expectation from the client, from the AI side was, we should, this should be perfect. First round. We don't want to wait for a second edit or a third edit, or even learning how Shaheen Samavati (08:10.601) Mm-hmm. Brent Peterson (08:21.622) you know, training your model to do it right for you. The expectations at the beginning were that it's just, it's a magic bullet, right? That Chet GPT is just going to give you everything you need and that you don't need it anymore. Did you experience some of that same thing? Shaheen Samavati (08:34.452) Mm-hmm. Yes, we've seen that to some degree. We definitely are picky about the projects that we take on. So we do only work on long-term collaboration basis. And we have that onboarding phase that for us is really important. Although depending on the client, some of them really value it and want to get the style and tone right and make sure that our team is fully trained to be able to really produce the content to the standard. And others just don't have the patience and want to start right away. found when that happens, a lot of times it's not the right fit for us. Because if the expectation is to just start spitting out content, well, it's impossible for us. It's oftentimes really hard for us to meet the client's expectation or at least meet our own expectations because maybe their expectations are low, but we also have certain quality standards internally that we need to meet to maintain our reputation. So yeah, we really try to only work with clients who really value that premium service of really like... taking the time to get to know their brands. we, at the beginning of every project, like we build a style guide, we, you know, build all the resources and training needed for the writers who are going to be part of it. And if the client's not willing to wait a couple of weeks for us to like get that all set up, then, then yeah, it's probably not the right fit. Brent Peterson (09:51.326) you know, my, my previous business, had, we had offices in different countries and we were, we were really big in, Mexico and we really worked on growing into Mexico. And we did that through offices in Bolivia and, and, and other South American countries and then delivering to Mexico. How, how do you keep, keep in touch with everybody and how, if you're global, how do you make sure that you're connected with your team and getting those team members? And, and then I guess. you know, especially in Bolivia, language was a big barrier that English was really not at all promoted or maybe it was promoted, but you know, maybe developers was tough for them to get by and learn English. Do you, do you find that problem just a commonality in how you speak with everybody or does everybody at least speak English? Shaheen Samavati (10:24.158) Mm-hmm. Shaheen Samavati (10:29.223) Hehehehe Shaheen Samavati (10:42.078) I mean, generally like our target clients like our have very high level of English because they're usually managing content across multiple markets or managing marketing campaigns across multiple markets. their internal language is usually English. And then a lot of our clients are like based in the US. Like we mainly work with clients who are either in Spain where we are in the US or the UK or like very international companies across who are operating in Europe because that's our kind of specialty is. European markets, so helping our clients with their content for those markets. So yeah, we found, I mean, our language of communication generally is English, and we do most of our marketing and sales and everything in English as well, ironically, because we're helping our clients adapt it into a lot more languages. But of course, our clients are much bigger and are willing to put the resources to and are also targeting much several different international markets where. we're really focused on English speaking markets. Brent Peterson (11:42.574) Yeah, I was thinking so much of the client but more with the writer side and maybe I'm again now making a parallel between a developer and a writer and I know they're two different, everything is different about them but I found that developers are so focused on learning the code that they skip English and maybe writers are different that English would be something that they kind of have to learn. Shaheen Samavati (11:46.068) Mm. Shaheen Samavati (12:04.69) Yeah, that's a good point. definitely like, yeah, I mean, the language of communication internally at our company is generally English. Of course, we also have like, we're based in Spain, everyone on the team also speaks Spanish. So yeah, some of our Spanish writers maybe don't, we communicate with them in Spanish, but for the most part, most of the international teams, we are communicating with them in English. Yeah. Brent Peterson (12:28.878) Do you, we always heard from the local country, like in Bolivia, that's the best place to learn Spanish because they have the best accent and in Mexico, of course, they say the same thing. then Spain says for some reason they have the right accent, which I don't understand. do you, mean, just from Dominican Republic, we did a lot of work there. Do you find that the difference in language is like English in the UK and... Shaheen Samavati (12:50.377) Mm-hmm. Brent Peterson (12:55.23) are two different languages really like you there's different spelling. Do you have to keep track of all that if you're doing across different markets and the US also has a large Spanish speaking population that is Spanish first that they might have a way of doing things than they do in Spain. Do you encounter that? Shaheen Samavati (13:14.918) Yeah, well, we've actually done some content on a lot of different topics around this, but related to different languages for Spanish, we've done like, is there really like a generic Spanish or a Latin Spanish? Because that's something that is often requested. so, and well, we have a whole analysis of this, but I mean, basically there is nobody really speaks like that. But it's like, you know, trying to create a neutral version where you're not using any like very specific local. vocabulary, using a more neutral vocabulary that would be understood more universally. So that is something that like, it's true that like if you're using that, you're not really localizing for any market. It's creating a more generic kind of voice. So it really depends what you're trying to do. Like for a piece of maybe like a ad claim or something that you want to be really localized and tell you like evoke emotion, you're probably not going to do that with a very neutral Spanish. But at the same time, it's a trade-off because the more localized it is, the more narrow you're going and the more different versions of it you'll have to make. And the more expensive that is. Brent Peterson (14:23.214) Yeah, I would imagine too, there's some discrepancies. I know there's a lot of words in Spanish that are maybe derogatory in Mexican Spanish. And I think about tapas and there's another word with P. starts with, I don't want to even say it, but it starts with a P in Spanish Spanish. was just that you have for like... Shaheen Samavati (14:40.756) Or like, cojer un taxi, this is the typical joke. Because that's really common to say in Spain, but in some countries it's inappropriate. What are you going to do with that taxi? Yeah, okay. So anyway. Brent Peterson (14:47.19) Yeah, so you have to be a little bit... Brent Peterson (14:54.336) Right. Right. So I suppose you can have some fun, but then also I would imagine the local person would know a little bit about that, hey, this is not the way to phrase this correctly in this language. And it also, I guess it goes to your professionality, right? That you need to know what that local dialect and local way of phrasing something is. And I can think of some, my experience would be something like, I went to school in Birmingham, England, and there's certain ways that you would say something there that you would never say in English and vice versa. Shaheen Samavati (15:08.596) Yeah, absolutely. Brent Peterson (15:29.038) to show how you know or that you're proficient in that local dialect that you want to deliver that language in the same dialect, right? Shaheen Samavati (15:37.85) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, especially for if you're trying to reach an audience that really hasn't left that environment, Because yeah, it depends. We see that a lot too. There's some clients we work with that actually do a lot of content only in English because they are really targeting people who are working in international companies in a more B2B setting. And it's like, If you can reach your audience with more generic content, maybe you don't need to localize it. And there's other circumstances where if you're selling beer, I don't know, like, you want to sell it in the local pub, well, you need to like localize your, you need to localize your ads for that. So. Brent Peterson (16:16.97) AEO, GEO, AIO are just such terms now that people are throwing around. Do you write? No, yeah, they need to figure it out. But are you writing your content to help people with those specific LLM search items? Shaheen Samavati (16:24.498) I don't think anybody's decided what it's officially called yet. Shaheen Samavati (16:35.858) Yeah, absolutely. That's been a super big focus area for us and staying on the cutting edge of that. And we're actually doing a live webinar about it coming up. don't know when this podcast is going to be published, yeah. So yeah, absolutely. It's true that from what we've seen, in terms of what works in terms of SEO and what works for the LLMs, it's like... not doesn't seem to be hugely different, but there are some little things to keep in mind that can help us optimize. And I'm sure that it's going to keep changing and we're going to have to keep adapting. Brent Peterson (17:07.618) Yeah, and a couple of years ago, before ChetchBT came out, the whole voice optimization to get showing up on Alexa and Google, Google, whatever, the different voice, way to say something so you get, so Alexa will respond to your search request. That seems to kind of now layered into the LLM searching. Do find the same? Shaheen Samavati (17:28.273) Mm-hmm. So what's the question there? Brent Peterson (17:32.527) The question is like the way that we used to, well, I mean, before Chetchip E.T., a lot of people were trying to create content that would get shown up by Alexa or by Siri or one of the other voice searching that you have to, there's specific ways to write your content to be shown by that. But now it's kind of folded into LLMs or to the search, to the large language models. Are you seeing the same thing? Shaheen Samavati (17:42.28) Hmm. Shaheen Samavati (17:47.476) Mm-hmm. Shaheen Samavati (17:52.606) Mm-hmm. Shaheen Samavati (17:56.072) Yeah. Shaheen Samavati (17:59.582) I mean, yeah, think similarly, I I'm sure that I don't know exactly how the voice recognition works, but I I assume that it was based on AI already, and now we're seeing that AI being baked into everything. yeah. Brent Peterson (18:17.686) Right. All right, so have a, what are you seeing now for this last quarter of the year? We're already in fourth quarter in the US. We have Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Are you seeing an uptick in content creation? Shaheen Samavati (18:36.142) I mean, I'd say, well, I don't know if it's, mean, of course we see content creation around those events every year, but I mean, I think in general, we're seeing like more content being created than ever before in the history of humanity. Like, I mean, it's so easy to create content now and everyone is, and that's like what I think we were talking earlier about like the demand for content. It's true that like a lot of companies are maybe creating more content internally with AI tools and so forth, but At the same time, they're creating more and more content. I think even though, yeah, it means the nature of how content is created is changing. Like the volume is incredible. And I think like there's absolutely like a lot of work for humans to do in all of that. And I actually see, like we've seen, for example, like a big shift back to people. buying print publications. There's been a lot of news around that recently. And I think that shows like the hunger there is for actually like curated, like well organized content that has been vetted by someone because of all the crap that's just being like spewed out on the internet these days. So yeah, I still think there's tons of demand for actually like high quality content that's, you know, created by humans, or at least refined by humans or AI models that are written, you know, that are like guided by humans, I guess I should say. Brent Peterson (19:57.039) Yeah, and maybe that'd be a last little topic here is just the idea that content that's not cultivated or at least read and edited by a human is really the same content that one person is writing if you're using GHBT and the next person is. There's no difference in that content. So there's no differentiator in your own brand if you're just using a straight up model and never having anybody edit it. even having your own prompts or whatever that that content is now going to be completely vanilla and I believe that that's the content that's just going to get rolled over and not even seen by search engines in the future. Shaheen Samavati (20:37.362) Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that there's a lot of potential. Obviously, AI speeds up the process incredibly, and it can do really amazing things. But you need to give it the source information. Don't ask it to look for the source information for you, because what it will find is what everyone else is finding. And it's going to create the same old generic stuff. Brent Peterson (20:59.182) Perfect Shaheen, we have a couple minutes left and as I close out the podcast I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything they'd like. What would you like to plug today? Shaheen Samavati (21:09.916) Yeah, well, I guess I would plug just the free resources on Vera content's website. If you check it out, veracontent.com, go to free resources. You can see a lot of content that we've done on some of the topics we've been talking about today, definitely about searching, LLM search and SEO best practices, as well as a lot of things around global social media management. And of course, AI content creation. We've got a lot of stuff on that. So I'd say to check that out. Brent Peterson (21:38.562) Great, and how do they get ahold of you if they want to? Shaheen Samavati (21:41.96) Yeah, well, through our website, of course, you can find me there at veracompton.com or on LinkedIn, Shaheen Sayamavati. Brent Peterson (21:47.82) All right, perfect Shaheen. Thank you so much for being here today. It's been such a great conversation. Have a great day. Shaheen Samavati (21:52.686) Thank you Brent for having me.