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Social Fabric Sessions: E15 Cory Treffiletti · The Marketing Brief

• Brian: Hello, and welcome back to the Marketing Brief Podcast. I am your host, Brian Daquan. And this is the podcast where we talk about marketing. We talk to people in marketing. We talk to people who touch marketing. You know, we talk about marketing. And this is again Cory Treffiletti: All the things. Brian: one of our special subset episodes, the social fabric sessions. And I've got a member of the social fabric with me, Corey Trefoletti. How are you doing, Corey? Cory Treffiletti: Good Brian, how you doing? Brian: I'm doing well. What are you doing in the social fabric? What is what is going on with the social fabric right now? Cory Treffiletti: Yeah, so the thing's been up and running now for I think maybe six months. And it's been really fun to watch. You know, AJ and I have this idea, AJ's been kind of running with it and I've been helping him as best I can. But essentially it's the idea is that we know the best relationships you have in this whole world of advertising and marketing and media. It comes from the people you've met along the way. And I can't tell you one person who I had a great relationship with that started because I was in a conference room. So it's always because of some sort of social event, some activity where you got to know somebody on a more personal basis. Maybe you were a little bit vulnerable, maybe you just gave some information. and that that's what we're trying to do, just trying to get people together. And I think you you the the the silly way to say it is that since COVID, people have been dying to get together, but they're getting together Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: all the time. Brian: Right. Cory Treffiletti: To be honest with you, they're getting together all the time, but they're getting together, they're forced to be in a room and listen to content. And I think what Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: we want to do is just try and figure out how do we give people another avenue for Brian: Yeah. I really love the idea of the relationship before the transaction, right? Of of Cory Treffiletti: yeah. Brian: we're we're out of practice, right? COVID put us way out of practice of just being with people and being and and what are the communities that we can be in. So I really love the idea that Social Fabric is stressing that build a relationship before the transaction. Don't just come in and say I got something to sell. Cory Treffiletti: You know, it's it's actually cool because I you've been involved a lot and that's actually a really good point that I hadn't even thought about. It's that we do kind of operate now in a very transactional environment where, you know, if you want to make an introduction to somebody, it's usually on LinkedIn and it's usually, hey, on behalf of so and so I'm making an introduction. When I use AI for the work that I'm doing on a day to day basis, it's almost a very transactional relationship between me and my agent to basically say, I need you to do this. I did this, what do you need next? It doesn't have the color and the character of personal relationships. The color and the character of personal relationships does drive business. even what I do with my my day job with Rembrandt, all the things I spend my time on, I work with the same C level executives that I've worked with for 15 years across three companies because of the personal relationships. And I think that's Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: key. Brian: Yeah. That's there. I I feel like there's a lot of momentum. Like you said, it's probably been up for six months and we've probably seen a lot of people join over the summer. And now we're back in the fall. And a lot more people are Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. Brian: back into their routines. Are you seeing the sil similar numbers? Like the the momentum is Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. Brian: there? Cory Treffiletti: Yeah, I see the whole back end and we're getting, I think this time four months ago, we were lucky if we'd get one or two people in a week. Now we're getting ten to fifteen in a week. And that usually revolves around either the groups just spontaneously getting together or a chapter event or like some s something's been organized through the WhatsApp group, because the WhatsApp group is really the core of the community and people are just engaging and they're talking. And they're asking, are you gonna be here? Are you gonna be there? And that has led to a lot of interesting meetups with people. And then I see the pictures that they post. Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I love seeing that too. And you mentioned the chapters. So I think we've just now completed maybe one meetup in each each city or there's a couple that are still going. Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: Almost. Yeah, I think Austin's gonna be doing theirs, which is where I live. They're gonna be doing in November. Brian: Thanks. Cory Treffiletti: I think we have Atlanta that's actually gonna launch probably in November or December. But San Francisco, LA, Chicago is actually on the board to come up pretty soon, Phoenix, all those folks have done have done events at least once, if not twice already. Brian: Yeah. And New York was ad week last week, right? Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. And I think that was a really surprising one 'cause when I was talking to AJ about what he did there, he got there and he was talking to a couple of people and he realized that the sixty people who were standing around him were actually there for the same event, but they didn't know each other. So we had a huge turnout for that. It was cool. Brian: Yeah. It's funny. I talked to a friend of mine, Kia Hain. he reached out to me and he was like, Hey, I just left someplace, I'm looking for something new. And I was like, Join the fabric. And he he immediately jumped in and then he was like, There's an event tomorrow in New York. And I was like, Yeah, go. Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. Yeah. Brian: And he went and I saw him in the pictures and I was like, This is an this is an immediate plug-in right here. Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. And it's cool because I think what's naturally happening or organically happening is that you were we started out with this idea of executives just getting together and catching up and sharing ideas or just talking or whatever they want to do. But then you've got all these people connecting to find opportunities. Maybe they're helping each other with projects. I've had a bunch of people reach out to me and just want my opinion on some stuff, which is kind of a fun thing to do because I love just talking about what's going on in media and and advertising and the more I can talk about it, the more I learn about what's going on for other people. Brian: Yeah. Same man. That's why I started this p podcast. That's what I get out of it. Cory Treffiletti: Yeah, and you did a good job of it. Brian: I get a lot of that out of that. how do you talk about the social fabric when you when you just kind of like do the elevator pitch or you're just talking to like a friend in your life? How Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. Brian: do you explain it to people? Cory Treffiletti: Yeah, it it's evolving. Brian: Mm-hmm. Cory Treffiletti: basically I just tell people it's E I R L executives in real life. I said, you want to get together with people, you can talk to them on the community, or you get together and grab coffee with them, or you show up at an event where there's going to be a lot of them. And that's Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: really all it is. It's just facilitating and fostering more connectivity. And then what happens is that connectivity weaves itself into something. It's kind of like I I did say this once to somebody, it's kind of like knitting a sweater. Where you've got some yarn and you're gonna sit down and you're gonna start to figure out where it goes as it gets there. And Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: that's what's going on right now. the the whole group is is free. There's no Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: revenue associated with it. It's not really a business as much as it is it's a movement to get people together and just to help them find a way to, like you said, and I really like it, I'm gonna steal it, to not have transactional relationships. Brian: Yeah. I like that too. I usually do start with that. you know, it's an executive community. We we meet up and do things in real life. it might be coffee Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. Yeah. Brian: in the future. It might be going on trips and going skiing together or whatever it is. Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. Brian: what else is in the vision, like in your own mind, of of of what social fabric can be? Cory Treffiletti: Well, I think it can definitely help provide that connective tissue that it's not just about your career. Okay. So one thing that we've kind of played around with is if you want to accomplish anything, if it's in your career or it's in your personal life, how do you do that? And I think that's probably a really interesting avenue for people to think about because more and more we're using technology to do what we do better and faster, but it shouldn't define who we are. Brian: Mm-hmm. Cory Treffiletti: So I think you have to try and figure out who you want to be and what you want to accomplish. And then you find other people that can help you foster that. And that sometimes just comes from a random conversation like this. legitimately, logistically, it will probably result in more activities. Like we did, I heard somebody talking about, hey, you know, I'd love to go on vacation with these people, or I'd love to go check out this place with these people. We might help them facilitate some of that. it's Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: just we're not gonna start doing conferences with it. That's not gonna happen. Brian: Right. Right. At at the same time, being at a conference and knowing there's other social fabric members there. Cory Treffiletti: Mm-hmm. Brian: AJ and I met up at the Connector IQ conference yesterday. And it was so great to have our crew of social fabric members like meeting up there because we knew one, we knew they were going to be there because we kind of reached out on WhatsApp ahead of time. So you kind of knew you were going to know people anyway. So you've got that little comfort zone that's going to be there. and then And then just being able to connect while you were there and then have them draw in more people, right? It's like that that web works, that weave kind of works of like one person brings in another person, one brings brings in two more people. And then all of a sudden you're meeting people who you didn't know before you got to the event. So I really love that idea of how you kind of activate social fabric inside other conferences. Cory Treffiletti: Yeah, AJ said that same thing because he was an advertising week and he's sitting there in the Ace Hotel lobby and all these people there were there for the same thing and he didn't know any of them. he they didn't know who he was. Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: And that's that's a unique experience because he knows a lot of people, and I know a fair number Brian: It does. Cory Treffiletti: of people. But if you're in a room that everybody's there for the same purpose and nobody knew what anybody else looked like, there's there's something there's something going on there. And I think what's interesting is that you get more of these people together. I've talked to some people that used to be in really high level exec jobs at at agencies and at brands. And there's other people who are currently in those roles. And then randomly I start see them sharing their experiences and be like, you're in that role right now. I was in something like that before. Let me give you one little piece of insight that might help you. Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: And I've seen those conversations have turned into some more reciprocal benefit types of friendships where they're like, I have something else I can share with you. And I don't know. It's just it's it's it's an interesting avenue to go down because once again we're all remote. we're all scattered around the US and the UK and other places. If you're gonna be in LA, if you're gonna be in Austin and you know that there's a bunch of people who are part of the same group and maybe you wanna grab coffee with them, why not? Brian: Yeah. Yeah. We're we're all scattered and and lots of work from home. And then also this fractional work has just become more ubiquitous of people taking Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. Brian: jobs and working little pieces. And this is a way to connect you into future opportunities, bring you into something. Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: Yeah, it could be. It certainly could be. Yeah, I don't I still don't know what the world of fractional looks like in a few years. I still think there's a role for people doing a job. I have a job and I like my job, you know. Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: So it's like I still like to have that kind of focus, but I do know a lot of people that are in that space right now and they love juggling five or six different companies and they love juggling all the different responsibilities that are required and hey, more power to Brian: Yeah. I I agree with you. It's really hard to see past a couple years because Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. Brian: things have changed so much in the last year that it's really Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. Brian: hard to forecast, okay, this is how people will work or this is how organizations are gonna hire. I think everyone's in that boat of just we just don't know. Cory Treffiletti: Yeah, I have a I have a 17 year old and 14 year old son. And my 17-year-old the other day, he said, I think I want to go into marketing. And I was like, God, I'm not even sure what that will look like in about six years when you're ready to go, or five years when you're ready to go. And you know, I love marketing and I love advertising, Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: but I'm not sure I'm not sure he should go into that space yet. I don't want to tell him that. But if he does, I need to make sure I've equipped him with all the understanding of how to use these tools because you know, can do the job of five people now. Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: And you can do it relatively relatively well. Brian: Yeah. How do you well, I always break down marketing as how do I deliver my the message I have to the consumer? Right. If Cory Treffiletti: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Brian: I could script everything else around out, it's like, how do I get this message to this consumer? Is that Cory Treffiletti: Yeah. Brian: similar to how you think about it? Cory Treffiletti: it's similar. I will tell you it's a slightly different. First of all, my this the first it's two steps. The first step is how do I make sure that my message is as simple and easy to understand as it possibly can be? And the second thing, it's not necessarily how do I get it to the consumer, how do I make sure the consumer is gonna find it? Because now we live in that world where you go you go a lot of places to to gather information and maybe you stumble across a brand or a product or service, or maybe it's sitting there waiting for you at the end of your journey. It's so much in the hand of the consumer that my job is to make sure that it's out there every potential touch point for them. I don't need to find them. I just need to figure out how they're going and finding what they want. So it's Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: a little bit different. It's like a push versus a pull type of a strategy because I can't suck them in. I have to be Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: out where they are. Brian: Yeah. More more discovery of just being ready to be discovered. Cory Treffiletti: Very. Very. And actually it's funny, it's it's an absolutely non-transactional relationship with a consumer, to use your term again. I I Brian: Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: need to make sure that I am wherever they can be in a very comfortable, natural fashion to get the information that I hope to get across as simply as possible so that the more they're exposed to that simple message, two, three, four, five, six times they'll finally get the epiphany and it'll understand it and then they'll look into what I'm doing. Brian: Like that. Like that. Thanks for sharing that with us, Corey. Cory Treffiletti: Spend a lot of time on this stuff, Brian. Brian: I know, me too. It's and it's always interesting. You can always look at it a different way, right? Cory Treffiletti: Yeah, and I've probably looked at it different ways at different stages of my career, but I think that's partially just 'cause the entire world keeps changing around us. Brian: That's for sure. And and different discovery, different different ways for consumers to discover things, different entertainment oppos opportunities for them. Yeah. Continues to evolve. Cory Treffiletti: yeah. I mean, even in the last week, I've had my own epiphany, not to go down this complete random rat Brian: I like it. Cory Treffiletti: hole, but I started using Muse from Facebook and from Meta a lot. And I did not really get the concept of marketing to agents that the industry has been talking about until like yesterday at around six PM. You know, like I didn't get the idea that because I had been using all these AI chatbots to do some stuff, and to me that was Amazing because it was creating a lot of efficiency. But an agent is different. An agent is actually proactively identifying things it can go do and it's doing it when I'm not paying attention to it. And now I get the idea of why you would market to an agent because that thing's out there doing my work for me and I want to catch it while it's doing research, not just the consumer that asked it the question. Brian: Right. Cory Treffiletti: It's crazy. Brian: So the big question is how do you make yourself available and discoverable to agents? Cory Treffiletti: Yeah, well there's a whole lot of businesses popping up to be able to do that. Brian: Yeah. Content is one is one way. We know that. Cory Treffiletti: Yeah, very, very much. Brian: That's awesome. Well, thanks for spending some time with us and and coming back to and giving us some updates on social fabric. We're all excited. Cory Treffiletti: And yeah, I'm very excited to see it keep growing and more people I get to meet through it. So thanks for getting involved and thanks for leading all this content with it too. Brian: Absolutely. We've got our second LA meetup coming on October twenty-third. so we're excited to to get people out back out to to zinc and Cory Treffiletti: Awesome. Brian: and see them again in the morning. Yeah. Cory Treffiletti: Awesome. I can't wait to hear about it. Brian: Absolutely. Well, thanks for thanks for being a guest on the Marketing Brief podcast, Corey. Cory Treffiletti: Thanks, Brian. Brian: Awesome. All right, audience, stay curious, find your community.