On this week's episode, I have content creation expert "Coco Mocoe”. Tune in as we talk about her unique eye on how to spot trends for the future, as well as what different social media platforms due for creators. We also discuss her thoughts on brand deals and what she looks for and her hopes and goals for the future. 

Show Notes

Coco Mocoe on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cocomocoe/

Coco Mocoe on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cocomocoe?lang=en

Coco Mocoe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UC7MC6lTh3ui3_id2n-vnlPQ

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Autogenerated Transcripts

Coco Mocoe:

Again, also with TikTok, it's always about reinventing, even though I always talk about marketing, but I feel like every three months I have to find a new way to present the same information that I've been talking about. So truly the best creators are the ones that are able to reinvent themselves, even though they're still providing the same information, but finding new ways to bring it to the feed

Michael Jamin:

You're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.

Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back. I have a very interesting guest for everyone today. So anyone who's listening to my podcast for any amount of time, I've always said, if you want to break into Hollywood, just start doing it. Stop asking permission, start. Just make it count on social media and just start posting whatever it is you want to be good at. Make a dedicated account to proving how good you are at this one thing, whether it's writing, performing music, whatever it is, and let's just see where it goes from there. Because if you can't do that, well then Hollywood's not going to pay you to do it. You got to do it for yourself. And so my next guest is an expert in this field because not only does she make a living out of predicting trends about people who've done this before, but she's doing it herself in building her own presence online. And content absolutely is essential. I turn to it when I have questions. So please welcome Coco Moko. Thank you so much. Coco Moko, which I love your name by the way.

Coco Mocoe:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's so funny when I made my username, my real name's Colleen, but I go by Coco Moko, and when I made the name, I didn't know my account would blow up, and so my managers were like, let's keep it though. It has a good ring to it. It does.

Michael Jamin:

But tell me, okay, so I know you've made a living at it doing this, but before you started doing it for yourself, who were you working for?

Coco Mocoe:

Yes. It's such a great story too. It was kind of divine timing, I guess. So I studied marketing in college, and then after college, my family's from the LA area, so I was super lucky to just live in LA. And I started a job that I got off Craigslist, and it ended up being this website called Famous Birthdays. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's very Gen Z Young. It's kind of like Wikipedia, but at the time, famous Birthdays was the only website really documenting YouTubers and at the time, musically kids. And so we had a really big audience of 12 year olds. And so I got hired there and my job was to run the musically, which had then turned to TikTok. So I was on the app early, and then the founder of Famous Birthdays, his name's Evan, he's like, if you ever see someone on your free page that you think is going to be famous, just invite them in and we'll interview them.

And shortly after that was when I saw Charlie Delio when she was really early. We invited her in and we were her first ever interview, and that went super viral. And then there was a few others from that kind of era of kids and because of the videos that I was working on at Famous birthdays that were getting, I think one of the videos with Charlie Delios at 40 million Views on YouTube. And because we got an early, so, but then from there, I then got hired at buzzfeed, and I was at Buzzfeed for three and a half years where I was working on the backend with strategy, coming up with videos, and it was really just my job to go into meetings with different brands and creators and stuff and just tell them what I think the upcoming trends will be, how I think platforms are shifting, mainly TikTok and how I think that they can best create ideas that will go viral or work with people that aren't famous enough yet that they're going to decline but are eager to come in. And so that was really where I got the start with predicting and stuff, and where I learned that I had a good eye for pattern recognition, and then I just started making my own tos. That kind of blew up. And then I quit my full-time job in June of this year and have been just doing full-time stuff since.

Michael Jamin:

And so now you have close to a million followers, which is huge. Thank you.

Coco Mocoe:

Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Then so, okay, so when you work for yourself, what does that mean?

Coco Mocoe:

Yeah, so I never really thought that I would go the consultant route. It was something that kind of just happened as a result of the videos that I was making. I never posted my trend prediction videos or algorithm decoding kind of videos with the intention of getting hired, but I was getting so many inquiries from really big brands that wanted to just pick my brain for an hour or so when I was at buzzfeed. And then I just felt, I mean, it was the different legal non-compete clauses and stuff. And so I just eventually realized that financially it made more sense to just take an hour meeting with a brand and make what I would've made in a month. And I'm so lucky you never know how long it's going to last. I'm very, very lucky. So that's kind of what the full-time thing is. Consulting sometimes brand deals. I don't always like to do a ton of brand deals. I don't want my account to just feel like one big commercial. And then I've been lucky enough to have a lot of music people actually reach out to me and I consult on the music side as well, so super lucky. But

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Okay. So big brands want your opinions, but are you saying also that the creators as well want your opinions?

Coco Mocoe:

Yeah, a lot of creators, and I actually, that's why I made the podcast that I have ahead of the curve, which hopefully you'll be able to come on one day when your book comes out. Yeah, I love that. And I do my podcast because I can't meet with everyone, and so I started doing that for a way to reach more of the creators. But yeah, I do have a lot of creators reach out. I feel like bandwidth wise, it's hard. So I try to find ways to reach out to people in my community that isn't always just a money exchange or a meeting and stuff. So I'm still figuring it out, but I've been very lucky since I went full-time with this.

Michael Jamin:

You must know this, or I'm hoping. So when a musician, an actor or whatever comedian, when they're reaching out to you or they're following you, what is it do you think they want, do you think they just want to blow up on social media or do they want to move to what I do traditional Hollywood?

Coco Mocoe:

Yeah. No, it's such a good question, and I think a lot of it when I do get more of the bigger celebrities that have followed me every now and then, I'm always like, I don't know. At first I'd be like, I don't know why. I don't know what value I'm even providing them. I remember one time Paris Hilton followed me and I was like, she is the biggest influencer in the world. And I'm like, what could I potentially provide to someone like that through my videos? But I think a lot of it too is just when I've talked to people who have followed me, whether it's an actor or a musician or just a person who's watching tos and has never made one before. A lot of the times they say that they like that my videos are able to take something happening on the algorithm or on marketing and media, but I kind of give a bigger lens to it as well.

I'm able to connect the dots to everyone, whether you're watching it, whether you are the one making the content and really simplifying it and not just making, I think a lot of when I would watch marketing videos and stuff, it would be a lot of broy ad talk, which that's important talk too, but I never really related to the AB and that kind of stuff. I liked being like, this is why this person watched it. So anyways, I think that if it is an actor or musician following me, I think some of it is just curiosity. I don't think they always have the intention of using my videos as strategy, but when they do, I think it's because as working in entertainment, it really is an attention economy, and the way that people give their attention is constantly shifting. You could make the best piece of work and you just never know if the attention's going to be there or not. I think them watching my helps maybe dissect why certain things go viral, but again, you never know. You never really