Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the Guide to Live. It's International Women's Day and this is your hangout to talk about live streaming with people who really know what it's like.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Because let's face it, no one really knows what you're talking about if you say you work in Live stream, but we do.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: So I'm Tara and across from me is my co host Ben. And together we make up your guide to live.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: So in this episode for International Women's Day, Tara is joined in the studio by two women who have fascinating and unique insights into the world of live streaming. First up, Sophia Pablano is an entrepreneur who has a wealth of experience in the corporate world. She spent two years at TikTok Live UK, ending up as the key accounts lead for live agencies. She consults with live businesses and is helping lead the charge for Blue Shift Creative in its unique UK expansion. And Serena is a professional live streamer who over the last three years has carved out a career in live entertainment. She's spoken at TikTok Live offices, gets invited to all the parties and events, and because of the way she blends creativity with a data driven approach, she's now the head of operations for Blue Shift. This conversation is a must. Listen. Covering mental health, finding an audience, setting boundaries, using data and trends to build a career, and of course, the important topic of what TikTok Live has to offer by way of snacks, their global headquarters.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: All right, let's get into it.
We are sitting in a room here with two very influential and experienced women in this new industry of live streaming today.
And I'm really excited to be here. But you know, having adhd, I have to admit I was a little bit late, running late because I got stuck at the store because I needed to get some smart foods, my favorite snack. And you know, I, I was like, okay. Speaking of snacks, it made me think about the times that we've been to the TikTok headquarters. And I said one time, I said, one of these days Blue Shift is going to have a snack break room that looks like this. It's like a convenience store. When you walk in there, it's like any snack you can think of, any drink you can think of, and it's there for the taking. And I'm like, it made me think of that. And I was excited because I was like, what do you guys think? Like, of all the different TikTok headquarters you've been to, which one has the best snacks?
[00:02:35] Speaker C: Probably New York.
[00:02:36] Speaker D: I like the uk, sort of like European flair to it. And I Think the snacks are definitely more unhealthy than in the us.
They try to hide them. So they put like all the chocolate bars and all the candies hidden in a cupboard, but everyone knows where the good treats are. And then they have low calorie ones on display.
Definitely the coffee is really good. And in the Singapore office they have cup noodles all day long, which is awesome as well because if you miss lunch, you always have that.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I remember going into the UK one and the one thing I do remember is they had porridge. They had like things like a porridge station where you could get, you know, hot porridge and like all the fixings with it.
So we've been. So I think between the three of us, we've. We've probably been to a lot of different TikTok snack rooms.
So I'd like to take some time and just get to know you all a little bit more for our listeners. So Sophia, would you like to start and tell us a little bit more about yourself?
[00:03:35] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:03:36] Speaker D: So I was actually working at TikTok before supporting Blueshift on sort of UK expansion. I was focused sort of in the agency team very early days when the UK had just launched and we were sort of three agencies, very, very, very different space. And then fast forward two years later. So in September 2024 we were just over 170 agencies in the UK, so. So we saw sort of like that huge, huge, huge exponential growth, huge market shift as well as live streaming is becoming more and more sort of mainstream. And initially we were sort of seeing a lot of overlap with like bigle agencies. But then again, two years later you see that you have like a lot more sort of emerging partners which are actually also helping us sort of grow this space. Right. And make it a bit more mainstream.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's the cool thing is like, because a lot of times when you think about live streaming, you think of like gaming and Twitch and things like that. Exactly. And you don't really think about women in those, in those, in those spaces as well. And I've seen a lot more women on these new social like streaming platforms recently.
I'd like to take this over to P.S. serena, since you're of one of those women, tell us a little bit about yourself and your experiences with streaming.
[00:05:00] Speaker C: I'll take it a little bit further back.
So it's just interesting being in the space because I'm a first generation college graduate and so I, my parents imagined me being like, you know, you're going to be in Med school, you're going to be a doctor, you're going to do all this stuff. And I ended up changing my degree to go work in business. And then from there I just always still had this creative part of me that never really died. And I always wanted to work in Pixar and I wanted to work in movies and just like creating things. And so I would just live stream on the side and it'd be like on platforms like Twitch and also sometimes on Instagram, but it was just weird. And then also on those platforms, I found lots of inappropriate behavior. And it was mainly because I was trying to find a community of women who were streaming and I couldn't find that on these platforms. It was mainly men. And also the community was mainly men as well. And so it's a lot of people saying trolley comments towards women, not very respectful. And so I didn't want to stream anymore. So I took like three years off streaming or so. And then.
Yeah, so then I went to TikTok and then I realized even on TikTok, this is like back in 2021 or 2022, very early. Even on TikTok, it still had that same feeling and I didn't know quite how to handle it because I wanted to do this and I didn't want some opportunity like streaming to be taken away from me because I didn't feel like I had power to stream in this area. And so when I joined Blue, I just learned really strong boundaries and then I created the space for me to feel safe. And I have like the best community ever. The gender is like 50, 50% women and men. And so I feel really happy. But it was definitely a shift in perspective of how to feel safe while streaming.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: It's interesting because I do remember, like, when you first started and it was. It was like. And it's because you were doing battles and that was one of the things that you were like, I don't want to do battles because I feel like every time I do a battle, it's like I just get creepy creeped out.
But now you're at a point where you, like, I think you've. You've positioned yourself as like a role model now for a lot of female streamers that, you know, they have. They look up to you because you've set boundaries and you're t. You've. You're teaching them now because. Because it is so new and a lot of people don't know. So what you've learned now you're giving that back out into the. Into the public, which is encouraging more and more women to do it and helping them feel more confident, which is amazing.
[00:07:27] Speaker C: And I feel like as a woman and a streamer, anything on the Internet can be disruptive, inappropriate, disrespectful, and just like, in your face. And I feel like as a woman on the Internet, that can be even more lashed out towards you. And so having those boundaries are super important. And.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:45] Speaker C: So I'm happy that I figured that out.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And that's probably. Do you feel like that's like one of the things that you think it's like when you first start out streaming, like, Boundaries is probably one of the first things you should set.
[00:07:59] Speaker C: No, my first thing was views. Views, comments, views. I just wanted views and an audience. And then I realized if you don't know who your target audience is, and you don't. If you don't know who you want to be watching you, you're going to have everybody and everyone has an opinion. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: You were like, okay, I went to school to do this and that, and now you're doing this for a living. Like, there's a lot of careers in this field that we didn't know about when we were in school and thinking about opportunities of like, okay, what do I want to go into and what are the educational opportunities there? I know you were talking about this. You. You. You've gotten a lot of international audience PS Serena, especially, like, from, like the Landananda in Australia.
[00:08:40] Speaker C: Gotta love us, our Aussies.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And that's cool because now you're connecting with people from all over the world, which Sophia, you being like, you've got an education internationally, you speak multiple language, you've worked in multiple territories around the world. What is the importance of cultural and regional understanding in live streaming?
[00:09:03] Speaker D: Yeah, I think it's. It's, to be honest, culture understanding is everything in TikTok live because everything is happening in real time. Right. And it's very interactive active at the same time, no matter where you stream from, there's no sort of like geographical blocking like you very much. You can be. You can be streaming from London and have audience from all over the world, like, all over the world. So, like Siri was saying a lot of her audience is from Australia. That's what's really cool about the app. You get to interact with people from very different and wide communities. But on back of that, it's also understanding that first understanding who is your target audience or who is that core loyal community that you've built.
But secondly, as well, knowing that not everything resonates with different cultures. Right. So if you have sort of like strong culture from the us, catering a bit more to that audience, and it's not necessarily also a matter of languages, that's also, I think, of how people can resonate and engage with you. Another thing that is quite interesting that I think a lot of people don't think about is sort of the tipping culture, right?
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:12] Speaker D: If you think about it, gifting is very much intertwined with, like people appreciating something. Or even in the uk, we would always kind of relate it to buskers. Right. So we'll say, like, imagine you're in the street, like people are singing and so on, and you like that, and you're gonna go and tip them. So live is pretty much the same thing. Just that you're like roaming different rooms. It's as if you're roaming the street, you're seeing different performances and you'll stop in whatever catches your ey. And that's where you're going to be sort of tipping. But then you have to think about it. Also, UK tipping is not a huge thing in the uk, whereas in the US and in Middle east it's really big. So I think those are also like, different factors to take into account. And what's quite nice is about the. About the streams as well, is often when you're having sort of. You're live on and you have people that tune in and they'll say like, hi here from France, or hi, I'm tuning in from the us. And that gives sort of the space for the, for the streamer to actually say something related or specific to that country as well, if they can. And that just builds, like, instant connection, right?
[00:11:19] Speaker A: It's like to take those things into consideration because there are different people and people do have different cultures in different places. And just because it's different doesn't mean it's, you know, one's better than the other. But it is as a streamer, it is like that's another plate that you're spinning. It's like being able to not offend anyone or understand someone or relate to someone to make them feel special. And so, you know, I feel like that over time, being a streamer and doing all those things yourself, it's like, how do you deal with things like the challenges of burnout and like, criticism? Because that's also like, as being a woman, like, that's one of the things that it seems like being a woman, you're born with that Already. So now it's under the microscope of the world to see.
[00:12:04] Speaker D: But I think it's interesting what Siri said because I think it all also so much depends on like who your moderators are.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:10] Speaker D: And who's kind of like supporting you offline as well, who your team is.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: I think having a strong team.
[00:12:15] Speaker D: Yeah. Even we were thinking like in some cases when it would come down to female having issues on live or stealing this sort of insecurity and needing this coaching, it was some agencies would actually hire female sort of coaches to support on that because it's very different hearing it from a sort of a male character versus female. Right.
So it's also sort of like acknowledging that you won't be able to provide support all around necessarily, and then finding the right person that can actually.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Help.
[00:12:48] Speaker D: And give sort of like that confidence offline. Right.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's like just an extra little thing that the agencies are doing like in seeing like having the foresight to say, hey, there's some women that respond better to women, so let's make sure that we provide that space for them so that they can throw. Yeah, because I know like when I have to choose a doctor, I usually choose a woman doctor just because it's like they have the same body as me pretty much. And they know.
[00:13:16] Speaker D: And I think like there's just a lot more empathy right there. They can relate a lot more. There's not going to be like that judgment or even that maybe as a woman you wouldn't necessarily raise these issues to a man because you'll, you'll, you'll tell yourself like, oh, that person will probably not understand and therefore you're sort of boxing this when seeking support.
[00:13:34] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So I think the first thing as a woman online is the first thing that they like to point out is your appearance. So it's like your parents and kind of trolling on that. And so honestly, the first thing you have to do, because none of it really matters, they could say anything about you, but the first thing you have to do is self love. Like you have to be the person that loves yourself most. You know what's true about you, you know what's not true about you. And if you have people criticize you and you have, you start believing everything that they say is true, then I would say that you don't really know yourself. And if you don't know yourself, you're going to get lost online, especially the opinions of others. And so when you get to know yourself by journaling, meditating and Also going like on daily walks and just like being with yourself for a little bit before you're with others.
Everyone always says flip your own cup before you can flip anyone else's cup. But you have to do that because if you don't know who you are, you don't know how to make boundaries and then you don't know how to do that self care afterwards because it's tough out there and it's easy to burn out too. So you can like know who you are, what you want, the goals you want to achieve. But if you push yourself too much and then don't take that break, you're actually going to lose yourself in the process. So there's a balance to it all.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I think one of the things that really like they, they talk about and this is one of the things that I see like being authentic when you go live is. And so when you're authentically being yourself, you're not having to put on like an act and like that because that takes up a lot of energy, you know, and that. So I think love like being able to accept yourself and saying, okay, I'm going to be my authentic self number one, that's going to take a lot of the stress off, you know, just be myself. Because one of the things about live streaming is you are putting yourself out there and if you put present yourself as you are, the people who like you for who you are will naturally find you. And then that is who. That's how you start to accumulate your, you know, slowly over time. Your, your community.
[00:15:30] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:15:31] Speaker D: Asking Siri here, do you set yourself some like time schedules or say like listen, I know that once I go over sort of like 30 hours on a weekly, that's like, that's my limit. And I really like for my mental sanity I should rather stick to like two hours like full on, full energy, full power so that I don't get to that point where that's like your breaking point and where you actually burn out.
[00:15:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say when I was in my peak and I was streaming a lot, I was streaming about like 140 to 180 hours a month. And I also had a full time job at that point which I don't know how I was doing any of that.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: How you did that. Like Superwoman.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know how I did that, but that was the most miserable I felt in my entire life. So that feeling of being so burnt out, losing myself, being numb, not feeling anything, I felt like dissociated when I was Online, like, nothing. There's, like, nothing as a robot. So now I only stream about 42 hours a month, so I balance it that way. But honestly, I need to push myself a little bit more. It's kind of like, what is the balance between burnout and then what is the balance of? Like, you're being a little bit too easy on yourself. And so how do you push yourself? So it's just like a little. You grow a little bit each month. So now I'm trying to aim for 60 hours a month instead and then see how that feels. And then I'll do 80 hours, maybe the next month, but I don't want to do 180 hours ever again.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: You sound like a business that's setting quarterly goals. You're like, oh, I'll grow by 20%.
[00:17:03] Speaker D: When you leave yourself to those, like, obnoxious hours. What we tend to see as well is that creators will, like, push super hard in one given month and then completely go off radar the following month. And then they forget how much that actual impacts their community. Because if they don't tune in for like a full week or two weeks because they've burnt out, they're actually losing a lot of their audience and their audience will still be tuning into live, so they're just going to go, go view other, other streamers.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it is, it, it, it. You need to, like, this is where it's like, treating it like a business is really important because you have to find that balance. You know, you. Other jobs that we have that are the more traditional jobs, like, they have schedules set, you go in, you do your time, you leave, you come home. You know, think of it that way. You know, I'm thinking back to the day when I was a kid and like you said, like, oh, you know what, what are you going to do for a living and how are you going to make money when you grow up? It's like, did anyone ever say, hey, you could start your own business? And like, hey, you're funny, you're talented, you're witty. You're always cracking me up. You should go live. Live streaming. You could actually make money doing that. You know, I'm thinking back to when I was a kid. When I was a kid, I was. I used to imitate people and do impressions and put on. Put on performances for my families. And I would get the video camera and make videos. And then the only people who would ever see those were people who would come into my presence and I could put the VHS into the thing and watch Them and now like I only wish that we could have like had the opportunity that we have now. Like not when I was a kid but like imagine being a 20 year old. I wanted to go into the arts, I wanted to be in an entertainment but I didn't have the support, I didn't have the knowledge or the like the means or the like the way to do it. You know, there's too many boundaries back then and now it's like you and the audience and there's no middleman in between. And with live streaming you have this opportunity now to like basically create your own living. And if you want to be an entertainer you can do that. If you just want to talk about, if you want to put on a baking show like Julia Child did back in the day, she started her own cooking show. She was one of the first women on television that started a cooking show that start. It was weekly and it went national and she was in her 50s when she started doing it and she was up against men and it's just like. I just, I don't know. I. Yeah, I agree.
[00:19:36] Speaker D: I think it's crazy.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Live streaming industry is just great.
[00:19:40] Speaker D: It's amazing what it's done for performers because even again to make an example for the UK where we see sort of buskers that are, that are performing sort of on the street right now, they have two entries to actually make money because they have to sort of the people that are passing by, but they also, also we'll have people that are viewing their live stream and that just gives them the ability to make it a lot more sustainable in sort of the mid long term. We also have the cases where people have gone from like performing sort of just in the street to then upgrading and finding like a spa like by a train station and then eventually performing at like a TikTok live event. So it's also very nice when we are able to sort of become part of that like empowerment and drive them into opening again. Right. Because very much we're supporting a lot of like building that community, that engagement top of a funnel to then give them the ability to take their music or their performance elsewhere.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Over the last 50 to 60 years networks have been fighting over eyes. Like where are the eyes? And there's you know like the rating systems and so everyone knows where all the eyes are. Well the ratings in the network, like television networks are going down and the eyes are now going on live streaming. So it's like there is a. It's like this is becoming the new form of mainstream Entertainment and it, it allows so many opportunities for all kinds of people, including women, especially women.
Because a lot like some women don't have the opportunities to go out and get a job. You know, they might be at home with kids or they might already have two jobs.
[00:21:13] Speaker C: I think it's great. I do see a lot of single moms that are live streaming. I would always ask them, like, I don't know how you do it, like, I'm so tired. And the fact that you have to take care of a child after you're done live streaming, it's like a lot. And then also just like it's like a lot. I can't imagine having to be like, okay, gotta go pick the kids up from school now I gotta live stream, then do this then. Yeah. And then on top of that some like, also they have jobs. Like a lot of them have jobs. They're also taking care of the kids and they're live streaming. So kudos to them.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Well if you, if you work hard at this, you know, at some point you could give up that other job and do this full time and like live stream full time and then you're actually doing a job you've like love and it's fun and you're your own boss.
[00:21:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:58] Speaker D: And it's such a low investment as well. Like if you think about it, okay, you're investing time. That's your biggest resource and asset. Right. But all you need is really like your iPhone, a good, a nice background, decent sort of decent Internet and then you can, it can very easily become a side hustle that can eventually become a full time job. But the, the resources and the investment up front are, are minimal other than your time.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Yeah, because I remember like thinking about it even 10 to 15 years ago. You know, I was a single mother and I was working and I had a friend and we had this, we had an idea to start a business but it's like got to get a business plan together, you got to get investments, you got to do all these things and you're a woman. You know, it's harder. Like a lot of times people didn't take you seriously. You know, I've, I struggled a lot in my life to be taken seriously. You know, when I was in, I graduated from nursing school, I used to have really blonde hair and like makeup and I was like, oh, you know, because I'm extra. I like Dolly Parton's my hero. You know, I want to be seen.
But when I was, I noticed that as being in the hospital a Lot of people didn't take me seriously because the way I looked. So I dyed my hair like dark red and changed my appearance. And then all of a sudden it was amazing how much people heard me after that. So the fact that there's these opportunities now that and you can start your own business, you don't have to say, you don't have to. People don't have to tell you, no, you can do it yourself. You don't need anything except a phone and motivation.
[00:23:31] Speaker C: Yeah, it's funny how that translate over. It translates over to live too.
Because I remember one of my first punch ups with Frank. I was saying how I was tired of people hitting on me and I used to go live, like just like this. I would do my hair and I would like have lashes. Then I said I wanted to change my appearance and I decided to do anything that would make me unattractive, which is where the red eye came from. So I'd wear one red contact with another mismatch eye and like really bright colored hair. Because yeah, it's, it's psychologically like they say women like bright colored hair more than men do. So I'm just like, if I want my target audience to be women, right? I want women and I want them to stop hitting on me. These guys let me look crazy, let me have really cool hair. And then also I put on this weird claw to scare people that are hitting on me. So I'd wear that black claw and then whip it out. And every time somebody was strange and it worked every single time. So anytime I want to scare somebody, whip that out, do something weird, and then point at my red eye. And then all the women love my hair. So I just watched my, my data just go right. It was like 90% men and it just grew, grew and all of a sudden it was 50% women and it was so beautiful.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Yes. So speaking of data, because you've mentioned it a few times, how do you use data when you're live to like inform you on what's going on? Like what, what do you need to do? Or like you need to change it up. Like how do you do that?
[00:24:55] Speaker C: Go back to my old school way. I need to, I actually need to go back to this. This is my basics.
I used to track it on Discord. So on Discord I have a TikTok notification and it says like when I go live and that's when I would track what the title of my live was. And if it was good, I'd put it up like a triangle like up good points. If it was bad with views, I'd put a down triangle to see if that title had anything to do with it. Because I don't. I was just learning. I didn't know what. What is pointing towards what. So I would look at the ones that had a good title with good views, and I would reuse that. And typically it would work. I would just add, like, an emoji to it if it needed to be different.
And so that was the first thing was the title. And then I would look at, at the very end, how many views it had. So complete views, title. That's kind of like your billboard in a way. And then also, like, what does the live look like? And then I would see what I was wearing, what color hair I had, and what contacts I was wearing, because those are constantly changing. Then I noticed that people like the blonde more. So then I would test out the blonde and be like, okay, do I make more diamonds when I'm blonde? And then the. Every single time I went blonde, it was true. And I was like, what the heck? So then I'd go blonde. And so just basically a B test my hair. I would test the total views, the diamonds, peak view time. What was I doing? Why were there a lot of comments?
And then if I saw a lot of engagement with a lot of diamonds, I would just do that again. I was like, if it was a poll, why was I doing a poll? Was it a story? All right, let me upgrade the story and do this.
And then I would just enhance whatever look it was. So if they like the blonde girl, I would do some dumb, like, skit about me being at the mall, and I just didn't know where I was going. But I love my hair, and so does Larry. And so then all of a sudden, Larry pops out.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's so fun. I love that.
[00:26:45] Speaker C: And then Larry has blonde hair, too. I got him a little wig.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: Who's there?
[00:26:50] Speaker D: Who's Larry?
[00:26:51] Speaker A: So, dad.
[00:26:53] Speaker C: Yeah, Larry's my talking shark. I have, like, a little talking shark. He comes out and he raps a lot.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: So, yeah, you haven't met Larry yet.
[00:27:01] Speaker D: No.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah, Larry is amazing. Larry is all over international now.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: He's male, so he's off the camera today. He won't be on this podcast.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: He wasn't invited. His pants weren't quite enough.
He was wearing his relaxed fit today.
[00:27:24] Speaker C: He's in his loungewear. He can't be bothered.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So that means that's great, because Larry's Larry is another example of, like, something that you can add to your streams that, like, creates these memes and trends and things. So trends are very popular. Like, trends help a lot. Like, I've noticed, like, Frank, he creates these trends with his like. Like right now, it's like a yellow tooth.
He comes up with these things. So speak. So, Sophia, being from your position, you know, from like multiple different territories and the amount of creators that you've seen come, come and go, like, what are some of the trends and. And how important is that about being successful in this industry?
[00:28:15] Speaker D: Yeah, I think from the sort of. More the sort of like TikTok perspective and what we've seen, even across the US and Asia, something that has stuck around from the beginning is battles. And some people know it as battles, some people know it as head to head, some people know it as pk. So we have a whole wide different variety in terminology, but essentially it all comes down to having these matches in app. And I think people are very engaged because the viewers become very. It's a very thrilling experience for them. And it's very much where they can show that they're supporting their creative and everyone gets involved. And the fact that it's timed sort of battles last about five minutes, correct me if I'm wrong.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Yeah, they're five minutes.
[00:29:00] Speaker D: Yeah, battles are five minutes.
So it's really. I think there's a lot of sort of momentum buildup as well, and people use it also to be working across territories. Right. So we would always encourage having battles sort of like across different regions, people that don't necessarily speak the same language, but that way you're tapping into different audiences as well.
That still very much remains a train and then a trend. And then also something that we're seeing is that as people are investing and improving their quality of their stream, so they're getting microphones or they're even investing sort of in their backdrop with LED lights or a better camera. We also see that people are doing more sort of these storytelling or even podcast streams. And that just comes naturally because they have a much better setup and a professional sort of environment.
And sort of like the newest one, I'd say that Franck is sort of like a great example of it is having sort of more these talk shows. And this is where it truly becomes a lot more sort of elaborate.
[00:30:08] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:08] Speaker D: Because you see sort of different sound effects, but you see also different visuals. And this is sort of a whole new.
A whole new playing field or a whole new playing field, especially sort of in. In these Western markets that if you tune into Sort of Japan and China, you'll see that they have already been doing this for a couple years. Right. So it's also, I think what's, what's also cool is that think of streams like if you want to kind of like fast forward is look at what has happened in Asia and then you can sort of bring it to the US Beforehand. Right. Or you can kind of get like a bit of a preview of where the market is going.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's very mainstream there to where like if you go into their version of TikTok, which is Douyin, if you go into Do Yen, if you ever have the like the privilege or the honor or if you're in the region and you have the app, it is amazing. It's like channels of live broadcasting, different like genres, different niches. It's like you have so many options to choose from. It's like what do you, what do you feel like watching today live, like what kind of shows even like and they're being like filmed in studios with multi cameras and it's just like yeah.
[00:31:20] Speaker D: We'Ve seen some creators that are even sort of like renting out stadiums, large stadiums where there's obviously no audience, but it's for the. That's how important sort of the quality of the stream.
[00:31:30] Speaker C: Right.
[00:31:30] Speaker D: And the whole build out.
So it's like, it's insane. It's super interesting to see sort of like what stage they're at and hopefully that we can also get there soon.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it is cool. It's exciting. You know, I'm thinking back to that young child, Tara, back in the day who wanted to grow up and go to Hollywood and make it. And it's like now there's those kids and those kids now, today they actually have these avenues that they can go straight, like a fast track, straight to it and nothing can hold them back. And Siri, you're one of those kids that you've grown up because I know you've spoken to me before about Selena Gomez and looking up to her when you were growing up and, and just seeing like different like women making it in the, in, in the industry and now you have an opportunity to be one of those women and like, like have the same kind of influence and impact on, on other, other young girls and other women.
[00:32:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And I think a really big influence growing up too was YouTube. And I was watching all these YouTubers.
[00:32:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:41] Speaker C: And vlogging and I thought it was so cool. I was like, wow, vlogging. I could see in their live, you know, Like, I can see what they do in the morning, but now it's like you can actually see them do it in real time. Like, you can actually see them get ready in real time. They can do their makeup in front of you. It's not. Let me edit this and post it. Now you get like this. Yeah, yeah. So it's, like, really awesome to watch, like, your friend. That's just how I felt. Like, if, like, my friends. Youtubers are my friends. And now you can get ready with your friends on live.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:09] Speaker C: So I'm like that for other people. They're like, oh, you're doing chores or you're getting ready. I get guests. I'm gonna get ready too.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: It makes it really personable. And also, like, I think it helps with self image, too, because if I remember growing up in an era where it was like, everything was so filtered and photoshopped and it's like, everything. Like you, it was unattainable to even look that way, even though. And then you were, like, told you had to look that way. And now it's like, it goes back to being authentic. You're on live, Real, real time. You can't. You can't really redo anything. You're there, you're showing what you're doing. You're very honest. People can smell BS a mile away, and if they spend hours and hours with you, they're going to know you're faking it. So it's like, be real. So it's like it kind of like, takes that. It takes that illusion, that idea of that you have to look a certain way or be a certain way. It kind of takes that away, which is nice for the younger generation.
[00:34:07] Speaker C: Definitely. Like, it depends on who you watch. Like, some streams can be, like, fully fake. It's just like a show, and that's what their personality is. It's like, hey, we're gonna do all this drama and things like that. Other times, I think the streamers that are online for so long, like, you can't be fake if you're streaming for 10 hours plus, like, eventually your mask is gonna fall off and then everyone's gonna see who you are.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Since we're talking about live streaming and women, who is your favorite live streamer that you. That you watch right now? That is a female.
[00:34:32] Speaker C: I mean, as soon as you said female streamer, I thought of Vanessa Compton. I think she's awesome. She's beautiful. She has such an amazing voice. She's singing. I think she's just, like, a powerful woman who is Online knows her stance and then also when people try to put her down. I've seen people go in there and just like say things, but she doesn't ever say anything bad back. She's like, very respectful and she just will kill them with kindness and I admire that.
[00:34:58] Speaker D: The smart. That's a smart strategy though.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it really is.
[00:35:01] Speaker D: The more you react to it, the more you attract it, so.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Exactly. And they don't want that. That's not the reaction they're wanting either. Like, the reaction that they're getting is like opposite of what they want. That makes them feel gross.
[00:35:14] Speaker D: Yeah. What are you doing Exactly?
Like throws them off.
[00:35:21] Speaker C: I like that sentence. Just that. Ew. What are you doing? Just gonna use that.
Yeah. There's a lot of shirtless men online and as soon as, for some reason, as soon as you go live with them, they'll take their shirt off. So next time that happens to me, I'm just gonna say, ew, what are you doing?
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Yeah, actually, I got your shirt. Here it is. I love that you do the shirt.
[00:35:47] Speaker C: The lost and found box.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: Yeah. If she co hosts with a guy who doesn't have a shirt on, she'll shopping bag out and they're like, I got a tiny little shirt.
[00:35:57] Speaker C: I'm like, oh, I, I found your shirt. It's in the lost and found. It's like a tiny little crop top. And I'm like, yeah, I've been really worried about you. You've been shirtless this whole time.
Yeah.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: Great. Well, this is definitely an episode for women, by women, about women.
[00:36:20] Speaker C: Most definitely. I love it.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: So we're gonna, we're gonna wrap it up now. And before we go, if there's new streamers out there that are thinking about it or you've just started doing it, what's some advice that you all could give to them starting out?
[00:36:34] Speaker D: I would just say just have fun and try it out. I think it's not, it's obviously not made for everyone, but I think that people sort of can hide away for a. Tend to do it without having tried it.
So again, if, especially if someone has like such a strong community on other social media or even through short form video. Right. It's such a untapped space for them and it's definitely worth them trying and seeing if it's something that they enjoy doing. And people are so different when they're like on camera and off camera. And I'd say that most of the creators that I've met in real life are actually quite introverted. So Maybe it's kind of like a safe space for them to express themselves if in real life they have sort of more this fear or. Or this shy, reserved side to them.
[00:37:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
I think my biggest piece of advice would be to join someone's livestream. I would say to take part of someone's community, and then hopefully that live creator takes multi guest up. And I would try it out that way, because when you first go live, you may not have an audience. Like, you may not have anyone in the room, and it can make you feel discouraged, but also it can make you feel comfortable. And so as soon as you start getting an audience, you might be like, oh, I feel like maybe stage fright a little bit. But if you get over that first, like stage fright in somebody's live, I think that gives you an extra push to be more comfortable. And also you get to meet, like, maybe one of your favorite creators as well. So I think that's a great avenue to feel comfortable. And then I would just say from there, I would basically carve out your dream. Like, what is. What does your dream stream look like? What. What. What have you envisioned? And then what's the first step to get there?
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:26] Speaker C: Because you can't just have it all come to life. You don't have the funds for that unless you're blessed and you do have the funds for it. Then go all out. Just make sure you have guidance, but start somewhere. Yeah, yeah. If you see yourself in a colorful world, where does it start with? It starts with one light. Just get yourself one colorful light.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: Yeah. That's great advice. That really is a lot of. Because working with. With live streamers on a daily basis and a new one's coming in every day and. And one of the biggest things. Well, I just don't know what I'm going to do yet. I don't know what my show is going to be. And it's like, well, don't worry about it. Go live.
[00:38:56] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that has been our guide to live on this international Women's Day. I'd like to thank you all again, P.S. serena and Sophia, for hanging out with me today for this special episode. And I hope you all have a wonderful day and a great weekend.
[00:39:15] Speaker D: Thank you for having us. It's been a pleasure advocating for women, just sort of cheering for cheering and empowering, hopefully more women.
[00:39:23] Speaker C: It's been great being on the podcast first time, and I'm so happy that we get to talk and share our stories and also hopefully inspire more women to go live.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: Absolutely. Very excited well, until next time. We'll see you then. This has been the guide to live.
