Lost in Found: Aditi Rajvanshi

Creators, Content + Community

Aditi Rajvanshi is all about authenticity. Recently, the Founder of Brewing Awesome and Director of Strategy at Portal-A sat down with Catch+Release ECD Tom Christmann on the Lost In Found podcast to talk about authenticity, building communities and her roots at Google’s YouTube in 2009, at the beginning of the social media revolution.

“I got to work at the mothership,” says Aditi. “[Back when] nobody understood why an advertiser would bid to put their ad on a video of me talking about my day at the zoo.”

Almost 15 years later, user-generated content is now the preferred media. And Adi was there for the transition. She worked with some of the top early YouTubers. And she loves that the age of authenticity has come to social media.

“It’s people talking about stuff they want to talk about,” she says. “They’re not being paid to talk about it. That’s the value of [UGC] content. It’s got authenticity baked in.”

Since she worked with so many YouTube stars, we asked Aditi if she had some advice for up-and-coming creators. Here’s what she had to share:

1. Be consistent. This is the most important point. You should choose a schedule and stick to it. This will earn the trust of your followers.
2. Invest in your audience. Building a community takes time and effort. Don’t take your audience for granted. Consider getting them to join your direct community on patreon or discord. Get to know them. So you can serve them better.
3. Avoid burnout. Remember that success doesn’t always look the same. Don’t go chasing money because then creating will become a chore.
   

Aditi also has some words of advice for marketers who want to tap into the power of social media. Here’s a few outtakes from the episode:

1. Watch TikTok. For fun. “You have to be a viewer,” she insists. “I feel like that's the starting place. You have to have a lens for content. You have to be the audience. I don't think there's a substitute to seeing what people are making purely for the lens of your own enjoyment, your own interest.”
   
2. Find TasteMakers. “I always look for curators. It’ssomething that I've consistently seen sort of work in my favor, and it's something I recommend to people all the time. For example, if there is a creator that I'm fond of and I like their approach to content, I'm going to go check out who are the creators that they follow, who are the tastemakers that they're following, that they sort of engage with, have collaborated with?”
   
3. Create Relationships. Aditi stresses the importance of building real relationships with talent. “It may not even be about this one project. Building deep relationships with talent reps, deep relationships across agencies, but also ensure that when [you] work with talent, [you] give them the best possible experience that they would be happy to come back and work with [you].”
   

The Lost In Found podcast is a production of Catch+Release. One great way to connect with creators and license their content is to search the creator galleries on our platform. You can start your search at our Discover page. Search for your brand or industry keywords and see what is already being posted by some of the most prolific creators in the world. Create a free account and save your favorites to a collection. Licensing this authentic content is just a click away. Our licensing experts will handle everything from outreach to negotiation to payment.

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Connect with Aditi Rajvanshi on Linkedin or at her consultancy website Brewing awesome. You can also check out her work with Portal-A.