The Playkit Story: 60M+ views, 100+ creators, in under 5 months

Today’s Newsletter:

• How Playkit scaled to the biggest organic UGC agency in under 5 months

• Actionable tips to inject community into all parts of your business

• Access to the first-edition Playkit merch drop for premium subscriber-only, discount code at the bottom…

Four months ago, Nick and I launched our first campaign at Playkit. Back then, we had about 20 creators and a solid hunch on what would go viral on TikTok (largely from my experience as a creator).

Today, 4 months and 9 days later, we have 100+ creators, have generated over 60M+ views, have accumulated 500k+ downloads for clients, systemized our process to produce top-notch creative time and time again, met amazing people along the way and worked alongside the best creators in the business.

Sure, maybe much of this success was due to daily analysis and iteration on what’s working on TikTok (we literally send daily messages like this in all of our campaigns to improve day over day).

But, much of it is due to our creators working alongside us in between classes, during late nights, and on the weekends to crack different trends and content angles. Yes, they get paid well, but many of them only get paid to post, not to problem solve. 

At first, we were surprised at how willingly many of them went above and beyond to ensure a campaign’s success. I felt grateful, knowing they truly want to see Playkit succeed.

How did we achieve this?

Within our team, community is at the backbone of everything we do. This was always the vision of Playkit: to give people (mostly college students) an opportunity to earn real money, grow their resume and increase their confidence by simply participating in our Slack and making a few TikToks.

With our internal/admin team all being under the age of 25 (Nick being the Grandpa of the group), we built a community around what we would want ourselves.

A couple of ways we make our creators feel part of the team is through a weekly check-in our #happy-mondays channel in Slack. I myself, and our creators too, have enjoyed sharing and getting to know each other beyond just feedback on UGC videos. Instead, it’s an opportunity to share a tidbit of our personal lives through highs and lows from over the weekend.

Through this, and other similar activations, many of our creators have become friends with each other outside of Playkit - actually creating long lasting relationships. While content creation is at the center of what we do, we couldn’t be successful if our creators didn’t love what they do.

We’ve had little to no creator churn, many of our creators have been with us from the very beginning, and the majority of creators we have added have been friends of our existing creators.

We truly couldn’t do it without them and their love and passion for Playkit fuels our success. As a thank you, we sent a late holiday present (worth $7k) to our 50 first creators.

Telling friends and family about this, we got a lot of questions on why we would spend so much money on something with seemingly no return.

Quickly though, we saw creators share their merch 100% organically online. Helping Playkit as a brand grow in the creator sphere. Soon, people began to recognize our merch and wanted to join the team. This boost alone brought us some of our best creators we have today.

@thane.the

thank you!!!! @juliapintar_ @Nick Sanchez @playkit #socialmediamanager #promoter #erm #marketing #influencers #sidehustle #getmoney #woke

⭐️ After many requests to open up our merch to the public, our merch site is now live for 72 hours only: playkitsupply.com. Pre-order now if you’d like to rep our original merch.

How Can You Boost Your Own Community?

It’s easier than you would think to make people feel a part of something greater. Especially today, when many people face loneliness and crave a place to call their own.

Actionable steps to take with your own creators:

• Start a #happy-mondays channel and share about your personal life.

• Become intentional about checking in with creators on a weekly basis (or appoint someone to do this for you).

  • Example: asking how they are feeling about videos, if they are stuck on anything, if there is anything in the business they want to learn, what they are excited about, anything they are not enjoying, etc.

• Touch in with your creators daily on how strategy can be improved, highlighting a job well done the day before. Encouragement is often overlooked.

• Celebrate wins often and treat losses as an opportunity for learning.

• Give them something special to rep: stickers, a hat, sweatshirt, or even just a fun emoji in Slack. It can be that simple.

The most overlooked aspect in growing an app organically is investing in your creators. Treat them like winners and they will be.

Thank you for following along with Playkit so far. These past four months have been an absolute dream come true for both Nick and I. We both feel so touched by the support and kindness received by so many of you. Can’t wait for what’s to come next!

Cheers!
Julia + Nick

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