Nathan McCallum on Creator Marketing, Trust and Building a Brand People Actually Buy From

Creator marketing is one of the fastest growing channels, but so many brands are using outdated strategies that just don’t work anymore.  Nathan McCallum has over 750K followers on Instagram, 180K subscribers on Youtube and has been doing this long before “creator” was a job title. He’s built an audience, a coaching business, a clothing brand and long-term brand partnerships by doing things his own way. In this episode, I’m chatting with Nathan to find out what brands get wrong with creators, why trust beats follower count, building a founder-led brand, AI, online negativity and the expensive lesson he learned behind the scenes of Furore. Key moments: 0:00 - Why Nathan moved away from one-off brand deals and started prioritising long-term partnerships 14:49 - Why Nathan doesn’t obsess over every platform change, and what he focuses on instead of chasing the algorithm 19:34 - Nathan’s advice for creating content people want to watch 24:53 - Why Nathan never tried to fit the typical fitness influencer mould, and how that became part of what makes his content work 27:21 - How Nathan deals with negativity online without turning the comment section into a fight 31:09 - The behind-the-scenes reality of building Furore, (including what went wrong…) 37:41 - How Nathan makes Furore feel like a real extension of him, rather than another creator brand that disappears after one launch 39:04 - The biggest lessons Nathan would give anyone building a brand from scratch 45:41 - Why Nathan isn’t worried about AI replacing creators 51:48 - The most expensive mistake Nathan made in business + why founders still need to understand the parts they outsource Find Nathan on over at @nathan or @furore Organic social media is still one of the easiest ways to build trust with your audience. So if you're ready to create a community around your brand, head over to IG @tfm.digital and DM us the word ORGANIC to grab our ultimate social media organic guide. Want to know exactly which channels will you give REAL return on your paid ads? We've created a full playbook that that covers that plus how to get people buying your products online. If you want a copy, head over to IG @tfm.digital and DM us PLAYBOOK. If you want the TLDR of what you should actually care about, you're in the right place.  Hit follow because you're not gonna wanna miss these episodes. See the behind the scenes over at @tfm.pod - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/tfm.pod/⁠  Follow the TFM team over at ⁠https://www.instagram.com/tfm.digital/⁠ and ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@tfm.digital⁠  And ⁠https://www.instagram.com/taylorfielding/⁠ and ⁠https://www.instagram.com/mathewfielding/⁠