Word of Mouth

Everyone wants influencer marketing to work.But nobody tells you what to do when your CEO wants ROI in 30 days, creators stop responding, and you're running three jobs at once.In this solo episode, our host, Robyn Nissim, answers the questions she gets most often from influencer marketing managers. You'll learn how to measure influencer success, manage burnout, navigate AI, improve creator outreach, and build programs that actually drive business results. Presented by Social Snowball.KEEP IN TOUCH 👋📲 Follow Robyn (https://www.instagram.com/igobyrobyn/) 📲 Follow Word of Mouth (https://www.instagram.com/wordofmouth.pod/) ☃️ Learn more about Social Snowball (https://www.socialsnowball.io/)💌 Join our community (https://wom.beehiiv.com/)CHAPTERS0:00 — Preview1:36 — Proving influencer ROI in 30 days3:46 — Getting your founder off your content calendar5:01 — Should marketers be worried about AI?6:23 — Surviving as a team of one8:05 — Working with creators on a small budget9:26 — The metrics leadership actually cares about10:48 — Why creators keep ghosting you13:02 — Starting on TikTok14:22 — Knowing when it's time to leave your job15:16 — The biggest mistake brands are making right now

Consumers don’t just buy products. They buy rituals, identities, and stories.Wildling Beauty helped bring Gua Sha into the mainstream, but building a category-defining brand turned out to be the easy part.Gianna De La Torre is the co-founder of Wildling, the wellness brand that transformed an ancient skincare practice into a multimillion-dollar business. In this episode, Gianna shares what happened after Wildling exploded in popularity, the challenges of scaling a bootstrapped brand, and the tools that have helped her navigate entrepreneurship, parenthood, and burnout.Hosted by Robyn Nissim.Presented by Social Snowball.---KEEP IN TOUCH 👋📲 Follow Gianna De La Torre (https://www.instagram.com/gianna.delatorre/)📲 Follow Robyn Nissim (https://www.instagram.com/igobyrobyn/)📲 Follow Word of Mouth (https://www.instagram.com/wordofmouth.pod/)☃️ Learn more about Social Snowball (https://www.socialsnowball.io/)💌 Join our community (https://wom.beehiiv.com/)---CHAPTERS0:00 — Preview1:21 — The chance encounter that sparked this conversation3:44 — Becoming known as “the gua sha girl”8:03 — From acupuncturist to Wildling co-founder10:02 — Educating consumers before gua sha was mainstream12:04 — The pandemic growth boom14:05 — Scaling a business faster than infrastructure can keep up17:19 — Why Wildling had to reinvent itself beyond gua sha20:16 — Influencer marketing and creator partnerships that actually work24:59 — Evolving from a beauty brand into a wellness brand27:08 — Neuroplasticity and learning as a founder28:12 — Psychedelics, grief, and personal healing33:14 — Rewiring thought patterns and building resilience35:33 — Applying healing practices to entrepreneurship37:03 — Burnout, motherhood, and finding recovery in micro-moments40:50 — Signs of a dysregulated nervous system42:43 — Meditation, yoga nidra, and modern stress44:17 — Navigating cultural appropriation conversations as a founder47:54 — Community, growth, and lessons learned along the way

Consumers trust people, not brands.So why are most companies still hiding behind a logo?Lia Haberman is the brains behind employee advocacy strategy for organizations like Google and Robert Half. In this episode, she breaks down why most advocacy programs fail, what employees actually need to get engaged, and how the smartest brands are turning employees into creators, thought leaders, and growth engines.---KEEP IN TOUCH 👋📲 Follow Lia (https://www.instagram.com/liahaberman/)📲 Follow Robyn (https://www.instagram.com/igobyrobyn/)📲 Follow Word of Mouth (https://www.instagram.com/wordofmouth.pod/)☃️ Learn more about Social Snowball (https://www.socialsnowball.io/)💌 Join our community (https://wom.beehiiv.com/)---CHAPTERS0:00 — Preview1:06 — How Robyn and Lia met through LinkedIn3:12 — Why consumers trust people more than brands4:08 — Why most employee advocacy programs fail5:51 — Building a culture employees actually want to share6:54 — The training gap holding companies back9:09 — The three models of employee advocacy10:22 — From Chick-fil-A to Staples: employee creators done right13:21 — Building internal influencers and a North Star employee15:58 — The first three steps to launching an advocacy program18:34 — The biggest mistake companies make in the first 90 days21:00 — Legal, compliance, and content ownership22:08 — Why approvals kill great employee content23:21 — Product launches, prompts, and content frameworks28:29 — Why B2C brands are sleeping on LinkedIn29:20 — How Lia landed a partnership with The RealReal32:14 — Building a personal brand while working a 9-to-534:11 — Corporate creators, exclusivity, and conflicts of interest39:20 — The dark side of visibility and online influence43:25 — The real cost of building a personal brand47:16 — Why bringing your whole self to work matters50:21 — Difficult conversations and social media expectations52:54 — What happens when employee advocates leave?55:19 — Word of Mouth: Nice, Smart, and Get Sh*t Done

What happens when brands stop treating creators like ad inventory — and start treating them like storytellers?In this episode, Robyn sits down with Zack Honarvar to unpack why the future of marketing belongs to creators who know how to build culture, not just drive clicks.Zack breaks down the massive shift happening inside YouTube brand partnerships, why most companies are still structuring creator deals completely wrong, and how the best creator campaigns today look a lot more like Hollywood productions than influencer ads.They get into:Why most brands kill creator partnerships before they even startThe problem with measuring ROI on a 24-hour timelineWhy creators need long-term partnerships — not one-off sponsorshipsHow YouTube creators are becoming modern-day studiosThe real reason social, influencer, and performance teams struggle internallyWhy “making the brand cool” is actually a valuable KPIHow a Pizza Hut creator campaign turned into a Super Bowl commercialWhat YouTube’s new DBS (Dynamic Brand Segments) ad product could mean for the creator economyWhy creativity is the greatest unfair advantage in modern marketingIf you work in influencer, creator partnerships, media, social, or performance marketing — this episode is a masterclass on where the industry is headed next.---KEEP IN TOUCH 👋📲 ⁠Follow Zack📲 ⁠Follow Robyn⁠📲 ⁠⁠Follow Word of Mouth⁠☃️ ⁠Learn more about Social Snowball💌 ⁠Join our community⁠

Sophie Jaffe has been an influencer since before the word existed. She built Philosophie, a superfood brand, in her kitchen 15 years ago, ran it for over a decade, and made the call to shut it down on her own terms. She's done 8 brand deals a week to buy a house. She's hit the wall. She's come back.In this episode, she pulls back the curtain on what creators actually say about brands in the group chat: how comp should really work, why one creator can't carry the whole revenue line, and what brands keep getting wrong about cold outreach, attribution, and sales transparency.She also gets honest about the personal side. The hustle that bought her family's home, the panic attacks that followed, losing her mom, closing Philosophie, and what it looks like to come back from full burnout without losing yourself in the process.For founders, marketers, and creators trying to figure out the human side of this work.KEEP IN TOUCH:📲 Follow Sophie📲 Follow Robyn📲 ⁠Follow Word of Mouth☃️ Learn more about Social Snowball💌 Join our community

Most eCom marketing content out there is just the highlight reel.The wins.The viral campaigns.The “overnight” successes.This show is about what’s underneath that.Each week, we sit down with world-class founders, marketers, and creators to explore the stuff we don’t talk about enough.The 2am anxiety.The big bet that flopped.The negotiation that changed everything.We'll go behind the scenes with the people building the brands you know and love to uncover what it really takes to create something great.But this show isn’t about storytelling… Our guests show their work.The blueprints. The untold strategies. The hidden costs.Each episode, you’ll walk away with something tactical you can apply to your business right now.Welcome to Word of Mouth.New episodes weekly. Subscribe and spread the word.