How to Become a Successful, New Media Rockstar [Creator's Tip #60]

On this week’s Creators Tip, we’re going to be talking to Benny Luo, cofounder and CEO of New Media Rockstars about what is a New Media Rockstar and how do you become one, that’s coming up.

Hey, guys! My name is Tim Schmoyer and today I have the tremendous pleasure of talking with Benny Luo, the CEO and cofounder of NewMediaRockstars.com. Thanks for joining us Benny, good to have you. What is a ‘new media rockstar’?

I think the term is, on the surface, kind of quite subjective. I don’t really believe there’s a solid, solid definition for it just because I feel like the new media industry is still kind of new. But for us, like our staff, we kind of like, get it down to a few things and that’s pretty much any artist or creative that has found a way to generate an audience online organically and managed to either build a brand off of it or build a business off of it. I think those kinds of people qualify as a new media rockstar.

Cool. So what is your website, NewMediaRockstars.com, what is that all about then?

We pretty much cover all things new media entertainment related. So let’s say if a celebrity goes on YouTube, that’s something that we cover. We’ll cover all types of YouTube personalities and things that they’re doing. We cover all things where you see instances where new media is transitioning to mainstream media or vice versa, cause you see a lot of those things happening in the industry right now.

So you guys are talking to lots of these new media rockstars as you guys calls them and through all your interviews and all your discussions you’re kind of like studying them. What are some of the common traits you’ve seen among these people? Cause a lot of our people who are watching this are like ‘man I want to be a new media rockstar.’ And they’re trying to go that direction, so what does it take to be a new media rockstar? What are those common traits you see in most of these people you’re talking to?

I think you’re going to see a lot of things that you’ve heard of, whether it’s producing consistent content. Sometimes having good video equipment or having a plan or finding a passion for what you do and picking a niche and expanding from there. But I think that the really key thing that all the successful new media rockstars that we’ve featured has is mainly authenticity. And I think that that’s a huge part of everything cause that’s what social media is all about. It’s being able to talk to someone that you can kind of relate to, you feel like that person is like a real being.

Yeah, and that’s really encouraging to hear, cause what I didn’t hear you saying is oh you had to be super outgoing. Cause there’s a lot of people on YouTube who do well but there’s this perception that you have to be really energetic. Like you have to be a ShayCarl or iJustine or Toby Turner who have these really outgoing personalities who people really love watching. But you don’t necessarily have to have that to be a new media rockstar. Authenticity trumps that, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, like I said, people don’t want to be talking to a robot. New media is all about connecting with a personality and if they’re reachable that’s really the difference between a traditional talent and a new media talent.

So what are some of the best practices? You mentioned authenticity and we mentioned briefly regular content, are there other best practices that you see, for people to really achieve this level of status in the new media world, these are the common things they’re all doing, some best practices, tips, advice?

Find your niche. Find what you’re passionate about and just do it. I think the best part about the internet is literally there’s a demand for everything. And one guy I look up to Gary Vaynerchuk, I mean he’s like a big social media guru, and he owns like a multimillion dollar wine business, I mean that’s usually based online right now. I mean he grew that from the online space. So one of the things he said is find what you’re passionate about and as long as you find that you can monetize that on the internet. And so I think that anybody who is trying to make money online or become the next big viral YouTube star or whatever, like find whatever you’re passionate in. I mean if you look at Mr. Guitar Man, he was passionate in his directing skills and filmmaking and what have you. If you look at Jenna Marbles, she’s really good at like talking crap and talking stuff about her life, you know what I mean? She’s really awesome at that and she’s funny.

Yeah, I know a lot of people they just jump out there and think man I need really high end equipment, I need high end production value or they make excuses like, oh I don’t know how to use After Effects or I don’t know how to edit this or that. Is that really a legitimate excuse for not diving into this space in the first place?

Of course not. I mean I think somebody told me, Jerry Vidcon, Jenna Marbles was on this panel and one of the questions to her was, hey, how do I become like you? And all she said was, from my recollection, she said take out your laptop, open it and then press record and go.

That’s exactly how I got started actually, with a little iSight cam on my Macbook back in the day before I even had a video camera, like a legit video camera. Yeah, guys definitely just get started with what you have and just kind of expand from there. Cause you don’t want to dump a lot of time and money into equipment and then realize, oh I’m not really as passionate about this as I thought. So authenticity, like Benny said really does trump everything. Thanks for your time, thanks for advice, where can they connect with you and find you online for social media?

Definitely check out our site NewMediaRockstars.com. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at NewRockstars, so Twitter.com/NewRockstars. You can maybe follow me if you’d like, it’s B-E-N-N-Y-L-U-O.

Cool and thanks for hanging out with us guys on this Creator’s Tip video. We’ve got more awesome stuff for you coming, so make sure you subscribe, click this button up there on YouTube, or below if you’re watching on a mobile device now – getting confusing. We’d love to have you join us, thanks for hanging out and we’d love to see you next week for another Creator’s Tip video. Bye.