We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ranier Maningding. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ranier below.

Alright, Ranier thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

I started my agency at the beginning of the pandemic with one goal in mind: use my creativity for social good.

As a newly unemployed 29 year old, I had reached a fork in my professional career where I was presented with three choices.

1.) Climb the corporate marketing ladder for another decade in hopes of finding stability
2.) Keep grinding as an Activist doing speaking tours until I burn out
3.) Start a Branding and Marketing Agency on my own and fall flat on my face trying

Then I discovered the Japanese concept of Ikigai and I was inspired to choose a fourth option and do all three: I wanted to grow my marketing career by starting a communication design agency for progressive and creative brands.

I wanted to utilize my decade of experiences as a content creator, activist, and marketing professional to build brands for BIPOC business owners and organizations that want to serve marginalized communities.

By myself, I can only accomplish so much. But if I recognize the larger BIPOC community and their needs, I can elevate other platforms and brands with better strategies and tools so they can more effectively serve their communities.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Ranier Maningding and I’m a second generation Filipino American activist, copywriter, and founder of LLAG Media, but most people know me for my page The Love Life of an Asian Guy, aka, LLAG.

For over a decade I’ve written about BIPOC identity, culture, and politics, all while balancing my creative professional career in marketing.

My journey started from the bottom as an amateur graphic designer, blogger, and salesman. My first marketing job was back in middle school when worked for my brother in-law passing out flyers and hanging posters at dance competitions.

In college, I started LLAG at the same time my identity as a Filipino American activist took shape. Before I turned 25, I had two careers because my side hustle as a content creator eventually gained more priority over my traditional marketing job.

When I finally accepted that every part of myself was equally important, I learned to embrace the entire me, which is how I ended up creating a communication design agency for activists, artists, and non-profits: I wanted to chase a dream that blended my love for art, activism, and advertising.

The clients who join LLAG Media join one of two camps: Students and Fighters.

1.) Clients who join the agency as Students can receive either weekly coaching or they can enter our 5 month Brand Essence Process where we build your brand from top-to-bottom. This includes everything from your logo design and colors to your brand strategy and posting schedule.

2.) Clients who join the agency as Fighters are established brands and organizations that need a team of progressive BIPOC creative professionals who can handle all content production and distribution. Depending on your budget and needs, LLAG Media will manage all posting, scheduling, planning, and engagement.

(The problems I solve for my clients/what I think sets us apart from others)

I help amateur brands define and discover their identity, and understand and translate their unique vision into reality.

The biggest problem we solve for BIPOC business owners is our firm understanding of various social and political issues that form the foundation for the content they post.

None of our clients have a choice but to be political and engage with controversial issues because that’s who they are, and that’s what their businesses and brands are about. My clients don’t want to have to educate some teenager on something basic like Black Lives Matter, trickle down economics, or Gender inclusivity.

My roots as a progressive Filipino American activist and Marketing Copywriter allow me to approach very controversial and delicate subjects in a way harmonizes social responsibility with strategic communication and design.

(What am I most proud of?)

I’m most proud of my ability to not only discover these important parts of my life, but to develop the courage to put it all together. In our capitalist system, we’re often told to specialize and do one thing for the rest of your life. But I wanted to be more than just a Copywriter working for a soulless company. I wanted my work to have a real impact on issues that matter, and I wanted to help clients that care about the problems that I care for.

Putting it all together, and finding amazing clients makes me the most proud because I know that I’m respecting the full range of my identity and capabilities.

(What are the main things I want potential clients to know about)

I started my journey as writer when I was 15 years old, and I’ve always made an effort to learn from my mistakes. Now at 33, I can look back at my work that spans over a decade and feel proud of the progress I’ve made and the issues I’ve tackled.

I’ve grown my brand 100% organically, and I’ve never paid for a single sponsored post. I have deep experience building brands for progressive and creative folks, and my next mission in life is to prepare the new generation of activists, artists, politicians, and entrepreneurs.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

My journey to build a social media following can be summed up in a few steps that anyone can replicate. The three steps to building a social media presence are:

1. Make ’em look
2. Get ’em to talk
3. Become the Block Party

1. Make ’em look

The first rule of social media is knowing how to grab someone’s attention. When you’re an established brand, you have a reputation and your followers have learned to depend on you to deliver a certain level of quality.

When you’re a new creator, you haven’t earned that trust. So you first gotta get them to notice you through your visuals, your storytelling, the topics you choose, and the way you put it all together. There is no singular aesthetic or rule to grab an audience’s attention.. It all depends on the audience you’re talking to, the post you’re sharing, and the mood you’re in. You have to do the work to find the middle of that venn diagram.

When the stars align and your messaging, audience, and brand are in sync, not only will you make ’em look, you’ll get em to open their mouths. Which brings me to my next point.

2. Get ’em to talk

During my years in retail and sales, my key objective on the sales floor was to get customers to talk: about the weather, the places they shopped at today, or their plans for the evening. Any opportunity to get them to talk would lead to openings to talk about our products and services.

The same applies to your content: you need the folks in your comment section to get comfortable with commenting and talking. If you can’t get them to engage and talk, how can you expect them to click on your links, subscribe to your channel, or buy your stuff? Once they talk, that’s when the party starts.

3. Become the Block Party

The hardest thing for amateur content creators to understand is that if you want to build a community that surrounds your brand, you gotta stop thinking of yourself. Your brand is larger than you as an individual creator, which means your comment section and the content you post has to appeal to more than just what you wanna talk about.

You need to have a perfect blend between the content you find fascinating, and the topics your audience genuinely wants to talk about. If all you do is talk about yourself and your life, folks outside of your inner circle might not care enough to participate. But if your content is relatable, educational, or entertaining, you can cross over and gain supporters from anyone.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Every marketing professional and salesperson has their own unique style, yet people often mistake one marketer for the next, as if we’re all interchangeable. That’s like saying there’s no difference between white Nikes and white Vans because they’re both white shoes.

We all have something unique to offer.

Different marketers will define their style by combining elements of their life: their aesthetic, their influences, the colors, textures, fashions, and typography.

My marketing style has always been rooted in luxury and hospitality, but my fire comes from my activism and my creativity. My aesthetic is a mix of modern Motown, a dash of punk rock, and a heaping scoop of street art. I take all of that with me when I create content for my personal brand, my business, and my clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.llagmedia.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.llag/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theLLAG
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/theLLAG
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/llagmedia
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@the.llag

Image Credits
– Companions and Animals for Reform and Equity (CARE) – The RePsychled Productions – Then + Now: Beauty Lab