We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gerald Johnson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gerald below.
Gerald, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s talk about social media – do you manage your own or do you have someone or a company that handles it for you? Why did you make the choice you did?
I handle my own social media 100% & have seen incredible success from doing so. I have a background in running social media for clients in the music industry, so doing it for my clothing company has been great thus far.
Gerald, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I started my company Audio Grinderz in Nashville, TN over 10 years ago. It all began with me wanting to provide a cd/dvd duplication business for artist & labels that couldn’t afford the Nashville “Music Row” prices. I was already quite known in my city for having a production company & putting together a local DVD series called “Rep Yo City”. Rep Yo City was a DVD series to where my team & myself traveled across Nashville to film artist in the studio/their neighborhood & allow them to rap for the camera. We then since we owned DVD duplicators pressed up thousands of DVDs and flooded the market with them. Each DVD had our business number on it & people would call in & tell us who they liked the most. This ended up getting us featured in the prime spots of Nashville, Chattanooga & Kentucky. As the series grew so did the name “Audio Grinderz”. Around this time I joined Twitter, as it was a new app not too many new about it, imagine that lol. I wanted to use my profile as more of a who’s who directory for the industry. So what I did was I started putting out tweets everyday about certain artist & entrepreneurs. The tweets would be something along the lines of: MAG TO KNOW: @voyageatl is your one stop shop for discovering new faces & brands in Atlanta! Follow them & tell them Audio sent you!….These type of tweets began to gain traction as I was putting them out manually everyday for certain brands. My DMs started to grow with new artist & labels asking could I promo their clients/rosters. This then lead to me being paid to tweet w/ affiliate programs & partnerships. I was able to land gigs w/ Pepsi, Beats by Dre, Essence, even down to Breathe Right nasal strips lol. At that time social media promo didn’t really exist in the way I was doing it. I ended up being followed by famous artist/producers such as Timbaland, Jeramine Dupri, Anthony Hamilton, Marsha Ambrosia, Mya, Syleena Johnson, Musiq Soulchild, Tori Kelly, Codi Simpson, Jade Novah etc….All from my daily tweets & support of their music & brands. I then was approached by Tamika Foster who was a huge fashion stylist for music videos in Atlanta, about coming down & networking. From that she introduce me to my first Atlanta connect Sakeya Donaldson who was also a top tier stylist. I actually came to Atlanta & interviewed Sakeya at one of her sneaker boutiques at the time. From there she planted the seed of me moving to Atlanta and getting my feet wet in the industry. She told me you’re already linking so many people via Twitter you’d be able to do it in the physical world too. Fast forward about 5 months later I officially moved to Atlanta! Once I got to the city I stayed w/ one my mentors for about 4 months & just soaked up game & and went to countless meetings. From these meetings I was meeting seasoned industry elites, as my mentor had been doing artist management for years. I took all of the information and insight & just began carving out my space in the city. The beauty in creating something from scratch is you have the ability to mold it into whatever you want it to become! I watched my cd/dvd duplication business blossom into an online marketing firm! ————-
Question: what problems you solve for your clients and/or what you think sets you apart from others
Answer: I feel majority of my clients hire me for their rollouts because they know I understand the climate. Meaning I’m always so staying current in areas of different marketing, wether it’s a new social media platform, or another way to maximize on a current one. I’m also highly engaged in the culture and that gives me an edge on knowing where to place content to be effective!
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Question: What are you most proud of and what are the main things you want potential clients/followers/fans to know about you/your brand/your work/ etc.
Answer: I’m most proud of my transition into the fashion world and creating my brand Rich Friends Club. I launched it in January and have been able to grow & scale it at a healthy pace as of now. I’ve been able to do several successful drops and even have introduced my very first purse designed by me as well. I’m super excited about using all of my relationships & know how from the entertainment world, and transition it into the fashion space! The brand is gaining momentum as we’re closing in on our first year of business!
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
For me being a creative/artist is one of the best feelings ever. As I’ve started on my journey of creating clothing and accessories , my favorite time is product launching. Imagine creating garments from sketches, and then turning them into digital images & ultimately seeing them in physical form! That excitement alone is top tier in opinion, but it gets better lol! Now imagine releasing the pieces and they actually sell VERY well & people start to style & tag your brand wearing your pieces! All of the hours of creating & dealing with over seas manufactures & countless of what’s app conversations, waiting on DHL updates on shipments…….become sooooo worth it once people are embracing what you created from your imagination!!!
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
If I could’ve had access to top over sea factories out the gate, and had someone explain to me about techpacks for said factories; ultimately I could’ve scaled faster! However learning along the way is still a golden piece of the journey!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.richfriendsclub.com
- Instagram: @audiotheplug
- Facebook: Rich Friends Club
- Twitter: @audiotheplug
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCF0l21-MFo-ENLNVrvRjHGw
Image Credits
Photographers: Gerald Johnson Greg Rooks