We were lucky to catch up with Ryan Pierce recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ryan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I went to film school & started off working in the film industry on films & television. So when I decided to start creating content for myself I had some advantages in knowing the filmmaking process but I also had to unlearn some things. It’s a lot more DIY for content creation. I had to learn how to do it on my own & also how to capture attention much quicker. When someone sits down to watch a movie, they’re already committed, when they get on youtube or instagram you have to reel them in & convince them that you’re worth their time. At first it seems frustrating, but everyone’s time is valuable & every second they spend on my content as a stranger is valuable. It’s been nice to get some reception & i’m just looking forward to learning more along the way.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started my career working in the film industry, but during the pandemic I slowly shifted towards marketing. I started by creating commercials & promotional content for others, but as I saw some success for clients I thought that maybe I could use the same principles for myself. It’s helped quite a bit, I’m able to grow a personal brand & prove my skills to future clients using myself as a case study.

I think the type of content I create tends to set me apart a bit from most people in the marketing space. I make mini video essays explaining the marketing strategies behind viral moments & successful people. My goal is to make every video like a mini documentary, which can make them a bit longer, but I think it makes my audience more engaged & ultimately brings in the type of clientele I’ enjoy working with.

The service I offer my clients is a mixture if content creation & funnel building. Basically helping our clients write, shoot, & edit their content & then helping them setup the website, emails & systems to lead their audience to. I really take pride in being able to see active results, lots of marketers can only really provide views or leads and I like differentiating myself by providing the full system, from gaining a view to booking a call.

I really pride myself in two things, being as unbiased as possible to gain results & being able to tailor solutions to each client. Most people like to jump from trend to trend on social media, & I leave room to experiment with new formats for myself & my clients, but the people who do really well have a consistency to their brand. Everything doesn’t work for everyone so you just have to find what works for you & when you stumble on a winning strategy continue in that direction even if it’s not what you initially thought would work. I try to do this for each piece of content I make & I try to get my clients to adapt the same philosophy & it makes all of us better creators & more level headed entrepreneurs.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Pivoting from being a commercial filmmaker to becoming a marketing creative director was a tough pill to swallow. A lot of my identity felt tied to being a filmmaker but i had to take a step back & see what was really best for me. What i really enjoyed was telling stories & that’s a more timeless skill to have. When i really delved into what I truly like to do, I realized that I actually have more opportunities to tell stories as a creative director than the way that I was doing films. Too often creatives tie our identity to a specific job but jobs can change. I think it’s better to learn what timeless interests you have & learn the skills in that direction. We know that things like communication, storytelling or design thinking will never go away. When you emphasize those soft skills you can easily learn the hard skills to pivot in any direction. That’s one of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned.

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

I built my social media audience the most when i got serious about consistency & about quantity. When I first started I focused on just creating a lot of content more than trying to make the perfect video. And you know what, the content got better as I made more of it. Eventually i stumbled on a couple of well performing videos & started to create more content in that direction. Now I’m still learning but i have a better feel for the videos that will do well & the ones that might not. So my advice is this, in the beginning focus in quantity over quality & when you do see content that does well, just go with the flow & keep making content like that. And then finally do what feels most natural for you, don’t try to force yourself into a style that doesn’t work for you. Other than that it’s all intuitive, once you start doing it consistently you’ll understand your brand more than anyone so just trust yourself.

Contact Info:

• Website: Thinkgrowcreate.com
• Instagram: Kwantumkid
• Twitter: Ryan_Spenner
• Youtube: Ryan Spenner

Image Credits
Marvin Welch Bryce Spencer Jordan Johnson