Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Sarah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

I wish Corporate America would understand the importance of authenticity. Consumers want to see humanity in others, and I’m constantly barraged with daft advertisements pretending to illustrate a personal experience, and to me, this is wasted money. Companies love to pretend to be a person, and I think if this veil was dropped and companies were more honest about their goals and operation, people would be more inclined to get involved with new experiences.

I think back to when a subscription box company and myself collaborated on a sponsorship back in my college days. I’d make videos honestly telling my viewers what I liked and disliked about the subscription service, and despite my overall negativity of the experience provided, a fair amount of viewers still ended up subscribing to the company’s product through my refferal. A few months later, I was kicked from the service. And a few years later, the company stopped providing the product I covered.

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.

I am Sarah Genao, a LEGO & film content creator, as well as a writer. I’m mostly present on YouTube, where I have been making LEGO videos since 2012, starting when I was in eighth grade.

I always try to provide the most honest experience to my viewers, reacting to LEGO news, reviewing new films, but I have a niche for obscure facts and hidden gems. I started many trends in the LEGO YouTube community. My goal is to educate and entertain people on the things I’m passionate about.

I have taken upon few sponsorships and the ones I have, I always make it a requirement for me to be as honest as possible. I see too many YouTube channels fooling their viewers into bad practices to turn a quick buck.

I also go out of my way to cover film and LEGO topics that are unwritten and devoid of having other videos discuss, beyond my honest takes on the current. I want to bring attention to underappreciated toy lines and art which deserve love.

I came out as a transgender woman in 2023, which gave me a purpose beyond being honest about my hobbies. I strive to illustrate how normal it is to be transgender. I suffered a massive loss of viewership because of my decision to come out but I have heard from a few how much my visibility has helped the confidence of others. I don’t think I could ask for anything better.

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

Getting an audience on social media is hard. I know I’ve leaned on it heavily in this interview, but honesty helped me the most in getting my initial exposure when I was much younger. I would sort YouTube uploads by new related to the topics of my video, and watch hours of other people’s videos who were on my level of exposure. Then I’d leave a relevant comment about my experience with their videos. Naturally, people would check out my channel from this. Too often do I see new YouTube content creators try this technique without the honesty, leaving a generic comment akin to spam.

Networking and authenticity are key. A handful of the people whose videos I’d leave comments on even ended up becoming friends of mine.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Perhaps it happened too late in my career, but I had to unlearn my obsession for perfection. In my early days, I missed out on so many opportunities because I wanted my content to be picture perfect on a technical level. In reality, I’d inevitably still have errors pointed out to me from viewers after uploading things I thought were perfect, and my honesty was stifled. I’d abstain from making longer videos containing more of my honest thoughts in the pursuit of smaller and more shallow written videos.

I came to terms with this through self reflection only recently, maybe three to four years ago, as a part of my journey to become my honest self.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/just2goodofficial
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahgenao?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
• Twitter: https://x.com/just2goodyt
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/just2good & https://youtube.com/@just2film?si=Ul0ZADF9IZcs5bee
• Other: https://boxd.it/RdUt