- If you guys have ever wanted to start
a movement around your channel to like
really reach people, impact their lives,
this is Cody Wanner, did I say that right?
- No, it's wrong, but I don't care
how you say my name as long as you're saying it.
- This is Cody Wanner and he has started
the NoSmallCreator movement and we're gonna
talk about what that means for you guys as creators
and how you can maybe replicate some of the success
that he's had with it coming up.
Hey guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer,
this is Cody, you already met him
and he's doing some really cool stuff
for those of you guys who are creators
and tell us about the NoSmallCreator movement,
what does that mean?
- Yeah man, NoSmallCreator is just this idea
that creation itself is massive.
It takes a lot of work.
It takes a lot of thought, it takes a lot of action.
So the idea that the size of a creator's following
would somehow be the gauge of how big or small
that creator is just is ridiculous to me.
It's not about the size of the following.
It's about the sheer volume
of what creating a video is.
That's NoSmallCreator in a nutshell
and it's a hashtag, it's a Facebook group,
it's all the things.
- It's a movement, it's a community,
and what I love about it is that actually,
it's not just like, I'm gonna be like,
hey subscribe 'cause I make daily videos or something,
it's just like, it's like a very strongly stated belief.
- Right. - And the strongest
communities, you guys have heard me say this before,
the strongest communities always revolve
around shared beliefs-- - Yep.
- Not just like common interests.
So that's exactly what you've done.
You associated your brand with like this belief
that you hold and people who believe
that with you-- - Hundred percent,
- Including myself-- - Hundred percent.
- Are like totally onboard.
So how did it get started, or where do you
start? - Yeah.
I was doing a video trying to get Boosted Board
to give, "small creators" some Boosted Boards.
So I was saying small creators so much in the video
and every time I would say it, like I would get
like more and more uncomfortable.
Small creator, small creator, small creator,
hashtag, boostasmallcreator, alright?
Till I finally just went with it and went down
little rabbit trails like, you know,
really that shouldn't be a word because there is
no such thing as a small creator.
Out of that the hashtag was born,
I got the video idea.
I wanted to make a shirt, you know,
a printed shirt like just even
the sheer creation of printing a shirt,
I thought like, it is hard to print shirts
that's something that gets lost
in the whole, you know, you click something
and you get a shirt in the mail.
Well it's hard to scream, print a shirt,
anyway I wanted a video about that.
Made that video, you know, said to people,
I said to people, if you believe in this,
if this is something that you resonate with,
like use the hashtag a hundred percent
and that's how it started to grow.
- Awesome, so these creators out here,
is there anything that you recommend
that you did either on purpose or accidentally
that really led that you feel
to that actually taking hold and growing
and now it's like thousands of YouTube creators?
- Yeah-- - In the Facebook group.
- Yeah, just, just under 2,000.
- And you've grown from zero at the beginning of the year
to 40 some thousand subscribers?
- Yeah technically-- - Like nine months later?
- Technically 111 subscribers at the beginning of the year
to just over 40 now, not that it's about
the subscriber count or any of that stuff,
but that's kind of just the-- - But it's about
people are like resonating with the message
like in this movement
which you've been-- - Right.
- People able to do. - Right.
- Was there anything that you did intentionally
that you felt, or even accidentally
you felt like really made
that happen-- - Yeah.
- Better for people?
- Yeah, no, I think that one of the most
intentional things that I did
was I would talk about it.
And I would, anytime some, anytime I would hear
someone say, I'm a small creator, X-Y-Z,
I would always correct them
and I would do that on the vlog
and I would, I made sure that people understood
this is something that I wasn't,
this wasn't just a little thought that I had
that escaped, it was-- - It was like a belief
that you deeply held-- - It was deeply held belief.
- And it had to come out of you whenever it could.
- A hundred percent. - Yeah.
- Hundred percent, so I kept it, you know,
I kept talking about it and then, you know,
Peter McKinnon picked up on the idea.
And he, and he had a similar idea about,
you know, it doesn't matter the size
of the following, you still matter on this platform,
and so, you know, kind of champions the movement
in a video on his channel and that gave it
a huge amount of exposure.
It's not about what's on the outside,
it's not about your followers or any of that stuff,
it's about creation, I love it,
that's what it is.
- So ah, you heard the man.
Hashtag NoSmallCreator.
If you guys wanna see more from Cody,
what that hashtag means he's daily vlogging.
- And so a lot of people started to resonate with it,
joined the Facebook group.
I think it has over 10,000 uses on Instagram,
a lot on Twitter, you know people resonate with it.
Just something, the key to creating a movement
is finding something that you believe in so much
you're willing to get in an argument over it.
You know like you're willing to lay down
something for it. - Yeah.
- And, 'cause people see that
and they resonate with it, they want to be a part of it.
- And what you did too is you've given people
like a voice to have that, or didn't even know
that was a belief that they had.
- Right. - And you,
you articulated and put words
to it-- - Right.
- And so people are like, oh,
I do share that belief, but like yes,
you've become like the leader.
- Yeah. - Do you feel
like this is something that most creators
should consider doing on their channel
or you feel like it's just for certain people
on certain channels, or what?
- So I think it's a double-edged sword.
I mean obviously as any movement or any channel
or community grows it gets harder and harder to manage.
You need a great team of people around you
who are willing to basically help you for free
because they also believe in whatever you're doing,
and yeah, like we've had,
we've had some racist comments happen
in our Facebook group, we've had people get mad
about link dropping, we've had to like, you know,
adapt the rules.
Like there's been, there's been challenging things
that have happened, but, I mean,
what good thing doesn't have challenges.
If you find something like that that you believe in,
like one that I love is create everyday.
You know, it's not a hashtag,
but if I create everyday, like that's something
that I truly, whether you're uploading or not,
I believe in that, to create everyday.
If you can find something like that,
that you believe in a hundred percent,
chances are, and I mean we all say this,
you're gonna find other people
who believe the same thing.
- Yeah, so we have like Roberto Blake,
you guys know him, he's like Create Awesome.
Evan Carmichael is like Believe.
Mine is like, Change Lives, you know, so.
What, if someone wanted to like take the first steps
and like, okay, I have this thing I believe in
I'm really deeply passionate
about-- - Yeah.
- And I wanna form a movement, it is like,
okay, what's the first thing, or things they should do?
Create a Facebook group or should they just
like-- - No.
- What should they do?
- Don't start a Facebook group.
Start on Twitter, start on Instagram, start on YouTube.
- With a hashtag? - With a hashtag.
Make it into a hashtag, so that's the second thing
that I didn't mention yet, is it's gotta be concise.
Like you've gotta be able to, three words right,
two words, create every day, three words,
NoSmallCreate, or whatever it is.
Something that, you know,
very well encapsulates what it's about,
turn that into a hashtag, turn that into something
that you can talk about in a compelling and concise way
and then do that across every platform.
And then at that point, you know,
maybe talk to some people in real life about it.
Talk to people who you think
are gonna agree with it and get their take on it
and just create the hype, create the energy
around it, the hype around it and yeah,
kinda like, funny thing about me is
when my buddy Chris Floyd approached me
about making a Facebook group, I said,
nah, let's not do it.
You know I didn't really see,
I didn't really see this so much as a,
as a gathering of people,
I saw it as just a mind set
and then when it turned into a gathering of people
I started to see the true power of that.
- Every video you do revolves around this thing
in some way.
- It's always the thing under the thing right?
There's not a day, there's not even an hour
that goes by that I'm not thinking
about the thing under the thing.
- Yep, you put up-- - Where you
hashtag the thing under the thing.
- [Tim] Put that in the video down below
if you wanna learn about the thing under the thing.
- I mean Jeff changed the way that I create content
with kind of bringing up that concept
and keeping it forefront in my mind,
but yeah, it's always there.
NoSmallCreator is always there underneath
whatever else I'm talking about on my channel.
- We're all learning from each other,
right. - Yeah.
- We're all in this together. - Hundred percent.
- If you guys wanna check out more
about the NoSmallCreator movement,
links in the description below, Facebook group,
Cody's channel, Jeff's video about
the thing under the thing
which is a channel all of you guys should be subscribed
to anyway-- - Hundred percent.
- So check it out and that's the call to action.
- That's it. - Just kind of lost
my train of thought.
So thanks guys for hanging out.
If it was your first time here
would love to have you subscribe here
'cause we're all about helping you guys grow
your YouTube audience not just for the sake of viewers,
not just for the sake of subscribers or money,
but ultimately so that you can use your voices,
spread your message, or reach people
and change their lives.
That's what we're all about
and we'll see you guys again, soon.
I totally did that (mumbles) the wrong way.
But see you guys later, bye.