Personal Branding & Content Creation – A Discussion with Cynthia Johnson

Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s great to meet you—sort of—in person.

So I grew up in South Florida, and then I went to high school in Las Vegas.

No, just warm climates and opportunities, maybe. I was born in California, then moved to Florida—that’s where my grandparents lived. Then my grandparents moved, and I think my family figured, “Well, we’re out of here too,” so we ended up in Nevada.

In California, Simi Valley.

Well, my mom’s the youngest, and we did a count—there are something like 40 first cousins on her side. So yeah, there are a lot of us. But my mom specifically wanted to be near her parents, so we got to be the lucky ones.

Yeah, so there are about 40 first cousins. I have five brothers and sisters, and one of my close cousins—his wife is pregnant—so that baby will be the 90th person in the family.

Well, yeah, we do need a large space and name tags—a lot of planning, maybe some peer pressure, whatever it takes to get everybody there. But we’ve stayed pretty close over the years, and it’s pretty interesting seeing how the family keeps growing.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I’ve got some cousins who are YouTubers, and they’ve taken over quite a bit of land in Texas to do it—so, yeah, fun.

Yes, yes. Weddings are huge.

You invite them…

Yeah, a divorce sucks.

And the other person that is married into the family, tends to have, you know, like three people in their family. And so it’s just so overwhelming for the newcomers, they’re just wait a second…

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, let’s see. I was homeschooled until fourth grade—that’s always interesting. I also drove cross-country from Florida to California four times before I was ten, so I definitely did the cross-country trips early. What else? I was kind of a tomboy. I wanted to be the world’s youngest writer, and my idea was to write biographies and background stories for people in jail. I created all these characters, put them in prison, and wrote about who they were. I figured I’d become the youngest author of a book about people in jail—that’s something from my childhood.

Well, I spent Sundays with my grandparents, and my grandfather actually did just that—he traveled all over with my grandmother and his dogs. They had kids in the ’50s and ’60s, so they were still pretty young when they retired and wanted to see everything. Then I think they decided, “Well, we’re not that young; let’s do the ’60s,” or something like that. They picked me up along the way, saying it would give them something to do. So yeah, we got to see lots of stuff. We live in such an interesting country, right? And learning to park and live on the road makes life easier if you know how to survive outdoors in the middle of nowhere.

Yes. I live in West Los Angeles, so Marina del Rey, and then our offices are in Santa Monica.

Near the airport.

Oh no, by LAX. I’m in between. I live in between the office and the airport.

Okay, so this is kind of interesting. Initially, I went to college at a place called the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, where I studied stunt choreography, phonetics, and acting. Then I graduated in December 2007, right as the economy took a turn, and getting into stunt choreography is actually pretty difficult because you can’t just be out there swinging a broadsword at people. A lot of the agencies were shutting down and firing people, so I thought, “All right, well, this might not be a long-term solution.”

Then I went back to school—like the LA community college scene—and studied Mandarin and business, then transferred to Colorado State, where I finished.

 Yeah. So I wanted to choreograph scenes. I thought it was an interesting part of movies—seeing Kill Bill come out and all that. It was part of the whole process, right? I had done some plays involving sword fighting and found it really interesting. Also, the patience and discipline it takes to do something like that intrigued me.

I grew up in and went to high school in Las Vegas. I was also a hypnosis assistant, and I worked for Carrot Top. I was involved in a lot of shows, as were my family members, so I was aware of that lifestyle. It was freeing—you could take jobs as you wanted and just do your thing. I got into it for those reasons. Then it was partly the unions; it might have been a very long road. Living in Los Angeles, I still had to work. I was getting pretty frustrated with the situation, thinking, “So I’m basically a professional waiter,” which is fine, but my goal was to have a lifestyle with some autonomy and freedom. Instead, I was waiting around for everything.

No, I was that girl for a hypnotist named Anthony Cools. I was actually on, and they were managed by the same man—he produced the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. Hello. So basically, I ended up working on their PR and marketing team. Then I managed some promotions for Jeff Beecher’s Beecher’s Madhouse in Miami for Ocean Drive Magazine. I realized they were all connected—the same people were managing those shows. So I got involved through the hypnotist show and then moved into these marketing roles.

I went to Colorado State.

When you’re in LA, you know..

Yeah, so being in Las Vegas really opens up a lot of location-based opportunities. I worked there, then went to Miami for Ocean Drive Magazine’s launch party—Paris Hilton was on the cover—if that doesn’t age me, I don’t know what will! We threw this massive event, and then I left.

Originally, before going to the acting school, I’d gone to the Art Institute, determined to be an artist. Turns out, I don’t like drawing at all. I told a counselor, “Look, put me anywhere—I never want to take a drawing class again.” She was like, “You’re at the Art Institute—what do you mean?” So I said, “Okay, fair, I’m leaving,” and that was that. Afterward, I came back and told my mom, “All right, I figured it out. I’m going to make good decisions now.” I moved to Hollywood to study psychology and acting. My mom cried at first, but then it was fine.

Then I decided I wanted to learn a language, so I studied Mandarin. I started traveling back and forth to China around the time people were encouraging travel to Shanghai and Beijing. The flights were terrible but cheap, and being there was inexpensive, so I’d take off for a couple of weeks at a time. Then I decided I was going to open nightclubs in China—this was literally my plan at that point.

Yeah, so I thought, “This is probably going to be a big deal.” I came back to Los Angeles and there was a company doing live streaming, tied in with travel, focusing on Asian markets. I took an internship there—turned out it was a Japanese company, not Chinese, but it was on the internet. At that point, I’d decided I was going to save up. I had what I call a “quarter-life crisis” and planned to leave the country. I stayed at the job to do that and learned all about social media marketing and internet marketing from the platform side. It was incredible, because I realized, “You can do this literally anywhere—but not in another language.” My China dreams kind of faded, because there are 40,000 characters in Mandarin. I’d never be able to work effectively in Chinese on the internet.

I stuck to my plan anyway. I loved the job, but I intended to quit. My mom said, “Don’t quit—ask for time off,” and I remember thinking, “You’re crazy.” But when I went to talk to my boss, I choked and said, “I need some time off.” He asked, “How long?” and I said, “Six to nine months.” They actually gave it to me—and even gave me a stipend. Company policy said if they fired someone or someone left, you couldn’t come back. So they said, “We’ll give you this stipend to post some social stuff while you’re gone.”

I sold everything I owned and headed to Australia first, then took a six- or seven-month backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. I lived in a van and kept doing internet marketing along the way. I thought, “This is great—such freedom at your fingertips.” When I came back, I had a newfound sense of purpose and direction that led me to what I’m doing now.

So I actually went to New Zealand first, flying into Auckland. Then we went from Auckland down to Christchurch and back up. After that, we went from Auckland to Melbourne, Australia, and drove a van from Melbourne to Cairns—sorry, I misspoke earlier. Then we flew from Cairns to Perth, where we met a friend of mine from Norway who had gone to college with me. It was just the two of us, and we’d met two British girls in New Zealand, and they joined us for the rest of the trip. So it was four girls who barely knew each other, all living in a van. It was great. We also did Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore, and Thailand.

Did you get speeding tickets?

Well, yeah, it is scary driving on the opposite side of the road. It took me a while, and they have all these roundabouts—like, on the freeway.

Yeah. And it’s great. It’s really nice to realize that everywhere, people basically want the same thing: to survive comfortably and be loved. Everything else is extra. No matter what you look like or who you are, everyone has their own set of problems, but they revolve around living comfortably and being loved. It’s so cool to have that perspective—to know what it’s like to experience someone else’s surroundings and see from their perspective. It’s really cool. And that’s great you did it with your parents, too. That’s fun.

You know, Tony Hsieh lives in a camper van in the desert outside Las Vegas, really. Someone I went to high school with is his very good friend and personal assistant, so they’re basically neighbors in this camper van area. Letting go of the idea that there’s any single right or wrong way to do things is important. You know, be kind to others; anybody can hear these stories or see someone like you or someone who takes adventures and does something outside the box. Because of those small choices we make, we end up with unique careers and stories. Getting a camper van and driving cross-country, even if it’s just for three days, will change your perspective on life.

So we’re going on our third year now. We weren’t sure about the name at first—it was changed because my co-founder and I actually founded the company while at another company. We were in executive roles at a public healthcare company that had acquired our previous company. We didn’t have much time, and we just kind of launched with a landing page. All we knew was that we weren’t where we were supposed to be. Then we realized what we were good at, what we could accomplish, and how we worked together. Everything was “We have to get through this next hurdle—contracts, whatnot.” So we launched this company, and the name wasn’t great. It’s like when you talk about changing your podcast—it was a nightmare. So we had to rename it. We’ve been Bell + Ivy for about a year and a half, but the agency itself has been around for just over two and a half years.

Co-founder, and I operate as CEO. My co-founder is president and COO.

Our core products are… we initially started as a personal brand development and management agency for corporate executives and employees. Our background is in social media marketing and SEO, so we saw a clear need for authentic content creation, employee advocacy—basically how to tell stories that explore both local and corporate levels of what’s going on. That’s the direction all social media is taking now, what’s happening right now. So we developed personal brands, then personnel brands.

On the personal brand side, we only work with companies that are either using their sales teams or executives—maybe it’s the founder, or VCs, investor types. We help them achieve goals for their business through personal brands, not just develop a personal brand for its own sake. We align everything we do with corporate goals. Then we also manage SEO campaigns, mainly for wealth management, behavioral health care, insurance—the not-so-sexy industries that really need it.

In May 2018, we acquired a PR agency, so we have full PR capabilities. But our main focus is on industries that are regulated online to some extent. That includes blockchain, cannabis, health care, insurance—anything that requires a clear understanding of rules and regulations, plus the fact that it’s an emerging market online or in general. Things change very quickly, so the strategy does too. That’s our focus area. We don’t typically work with, you know, fun fashion brands or anything like that.

Yeah. And also, you know, when it comes to personnel branding, there are multiple locations we can work in, right? But it’s corporate. What happens is the story gets lost. People go to work every day and sit next to other people at big companies—whether it’s insurance, e-commerce, or whatever—and these people have so much to offer. There’s an additional perspective that’s rarely harnessed.

Even if the content itself isn’t super interesting or “exciting” or “clickable,” we look at it from the perspective of: is it useful, and is the person telling that story—or the person those people represent—interesting in some way? We figure out how to craft the message. How many people do you know who purchase insurance online? There are a lot of people looking for those things, and because these industries have operated the same way for so long, having a basic understanding of their obstacles and then doing something slightly different or more interesting—maybe adding a bit more story—makes all the difference if you’re trying to compete.

I find it interesting because I’ll look at something and think, “What about people who don’t work for super-fun, cool companies? That doesn’t necessarily take away from what they’re capable of.” It’s just never been fully explored, and that’s always been fun for us. Initially, it was like pulling teeth. I’d think, “Wait, you want me to do what? Healthcare online?” That sounded so boring, but now I love it. It’s great. It’s really interesting.

Yeah. And also, my biggest question to companies that resist change is: when things change (and they always do), one of two things happens. You either change with it and survive, or you don’t and you don’t survive. Why do people choose not to survive? It’s typically based on fear. I always ask, “What are you afraid of? Are there skeletons in this company’s closet?” Because that’s another situation. It’s not uncommon for a company to have been around 150 years—things that might scare them because it’s all they’ve ever known. Usually, the thing they’re afraid of can be addressed, but it’s really about why some companies choose not to make those moves. Then when one player in the space does, everyone else is forced to or gets pushed out.

It came out this year, in February.

So I had been exploring the idea of writing a book with an agent for a while—she was really patient with me. But nothing felt like the right topic. If you write a book about the internet, by the time it’s published, it can already be outdated. I couldn’t figure out what I specifically wanted to focus on. Then, when I was involved on the corporate side of that company, I realized where the idea of personal branding came from.

In large organizations, you often have people who talk about doing the job and people who are actually doing the job. Checks and balances can fall apart because the company is huge. I saw a group of people who were capable of more than what they were hired for, but everyone still viewed them only in that role. I was in a unique position—I couldn’t be fired and couldn’t quit—so I got to explore and test a lot of ideas. I realized there was a gap: the internet is a powerful tool that’s just handed over to kids with no real training, like giving car keys to a teenager who’s never had driver’s ed. Meanwhile, another generation has had jobs and maybe lost them or is trying to transition, but they don’t know how because now everything’s online.

Personal branding was being pitched mostly to people building entrepreneurial careers, or who wanted an audience. But there wasn’t enough discussion aimed at the people who need a personal brand but think it’s vain, or who don’t know it’s an option. There’s a huge demographic thinking, “I wish they knew this about me,” without realizing they have to communicate it. They say, “I don’t want to be vain,” and that mindset ends up crushing them.

I also spoke with a woman who was a national security advisor for the Clintons, the Bushes, and Joe Biden. She mentioned that everything on TV is wrong, but she wouldn’t speak out publicly, calling herself a “careerist.” I pointed out that if the world falls apart because of something she knows, isn’t that on her? It resonated with her—seeing how it could benefit others if she spoke up, and how having more experts address their areas of expertise might reduce misinformation. Now she’s been on CNN, in the New York Times, and all over. That was part of my realization that people need a different message about personal branding.

I did a 30-minute “brand exercise” with people while working on the book, talking to IT staff at The Wall Street Journal, social media folks at Walmart, people at SAP, CIOs, and just regular people. They’d say, “This guy’s getting the promotion or the board seat, and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” I wanted to reach those who think it’s vain to have a personal brand but absolutely need one.

You can’t lose. You cannot lose hope in knowing that if you become really, really good at something, you can grow into that and become a voice for it. Otherwise, we’ll end up with lazy experts, and that won’t create a great future for us. There has to be competition. You have people who want to compete, want to be recognized for what they’ve spent their entire life doing—even if they say they don’t want to. Especially if you see someone incompetent in that space speaking for everyone.

That happens a lot with women, where you know you’re invited to these panels to make the female quota, and you’re not an expert in what’s being discussed. You wonder, “Why am I here? I don’t even know what I do at all.” So it’s just about bringing light to the people who can fill those roles. Especially when you transition between jobs, the internet’s tough to navigate if you come into it desperate.

So the first thing is that there are a variety of ways to deliver content, so look at how much time you have and what you’re comfortable with. There are people I follow because I know they’re experts in something, and they share other people’s content with their own opinion—that’s great content. It steers me in a good direction. They have a viewpoint, and I see why they shared it. That’s still content, right?

Then there are people writing content. If you’re not naturally a writer, you need to figure out your comfort zone because if you’re not comfortable doing it, it won’t be good. And if it’s not good, you’re doing it for nothing. So yeah, you know. Then the second thing is, if you’re going to write content or create video or whatever, listen to when people ask you questions—write them down. If you hear the same question two or three times, that’s probably a great topic to cover because it’s not being addressed.

So feedback and really listening is key, and it’s not overthinking it too much. Don’t make it like, “If someone asks me a question three times, that’s a great topic,” and then you wait three years to write about it. Just relax into it and get it out.

Yeah. And also, just remember this—it still blows my mind. Our live-stream company, from way back, had a “lurker” mascot because so many people were just lurking online, not creating content, not writing blogs, just reading. That percentage really hasn’t changed. People say, “I put out this content, got 3,000 views on LinkedIn, but I don’t know if people are engaged.” I’ll ask, “Well, did you invite them to do something—put a question at the end? See how many respond.” They’re lurkers. They need to be tagged and told what you want. They’re reading your content, you’re seen as an expert, an authority figure, and it’s like being in a classroom where nobody raises their hand. It’s just happening online.

Yes. For example, Vine. I was a bit too old to be cool on Vine, but I was really into it. I built about 600,000 followers. Each day, on my way to Starbucks, I’d post a question—“Question of the Day”—like “DC or Marvel?” Then people would drop tons of comments. If I had gone on a rant about why I liked one over the other, I’d have gotten only negative comments from those who disagreed, and there’d be fewer of them. So involving a simple action makes it a conversation, not just your perspective. If you tell people how and what you expect, they’ll give it to you. If you don’t, it falls flat because they don’t know. It’s a game changer to clarify what kind of engagement you’re looking for.

Yeah, that’s all I did. I just asked questions—like Coke or Pepsi—and then I could share that on Twitter and talk to marketing people about what they thought of the results. So it became a bunch of tweens, like 14-year-olds.

We are very similar. I wanted to go on.

Yes, and understanding the audience is important, right? In that situation, you don’t know who’s going to drop a tip. You expect a creative tip, but they wanted to do it the same way I felt with teenagers online. If I try to be cool, they’ll destroy me—like, “Watch some other people get pretty.” I’m not even going to try being cool; I’ll just be something else. So yeah, awareness is important.

So with Twitter, I used to host Twitter chats all the time—like, all the time—and it’s crazy because, again, it goes back to engagement. I’d ask a question, or other people would answer, and then I became the expert. I was like, “Yeah, yeah.” When you provide a space where people can communicate and have community, you’re the curator. That’s like sharing someone else’s content but giving your perspective on it—if you do it consistently and know what you’re talking about, people understand why you’d be an expert.

It’s the same idea of creating a place where people can discuss and learn about things together. Because if it’s all from me, I can only bring in my perspective—but I can pose a question, then have it answered by someone else plus seven more things, and now you have a well-rounded conversation. People are getting something in return for being involved.

A lot of this ties into personal branding and building followers. What is the audience getting out of it? Why would they follow you? What specifically are you trying to do? Not everyone gets to be Kim Kardashian or Oprah, who provide amazing content and people understand them. But yeah, for me, it was all done through conversation.

No, yeah, they’re pretty good, actually. The other part is, you start partnering with other people if you’re really goal-focused. You might say, “I want to write a book.” Well, if you have a decent profile and your story is being told, you find agents or editors. You’re not directly pitching them your brand—you’re sharing a message that resonates and building relationships. It evolves over time. It doesn’t happen overnight, and if it does, it’s not always what it seems. People should understand that, like anything worth having, you have to work for it.

And also be wary of setting your lifestyle expectation higher than you can actually live, because it causes serious anxiety. Like, “Oh my gosh, everyone in my life thinks I roll around in a private jet on the regular, and now I have to live up to this.” It’s like, no, you don’t. You should be honest about…

I really like Flipboard, because that’s a great place to filter and digest content. Slack is probably up there. And Grammarly—I couldn’t live without it. Most people would lose respect for me if I didn’t use it. I kind of wonder how I made it this far without it, to be honest.

Yes, so we’re working on a team. We were just in Italy doing a personal branding workshop for sales teams. That’s really exciting. In Vegas, I did it for executives. The goal and the message are, “How do you look at each individual brick-and-mortar store, both digitally and offline, as it’s managed?” It has its own entity, so you can keep content authentic, and a lot of that is being done through us working on piecing and packaging together a model where we explore digital marketing and personal branding for large corporate companies on a global scale.

With the one in Italy, they actually hire sales teams for three to six months—like HR teams outsourced. These are big, long projects, and those people carry that message into a company because we can’t be everywhere. I like that. That’s kind of my jam. As we expand and get some interesting case studies, I’ll share them with you, but…

Well, yeah, and it’s good too because I think we talk about a lot of the same things but differently. So it’s like, “How do you work with influencers?” We come from a perspective of, “How do you create them?” It’s not necessarily an influencer we want; it’s the same kind of thinking but within an organization. It’s funny: companies will trust influencers more than they trust their own employees. I’m like, “Why’d you hire this person?” But the message is very similar; it’s just less like, “You create one contract for life,” whereas with influencers, you have different variations. But yeah, the workshop stuff is always fun—you never know who’s in the room. So, interesting experience.

I’d wake up around 11:30, already have a Starbucks or some form of coffee, and I wouldn’t have to leash my dog at the beach—he could just run around without the patrol guys stopping me. Then we’d go back, maybe barbecue or something, hang out with my brother and sisters. I’m not super complicated. That would be pretty solid: sleeping in, not worrying about my dog on the beach, and then making food and laughing with people I love.

Well, the first thing I’d do is—I’d hire a state. That’s what I’d do. Definitely find someone to tell me what to do, and I’d make some investments. I would invest in Beyond Meat. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that or not—I have no inside information, but I think Beyond Meat is going to do really well. I’d make some investments, and probably… I’m not superstitious, but there’s a weird running track record with people who’ve won the lottery. I don’t know about people who’ve been gifted the lottery. So I’d probably just hide it away, wait for the government to come take most of it, and when that’s over, I’d be like, “Okay, I feel safe.”

Yeah, but I’d wait until the government took theirs, because I can’t get that much. So we’d probably want to work together in Nevada, though—we could save 14% off the top.

We’d be best friends…

And then we’d save lots of dogs. I love dogs, so that’s cool.

Yeah, I got tricked by one of those Instagram posts about a dog about to be put down. I drove across town to save it. The guy said, “You’re like the 100th or 150th person here today. This dog’s actually in a no-kill shelter.” Then I had to drive three hours home.

So personally, I’m @CynthiaLive on Instagram and Twitter, and my email is Cynthia@CynthiaLive.com. My website is CynthiaLive.com, and BellIvy.com is our company site. We’re on social media channels, and we have an office in Santa Monica and another in Las Vegas. If you’re local to either place, shoot us an email. Come by and meet the team—we’re always open for that.

Look, I’m a big believer in paying taxes. I just get nervous that I’m not going to for some reason. It’s like a weird fear.

Okay, thanks!

Awesome. Thank you. Have a great day.