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Hey, what is up?
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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
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As always, I'm your host, Brian LoFermento, and I am so excited about today's session because if you have ever wondered what drives success on social media, where does social media success meet?
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Creativity meet storytelling?
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Well, today's guest is really at the intersection of all of those things, and the really cool thing is, if you're into Broadway shows at all, then you've probably seen his work, Because when I tell you all about his background, you're gonna realize how many incredible projects and shows he's been a part of.
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So let me tell you all about today's guest and entrepreneur.
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His name is Zach Reiser.
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Zach's professional credits include three years at Marathon Digital, where he spearheaded social campaigns for iconic Broadway shows and tours such as Hamilton, Back to the Future, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Mamma Mia and so many more, as well as renowned Broadway bands.
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Additionally, he spent a year in the marketing and communications department at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge which is my neck of the woods where I grew up in Boston working on their acclaimed 2016-2017 season.
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His innovative content has generated millions of views, literally attracted thousands of new followers to the theater space and achieved engagement rates that consistently exceeded the industry norms.
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Outside of his social media work, he's a two-time Tony Award nominated producer with Pickle Star Theatricals, helping bring shows like Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Harmony and Fat Ham to Broadway.
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He's based in New York City with his partner and their mini golden doodle, who didn't say hello to me before we hit record, but he does note that typically Sadie likes to say hello at the top of every Zoom meeting.
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But all of that is to say that I'm super excited to sit down with Zach today.
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We're going to learn so much about the art of storytelling and engagement and social media and so much more, so I'm not going to say anything else.
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Let's dive straight into my interview with Zach Reiser.
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All right, Zach, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.
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First things first welcome to the show, Thank you, thank you, it's so exciting to be on the show.
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Heck.
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Yes.
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Well, it is fun even just to brag about all of the cool things that you've worked on.
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We're going to go deep into your subject matter expertise, but before we get there, take us beyond the bio.
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Who's Zach?
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How did you get into all of these amazing projects that you've been a part of?
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Oh man, that's got to take me back to I'm going to say high school.
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I went to high school in Connecticut.
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I'm originally from Rhode Island, but we moved to Connecticut when I was in middle school and it was really to expand my cultural horizon, expand my educational horizons.
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My parents are very keen on that for me and my three brothers, and they started taking us to see Broadway shows every weekend.
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We'd go to nice restaurants, sort of learn what was out there in the world as young adults.
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And when I saw Diane Paul's Survival of Pippin, it was sort of that moment where I was like, oh wow, I actually really like theater.
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Theater can be so much more than this.
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How do I do that?
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I don't know that I want to be an actor, but how do I get into this space?
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Because it speaks to me so much.
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Flash forward to college.
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I was going to college originally to study film and television.
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I was honestly a little clueless.
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I had no idea what I wanted to do in that.
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I just knew that I was going to BU.
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I was going to study that because I was the co-president of my high school's television station and that was just about it.
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About halfway through my sophomore year, I came to New York for a weekend.
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It was the first Broadway con in 2016,.
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I want to say, the one that completely blizzarded in.
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I went to things I would never have gone to because most of the platforms are canceled.
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And I went to one programming event on theatrical advertising which featured my future boss.
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That I didn't know at the time and they had a bunch of different Broadway advertising agencies and I walked out of that session and I said wait, how have I not been doing that?
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That's how I get in.
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That's how I do the thing that I want to be doing.
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Went back to bu, changed my major within two weeks.
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Haven't looked back since.
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Uh, I finished my degree quickly there, moved to new york right after undergrad in 2017, um got a job doing marketing for these big Broadway composers.
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Their names are Rodgers and Hammerstein.
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I feel like you've heard of them.
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They wrote the Sound of Music, they wrote Oklahoma, among other things.
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They really started musical theater as you know it today, did marketing for them for a while and then went back to grad school at NYU, got my master's in integrated marketing at the School of Professional Studies and as part of that school program, you have to do either an internship or you have to have a full-time job.
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And while I was there, I reconnected with someone who I worked with in the past, who was then working at Marathon Digital, who said, hey, you should apply to our internship if you're looking for an internship.
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And that internship was in winter of 2020, which was such a great time to be in theater for a month and a half before everything shut down because of the pandemic.
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But it was an incredible month and a half being their intern.
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And then, over the pandemic, as opportunities kept coming along, my future boss at that point, mike, would send me freelance opportunities.
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I was doing marketing for an audio play.
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I was doing auditing for a big Broadway director and her social media programming.
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She was directing masterclasses.
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And then, in September 2021, I got an email from them that was basically like, hey, broadway's back, we're drowning because not everyone's coming back from furlough.
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Do you want to come work for us and do this full time?
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And that really started the incredible three-ish years I had at Marathon Digital.
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I learned so much, got to work on some really incredible projects that honestly felt like a pinch me moment to that 16-year-old me who was sitting and the music box leader watching Pippin, and after three years I decided it was time to go out on my own, and that's when I started Neon Lights last May.
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Yes, I love that overview, zach, especially because you and I are both native New Englanders.
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We didn't make that connection off the air, but I think that there's something about that New England spirit.
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I mean, you mentioned how much part of your academic history sparked that and really made you say hold on.
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I'm very clear on what it is that I want to do and where I want to invest my time, and it's so cool to see how that's manifested in your professional career and, of course, in the launch of your own business.
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Talk to us about Neon Lights Digital Media, because I think that not only the work that you do but, zach, it's so clear to me the brand that you've built is so intentional and it's such a strong brand that even from the second our team landed on your website, it pulls us into the story, it moves, it's vibrant, there's so many different colors and it's so clear how much you love the work that you've done and the projects that you've been a part of.
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Talk to us about that brand that you built for Neon Lights.
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Yeah, I mean I'm also going to throw it back for one second just to say I really do credit a lot of where I am today to my mom in high school.
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She was very big on coaching us and making sure we were going in a direction that really inspired us.
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And she always said when you find the intersection of your skills and passion, that's when you know you've made it.
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And doing theatrical advertising really just hits that center of that X so clearly and I wouldn't be where I am today without that.
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So I thank her for that.
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Neon Lights I started it in May.
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They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway is where I got that name from famous song called On Broadway and it really is just about illuminating a spotlight on my client's work.
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And lately I've been sort of refocusing how I shift that messaging and how do I make the audience members the heroes of this story.
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In September, as I was sort of getting my business up on its feet and really getting some solid clients underground, went to the Welcome Conference up at Lincoln Center.
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It's typically a hospitality conference led by Will Goddard who used to run Eleven Madison and now is like a really big leadership speaker.
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But the conference has since really become just like a leadership conference and you learn so much from people in hospitality about how to not just run like a restaurant but how you run a business and how you become unreasonably hospitable, how do you go above and beyond for your clients and their expectations and the things that you do.
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And it was there that I got to watch Don Miller speak, who's been a real big inspiration of mine lately, and I read his book called Building a Story Brand, in which he sort of talks about advertising and social media and everything that you do as a marketer.
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In terms of the structure of a film, you start out with a main character who has an issue, who meets a guide who's like hey, I can help you solve your problem.
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Here are the tools that you need to go on this journey, on this quest.
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The hero goes on this quest and they either meet success or they meet failure.
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They have challenges along the way and at the end they're transformed.
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But the thing is, is your client isn't the hero of the story?
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Your client is sort of already well established at least it should be, even if it's a new business.
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You want to act like you have all the knowledge in the world.
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You have to act like you're an expert.
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In the instance of story brand, you are the guide.
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If the audience member I'm just going to compare this to Star Wars, because it's the first one that comes to my head If your audience member is the hero, if they're the Luke Skywalker, your client, your brand, your theater, your show, whatever it is you want to be, they're Yoda.
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You have all the knowledge, you have all of the credibility and you have the tools to find those audience members and give them what they want to complete this journey of being entertained, being thought provoked, being moved emotionally.
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It's really been such an incredible experience reading his book and changing my perspective on that, and I'm going back through every single one of my clients and it's how I'm approaching clients, moving forward with that sort of hey, you're not the hero here, but you're something even better.
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You have all the experience, you have all the even better.
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You have all the experience, you have all the knowledge, you have all the credibility.
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It's a matter of conveying that to people in a way that it shows you how it benefits them.
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Um, so that's been very cool in terms of setting up my yeah, I want to get deeper into your storytelling minds act, because it's so cool to hear the way that you think about these.
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And, of course, I agree with you donald miller is absolutely brilliant in the way that he articulates and teaches these things and shares them with the world.
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But what's fascinating to me about your work, zach, is that you're telling stories, or you're tasked with telling stories about stories that we, the audience, get to experience.
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And when I think back to whether it's theater, whether it's arts, whether it's comedy I'm a big sucker for live performance as someone who is behind a microphone a lot as well and I think back to my first ever Broadway show story Zach was Sister Act, and I remember seeing Sister Act for the first time and I had seen the movie before.
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So of course, I thought I knew this is what the story is, but there was something different about being at a Broadway show and it gave me different emotions.
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It gave me an entirely different experience than whatever I thought of Sister Act before that moment.
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And so when I think about your work, you're tasked with showing people on social media.
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They're not sitting in the theater, they're not experiencing it, but you're tasked with trying to give them a small slice of that experience.
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How do you even start to create content or strategize how you're going to go about that?
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That's a great question.
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First of all, I love Sister Act.
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I love Patina Miller.
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I used to live next door to that theater and I've been in that space so much, so I love that.
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It is kind of a challenge to market live entertainment.
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There is something and this is again something that my mom taught me as we were coming to see theater growing up there's something so different about being in the same space as your performers and breathing the same air as them.
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There's something so electric about it that you don't necessarily feel when you listen to music or you go see a movie.
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There's something so different about being in that same space and sharing that same air.
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And how do you even begin to market that?
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How do you even begin to pick the right projects to market that?
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That goes into why I also produce on the side and I create art with my mom in Pickle Strike Theatricals.
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Why do we pick the projects that we do and how do you market them in a way that makes people feel like they're sitting in the audience right now, and I've been going through this with my client Second City lately and I'm going to use it sort of in improv terms when you build an improv show.
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Their preview period is called process.
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It's the time when you're sitting in front of an audience and you're working through the show, You're testing out different sketches, you're testing out different improv things, you're testing out timing, you're testing out placement in the show and you work sort of all of those kinks out live in front of an audience before you even get to finalizing your product.
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And that's kind of how I see marketing live entertainment in general is that you kind of have to go in process at the same time that you're bringing your client up, that you're bringing your show up, that you're sort of getting everything ready, because it's so hard to tangibly find the voice of the brand while the brand is still finding its voice itself, while the show is still finding what exactly it wants to be.
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So part of that is just me being in that room and seeing how process works and seeing how rehearsals go and seeing how the show feels and finding that tone and that voice that sounds like how that show wants to be.
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The other thing is getting talent involved and getting the actors who are in the show involved in creating social media.
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So much of the voice comes from them and so much of what you see on stage is them and is their ideas and is their voice.
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And I say this every time I onboard a new client and I sit down with the talent who are in their shows, I go this social media isn't going to feel like your social media unless you have a voice in it, unless you're an active participant in it.
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And social media is not rocket science.
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We're not brain surgeons.
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It's not like we're saving the world one operation at a time.
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We do social media.
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It's going to feel fun.
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It should feel fun, it should feel light, it should feel easy, and we're going to build that relationship together.
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And we're going to build that relationship together and we're going to build that voice.
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We're going to find that voice.
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We're going to find that connection together.
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But the only way that that voice becomes authentic and genuine and that's really the heart of it is finding that genuine voice is if you participate in it and you help me with this, because I can be a one-man band, if you want.
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It's just not going to sound like how you actually are.
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Be a one man band, if you want, it's just not going to sound like how you actually are.
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So really, it's just a matter of building a village who's willing to put their genuine voices out on the line, and that can sound vulnerable and scary, but the whole goal is to make it fun and light and easy.
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Yeah, I love that perspective, Zach.
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I so appreciate those insights.
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What I'm really hearing from you, it's something we've all heard before but it's so difficult to master, and that is authenticity.
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That's at the heart of what you're sharing with us today, and also that voice whether it's a brand voice, whether it's a performer's voice, whatever it is we have to understand what our voice is.
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You and I are using our voices, not just physically.
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Of course, we're using our voices in this podcast interview here together today, but we have a tone, we have an energy that we put into the work that we do and how we share that work with the world, and I think it's so important for people to step into that.
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And so, with that in mind, I want to keep going deeper into that authentic voice theme here is that you work with performers.
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Of course, it's easier for performers than the average person to be on the other side of a camera lens or of a microphone.
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They're obviously very comfortable in that setting.
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You've obviously worked with other business owners as well.
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Within the theater space.
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There's people who own theaters.
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There's different collaborative teams that you work with behind the scenes.
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What does that process look like to find that voice?
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Is it something that just you capture what already exists?
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Is there a level of strategy and intentionality behind saying, hey, let's ask some questions, let's figure out what our voice is and what we stand for and what it is that we want to convey.
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Talk to us about the organic versus the strategic and intentional nature of that yeah, I can go into a little bit about that with um, I helped co like rebrand a theatrical publication called theaterly with one of my friends from college.
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Um, it started out as a little radio show when we were both at BU together and has since turned in one of the leading theatrical publications geared towards creating media for the younger generation in New York.
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Um, it's been so incredible to watch Kobe grow that to something that's really sustainable and creates consistently excellent content.
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But as we were rebranding that, we sort of had to ask ourselves who are we trying to reach and why?
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And if we're trying to reach an audience of people who are 25 and under and give their voices legitimacy, how do they want to be talked to?
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It's less how do we want to sound in a way that's going to sound genuine and authentic, because we're still forming this brand.
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Part of what has to influence that is how does our audience want to be talked to?
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How do 16 year olds who live in Iowa want to hear about theater versus a 25 year old who's in the ensemble of Hamilton right now?
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And how do you bridge that gap between them in a way that feels genuine to both of them?
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And that's where you come up with your tone and voice, when you figure out who you're speaking to and how they want to be spoken to in a way that respects them.
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That's sort of a different way of finding authenticity, less than like the talent side of things and more in a how does your audience want to be heard?
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Yeah, which that just speaks volumes to just what good business looks like.
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So often when we have marketing conversations here on the show, a lot of marketers will say, no, it's not about what you want.
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You have to figure out your ideal customer persona and what it is that they want.
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Here I'm hearing the exact same thing from you with regards to your voice and the stories that we tell and in social media strategy.
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So I really appreciate those insights.
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And again I want to stress for listeners is that it's so easy to put the emphasis on ourselves to have all of the answers, but you hear Zach sharing with us here today about the fact that no, think about the people on the other side of it.
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Oftentimes the answers come from them.
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So, zach, I do want to broaden this conversation a little bit, because we hear from listeners all the time and they always want to talk about social media platforms and the very different channels, and, of course, those have changed over the years and they'll continue to change.
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What's your view on that?
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You've worked across so many different social media platforms.
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Do you intentionally think about what you're doing for each platform or is there just overarching?
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How we talk about just good business is good business at the end of the day.
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Are there overarching just good practices that work across all these different platforms?
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uh, I find I have to be very intentional when it comes platform versus platform, because an instagram reel and a tiktok isn't going to work the same way on facebook and on x or on blue sky or whatever other text-based platform that you're going to be on.
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I find being intentional has so much more benefit than just sort of broad blanket like okay, we have this one piece of media and we're going to put it on Facebook and X and Instagram and TikTok and Pinterest and everything I find being intentional about where you're putting things has much more value, even if your client doesn't necessarily see it in that moment.
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I feel like we're speaking in a very auspicious time.
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Just the weekend after TikTok went dark for 19 hours.
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Obviously, the landscape of social media changes so much and I think we're going to start seeing many more platforms like TikTok.
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I think we're going to start seeing many more platforms like TikTok, where rich media and video media are much more highly valued than graphic media, and we're going to see a big shift, I think, in the next couple of years about how we consume media in a visual and an auditory manner.
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Podcasts have obviously exploded in the last few years and TikTok has become a literal beast of its own.
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So it's clear that people want sort of mid to longer form content that speaks to them in ways that are engaging.
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So we're going to I think we're going to start seeing not necessarily the death of Facebook and X and platforms like that, but we're going to have to start seeing them reinvent themselves if they want to stay current.
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Yeah, really well said.
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Actually, hearing you say that, zach, here on the air, it's such an astute observation.
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Obviously you live inside of that world, but it makes me really think about the fact that we went from 10-second Instagram stories, where you couldn't go over 10 seconds, to now even Instagram stories are longer.
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Youtube Shorts, for example now I think they just increased the limit to three minutes.
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Tiktok is up to 10 minutes.
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You're right, it's so funny.
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How these things go in cycles is that we've gone from the super short 10 seconds you know you have to say some sort of gimmicky hook to now let's actually consume real substance, and I so appreciate those insights from you.
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Speaking of that, I want to get into such an incredible part of the substance of your work, and what you do with Neon Lights.
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Digital Media is obviously you're in the spotlight approach as someone from the outside looking in.
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I love how clearly you differentiate.
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These are the different roles and these are the important steps that we have to take inside of.
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Any successful social media campaign is first we must invite, then we must interact, then we must inspire.
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Talk to us about that in the spotlight approach.
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Yeah, so it really is sort of just putting a name to a framework that's been in existence in marketing live theater for a very long time.
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You want to bring people into your space.
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You want to make them feel welcome.
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You want to make someone who's sitting on their phone in Michigan be like they're sitting in the Richard Rogers Theater.
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You want to make them feel welcome in your space, regardless of what kind of content that they're making and viewing.
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Then you want to interact with them.
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You want to make them feel like they're actually a genuine part of the community.
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You want to hear their voices.
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You want to hear their opinions.
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You want to respond to them in the comments.
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You want to make them feel like they were seen.
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I'll never forget when I was in high school or was it college?
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It probably was college and I saw Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 on Broadway and I posted about it on my Instagram story that I was at the show and I got out of the show to the show, responding to me on Instagram through my DMs and resharing it to their stories.
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That, as a 19-year-old, made me feel seen.
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That made me feel heard.
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The fact that they took time out of their day to interact with me made me feel like the most special person in that moment, right now, and that's that feeling that you want to convey to everyone who comes to your page.
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Little did I know I would be working with the woman who was doing that behind the scenes at Marathon Digital just a few years later.
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I really came full circle there.
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And then the last thing is you want to inspire them to talk.
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Nothing sells anything like word of mouth.
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I could read a review all day, every day.
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I love reading them, but nothing is going to get me to go see a show more than when my friend texts me and says, hey, have you seen Sunset Boulevard with Nicole Scherzinger?
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Because that was incredible and I felt moved by seeing that Nothing sells more than word of mouth.
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And you want to inspire people to follow your page.
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You want to inspire people to tag you in things and to shout you out and to spread your page and spread your brands to everyone that they know.
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It's really just putting a name to this kind of process that has been developed already.
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Just looking at it in a different way.
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Yeah, even hearing you talk about that stuff, though, zach, it shows me your inner marketer mind and obviously you have a really strong understanding of the business world, because you're rattling off a few calls to actions, obviously, of things that you, as someone who strategically wants to see the business or your clients or your projects grow.
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You understand the calls to actions that must happen, and I think that all too often we as entrepreneurs, or we as consumers, we think that these things happen by mistake, that it's by mistake that people start telling about their friends, about something, or it's by mistake that someone leaves reviews.
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Talk to me about those calls to actions, whether they are overt and you say you know, hit the like page, us podcasters and YouTubers, we're the worst at it.
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We're always just like make sure you pound that subscribe button, and we're completely shameless when it comes to saying those things.
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But talk to me about those overt calls to actions versus just creating that organic environment where these things happen.
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Is it a blend of the two?
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Are you even more strategic and intentional about it and they're more overt?
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I'd love to hear some insights there.
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Yeah, it's such a mix and I find that when you're marketing stuff like live entertainment, you have to be a little more selective, because you don't want to necessarily come across as like begging for people to come and you don't want to seem desperate for people to come because you have an empty theater, but you want to organically kind of create that space where people are just genuinely going.
