The Uber Of Advertising? This Company Is Helping Democratize The Industry

Benzinga

Robert Steele, CEO of Thumzup Media Corporation TZUP, was recently a guest on Benzinga's All-Access. Thumzup offers people the ability to get paid to post about their favorite products on social media. By connecting brands to consumers through trusted friends, Thumzup has created a way to bypass the traditional model, allowing anyone to earn. Mr. Steele spoke about his "flywheel" approach to marketing the platform. After a successful launch in Los Angeles, the company is launching in Miami.

Transcript

00:00And it is my pleasure to welcome in the CEO of Thumbs Up Media Corporation, Robert Steele.

00:09Great to be with you today, Robert.

00:11Hey, Dan.

00:12Thanks for having me on.

00:13Hey, the pleasure and honor is all mine.

00:15Listen, Robert, let's talk about your fascinating company, Thumbs Up.

00:19Give us an overview of it.

00:20Sure.

00:21Well, we think of Thumbs Up as Uber for advertising.

00:25So similar to how Uber created tens of billions of dollars in value by democratizing ride

00:29sharing, meaning using technology and building a community to open up an industry so everybody

00:34could participate and get paid.

00:36We believe we're in the process of doing that with the $200 billion social media marketing

00:40and advertising industry.

00:41And the way I explain it to my mother is I say that Thumbs Up is the only platform that

00:45we know of that makes it really easy for any brand or business to pay people cash to post

00:51about the brand or business to their friends on their personal social media.

00:56I love it.

00:57You mentioned, you know, that you're democratizing the multibillion dollar social media branding

01:01and marketing industry.

01:02Let's kind of dive into more how you're going to do that.

01:05Yeah.

01:06So, for instance, we have Meta was just talked about on the piece before I appeared.

01:14And so Meta, you know, trillion dollar company plus has eight million advertisers.

01:19OK, so most of their advertisers are small businesses.

01:22So in the beginning for Thumbs Up, that's what we're really focused on.

01:25We're really focused on our solution for small businesses that makes it really easy

01:30for them to get new customers.

01:32Nielsen says that 92 percent of people trust recommendations from friends and family above

01:36advertising.

01:38So if digital advertising like Meta is a 200 billion dollar space, how big is the space,

01:43the market for scalable recommendations from friends and family?

01:46So we launched in January of 2023 in Venice, California, similar to Uber.

01:52We got market dominance in a small area.

01:55Hundreds of advertisers in a small area demonstrated the flywheel effect that people learn about

02:00Thumbs Up, tell their friends, the advertisers, neighbors, sign up.

02:05Now we're launching it in Miami.

02:07So similar to Uber, we'll do a city by city strategy could be in five cities or more,

02:12you know, by the summer.

02:13You got to love that buzzy word about that really makes a huge difference in what kind

02:17of growth have you seen in your users, Robert?

02:20Yeah.

02:21We really track advertiser growth is what we are keeping our investors and followers

02:28actively following with us.

02:31So we recently put out a PR that advertisers had more than doubled in 10 months ending

02:38October 31st.

02:40So we also put out a PR that people can expect that advertiser growth could go 10x from here

02:46over the next year.

02:48And then what we see with users is that users follow the advertisers.

02:52So in Los Angeles, within an hour of us adding a new advertiser to Thumbs Up in Los Angeles,

02:58a Thumbs Up user comes by and posts about that advertiser.

03:02So with our business model, it's really about advertiser acquisition, advertiser growth,

03:07and the users follow that.

03:08I love that.

03:09Let's talk about the effectiveness of brand campaigns and has this increased for you guys

03:13over time as you fine tune the platform?

03:18Yeah.

03:19So we're really excited about the fact that the Harley-Davidson dealership in Venice,

03:24California is a happy customer.

03:26They've bought the service and renewed several times.

03:28So the CEO has an interview on our website where he talks about how they use Thumbs Up

03:34to have the most attendance that they'd ever had in their 40-year history at Venice.

03:40And that was a $650 ad spend to give a Harley-Davidson dealership the most attendance they ever had.

03:46We have other advertisers that have told us that the Thumbs Up's paid for itself within

03:49the first two weeks.

03:51We have another advertiser that says that their sales grew 40% for the five months after

03:55they started using Thumbs Up versus the prior five months.

03:58That's pretty exciting.

03:59Listen, something else that's exciting, it's happening all over the place, you know, Bitcoin.

04:03Your board just approved Bitcoin as a treasury asset.

04:06How much do you plan to add to the books?

04:08Well, the main thing that's going on there is that we are growing.

04:13We're a gig economy company, okay?

04:15We believe that there is a trend where people don't want to have traditional office jobs.

04:20They want to have multiple forms of income, and we fit right into that.

04:24So one of the multiple forms of income that Thumbs Up provides is in Los Angeles and Miami

04:29right now, you can be paid $100 to sign up new advertisers on Thumbs Up.

04:35And we have people that we have one rep who's made more than $20,000 in the last 90 days.

04:41Anybody listening that's interested in that, email us at ASP at ThumbsUpMedia.com.

04:45So that's the first community that's going to get paid in Bitcoin is our gig economy

04:51sales force.

04:52I'm already emailing you right now about that, by the way.

04:55Tell us more, Robert, about the recent integration with Instagram, Reels, and I know you also

04:59have a planned strategic integration with Axe Formula Notice Twitter as well.

05:03Absolutely.

05:04Yeah, we're super excited about that.

05:06So anybody can just search hashtag Thumbs Up on Google and see more than 25,000 Instagram

05:13posts that have been made through Thumbs Up.

05:15And over the last couple of weeks, you're going to start seeing Reels videos.

05:19So for instance, one popped up yesterday at Dulcinero Gelato here in Santa Monica, and

05:25it's a great, exciting video that shows, you know, who doesn't like a gelato?

05:31So it's a great video of one of our advertisers that shows the tasty treats, and just the

05:39video pops far more than photos.

05:43So we're very excited about that.

05:44We get higher engagement from the Reels feature.

05:48And then on the TwitterX integration, so I'm pretty sure Joe Rogan, who may be the leading

05:55podcaster in the world, recently said that TwitterX is the way that the world is getting

06:01their news right now.

06:02So I think there's a transformation taking place, and we want to be, you know, right

06:06on top of that transformation.

06:08So we announced we're very close to being able to have advertisers pay people to post

06:14not only on Instagram's posts and Reels, but should be on TwitterX coming up real shortly.

06:21That's fantastic news.

06:22And now I'm very hungry for gelato.

06:23I wanted to ask you about the biggest shifts you're seeing in consumer engagement that,

06:28you know, are going on with Thumbs Up.

06:30Yes, well, we really think that authenticity is very, very important.

06:34So people are, they're tuning out advertising that's too slick, that's too polished.

06:39And we believe that Thumbs Up makes that scalable for small businesses and for major brands

06:45that they can leverage the authenticity.

06:47So when you tell your friends that you like a product or a service or a brand, that is

06:52the most powerful form of advertising there is.

06:54But without Thumbs Up, there's no easy way for a brand to scale that the way they can

06:58scale Facebook ads or whatnot.

07:01So we think we're capitalizing on that trend where people are tuning out highly polished,

07:07traditional advertising, and they want to rely more on what their friends are recommending.

07:12That's absolutely fascinating stuff.

07:14Big times ahead for you guys.

07:16I know at Thumbs Up, you know, Media Corporation, it was an absolute pleasure talking with you

07:20today, Robert.

07:21Thank you so much for your time.

07:22Thanks, Dan.

07:23Thanks, Dan.

Category

Transcript

Recommended