Transcript, E130: Building an online community with Kevin Fredericks

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For more on this episode of?Hello Monday,?check out this article on our second Creators episode and leave your thoughts in the comments.

This episode of Hello Monday, "Creators: Building an online community with Kevin Fredericks," was first released on October 4, 2021.

Jessi Hempel: From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jessi Hempel, and this is Hello Monday. Welcome to episode two of the Creator series. We're talking to people who have used social media as tools to build online community and have made a career out of it. You know, there's this notion that creators get famous instantly. That TikTok video goes viral, and the next thing you know, you're a millionaire. But, that's not how it happens.

Kevin Fredricks: I built this slowly, and it took a long time.

Jessi Hempel: That's Kevin Fredericks, AKA "KevOnStage." He's an actor and a comedian. Kevin started posting his comedy videos when he was really bored at his day job, a decade ago. Over time, he built up his following through viral videos on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and more lately TikTok. A few years ago he launched The Real Comedians Of Social Media Tour, which I mean, just the name alone would tell you this: it sold out in cities across the U.S. Then he launched kevonstage.com. It's the best place to buy merch, support him on Patreon, find tour dates and discover other Black comedians. Think of it like a- a very niche Netflix for comedians of color. With all these multiple revenue streams KevOnStage is the definition of a successful creator, and he has the Maserati to prove it. This approach has taken persistence, patience and business acumen. Today, Michaela Greer's gonna talk to him about how he's building his business and what advice he has for other creators. And stick around after their conversation because Michaela and I will break it down for you. To begin Michaela asked KevOnStage how he got started.

Kevin Fredricks: For me, I don't know if I had like a one thing is the goal. I just liked doing stand-up comedy, and whatever I do, I wanna do the best I can be at it. And I think because I hated my job. I hated working at the company. I will leave the name out. (Michaela laughs) This was like the thing that I had to look forward to. So I had, uh, my videos that I made during the day, often on my lunch break from the company or maybe I walked away from my desk and made a video and came back. It's possible. No one knows. But, I just really enjoyed the building process. And I still am like that. Like TikTok, I am having the most fun on because all my other platforms, the growth is very slow. Now, like I've got 2.6 [million] on Facebook, but it's been over 2 million for a while. I've been at 1.2 million on Instagram, YouTube. You know, they're all like growing but at a snail's pace. TikTok is a new challenge for me. So the same fervor that I had early on YouTube or Instagram or stand-up comedy, I'm doing that now. I have not had in my history one video that is like, "This is the one. Now you're the guy." I've had a lot of videos that people liked and some got more attention than the others. But it wasn't like, you know, some TikTokers, especially of certain hues, you know, four dances in and you're on Jimmy Fallon....

Michaela Greer: Yeah. (laughs)

Kevin Fredricks: ...And, uh, Jimmy Fallon ain't hit me up. Jimmy John's I have been to plenty of times. (laughter) They have great bread there.

Michaela Greer: We're calling you out, Jimmy Fallon. Get him on now. (laughter)

Kevin Fredricks: Get me on Jimmy Fallon, (laughter) I love you.

Michaela Greer: Well, what does success even look like for you? Would you consider yourself successful?

Kevin Fredricks: So I feel like success is to me, is creating opportunities for others as opposed to a dollar amount or, you know, being on Sunset Boulevard or Times Square. And of course I have a- an ego that's large, and I definitely want to be on, you know, Times Square. And I will fly to New York, take a picture of myself if I ever get on there. (laughter) But giving somebody like Keysha E., who's a comedian that I met during the pandemic, giving her an opportunity to spread her comedy through Keep Your Distance, and then developing a show for her on the KevOnStage Studios app, that's more success to me than say a Maserati that I do have. I do have that, (Michaela laughs) but...

Michaela Greer: just throwing that in there.

Kevin Fredricks: ...I just wanna bring that up as many interviews as possible. (laughter)

Michaela Greer: I wanted to also talk about the app, of course though, and you mentioned that it's to give other comedians and other producers and directors opportunities. Was that your kind of way of making a table instead of being invited to the table?

Kevin Fredricks: Absolutely. Absolutely. That was from a disgruntled actor who wasn't getting auditioned, wasn't, you know, pitching stuff, and like I'll give you a specific example. I was pitching a show about a church that's in development now for my app. Like I literally was working on the script this morning. And I had a executive tell me that nobody's gonna get this. Nobody's gone through this. And I was like, "Dude, this was literally my life for 30 years. There's so many people in my community who have got this, who will get this." And it's like, how do I explain that to somebody who's never experienced and won't experience it? It's like I didn't grow up Catholic, so I wouldn't necessarily understand the inner workings of the Catholic Church. But I could still watch a show about it. I could still learn about it. And I think that's what the app is for me. It's the opportunity to tell stories that I want, that people who look like me want to tell and want to see, without somebody else telling us nobody will get that. You know, there's a show called, I believe it's The Rez or The Reservation, coming out on FX. [Editors: The show, airing on Hulu, is called Reservation Dogs.] And it's about Native American kids growing up on a- a reservation. Not an experience I had, but I like good stories...

Michaela Greer: Right.

Kevin Fredricks: ...And you want to be transformed and transported into a different world. We don't have to automatically know about it. The show's responsibility is to teach you. So yes, it's about creating a table for myself, for my friends and for people like me. You know, and kinda in that order. I can make the easiest deals with my friends. Other people, you got to negotiate lawyers and things like that. But I still, I press on.

Michaela Greer: When live performance venues closed during the pandemic, Kevin had to find new ways to reach his audience. So in the summer of 2020, he'd launched Keep Your Distance Comedy. Twice a month, a group of Kevin's handpicked comedians performed live in front of a small audience of COVID-tested fans, while the show was also simultaneously streamed. If you bought a ticket for the stream, you had two days to watch the event as many times as you wished. Here's how the idea came to be.

Kevin Fredricks: As the guidelines where we're relaxing a little bit and we actually had ... 'Cause remember, in the beginning, we didn't even have access to coronavirus tests, like if you weren't at the hospital. So once testing became available, I was like, "OK so, what could we do if we could test the audience or the crew?" And 'cause for me as a comedian, I personally, this is not all comedians, this is just me, I didn't wanna do Zoom comedy because the reaction time isn't real time. It's not as real time as if we're in person...

Michaela Greer: Right.

Kevin Fredricks:...If I'm bombing, I need to know immediately. (laughter) So (laughs) with Keep Your Distance, I thought if I had a small audience that was socially distanced and coronavirus tested, it'd be like when I first started doing comedy when it would be 10 or 15 people in the audience. That's better than, you know, Zoom because at least I get real time reactions. And then if I shot that and streamed it, I could give it to all these people who are sitting at home as well. And while we were setting it up, I kid you not, Dave Chappelle released his version of that. And my- my business partner was like, "got dang it." (laughs) "Now people are gonna think we stole it," and I was like, "No, now we have an example of say, this is what it's gonna be like.”

Michaela Greer: Right.

Kevin Fredricks: "You saw Dave Chapelle's this on Instagram? This is what we're gonna do, but you're gonna see six or seven comedians." And that came from my desire to do stand up, missing the stage, obviously to recoup some, you know, income from a tour and it was great while it lasted. And then, you know, guidelines relaxed and people went, you know, outside more and more. So it was less and less lucrative. But for me it wasn't about like being a cash cow. It was about being able to do what I loved and entertain people who also couldn't go out, you know, and get any entertainment. And it introduced a lot of comedians to a lot of people. There was so many good comedians that you don't get to see because you gotta go out and watch them when they come to your club and your city, or the club's not booking them because they're not big. But now, you found, if you watched every episode... I actually literally have a plaque there. We put up 100 different comedians in a year, independently, a hundred...

Michaela Greer: That's a lot. (laughs)

Kevin Fredricks: ...I didn't even know that many comedians. (laughter) Like luckily other comedians were introducing me to people, but I knew probably about 60 or 70. But I didn't know 100. So that kind of was a part of my core mission to support other people and give other people opportunities. And also part of my desire to- to do stand up, which I also love.

Michaela Greer: And then how do you kind of split your time? How do you say, "I'm gonna spend maybe 50% of my time on TikTok, and then the other part of my time on Twitter." How are you splitting your time? How are you thinking about that?

Kevin Fredricks: Michaela, let me tell you what. You're asking questions ain't nobody ever asked me before. My process is, for the longest, Twitter has been the source of most of my material. It moves the fastest. It's usually the leader of conversation, things like that. So I'm on Twitter the most looking for something to talk about. I do have people sending me videos, but I don't check my DMs that often. Uh, but the video I did today was actually from a DM request. But I usually make a video in one platform and just post it in other platforms. So right now, like I was telling you, I'm trying to grow my TikTok to the point where I can get paid from it. Um, and TikTok is leading a lot of short-form content. Even the way TikTok videos are made. And TikTok has a lot of interesting editing software in- within the platform. And I'm enjoying creating in a different way. Similar type of videos but just editing them different.

So right now, because vertical video is usually, uh, dominant, I'll make it in TikTok, post it on TikTok, post it on Twitter, post it on Instagram, post it on Facebook, post it on YouTube. The drawback is YouTube is a horizontal. So I do see a little bit less growth sometimes, but I don't have the desire to make one video for five platforms, and then special one for the sixth. So for the longest, this- I was doing side-by-side videos. and that fit on everything but TikTok. I've noticed that on TikTok, if it's not, uh, horizontal, it just does less. So, I'm OK with YouTube growing slowly because I do podcasts and I have been on a YouTube a long time, and they do well sometimes. But TikTok is at the forefront of video right now. There's so many different things that are starting on TikTok or, you know, memes that come from TikTok. So I make that with that in mind first, but because I'm so busy, I- I just post that same video everywhere.

Michaela Greer: You're kind of doing a lot of things. I mean, you're talking about editing video. You're talking about doing the audio for your podcasts. Did you get training in this?

Kevin Fredricks: You know what my training was?

Michaela Greer: From doing stand up? (laughs) Yes!

Kevin Fredricks: When I worked at the company, I never did any work. (laughter) I literally sat on YouTube all day long, and that was literally digi- digital-media college. And then I worked at, um, All Def, a media company, for four years, and that was kinda like graduate college. Uh, but most of this, not even most, all the editing I've learned has been trial and error. Luckily for me, and you know all of us, places like YouTube, they are- it's like free school. You can literally learn how to shoot, edit anything. TikTok, video, green-screen effect, all on YouTube. What TikTok is great at is they'll give you a green-screen effect without even having a green screen, you know? So it's made all these things easy. For like four years, I made almost all my videos in my car while driving to work. And I shouldn't say this, but by the grace of God I never crashed. I used to edit while I was in traffic...

Michaela Greer: Oh my God.

Kevin Fredricks: ...And while I'm walking to work, I would put the final touches on it, post it before I got in and then work all day. And then usually on the way home, I would make another video. But man, it's one-man band now.

Michaela Greer: I wanna know what your goals are next because we're looking at you as- as fans. We've, if you've been here for a long time, we've watched you kind of grow. And, um, you've gone from YouTube videos to doing, you know, social media. You got honored by the NAACP, and you may have, maybe, possibly met Will Smith at one point in time. (laughter)

Kevin Fredricks: I did. I haven't posted that picture in a while, but I should remind people. It's been at least six months since I posted it. I didn't post it this year, but I should remind people.

Jessi Hempel: We're gonna take a quick break here, so stick around.?

(Ad break)

And we're back. At the end of our conversation with comedian, Kevin Fredericks, Michaela asked what he's doing next.

Kevin Fredricks: The thing I'm most excited about is the KevOnStage Studios app because this is higher production value. This is shows in the sense of, I use air quotes, "20 to 30 minutes, 45 minutes." And it's the thing that I'm working the hardest on and the most excited about. My hope is to grow the app and simultaneously license shows to bigger players that can finance the app. That way I don't... 'cause let's be honest, Michaela. We- we've been following each other...

Michaela Greer: We- yeah. We're good. (laughs)

Kevin Fredricks: ...Netflix has 200 million subscribers globally. Disney has 80-90 million, I think at the time. That was before, low-key. It's gonna take me a while to get there, but also I don't have to have that many, uh, subscribers to be successful. So, my hope is to make content for people of color that we can be proud of. That we know we were first in mind when this was made, right? You're a Black woman. You have Black hair. When you go to a place to get your haircare products. Target, for example. At best, if they have anything for you, it's one, maybe, section of the rest of the aisle. Ethnic section here, four rows down, you better hope it's there. But, you know if you go to Sally's Beauty Supply or your- your- your Black-owned beauty supply in your city, the whole store is for you and people like you. And that's KevOnStage Studios. It doesn't have to be as big as Walmart or Target. It's just that the people who need these products know, Hey, if you wanna go get a rat tail comb, they don't got that at Walmart. If you want Just For Me, Keisha got a beauty supply store over on 67th. You got to go over there 'cause she got the lace front. The- the real glue. The just- the Just To Be glue. They don't sell that at Target. They don't know what that is, but Keysha and them know. That's what KevOnStage Studios is. It's Keysha's Beauty Supply Store. Come over here, get that 'cause we know what you need and we got it in bulk. And that's our goal is we can't serve everybody, but we're gonna overserve these people who've been historically underserved. Ooh, I sound like a CEO. Didn't I sound like I said it before?

Michaela Greer: Yeah, you just... I'm ready to invest. If someone is listening right now and they're saying, you know, I wanna be a creator on Instagram, or I wanna do my own thing. What advice would you give to them, um, before they give this a try?

Kevin Fredricks: I'd say, have your own opinion, have your own perspective, make it, post it. Most people don't even try. They never make it. They never post it. It's never been easier to make and distribute content. I built this slowly, and it took a long time. Be open to having to do certain things by yourself and then having to have a team to help you get to the next level. I was reluctant to do that because it was new to me. But I can't build the KevOnStage Studios app by myself, which means I have to let go of some control, some thoughts, whatever. Let other people make mistakes 'cause I make mistakes and that's necessary. So you will have to change and adjust to achieve your goals. There's an old cliche that says, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." And that's where... I- I mean, I went slow, alone too but still...

Michaela Greer: You got steam now.

Kevin Fredricks: ...To go far, you know the- the point was the alone, together. Not the fast thing. 'Cause, you know what I'm saying? I was, you know, you get it, Michaela.

Jessi Hempel: That was KevOnStage. You can check out his videos on his website, kevonstage.com. And, I wanna bring back Michaela. Hey Michaela.

Michaela Greer: Hi Jessi, how's it going?

Jessi Hempel: That was a great conversation. How did you discover KevOnStage?

Michaela Greer: I believe this goes back two summers ago when I would come to visit my friends in the U.S. And, um, that was around the time that GloZell, another comedian was blowing up, and we would just sit down after we'd finished our summer work and check out comedians on YouTube. And I just loved him because as not only a Black person growing up, but a Black person who went to church, he really got what I was going through. Like sitting in the pew thinking, "Man, is this service ever gonna end?" And he made fun of that. I just grew to love him, and I'm following him ever since.

Jessi Hempel: Yeah, this interview was so lovely, and there was so much of it that we couldn't include it all, but at one point you actually talked to him about being a person of faith and including that in his comedy. I was curious, is that the original reason you were drawn to him?

Michaela Greer:It was. I mean, in the world of comedy, there are so many topics, but it seems like a lot of comedians focus on a- a few. You know, sex and drugs and partying and everything else, and I just loved that I had this wholesome person that I could follow that I also found funny, like genuinely funny.

Jessi Hempel: I think the thing that I think is remarkable about KevOnStage is that he is just completely, authentically himself. He doesn't back into any particular trope that I might be used to hearing. He just embraces his authentic self and because he has used the Internet to find his audience, he has managed to connect to people like you, who probably never would have discovered him off of the Internet, right?

Michaela Greer: Exactly. I think at that time, YouTube was such a big thing, and now we have all these other different social media apps. But I would never have found him at, you know, wherever he was performing live 'cause I just wasn't there. Now we have more ways that all of this... You can find these creators in so many different avenues. Love it.

Jessi Hempel: His career is a great example of what it means to build a following over time. And he's also been very smart about diversifying his platforms. You know, he has YouTube, that's where you found him first, but he's also on TikTok and Facebook and Instagram. And that feels important, right? Why is that so important?

Michaela Greer: I think that's so important because even just putting him side by side with the conversation we had with Amanda last week, if Instagram goes away, Amanda needs a new channel, point blank. If Instagram goes away, Kevin has Twitter. He has Facebook. He has YouTube. He has all these different avenues that he can still get his message across, and he doesn't have to start from scratch, building that following from scratch. So it's a really smart play.

Jessi Hempel: I thought so too. There's one other thing he says that I thought was very pertinent to building a successful community and a business off of that community, and that is, he made the point that size isn't the important part. He says that you don't need a lot of subscribers to be successful, you need the right ones. And I think in social, in particular, there's always a race to come up with more and more followers instead of focusing on what is perhaps more valuable, right?

Michaela Greer:Exactly. The part where he spoke about his family and even though this is... He's a creator and he does this for a living, and he's really good at it. And what stuck out to me was that he was concerned with his children still wanting to come home for Thanksgiving after they'd grown up because they- they didn't, they weren't exposed to, you know, "My dad is away and I- I don't get to see him," or "I just really disliked that he included me in this bit that he did." I love that he made that decision. And I think as creators, it's so important to kind of decide what is it that- what is your cost, and what is too much for you to pay. And I think he's made that distinction, and as a creator, it's important to know what your cost is and your boundaries, so you don't ever, you know, regret the decisions and can't look at yourself in the mirror.

Jessi Hempel: He's certainly a very thoughtful and successful example of what it means to be a creator. Thanks for joining us. This week on Office Hours we're gonna talk about how to build audiences on different platforms. KevOnStage has been smart about it, and we think you should be too. So come join us. We'll go live from the LinkedIn News page at 3 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. You can find us on the LinkedIn News page again, or you can email us for a link at [email protected].

Michaela Greer:And next week, be sure to join us for our third episode of our four-part creator series. We'll talk to husband and wife team, Fabiana and Matthew Ferriani, who launched a fully digital platform at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

Jessi Hempel: And Michaela, let me guess, (laughs) you learned about these folks too because you found them online. You probably work out with them.

Michaela Greer:Guilty as charged. I'm a queen warrior. (laughter)

Jessi Hempel: We learned so much this past year about all the things that we can do virtually that we hadn't really thought we could do virtually before.

Michaela Greer: Like enjoying exercise from home in the middle of a pandemic. (laughter)

Jessi Hempel: Well actually, we can't have other people do the exercise for us, virtually. I so wish we could, but we can certainly get them to get us to exercise virtually.

Michaela Greer: Exactly.

Jessi Hempel: If you're a longtime listener, you'll notice this is an experimental episode for us. It's a new format, so is it working? What do you like about it? What can we change? Help us figure it out. Email us at [email protected] and as usual, please rate us on Apple Podcasts. It really helps new listeners find Hello Monday.

Michaela Greer: Hello Monday is a production of LinkedIn. The show is produced by Sarah Storm and Taisha Henry. Joe DiGiorgi mixed our show. Florencia Iriondo is head of original audio and video. Dave Pond is our technical director. Victoria Taylor and Gianna Prudente are master creators. Our music was composed for us by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. This series is a special brainchild of me. It's pretty dear to me. Dan Roth is the editor-in-chief of LinkedIn.

Jessi Hempel: I'm Jessi Hempel. That's Michaela Greer. We're back next Monday. Thanks for listening.

Kevin Fredricks: We all make mistakes. I was supposed to be eating right and working out every day for 90 days. (laughter) On the third day I went to TGI Friday's. Do they have anything healthy there, Michaela? You know they don't. Well I'm up in there anyway because I like sesame jack chicken strips. (laughter)

Michaela Greer: They- they have good food. They got me with the- the chicken sizzling, whatever they call it. (laughter)

Kevin Fredricks: That is good.