I was a community builder first before I was a creator. I'm not a creator who then happened to build a community. How does a community start?
If you wanna be someone who runs or leads a community, you have to love your community and be really in it. But I'm interested in the ways that you make money.
Going from 55K that first year to then 105K, it was like, that's how you know you've made it. Which platform has proved more profitable to you in terms of, like, revenue, in terms of, like, expanding your audience?
Which one do you find to be more successful in that way? Ooh. So... Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast. My name is Francis Zierer. And my name is Natalia Perez Gonzalez.
And today we are speaking with Tiffany Yu, a creator, the founder of Diversability, which is a 16-year-old community and social enterprise elevating disability pride, and the author of 2024 book, The Anti-Ableist Manifesto.
So Tiffany, we talk a lot about community on this show, and how it's something that brands try to do, try to create, and often fail. Uh, we love to speak with creators who have done so really successfully.
As we record this, this week, um, on the podcast we had Melanie Ehrenkranz, who has this amazing community, Laid Off. She's done that really well.
Um, you have done this successfully many times over your life and career, so I wanna know how you build that. But first I would like to ask how you define really what a community is.
W- how do you define what a successful community is generally? Yeah. So I use the definition from Tatiana Figueiredo, who...
I think her community is now called Friendly Nooks, but it used to be called The Business of Community, and is a community for people- [laughs]... who run communities. We all need community. Mm-hmm. All the way down.
And, and the definition that she uses is that a community is a group of people who come together to support their own growth and each other's growth. And one thing I wanna highlight is that...
And all of this I've learned through Tatiana, so maybe she's a good person if you wanna dive into community. She could be a good future guest.
But it's not just having the community that matters, it's the connection that happens in the community that is what is, what creates belonging. Mm-hmm.
And there are a couple of factors that actually create belonging within communities, and she talks about how community happens in a big group setting, in a small group setting, and in one-to-one.
So I think oftentimes we just think about community as this- Mm... you know, "Oh, you're part of this now."
But if you're not having interactions on those three different levels, then you're not actually creating the type of connection that you want out of that community.
But I will also caveat to say I was a community builder first before I was a creator. I'm not a creator- Mm... who then happened to build a community, although I feel like
being a creator has helped grow the community in some ways. Hm. Definitely. How do you, how does a community start, like a thriving one that is this bigger group setting?
Like, what is the, like, the seed in the water, I guess, 'cause it's not just the seed, it's the water, right? Yeah. How does a community start? Ooh, such a good question.
I will take a step back and say that not everyone is going to be a good community person. Uh, you can be a member of c- of a community, but you may not be the best person to run it. Hm.
Uh, if you wanna be someone who runs or leads a community, you have to love your community and be really in it. Mm-hmm. Uh, what, what helps a community thrive? Great question. I think,
I think I'll come back to the different factors that create belonging within a community, and one of them is that you feel aligned with the community's goal and purpose. Mm-hmm.
You feel like it's contributing to your own growth. You feel like you have meaningful connections one-on-one with other people in the community.
And then there's a fourth one that is escaping me, but if it comes back, I'll, I'll [laughs], I'll- We'll be on it for a while... mention it. But, but I think for me,
it starts with one person who really cares so deeply about what they wanna build that community around. And I love seeing, you know, I kind of look at
not only creator-driven communities, but even celebrity-driven ones, where they'll, they'll name their communities a certain way, right?
And so people now feel an affinity with it, and there's a culture behind that community as well. Mm-hmm. Beyhive, Swifties, et cetera.
I guess, uh, we should talk about, about Diversability then, and, and what this is, before we go back into this more abstract conversation about what is a community, et cetera. So what is Diversability?
Diversability has had a couple inter- iterations over the years. You mentioned we are celebrating our 16th year this year. But when we first started in 2009... And generally, our mission hasn't changed. Mm.
So in 2009, the idea was can we create a movement around disability pride? But rewind back to 2009, we were actually Georgetown University's first ever disability student club, and that was where I went to school.
[laughs] Uh, I went to Georgetown. And over the years, in 2014, we kind of grew out of Georgetown into can we be a group for young professionals for disabled people to find each other?
And so ultimately what is Diversability is we're a community. We also have a membership part of our community as well that's focused on elevating disability pride.
I like to tell people you can be aware of disability but still devalue us, and so pride kinda takes it to the next level to say, I don't wanna feel shame about who I am.
I wanna explore what it looks like to take ownership and acceptance of all parts of my identity. We're also focused on advancing disability leadership and building disability power.
But at a baseline level-I think similar to many communities, we're looking to end the cycle of so-social isolation for disabled people, who I would argue are probably one of the most socially isolated and excluded groups there are.
Yeah. So in terms of the size of the community, you said that there is this more-- this, this paid version and then the broader one that you don't have to pay to be a part of.
What are the sizes of each of those two groups? Yeah. So I look at our, like, overall digital ecosystem, and that's about eighty thousand. But keep in mind, we're very disability-centered, right? Mm-hmm.
So these are eighty thousand people across our platforms who decided to opt into wanting to show up better for the disability community or looking for a community themselves.
Then the second tier is kind of like a Facebook group. Uh, but that Facebook group, we do no marketing for it, and it grows about twenty to thirty, uh, requests every week. Mm.
And right now, I think we're about seventy-four hundred, and then our paid membership community, which has a sliding scale, but, uh, currently the publicly listed price is around seventy dollars a month.
That is more a curated support for people who really wanna take their advocacy to the next level.
And we usually oscillate between, like, one twen- uh, one twenty to two hundred, uh, within that group at any, any one point in time. Tiffany, how did you arrive at the, like, pricing model that you currently have?
Especially, like, how did-- what-- how did you arrive at their price? What does it provide for your members, each tier of pricing of your membership?
When we launched the Diversability Leadership Collective, I was like, "If we get thirty members, I feel like that feels like a success."
And even if I rewind back to two thousand nine, I said, "If we get thirty members in our club, I feel like that's a success."
And in twenty fourteen, I had already graduated Georgetown at that time, but I think our email list serv was around four hundred by the time-- uh, and this is specifically at Georgetown, by the time we kind of, uh, grew, grew to be, uh, outside of the, the college university ecosystem.
So we started at twenty, and then we essentially just started pressure testing our pricing to say, "Okay, will we still have paying members if we increase it to thirty-five? What about forty-nine? What about fifty-nine?"
And now I think it's, like, sixty-eight, but we can round it up to seventy. And, and I think there's some,
I think, research that has been done around having a price that isn't, doesn't end in a five or a zero, uh, that makes people think that, I don't know, a sixty-eight sounds different than a seventy.
[chuckles] But, but what we're offering, so essentially we, uh, we host programming every single week, and we're always curating visibility and paid opportunities for our community members.
So essentially for people who wanna join the Diversability Leadership Collective, we measure our success on if people are getting paid. Mm. And payment can come in a lot of different ways.
I'm a big fan of diversifying your income, so I remember, and I even shared this on LinkedIn, I used to take a lot of surveys. And one time, I made forty-five hundred dollars just in taking surveys.
Uh, [chuckles] and what I really liked about the survey platform I was using was that you could submit your responses using video, audio, or text.
So it was also accessible depending-- 'cause I'm not the type of person where, you know, if you go into a survey and then it has, like, all, like, so many multiple choice questions, and then you have to...
Anyway, so, uh, so yeah, so it could be surveys, it could be, uh, um, speaking opportunities. But essentially we want people to be able to take their advocacy to the next level.
So the type of programming that we're hosting every single week can range from community mixers, that's where you're being able to learn more about the other members in the group, to also more leadership and, and, uh, professional development type.
So we have invited people to come talk, talk about, uh, getting started on TikTok.
We've invited people to come, uh, and I know this is a creator, uh, podcast, we've, uh, about, uh, getting paid, uh, getting paid to be a creator and how to figure out brand partnerships and how to approach those.
Um, and so what's interesting is people may come to me, Tiffany, to say, "Hey, uh, I have this brand. I'm looking for this. I'm looking for a spec-..."
Or, "I have a brand," um, or, "I'm a company, and I'm looking for a speaker or a creator who has this specific type of disability lived experience."
And if that's not my own, now I have an entire community that I can tap into.
Uh, and I will share that sometimes, uh, Diversability will also take a commission if, if the pay is, is high enough, we're kind of bringing the opportunity to our member.
But we've been able to help our members get, I think, almost forty thousand dollars in paid opportunities since we launched in twenty twenty-one. So, uh, I don't know, if we average that out, that's about 10K a year.
I know it's not a lot, but depending on who you are. I will share Diversability started at Georgetown with a five hundred dollar grant. Mm. And, you know, I, uh, we're sharing opportunities in our group.
I think one recently was around two hundred and fifty. We've had ones around twelve thousand. So you just never know where people's budgets are. And what I like to tell people is,
as a creator myself, I never-- not never, I usually just don't wanna say, "No, I can't do this because, you know, the budget doesn't work with, with who I am."
I wanna say, "Hey, unfortunately doesn't-- this doesn't work for me, but here we have this group of emerging creators that we can suggest people who would be really excited to take this on at this price point or would really appreciate this level of visibility."
But I will also highlight, you know, we always put an asterisk in everything to say, "Exposure doesn't pay our bills." Mm.
But depending where you are in your journey, uh, for me specifically as a speaker and maybe even as a creator too, I did a lot of, like, giftings or volunteer pro bono or low bono opportunities, which then led me to pressure test my pricing both as a creator and a speaker at, in that way.I've never heard the term low bono.
Um- [laughs] But okay, you said, you said when you started in 2021, is that then when you started with this cer- this particular paid model? What's, what was the- Yeah. So- Okay, yeah.
So yeah, so 2021 was the paid model.
We launched our virtual Facebook group community in around 2015 because when we first started, I'm a big fan of being able to meet people in real life, whether that's virtually or in person, and at the time, we were doing a lot in person.
And we just didn't have a space for people who wanted to continue the conversation after these in-person events. So I just said, "You know what?
I'll just create this Facebook group where we'll invite everyone, uh, through the Eventbrite or whatever the platform we chose, to this if they wanna continue the conversation and connect with each other."
And then we didn't go all in on the virtual community on that Facebook group until around 2020 timeframe. You were...
In, in going back to, like, our conversation about community for one second, you were talking a lot about, um, what it takes to sustain a community.
And I'm curious, this community started in real life, and you're mentioning, like, transferring it to online.
What were elements of the real life community that you're like, "I have to make sure to retain to make a sustainable, enriching online community"? Ooh. That's a good question.
I guess what I'll share, and I know this isn't a direct answer to your question, but one thing I always think about is, are the community members...
Like, sustainability, are, i- are we building a culture of reciprocity where the entire success of the community isn't necessar- isn't necessarily dependent on the person who runs it, but they're all kind of coming in and supporting each other?
So in our Facebook group, because it's free, we actually keep it very loosely moderated other than, you know, just making sure that we're not having super spammy, uh, accounts come in, which unfortunately, I think with AI, 'cause we have some questions we ask, but now with AI, sometimes, you know, you can just put those questions in and then copy/paste those answers in.
So, uh, but luckily, that community kind of runs on its own because people are supporting each other. They're answering each other's questions, sharing resources.
And I also see that happen kind of on Instagram a- as a creator in some ways too where, you know, someone will ask a follow-up question if I posted a piece of content.
And how I measure if my community is strong enough, that they will engage with each other, that I don't necessarily need to be there.
And I hear, I heard a funny post which I oscillate between, or, or a funny piece of advice which I oscillate between going and, and it's the idea of post and ghost.
Not the best way to build a community 'cause you do want to engage, but I remember at a certain point, I'd get really overwhelmed by the volume of comments or maybe, you know, um...
Yeah, and really it's about the volume of comments, that can the community kind of engage with itself? That if I come in, great, and sometimes I will, but sometimes I will choose, I will choose not to.
But, but yeah, I, I think it gets to a certain level of maturity at that point, which is why I have been intentional about also building our Diversability team.
So I, I think we've always had at least two people on our team. And so both me- Wait, wait. Real quick. When you say always, you mean, like, since the 2021, when it became this paid thing? Or, or how, how far back?
Since... Ooh. I wanna say even since we relaunched as kind of like a young professionals community. And I'm 37 now s- and I, I guess maybe that's still young. I would say as, as a- Certainly still young...
we started as a millennial-centered community, and we've kind of broadened. We have Gen Z people and, and Gen X [laughs] people joining. Um, but, but it kinda started as, and we were young professionals at the time.
Uh, but that was 2015. So I didn't relaunch Diversability in that 2014, 2015 timeframe until something interesting happened, which was
I got a, an email and a Twitter message totally independent of each other from two people. One was in Los Angeles and one was in New York. And the Twitter message said, and I think I've posted about these somewhere.
The Twitter message said, "Hey, are you still working on Diversability? Might know some people you should meet." His name was John Fazzolari, and then we ended up meeting.
And then I ended up getting an email from someone who came across some of the university articles about Diversability at Georgetown who then shared, sent me an email and said, "Hey, I came across this work that you did when you were in college, and I wanna share my story about living with mental illness.
And if you ever decide you want to continue, uh, Diversability outside of the university, I would be really interested in getting involved." So, um, and, and, and so kind of that was the beginning of, uh...
And this is, I guess, where a community starts, right? You wanna have at least two people.
Uh, first, one person who really believes in the idea, and then a second person, I guess that kinda creates a relationship, and then I guess if you have a three people...
Uh, honestly, two people to me could even still be a community too, right? Because you're still connecting meaningfully one-on-one. You're kind of, you're sharing in this idea.
Like, maybe the one person has this, has this idea that they're expressing. The second person comes in and relates to it. And then it's like it's the building that t- idea together.
I really like, though, what you said a few times about how, like, you, the person who started it or, like, who's facilitating it or whatever, it's not a community if they have to be there at every touchpoint.
Like, w- it, it only works once that, once it, once it, it's, it's the idea at the center, not really the person. Yeah.
And even when we were talking about, like, celebrity communities, it's like, I mean, it's, it's the idea of, of Taylor Swift that, that makes a Swiftie, not Taylor Swift herself, right?
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So I understand this was in twenty-twenty. I don't know if this was during the pandemic. This sounds like it was a pandemic kinda thing. Yeah. So, uh, you-- it came with fifty thousand dollars in funding.
Tell me what that was and what that did for you. Yes. So I applied for the Meta Community Accelerator, or I got accepted into it in twenty-twenty, and essentially, the, the goal of the accelerator was focused on growth.
We initially received, I wanna say, I think it was thirty K. I, I feel like maybe they increased it in future years. So it started out as thirty K, and it said, "Use this thirty K to grow your Facebook community."
I wanted to use this as an opportunity to figure out how we could transition from a mainly in-person community to one that was virtual first. And one of the things that happened...
And I can't remember the specific times, but we ended up winning something called Demo Day.
So at the end, uh, all of, all of the communities who were in, in the group, and there were some really amazing communities in there.
There was one called Fathering Together, and as someone who lost my dad at a young age, I just loved that group. It originally started as Dads with Daughters, and then became Fathering Together.
Um, so I have to get a shout-out. And then there was another one called Broke Black Girl that was around, like, personal finance. So anyway, and, and then one called Octo Nation that was just around love of the ocean.
All different types of communities. So Demo Day, uh, was the opportunity to receive an additional amount of funding, and I think it was, it was... I think it was an additional twenty-five K. So we used that thirty K.
And I will say, as someone who has always been scrappy, I have al- and someone who, my background is in financial services, and I will also say probably as a daughter of immigrants, I have always learned to not spend what I don't have.
So all of a sudden, and I remember being on an early call in this accelerator program, being like, "I don't know how to spend this money." Um, but you had to spend all of it.
It, it was, it was kind of like on a, then you had to, like, submit a grant at the end. But essentially, the accelerator program, it kinda took you through, okay, who's your core customer? What pain point?
Kind of like a business accelerator in a way. What pain point is your community solving? Who are the, uh, the member archetypes of who will show up in your community?
And one of the things I'm proud of is that of the thirty K, we ended up spending, I wanna say at least seventy percent of it on hiring disabled contractors to come and help us.
And the last data point I remember is that we have grown not only our broader ecosystem, I think we started at twenty K, we grew our broader ecosystem and that seventy-five hundred member community, we grew it four times, uh, over the course of the pandemic.
And one of the things I realized by switching over to virtual was that now we could reach people in harder to reach areas, because in twenty-twenty we had grown to eight different cities, which to me sounds like a success, you know, New York, DC, Montgomery, Alabama, Chicago, Oregon, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Los Angeles, who were all just hosting kind of mini-events, and we had chapter leads.
Then now, uh, when we moved to virtual, we were reaching people in, I don't know, Phoenix, Arizona, or Minneapolis, uh, and those are all still big cities, but all of the cities that I had named before all had
some semblance of a social fabric available that a disability community could come together.
But what about the people-- And there was one person on our team, I think she was on our team for about three years, who grew up in a pla- in a city in Texas that only had one stoplight in her whole town.
What disability community's available there, right? So I learned that by switching over to virtual, we are now reaching more of t- the people that we wanted in our community.
Uh, now in twenty-twenty-five, we are still dabbling with
what will it look like to do some hybrid version where we're still gathering virtually, but for people who would really benefit or who could benefit from in-person, can we start to do more of those?
But, uh, with the additional twenty-five K that we received after winning this Demo Day, we used that to launch our paid community, our paid membership community. Okay. And ultimately for me, the goal was...
So the goal for Meta being part of their community accelerator was member growth.
My goal throughout receiving any funding that we've received, and I guess a big win we had last year was w- we won this grand prize in this Barclays, uh, in this Barclays small business promotion that out of forty-five hundred small businesses, we won.
And they told us that the only way we were gonna win is if we got press.
And after having run this community for fifteen plus years, I know that it's just hard to get disability narratives into mainstream media, so how can I leverage not only our community, but the fact that social media has essentially de- democratized traditional media in a way to have new media?But, but my personal goal has always been around sustainability, right?
And the membership essentially pays for all of our members on our team. We have four now. We're s- we're small, but at one point in time we had grown to 11.
Um, so, so yeah, that's, that's what we use the funding for from the, from the Community Accelerator. And I think, I think they're still running them in, in different iterations. No, that makes sense.
Um, I wanna pivot a little bit to you as, as an individual outside of the, the community, I mean, obviously related to the community, but one thing we always have to ask people on this show at some point is how do you define the term creator, in the sense of content creator, in the sense of what we talk about on this show?
Yeah. I define creator as someone who makes content on social media. Although what's interesting is I used to date a musician, and he would argue that musicians are the original creator.
But I would argue that musicians are creatives, and I think there's a difference to... It's a difference, like people who are making Holli-...
And I live in Los Angeles, so like I'm in the heart of the entertainment industry.
Like people who are in the entertainment industry, like acting, uh, directors, those are creative people to me, even though they're, even though creators and creatives are both creating. [laughs] Wait, okay.
No, I, I love... I'm fully aligned with the way you're thinking. This is exactly how I think too. So- This is great. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. [laughs] So okay, so I have kind of two definitions, 2.5. Uh, one is very broad.
It's just anybody who is contributing to the corpus of the internet, right?
Number two, though, which I think is where we align really well here, is it's somebody creating digital media for distribution online specifically.
So like a musician, if you're a musician who is really only creating to post on Spotify and game Spotify algorithms, maybe, maybe you're a creator more than you're a creative. We can, we could argue that for a while.
But anyways, you're creating digital media for distribution online. You are in earnest trying to grow an audience for it on the internet beyond your friends and family.
And number three, you are somehow trying to monetize it all, whether that is directly through sponsorships or, or advertisement, or very indirectly where it's like you're trying to build press for, to raise money for your business, whatever it may be.
Right? But I think when I, why I said 2.5 is like the half point, which it becomes too long to say it neatly, right? But it's somebody who is doing it independently.
So maybe like those people who, you know, are working in Hollywood who are doing some of these things, but for, on behalf of a studio, or if you're doing all, if you're making social media content on be- on the be- on behalf of a company, I don't know if I would classify you as a creator because I see it as having the risk and the upside of like, nobody can fire you, but you, you only eat what you kill, as they say, you know?
Ooh, interesting.
I guess I'll say the.5 to me sounds like the hyphen, so I'd still call them a creator in the sense that I have friends who run, uh, I have a friend who runs a period brand, and she makes a lot of content on her personal page, uh, just around all sorts of things.
So I would call her like a founder creator, and I call myself an advocate creator. So I'm not a full-time creator. And, and musicians who I guess have built their following
with the help of social media, I guess I would call those musician creators. Are, are you talking about Nadia Okamoto? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm familiar with her work. Yeah.
I, with, with somebody like that, I think because she's a founder and because then she carries all that risk and the upside, she's definitely a creator founder, but it's like if there was somebody, if she had somebody just working for her doing this content, maybe...
This is where I get, the lines start to get blurry and like we could really- Ooh, yeah. Yeah, yeah... keep talking about this forever. But because- I will say there is- Go ahead...
uh, there's a brand here in LA called Camber. Mm-hmm.
And they are one of a few brands that get invited to influencer events, and the person who runs, or I guess the founder is running the brand, but she posts everything on the brand account.
Um, and I don't know if she has her own personal. But, but I, I agree with you. If you're a social media manager for a, a brand, I wouldn't call you a creator.
I think you're a social media man- I guess, I guess creator to me is, I'm kinda like the social media manager for myself.
[laughs] I love that we're talking about this because Francis and I were literally talking about this the other day, about like what, what are our differing definitions of creator.
And I'm like, wait, so are social media managers creator, creators?
But it's like at, in the, at the end of the day, I think our definition here on the show, it's like creators is like a, like assuming part of the risk of being, you know, a, a part of the precarity, a part of like figuring out how to make the money and establish yourself.
And you said something interesting as well. You mentioned like influencers, and something that I've been thinking a lot about is like the difference between creator and influencer.
I think there's a lot of like the definitions kind of cross over, and I'm wondering what your perspective is on where the crossover is, and what makes a creator different than an influencer. Yes.
So I, I will share I feel uncomfortable with people calling me an influencer, but I'm gonna share the definitions, and the definitions that I use will... So a creator to me is someone who just creates content.
An influencer to me is someone who compels you to take an action. You know, kind of like those creators who go out and, uh, take or do like street interviews, um,
or the creators who go and like take photos of strangers. Those to me are creators, not influencers, although maybe they would argue they're influencers versus someone who...
You know, I guess if you do a, a brand deal or something versus someone like me who, uh, I guess if I think about what I've been posting about recently has, has been around protecting Medicaid, uh, I always have a call to action at the end, which is to contact your representatives.
And if someone does, then they've been influenced.
Mm-hmmAt the same time, actually, I had a magician friend who shared, uh, shared a video, and I guess this isn't a new thing, but it was new to me, where you have a piece of bread, and you, like, put a glass in it,
so then it cuts a circle, and then you crack an egg in it. And then I'm like, "Oh, I wanna try that now." So I've been influenced. [laughs] So, so yeah, I, I don't know. Well, here, wait, let me say it.
So the way I see it is that maybe 10 years ago there was people who were influencers on Instagram, and it's that kind of stereotype of, like, usually it's a woman, and it's like you've got the product, and it's just a, a photo, and you're, you're selling a product in this way.
I think that, like, used to be kind of how people think of what is an influencer.
Today, I see it, because the attention economy and all these platforms have become so competitive, and people have become more sophisticated in the production, then everyone has to be a creator, where they're really thinking about all these things.
But influencing is then one thing that any of these people can do.
And like you were saying, the, the man on the street interviewer, whatever, like, if they do a product placement one where they're interviewing somebody, and they're wearing a hat from a brand, whatever it is, like, that's them influencing as a revenue stream.
Um,
which is a, a neat segue [laughs] into, I am interested, you don't have to share any precise details as, as you prefer not to, but I am interested in the ways that you make money because I, I understand there is some of this, you know, more creator-type income.
Uh, I did find this interview with The Tilt two years ago that says, uh, your primary form of income was speaking fees and then various content-related revenue.
So inasmuch as you're comfortable, could you tell us the various ways you make your living these days? Yes. So I am very diversified, I guess I'll say. So we... Uh, I did this exercise a couple years ago, where
you kind of wrote every place that you got income from, and then you wrote an arrow where all that money goes. Uh, so one example could be all the income that we make at Diversability goes to paying Diversability's team.
Uh, yes, I do speaking engagements. I kind of have, um... As a disability advocate, I have, like, four pillars.
Uh, and I'll share those four pillars, and then, uh, I think that will help kind of share where the s- the streams of income.
Uh, but the first pillar is what I call community social health, and that's really where Diversability sits.
The second pillar is what I call education, and that is essentially I think where I make the majority of my income. So, uh, getting hired to do workshops on, I call it, like, the business of disability inclusion.
Um, uh, content creation. Now I have a book, right? And so what are these ways that I am educating others about why it's important to, uh, why disability inclusion is important.
Then my third and fourth pillars are kind of, like, where all the money goes. So one is what I call economic empowerment. So part of that is, uh, supporting disabled people's livelihoods.
We do that through the money we make at Diversability and investing that in our community. Um, I personally do some angel investing now.
I also run a micro-grant that awards $1,000, uh, $1,000 to disability projects around the world. As we're recording this, we're about to announce our 100th grant, so that's why I'm very excited about that.
And then the last is civic engagement, so that's kind of, uh, it's, it's the advocacy that pays $0, um, but probably makes the most, could potentially make the most meaningful change.
So I serve on, uh, an NIH advisory board, um, one of the advisory boards for LA28, the Olympics and Paralympics. But yeah, I, I guess I'll focus kind of on that education pillar, which is, you know, there's speaking.
Uh, as a creator, there are kinda different... Uh, there are, like, creator programs you can be a part of. There are brand partnerships that you do. Sometimes the platforms will also pay you, too.
And then every once in a while, I think I'll do, like, a consulting, like a one-off consulting gig here and there where someone is like, "Hey, y- you know, we're an agency who's just about to launch this, uh, this campaign.
Would you be able to do, like, a sensitivity review of it?" Uh, things like that. So, so I think those are the main, the main places. That makes sense. Um, in terms of- Oh, and then the surveys. Go ahead.
Remember those surveys? Yes, yes. I don't do- Yes, please... the surveys as much anymore, but- Mm-hmm... but yeah, it was... I was... And actually, I, I track it all in a spreadsheet. So in 2021,
I made 55K, and in 2022, I made 105K. And in 2022, I also wanna share that I got my book deal, so then I had to- Mm... I decided to scale back on creator stuff.
So in 2023, I made almost 75K, and then in 2024, I made 83K. And in 2023 and 2024, I had to really, I really scaled back on, on creator stuff because I had to write that book.
But hopefully, that gives you a picture. I mean, and most people want- No, that's super helpful... a, a strong upward trend. Uh, so from going from 55K that first year to then 105K, it was, like, amazing. It's go time.
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Go to live.mightynetworks.com and claim your free spot now.So one thing from the book, uh, of course, the first thing I did when, when y'all sent over the PDF was Command + F creator.
I, I really, [laughs] I really was hoping to find some good stuff about that, and I did.
You talk about creators a lot in this book, uh, according to that search, on nineteen different pages, and I think it's about a two-hundred and eighty-page book or so, you're talking about creators.
It's clearly very important, uh, to, to the research and to what you're addressing here. And there's one quote that, that kind of blew me away. It was on page eighty-three, for anybody reading along at home.
Uh, you say, "Disability-inclusive content is good for business.
Research shows that social media posts from disability content creators scored twenty-one point four percent better in average media value and had twenty point five percent more interactions than posts from creators without disabilities."
Wild numbers. Those really- Yes... blew me away. That research is from- Yeah... Nielsen too. Like, I'm not...
Uh, and I will say the feedback I got on the book was that it was well-researched, but part of it is, for a long time, we haven't had research in this space- Mm-hmm...
or specifically around, uh, disability intersecting with different economies, and now we have it. It's smart business. I think the headline of, of the piece when the research came out was
Disability Inclusive Content is Smart Business. And, and yeah. I, I-- Would you like me to share a little bit more about why I talked about creators and the creator economy in the book? Tiffany, we would love it.
So the first is not only the ways that disability inclusive content is smart business. We have very sticky communities who trust us, and I will share that my last ad,
I don't think anyone knew it was an ad because it was so integrated in my business. I mean, it was about Medicaid, and I had been talking about [laughs] Medicaid a lot. Uh, but it was also... I, I wonder if part of it...
Right? And that's part of how we wanna work with brands, right? Is that- What was it? Was it an ad for, like, a political camp- political campaign? What was it an ad for?
It was an ad around educating my audiences around how certain legislation may impact our ability to access Medicaid.
Um, and the couple pieces of content be-before that were, uh, where I got to interview the former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
So it was, again, really better understanding how specific legislation or bills that are going through are impacting our community, and that's always been a through line of a lot of my content too, is, you know, uh, if we're gonna talk about climate change, what does it look...
How does it impact the disability community? Entrepreneurship. So let's talk about creators for a second. So not only did you read that stat, and the research is out there, go check it out. It's from Nielsen. But
the creator economy has done... I wanted to make it three 'cause we love things in threes, but it's actually four. Has done four amazing things for the disability community.
Number one, when mainstream media has decided that our stories are not newsworthy, we now have the microphone. And while traditional media has liked to show our stories in, uh, either really,
either heroic superhero or pity narratives, we are now just showcasing how, I like to call, extraordinarily ordinary we are. It's just our daily lives. So that's number one. Number two is it's expanding our advocacy.
It's saying, okay, Tiffany was... felt really lucky in tw- in twen- two thousand nine to have thirty people join her community.
I think my most viral pieces of content, and actually it's been viral on every single platform. I think on YouTube it was eleven million. On TikTok, it was like seven million. I don't know how many it was on Instagram.
But this is now millions of people who are getting access to, uh, who are essentially,
essentially getting access to our ex- our lived experiences as disabled people so that they can go out and make the world more accessible in their areas. And even if I just think about something,
I don't know, what was I thinking about? Like, using a can opener
or, uh, you know, since I speak a lot, I usually request having a lavalier microphone, and one time they didn't have a lavalier microphone, so then it was like, "Okay, Tiffany, how do you hold a microphone and a clicker at the same time?"
Right? We did think of some creative way, way where we would tie the clicker, uh, to the microphone with a hair tie, but then it, like, looked too bulky. But then it was like, okay, cool.
Wouldn't it be cool if you had a microphone that had a clicker embedded into it? I just came up with a business idea. So anyway, so that's the second is expanding our advocacy. The third is around growing our community.
So I will share that it wasn't until twenty-twenty that I joined a community specifically for people who have brachial plexus injuries, which is the formal name of my diagnosis, which is a t- is a paralyzed arm.
But what ended up happening was when I started on TikTok, I would use that hashtag brachial plexus injury, and I still probably... I ac-I actually got two independent messages this week.
I made a video of, like, how I work out with a paralyzed arm, and then one was of me rock climbing.
And two different people commented on those and said, "I've never-- Uh, I was born with my injury, but I've never seen anyone, uh, who also has my injury online," right?
And so we're showing people that they're not alone. Uh, and then the fourth, and probably the most important one, is that the creator economy has helped so many of us support our livelihoods, right?
Fifty-five K in that first year that I started tracking how much I was making, that is like an entry-level person's salary.
Um-Think about the potential of what it could be if I decided to pursue content creation full-time.
I feel okay and content where I am, and I kind of like the diversification of the different parts of my brain, uh, that I get to use. So, uh, but imagine... And I'm just Tiffany, you know? Um, and, and I don't know...
I, I will say Diversability has gotten to a point where people don't know I'm the founder, which is very exciting. Even if you go to Diversability's social platforms, I try to not make it the Tiffany show.
So, uh, I do add Diversability sometimes as, as a collaborator on some of my posts, but, uh, I invite everyone in our Diversability community, they're welcome to add us, uh, add Diversability if they would like, if they want some extra amplification.
But yeah, I think those four things- Mm-hmm... uh, the, um,
becoming new media, uh, expanding our advocacy and reaching new people, finding our community, and supporting our livelihoods is part of why I wanted to make sure that we can now take opportunity into our own hands.
And in a lot of ways I call this creative entrepreneurship. So I have a lot of friends who started as creators, right?
They built their platforms, and now they're getting speaking engagements, and now they're getting book deals, and now they're, you know, able to grow their communities.
I just so happened to do it in a different way where I had a community first, and then during the pandemic, not only was it, how do we transition Diversability to virtual, but I used to call myself, like, a professional conferecer.
Like, I was attending all these conferences. And then when you couldn't, I was like, "How do I expand and continue to do my own advocacy?"
And that's when I started, as Tiffany, started showing up more actively on social media.
This, the way you, you call yourself a creative entrepreneur too, I think in the intro to the book, and I, I've wr- I wrote an essay about this for Creator Spotlight about how creators are entrepreneurs.
Like, it's, it kind of is just the same thing, and I think most creators probably, who, who are making a living somehow through it, it's not solely through... I mean, it's diversified, right?
It's not solely through the brand deals or, like, the, the platform revenue share, but it's, like, people who have used that as a way of gaining distribution for, for businesses in other parts of their lives.
Um, but I wanted to say, or to bring up something you said on another podcast, the Disabled and Proud podcast. I'll... This was, like, a couple months ago. I'll paraphrase. You do your research. I, one must.
Um, I'll paraphrase what you said slightly, but you said that we are at the precipice of a cultural shi- a cultural shift around disability, and that even you having a podcast, you're saying this to the host, called Disabled and Proud may not have existed until 10 years ago.
What you're talking about, it, like, hearing everything you just said, it sounds like you're talking about the impact of social media and the creator economy on the broader disabled community, and how that has been such a net positive in a, in these four ways you just described.
Yeah. Thank you for making me sound so quotable. But, but I do, I, I totally agree. I think that 10 years ago
I could name on my one hand how many disabled authors I knew who had books with the big five publishers, much less disabled, uh, people of color. And social media, social media contributed to it.
So if you do read, if you do look at the Nielsen research, one of the things they bring up is Nielsen has done additional research to share...
And I think the stat is that, like, less than 1% of advertising features disabled, features disabled people. Uh, don't quote me on that, but it's a 1%. No, no, no, I, 'cause you, you said that in your book.
I, I read that- Oh, okay... an hour ago. 1%, correct. I was like...
Yeah, so, and, and in, in the piece that talked about how disability inclusive content is smart business, they also question how we can get more traditional media and advertising and marketing to catch up, right?
So in some ways the creator economy is the culture driver. Will Hollywood, you know, and, and some of these other industries, I think are, are catching up, and I wonder
if I would've gotten a book deal had I not had my social platforms. Keep in mind, my longest running series on social media is called the Anti-Ableism Series. This book is called The Anti-Ableist Manifesto.
There's some [laughs] there's some commonality there, right, where, uh... And, and I remember talking to my old editor, and one of the things she said was she really appreciated how I've been able to integrate
kind of book marketing into all of my other content, right?
So if you tune into any piece of the Anti-Ableism Series, at the bottom it says, "By the way, I have a book out, uh, called The Anti-Ableist Manifesto if you wanna deep dive into more of these topics." But,
but yeah, I, a- and I'm seeing more, you know, we're seeing more creators. I think there are now venture funds that are investing in creators.
Uh, last year I had the privilege of attending the White House Creator Economy Conference.
I really do think, and we mentioned this at the event, that there needs to be more of a legitimization of creators as small business owners, and how can we have the same protections as well?
And even if you look at the current administration, they now have new media, uh, you know, as part of...
You know, we'll keep it there, but they now have new media and podcasters as part of who they're inviting into the press room, right?
So, uh, I tend to be an eternal optimist, so I look at the seeds that were planted during the last administration and how they're carried forward now.
You can have other opinions about who was invited into the room, but the fact is that new media is now, is now being invited at a, at a baseline level. One, one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Whether it's biased or not, you know, we can- Yeah. What'd you say? We can get a... Yeah. I said, one must imagine Sisyphus happy in terms of the eternal optimism. But, but I agree.
I mean, that legitimization I think is something we try to do here. And in, in the legitimization, it's talking about how people make money.
It's getting people to talk about the, the, their revenue structures and how they structure their businesses. Um, that's-It's, you know... I, I, I would love to see...
When I was saying earlier that p- part of the definition of a creator is the precarity and carrying all the risk and the upside, it's like that's because there aren't specific labor protections really, or very few, for this industry.
Um, so that's certainly something we would like to see.
You talked a lot about platforms that you're on, and I'm curious, like this book deal kind of came to fruition from you posting on TikTok, which was really fascinating.
I read your piece on Buffer about how that came to be. I'm curious how your... You know, your- I know you're active on TikTok, I know you're active on LinkedIn.
Which platform has proved more profitable to you in terms of like revenue, in terms of like expanding your audience?
And also even like with built-in accessibility tools, which one do you find to be more successful in that way? Ooh. So I feel like with everything that's going on... So TikTok used to be my most active platform.
Again, I was literally posting on there every single day. Uh, I will also share, so I've been part of a TikTok creator program. I've also been part of a Twitter Spaces creator program and a LinkedIn creator program.
Uh, most profitable, I guess I come back to LinkedIn. Um, that's where people who work or are looking for work go.
So if you are working or looking for work, that could be the best place. As, as many of us are. [laughs] Yeah, for sure. Um, and I w- and I've grown my platform on LinkedIn.
Now I have over 30,000, which, which to me felt like, felt like a big milestone, because in some ways I feel bad 'cause my whole personality has been this book for the past eight months, and a- all of my posts are like, "Come to this book event," or like, "Look at this book event."
But I've been trying to include more like behind the scenes. So I will say I have the most fun on LinkedIn. I feel like it's the most supportive community.
I feel like Instagram is probably where I'm getting the most brand deals. Mm. Um, and, and sometimes they're, you know, cross-posting on multiple platforms.
But I feel really excited about YouTube, which is my like, my smallest platform right now that I'm working to grow. And I remember hearing this advice from another creator. His name's Ian Boggs, Ian Boggs,
and he, I think he has 25 million subscribers. When I met him, he had 25 million subscribers across platforms. And he said, "Tiffany, if you wanna grow on... If you wanna go viral, create on TikTok.
If you want to, uh, build a career as a creator, create on YouTube." Mm-hmm. And, and so I think that
it's important as a creator to diversify what platforms you're on, because, you know, for the last six months, we don't know what the future of TikTok is gonna be.
And there was a period of time, and I use CapCut to edit, and there was a, I think it was 24 hours or something, where we couldn't, and I had so many drafts saved, and I said, "Oh, I'm even reliant on the editing platform."
You know? Yeah. Uh, not to say I wanna diversify my editing platforms, but maybe one [laughs] that... Uh, but, but yeah, and those could all go away as well, right?
So, uh, for now, and, and I think Gary Vee says this the best, is all of these social media platforms, it's just free marketing. Mm-hmm. We're on their turf. Exactly.
So I can get angry at the algorithm, uh, and, and I do have research in the book about how the algorithm suppresses disabili- some disability content, uh, claiming that they're trying to protect creators from, from bullying.
Um, but it ultimately means that we aren't getting, we aren't building our following quicker, which m- which means that we're potentially getting smaller deals at- Yeah... that particular point in time.
Uh, but, but yeah, it's... I, I guess I feel grateful and privileged for the opportunities that I have and the brands who have decided to work with me.
And I will share, one of my brands, one of the brands I worked with was Hilton.
And I remember when, uh, when I told friends that I was working with Hilton, I mean, a- amazing, uh, they were like, "Oh, so does that mean you're going there to like talk about different accessibility features and, and things like that?"
And I'm not someone who has access needs like that when I go and travel to hotels, and they gave me the freedom.
Actually, a lot of my content was centered around how I was staying at these Hilton hotels while I was writing my book. [laughs] Uh, so they were also able to incorporate like other life things too, right?
So even though I feel like my umbrella over all of my content is being a disabled creator,
I love being able to work with brands who acknowledge that there are all these other parts of how I'm trying to build myself as a creator or as a business owner, and they wanna incorporate that as well, right?
And, and if highlighting the accessibility features was something that was important to them, I would have told them that that was- Mm... I probably wouldn't have, wouldn't have been the best creator for that.
Well, this is, this is the whole point we were talking about earlier of brands should be working with, with more people, and it, it, [laughs] it's a way for them to make more money.
And, uh, you're a multidimensional person, and they're, they- Mm... I think it's good that they're like doing that and not just doing this limited campaign.
Um, I, we should probably wrap up shortly, but I did wanna ask if there's a few tenets of the Anti-Ableist Manifesto, as it were, that you would want to leave our creator-focused audience with.
Well, first I will share the Anti-Ableist- Oh, amazing... Manifesto art, which- Oh, I love this... is actually introduced...
And do you know what's interesting is, uh, so right now I'm holding up the Anti-Ableist Manifesto art.
If you're listening on audio, it says, "The Anti-Ableist Manifesto" in bold, uh, in bold block print at the top, and then there are about 30 statements that are displayed in, in differentBlock letters creatively, and I guess the ones that re-relate the most, uh, there's one that says, "Diversify your feed."
Mm. Uh, there's one that talks about accommodations and accessibility promote equity, educate yourself, use your privilege, invest in disabled entrepreneurs. But every statement on here
corresponds with a chapter in the book. Mm.
And so, uh, in terms of tenets, tenets for all listeners, whether you're a creator or not, is engage with the manifesto art and see if there's a statement or statements on there that resonate with you, and then you can deep dive into them, uh, in the book or through your own online research.
And one thing I'll share is that as I was writing the manifesto, uh, sorry, the Anti-Ableist Manifesto, the book, you will actually notice that it is written during the social media era. Mm. I'm citing LinkedIn posts.
I'm citing TikTok posts. [laughs] I'm citing tweets because this is what we're growing up in now, right?
We're shaping our perspectives based on, uh, and our algorithms are feeding us a narrative that is different from everyone else. The unfortunate part of it is that it has made us extremely polarized and, um...
Uh, but, uh, I come back to the art, which is writing this book during this time, I thought about, "Okay, sure you can share an orange cover," but I think everyone will be excited to share a piece of art.
And what's funny was I originally hid...
I took a photo of the art on a postcard, and it was, like, number two or three in a carousel, and that photo, and that was before I had introduced the manifesto art, it got shared, it got shared hundreds of times.
And I remember going back to my publisher at the time, and I said... And this was before we had decided what the cover was gonna be, what the color. And I said, "People are engaging with this because there's something...
Not only is it art, but there's something that they can do with it." Versus a book cover is a book cover, you know? Mm-hmm. We love an orange book cover, but with, with a piece of art, like, you wanna share it.
You all have a different relationship with it. It's a conversation starter, and that was the whole idea behind, uh, behind creating the manifesto art. And I also hired a disabled artist to, uh, to create it.
But I guess I would leave your audience with two questions. And one question is, uh, if I'm not able to see your content, can I still engage with it? And if I'm not able to hear your content, can I still engage with it?
And if we can use that as the levers through which, or the lens through which we create content, it will help make your content more accessible or accessible to more people.
And it has been exciting that, as you said, these platforms are now incorporating more accessibility tools, but they're probably also looking at the data that's saying, "Hey, here's the percentage of people who are consuming content without sound."
You know? And, um, and so you'll notice a lot of large creators who don't have disabilities are adding captions because they know that disability inclusive content is smart business.
So, so yeah, I'll leave your audience with those two questions. And then people will sometimes ask, "Well, what if I can't see or hear?" And that's the beauty of...
You'll notice that on a lot of my video content, I'll also include a transcript, uh, within the caption as well. And so, um, that, that will help people, people engage with it as well.
And now there are amazing AI tools available that you can literally put an image in and say, you know, "Can you help me come up with an image description for this?"
And you determine the tone, and that can be a great way that, that you can make your content more accessible. Well said. Um, where should people go to find your work?
If you are looking to follow me, I'm, I'm Tiffany Yu across social platforms. Y- or you can go to tiffanyyu.com. It's just my first and last name.com.
And if you are looking to join Diversability or learn more, we are @diversability across platforms. Perfect. Well, this has been Creator Spotlight. Tiffany, thank you for coming on. Uh, this was great.
And listeners, we will see you next week.
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