Affiliate marketing has come of age. The new report from impact.com breaks down the five pillars of affiliate sophistication, shows how top teams accurately measure creator performance, and explains what drives real revenue after the first click. Read the report.
It’s not often that a creator is given an executive title. But that’s exactly what Vivian Tu, known online as Your Rich BFF, has done with SoFi.
Late last year, Tu took on the role of head of financial empowerment at the financial services brand, and today SoFi is making Tu’s role at the company widely known as the face of the brand’s latest ad campaign.
The campaign focuses on Tu’s life and financial journey and is now playing on networks including AMC, HGTV, Food Network and Investigation Discovery, as well as streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube TV and Paramount+.
“The hope is that people will see that I’m a normal, ordinary person,” Tu told Marketing Brew. “I want everyone to feel that kind of inspiration… that they can build the financial life they want and also feel very rich in their life.”
We spoke exclusively with Tu about her role as head of financial empowerment at SoFi, what it was like shooting the campaign, and why we may see more creators take on in-house roles this year.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Tell me how you ended up in this role as head of financial empowerment.
It actually didn’t happen overnight. SoFi has been my partner for over two and a half years… We eventually realized, because we had worked together before, that my audience loved SoFi products. I wished I could have more impact and more input into how those products were built and what the features could be, and SoFi loved the kind of educational work I was doing. So it felt like a perfect marriage in which I could help SoFi achieve all their ambitions together with their members. But from my perspective, I now also have to be an advocate for my audience for what they need to help them be the best they can be.
What does your role look like on a daily basis?
It’s actually still quite similar to the partnerships we’ve had in the past. I’m not just the host of Richer livesour YouTube show and podcast, but I also focus a lot on providing feedback to SoFi on their high-yield savings product, their personal loan product, their home loans, student loan refinancing, and investment products. But I get that feedback by sharing and creating financial education content on behalf of each of those different categories. If I realize I’m getting a lot of questions, I can be a feedback loop for them on how they can improve.
When you decided to pursue content creation full-time, was this the path you envisioned when you could one day be in a position like this?
Absolutely not. I joke that it looks like a boomerang. I had a job at a bank, certainly not a job I am very proud of. I entered the media world. I hired Your Rich BFF full-time after building it at my media company, and now I’m back [in banking] as head of financial empowerment at SoFi. It’s such a highlight of my career. I don’t think I ever thought I’d be in a position like this again, but it’s an honor now to have my opinion and perspective given equal weight.
What was it like doing this TV campaign?
I get emotional just thinking about it because it’s my story. It’s my entire career and life story, condensed into a 30-second clip that tells the world and everyone who sees it why it’s so important for all of us to get our money right, why it’s so important to have the financial products to get you where you need to be.
As head of financial empowerment, what are the key goals you hope to achieve?
I really hope that I will empower people to take control of their financial future and realize all those ambitions they want, by teaching them how to make their money work hard for them through educational resources and innovative financial instruments… Not to speak for the entire macroeconomic environment, but things feel very difficult right now, but I think it’s important to keep that optimism and hope.
How does your role at SoFi fit into what you also do on your own as a maker?
I’m a big believer in blocking out my time. According to my schedule, everything I need to do is put into my calendar each day, and I allot a certain amount of time to each thing. So I have time for the podcast, I have time to promote my book, I have time to create content, but I also have a lot of time allocated specifically to my role as head of financial empowerment… I feel so fortunate that I am in the process of pursuing my own choice. I literally have a dream job.
Has this role helped you expand your platform or open up new opportunities as a creator?
Yes, of course. Choosing the right partner is so important. I’m now at a point in my career where I very rarely do the following: “We’ll trade you X amount for one post on your page,” [thing]. I don’t actually have to do that. I put a lot of thought into every collaboration I do… With SoFi I’ve been able to do so many things that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. At the last shoot we spoke with Christina Milian and Kenan Thompson. I started talking to people about money [usually] It would be so hard to even get into their ear, but when I hear their money stories, I feel like I become a megaphone for sharing experiences, stories and learning lessons. We’ve all made financial mistakes.
How do you keep your audience engaged and make them trust you to promote SoFi products, knowing that you play a role in the company?
I built that trust over five years. I put out a piece of content every day for five years, and I never told my audience to turn their money into a meme currency. I never told them to buy a specific stock I was pumping. I never told them to do anything like that, even though it was incredibly lucrative for me – I’ve had several very lucrative offers to do that kind of thing – I turned them down. So I think people see me doing education day in and day out, and that lets them know they can trust me to promote something and choose a partner.
What would you tell other creators who want to take more of a hands-on role with the brands they work with?
Most traditional partnerships are, “I’ll trade your money for access to your audience.”…There were times [with SoFi] where I would go to any length because I saw the value they offered my audience. There were also things that SoFi was not obliged to do for me, such as supporting my first book tour. But it did, and it stopped being a transactional relationship and became something where I would do right by them and they would do right by me. We would all make decisions in the spirit of partnership. Now that I’m in this position, it’s about making sure I’m incentivized to support the business as if it were my own. And I think that’s a really important part of building these deeper relationships, like showing your partners that you have a part in the game.
Do you see official corporate roles as the next phase of brand maker partnerships?
That’s what I do… More creators are working internally with brands because their expertise is valued and because it gives those companies real insight into live data and live feedback… In my partnership with SoFi, I do get compensated, but I’m also now a SoFi stock holder, and so I really feel compelled to make sure that everything we do together is to the best of my ability, but also done well by my audience, because I want them to trust me. We’ve seen examples of this in the past, right? Alix Earle and Poppi. And I think we’ll see more and more of this as creators become the next wave of VC investors and spokespersons. Brands are starting to move away from, “Just take an A-list celebrity and slap his face on something.” It has to be really thought through.
#Vivian #creator #financial #empowerment #SoFi