E098: New Organic-to-Paid Flywheel, Creator Volume & Product Seeding

Is your brand still creating content for a social media era that no longer exists?

Hosts Connor Rolain (HexClad), Cody Plofker (Jones Road Beauty), and Connor MacDonald (Ridge) dig into how they’re rethinking organic and paid social content strategy for 2026 — and why the old influencer playbook is officially broken.

Cody reveals the million-dollar organic social investment he pitched to his board and the creator-in-residence model he’s building from scratch. Connor MacDonald explains why Ridge is going all-in on high-volume, product-oriented creator content over signature-series brand plays. And Connor Rolain shares how HexClad is bridging its organic social team with paid media creative strategy through a simple Slack channel workflow.

The conversation covers TikTok Shop affiliate flywheels, the death of follower-based reach, running creator-hiring competitions, and when it actually makes sense to invest in episodic brand content.

Chapters

00:00:00 Influencer Marketing Is Dead

00:07:27 Building A Content Flywheel

00:13:36 The Old Playbook Is Broken

00:20:44 Brands Winning The Algorithm

00:26:27 Mapping Out Content Pillars

00:33:37 Running Creator Competitions

00:42:00 Performance Vs Brand Content

00:52:41 Fueling The TikTok Flywheel

01:02:02 Why Creator Beats Influencer

01:08:11 Investing In Episodic Content

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• ‍Motion
• Prescient AI
• Richpanel
• Aftersell
• Rivo