September 10, 2025 • 39 mins
This week on The Whisker Report, hosts Mary Tan and Alexane Ricard, along with producer Mark Winter of Pet Life Radio, welcome Tori Mistick, founder of Wear Wag Repeat and host of its popular companion podcast. With over 15 years in digital marketing and more than a decade building her thriving dog lifestyle blog, Tori has helped hundreds of petpreneurs and nonprofits grow their brands online. From essential PR strategies to common mistakes in pet business marketing, Tori shares practical insights every animal welfare group and pet entrepreneur can use. Whether you’re running a nonprofit, launching a product, or trying to carve out your niche in the pet industry, this episode will inspire you to bark loud and purr smart!
EPISODE NOTES: Marketing Magic with Tori Mistick
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/whisker-report-pet-pr-publicity-pet-life-radio-original--6669416/support.
EPISODE NOTES: Marketing Magic with Tori Mistick
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/whisker-report-pet-pr-publicity-pet-life-radio-original--6669416/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Pet Life Radio, Let's Talk Pets.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to The Whisker Report. We're a new podcast dedicated
to helping anyone in the pet industry. Whether you're an
animal welfare or a pet business that's for profit, we
want to help you get some pr for your organizations.
Hello everyone, I'm Mary Tim What are the hosts of
the show, along with my buddy alexand Ricard who lives
(00:35):
in the lovely town of Vancouver, but she originally hails
from France, right Alex.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, Hi Tunmont talking about France. That just received a
package from my hometown. One of my friends sent me
a big package for my birthday and there's a French
brand of chips that is making new flavors and it's
a Falaful flavor chips and I just receuveed that and
I'm really excited to try it. So I just thought
(01:03):
I would share.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh my god, did she send over like croissants or.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
No, those wouldn't stack the lash unfortunately, So yeah, it's
just chips. And then there was like yeah, mostly like
but you know, even French chips, I feel like they're
just like more like gourmet. So I do like that.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
All everything about Europe is a little more gourmet, I
feel like than the US.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I agree. And you know what, since living in Vancouver,
I was trying some other things she sent me, and
I felt like everything from France wasn't as salty. I
was like, I'm missing salt. And I think it's because
in North America everythink is more salty, because I was like,
those chips were always very salty in France. Were they
less salty now? And I think it's just me getting
used to the North American salt.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
So don't do that, Alex.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
No, you don't want your blood pressure to go up
because isn't salt connected to blood pressure?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I think so?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I think so.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And we're here also with Mark Winter, pet Life Radio
Amazing producer. He's the one who gets sused. Do you
each and every week? Hey? Mark, how is your blood pressure?
Speaker 5 (02:12):
My blood pressure is fine. You know, when we were
in Paris, we brought home a ton of chocolate from Paris.
It's different, it tastes different, and we brought home so
much it lasted us like four years. So four years
of chocolate to go back and re up our chocolate supply.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Oh my, next time I go to front. I'll just
send you a package full of chocolate like that.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So what's going on in the Pet Life Radio world?
What kind of shows it coming up?
Speaker 5 (02:39):
We have coming up on Arden Show and Oh Behave.
We're going to be having Stephanie Powers on if you
remember Heart to Heart and the girl from Uncle Way Back.
She'll be coming up the in the next month.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, Arden gets the oldies but goodies. And you know
that's one of she's like one of Obrah's favorite pet podcasts.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yeah, three years in a row.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Favorite pet podcast list.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, we're really honored to be part of the Pet
Life Radio Network and we also want to tell you
that you can do public relations for yourself. And Alex
Mark and I want to help you each and every
week by having an amazing guest.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, today we have a really good guest on the podcast.
Her name is Tory Mystic. She's the founder and owner
of Wag Where Repeat and the host of a very
popular podcast with the same name. In both of these indeavors,
Tory helps pet businesses grow their businesses online. She's been
(03:49):
in the digital marketing industry for over fifteen years and
for the past twelve years, she's been growing her dog
lifestyle blog, Wear Wag Repeat into an impactful and footable business.
She's had the opportunity to experiment with many, many, many strategies,
and more than four hundred and fifty pet prineurs have
(04:10):
completed her courses. Welcome Dori, Thank you so much for
joining us.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Thank you so much for having me. I have done many, many,
many different strategies.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Well, yeah, you've been on it for over fifteen years,
so that gives you time to try and fail and
try again and succeed exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
And that's the beauty of having your own businesses. You know.
I don't have anyone telling me I have to keep
doing something or I have to give something up. I
can kind of try things. I'm more agile in my
business than someone who has a big team. I can
just be like, oh, we're gonna do this other thing today.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, I love that. And how how did you end
up in the pet industry? What brought you there?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yes, so you know I on my podcast, I have
like over three hundred and fifty episodes, and I'm always
talking to people who are Like, when I was six
years old, my mom showed our poodles in dog shows
and like they were just kind of born into the
pet industry and I didn't really have that experience. So
I came into it, you know, in my probably twenties,
(05:15):
my mid twenties, mid to early twenties. And we've got
our first dog when I was maybe like thirteen or so,
so we didn't have dogs when I was really little.
But the dog that we had as I became older
and moved out of the house, she really became my
dog because nobody else in our family was sticking around
to take care of the dog. So Lola became my dog,
(05:38):
and pretty soon I wanted to get a new dog
companion of my own. So that's how I got my dog, Lucy.
And so this is kind of long story short, but
Lucy is really how I was inspired to get into
the pet industry. I created my blog where wag Repete,
to really document all the fun things that we were
doing together. And prior to this blog, I actually had
(05:59):
a blog a long time ago, and it was about
eco friendly fashion and that was really fun to do it.
But when I quit it, I really still wanted a
new creative outlet, and that's how I came up with
the idea for where wag repeat, and my original tagline
for that was I wear it, they wag it, and
(06:21):
then we repeat. So I would do outfit photos and
then also just like photos of the dogs hiking in
the woods. And it was just a combination of all
the things that I love, so like a classic lifestyle blog.
But what I found was all the pet stuff really
took off. Like people weren't really coming and going gaga
(06:43):
over my fashion posts, but the pet community was showing
up and commenting on all of my pet posts. And
that's how I met a lot of other pet bloggers
and discovered the whole world of pet blogging. And then,
as they say, the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And that's where we actually I met to you back
in November, we went to a blog Pause conference, which
is a conference for pet bloggers and pet content creators now,
and uh yeah, that's where I met you and I
heard all about your story.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Yes, yeah, thank you. And so some of the like
founders of blog Pause and the early people who were
involved back in the day, those were the kind of
people I was meeting when I first started my blog.
And it was just like such a welcoming community because
pet people are just so nice and welcoming, and it
turns out the fashion bloggers were not so so that
(07:36):
I heard of that. Yeah, I ended up not being
a fashion blogger but being a dog blogger.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I called him surprise.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Were you like one of the first pet bloggers?
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I feel like you were.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You were one of the leaders.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
So I would say I was one of the first
dog mom bloggers or dog mom influencers. So there were
definitely other people sharing their pets. They would never ever
show their face and definitely didn't want their face on video,
and like some some like Alex's cat, wants to be
on video. Yes, and so yeah, so I started doing
(08:14):
pet influencer campaigns when they first started. I'm like the
grandma of the pet influencers. But I was putting myself
in the content, which really nobody else was doing.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So tell us about some of those those first accounts
you did, and what did you do, Like, what'd you
do for content back then?
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah? So, I mean I was on Instagram before reels
were invented, before stories were invented, so it was really different.
You know, we were posting still photos a lot and
back then a lot of times I would reach out
to brands independently. There were no influencer agencies or platforms
(08:56):
where you connect with brands or anything like that. And
I kind of like the old way because I liked
working directly with the brands, and a lot of times
I would work directly with the owners if it was
a small company, and you know, we just like meshed
really well and we could be creative, and it was
I just loved it so much. And it's just it's
different now, which is fine, but I loved it back then.
(09:18):
So like, for example, a brand that I worked with
that I did all the outreach it was Huggle Hounds,
which makes awesome stuffed animals, and I still have some
of these stuffed animals from this campaign that we probably
did eight or nine years ago. And so like one
of the photos that we did, they had a line
called Yoga Hounds, and they were all these cute little
(09:41):
stuffed animals and on their tush they had embroidered words
like serenity and peace and it was just all about, like,
you know, yoga. There was like some sort of like
a symbol on the on the stuffed animals. And so
I took my dog Bert to a doga class We
(10:02):
actually went to a yoga class where your dog was invited.
It was outdoors, and I took these stuffed animals and
I asked the instructor, you know, will you help me
take some pictures? And so I did all these yoga poses,
like holding the stufted animal above my head, and then
Bert would be doing like downward dog next to me.
It was really fun.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
All that's see.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I love that's such original content. I'm curious, what do
you think about the industry today and today's new influencers
and creators.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Well, I think it's just it's shifted so much. And
what kind of continues to amaze me is that there's
someone out there starting their dog's Instagram account today and
they're brand new and they're like, I want to be
a dog influencer. And it's just kind of wild to
me because I've been doing this for so long. But
you know, what I've seen is that a lot of
people who were doing this back when I started are
(10:58):
no longer in the field at all. They've you know,
shifted gears or who knows where what direction their life took.
But I've stayed in this path and I've kind of
immersed myself in it and have really become an expert
on pet pet health and wellness and lifestyle. So I
got certified in Canine Enrichment a couple of years ago
because I really felt like if I was going to
(11:21):
be sharing any content, you know, people love sharing their
like enrichment topple art that they were making, and you know,
I think the Westpod Topple toy is very popular to
share on social media because it's very instagrammable if you
stuff it in a creative way. But I wanted more
substance to my content. I kind of got a little
(11:43):
tired of posting pretty pictures and I wanted to really
know that I was sharing from a place of expertise
and I was sharing, you know, information that was actually
going to be beneficial to people and their dogs. So
I sought out this certification and got certified in Canine Enrichment.
And so so I feel like I've put myself in
a situation where I'm a little overqualified for a lot
(12:05):
of influencer stuff these days, because I have become this
enrichment expert and I do have over a decade of
experience doing influencing stuff, and right now I think that
a lot of brands and agencies are looking for these
micro influencers for many reasons, but you know, I think
a lot of it is budgetary. And then oftentimes these
(12:27):
micro accounts, you know, they can have a highly engaged,
small audience, whereas and I'll be totally transparent, my account
I have like forty thousand followers or something like that
on Instagram, it's not very engaged. I've had this account
for over ten years, So if I were to go
through my followers list, there's a lot of accounts that
don't exist anymore, or people who their accounts still exist
(12:50):
but it's not active. They haven't maybe checked it in years.
So I'm happy to tell people transparently that I think
all these numbers are just such vanity metrics. I think
it really depends on like the message that you're sharing
and what your goals are. So, you know, I think
nowadays with a lot of influencer campaigns, for budget reasons,
they want to partner with these micro influencers. But sometimes
(13:12):
these people might not have any pet expertise and they
might not be sharing the safest content or influencing you
to do the best things with your pets. You know,
there are some kind of frightening trends out there that
you see of trending content, so you know, hopefully, hopefully
it will kind of continue to keep shifting and turning
(13:35):
and we'll find like quality over quantity rises to the
top once again.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
I hope you know the there's a publication called The
Wolf that just did an article about influencers. I don't
know if you saw it, but they talked a lot
about how they want in brands especially and you know
social media as gen Z especially, they want people with expertise.
So like there's a trend right now with vet influencers,
(14:05):
you know, which is similar to your canine enrichment that
you were talking before. Have you found that, like, are
people are brand coming to you or people coming to
you solely because you have that expertise that you know,
the random dog influencer doesn't have. Yes.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, So especially recently, like within this year, I have
partnered with a couple of different brands that have brought
me on as their canine enrichment expert and I'll create
special canine enrichment activities exclusive to them every single month
and we turn it into really fun content. So that's
that's been really fun. But I do agree. I've seen
(14:43):
the VET influencers. I've seen other people who are, you know,
decades long veterans of the industry who are telling me
they want to become an influencer. And I'm like, really,
like you're I think you're like a super star of
the industry. You want to be an influencer. But everyone
just you know, we want to get reputable information out
to pet owners because there's so much not good information
(15:05):
out there. So the more that we can amplify people
who've actually done the research and the studies and done
the work for decades, you know, I totally support that.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
I have a question about So you must work with
a lot of pr agencies too, I do. And tell
us about that. Tell us, you know, what are your
pet peeves about working with them? What are some of
the good things, What do you notice about the better ones,
and what do you notice about the bad ones?
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Well, I think that So you mean like pr agencies
who manage influencer campaigns and that kind of stuff. Yes, okay, exactly.
So I have worked with a number of them over
the years, and the bad ones in general are ones
who don't give the influencer any sort of say, or
creative freedom, because typically we know what's going to perform
(15:59):
well with our audience, and so what works really well
on one account might not work really great on another account.
And especially if you have a campaign that has a
bunch of different niches involved, Like there's mom accounts, there's
lifestyle and health accounts, there's dog accounts. You know, there
might be some product that has crossover across all of
(16:19):
these different sectors. There's no way we could all be
posting the same exact content and it's not going to work.
So so I think in my experience, the ones that
I'm like, if that's what you want me to do, Like, sure,
if you're gonna pay me, I'll do it. But those
are the ones where I can typically tell you beforehand
it's not going to perform.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Well.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
So the ones on the flip side, the ones that
are better and more fun to work with and get
better results, are the ones that kind of take a
more collaborative approach.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Wow, and not to get super personal, but what if
you've seen in terms of payment of influencers, how is
that then?
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Well, it's all over the place. I mean, you know,
before the pandemic, I think was kind of the peak
I think of payments, which which I can't believe is
like over five years ago. But I'm always like, before
the pandemic, after the pandemic, that was five plus years ago.
But at least in my business, that was kind of
the peak of revenue from influencer stuff. In twenty twenty,
(17:21):
so many companies completely frozen their marketing budgets, and I
don't think it ever came back to where it was
before that. People just maybe, you know, reprioritize their spending
in different ways, and there's just been so much uncertainty
for the past several years, so you know, there are
people out there who are charging a lot of money
(17:47):
for their posts. But like when we were at blog Pause,
there was a panel discussion that had it was the
panel that you were on, Mary. It had you and
Megan Rowe and Page from Pride and Groom, and Megan
said that the going rate for influencer posts is fifty
(18:11):
dollars these days, and I was like, I was just
like so annoyed, but she said that. I was like,
that's not right. It's so much work and all this
and that, but it's just you know, I think that
I think that is the truth of the matter. And
(18:32):
so that's fine. It's just not the work for me
these days, because, like I said, that's why I feel
like I'm overqualified for some of this work now, because
I don't want to even work on those fifty dollars
things where they're like post this picture and it's just
like boring pictures, boring captions kind of. It doesn't inspire me.
(18:53):
I want to be creative and create cool stuff and
I want to share my expertise. So so, yeah, so
I haven't really been doing so much influencer stuff lately because, yeah,
the budgets have really changed.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Well, I think, you know, it's hard for brands, especially
like all the smaller brands start listening to us. There's
so many influencers. The market is oversaturated. And when you're
saying that some people still want to become dog influencers,
I see it every day, like people are still trying,
and I mean kudos to them, but I don't know
how it's going to go. And that's why I think, like, yeah,
(19:28):
the shift is going to people who have expertise, vets, vetners,
people who do courses and like nutritionists or you know,
for pets, because there's just too many Dog Cat Guinea,
big influencers, and especially I feel like today and tell
me if I'm wrong, Tory, but a lot of people
(19:49):
can go viral really easily. It's just like a little
cute video, but then the next video is going to
pour from so bad. So like it's not because you
put money in someone who has like two videos who
went viral, that that video is going to go viral.
So yeah, I think even for brands, it's like, well,
I wasted that much money, so now I'm only going
to put fifty dollars in everybody.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Yeah, I think that can kind of, you know, put
a bad taste in people's mouths. And I think that
that's a great example of you can create an account
and maybe go viral with two videos, but that person,
you know, good for them, congrats on your viral video,
but they're not building a brand. So you know, a
lot of these small influencer accounts who want to do stuff,
who want to take the fifty dollars posts and things
(20:31):
like that, are they still going to exist a year
from now? Is there account even going to exist? Are
they going to be active? So I think that's just
the difference of some accounts versus others, Like so, you know,
myself and some of these other people who've been at
it for a long time. We've made this our entire career.
We've invested in certifications and courses and all kinds of stuff,
(20:52):
and we have our personal brands built around this, and
we've been building trust with our audiences for over a
decade a lot of us. And you know, it's not
to say that that people starting out can't get into it.
And you know, I don't want anyone to feel like,
you know, I'm ten years behind. I can't start now,
because you can start any time. But I think that
for small brands listening to this, you know, just ask yourself,
(21:16):
will this account that I want to partner with will
they be around a year from now? Do they have
the track record of building a brand that aligns with
your brand and your messaging and your values. If they're
brand new and they have two videos, how can you
possibly know like what their values are?
Speaker 3 (21:33):
And Tori, do you do u GC content as well?
Or do you only focus on your content that you
can post for yourself for your brand?
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (21:41):
I don't really do you just see content? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, awesome? Well, you know, we've heard about Tory's influencer hat,
but you do far more than that.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
So when we come back, we're going to take a break.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
We're going to ask Toy about other ways she is
helping pet preneurs.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Be right back.
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Speaker 6 (22:43):
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Speaker 7 (22:59):
And so we're back with stry Mystic behind Where Wag
Repeat Story? Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think
you also help a lot of pepreneers.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
How does that look like? How do you help them?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (23:14):
So, thank you so much. So. I currently have a
membership called Where Wag Repeat Society, And this is actually
the fifth year of my membership. So I started January
twenty twenty one, and we've been consistently I say we me,
I've been consistently putting out new lessons and content and
(23:37):
guides and all kinds of stuff every single month. So
there's fifty plus archived workshops and lessons and awesome stuff
like We've done some panel discussions within the membership with
some different expert bloggers and expert influencers, and I've had
other guest experts come on and talk about SEO. I
even had an accountant come on and talk about profit
(23:58):
first accounting. So I'll bring you Oh yeah, I know
it's exciting. So I'll bring people who can share their
expertise with my members, and it's all in there and
people get access to all of that. Plus we have
a monthly call together where we just kind of set
our goals for the month and have a little time
(24:19):
to brainstorm and workshop and talk talk amongst ourselves. And
then I also have weekly office hours with my members,
so every single week they can send me private messages
and on Thursday mornings is when it's my office hours.
So I'll on Thursday mornings, I go and I check
my inbox and I'll reply to everybody and then they
(24:40):
can go work on their thing and then they can
update me the next week on how it's going.
Speaker 7 (24:45):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Yeah, it's really fun.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
So oh so it's like personal one on one time
with you.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Yes, so it has it has a mix of one
on one and group time and then plus all the
recorded stuff is self paced and you can do it
when I'm because I've found, you know, in doing this
for almost five years, is that I've changed it over
the years. Like there was a period of time where
we had weekly calls, but I was getting the vibe
(25:13):
that a lot of people had FOMO and they were
like feeling bad that they couldn't come to all these
weekly calls and it was just overwhelming and it was
too much. So I think this is actually a common
misstep that a lot of entrepreneurs make, is we feel
like we want to give people everything. We want to
give them more and more and more, but sometimes less
is more. And I think that my members are finding
(25:36):
more value in having our once a month call and
then I have my weekly office hours versus having four
calls with the whole group every single month. It was
just too much.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
We've heard it with Mary A lot. So many petpreneurs
they say they don't have time to take those kind
of courses, or you know, they don't have the money
right now, and like, oh, I can't focus on marketing
because of all those excuses, and we think they're making
a mistake. Can you tell them why marketing is so
(26:08):
important for the business or nonprofit?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Yeah, I mean I agree with you, guys, And I
hear the same kind of pushback from people all the time.
The number one is, yeah, I'm cutting back on my expenses,
or I don't have time or I'm so overwhelmed or
whatever it is. You really have to make time because
you know, it's it's kind of like that saying that
the best day to plant a tree was yesterday and
(26:32):
the second best day is today. So if you're not
taking action, you're just missing out on that potential growth,
you know, just like a tree. And you know, I
have a tree in my backyard that I ordered this.
I saw a picture online of this, like beautiful. It's
like this weeping red bud with all these pink flowers,
and I'm like, that's gonna be so awesome, And I
ordered it and it came and it was literally a
(26:55):
stick in like a little root ball bag. And I
was like, what am I to do with this stick?
This is so dumb? But I was like, well, I
guess there's no harm. I'll just dig a hole and
plant it and we'll just see what happens. Now, it's
a huge tree that's growing every year and it's beautiful
and I love it. And it has, you know, hundreds
(27:18):
of little limbs and leaves and flowers on it and everything.
So that's just like your marketing, you know. It's you
have to plant that ugly little stick in the dirt.
You think, this looks like nothing, this looks like crap,
but you have to just plant it and do the
work and make that initial investment so that it can
(27:41):
grow into this big, beautiful thing, you know. And that's
just like you're marketing. Really have you seen so?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I am sure that people have come to you with,
you know, their stories and maybe they're having a bad
day or something like that. Can you give us an
example of, like, you know, maybe one of your st
students who just really blossomed like that tree.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Ah, you're putting me on this spot, Mary, Okay, So
one person who who I would love to shout out,
especially because you guys probably know her, but Emily Hall
from Kitty Kat go oh yeah. So she was in
my membership back in the early days and then you know,
life gotten the way. She left for a while, which
is totally cool. I'm still here, guys. I'm not a
(28:25):
you know, I'm not going to disappear on you. So
Emily came back to my membership this year, which is
so awesome and exciting. And her business was just in
a place where she wanted to work on her marketing
and get more involved in things. So she recently was
asking me some questions and I know this is fine
with her to share because she was posting about it
herself all over Facebook. Is that, you know, she has
(28:49):
a podcast, and she was feeling really overwhelmed by the
prospect of doing the show notes and doing this and
doing them that and making a blog post about it.
And I was like, Emily, this was in our one
of our office hours one on ones. I said, Emily,
you don't have to do the show notes and the
blog posts. You could just release the podcast episode. You know,
(29:09):
I have hundreds of podcast episodes. My show notes blog
posts never really get that much traffic. You know, I
look at my Google analytics, they're not the most popular
blog posts on my blog. So I was like, you
don't have to do anything. There's no law or rule
about this. You can do whatever you want. And so
(29:31):
she was just like ecstatic the weight that was lifted,
and she just she felt this like freedom of Hey,
I can do it however I want to do it.
And she also said it just saved her hours and
hours per week of trying to manage all this stuff. So,
you know, I don't know that I would equate her
to my tree analogy, but but I just you know,
(29:54):
that's a recent example that popped into my mind because
it's just nice and fresh. That's why it's nice to
have someone you can bounce ideas off of who can
just say, like, you know, there's all these experts out
there on social media sharing, you know, here you have
to do this this way. Here's like the five habits
you have to do when you wake up at five
point thirty in the morning. Oh gosh, you don't have
(30:17):
to do any of that. You don't have to do
anything a certain way. And I think, especially as women entrepreneurs,
we always feel like we have to do it perfectly.
You have to do it right. You have to follow
the rules and it has to be just right. And
guess what, it doesn't. You can put things out that
are imperfect. You can do things in a way that
(30:39):
works for you. You don't have to do everything following
the rule book.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
And I think that's one of the biggest tip for
anyone who wants to start something new right, whether it's
like starting saving cats and Greece so whereas is starting
you own pr agency or starting your own content creator account.
It's just started right. It won't start without you, So
just do the first step it has. It doesn't have
(31:04):
to be perfect. You don't even need to have like
a ten year plan. Just start it. Just start and
then you'll see what comes out of it.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I saw a stat somewhere a long time ago, and
maybe maybe I'm making it up, but that only three
percent of people actually take action on their ideas. So
you know, everyone out there is so worried, Oh, if
I put out there, someone's going to steal my idea.
They're not because if they were going to steal your idea,
then they would have to actually do the work to
(31:32):
make it happen and make it a real thing, Like
if you really want to do this and you have
a cool idea, you just should do the work and
do it and put it out there and doesn't have
to be perfect. But I think that's another thing where
like people are afraid someone's going to steal their idea,
but they're not because it's a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
That is so true. Do you have any tips? We
have a lot of animal welfare groups too that listen
to us. Do you have any tips for that side
of the industry.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Yeah, definitely, so like rescues and shelters, right, Yeah, absolutely.
I think that the rescue and shelter world sometimes they
don't post enough about adoptable pets. You know, if you're
really trying to get a pet adopted, you need to
do a lot more than just one post about that pet,
(32:24):
you know. So I think the same thing happens with businesses,
you know. I hear people all the time, Oh, I
had this pop up event, no one came and I'm like, well,
what did you do? They're like, well, I posted I
had this post on Instagram. I'm like, did you post
like a dozen posts on Instagram? And like were you
in your stories? Did you go live did you do this?
Did you do that? So I would say, especially on
(32:44):
social media, to take advantage of all the different tools.
So you know, there's poles. You could do fun polls
like help your audience pick the name of a new
dog that comes in or a new litter of kittens
that comes in. So that's a way to get people engaged.
You know, you can have all kinds of calls to
action to encourage people to share a post or tag
(33:08):
a friend, but most importantly, you just have to post
a lot. And I think that can be really overwhelming
to people, again because of this whole perfection trap, and
you know you want everything to be great. It doesn't
have to be great. And actually, kind of counterintuitively, I
find video to be a lot easier than photos because
(33:28):
with photos, you're like, I got to get like just
the right photo and all their tongue was sticking out
in this one and their eyes were closed in that one.
If you do a video, it doesn't matter if their
tongue is out and their eyes are closed and they're
wiggling around, because it's all gonna look cute and fun.
So I just say take take as many videos as
(33:49):
you can and just post them all and like, don't
worry too much about planning it and having it all
be perfect. Just get it out there, all right.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Well, final question, how can we get a hold of
you and tell us everything that you want people to
know about.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
You in the next fifteen seconds? Yes, well, you can
always go to whearwag repeat dot com and across social
media you can usually find me at t mystic that's
t mi stic k and on my site you can
find out about where wag repeed Society if you are
(34:24):
a pet preneur. But I also have a ton of
canine enrichment resources and I even have a Canine Enrichment
Activity pack which is like a little mini byte sized
course with ten really cool, original and unique enrichment activities
demonstrated by me and my dog Lucy, who just recently
crossed the Rainbow Bridge. So that's very.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Special to me.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Thanks, Oh that's so sad.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Well, but you're amazing. You've done everything in the pet industry.
You're you're an influencer. Then you crossed to the pet
preneur side. No, you're helping pet fantastic courses.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
By the way, Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm really
enjoying all the canine enrichment stuff. So stay tuned. I
might be doing some new enrichment based something kind of content.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Ooh you heard it here first. You're definitely going to
be at the top of our list for our dog clients. Oh,
thank you, so we we definitely. Alex does all of
that for Whisker Media, right, Alex, you're the You're the
digital guru. I'm still like old fashioned media media type.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
But Mary, you'll find this super interesting is that recently
I was working on something called a satellite media tour.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Ever heard of it?
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (35:44):
So great? Yeah. So I had someone reach out to
me saying, can you be the canine enrichment expert for
our sm SMT? And so I was like, yes, sure,
And then I had to go google what is an
SMT and that's stands for Satellite Media Tour. And it
was such a cool experience And it was basically I
was physically in a production in a TV production studio
(36:09):
and then they broadcast me in to like twenty different
morning news shows all across the country, not simultaneously, like
back to back. So I had to do this interview
like twenty times, back to back, and it was really
really cool experience. But it goes to show that like
that more traditional kind of PR is still super relevant.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Oh yeah, I really think you know, like morning especially
local news is still the number one place in the
US where people get their news. I mean, it's the
only place to find out what's happening in your city.
And that's unbelievable exposure for you. That's amazing, Toy.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Thank you. Yeah, I was really excited. It was it
was cool to be a part of, and it was
cool just to see how the campaign was organized and
what all went into it because they also layered it
with paid ads on social and also some influencer campaign
and all kinds of other stuff. So it was it
was really cool to just kind of see how that
(37:12):
campaign was organized.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Wow, that's amazing. Well, well congratulations, because that's that's a
great thing to do. I mean, if you want to
get your brand out there, satellite.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Media tours are the way to go.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
I had never heard of this before, but it was
it was so cool.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, when I was a news producer, we would get
pitched by these companies, and you know, if if it
was something that was really educational, like what you were doing,
absolutely we would we would put it on because you,
as Alex and I know, like these morning news shows
are like seven eight hours long and they need content
(37:50):
right to fill that those holes.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
And also because they're on five days a week.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yes, five days a week. And then studies have shown
that when anna animals are shown in a news broadcast,
like the viewership goes up by twenty percent. So that's
why when you're watching, when you're watching a newscast and
you'll see coming up, we've got the you know, adoptable
dog or cat of the day. That's to get people
(38:16):
to stay. And what's shocking is that they really do stay.
They really do want to see that story. They want
to see animals on TV, and there's nothing. It's animals
and babies.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
And maybe like cooking segments. I feel like there's a
lot of cooking segments.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yes, all of that is stuff people want to see,
you know, like the best way for your Fourth of
July barbecue, you know, all of those things. But yeah,
morning shows, morning news shows are like the godsend of
pr and I would say that's where Alex and I
get the majority of our hits. But anyways, thank you
(38:51):
so much for joining us and We just love talking
to you. You are just amazing, toy, and we have
to wrap up the show now.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
So we're so.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Excited each and every week to be doing this for
all of you, where we get to talk to.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Great people like Tori.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Do you have a question that you'd like us to answer,
will reach us to us on Instagram or Facebook under
Whisker Media and then we'll try to answer it in
a future podcast episode. So we'll see you later. And
as we always.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Say, Park Loud and her Smart see you later. Everyone.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Let's talk text every week on demand only on Petlife
Radios dot com
Pet Life Radio, Let's Talk Pets.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to The Whisker Report. We're a new podcast dedicated
to helping anyone in the pet industry. Whether you're an
animal welfare or a pet business that's for profit, we
want to help you get some pr for your organizations.
Hello everyone, I'm Mary Tim What are the hosts of
the show, along with my buddy alexand Ricard who lives
(00:35):
in the lovely town of Vancouver, but she originally hails
from France, right Alex.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, Hi Tunmont talking about France. That just received a
package from my hometown. One of my friends sent me
a big package for my birthday and there's a French
brand of chips that is making new flavors and it's
a Falaful flavor chips and I just receuveed that and
I'm really excited to try it. So I just thought
(01:03):
I would share.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh my god, did she send over like croissants or.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
No, those wouldn't stack the lash unfortunately, So yeah, it's
just chips. And then there was like yeah, mostly like
but you know, even French chips, I feel like they're
just like more like gourmet. So I do like that.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
All everything about Europe is a little more gourmet, I
feel like than the US.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I agree. And you know what, since living in Vancouver,
I was trying some other things she sent me, and
I felt like everything from France wasn't as salty. I
was like, I'm missing salt. And I think it's because
in North America everythink is more salty, because I was like,
those chips were always very salty in France. Were they
less salty now? And I think it's just me getting
used to the North American salt.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
So don't do that, Alex.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
No, you don't want your blood pressure to go up
because isn't salt connected to blood pressure?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I think so?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I think so.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And we're here also with Mark Winter, pet Life Radio
Amazing producer. He's the one who gets sused. Do you
each and every week? Hey? Mark, how is your blood pressure?
Speaker 5 (02:12):
My blood pressure is fine. You know, when we were
in Paris, we brought home a ton of chocolate from Paris.
It's different, it tastes different, and we brought home so
much it lasted us like four years. So four years
of chocolate to go back and re up our chocolate supply.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Oh my, next time I go to front. I'll just
send you a package full of chocolate like that.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So what's going on in the Pet Life Radio world?
What kind of shows it coming up?
Speaker 5 (02:39):
We have coming up on Arden Show and Oh Behave.
We're going to be having Stephanie Powers on if you
remember Heart to Heart and the girl from Uncle Way Back.
She'll be coming up the in the next month.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, Arden gets the oldies but goodies. And you know
that's one of she's like one of Obrah's favorite pet podcasts.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yeah, three years in a row.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Favorite pet podcast list.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, we're really honored to be part of the Pet
Life Radio Network and we also want to tell you
that you can do public relations for yourself. And Alex
Mark and I want to help you each and every
week by having an amazing guest.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, today we have a really good guest on the podcast.
Her name is Tory Mystic. She's the founder and owner
of Wag Where Repeat and the host of a very
popular podcast with the same name. In both of these indeavors,
Tory helps pet businesses grow their businesses online. She's been
(03:49):
in the digital marketing industry for over fifteen years and
for the past twelve years, she's been growing her dog
lifestyle blog, Wear Wag Repeat into an impactful and footable business.
She's had the opportunity to experiment with many, many, many strategies,
and more than four hundred and fifty pet prineurs have
(04:10):
completed her courses. Welcome Dori, Thank you so much for
joining us.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Thank you so much for having me. I have done many, many,
many different strategies.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Well, yeah, you've been on it for over fifteen years,
so that gives you time to try and fail and
try again and succeed exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
And that's the beauty of having your own businesses. You know.
I don't have anyone telling me I have to keep
doing something or I have to give something up. I
can kind of try things. I'm more agile in my
business than someone who has a big team. I can
just be like, oh, we're gonna do this other thing today.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, I love that. And how how did you end
up in the pet industry? What brought you there?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yes, so you know I on my podcast, I have
like over three hundred and fifty episodes, and I'm always
talking to people who are Like, when I was six
years old, my mom showed our poodles in dog shows
and like they were just kind of born into the
pet industry and I didn't really have that experience. So
I came into it, you know, in my probably twenties,
(05:15):
my mid twenties, mid to early twenties. And we've got
our first dog when I was maybe like thirteen or so,
so we didn't have dogs when I was really little.
But the dog that we had as I became older
and moved out of the house, she really became my
dog because nobody else in our family was sticking around
to take care of the dog. So Lola became my dog,
(05:38):
and pretty soon I wanted to get a new dog
companion of my own. So that's how I got my dog, Lucy.
And so this is kind of long story short, but
Lucy is really how I was inspired to get into
the pet industry. I created my blog where wag Repete,
to really document all the fun things that we were
doing together. And prior to this blog, I actually had
(05:59):
a blog a long time ago, and it was about
eco friendly fashion and that was really fun to do it.
But when I quit it, I really still wanted a
new creative outlet, and that's how I came up with
the idea for where wag repeat, and my original tagline
for that was I wear it, they wag it, and
(06:21):
then we repeat. So I would do outfit photos and
then also just like photos of the dogs hiking in
the woods. And it was just a combination of all
the things that I love, so like a classic lifestyle blog.
But what I found was all the pet stuff really
took off. Like people weren't really coming and going gaga
(06:43):
over my fashion posts, but the pet community was showing
up and commenting on all of my pet posts. And
that's how I met a lot of other pet bloggers
and discovered the whole world of pet blogging. And then,
as they say, the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And that's where we actually I met to you back
in November, we went to a blog Pause conference, which
is a conference for pet bloggers and pet content creators now,
and uh yeah, that's where I met you and I
heard all about your story.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Yes, yeah, thank you. And so some of the like
founders of blog Pause and the early people who were
involved back in the day, those were the kind of
people I was meeting when I first started my blog.
And it was just like such a welcoming community because
pet people are just so nice and welcoming, and it
turns out the fashion bloggers were not so so that
(07:36):
I heard of that. Yeah, I ended up not being
a fashion blogger but being a dog blogger.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I called him surprise.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Were you like one of the first pet bloggers?
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I feel like you were.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
You were one of the leaders.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
So I would say I was one of the first
dog mom bloggers or dog mom influencers. So there were
definitely other people sharing their pets. They would never ever
show their face and definitely didn't want their face on video,
and like some some like Alex's cat, wants to be
on video. Yes, and so yeah, so I started doing
(08:14):
pet influencer campaigns when they first started. I'm like the
grandma of the pet influencers. But I was putting myself
in the content, which really nobody else was doing.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So tell us about some of those those first accounts
you did, and what did you do, Like, what'd you
do for content back then?
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah? So, I mean I was on Instagram before reels
were invented, before stories were invented, so it was really different.
You know, we were posting still photos a lot and
back then a lot of times I would reach out
to brands independently. There were no influencer agencies or platforms
(08:56):
where you connect with brands or anything like that. And
I kind of like the old way because I liked
working directly with the brands, and a lot of times
I would work directly with the owners if it was
a small company, and you know, we just like meshed
really well and we could be creative, and it was
I just loved it so much. And it's just it's
different now, which is fine, but I loved it back then.
(09:18):
So like, for example, a brand that I worked with
that I did all the outreach it was Huggle Hounds,
which makes awesome stuffed animals, and I still have some
of these stuffed animals from this campaign that we probably
did eight or nine years ago. And so like one
of the photos that we did, they had a line
called Yoga Hounds, and they were all these cute little
(09:41):
stuffed animals and on their tush they had embroidered words
like serenity and peace and it was just all about, like,
you know, yoga. There was like some sort of like
a symbol on the on the stuffed animals. And so
I took my dog Bert to a doga class We
(10:02):
actually went to a yoga class where your dog was invited.
It was outdoors, and I took these stuffed animals and
I asked the instructor, you know, will you help me
take some pictures? And so I did all these yoga poses,
like holding the stufted animal above my head, and then
Bert would be doing like downward dog next to me.
It was really fun.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
All that's see.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I love that's such original content. I'm curious, what do
you think about the industry today and today's new influencers
and creators.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Well, I think it's just it's shifted so much. And
what kind of continues to amaze me is that there's
someone out there starting their dog's Instagram account today and
they're brand new and they're like, I want to be
a dog influencer. And it's just kind of wild to
me because I've been doing this for so long. But
you know, what I've seen is that a lot of
people who were doing this back when I started are
(10:58):
no longer in the field at all. They've you know,
shifted gears or who knows where what direction their life took.
But I've stayed in this path and I've kind of
immersed myself in it and have really become an expert
on pet pet health and wellness and lifestyle. So I
got certified in Canine Enrichment a couple of years ago
because I really felt like if I was going to
(11:21):
be sharing any content, you know, people love sharing their
like enrichment topple art that they were making, and you know,
I think the Westpod Topple toy is very popular to
share on social media because it's very instagrammable if you
stuff it in a creative way. But I wanted more
substance to my content. I kind of got a little
(11:43):
tired of posting pretty pictures and I wanted to really
know that I was sharing from a place of expertise
and I was sharing, you know, information that was actually
going to be beneficial to people and their dogs. So
I sought out this certification and got certified in Canine Enrichment.
And so so I feel like I've put myself in
a situation where I'm a little overqualified for a lot
(12:05):
of influencer stuff these days, because I have become this
enrichment expert and I do have over a decade of
experience doing influencing stuff, and right now I think that
a lot of brands and agencies are looking for these
micro influencers for many reasons, but you know, I think
a lot of it is budgetary. And then oftentimes these
(12:27):
micro accounts, you know, they can have a highly engaged,
small audience, whereas and I'll be totally transparent, my account
I have like forty thousand followers or something like that
on Instagram, it's not very engaged. I've had this account
for over ten years, So if I were to go
through my followers list, there's a lot of accounts that
don't exist anymore, or people who their accounts still exist
(12:50):
but it's not active. They haven't maybe checked it in years.
So I'm happy to tell people transparently that I think
all these numbers are just such vanity metrics. I think
it really depends on like the message that you're sharing
and what your goals are. So, you know, I think
nowadays with a lot of influencer campaigns, for budget reasons,
they want to partner with these micro influencers. But sometimes
(13:12):
these people might not have any pet expertise and they
might not be sharing the safest content or influencing you
to do the best things with your pets. You know,
there are some kind of frightening trends out there that
you see of trending content, so you know, hopefully, hopefully
it will kind of continue to keep shifting and turning
(13:35):
and we'll find like quality over quantity rises to the
top once again.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
I hope you know the there's a publication called The
Wolf that just did an article about influencers. I don't
know if you saw it, but they talked a lot
about how they want in brands especially and you know
social media as gen Z especially, they want people with expertise.
So like there's a trend right now with vet influencers,
(14:05):
you know, which is similar to your canine enrichment that
you were talking before. Have you found that, like, are
people are brand coming to you or people coming to
you solely because you have that expertise that you know,
the random dog influencer doesn't have. Yes.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, So especially recently, like within this year, I have
partnered with a couple of different brands that have brought
me on as their canine enrichment expert and I'll create
special canine enrichment activities exclusive to them every single month
and we turn it into really fun content. So that's
that's been really fun. But I do agree. I've seen
(14:43):
the VET influencers. I've seen other people who are, you know,
decades long veterans of the industry who are telling me
they want to become an influencer. And I'm like, really,
like you're I think you're like a super star of
the industry. You want to be an influencer. But everyone
just you know, we want to get reputable information out
to pet owners because there's so much not good information
(15:05):
out there. So the more that we can amplify people
who've actually done the research and the studies and done
the work for decades, you know, I totally support that.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
I have a question about So you must work with
a lot of pr agencies too, I do. And tell
us about that. Tell us, you know, what are your
pet peeves about working with them? What are some of
the good things, What do you notice about the better ones,
and what do you notice about the bad ones?
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Well, I think that So you mean like pr agencies
who manage influencer campaigns and that kind of stuff. Yes, okay, exactly.
So I have worked with a number of them over
the years, and the bad ones in general are ones
who don't give the influencer any sort of say, or
creative freedom, because typically we know what's going to perform
(15:59):
well with our audience, and so what works really well
on one account might not work really great on another account.
And especially if you have a campaign that has a
bunch of different niches involved, Like there's mom accounts, there's
lifestyle and health accounts, there's dog accounts. You know, there
might be some product that has crossover across all of
(16:19):
these different sectors. There's no way we could all be
posting the same exact content and it's not going to work.
So so I think in my experience, the ones that
I'm like, if that's what you want me to do, Like, sure,
if you're gonna pay me, I'll do it. But those
are the ones where I can typically tell you beforehand
it's not going to perform.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Well.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
So the ones on the flip side, the ones that
are better and more fun to work with and get
better results, are the ones that kind of take a
more collaborative approach.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Wow, and not to get super personal, but what if
you've seen in terms of payment of influencers, how is
that then?
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Well, it's all over the place. I mean, you know,
before the pandemic, I think was kind of the peak
I think of payments, which which I can't believe is
like over five years ago. But I'm always like, before
the pandemic, after the pandemic, that was five plus years ago.
But at least in my business, that was kind of
the peak of revenue from influencer stuff. In twenty twenty,
(17:21):
so many companies completely frozen their marketing budgets, and I
don't think it ever came back to where it was
before that. People just maybe, you know, reprioritize their spending
in different ways, and there's just been so much uncertainty
for the past several years, so you know, there are
people out there who are charging a lot of money
(17:47):
for their posts. But like when we were at blog Pause,
there was a panel discussion that had it was the
panel that you were on, Mary. It had you and
Megan Rowe and Page from Pride and Groom, and Megan
said that the going rate for influencer posts is fifty
(18:11):
dollars these days, and I was like, I was just
like so annoyed, but she said that. I was like,
that's not right. It's so much work and all this
and that, but it's just you know, I think that
I think that is the truth of the matter. And
(18:32):
so that's fine. It's just not the work for me
these days, because, like I said, that's why I feel
like I'm overqualified for some of this work now, because
I don't want to even work on those fifty dollars
things where they're like post this picture and it's just
like boring pictures, boring captions kind of. It doesn't inspire me.
(18:53):
I want to be creative and create cool stuff and
I want to share my expertise. So so, yeah, so
I haven't really been doing so much influencer stuff lately because, yeah,
the budgets have really changed.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Well, I think, you know, it's hard for brands, especially
like all the smaller brands start listening to us. There's
so many influencers. The market is oversaturated. And when you're
saying that some people still want to become dog influencers,
I see it every day, like people are still trying,
and I mean kudos to them, but I don't know
how it's going to go. And that's why I think, like, yeah,
(19:28):
the shift is going to people who have expertise, vets, vetners,
people who do courses and like nutritionists or you know,
for pets, because there's just too many Dog Cat Guinea,
big influencers, and especially I feel like today and tell
me if I'm wrong, Tory, but a lot of people
(19:49):
can go viral really easily. It's just like a little
cute video, but then the next video is going to
pour from so bad. So like it's not because you
put money in someone who has like two videos who
went viral, that that video is going to go viral.
So yeah, I think even for brands, it's like, well,
I wasted that much money, so now I'm only going
to put fifty dollars in everybody.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Yeah, I think that can kind of, you know, put
a bad taste in people's mouths. And I think that
that's a great example of you can create an account
and maybe go viral with two videos, but that person,
you know, good for them, congrats on your viral video,
but they're not building a brand. So you know, a
lot of these small influencer accounts who want to do stuff,
who want to take the fifty dollars posts and things
(20:31):
like that, are they still going to exist a year
from now? Is there account even going to exist? Are
they going to be active? So I think that's just
the difference of some accounts versus others, Like so, you know,
myself and some of these other people who've been at
it for a long time. We've made this our entire career.
We've invested in certifications and courses and all kinds of stuff,
(20:52):
and we have our personal brands built around this, and
we've been building trust with our audiences for over a
decade a lot of us. And you know, it's not
to say that that people starting out can't get into it.
And you know, I don't want anyone to feel like,
you know, I'm ten years behind. I can't start now,
because you can start any time. But I think that
for small brands listening to this, you know, just ask yourself,
(21:16):
will this account that I want to partner with will
they be around a year from now? Do they have
the track record of building a brand that aligns with
your brand and your messaging and your values. If they're
brand new and they have two videos, how can you
possibly know like what their values are?
Speaker 3 (21:33):
And Tori, do you do u GC content as well?
Or do you only focus on your content that you
can post for yourself for your brand?
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (21:41):
I don't really do you just see content? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, awesome? Well, you know, we've heard about Tory's influencer hat,
but you do far more than that.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
So when we come back, we're going to take a break.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
We're going to ask Toy about other ways she is
helping pet preneurs.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Be right back.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
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Speaker 6 (22:43):
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Catlin Radio dot com.
Speaker 7 (22:59):
And so we're back with stry Mystic behind Where Wag
Repeat Story? Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think
you also help a lot of pepreneers.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
How does that look like? How do you help them?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (23:14):
So, thank you so much. So. I currently have a
membership called Where Wag Repeat Society, And this is actually
the fifth year of my membership. So I started January
twenty twenty one, and we've been consistently I say we me,
I've been consistently putting out new lessons and content and
(23:37):
guides and all kinds of stuff every single month. So
there's fifty plus archived workshops and lessons and awesome stuff
like We've done some panel discussions within the membership with
some different expert bloggers and expert influencers, and I've had
other guest experts come on and talk about SEO. I
even had an accountant come on and talk about profit
(23:58):
first accounting. So I'll bring you Oh yeah, I know
it's exciting. So I'll bring people who can share their
expertise with my members, and it's all in there and
people get access to all of that. Plus we have
a monthly call together where we just kind of set
our goals for the month and have a little time
(24:19):
to brainstorm and workshop and talk talk amongst ourselves. And
then I also have weekly office hours with my members,
so every single week they can send me private messages
and on Thursday mornings is when it's my office hours.
So I'll on Thursday mornings, I go and I check
my inbox and I'll reply to everybody and then they
(24:40):
can go work on their thing and then they can
update me the next week on how it's going.
Speaker 7 (24:45):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Yeah, it's really fun.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
So oh so it's like personal one on one time
with you.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Yes, so it has it has a mix of one
on one and group time and then plus all the
recorded stuff is self paced and you can do it
when I'm because I've found, you know, in doing this
for almost five years, is that I've changed it over
the years. Like there was a period of time where
we had weekly calls, but I was getting the vibe
(25:13):
that a lot of people had FOMO and they were
like feeling bad that they couldn't come to all these
weekly calls and it was just overwhelming and it was
too much. So I think this is actually a common
misstep that a lot of entrepreneurs make, is we feel
like we want to give people everything. We want to
give them more and more and more, but sometimes less
is more. And I think that my members are finding
(25:36):
more value in having our once a month call and
then I have my weekly office hours versus having four
calls with the whole group every single month. It was
just too much.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
We've heard it with Mary A lot. So many petpreneurs
they say they don't have time to take those kind
of courses, or you know, they don't have the money
right now, and like, oh, I can't focus on marketing
because of all those excuses, and we think they're making
a mistake. Can you tell them why marketing is so
(26:08):
important for the business or nonprofit?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Yeah, I mean I agree with you, guys, And I
hear the same kind of pushback from people all the time.
The number one is, yeah, I'm cutting back on my expenses,
or I don't have time or I'm so overwhelmed or
whatever it is. You really have to make time because
you know, it's it's kind of like that saying that
the best day to plant a tree was yesterday and
(26:32):
the second best day is today. So if you're not
taking action, you're just missing out on that potential growth,
you know, just like a tree. And you know, I
have a tree in my backyard that I ordered this.
I saw a picture online of this, like beautiful. It's
like this weeping red bud with all these pink flowers,
and I'm like, that's gonna be so awesome, And I
ordered it and it came and it was literally a
(26:55):
stick in like a little root ball bag. And I
was like, what am I to do with this stick?
This is so dumb? But I was like, well, I
guess there's no harm. I'll just dig a hole and
plant it and we'll just see what happens. Now, it's
a huge tree that's growing every year and it's beautiful
and I love it. And it has, you know, hundreds
(27:18):
of little limbs and leaves and flowers on it and everything.
So that's just like your marketing, you know. It's you
have to plant that ugly little stick in the dirt.
You think, this looks like nothing, this looks like crap,
but you have to just plant it and do the
work and make that initial investment so that it can
(27:41):
grow into this big, beautiful thing, you know. And that's
just like you're marketing. Really have you seen so?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I am sure that people have come to you with,
you know, their stories and maybe they're having a bad
day or something like that. Can you give us an
example of, like, you know, maybe one of your st
students who just really blossomed like that tree.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Ah, you're putting me on this spot, Mary, Okay, So
one person who who I would love to shout out,
especially because you guys probably know her, but Emily Hall
from Kitty Kat go oh yeah. So she was in
my membership back in the early days and then you know,
life gotten the way. She left for a while, which
is totally cool. I'm still here, guys. I'm not a
(28:25):
you know, I'm not going to disappear on you. So
Emily came back to my membership this year, which is
so awesome and exciting. And her business was just in
a place where she wanted to work on her marketing
and get more involved in things. So she recently was
asking me some questions and I know this is fine
with her to share because she was posting about it
herself all over Facebook. Is that, you know, she has
(28:49):
a podcast, and she was feeling really overwhelmed by the
prospect of doing the show notes and doing this and
doing them that and making a blog post about it.
And I was like, Emily, this was in our one
of our office hours one on ones. I said, Emily,
you don't have to do the show notes and the
blog posts. You could just release the podcast episode. You know,
(29:09):
I have hundreds of podcast episodes. My show notes blog
posts never really get that much traffic. You know, I
look at my Google analytics, they're not the most popular
blog posts on my blog. So I was like, you
don't have to do anything. There's no law or rule
about this. You can do whatever you want. And so
(29:31):
she was just like ecstatic the weight that was lifted,
and she just she felt this like freedom of Hey,
I can do it however I want to do it.
And she also said it just saved her hours and
hours per week of trying to manage all this stuff. So,
you know, I don't know that I would equate her
to my tree analogy, but but I just you know,
(29:54):
that's a recent example that popped into my mind because
it's just nice and fresh. That's why it's nice to
have someone you can bounce ideas off of who can
just say, like, you know, there's all these experts out
there on social media sharing, you know, here you have
to do this this way. Here's like the five habits
you have to do when you wake up at five
point thirty in the morning. Oh gosh, you don't have
(30:17):
to do any of that. You don't have to do
anything a certain way. And I think, especially as women entrepreneurs,
we always feel like we have to do it perfectly.
You have to do it right. You have to follow
the rules and it has to be just right. And
guess what, it doesn't. You can put things out that
are imperfect. You can do things in a way that
(30:39):
works for you. You don't have to do everything following
the rule book.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
And I think that's one of the biggest tip for
anyone who wants to start something new right, whether it's
like starting saving cats and Greece so whereas is starting
you own pr agency or starting your own content creator account.
It's just started right. It won't start without you, So
just do the first step it has. It doesn't have
(31:04):
to be perfect. You don't even need to have like
a ten year plan. Just start it. Just start and
then you'll see what comes out of it.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I saw a stat somewhere a long time ago, and
maybe maybe I'm making it up, but that only three
percent of people actually take action on their ideas. So
you know, everyone out there is so worried, Oh, if
I put out there, someone's going to steal my idea.
They're not because if they were going to steal your idea,
then they would have to actually do the work to
(31:32):
make it happen and make it a real thing, Like
if you really want to do this and you have
a cool idea, you just should do the work and
do it and put it out there and doesn't have
to be perfect. But I think that's another thing where
like people are afraid someone's going to steal their idea,
but they're not because it's a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
That is so true. Do you have any tips? We
have a lot of animal welfare groups too that listen
to us. Do you have any tips for that side
of the industry.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Yeah, definitely, so like rescues and shelters, right, Yeah, absolutely.
I think that the rescue and shelter world sometimes they
don't post enough about adoptable pets. You know, if you're
really trying to get a pet adopted, you need to
do a lot more than just one post about that pet,
(32:24):
you know. So I think the same thing happens with businesses,
you know. I hear people all the time, Oh, I
had this pop up event, no one came and I'm like, well,
what did you do? They're like, well, I posted I
had this post on Instagram. I'm like, did you post
like a dozen posts on Instagram? And like were you
in your stories? Did you go live did you do this?
Did you do that? So I would say, especially on
(32:44):
social media, to take advantage of all the different tools.
So you know, there's poles. You could do fun polls
like help your audience pick the name of a new
dog that comes in or a new litter of kittens
that comes in. So that's a way to get people engaged.
You know, you can have all kinds of calls to
action to encourage people to share a post or tag
(33:08):
a friend, but most importantly, you just have to post
a lot. And I think that can be really overwhelming
to people, again because of this whole perfection trap, and
you know you want everything to be great. It doesn't
have to be great. And actually, kind of counterintuitively, I
find video to be a lot easier than photos because
(33:28):
with photos, you're like, I got to get like just
the right photo and all their tongue was sticking out
in this one and their eyes were closed in that one.
If you do a video, it doesn't matter if their
tongue is out and their eyes are closed and they're
wiggling around, because it's all gonna look cute and fun.
So I just say take take as many videos as
(33:49):
you can and just post them all and like, don't
worry too much about planning it and having it all
be perfect. Just get it out there, all right.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Well, final question, how can we get a hold of
you and tell us everything that you want people to
know about.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
You in the next fifteen seconds? Yes, well, you can
always go to whearwag repeat dot com and across social
media you can usually find me at t mystic that's
t mi stic k and on my site you can
find out about where wag repeed Society if you are
(34:24):
a pet preneur. But I also have a ton of
canine enrichment resources and I even have a Canine Enrichment
Activity pack which is like a little mini byte sized
course with ten really cool, original and unique enrichment activities
demonstrated by me and my dog Lucy, who just recently
crossed the Rainbow Bridge. So that's very.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Special to me.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Thanks, Oh that's so sad.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Well, but you're amazing. You've done everything in the pet industry.
You're you're an influencer. Then you crossed to the pet
preneur side. No, you're helping pet fantastic courses.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
By the way, Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm really
enjoying all the canine enrichment stuff. So stay tuned. I
might be doing some new enrichment based something kind of content.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Ooh you heard it here first. You're definitely going to
be at the top of our list for our dog clients. Oh,
thank you, so we we definitely. Alex does all of
that for Whisker Media, right, Alex, you're the You're the
digital guru. I'm still like old fashioned media media type.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
But Mary, you'll find this super interesting is that recently
I was working on something called a satellite media tour.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Ever heard of it?
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (35:44):
So great? Yeah. So I had someone reach out to
me saying, can you be the canine enrichment expert for
our sm SMT? And so I was like, yes, sure,
And then I had to go google what is an
SMT and that's stands for Satellite Media Tour. And it
was such a cool experience And it was basically I
was physically in a production in a TV production studio
(36:09):
and then they broadcast me in to like twenty different
morning news shows all across the country, not simultaneously, like
back to back. So I had to do this interview
like twenty times, back to back, and it was really
really cool experience. But it goes to show that like
that more traditional kind of PR is still super relevant.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Oh yeah, I really think you know, like morning especially
local news is still the number one place in the
US where people get their news. I mean, it's the
only place to find out what's happening in your city.
And that's unbelievable exposure for you. That's amazing, Toy.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Thank you. Yeah, I was really excited. It was it
was cool to be a part of, and it was
cool just to see how the campaign was organized and
what all went into it because they also layered it
with paid ads on social and also some influencer campaign
and all kinds of other stuff. So it was it
was really cool to just kind of see how that
(37:12):
campaign was organized.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Wow, that's amazing. Well, well congratulations, because that's that's a
great thing to do. I mean, if you want to
get your brand out there, satellite.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Media tours are the way to go.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
I had never heard of this before, but it was
it was so cool.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, when I was a news producer, we would get
pitched by these companies, and you know, if if it
was something that was really educational, like what you were doing,
absolutely we would we would put it on because you,
as Alex and I know, like these morning news shows
are like seven eight hours long and they need content
(37:50):
right to fill that those holes.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
And also because they're on five days a week.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yes, five days a week. And then studies have shown
that when anna animals are shown in a news broadcast,
like the viewership goes up by twenty percent. So that's
why when you're watching, when you're watching a newscast and
you'll see coming up, we've got the you know, adoptable
dog or cat of the day. That's to get people
(38:16):
to stay. And what's shocking is that they really do stay.
They really do want to see that story. They want
to see animals on TV, and there's nothing. It's animals
and babies.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
And maybe like cooking segments. I feel like there's a
lot of cooking segments.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yes, all of that is stuff people want to see,
you know, like the best way for your Fourth of
July barbecue, you know, all of those things. But yeah,
morning shows, morning news shows are like the godsend of
pr and I would say that's where Alex and I
get the majority of our hits. But anyways, thank you
(38:51):
so much for joining us and We just love talking
to you. You are just amazing, toy, and we have
to wrap up the show now.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
So we're so.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Excited each and every week to be doing this for
all of you, where we get to talk to.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Great people like Tori.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Do you have a question that you'd like us to answer,
will reach us to us on Instagram or Facebook under
Whisker Media and then we'll try to answer it in
a future podcast episode. So we'll see you later. And
as we always.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Say, Park Loud and her Smart see you later. Everyone.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Let's talk text every week on demand only on Petlife
Radios dot com
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