Daughter to Vietnamese immigrant parents, Vivian Tu knows first-hand that building wealth isn’t so easy for younger generations.
The former Wall Street trader turned BuzzFeed sales executive, who quit her six figure job to help more people better understand how money works, spoke on stage at Advertising Week in New York.
Tu shares about how her work has evolved and what she sees for the future of content creation.
The value behind the dollar signs
With a desire to inform and empower millennial and gen Z individuals, her book “RICH AF: The Winning Money Mindset that will Change Your Life” busts a number of myths and invites readers to reframe their mindset when it comes to money, powered with the tools to actually build wealth – not by working harder, but working smarter.
Some of the top takeaways from her book are also seen as themes on her Instagram and TikTok.
- Stop Working So Hard: Why you won’t get rich from “working hard,” and how to get your money to do the work for you
- Adopting the Abundance Mindset: The era of scrimping and saving is over. Instead of worrying about what you might lose, Tu discusses tried-and-true blueprints for returns, including when it comes to your career.
- Valuing Yourself: Instead of simply thinking about the figure on a price tag, ask yourself “Would I work x-number of hours for this?” The answer may change your entire perspective on what you buy and why.
See also: Dear Kiki: How can I learn more about managing my money?
More than money
To pivot from focusing on financial literacy, Tu used social media insights to discover new ways to engage and grow her online audience.
Using Meta A.I. and insights to learn more about what her audience is interested in, she reminds the audience at Advertising Week that audiences that spend money will spend in different categories such as beauty, fashion, and things to make their lives easier.
“Women who were interested in money were also interested in skincare routines and clothing; it’s about humanizing the meaning behind the money,” she shared.
Tu also recognized that brands are growing increasingly interested in working with creators who aren’t too saturated with simply one content vertical. “Brands are looking for more cross-segment creators now.”
“Your Rich BFF” Vivian Tu also reminds us that it’s important to create and maintain trust with audiences through authentic reviews and partnerships that align with who she is as a person and what she stands for. “The best performing ads are the ones that serve the audience.”
The future of content creation as a business
Looking ahead to the future of content creation as a business, the use of A.I. for reducing the workload of the creator for video editing or graphic design is already happening.
Tu encourages more creators to use A.I. for audience insights and believes the future of creators will be less focused on the creators themselves, but rather the audience first.
In a 2023 study on the economic impact of TikTok, researchers Oxford Economics found that 89% AAPI-Owned SMBs and creators experienced a surge in sales after promoting their product or business on TikTok.
By identifying the intersection of what audiences are searching for on the internet and their purchase decisions using A.I. tools, creators can build their audiences first based on something more personal to them including a shared need, values, or filling a gap in informative and helpful content; from there, the insights will continue to empower creators by identifying the needs of followers to inform the creation of a new product or service, rather than creating it first then figuring out how to market it.
The future of not just content creation, but also product creation of the things we need the most are what we as consumers can look forward to benefitting from.
