Sloane Price: 1.9 Million followers on TikTok (and counting…)

Our interview of Sloane Price for “The Creative Influencer” podcast is available today for download on iTunes, Spotify, and premier platforms everywhere.

Sloane is a TikTok influencer with over 1,900,000 followers. She is also the youngest guest we have had on the podcast to date!

Sloane shares how she uses AI to assist content creation, her strategic approach to building a successful TikTok channel, and her investment in other young influencers and their businesses.

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A transcript of the episode follows:

Jon Pfeiffer:
I am joined today by Sloane Price. Welcome to the podcast.

Sloane Price:
Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

Jon Pfeiffer:
So I'm going to give a little background. You have over 800,000 TikTok followers [Editor's Note: at the time of this interview; now Sloane has over 1.9 Million followers] and growing fast. You are the youngest guest I've ever had on the podcast.

Sloane Price:
Am I really?

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yes. You are.

Sloane Price:
Wow. Well, I can bring that Gen Z perspective.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yes. And so we know how that is. How old are you?

Sloane Price:
I'm 16 years old. Soon, turning 17.

Jon Pfeiffer:
And you are in high school?

Sloane Price:
Yes, I'm a junior.

Jon Pfeiffer:
I not follow a grade. What grade? And then in what state do you live?

Sloane Price:
Elventh. I live in Texas.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Okay. So I want to set the scene before I get into the nuts and bolts of the interview, but I started, I looked at some videos of you YouTube videos that your mom was kind enough to direct me to. One was of you, it was titled TED Talk, making a movie by Sloan Price posted eight years ago, which would make you eight years old. Yeah, it was fun to watch. Do you remember doing it at all?

Sloane Price:
I don't really remember doing it, but I do know that we love to do our little fake TED talks whenever we were young. And I mean, ever since I was little, I've been obsessed with public speaking. It's one of my favorite things performing, being on stage. So it makes sense that that's up there somewhere. I'm sure there's lots of thinking videos throughout the internet.

Jon Pfeiffer:
And then that leads into the next that you're obviously comfortable in front of a camera. And I was going to ask how you are in front of a live audience.

Sloane Price:
I mean, honestly, I think I'm even better. I did theater for a while, musical theater whenever I was young, up until Covid. I love, love, loved it.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Never You were young.

Sloane Price:
Yeah. Okay. I know I'm still young, but I mean maybe from the ages of about six to 11. I did theater prior to Covid and after Covid unfortunately crashed one of my shows whenever I was playing my dream role of Matilda, which devastated me. And I was so bitter and heartbroken over that. I quit theater completely even whenever things got better after Covid. And then I transitioned to another onstage activity, which is pageantry. I recently gave up. My title is Miss Texas Junior Teen, and that is I guess currently the sport or extracurricular that I do. And I also, throughout high school, do speech and debate. So really I've never been an athlete. I've never been a sports girl, but I have always loved to use my voice and speak,

Jon Pfeiffer:
Which there was a talk on AI that was associated with the National American Miss Texas Junior Teen Pageant.

Sloane Price:
Yes.

Jon Pfeiffer:
And you were talking about AI and education and you were talking about how you use it. And I'm curious if this really took place. You said that you use it to compare history concepts to Taylor Swift songs.

Sloane Price:
Sounds crazy, but it's true. I took AP courses, AP world history, and also AP Art history. And for both of those courses, my favorite way to study would be to prompt perplexity or chat GPT to compare a certain artwork or certain war with a song. And it would compare them to me and I could associate that. And I honestly think that even though this AI obsession is a little bit unusual, I feel like I have to be upfront with the fact that I go to a very unique school. Our school uses AI learning for the first three hours of the day to do our traditional coursework, and then we get to spend the afternoons working on passion projects or masterpieces of sorts. And I think that it is because of that and it's because of AI and because of this unique school structure that I've been able to really get started on all of these things that I'm doing as far as social media and business.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Now, I'm curious from your perspective, because it's a big topic. I teach a class at Pepperdine, and one of the big topics is AI because students can have it write your paper for you, and there's all the software that tries to predict whether this was AI generated or not. So there's that back and forth and everybody's concerned about it. But from your view as a 16-year-old, almost 17-year-old junior in high school, what is your view on using it for inspiration versus plagiarism?

Sloane Price:
It's a very difficult topic. One that came up a lot in the two years that I spent at a public traditional school where it was often used to cheat, but I found something interesting whenever a teacher would upfront say, no, AI allowed in my class. It did not work. It just made kids sneak here. Yet in a class where the teacher was upfront giving other ways to use ai, saying, guys, this is a fun way that you can use cache BT to help you brainstorm. And this is a cool way to get to explain concepts. People are going to use AI no matter what. Let's face it, it's becoming more popular by the day. There are new smarter models coming out. And so I think that the only way to encourage kids to use AI ethically is to show them its awesome uses. And for my school, for example, yes, a lot of the traditional learning is powered on ai, but also kids use AI to code apps.

I have a friend, my best friend who's also 16, and a girl with no coding experience, she has created a AI avatar that gives teens safe dating advice. She has made this app at age 16 because AI helped code it for her. And this is crazy. And I think that this represents a big shift that we're going to notice whenever previously apps like that were only be able to be created by the smartest tech bros in Silicon Valley. And now they can be created by girls like my friend Al, who know nothing about coding, but know everything about audience building. She's an influencer too.

Jon Pfeiffer:
So let's shift to your TikTok channel, shift away from ai, and tell me about the moment you decided to start a TikTok channel.

Sloane Price:
Well, I think a lot of people, my other influencer friends, they always say, oh, I was just doing it for fun. I didn't expect it to go viral, but I actually had a very different approach from the first video I posted going viral was my goal, and I wanted to be an influencer. I wanted to make all that happen. Nothing was accidental, nothing was some overnight success. It was all very planned. I had had multiple social media accounts before that, just about random things. I had one about theater, I had one about writing, I had one about ballet, all the different activities that I did. And I always kind of had a knack for making things go viral, making people comment and making people get engaged no matter the means. And so whenever I started out, a lot of what I posted, very, very cringey content, a lot of satire comment because even though, yes, that does make things receive a little bit of hate. I

Jon Pfeiffer:
Got to interrupt you just a second. Did take out a rib. Did you take out a rib?

Sloane Price:
Oh my gosh, no. No one understands. I think at first I have a very sweet audience because they all believed me. And I'm just like, guys, I'm silly...

Jon Pfeiffer:
Referring to one of your very early TikTok videos where you were putting on makeup, talking about myths, rumors that were out there. And one of 'em was, did you take out a rib? It was...

Sloane Price:
Guys, guys, another one that I was dating my celebrity crush. And people actually believed it. And it's exactly that, that discourse is that, "is she being for real?" or "is she serious?" that made videos go viral. And so for me, largely, one of the reasons that it'll go viral, I am honest about admitting this, is I suffered from this disorder called trichotillomania, which is an anxiety disorder that causes you to pull out your hair. And I suffered from this around the age of 10, up through about 15, so pretty recently. And it caused me to not always look totally camera perfect, which is totally fine in real life. Everyone has their flaws, but on social media that does not fly. People are quick to call you out on the first flaw they see. And so I received so much hate online at a very young age for my hair and for a lot of things. And even though a lot of the hate, I was kind of gaming it, I was kind of thinking, oh, people are going to comment on this and that's going to help attacks on my personal appearance as a minor. That was an entirely different thing, and that was a really, really difficult thing for me.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Well, even my clients who are not minors in teenagers or in their twenties, thirties, frankly, sadly into the forties and fifties, that's an issue for all of them is the comments, the negative comments. So let me ask you, do you read your comments?

Sloane Price:
I do read my comments, but I think that there was a key, well, a, things have gotten better. I will say. I think that when some of those things that I couldn't change, the factors that weren't in my control did start to change and people started to see me being open about the hate I was receiving and the struggles I was having. People were very much able to relate to me. And so I started to get messages that were people saying, Hey, I struggle with that hair disorder too. And seeing you be so upfront about it and handle the hate is very inspiring to me. And so messages, those are so encouraging to me and so worth it that I started to be able to do a really good job filtering it all out. And I remember there was a moment where I was raving onto my sister about how excited I was because someone commented that I looked like my favorite model, and it really got to my head, I was so happy. And she said, Sloan, if you are going to take that comment,

Jon Pfeiffer:
Gigi Hadid.

Sloane Price:
It was not Gigi Hadid actually,

Jon Pfeiffer:
Was it?

Sloane Price:
No, that was one of the rumors. That was one of my fake rumors, but it got me so excited. And she was like, Sloan, if you're going to let that affect how you feel about yourself and let that make you feel more confident, then you're giving those comments power. And that also means that whenever someone says, why do you look like that? Or the maybe two month period where the search next to my username was the word ugly, then I'd have to let that get to my heart too. Brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal. Every teenager feels insecure about their appearance. So imagine what that was like for me, but I was able to take one for the team and realize that in the same way that I should not let the compliments get to my head. I shouldn't let the mean comments get to my heart either.

And so I think that I still read them because I think that especially as a young creator, it's so important to be relatable and to be in communication with your fans and to seem like we're just like each other. I think that the only way that you can look up to someone is if you think that in some way someday you could be in their position. And so I do think it's important to see what people are thinking and to engage in the comments, but I definitely dwell on the negativity and the hate a lot less than I used to. And it's an ongoing thing, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the positives of social media. Yeah,

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah. No, I mean, it is a struggle for all creators. The traditional actors and actresses that I represent, they all struggle with it.

Sloane Price:
Yeah, it's brutal. It's a brutal side of putting yourself out there.

Jon Pfeiffer:
You had mentioned, especially when you're going on auditions and it's like, no, no, no. I had a friend that when she was little, she went, she's been an actress all her life. She went out and she had a little white spot on her tooth, and in front of her they says, no, no, we can't use her. It's like, we can't get out of the room. So you had mentioned when I asked you about going on TikTok that you were very strategic about wanting to build an audience. How did you, given as a young creator, what did you do? How did you decide what to do?

Sloane Price:
That Well, I mean, a huge part of my specific approach was really to take advantage of those little things that people would comment on or that people would get upset over and to do all that joking content to embrace the hair. But I think that another part of it is posting. You have the audience that you want. In pageants, a huge piece of advice is to walk across the stage. You've already won the crown, to go into it with that mindset that you're already the queen, that you're already the winner, and then that will give you the confidence that you need to become that. And so posts like an influencer, I think people are always like, oh, that's embarrassing to go in there and pretend like people care about what I have to say. But the only way for them to think you're saying something worth listening to is if you think it's worth listening to as well.

And so I went out there, I got the best lighting I could get filmed in a place that I knew worked, and I approached it with the professionalism and with the support that an influencer would, not just a random girl posting online. And I think that that's where I was able to establish myself in that way where I'm not just some person that occasionally goes viral, but a real content creator and a real figure that people can recognize. And so I think that it's that mindset that I've probably been posting with the same amount of effort whenever I had 40 followers as I do now. And I think that that effort translates,

Jon Pfeiffer:
And you can tell, I mean there's a difference between your early videos and then later videos just because you have more practice, but still there's a consistency. So tell me about your creative process. So first, how do you brainstorm what you're going to do and how far in advance do you come up with the ideas?

Sloane Price:
I think that a lot of what I do, while I do have some things that are very personal to me, I am one of the teenagers that I was posting about trichotillomania or that is posting about pageants. So those things are very original. I oftentimes have very original experiences to talk about. But in general, I think a lot of it is taking current trends and doing them different, doing them better. And I think that a lot of people are always like, oh, you need to be the first to jump on to the latest audio or to do the latest trend. But really I think it's about taking advantage of those things and then subverting people's expectations a little bit. So whenever I would see a big video go viral and people start to do it, I would think, how can I make that just a little bit different that's going to capture people's attentions because I think that I am a big believer in you are not shadow banned or you don't have issues with this.

Good content gets out there and bad content. And this is hard for me because sometimes I want to say, oh, this should have gone viral and it didn't. But you have to just take this business approach of if it's good, people are going to watch it. And I think that you get yourself out there by using trending audios or taking trends, and then you get people to stay by doing twists on them and making it personal and making it different. And so a lot of what I do, my parents always laugh because I always say that it's market research. Whenever I spend time scrolling through TikTok, they always say, oh yeah, very productive use of time. But truly it is my market research at our school, it's a huge part of the curriculum to build audiences for whatever masterpiece project that you work on. And some of these kids don't spend any time online, so they have a huge struggle getting to go viral. And honestly, I think that me being a little bit chronically online and really being tuned in with the latest trends and what's relevant is one of the reasons why I'm able to have success because I see it all. I see what works, I see what doesn't work. And I think that that's really important to be as tuned in with the platform as people are with you.

Jon Pfeiffer:
How many hours a day do you spend on social media?

Sloane Price:
More than I should still. I think I looked, and I think it's about two hours or so. And I think that some of that is work, but I'm not the most consistent uploader. I'm not super good at that. I have kind of more bursts of getting a bunch of ideas and uploading them and then times where I don't busy. But I do spend quite a lot of time on social media, but less than I used to before I started consuming. And I've noticed another thing that I used to really idolize certain influencers and creators and I don't anymore. And I think that that comes with the territory of having people be like, oh my gosh, I'm first in your video where I'm a fan of you, Sloan. And hearing that said about yourself, it's very unique. It's kind of humanizes all those other people that you look up to because I'm suddenly given this other perspective and I realize what it's like to be on the other side of the screen. And so it is so different, and it's helpful because you look at people that have seemingly perfect lives and you will be jealous. But sometimes people will say things to me like that, but I understand that everyone has ups and downs and nobody has perfect lifestyles. And so I think it's given me a really unique perspective and clarity whenever I'm engaging content to know that not everything is serious. Maybe sometimes people are doing things just for the views, but that also it really is the highlight reel that people say.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Yeah. So I read, actually, we talked about it through email, that your goal is to turn teenage influencers into business owners.

Sloane Price:
Yes.

Jon Pfeiffer:
How are you going to do that? What's your approach?

Sloane Price:
Well, that is my masterpiece. That's my project that I'm working on throughout high school because I think I realized just how much influence we actually have whenever I first started to do brand deals. But I think a really interesting thing that maybe if you're not working with as young clients might not be seen is that a lot of management agencies that connect influencers with brand deals will exclusively target the young influencers. And I totally get why I think that they're upcoming. They have large audiences, but with that, we are very inexperienced. 16-year-old girls who randomly go viral on TikTok know nothing about business. They know nothing about contracts, they know nothing about law and all of the behind the scenes and the business of it. And so they're often exploited. And I had a very bad experience with my first agency. They were extremely unprofessional, and there were a lot of ads we did that did not match disclosure agreements.

And were literally not legal in that sense. And I think that teenagers get very excited by the idea of a quick buck. They see, oh my gosh, I could get paid thousands of dollars to post one video. That's crazy. But I think that teenage girls like me who have large audiences actually have the potential to be making so much more and doing so much more than just temporary advertisements. I think that in the beauty industry, things get very oversaturated. And the more that you say, oh, this is the best lip gloss, and then next week you're saying, no, this is the best lip gloss. Eventually you start to lose impact in your voice. And I think that my goal is to, instead of influencers being the messengers, to find a message of their own. Because ultimately we've seen influencers rise and we've seen them fall as years go by.

And I honestly think that the only way that you can make influencing not a temporary thing is by adding that element of ownership to it. And so for me personally, I'm investing in girls, and this is still maybe in the early stages, but going out there and kind of finding about five to 10 clients I'm focusing on now and helping them launch their businesses, giving them the resources that they need, really finding out what impact they want to have online beyond getting sent their favorite products and getting to promote that out there. And instead of getting 20% of these deals that they get, it's more I'm having equity in their businesses because I'm investing in them. And I think that investing in communities is a great move. And I think that having a community is the new market. And I think that, again, like I was saying, tech bros to teenage girls because of the capabilities of AI that we have the potential to even escape the female industries of fashion and makeup and beauty and create things like apps and create technology things, things that have a lot of permanence and can help these girls really establish a place for themselves online.

And so that's what I'm super passionate about and that's what I'm trying to work on right now.

Jon Pfeiffer:
And that's the project you're working on, your passion project at school?

Sloane Price:
Yes. And that's awesome that I get to have the time to do this. And so I think that I'm kind of, I always say not taking one for the team because it's not like I'm making a sacrifice, but I'm kind of deciding that my role, what I feel called to as a creator isn't just to make my own business and maximize my audience, but to help these other girls because I've got to meet so many amazing creators in different events, different influencer events that I've got to go to. And so many of them are unhappy in their agencies and feel like they're being taken advantage of. And I think that there's amazing parts about the management agencies, but it's hard whenever you're signing 14, 15-year-old girls who know nothing about it and neither do their parents, it's a very blurred line.

Jon Pfeiffer:
I would tell you that most of my new clients come to me because he wanted to get out of their management contract.

Sloane Price:
Yeah.

Jon Pfeiffer:
It's not working out and want to get into a new one relationship that way. So it's very common, and especially people starting out because they tend to take any deal that's offered to them

Sloane Price:
Exactly.

Jon Pfeiffer:
With any legal terms, even if it's like, you really shouldn't have done that. So where did you get the idea of taking an ownership interest versus a percentage?

Sloane Price:
I kind of base a lot of this off of Y Combinator, but it's kind of like a new approach because it's more of a Y school. They take product first teams of Tech Bros and turn them into audience first and customer first and teach them how to get their product out there. And then for me, I'm doing the exact opposite. I'm taking Audience First Girls, and I'm going to try to give them products, make them product first. And so in that same way that they give an investment into those people because they see the potentials in their products, I'm going to give an investment to these girls because I see a potential in their audiences. And so that's kind of the framework that I'm taking. But I just think it's evident whenever you go into a girl's video and every single person is asking her, where did you buy those jeans? And I need to get those jeans that she could be doing a lot more than getting 10% back on the jeans sales for whatever company she's working

Jon Pfeiffer:
With. So I have one final question for you. I try to keep these interviews at about a half hour.

Sloane Price:
Okay.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Where can people find you on the internet?

Sloane Price:
You can find me on TikTok at Sloan, Alex. And the same goes for Instagram where I'm and for YouTube as well, which I'm hopefully about to expand upon. And you will see all of my content on there.

Jon Pfeiffer:
Thank you.