[Top Agency Series] Transforming Agency Growth Through Influence With Jason Falls

Jason Falls is Chief Strategy Officer and Principal at Falls+Partners, an influence marketing strategy and creative concepts firm founded in 2022. The company helps clients move beyond checkbox influencer campaigns and toward genuine, influence-driven strategies. An award-winning digital marketing strategist, author, and podcast host, Jason has been recognized as a top influencer in social technology and marketing by Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Ad Age. As a thought leader, he hosts the Winfluence podcast, serves as Executive Producer of the Marketing Podcast Network, and has authored multiple books on influence and social media.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [4:21] Why Jason Falls uses the term “influence marketing” instead of “influencer marketing”
• [6:01] Cracker Barrel’s logo change and consumer backlash in the South
• [11:39] How the VisitLEX campaign showcased Lexington through local creators
• [16:36] Why the viral NEIGH-SMR horse video resonated with audiences
• [19:28] The importance of creative directors in producing strong social media content
• [22:04] Common mistakes brands make in influencer marketing campaigns
• [26:03] How micro-influencers build trust and long-term brand partnerships
• [30:22] GE’s collaboration with TheUnlockr to explain complex induction cooktop technology
• [39:58] How a bourbon brand partnered with Over the Fire Cooking on a branded mini-series
• [45:42] The value of social listening in driving smarter brand decisions

In this episode…

Influencer marketing often promises massive reach, but too many brands end up burning their budgets on ineffective one-off posts. What if the key to success isn’t more followers but more influence? And how do you find creators who actually drive results?

Jason Falls, an expert in influence marketing and social listening, explains why shifting focus from influencers to influence leads to stronger outcomes. Jason emphasizes investing in long-term partnerships with micro-influencers, relying on creative directors for compelling content, and using social listening tools to spot overlooked opportunities. He illustrates these strategies through campaigns with VisitLEX, GE, and a bourbon brand, showing how creativity, consistency, and insight can turn marketing into meaningful engagement.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Jason Falls, Chief Strategy Officer of Falls+Partners, about rethinking influencer marketing. Jason discusses building authentic influence strategies, lessons from viral content, and the value of social listening. He also explores mistakes brands make in influencer campaigns, the power of micro-influencers, and why creativity drives better results.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Jason Falls on LinkedIn
• Falls+Partners
• Marketing Podcast Network
• Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand by Jason Falls
• Cornett
• VisitLEX Website | YouTube
• TheUnlockr
• Over The Fire Cooking by Derek Wolf
• The Fuel Podcast

Special Mention:

• iBrand Visual

Related episodes:

• “[Top Agency Series] Expanding Your Brand Impact Through Social With Duncan Alney of Firebelly Marketing” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Navigating a Merger and Becoming an End-to-End Digital Partner With Kevin Hourigan of Spinutech” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Most Valuable Advice When Selling Your Agency With Todd Taskey of Potomac Business Capital” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “A Business Built on Full Transparency with Roy Krebs Co-Founder of Natural Stacks” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[One-Question] Growing Your Business Through a Recession with Rand Fishkin of SparkToro” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “Virality happens after the fact, but the content has to be really, really good.”
• “It’s about getting a lot of people who are influential to persuade their audience to take action on your behalf.”
• “If you want better content and your creative team is not actually creating that social media content, that’s your problem.” 
• “The biggest mistake is picking one influencer with a lot of followers and not trying to find someone who actually influences their audience.”
• “You can’t create a viral video. You can create a good video, and then it can go viral.”

Action Steps:

1. Broaden your definition of influence: Focus on individuals who drive action within niche communities, not just those with large followings, to foster authentic engagement.
2. Invest in long-term partnerships: Build ongoing relationships with creators to reinforce brand messaging and improve conversions over time.
3. Leverage local and niche creators: Collaborate with micro-influencers or community figures for relevant, cost-effective engagement within specific audiences.
4. Prioritize creative expertise in content creation: Rely on professional creatives to produce high-quality, trend-savvy content that stands out online.
5. Utilize social listening for actionable insights: Monitor online conversations to uncover new opportunities and sentiment shifts and avoid overreactions.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, Founder of inspiredInsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Jason Falls. You can check him out at FallsPartners.com.

And Jason, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out. Since this is part of the Top Agency Series, I have some interesting agency owners on. I had a mutual friend Duncan Alney on, and obviously he focuses on CPG, and beverage companies, mission-based brands. And I always want to hear what he has to say about trends and I also like to eat so I like to hear his recommendations on food and healthy food.

Another one was Kevin Hourigan of Spinutech. He has had an agency since 1995, I think it was. So it’s interesting to hear the evolution of the internet, business, and agency life throughout a couple of decades. Another good one was Todd Taskey. Todd Taskey helps pair agencies with private equity, so he helps sell agencies. And he has the Second Bite Podcast. So oftentimes especially when dealing with private equity funds, they buy you then they sell again. Sometimes people will get more on the second bite than the first. So that was a really good episode on kind of M&A space agency, so check that out. 

This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. We do that in a few ways. 

One, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. Jason’s a big fan of podcasting. He has a podcast and a podcast network, which we’ll talk about as well. We do the strategy, accountability, and the full execution of production to make it easy. Number two, we’re an easy button for a company’s corporate gifting. So we make gifting and staying top of mind to clients, partners, prospects, even staff simple, seamless, affordable. And so all you have to do is give us a list of the addresses, and we’ll send gifts to people every few months for years.

So Jason, we kind of call ourselves the magic elves that run in the background, to make it stress free for companies to build amazing relationships so that you can run your business. You know, that’s the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways at how I can give to my best relationships, and I’ve found no better way over the past decade to profile the people I admire on my podcast, and share with the world what they’re working on and also send them sweet treats in the mail. 

You can check us out at Rise25.com or email us to [email protected]. 

And Jason, I want to give a special shout out to iBrand Visual. They created this sign behind me. If you’re watching the video, it’s probably been over a decade since I’ve upgraded what was in my background. And so they work with companies like fortune 500, Virgin, the Ritz Carlton, and also small startups. And they do custom signs, interior and exterior. So thank you. I did pay them. But thank you for creating this for me. So if you have a podcast, you know, check them out. They can probably create any size backdrop. This one’s a little bit larger than I realized, Jason. 

But anyways, I’m excited to introduce Jason Falls. He’s an expert in influence marketing and social listening space, and he’ll explain what that is. He’s authored three books, Spoken audience on four continents and worked with top brands like GE appliances, Maker’s Mark, Bourbon, Humana and others. He also runs, as I mentioned, Marketing Podcast Network and he kind of moonlights as a podcaster and radio disc jockey focused on music. 

So, Jason, thanks for joining me.

Jason Falls: 04:05

Thank you so much for having me, Jeremy. It’s going to be a fun conversation.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:08

I want to start off and I’m going to share your website Falls+Partners in a second. But just start people off and talk about influence marketing strategy. And we’ll get to the social listening part.

Jason Falls: 04:21

Sure. So my kind of take on influencer marketing, which is what most people call it. But you’ll notice I call it influence marketing. And my spin on it is it’s subtle, but I think it’s important. And if you use the word influencer marketing and then you’re focusing on the influencers, the people who are actually doing the content, building the content and connecting to the audience.

But if you actually pull back and say, hey, what are we trying to accomplish here? What’s our strategic approach? Well, it’s not influencer, it’s influence. You’re trying to create an influence strategy to persuade people to take action. And so that can happen in a lot of different ways. 

And I think we get lost in the word influencer and think, oh, we’ve got to go find someone who’s got, you know, half a million followers on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube in order to make this influencer marketing thing happen. But if you actually look at the purpose of, hey, we’re trying to drive influence, that can happen through someone on social media with a lot of followers, but it can also happen through community leaders. It can also happen through people who have actual influence, not necessarily social media followers, which is kind of a mask for influence in the social media space. So when I sit down with clients to develop an influencer marketing strategy, it’s yes, we want to accomplish the goal of either creating awareness for a product or driving sales for a product. Or maybe it’s changing the way people think about one thing or another. 

For instance, Cracker Barrel could use some influencer marketing help right now.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 05:56

I keep seeing posts about that. What are your thoughts in this? 

Jason Falls: 06:01

Well. You know, first of all, you Cracker Barrel basically updated their logo and they’ve updated the internal decor of their restaurant. They were long overdue for an upgrade. And unfortunately with southern brands, particularly Cracker Barrel, which is primarily a southern brand and has a big audience in the South, the South doesn’t take too kindly to change these days. And so. So when you change.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 06:26

I know you live in Louisville, Kentucky. I say Louisville, not Louisville, because I lived there, and I know that’s the proper way to say it. But it’s funny when the first you mentioned the South, the first day I was there, I had lunch and they were like, you’re not from around here. I’m like, where do you think I’m from? They’re like, you’re from the North.

I’m like, well, I go, you’re not that far north. I mean, not far. You’re not that far south. Right. And so we had a conversation. But I love the southern hospitality that I got when I was there for sure.

Jason Falls: 06:57

Exactly. Yeah. And Louisville’s, I think, a border city. It’s half Midwest, half south. It’s kind of in the middle. But I’m from far eastern Kentucky, so I consider myself a Southerner. Okay. And in the South, change of any kind. It doesn’t matter if it’s if the allegations in this conversation are all that it’s about wokeness and political correctness and all that stuff. And I don’t think it is. I think it’s they wanted to upgrade and update their brand, which hadn’t been touched since 1977. They, you know, the style today for logos is much more austere and simple and just words. They still used the orange, you know, barrel shape with the words Cracker Barrel, but they got rid of the old dude on the sitting and sitting on.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 07:39

I’m on the website. But you could see here, like in the little logo piece right here, it just says CB. I don’t know if they changed that or not. But yeah, no, I love to hear your take on because we’re talking about marketing and also. Sure.

Jason Falls: 07:56

Well, I thought the logo change was actually kind of a nice upgrade for them. But most people who were vocal about it were, you know, basically accused the company of, you know, getting rid of our American values and our culture by getting rid of the old man in the rocking chair and the, you know, the and the barrel sitting on the beside the logo, which was a, in my opinion, an overreaction. And of course, Cracker Barrel eventually, because of the negative conversations online and the stock drop, they caved and they went. They said, okay, we’ll do over. We’re not going to change the logo. We’re going back to the old.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 08:32

So they went back.

Jason Falls: 08:33

Yeah. They announced, I think it was yesterday that they are not going to now adopt the new logo because of such, such the, the, the outcry and the boycotts that people were calling for, for Cracker Barrel. So it’s just another unfortunate byproduct of the political landscape that we live in right now, where everybody’s overreacting to everything, in my opinion. I thought it was a perfectly fine upgrade. It needed an upgrade.

It hasn’t been updated in 50 years, and it was about time. But you know, enough people yelled about it that they decided not to do it. So I’m not sure what they’re going to do with the decor, but they did announce that the logo was not going to change. They were going to go back to the old logo. So good enough.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 09:14

I’m going to pull this up. Just so we, this was the upgrade, right? You can see this is from five days ago. This got yeah this was on the Today show and this is showing, this was the one that they I guess reversed.

Jason Falls: 09:29

Right. And if you look at that, the orange is still the barrel shape. So it’s still pulling in the actual barrel shape for the logo. They upgraded the fonts but it’s pretty similar and close to the old one. But the big thing that people got upset about was and I forgot the character’s name, Uncle Hershel, I think, is the character’s name. The old logo has the old man sitting in the rocking chair, rocking chair with his arm up on.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 09:54

Right.

Jason Falls: 09:55

And that’s what they took out. And so they’re saying, well that’s, that’s like our that to Southerners, a lot of people I think would think well that’s like taking my grandfather off.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 10:04

Right. Yeah. You just erase my grandfather. Not a smart move.

Jason Falls: 10:10

Exactly. So, you know, I think when you get down to the people who have some common sense about it, they say, well, I don’t really care about the decor of the logo. I’d like for them to upgrade their food and their service. And I heard that a lot in the conversations that I had, but honestly, I thought the logo change was fine, I liked it, I thought it was cool, it’s a great upgrade, but they’re not going to do it now, so no big deal.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 10:31

You know, maybe that’s, I don’t know they got a lot of buzz from doing this. Right. And so maybe just that exercise, they probably spent a lot of money on this upgraded logo, but it probably is worthwhile for all the buzz they got.

Jason Falls: 10:48

Well, I would say yes, but their stock tanked. And so that was when they were like, oh, maybe we screwed this up. And so I don’t think.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 10:58

As long as it comes back.

Jason Falls: 10:59

Yeah. As long as it comes back and eventually I’m sure it will. But I don’t think this was a good move either way for Cracker Barrel. And I think by going back to the old logo, they probably made it worse than they did better. But again, I’m just pontificating on this. I don’t have any insider information on it. They’ll be fine. They’re a good restaurant. People love them. This will be forgotten about in 30 days. It’ll be fine.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 11:21

Yeah. So back on to influence marketing. I’d love to pull out. Just get inside your head for a few specific examples so people can see how they can use it? Maybe we start with VisitLEX and around what you did there.

Jason Falls: 11:39

Yeah. So VisitLEX is the CVB, the convention and visitors bureau in Lexington, Kentucky. And I did a lot of work with them when I was with Cornett, which is an agency in Lexington, Kentucky. And VisitLEX, you know, Lexington, Kentucky is a great place. It’s a great town. It’s got a lot of things to come and look at and visit other than horse farms and other than the University of Kentucky. 

And the CVB’s challenge is to sort of show all of the different colors and facets and, and activities and whatnot in Lexington. And so we did a couple of things that I thought were were really fun and inventive there that first of all, I have to, you know, tip my hat to my colleagues at Cornett who did such a great job with, they did a viral video that went viral, I guess, of a horse eating things. It was an ASMR video of a horse just chewing on things that just kind of went nuts and was featured on the front page of YouTube a couple of times and just really fun stuff. 

But one of the things that they sort of charged me with at one point was trying to get creators, content creators, and influencers from different facets of life. So lifestyle, art, music, etc. and sort of have them share their version of Lexington, Kentucky. What does Lexington mean to them? And so what would they show off if they were bringing someone to Lexington? So we engaged, I think it was a dozen or so creators who were in and around the Lexington area, and they did their own little version. 

We gave them a little bit of direction, but we said, hey, go create your ideal day in Lexington and show us what visiting Lexington means to you. And that campaign, you know, wound up doing very, very well in support of all of the other advertising and marketing initiatives that VisitLEX had in the market that year. And I just got a lot of fun out of working with the creators on that. It ended up being nominated and was a finalist, I think, for a Sammy award, or was it a Webby Award? 

A Webby Award, I think for travel, for the travel category, for an influence campaign? It didn’t win the award that year, but it was nominated for and was a finalist for it. So we got some nice kudos for the work we did there and had a lot of fun working with them. Incidentally, about the time I was leaving Cornett to kind of go back and kind of start Falzon Partners. They also did a really interesting VisitLEX tie in, and I’m trying to remember all the details of it, but they had a basically a temporary retail store front down in downtown Lexington, and they were selling custom Nike tennis shoes for horses, which obviously wasn’t a real product that they put out on the market. 

But it was just a fun way to tie in, you know, trends in sneakers and shoes with the, you know, the main sort of, you know, banner image of Lexington, Kentucky, which is the horse farms and the horse industry and Keeneland race track and all that good stuff. So it was a lot of fun and there were some influencer tie-ins with that. We sent sample shoes, kind of prototype horse shoes that looked like, you know, tennis shoes. Sent those to a couple of like, sneaker collectors and creators on TikTok and whatnot who kind of were like, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, obviously a human being can’t do anything with a shoe that’s made for a horse, but it was an interesting novelty to kind of get VisitLEX in Lexington, Kentucky, and in the mindset of some people out there that maybe wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:19

One of the, you know, lessons there for me, Jason, is you can be creative with these things and it could be very localized. Right. It doesn’t have to be someone, like you said, with a million followers or something, but someone who’s really local and is influenced locally.

Jason Falls: 15:37

Yeah, that’s true. And in fact, we did a, when I was at Cornett again, this I have to give credit to other team members there. It wasn’t just me, there’s the ASMR video.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:46

Yeah. This, by the way, is 2.1 million views. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. And so people can check this out.

Jason Falls: 15:54

And it came in waves to the first I think 1.1 or whatnot kind of came all of a sudden and made it quote unquote, viral. And then it sort of tapered off for a little bit. And then like six months later, all of a sudden it got another swell, and YouTube put it on the front page again, and it got another half a million or whatever. So it’s been an interesting sort of ebb and flow to see this video grow. But this is literally if you have the sound up, if you go look for it on YouTube, it’s literally a horse just chewing things. It’s really kind of funny.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 16:25

I’m sorry. Why do you think this went viral? You could see here like you could look it up. It’s NEIGH-ASMR and go Visit Lex Channel and check it out.

But yeah.

Jason Falls: 16:36

Instead of ASMR, it’s NEIGH-SMR because it’s a horse. And so I think really what Cronett really does well, whether it’s influence marketing when I was there or the various content and campaigns that they do now is they capitalize on trends really well. And the ASMR trend, sort of the just listening to sounds that are soothing or calming or whatnot was a big trend when this, you know, came out six years ago, that was kind of something that you saw a lot of ASMR videos on YouTube and TikTok and whatnot back then. And so they said, well, what can we do with ASMR for our clients? And this just came together.

The Cornett team has a fantastic creative department. They’re brilliant, and they come up with just really cool stuff. And so that was one of them. And I wish I had something to do with that specific video because it was, you know, it kind of went crazy. But that was all the creative team at Cornett doing that and VisitLEX.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:35

So I mean, you look at these things too, even I don’t know, my background is, you know, is a chiropractor. And so I love these, they have all these videos now of someone getting adjusted and they are mic’d up. And there’s something satisfying about like it’s kind of like the horse. It just sounds like something satisfying about watching us and listening to people getting cracked, adjusted.

And there’s even ones about people doing pets. Like, I don’t know if he’s a chiropractor or a vet or both. And I’m like, I could watch those things all day long and they become like local celebrities. Like when I go to there’s one in California. I’m like, I definitely want to get adjusted by that person, you know?

Jason Falls: 18:20

Exactly, exactly. And I see those same videos because I’m a big fan of chiropractic. I love getting adjusted. And when those videos started popping into my stream, especially the gentleman I think he’s in the Ukraine or something that does the animals.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:35

Oh yeah, I know you’ve seen those too.

Jason Falls: 18:37

Oh yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:37

I’ve seen.

Jason Falls: 18:37

Those.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:38

Too. Those are great.

Jason Falls: 18:38

And there is something really satisfying about not only hearing the sound, because if you’ve been adjusted and you hear this and you’re like, oh, I bet that felt really good. But also just seeing the look on the faces of the people getting adjusted or even the animals. The animals are hysterical because he’s, you know, holding their hind legs and kind of just as a gentle snap. And the dogs will, like, turn and look at him all of a sudden and they have this shocked look on their face, but then he goes, you scoot. And then they, you know, they lick his hand or whatever. It’s pretty funny.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:09

Yeah. It’s just it’s hard to create a viral video, right? I mean, I guess the people that you’re talking about, I mean, these a lot of these brands or people have influence already. So it’s more likely just to get in front of the right person and eyeballs. Right.

So just to create a viral video in itself is very difficult I would think.

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