Hala Taha: How to Turn Social Media Visibility Into a Revenue Engine | Marketing

Hala Taha (0:00)

It's probably the best decision I ever made in my life, was to really just get started on LinkedIn. Definitely the most thing that I'm like, wow, I'm so thankful that I did that when everybody kind of rolled their eyes at me, and that I just showed up every day and built it brick by brick.

Courtney Johnson (0:14)

You cannot scale to the elite level where like you are a household name, people know you, you're getting paid six figures to speak. Like you cannot scale to that without a T.

Hala Taha (0:24)

Your brand enables you to get paid more. I was able to charge like the upper, upper limit of what somebody would pay for their social and podcast, because I had the social proof. I'm really scared for young people in terms of like their inability to actually acquire skills. If you can acquire your skills online, I feel like that is the way to future prove yourself. What's up, YAP fam? A little while ago, I joined Courtney Johnson as a guest on her show, Built in Public Podcast. We had such an incredible conversation that I knew I had to share it right here on our feed.

Usually, I'm the one in the host seat grilling entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. But this time around, Courtney flipped the script on me and we talked about how I grew my personal brand and built YAP Media from the ground up. Now, I had an absolute blast recording with Courtney. She's one of my friends in Austin, one of my new friends.

This convo gives a really cool behind the scenes look into my own story that I don't always get to share. I don't always feel comfortable to share. So you guys are going to like it. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this special crossover episode with Courtney Johnson.

Courtney Johnson (1:28)

Welcome to Built in Public. I am your host, Courtney Johnson. I've been a full-time content creator and a personal brand strategist for seven years, and I really built my career sharing the process, not just the outcomes of personal brand. Built in Public is about what it actually looks like to build a brand, a business, and to build real leverage in the creator economy. We're talking strategy, systems, audience growth, monetization, and that uncomfortable middle ground between I have an idea and this is actually working. I'll be sharing what I'm testing, what's working, what's not, and I'm going to be bringing on people who are building their careers and companies out loud too. If you want honest conversations, practical insight, and zero BS, you are in the right place. Let's build in public. Today, I'm sitting down with Hala Taha. Hala built one of the biggest podcasts in the entire world. It's called Young and Profiting. She built it completely from scratch without industry backing and turned it into a major, major multimillion dollar media company. Hala is a founder of YAP Media, a LinkedIn top voice, and she's someone who has built her brand by consistently showing up, taking up space, and owning her voice in rooms where she wasn't always expected. Hala has grown an audience of millions, interviewed some of the biggest names in business. But what's most interesting is how intentionally she's built both influence and infrastructure at the same time. So today, we're talking about what it looks like to actually build authority, to scale your platform, and to create opportunities instead of waiting for them. Hey, Hala.

Hala Taha (2:56)

Hey, Courtney.

Courtney Johnson (2:57)

Welcome to the pod. I'm happy you're here.

Hala Taha (2:59)

I'm happy to be here too.

Courtney Johnson (3:01)

We just had a great conversation. We're doing a little swap pass situation today. We're here all day together. We're here all day. We're spending the day at the studio.

I want to start with talking about personal brand. What is your personal brand origin story? How did you start?

Hala Taha (3:17)

Well, I feel like I've been trying to make it online since I was literally 18 I was so early to the game.

Courtney Johnson (3:27)

How did you know that this was a thing?

Hala Taha (3:31)

Well, I started my career in radio and I worked at Hot 97 I was Angie Martinez's assistant for three years, who was the voice of New York at the time. This is over 10 years ago.

I was really interested in radio and I was really interested in this new influencer world. But at that time, there was no word called influencer.

Nobody was really famous online yet and I was really early to it. So I actually started a blog when I was like 24 or something called the Sorority of Hip-Hop after my radio days. I had these online radio shows before podcasts were even a thing. So I started out super young just trying to make it online. I was too early. My biggest platform was Twitter and I had 6,000 followers. But that was a lot back then. I had a YouTube channel that had a couple of thousand subscribers and that was super cool back then because there was no concept of an influencer with millions of followers. So I just really wanted to be visible online and try to experiment with the Internet. So I was starting early on. Now, the first big break I had, I think, was LinkedIn. So in 2018, when I started my first real podcast, Young and Profiting, that's a top 100 podcast today, I started in 2018 and I started posting about my journey of becoming a podcaster and interviewing all these cool people on LinkedIn. And that's when I first really started establishing a brand where people knew me and I had some sort of influence and audience. Yeah.