What if 84% of small businesses needed your platform to survive? Joshua Bloom, GM, Head of US Enterprise Sales and Canada at TikTok, has been working in social media expansion in Canada for over 26 years. His journey led him to become the first employee at MySpace, Facebook, and TikTok Canada. Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, explores Joshua's journey from Wall Street to social media pioneer, why some platforms thrive while others fail, and how he's leading through unprecedented regulatory uncertainty.

Presenter 0:01 Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

Alison 0:20 In today's episode, we're exploring the fascinating intersection of digital innovation, economic impact and entrepreneurial resilience with someone who has an absolutely extraordinary track record of being first. So I'm super excited to welcome Joshua Bloom. He has served as the GM of global business solutions for TikTok Canada, and remarkably, has also been the first employee of not one but three major social platforms in Canada, going as far back as MySpace, then Facebook and TikTok. Josh's exceptional leadership was just recognized with a promotion and North American role. So he is now the GM Head of U.S. Enterprise Sales, as well as maintaining Canada at TikTok. Josh's career journey is anything but traditional. From Wall Street to becoming a key architect of social media expansion in Canada over the past 26 years. Since joining on as an instrumental team member in starting TikTok Canada in 2019, he's witnessed the platform grow from a startup operation to an economic powerhouse. Through the combined total of its operations and SMB activities on the platform, TikTok has contributed 2.3 billion to Canada's GDP in 2024 alone. They also support over 613,000 small businesses, 84% of which now consider the platform essential to their survival. This conversation comes at an absolutely critical juncture. With economic uncertainty, we are all managing through dramatic change. With recent regulatory challenges forcing TikTok Canada to pause major cultural investments and face an uncertain future, t hat reality is even more true for Josh and his experience can provide super valuable learning for all of us. So whether you're curious about building social platforms from the ground up, the economic impact of TikTok on Canadian businesses, or how leaders navigate extreme uncertainty, today's conversation promises insights that you won't find anywhere else. So welcome Josh and congratulations on your new role.

Joshua 2:21 Thank you so much, Alison, it's great to talk with you again.

Alison 2:24 Now, Josh, you have this incredibly unique distinction of being employee number one for three major social platforms in Canada. That's a 26 year front row seat to the evolution of social media here, and I'd love you to take us back to the transition from Wall Street to digital, including what was the pivotal moment that convinced you to pursue a career in marketing?

Joshua 2:45 It's funny, I graduated university in 1995, not to age myself, but I graduated a finance degree, and I've always had this vision of working on Wall Street. And so about the end of 1998, after having worked in finance about three years. My cousin Lee Nadler, called a digital pioneer, he was a number 17 employee at DoubleClick. And DoubleClick was first ad serving technology. And DoubleClick also created the very first ad network. So back in the mid to late 90s, they used to represent all the big websites, including Alta Vista, if you remember that search engine before, before Google, sort of like had its, you know, its reign. So he introduced me to the company, and used to tell me stories about how digital was going to be the big thing in advertising. I was not a fan of computers. Still to this day, I'm not great at them, but he mentioned that they were opening up this media team and that I should come and check it out. He finally convinced me, and it was sort of a match made in heaven. And, you know, ended up spending three fantastic years at DoubleClick to which, one, I really learned internet and the potential of the internet, and two, I was really able to understand what working in a really positive culture looked like. DoubleClick, I think was one of the early great digital cultures, and I think that helped me to sort of create sort of what I wanted to see when I led teams later on down the road.

Alison 4:14 Well, a huge thank you on behalf of Canadian marketers for your cousin giving you that push, because clearly we have benefited. And I also like the cultural learning. So being an early adopter to digital and social media is great, but the learning you took on the importance of a culture, regardless of what sector or industry you're in, the culture can be such a competitive advantage, and that's clearly something that you've lived and brought to life in your different roles in Canada,

Joshua 4:38 Absolutely, it was such an empowering and engaging culture. The fantastic leaders that really were people leaders, and it gave everyone an opportunity to to be successful and to be the best versions of themselves. And it was funny because back in that, in that period of time, we were selling digital against all other forms of media. We would literally have packets of 50 to 100 pieces of paper stacked on top of each other with leads that we would call one at a time, and basically try to sell digital media against the other traditional media formats that they were using. It was a really wild time.

Alison 5:18 Now, you were brave to take a leap early in your careers, but you've also built a number of platforms from scratch in the Canadian market. So walk us through what it's like and the approach that you took for building something from scratch.

Joshua 5:31 It's really interesting. So, you know, that started with, you know, my being the first employee in Canada for MySpace. What caught my eye is that, you know, MySpace was a platform that not only was I using, but I was such a fan of music, and I used the platform basically to connect with bands that I adored. And came to a realization very quickly that it really was an amazing platform to discover new music. And when I think about the steps that I took myself in terms of that first platform that I worked with, and then to Facebook, and then to TikTok, it really started with sort of building a vision and then inspiring a narrative that really turned heads.

Joshua 6:11 So when you think about MySpace like it was revolutionary, and you know, combined massive scale with unprecedented self expression, allowing brands like tap into like these rich audience data and target consumers through the culture that they were actively creating. It gave your advertisers an opportunity to like tap, you know, right into that, you know, sort of evolving culture that was, that was being created on the internet. You know, then Facebook was sort of captivating advertisers, you know, for uniting like what was real identity with social connectivity and then enabling very precise targeting at scale. You know, Facebook bought Instagram, and you know that totally transformed advertising by merging, like the visual storytelling with aspirational lifestyle. And yeah, that gave brands a seamless way to inspire and influence and connect.

Joshua 6:59 And now you fast forward to today with TikTok, which has social components to it, but it's really, you know, entertainment-based. It's really just a playground for, like, infinite discovery and driving culture and allowing brands not to just participate, but to actually help to shape culture. And if you do it right, you know, brands have an opportunity to drive, not only the most important business KPIs, but really disrupt the way that we are perceiving marketing today. Second to that, I would probably just say that, like hiring the right folks early, because, like, they're going to set the tone and who you are as an organization in the market, and you need to make sure that the conversations that they're having within the market are ones that are going to sort of ease that barrier entry for testing, so that when that first dollar is spent, it's done in a way that is meaningful, they're learning something, and they're able to then move up from sort of that experiences.

Joshua 7:53 A lot of times, I think you have, you have these sort of call it, shiny objects in markets, and marketers always have testing dollars, but if you don't really get anything out of that test, they flop. And that's why you really only see, like, a handful of platforms that are really are getting, you know, significant dollars and having, like, meaningful partnerships with brands today.

Alison 8:16 It's great advice, and with the three platforms that you've built in Canada, you've been on the ground floor, but you've also seen some that have gone into phenomenal success and some that failed. So MySpace certainly dominated early but ultimately lost market share. Facebook's become a global giant, and Tiktok has been exploding in recent years. So it's great learning and from a strategic perspective, what were the key differentiators between the platforms succeeding longer term, versus those that didn't.

Joshua 8:43 I think MySpace had a really hard time defining itself. If you if you put MySpace and Facebook next to each other, we'll see that MySpace is very much like a, was very much like a social portal, very similar to like a Yahoo, where it was very content-based. You had MySpace Music and MySpace Sports and MySpace News, and there really wasn't much of a focal point, even though music really was its centre. MySpace lost its way, and a lot of that could have also done with the fact that, you know, Rupert Murdoch and News Corp bought, bought the company, and really made it just like a, yeah, a money-making machine, where you then look at Facebook.

Joshua 9:23 And when I joined Facebook, it was a fraction of the size of MySpace. People were telling me it was career suicide at that time. But you could see the difference in the platforms, where, in that Facebook was more of a social utility. It was more, much more similar to Google, you know, where, basically the the news feed that was created really was the bread and butter of Facebook became sort of this, this news source, this personalized newspaper for individuals, where that content was the things that were happening with all the people and entities that they care, they care most about. And Facebook stuck to that you n ever saw Facebook try to build content and be competitive with MySpace. They just got better and better and better at creating a more impactful and a more empowering social utility.

Alison 10:11 Now I want to pivot to the small business community in Canada. Clearly, being a small business in Canada has been really hard work for the last five years. We've had that pandemic, now we have tariffs, we've had a challenging economy, and small businesses are in many ways, are the cornerstone of Canada's economy. Now I know that Nordicity recently completed an economic impact study that Tiktok Canada commissioned that was really illuminating, and before we dive into the specific numbers, I really think it's important to contextualize these findings within the broader reality that's facing Canadian SMEs.

Alison 10:50 So we've seen the business closure rate increase by almost 5% in 2024, 65% of Canadian SMEs are still managing pandemic related debt to average over $100,000 and now they're dealing with the tariff uncertainty and what experts are calling the silver tsunami, where nearly two thirds of Canadian businesses lack succession planning as their baby boomer owners are nearing retirement. So against this backdrop, how do you interpret TikTok's role as an economic lifeline?

Joshua 11:21 The finding that you mentioned before about about 84% of small businesses that consider TikTok essential to their survival is such a profound statement, but also something that has become very real to us because, you know, it's a it's both a testament to the platform's transformative power and it's almost like a clarion call to our responsibility now as a tech company. In this level of dependency, underscores how deeply integrated Tiktok has become in this entrepreneurial ecosystem, especially for small businesses that often lack these extensive resources of large corporations and have also had to deal with things like the pandemic, which I think really shocked like, you know, the entire ecosystem.

Joshua 12:03 This dependency really indicates that, like, that we're not just a platform for entertainment, but we're a vital lifeline for innovation, creativity, economic resilience. I guess it creates this sort of dual responsibility that we have. So I think there's like, there's, there's empowerment support, where I think we just, we have to continue to build and enhance our tools, you know, with features that are going to help small businesses thrive and providing educational resources, access to analytics, promotional opportunities that cater to specifically to their needs. And I think by offering, you know, guidance on best practices, we can really help these businesses to leverage, you know, this unique storytelling capability that we have to help them to, you know, really build authentic connections with their audiences.

Joshua 12:05 I think the second one would be community, and this, this notion of inclusivity, we really do have a responsibility to to foster supportive community where diverse voices can be heard and supported, and this means actively working towards reducing barriers to entry, probably offering financial resources or partnerships that can aid in the visibility of these underrepresented businesses and communities, and promoting initiatives that really celebrate cultural diversity. You see that in a lot of the work it is you know, that we've done, and some of the ones that we've had to unfortunately shut down in the near term, that hopefully we'll be able to bring back up once we can overcome this, this shutdown hurdle.

Joshua 13:24 But really, you know, it's, it's, it's our role to, like, not just like, facilitate growth, but it's got to be something that's sustainable long term, you know, for these, these small businesses. I think it's important that we, you know, we're listening to their needs. You know, we're adapting. We're creating an environment where, where they can, they can thrive. We're, really, are, you know, sort of these, these partners to their journey, and hopefully, you know, a platform that creates economic viability for these businesses. And really, what we're seeing is an ever-evolving, you know, digital world.

Alison 13:53 I know you and your team have done a lot of different initiatives. Is there one that you're particularly proud of, or that the results really surprised you?

Joshua 13:53 So yes, one of the ones that I find most interesting is a company called Edison motors out in BC. Chase Barber, who is the CEO of the company, he's a, he's a trucker, a logger, and he, through TikTok, built basically a hybrid diesel engine, electric and diesel engine. This is something that's never been done before, and something you know that he built from scratch and patented, but used TikTok and its community as a sounding board, and then as he understood the capabilities of this engine and what it could provide, terms of power and efficiencies, you know, for for trucks, he began to basically build his first truck, and got all of his suppliers, also through his relationships in the TikTok community.

Joshua 14:49 You fast forward to today, that company has now been valued at over $200 million, and the use of that hybrid engine, there, there are so many different cases. And this is something that's being built out of Canada. So not only am I proud in sort of that patriotic piece of like something that's completely new, never been done before, and has so many different applications, but to see the platform play such an integral role in helping not only the development of the product itself, but actually to build the infrastructure for for the business, and hopefully help them to continue to thrive.

Alison 15:24 That's an amazing story. Way to go Chase, too. And to see how the community played a mission critical role in the business that he's now built. I can't wait to see where Edison goes next. Now let's turn to TikTok's economic impact study. It shows some remarkable numbers that you and I have both highlighted. One that jumps out to me is 613,000 small Canadian businesses using the platform. And I'd love to hear what from this economic impact study really surprised you about the findings?

Joshua 15:54 Well, I mean, we keep talking about this, the fact that 613,000 small businesses were using the platform last year. You know, when I started at the company six years ago, we were maybe a couple of million individuals using the platform in Canada, and to see how far it's come in that short window of time, it really does blow my mind that not only are they on our platform, but to say that we are essential to their survival, is to say it's a really bold statement.

Joshua 16:23 This isn't, hey, we're a great part of their marketing mix, or hey, like, we're an engaging platform, or drive, you know, some of their their needed business KPIs, but that, like, if we didn't exist, they wouldn't be around. Just tells a lot about how important it is to not only have this platform, but for us to be here. And, you know, to see how the business has grown from from zero now to, you know, $1.4 billion that you know, the TikTok office has created, paying all of our taxes, you know, and being good corporate citizens, and the community work, and the millions of dollars of investment that we've brought back into the community, and all these things, you know, are, some of them surprising, but some of them I'm incredibly proud of, and really is the reason why I'm so passionate about keeping this story going,

Alison 17:14 That really is an incredibly high dependency rate and creates quite a bit of responsibility for the platform as well. So building on that, what responsibility does it create for TikTok as a platform, when these businesses are so reliant on you for their economic visibility and viability as well as their long term success?

Joshua 17:32 Yeah, no. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, there's that sort of empowerment and support piece, you know, where there's the tools and the features and analytics that we need to continuously provide to show that the efforts that they're making, whether they are in an organic nature or in a paid nature, that they truly understand the power of the platform and where they can scale and be able to build business.

Joshua 17:56 And then the second piece is really making sure that we are, we're supporting them, is that community and inclusivity fashion, that they really are becoming a part of something bigger than themselves, that we drive visibility around those underrepresented businesses, that those you know, culturally diverse businesses are being seen. We've done a number of different projects, you know, where we've done in real life, you know, type of activations where, you know, we've brought small businesses, created these these markets so that we can introduce, you know, their products and offerings, you know, to the world.

Joshua 18:35 That maybe gives them that small example of what it might mean to actually open up a brick and mortar store for themselves. I just think at the end of the day, it's just, it's just really important that we just stay on top of these, tools, these best practices, these analytics, and we make it super easy for for them to digest and for them to use and reuse, but also be able to give us input and feedback as to what's working what's not, and how we can continue to better ourselves.

Alison 19:05 I remember your Christmas pop up last year where you celebrated and gave a number of TikTok SMEs the opportunity to be in person selling their products. And I went and had a great experience, and ended up being introduced to new brands, and they became a big part of my holiday shopping. So to see how you are bringing it off the platform and really positively impacting Canadian businesses, a huge credit to you and your team.

Joshua 19:31 Well, thank you, and I hope we can continue to do that, and not just in major markets like Toronto, but build opportunities and these showcases all around the country, you know, so that we can make sure that there are, there are these small businesses, you know, they have the opportunity to be exposed and discovered as well, not just like in major markets.

Alison 19:51 I also remember Erin on your team sharing when we were at the pop up that this was a test market for the concept that Canada came up with the idea, was leading it, and then with the success, with being rolled out in other countries. And I'm always as a very proud Canadian, thrilled when we are able to take our great ideas, prove them in Canada, and then have them rolled out internationally. Another big accomplishment that makes all the marketers in Canada proud. So most businesses and marketers today are navigating through uncertainty, whether it's the economy, tariffs, just the unknown. You are navigating significant uncertainty. So from a leadership perspective, how are you maintaining team morale and business continuity as you manage for the regulatory challenges?

Joshua 20:36 I can tell you, it's not easy. I think it really comes from, one from the resilience that I've built up from working at so many other organizations, and especially Facebook. Facebook went through a number of different challenges, you know, big public challenges that the company had to face, and you had to build a strong backbone. I've always realized that it's really just about focusing on the things that you can control. And so what I've always promised to my team is transparency, and you know, the fact that I will do as much as I possibly can to protect them from as much noise as possible. And that all I can ask of them is to just really focus on what they can control and to continue the conversations and the relationships you know that they're that they're building in market.

Joshua 21:21 We also try to as a team, we try to celebrate each other as much as we possibly can in making sure that, you know, we we identify all the great wins that we cheer each other on. It's very much a family dynamic is, I think, what's been created here at TikTok. And I think that dynamic in itself builds a resilience as well. It, you know, creates almost like a bubble. So that you know, when you do get hit by some of these negative news cycles, you know, or someone senior in the in the company left, or some big issues happen, you know, within the organization, sort of become a little bit more resilient to it. And, you know, not that it doesn't, it doesn't affect folks, but I think it bounces off a little easier than typically if you have an environment where, you know, like, people are just not working all that closely together, it's not much of a as much of a group dynamic.

Joshua 22:07 And you know, everyone's sort of an individual contributor looking after themselves. So it really is just sort of that, that focus of control. And if you can be consistent with that, and make sure that people know that, you know, you are, you are optimistic about, you know, the future of the organization, and that you are continuous in your communications about updates of things that are happening. I think people feel a lot more comfortable, and that is that has really helped us to sort of continue to keep this business going. And mind you, like I said, it hasn't been easy. We've lost a lot of folks, and understandably so, because there's just always going to be that inherent fear that suddenly, you know, tomorrow, the Canadian government is going to shut our offices down. I don't see that particularly happening, but you know, that's a fear that people, that people have.

Alison 22:59 Great advice,, the transparency, the authenticity, the reality is, we never have all of the answers in any role we're in, you're in a position where you can't possibly have some pretty important answers. So being open and honest about that and transparent is the only way through it. Have you learned any lessons the hard way? Because again, none of us are perfect. If you had a do over, is there anything it would change about your approach.

Joshua 23:21 What I will say is this is great leaders. I think fight for their teams. But sometimes you have to represent the company. There are things that you may not necessarily agree with or like in terms of actions that companies are going to take, or changes to the way the company is doing business, or how employees are being taken care of. Sometimes you fight, and sometimes you just have to deliver that message. And it's hard, it's hard as a leader to do that. And I think mistakes that I have made in the past is sometimes I have fought too hard for the team, where there were just some instances where I just didn't really need to, and, you know, I probably pushed too hard, and rather than sort of taking a step back and really looking at the big picture and be like, is this, you know, is this the sort of the hill I want to, I want to stand on, you know, or die on. So I've had a really big learning just about finding that balance between representing your team and representing the company.

Alison 24:19 That makes a ton of sense, and thanks for your candour. That's very great self awareness, and it also reinforces what we talked about earlier. We are always, regardless of any level we're at in our career, we're always learning, we're always making mistakes, we're always finding ways to improve. So thank you. Now you've positioned TikTok as moving beyond traditional social media to more of an entertainment platform and really a discovery destination with the launch of the new insight tools for brands, expansion into some strategic business intelligence. Can you share how this evolution is changing the conversation that you're having with Canadian marketers and agencies?

Joshua 24:54 I think in these six years, the platform has matured significantly. Not only do we have a scaled platform, but we have so many tools and analytics now and proven results that I think it sort of breaks itself down into we'll call it three and a half, sort of like four opportunities that are really driving the future of the business. The first one is, is if we just think about video, and just how important video has become with marketing, and specifically on TikTok, when you have the For You feed, you know, which is sort of this serendipitous experience of infinite discovery, and the amount of attention that people pay in that feed is more so than anywhere else. I mean, people spend, you know, a movie's worth the time on our platform every single day.

Joshua 25:46 It's really not just a first screen. It's the only screen. If you use a platform like, you know, like when you're on TikTok, you can't do anything else. You can't watch TV, you can't type, you can't do like, you just, literally, you're just, like, so absorbed, you know, in the content. And we've built, as I mentioned, enough tools now and proven analytics that we can drive, you know, KPIs, you know, everywhere through the funnel, whether it's everything from just brand activity to, you know, conversion and loyalty.

Joshua 26:17 The second one is, is really sort of the next place where people spend a lot of time on a platform, and that is in Search. As a brand, you want to be present when people are proactively looking for you or something similar to you. And so our platform has become one of the biggest search platforms now, you know, on the on the planet, and anything that you could possibly want to learn or create, you know, you just type that into into our search box, and you will get so many results and be able to deep dive into the these communities of of content around any subject matter you could possibly imagine.

Joshua 26:54 It's become this incredible global educational tool. And so, as an advertiser, you want to think about what your approach should be around search on TikTok. And as a marketer, if you can go back to 2000, would you think differently about how you approached Google when it comes to search engine optimization and search engine marketing? So you have this mix of organic and paid media that can complement one another. And the reality is, is that the more content that you produce for TikTok, you know, around your brand, you know, the more that you're going to show up, you know, through the algorithm when people are looking at search terms.

Joshua 27:28 And so I think people are just starting to realize that, and there is an opportunity for for brands to really own search on our platform, if they really start creating, you know, the right content that will fit well within that specific behaviour. The third one is, you know, we talked about this a little bit, is sort of our commercial partnerships, and really extending TikTok off of mobile and all the opportunities, and, you know, the 2 billion plus screens in real life experiences, partnerships that we can do, you know, building, you know, different medias together to triangulate around a specific message is really starting to reshape the way that we think about marketing. TikTok has an amazing capability of being a remarkable distribution partner for so many different platforms, you know, as well as for brands to bring visibility and engagement, you know, to whatever the idea or activation is.

Joshua 28:20 Because you know, as you know, as you know, in our platform, our algorithm is very different than what you have with Facebook and with Instagram. It's not built off social graph. It's built off content graph. So rather than, you know, seeing content from the people or entities that you care most about, with TikTok, we celebrate great content. So a great piece of content is going to move far within, you know, within our algorithm, to where you can literally go from zero to hero overnight. Zero followers, zero content, you know, to hundreds of 1000s of followers and millions of engagements. And that can have substantial impact, you know, on everything from musicians, small businesses, entrepreneurs, I could go on million different tangents of like, different categories that this can that this can support. And so I really think we have a unique ability to really change a lot of these, these marketing dynamics that we currently play in.

Joshua 29:14 And then the fourth one, which is really interesting is Insights. We've started to build some tools now that are allowing brands to really understand how their brand is being talked about or exposed on our platform through user generated content. We have a platform called Content Suite that allows a brand to go in and basically see all the posts that are being created with their brand around it, whether their brand is being talked about, whether their brand is being worn on a shirt in the background. If their brand or logo is present, that will show up. And then you'll be able to see all the keywords that are represented around your particular brand, so you can see what context people are talking about, and then obviously, the demographics, the timeframe, etc. And what you can do is you can look at some of the most popular posts that are being created by these users, request you know their their approval, and be able to put media behind those posts and let them represent your voice.

Joshua 30:11 And this creates a really unique opportunity for brands to be able to allow creators to represent their brands, in a really cool, authentic and fun way, without them having to sort of push, you know, their their agenda as a brand themselves. And what I find really interesting is that as they do that you can start to look at whether or not, you know, call the chatter, or whether the amount of engagement that's happening on the platform around your brand is changing, or even when you run a paid a paid marketing campaign around a specific product or service or master brand campaign, you can actually see over time whether or not it's actually impacting the way people are talking about your brand, or the amount of conversation that's happening around your brand organically in the platform. That's super interesting stuff. And then the other one you know that we that we have is is really about being able to create clusters of people around your brand, and in what sort of stage of the relationship they are with you. Like, are these people? Basically, they just, like, understand your brand, and you want to show them media that kind of helps them to, you know, sort of consider, you know, you as as a brand that they might use, and you kind of get them further down the funnel, or, you know, a cluster of people that are actually considering your brand, or a cluster of people that are already customers of your brands, you know, or they're loyalists. And so when you think about how you communicate to those individual clusters, there's, they're very different in terms of what you're going to actually say to them and and what you're trying to accomplish and in those communications. And so we have the ability for brands to not only see that information, but be able to build those clusters and then put paid media behind it and see the results of those actions.

Joshua 31:52 So really interesting, interesting stuff, and we take a step back, you go, okay, TikTok, you know, not so long ago, you know, you were basically musically, you're young teenagers, you know, dancing and lip syncing to, you know, today, you know where, you know, not only have you become this, you know culture of a sort of discovery platform, you know, globally, with over a billion users, but you know you are now being able to drive real business impact in a way that you know, other platforms just just haven't been able to yet, with an opportunity to go so much further and extend the way that, again, that we think about marketing as a whole.

Alison 32:28 Great examples, Josh, thank you very much. Now you've been super generous with your time. I really appreciate it. And I have one more question before I let you go. Now you have built three major social platforms from the ground up. You've navigated the digital marketing landscape for almost three decades. What is one piece of career advice that you would give our listeners who aspire to follow in your footsteps?

Joshua 32:50 I talked about pivoting already, and, you know, I think that's really important to know, to know when you're wrong, and being able to pivot. And again, like even just in my career, going from finance to digital. It just, it felt right. And that kind of goes along with this idea of trusting your gut. You're not going to always be right, but it's, but it's like, you know, your spidey senses are telling you should be doing something, give it a go. You know, it kind of goes along these lines of this new opportunity for my expansion of my purview, with now being able to be also GM and Head of the U.S. Enterprise Sales Team, along with Canada. Originally, you know, I wasn't necessarily interested in the opportunity, but the more that I thought about it, and I realized, like, you know, this is a way for me, obviously, you know, expose myself further, take some of the learnings that I've gotten from from Canada, and bring it to a bigger market. It's not so often that a Canadian leader has an opportunity to move into the U.S. and have this size of business to manage. And so yeah, when you when your gut tells you like this is the right move, just kind of, you got to, you got to take a chance and be willing to to make those, those necessary pivots.

Joshua 33:57 When I moved from MySpace to Facebook, again, Facebook was maybe one quarter the size of MySpace, and people told me it was career suicide. To me, it just felt like the right move. I could see the amount of energy and engagement that was happening on Facebook and how it was growing super fast at least in Toronto, comparatively to MySpace, where everything just looked like it was slowing down and people were just less engaged. Because it just wasn't that authenticity, that TikTok has a communication utility.

Joshua 34:26 To where I've gone to TikTok now it's like, okay, this isn't just another social media platform, like, this is a entertainment platform, and that opens the doors to so many other opportunities and conversations that I'm going to be able to have, not just with brands, but with musicians and labels and sports figures and other areas of interest that can all be facilitated on this platform where we can drive meaningful impact, let alone the community nature of the platform, and where that has gone to in terms of where we've been able to drive that success. So your gut tells you, like, it feels like the right thing to do? A lot of times it is. And you know, just realize it quickly, if it wasn't the right decision, you have to pivot. So trust your gut and then pivot when necessary.

Alison 35:14 Absolutely outstanding advice. The other word that I would add that is linked to that is bravery. Like there's bravery and trusting your gut in making the decisions, especially when people are telling you that it's career suicide. So you're giving credit to yourself for knowing what's right for you, and sort of blocking out the naysayers who really don't have that inside view on what is right for you.

Joshua 35:36 We used to have a sign in Facebook. We had all these mantras all over the offices around the world, and Facebook and one of them was, what would you do if you weren't afraid?

Alison 35:44 Thanks so much, Josh and again, huge congratulations on your new role. Very excited for you.

Joshua 35:49 Thank you. This has been a lot of fun.

Presenter 35:57 Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit theCMA.ca and sign up for your free MyCMA account, it's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news and industry trends.