What’s Your Style? A Conversation with Jermaine Dupri about the Secret to Successful Content Creation

Be authentic. Be interesting. Have style.

Jermaine Dupri has been creating content for a while: from producing records with Mariah Carey to creating his Living the Life series on YouTube, and now with Global 14.com, a full community of friends sharing content and engaging around shared interests. So how does someone who lives and breathes content creation think about that process? I had the chance to sit with JD after his panel on “Using Social Media to Build a Real Community” at the Portada Latin American Advertising and Media Summit in South Beach and talk about just that.

The secret to creating content is simple, yet can be hard to achieve: have style. At the core of every piece of content JD shares is Style. Whether it’s a new pair of sneakers, a new track, or a photo of his peacock Frank on Instagram: what he publishes reflects a lifestyle.

As he characterizes Global 14, “You walk through a style door on Global14.” If he likes it and thinks it’s cool, it’s getting shared, an example being a pair of $1,975 Swarovski crystal-embellished contoured wedge platforms he posted on Global 14 on June 5.

Sometimes his audience focuses on the price tag before appreciating the style. He understands this style sensibility as a process and as something that will grow with time. Throughout this process, he is 100 percent aware of who his audience is and what drives them, and JD’s style is what they come to his spaces for.

In JD’s words, “Brands need to become Interesting.” How? By defining their style and reflecting their style in their own content. Case in point: he shows me a pair Bose headphones he uses. He believes Bose offers a superior product. But everyone around him assumes he uses Beats by Dre headphones because Beats by Dre has the most style. Style drives conversation, calls your attention, and makes a splash. He says Bose needs to invest in style.

He admires Apple as a brand that is always interesting through its style. Apple wraps its entire marketing strategy around the elegance and style of its products, transforming mobile devices and personal computers into lifestyle choices instead of ordinary utilities.

Along with that sense of style, JD believes brands need Authenticity to engage audiences. Is what you’re saying genuine? Do you really believe in that brand or that product? Your audience will know. It might be easier for individuals to make that call and decide to be real with the people you’re talking with. For brands, doing is often more complex.

During our conversation, JD touches on a simple solution to being authentic and believable: tap into the history of your brand. As he puts it, “A brand’s history is its style.”

He explains that often a brand’s history is at the core of who the brand is, and by getting in touch with their past, brands will generate that authentic connection with their audience. Brands like Coca-Cola or the City of Miami have a long history that they can draw from to generate content and engagement.

So what drives a man whose life is defined by generating interesting content?

“I am motivated by thinking ‘Nobody’s seen what I’m finding.’ I hate not knowing about something before everyone else does,” he says.

JD is very much in tune with what his audience will find interesting or exciting, and he often focuses on content that people might not have an opportunity to see otherwise. On any given day, he might snap a photo of a high-end shopping district in London while he’s traveling, share a behind-the-scenes video interview with Mariah Carey while they are in the studio recording music, or post on Global 14 news about a new artist before anyone else knows about it.

Having the opportunity to show that content — especially something you might not see everyday — is a key motivator to get out there and get content.

When JD explains how the content gets distributed and how that story is told, he shows a deep understanding of his audience. He fulfills a promise that they’ll have interesting and valuable content from him anywhere they see it. He won’t bore his audience with the same content over and over again. He’s always looking for the “wow factor”: what will be memorable and cool to people? The day I interviewed him, his life was all about a crazy flight schedule (combining Atlanta, Miami Beach, and New York) tied with a brief stop at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach to introduce Global 14 to the Latin American community at the Portada Latin American Advertising and Media Summit.

That stop has now generated content and engagement across the board — from the hotel staff to fans in Miami wanting to get in touch with him, to Global 14 friends wondering what Portada is and what he was doing here (which, by the way, triggers curiosity among Global 14 members about Latin America and U.S. Hispanics). Some of those moments captured in real time in his Twitter streamand Instagram site.

After our conversation, he pauses for some brief photo taking with me – again, always generating content from moment to moment – before heading off for a flight to New York for a listening party.

And, yes, you can already see for yourself on Instagram what he was doing in New York. You don’t need to ask JD what he did last night. He’ll show you himself.