THERE’S COCO & THERE’S TEA
COCO SPILLS HER TEA ON THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY by Adrinece Beard
Adrinece: How are you rebranding your personal and business platforms on social media? CoCo: I started doing these daily videos where I give entertainment news and the videos are usually less than like 90 seconds. But I’ve been doing them every day and posting them to Instagram (well, not just Instagram) but all my social channels. So, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and YouTube. So that’s something that I plan on continuing to do. And then on my personal Instagram page that’s where
44 THE SQUEEZE SPRING 2020
I’ve been doing the CoCo’s Quarantine Convos. That’s something that I came up with where I just really wanted to talk to individuals who work in different sectors of the entertainment industry and kind of get their take as to how the coronavirus has affected them personally, professionally, and how they think it is going to impact the industry long term. A: How are you using your personal platform to reach people? C: So basically, I feel like my platform is a bit different because I am getting people who are a little bit more experienced or have a little more quote-on-quote “clout” than I do. That’s part of my rebrand, is just to get people to be more engaged with my story as like a person slash personality. My conversations are still very much centered around entertainment to a certain extent, but it’s not so newsy; it’s more conversational, and something that people can engage in, and it’s something that I guess you could say is educational as well. I mean, part of me doing it is because there’s so many people who constantly hit me up about them wanting to be in this industry; or how do they get into podcasting; or how do they get into radio ... So if you’re interested in
Photos By: @akil.ks
C
oCo's Tea, the brand, is not to be confused with its host's on-air personality as "I Am the Real CoCo." Cody Short, more professionally known on-air as CoCo, started the brand as an Instagram blog in college, which turned into a podcast in 2015. However, CoCo is finding new ways to serve her followers the tea on all things pop-culture and make a name for herself (apart from her brand). She said to think of it this way, CoCo’s Tea is what The Real Daytime Show is to Tamera Mowry. It’s just one portion of who she is but not what makes CoCo as a person. From working in radio to interviewing celebs on red carpets, the Southern belle speaks on what it means to make a name for herself—not for anybody else.
