How To Build a Brand on Social Media: Lessons From Poppi’s Allison Ellsworth and Outdoor Voices’ Ty Haney

Ever sat around asking, “What’s my brand?” So has Sara Foster. At Dear Media By Day in Austin, she sat down with Allison Ellsworth and Ty Haney. The topic? How to build a brand on social media. (Spoiler alert: it’s less about follower count than you’d think.) It was all about the messy middle. That’s the space between having an idea and turning it into a brand people want, love, and keep coming back for.

The conversation aired on The World’s First Podcast, the show Sara hosts with Erin Foster.

Allison is the co-founder of Poppi, the prebiotic soda brand that started life as Mother Beverage. She pitched it on Shark Tank and leaned into founder-led content (she’s racked up billions of views on TikTok). In 2025, Poppi sold to PepsiCo for $1.95 billion.

After founding Outdoor Voices in 2014, Ty built one of the first community-led brands. She racked up around $100 million in revenue along the way. Today, she runs TYB (Try Your Best), a platform that helps brands power superfan experiences. Its clients include Poppi and The Skinny Confidential.

From founder-led content to Outdoor Voices’ community-driven approach to social, Allison and Ty covered a lot. They gave Sara and us actionable takeaways on building a social strategy that puts community first. We’re sharing the best ones below.

Want to watch while you read? Hit play below.

What It Really Takes To Build a Brand on Social Media

The brands that stand out on social media have a genuinely connected community, a clear mission, and a strong point of view. The size of the audience matters a lot less.

For Ty, community becomes the special sauce that makes a brand sticky. Bring people together, and their relationships blossom with your brand at the center.

In this Dear Media By Day conversation, Allison and Ty break down how to build a thriving community. From sparking authentic conversations to creating moments that bring people together, here are their best tips.

Build a Brand That’s Authentically You

Sara set this one up. Start with your real life if you want to create a brand that reflects who you are. Sara wouldn’t launch a high-end fashion company, because it’s just not her. “I could have all the money in the world and I’m never spending $1,500 on a coat,” she stated. It simply isn’t my identity.”

She is building for herself first and foremost, so she understands exactly who her customers are. Her brand is priced similarly to her actual wardrobe.

Allison agreed and took it a step further. Start with a need. That’s Allison’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. She recommends first asking yourself if there’s a gap you can fill, or a need you have that isn’t being met.

Founders who start businesses for money have a much harder time getting out of bed. Passion matters more. Coming from a personal need makes “the highs a lot higher, but the lows a lot easier.”

Want another founder story built on a real need? We get into one in our article on starting a business after 40.

Repeat Your Mission Until People Are Sick of It

Ty’s advice is to repeat your brand’s mission clearly and often. The best brands state their reason for being over and over. That’s how a mission actually lands.

At Outdoor Voices, the mission was “to maximize happiness through movement.” Ty wanted people to hear that message constantly. She brings the same thinking to TYB, where her team built a community playbook that helps brands drive real fan obsession.

Founders often make the mistake of picking a font, creating a logo, and calling it a day. Don’t be that founder. Instead, Ty recommends sharing your mission consistently, until people are sick of hearing it. (We’d wear that on a T-shirt.)

Show Up as the Founder

Before Allison racked up billions of views with her founder-led content, she had about a thousand TikTok followers. And she wasn’t exactly nailing her content. Recipe videos, dancing, and outfit transitions weren’t setting the algorithm on fire.

Then one video took off. Allison told her followers she’d pitched on Shark Tank nine months pregnant. She said Poppi was better for you and they should drink it. It went viral with no tricks, just Allison talking about her business.

People just wanted her to be authentic. Sara calls it Allison’s founder story, and it’s what really popped off.

Allison chalks Poppi’s success up to “being digital first and online,” partnering with creators, and focusing on building community. That mattered even more than her appearance on Shark Tank.

Turn Comments Into Product Decisions

Allison’s rule is to listen to your community, even when it stings. Too many entrepreneurs get stuck on doing things their way. Poppi did the opposite. Did you know that Poppi has changed its packaging about 20 times? One soda flavor (root beer, if you’re curious) was one of Poppi’s worst sellers.

Instead of discontinuing the flavor, Allison and her team listened to their community. After reformulating the recipe, root beer is now one of their top five flavors. (We love a comeback.)

Poppi even posted about one online comment comparing the taste of one of its sodas to a cockroach. Allison calls it a “burn book” moment. The team agreed “it tastes awful” and owned it.

Move at the Speed of Culture

If Poppi saw something trending online, the team leaned into it. Allison’s example of riding the trend wave? Love Island USA star Amaya Espinal, aka Amaya Papaya. Poppi posted a meme about a canned flavor with Amaya, and it started to go viral. Once People magazine picked it up, Allison knew she had to move at the speed of culture.

Instead of waiting to talk to Amaya, Allison’s team started formulating the flavor. Allison even emailed Amaya an offer before speaking with her, hoping she’d want to work together.

By the time Amaya left the villa, the flavor was ready to roll out in as little as three months. They had a can design, an offer, and a formulated soda. We’re here for it.

As Allison put it, “That type of moving at the speed of culture is where brands are going to win.” Moving that fast takes nerve. We get into that more in our article on how to start taking risks.

Work With Creators, Starting With Micro Creators

Influencers and content creators can help you reach new customers. But how do you determine who to partner with? Celebrity endorsements used to work because the creator world wasn’t as big as it is today. One important factor, according to Allison, makes working with creators more profitable than with celebrities is relatability. A creative feels reachable and their audience is invested in them. Allison acknowledges that although she adores JLo, “I can’t be JLo.” Celebrities are simply not as relatable. (Same, Allison. Same.) 

Influencers of all levels can be beneficial. However, Allison advises entrepreneurs to collaborate with microcreators, particularly in the early stages of their business. You can afford it there and have a major impact.

Not sure who to partner with? Start small.

Build a Community, Not Just an Audience

Wondering why some influencers with huge followings still struggle to make sales? There’s a big difference between having a community and an audience. Sara asked both founders to break down the audience vs. community divide. They each define community in slightly different ways.

For Ty, community is “a group of people who are activated.” Outdoor Voices initially focused on creating great leggings and activewear. Then the team activated those customers through hikes, events, and run clubs.

At those events, people met others with similar values and interests. Their relationships grew with OV at the center. That’s what a brand community looks like to Ty.

For Allison, the gap shows up in celebrity brands. Many slap a famous name on a product and get the audience, but not the community. The brands that work grow from the grassroots.

Activate in Real Life, Then Amplify on Social

Want to grow your business? Ty’s advice is to activate IRL and amplify through social. Host a great event, and people naturally share it online. Instead of investing in ads like other DTC brands, Outdoor Voices focused on IRL experiences like run clubs and hikes.

Ty sees experiential marketing as “the hack to CAC,” or customer acquisition cost. It’s a way for businesses to acquire new customers more affordably than through paid ads. Ty predicts that brands built around real-life events will turn their community into a growth channel.

Allison explained why organic connection matters, too. Customer acquisition costs are through the roof. Meta is roughly 10 times more expensive than when Poppi started, so you can’t grow without organic connection.

That said, it’s not always realistic (or safe) to host IRL events. Poppi, for example, launched the first week of COVID. For the first two years, the team couldn’t do anything in real life. So they built the brand digitally and online.

Once the world opened up, Poppi rushed to build community in person. People were even more desperate for it than ever.

Make Your Product Something People Want To Show Off

Sometimes, the best marketing is having a product customers can’t wait to show off. That’s how Outdoor Voices built its organic buzz. Ty recounts the time she spotted her first “Technical Apparel for Recreation” tote bag in New York. Then she saw 10, then hundreds, each one a walking billboard.

Then Ty moved the company to Austin, a move people called fashion suicide. That’s where Harry Styles comes in. In town to play ACL, he walked into their little Austin store looking for running shorts and later became an investor. He’d organically don OV apparel. When he wore fuzzy hiking shorts out in LA and got photographed, site traffic spiked roughly 100x. (“Not joking,” Ty says.)

Ty’s honest point is that you can’t plan a moment like that. Getting the fundamentals right is what makes it possible.

Create an Emotional Connection

Want to create an emotional connection with your customers? Allison says it’s not that deep. Her advice on breaking free of founder perfectionism? Just make a product that’s 10% better than the status quo.

See, people are emotionally nostalgic, and that’s the bar you’re up against. Think about the word “soda,” for example. When you hear it, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Ingredients? Probably not. You likely think of movies, burgers, and grilling out.

Poppi leaned into that nostalgia while still delivering what people wanted. Allison describes it as full flavor with 90% less sugar.

So Allison’s advice is to stop trying to land in some tiny white space and instead be relatable. Focus on moving people “from the head to the heart,” which is long-term brand building. It’s a lot easier said than done, and it takes a lot of gut.

Look Beyond Short-Form Video

Every single founder is posting on TikTok. Allison calls it “very oversaturated now.” She still encourages you to get online as a founder, but you can’t rely on it forever. Because everyone’s doing it, you have to think about what’s next.

Her next bet is long-form content on YouTube.

Yes, it’s a beast. No, it’s not easy. But Allison believes it’s the future of founder content.

Your Personal Brand Starts With One Move This Week

There’s a lot to take away from Allison and Ty. Their advice comes down to building a brand that’s true to how you live. It’s the same playbook behind TYB, Outdoor Voices, and Poppi, and you can borrow it for your personal brand, too.

TL;DR: Show up as the founder and repeat your mission. Lean on your comments section for product development. Build community over audience, and focus on emotional connection over niche positioning.

Now it’s your turn. Press play on the full podcast episode, then pick ONE thing to try this week. What’s it going to be?

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