Women of Influence by SheSpeaks
Join us each week on the Women of Influence podcast, hosted by Aliza Freud and presented by SheSpeaks. Each week, Aliza sits down with trailblazing women from various fields—business leaders, social media influencers, authors, speakers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders—who are using their platforms to create meaningful impact. Discover how these women harness their influence to inspire, motivate, and drive change, and gain actionable insights you can apply to your own life!
Women of Influence by SheSpeaks
Dating Beyond Borders: Creating Content on Cultural Differences & Relationships Around the World
What we discuss in this episode:
1. Cultural Differences - Dating customs around the world
2. Shift in Content - Evolution of social media content
3. YouTube vs. Instagram - Platforms for content creation and income
4. Societal Changes - Impact of social media on dating and relationships
5. Passive Income - Monetizing audience beyond social media
6. Audience Feedback - Reaction to content shift and cultural insights
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How do we connect as people? What makes us different and how can culture really affect the way you view life? So that made me really interested. I've been interviewing people on the streets in different countries. The concept is basically the same what do you have to know if you're meeting someone, if you're dating someone for another culture, how are we all different? And that kind of makes me excited.
Aliza Freud :Welcome back to the show. Hope you're all having a great week. We are knee-deep into December and we have a great episode for you. Today I have the creator influencer, marina Yakovlev.
Aliza Freud :She has such a wonderful YouTube channel TikTok presence. She was born in Moscow, russia, and she moved to Canada when she was 12. But she became interested in other cultures and started traveling around the world and obviously started also dating people internationally. This really got her intrigued with the idea of how people in different countries date and it is so fascinating. You have to go listen and watch some of her content. Her content her YouTube channel is called Dating Beyond Borders and what she does is she goes around and interviews people like street interviews, where she talks with people about very basic questions about dating like who should pay for the bill and it's really really fascinating to hear the answers that you get back and different cultures have different points of view on this. But she's got a great channel. She's got really wonderful perspective based on interviewing tons of people and this idea that we really have become a community worldwide of people who we have so much choice now If you think about dating now versus how dating was many years ago certainly when pre-social media and digital and internet, when people could go on to dating sites and meet people.
Aliza Freud :You just had fewer choices, and so one of the things that Marina and I talk about is how dating has evolved over time and what that has meant for a newer generation of people and have people become commitment phobic? And how maybe we have too much choice right now, and how that's impacting people's ability to find love where maybe it could have been different years ago. So this is, I think, a really interesting conversation with Marina. We also talk about just how she thinks about her social media presence, being an influencer and a creator, how she makes money from all of this. So I really enjoyed this conversation. I think you will too, so we're going to jump right into it. Here we go, marina. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk with you. I love what you're covering. I think it's helpful. It's so interesting. Let's share with our audience, if you can. What do you cover in your content on your social channels?
Marina Iakovleva:Yeah, so I've been running the channel Dating Bound Borders for over eight years at this point and initially I started with the idea of kind of unraveling what it was like dating around the world. At this point there were no channels focusing on that and I kind of felt like that was missing. When we travel abroad a lot of times yes, okay, it is to try the food, it is to look at beautiful places, but the whole point is that we want to connect right and a lot of us want to fall in love. I mean, majority of us want that feeling. But when you go to a new country and you don't really understand kind of the cultural workings of that country, it could cause a lot of misunderstandings. You know you go on a date and you expect someone's going to pay the bill, but that's not the custom in their culture and you walk away thinking, oh, this person is cheap, but that's not really the case. That was just the culture, it was their upbringing. So that's how it started and that's how I've been going for many, many years.
Marina Iakovleva:But the further I kind of went into the topic of dating around the world, the more I kind of got to thinking like I don't know I've been doing this for a long time. I'm getting older and I want to dive into like the connection of it as well, not just the dating, but how do we connect as people, what makes us different and how can culture really affect the way you view life? So that made me really interested for I think the last probably less than a year now I've been interviewing people on the streets in different countries and that's a little bit of a different format that I've been doing for, I would say, seven years. Some of it has been travel, some of it has been in studio, some of it has been funny skit skits that I started with, but the concept is basically the same what do you have to know if you're meeting someone, if you're dating someone for another culture, how are we all different? And that kind of makes me excited.
Aliza Freud :I think this is a really important point about content creators and people who are active on social media is that in order to have staying power and to really do this on long term, you have to be able to evolve. You have to be able to have your audience kind of come with you along your journey, right? Because everyone who's creating content, everyone's human being whose life is evolving as they go, and so I love that you're kind of evolving what you're doing to match more what is going on with your life, because I think that's the authenticity that people look for in the people that they follow. How is your audience reacting to you having a shift?
Marina Iakovleva:YouTube has become quite a difficult platform in the last few years, especially since COVID hit, and what I've been doing for those I would say six, seven years no longer started working for me. I just felt like there were a lot of channels out there that were doing exactly the same thing and they were posting videos daily and I couldn't match that. We had a very small team. I couldn't post videos every single day and a lot of what I was doing were studio videos different cultures reacting to different things, a lot of it dating related, a lot of a culture related and I noticed a huge downward spiral in the amount of views that I was getting and the amount of engagement and that made me really worried that I kept on pushing and pushing, because I genuinely love what I do. But somewhere in that space I started thinking I have two options. Either I start posting every single day, which means I won't have a life anymore, and I keep that theme of studio videos and having that kind of a no-face brand which makes you work three times as hard, because, of course, the personal element is what people really follow. No one's going to follow a brand when it starts evolving. People want to follow a person or I go the other route and I throw myself back in there, because for a very long time I didn't really want my face to be there at the forefront of the channel. It's not about me, it's about dating. I don't want to be associated with dating. So I was at the background and so I made that shift and I told myself you know what, actually, not only do I want to be at the front, because people strive for that personal element, but for me also, I stopped being as excited as I was in what I was doing, as you rightly said, like interest really shifts, and I stopped wanting to do studio videos. I was like I actually want to travel again and I want to talk to people. I want to go to those places that I want to connect with those people, because for me it's all about the connection.
Marina Iakovleva:And I, at that point where I was kind of in the crossroads, I was getting all sorts of advice oh, you should do a dating challenges, you should do what this other channel is doing, and that was one option and I just thought it's not me. That's not why I do this. I don't do it for the dating challenges. I do this because I'm interested in culture, like that's the first thing, you know, everything else is secondary. And what can I do that would give people value? It's not about getting the clicks. That audience is not going to stick with you long term. That video may get a whole bunch of clicks and at the end of it you're not really doing anything different, you're not really giving value in a unique way.
Marina Iakovleva:So only a few months ago, I told myself so this is very recent, I'm just going to kind of go and do this thing. And so I noticed that people recalibrated because, to be honest, I didn't have a lot to lose and that's a really good. That's a good. I would say that's a great angle to go from. Like if you have nothing to lose, you're like well, you know what, if I like what's the worst? That's going to happen. The audience isn't engaged. I need to. I need that drastic shift. And for a while I was like it didn't work. It didn't work. And then I started seeing the the people come back in and say, like this is really interesting, this is sociological, this is like she's doing something different. Now, you know, and and it just matches.
Marina Iakovleva:It matches what I'm going through as well, because I am getting older and yeah. I don't just want to do some fun video about what it's like dating a French man. I want to go kind of deeper into it.
Aliza Freud :You are not alone as a creator, as an influencer who's gone through this where you get to a crossroads I've talked to so many different creators who've been at that same place, where what worked for them because it was what was how they started for a certain amount of time that worked, but then they evolved and they wanted their content to evolve with them.
Aliza Freud :And it's scary, as you said, right, but you were in the position where you were seeing that what you had been doing wasn't working and, as you said, you know you had nothing You've. You felt like you didn't have anything to lose and so you went with authenticity, in the sense that you were like, okay, I'm going to go with what's interesting to me and how I'm evolving and hopefully that will start to work. And then it didn't. Initially, you said you didn't think it was working. What, like? What happened? Do you see that the numbers went down initially and then they started to come back out. Can you just quickly talk about that, because I do think that that's also instructive for people who might be going through something similar with their content.
Marina Iakovleva:Yeah. So for a very long time I just wasn't gaining subscribers For reference. When my channel was popular, I would get up to 2000, 3000 people a day, and it got to the point where I would sometimes lose subscribers, you know, because my content was all over the place, I think, at some point. And what I started noticing when I went on my travels is that my Instagram grew like. My Instagram started growing really fast all of a sudden. So I was like, wow, okay, great, I'm doing well on Instagram, but my YouTube was still tanking. I wasn't getting any new subscribers and I wasn't getting views on the videos. So it just felt like I was hitting a wall every single time. I almost got to the point where I wrote to YouTube to say, hey, youtube, what's up? Why am I not getting the views? I see new creators produce videos with thumbnails that don't look complete and very like editing really basic editing and they get the views. And I just felt like, because I was a bigger channel, I was being pushed down. But I think I mean, youtube is not against you. I feel like it's just the. It's just that you have to kind of. You can't really trick the system, you have to just keep fight, like you have to establish who you are as a brand or what you went, as I said, what is authentic to you, and once you do that, then you have to just kind of keep going consistently in that direction.
Marina Iakovleva:I noticed the shift only very recently, to be really, really honest with you, in one of the newer videos that I made, which is called this is the loneliest country in the world, of course, with a very strong title like that.
Marina Iakovleva:It's also something that we all deal with. It's not a dating related video, but I wanted to the sociological aspect of Swedish people and why it's so lonely there, and it felt like it was me. I was doing something that I like I was so excited about that video. You know, I was like, if this one doesn't hit, you know a good amount of views that I don't know what I'm doing like, then then the really there is a wall, that YouTube really has something against me. But, as funny as that sounds, but it did, it's, it's going, it's, I mean, on the grand scale of things it's not in a million or anything like that, but compared to all the other views that I've been getting for quite some time, like it's a shift and people started saying like wow you, you're now doing this. Am I looking for cheap clicks? No, I'm looking for people that are there to stay, you know, for my community, and I think that's like the.
Aliza Freud :that's the factor, yeah that is, from from the standpoint of how do you create a Opportunity for yourself to do this long term? It has to be grounded in what is interesting to you and what you are passionate about creating the content about. Is there an interview that was most surprising to you? That you were either surprised by the answers or Shocked by the answers?
Marina Iakovleva:Well, I can tell you that I've done so many interviews over the years If nothing surprises me anymore. But there's, there, isn't. There are parts when you go, this is gonna go, this is gonna do good. You interview someone and you're like this one, this one, like you already see it forming in your head we're like this is gonna make the cut. But recently I'm gonna say which one went viral, because I think that says something. This one actually went viral on Instagram. I think it got, I don't know, around seven million, eight million views.
Marina Iakovleva:And this is me, very short, me interviewing Swedish men about who pays on the first date and Would it be okay if I took you out and if I paid for you? And they all went yes, that would be great, I would love that. And they kind of explain it as well. Like that. You know, in our society we were very we're so, we're so equal, we're so self-sufficient that there's no such thing as like the man being the breadwinner and you know, the man making a lot of money and and and having to kind of prove that he's like the man.
Marina Iakovleva:There's no such thing, and that's why I tend to be so fascinated with Scandinavians like the, the. The rules they live by are very different. Then and then, the other second video that went viral was again about the same topic, but from Ukrainian girls point of view, where she was living in Germany and she said this guy was dating I, I expected he would pay for me for three months and he never said anything. Then he broke up with me and he said well, I Like, what did you expect? Like I would you know this is not something we do, and both, both videos got so much traction because, of course, the subject of money is a really touchy one. But it's also so interesting because there is no right or, on it, wrong answer for me.
Marina Iakovleva:Like, I find these so interesting because it's such a cultural thing. You know, it's like when we say oh, what is he? He's not a man like he wants the woman to pay for him. I get that a hundred percent because I'm raised the same way. But you know, being Russian and everything, like, you're raised in the way that you expect that the man pays on the first date and if he doesn't, frankly he's not a man like you don't see him as a man anymore, but it's, it's. It's the way that Swedes are raised. That is completely different, and the Ukrainian girl is raised completely different, and there's no right or wrong. But it's just interesting to see how excited people get about those conversations and how much they argue about it and there is no right answer about it. So yeah, those are interesting, for sure. I.
Aliza Freud :Yeah, I mean, and it's, it's, it's. So I think that's one of the interesting things, too about your content is that you are getting so many different perspectives, and so let me ask you a question about this, because I think that there's probably differences from country to country, as you just said, in terms of how we think about dating and and who pays for what, but have you also seen a difference over time? You've done, you've had the channel for a while, you've been doing this for a while. Do you think, do you see a difference in just how people are thinking about dating since you've been doing this?
Marina Iakovleva:Yes, for sure, there's definitely been a shift. I think in general, the world has become more commitment phobic. We're so self absorbed nowadays. It's all about us and our ego. We're not willing to make compromises as easily. I think it's it's become a very tough place to date because we have so many options and we have that paralysis of choice.
Marina Iakovleva:When you see the amount of women you see, you know, as a man opening that tinder, the amount of women you see, you know the amount of easy hookups someone can have. There's no longer a need to commit fast or at all right. So I think we're going, we're all going in that direction, like what Scandinavia used to fascinate me, the way they used to think like they most of them don't want to, a lot of them don't want to get married. But I feel like nowadays you go to US and you see kind of the shift in that direction as well. Right, so overall, definitely 100%, and I think it's it's kind of made also most of the world's, you know, besides if we're not talking about the Middle East or Africa or those countries, but most of the world is it's kind of becoming more like we're all on the same world, becoming kind of similar in that way which I think makes dating not as exciting to talk about in terms of the cultural differences.
Marina Iakovleva:It's just so similar nowadays, yeah.
Aliza Freud :Yeah, it's interesting too. I mean, I was talking with someone recently about about how dating has evolved, and one of the things that you used to see many years ago or years, not that many years ago is that people who maybe even thought different politically could still be together and married and have like a long term relationship. But that too, is evolving into relationships because you know it is, maybe, maybe it's a bigger part of people's consciousness, whereas before social media it wasn't, as you weren't, as you know, much thinking about the political realm. So it's almost like there's, with social media, there are so many new things that are probably part of our consciousness that weren't there before. And I'm curious to get your thoughts on that, if like, because, as someone who has been so involved in social media, do you see social as a key way, that a key thing that is changing how we think about relationships?
Marina Iakovleva:I think, yes, I think that the biggest problem with social media in general is that, in order to get clicks, people tend to express their opinion as if it's the truth, so they tend to go really harsh with their opinions. So, you know, if I'm an 18 year old girl and I'm looking through a TikTok and I see someone being like oh girls, let's not stand for this, this is a red flag. That is a red flag, don't like. It's very much like labeling things and and and red flagging people really fast. Like everyone's entitled to an opinion nowadays, which is a really scary thing to do, right, because before you only could watch the news or some really neutral sources more or less neutral but to get an opinion, now everyone has an opinion and it can. You can really get sucked into that, I think.
Marina Iakovleva:In general. I'm not sure how it would affect a teenagers, but I'm thinking that I don't know. I don't go down that rabbit hole, to be really honest with you, because it gets really scary like there's. I can imagine if I was growing up as a, if I was a teenager, nowadays, dating would be an incredibly scary thing to do.
Marina Iakovleva:You know, I'm so happy that I was born in a time where we didn't have any of this Like we. We were so innocent, we were so naive, we were so, like you know, cheesy and cute and sweet.
Aliza Freud :Talk a little bit about where you're headed, like where where the content is is going to go for you.
Marina Iakovleva:Yeah, so for me, the you, I think when, when you create content, you really have to go down to the question. What excites me? Right? Because for anyone that's creating social media, you're going to be in it for the long haul. It's not going to be just one viral video and you're going to become famous. There's only a few people that get to that stage and sometimes it has the opposite effect afterwards, but I think for most of us it's it's sticking to something that you really enjoy.
Marina Iakovleva:And what I've realized over the time. And, as you said, like and we talked about this like, what makes what is interesting at 25 is different at 30, right? So our interest changed so much, we grow so much. Now, for me, what is interesting is going deeper into, like, the cultural intricacies of how, how we are as people and and how we connect to each other. So it's exciting for me to, let's say, travel to Iceland and find out that Icelandic people date their cousins. I mean that they're that's, that's the truth, that they have no other option. They're all like six cousins removed at most, but like those little tidbits about different countries that really excite me.
Marina Iakovleva:You know, or that I'm making a video about Dutch people and how Dutch people sent money transfers, even for two, three euros. And the way they even hold dinner parties is very different. If I have a dinner party and I'll invite you, I'm going to send you money transfer afterwards for the, for the food that I prepared for, and that's absolutely normal for them, you know. And even the way they organize weddings. You would have your parents come in from three to five, leave at five o'clock, then your friends come. I asked Dutch people, why do the parents have to leave at five? It's on the schedule, that's how it is, we don't question it. And so that's amazing. That's just a practical examples for you of what it's so, so interesting Like. And every single country has something that would. You would just open your eyes at it. It's just, it's just crazy, but it's. It's their normality, you know and it's funny Like it is.
Marina Iakovleva:like it's funny for me, the excitement is getting people to to have that reaction that you just had, which was like I didn't know that. That is so cool If.
Aliza Freud :I go to the Netherlands.
Marina Iakovleva:I now know that you know if I date a Dutch person. I now know that if I'm in an international relationship and my partner does something super weird, I now know that right.
Aliza Freud :I'm really grateful that you gave some specifics there, because I think that is and that is the kind of content I'm guessing that you're wanting to create. Moving forward, that's like giving people those tidbits that are helpful because you could be dating someone from another country, or let's not even say dating, you could be just friends with somebody from another country and understanding that is such a valuable. It's valuable to know, and I think it also underscores the need that we have as human beings to spend time understanding where someone else is coming from. So I would love if you could talk just a little bit, too, about the actual social platforms you mentioned. You've talked about YouTube. You've talked about Instagram. Is there one as a creator? Is there one platform that is most successful for you in terms of like how you earn income? And then, is that different from the platform that you just prefer to create content on?
Marina Iakovleva:Yeah, that's an interesting question because I think it shifted so much over the years. My main, main, main platform that I've always created videos on was YouTube, and my Instagram was non-existent. I couldn't grow it. I paid money to grow it. I would get experts to grow it. I couldn't grow it. I couldn't crack the system. I was like my Instagram is not happening, it's never going to grow. So YouTube was always the platform that I got the most money on.
Marina Iakovleva:And, of course, with YouTube, to give somebody some perspective, it depends. It depends on the amount of views you get. It depends on the month you create the video. So, for example, december is the highest grossing month because it's Christmas, but January is the worst. And also where your viewers are coming from. So if they're from Scandinavia, you get more than if they're from Mexico, as an example. So YouTube was always that and I would always get sponsorships through YouTube, so that was definitely the highest grossing one. Now Instagram is unfortunately in TikTok. It's not monetized in Canada, so there is no way to earn on those platforms unless you do sponsorships.
Marina Iakovleva:That being said, when you ask about the most favorite platform to create on, I feel like it's always the ones that tend to do better, because when something grows you're like, oh, this is my baby, I want to nurture it, you know. And my Instagram grew recently I think I, before I left to Europe, this was a few months ago is maybe at 60,000. Now it's at around 140,000 so grew majorly within that time that I was traveling Europe and I Became almost addicted to it, which is not a good place to be in because as a creator, that's an easy as an easy slope Don't downward spiral where you just, like you, become a little bit obsessed with that instant gratification that you get. But I do love Instagram nowadays because Instagram requires less effort. Of course I love creating reels. I do it myself and I don't earn much from Instagram.
Marina Iakovleva:I have to be really honest. I mean, I take on sponsors very, very, very selectively because I don't want to start over advertising and then scare people away. I know, on TikTok I again same same kind of thing. So I would say YouTube is still my highest paying platform. That being said, for any creators that want to get into this, I would strongly recommend to not do what I did, which is rely on YouTube, because Algorithms change, viewer trends change. You don't want to get stuck in a place where you're depending on what you get monthly on YouTube, which can be an incredible salary, and what sponsorships, even better. But I think passive income is something you really need to start building, which is what I'm working on now, because, yeah, it's, it's, it's tough and by passive income?
Aliza Freud :Are you talking about Monetizing your audience in a different way than the views and the sponsorship opportunities?
Marina Iakovleva:Yeah, it's getting off of social media. It's using the viewers that you have on social media as people that you can Then transition into another. So, for example, getting people's emails. They always talk about marketing. Having email marketing Right, like having those contacts, because if everything crashes you have them to hold on to them, you know. And then if I have you, aliza, as my subscriber, but you're just commenting on YouTube, that's not really giving me much. But if I have you, aliza, and you are, you're, you want to find love and I'm saying you know what, maybe us is not the place for you, maybe you should be dating somewhere else, maybe let's see what culture actually would fit your personality the best. That's actually the workshop that I'm working on right now, and you get into that workshop and you pay a little bit of money and now you, aliza, are one of my. The people that have transitioned to that is more interested in my products, and maybe there's something else that I would, that I consult you that would fit your needs.
Aliza Freud :Yeah, I think that that's what I'm I'm hearing a lot of creators talking about, and you know, be not being in a situation where you're at the mercy of the algorithms on the platforms, and If you don't have a way to directly connect with people, it is very hard to Not be at the mercy of, let's say, youtube deciding to change the algorithm. Yeah well, marina, I am so grateful to you for spending this time with us. What is the best way for people to follow you if they want to do that?
Marina Iakovleva:Yes, it's very easy dating bound borders across all Platforms. If you guys want to check out what I do, Thank you.
Aliza Freud :Thank you so much for spending time with us.
Marina Iakovleva:Thank you so much for having me on the show, aliza was so much fun. I don't get to do it on the other side often, so it's it's so great when you get into you. It's such a nice feeling. Thank you for having me you.
