****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

(Music - shark theme)

Kenneth Kinney 0:16

Hello and welcome back to A Shark’s Perspective.

Kenneth Kinney 0:18

So how about this pandemic for a punch to the gut? Speakers and attendees see conferences and events canceled left and right. Everything in business has basically been paused to some degree. But what are the opportunities for influencers and speakers and brands that will uncover how should you pivot your social media because of COVID 19?

Kenneth Kinney 0:35

Brian Fanzo is a digital futurist keynote speaker, the founder of iSocialFanz, a self described pager wearing millennial, and a top digital transformation influencer.

Kenneth Kinney 0:45

And on this episode we'll discuss being a speaker in social media and pivoting both of those because of the Coronavirus, focusing on long term goals, marketing during a pandemic, niches, Mr. Rogers, Big Macs, the fish that saved Pittsburgh, DeAngelo Williams, having to get toilet paper from your ex wife due to pandemic, shopping, and a lot lot more.

Kenneth Kinney 1:03

So let's tune in to an ice social fanzone with an ice social shark on this episode of A Shark’s Perspective.

[intro music]

Kenneth Kinney 1:16

All right. Well, Brian, thank you so much for joining us today on A Shark’s Perspective. If you could tell us your background story and career today.

Unknown Speaker 1:23

Sure, so thanks for having me. So I'm a digital futurist as I consider myself today, but for many, so what does that really mean? I went to school for Business Information Systems. And I ended up getting a job out of college, working in cybersecurity for the Department of Defense based out of here out of Northern Virginia, worked out of the Pentagon and DC actually worked there for nine years in cybersecurity and I grew a team of about 32 employees. My job was really, we deployed cybersecurity solutions as well as collaboration solutions like SharePoint, with the goal of educating the military and all the different military bases around the world, on the cybersecurity solutions, as well as helping the different branches of the military, collaborate and share policies, which I can tell you was not the most easy thing trying to get the army to share a policy with the Navy, especially in cybersecurity in the early 2000s, where it wasn't sexy fun, or, or really a priority for the most part. And so I worked there for about nine years. And I kind of got to the point where I loved working with the military, I had traveled to 54 countries at the time, I have three trips to Iraq to to Afghanistan, a little over 30 trips to the Middle East as a whole. But I was looking really to kind of make a bigger splash in the market and kind of reach a bigger audience. And my dream job since I was in college was a technology evangelist, really modeled after Guy Kawasaki. And what he did with the Apple cult, as I, my brand is ice social fans fly there, because I'm a, I'm an Apple fanboy. And so I got a, I got an opportunity to have that dream role at a data center company based out of Phoenix, Arizona. So I became the technology evangelist, I reported to the CEO, I had a dotted line to the CIO and a dotted line to the CMO. And I was really in charge of onboarding, employee advocacy, social selling, and our kind of our community connection with our both our partners and our current customers. And so marketing and social media kind of fell under that as well. And kind of during that time, I was awarded the top 25, social business leader of the future by The Economist, and when the economist kind of labeled me with that, first of all, I had no idea that you know, I would write right, my work was even being noticed. But, you know, I was able to travel with the likes of Scott Monti, who was the the godfather of Ford social media. And they sent us around to different events for IBM and Dell. And we got to go to these different TED Talks. And kind of during that time, is when I really started investing in my own personal brand, launched my company, I social fans, and then I decided to leave, actually the data center company I was working for I was getting purchased, and they didn't really see the value of a quote unquote evangelist that didn't have direct tie to sales or KPIs or a quota. And so, I ended up leaving that and starting my own business as an entrepreneur, I dabbled as a marketing agency and quickly realized that wasn't the life for me. Did a lot of influencer work, a lot of strategy work. And then for about the last four years, I've been a full time speaker. So speaking, is my primary source of revenue. I do do some consulting and advising for those clients, but I do about 60 gigs a year, ranging on a wide range of topics, but it's a lot of fun. I'd like to say, if I summarize all of that, for me, as you know, I translate the geekspeak, around kind of technology and marketing, really making it, you know, simple for businesses to understand what they should be using, where they should be using it, and then hopefully, you know, kind of the synchronization of technology, humanity. So that's where the Digital Futures label comes from. It's a, it's a heck of a journey. But I think it's for me, you know, where I'm at now is where I know I was meant to be, it takes a long way to get there, I'm 38 years old now. But it's, it's a journey that I'm very thankful to have that background, because I, I can tell you, I tap into, you know, collaboration, cybersecurity, social selling ideas on a regular basis. And if I hadn't had those experiences, I wouldn't be able to do what I do right now.

Kenneth Kinney 5:45

Well, were you in the military yourself?

Unknown Speaker 5:48

I wasn't surprisingly enough, I was the 1% of government contractors that did not have a military background I did grew up. I was born in Pittsburgh, grew up in Virginia Beach, and Virginia Beach, very heavy Navy, Navy area. And so all of my friends, and a lot of those that I was very close with were military, I've always had a love and appreciation for the military. So I was able to get a job, you have to get me an entry level security clearance. And eventually, you know, I had the highest civilian clearance that you can get, and as having no military background, so I was very thankful to you know, for those nine years working directly with the military, and I gained a whole new level of respect for that profession. And so this day, it's the, probably the thing I spent the most time with when traveling is i i travel with, you know, Amazon gift cards and Starbucks gift card and I go through Atlanta airport a lot. And so anytime I see someone in uniform, I try to you know, give them a little bit of a thank you and maybe you know, a nice coffee. So that just to remind them of the great work they do good for you

Kenneth Kinney 6:47

Good for you. So how did you transition from marketer, social media, tech futurists to speaker and then really being a paid speaker, once you go beyond the IBM events, in the things like that to your time at earlier? How did you transition that journey into being a paid speaker?

Unknown Speaker 7:04

So interestingly enough, it wasn't until probably five years ago that I knew speaking as a profession was an actual job, right. But for me in 2005, when I was working at the Pentagon, and here in Washington, DC, my my boss came to me and I can tell you it wasn't, wasn't the greatest tap on the back, everybody said, you know, Brian, you're the the only non gray haired guy in our cybersecurity team, we would like you to to be the face of our cybersecurity initiatives. Right. And yeah, and I was and I, to be honest, I was the only person in my 20s, there was only one person in their 30s on our team. And, and if you think about it, 2005 2006 No one went to college for cybersecurity that time. And really, no one really wanted to work in this space, it was, and I can tell you, I didn't want to work in this space, either. It was my entry point into it, I couldn't get a job. And it actually worked for UPS delivering packages for over a year after college because I couldn't get a job in it. And I took a massive pay cut to get into it. And I happen to be cybersecurity, which ended up falling in love with just the ability to, you know, educate and help people change their mindset, while at the same time enabling people to do what they want. But, you know, if I look back at it, and so in 2005, they sent me to what they called, you know, communication training, and I had to get certified, you couldn't speak at the Pentagon, if you didn't have this certification. And so it was a lot of like, public speaking public communication. And, you know, don't talk with your hands, don't talk fast, pretty much all the things that I do every day.

Unknown Speaker 8:39

But, you know, I got certified for that. And so then, for the, for a lot of the government time, not only was I running training courses, but I would, you know, the first trap trip I ever went to in Afghanistan, you know, I briefed a room of about 250 active duty military on what we were doing there. And then I started really doing a lot of speaking in the in the government space on, you know, Hey, these are the initiatives. These are how do we attract younger generation. And so then when I went to the data center company, as an evangelist, I did we would sponsor events like VMware or VMworld, AWS reinvent Gartner conference. And the CEO I worked for the time was the smartest person I've actually ever met in my entire life. But the the, let's just say that the things that you're limited to, or not limited to talking about on stage as a, as a sponsor of the event, kind of gave me an opportunity to start speaking on behalf of that company. And so interestingly enough, you know, for me now, you know, I've been a paid speaker for four years. But if I look back on it, I've had the opportunity to be a speaker internally for the US government be a speaker for a brand that when we sponsored an event, we got a speaking slot. I mean, interestingly enough, the largest event I ever spoke to was still back in that point, I got to speak as a keynote for AWS reinvent with well over 13,000 people in the in the audience, and at the time, it was wasn't a it was just kind of my job. It wasn't a, I didn't I didn't take pictures, we didn't get promoted. There's not like a video. Because for me, it was like, oh, yeah, part of my job is, you know, the education and inspiration of the technology that we're using. And so it really wasn't until I kind of got on my own. And when people would hire me to do influence, or work or hire me to consult, they would kind of bucket in like, Hey, Brian, we want you to consult, we want you to bring you into this event. Oh, is there any chance that you could, you know, give a talk to our executives? Or could you, you know, one of the things I started doing is, you know, in, let's say, 2012 2013, is, I will get hired as an influencer, in the cloud computing, artificial intelligence, like the very techie side of the house. And they were like, Well, Brian, we're gonna have everyday flying in a day early, we want you to do a workshop for all of them on how to use social media, because social media has been something that I've used myself, you know, kind of as a power user for a long time. And so it was very interesting. I mean, my mentor, and good friend, Scott Stratten, who is the founder of and marketing is on Marketing podcast. He's made millions of dollars as a public speaker, he always tells a story that he was 14 years old, and he saw Les Brown on TV. And he realized at that moment, he wanted to be a professional speaker, I'm kind of the opposite. Like, it was more like I was 33 years old. And when people were talking, like were amazed at how good I was on stage, I was like, Well, I've been speaking, since I was 23, you know, like, as part of my job, but it really wasn't, it didn't dawn on me that it could be really be a profession. And in 2013, I joined the National Speakers Association, and started to really realize that it was a profession. And I pivoted my entire brand, in 2016, to speaking only really, and, you know, I signed up with a speaker agent in 2018. And you know, but I can tell you for the first three years, it was all on my own. And even to this day, although I have a speaker agent, a majority of my leads come in from my my content creation, both my podcast and video, as well as my social media. So it's, it's been a crazy journey and a crazy path. But, you know, now I'm very blessed to do the thing that I love doing. And I can tell you, I don't plan on doing anything else for the rest of my life. I just have to, I had to figure out how to scale it and kind of, you know, deal with things and the ups and downs. But it's, it's an it's a fun way to find what you love doing. My mom always says, I came out of the womb talking. And I just now finally find a career that lets me do that for a living.

Kenneth Kinney 12:30

Yeah, no. And I tell people now when they when they talk about my experiences as a speaker, I tell them, I've been doing this since I was one. Now I've got a microphone, with some of the same damn jokes, too. But you know, one of the things I'd love to know as well, being somebody that worked in cybersecurity, how did you transition into being sort of the social media guy, the reason I ask this is, so many speakers are told by either agencies or mentors, or coaches that they need to follow a niche, you're now you know, broadening out pretty substantially from what you started in, to where, where you are today.

Unknown Speaker 13:08

So, I'm Team No Niche. Let me explain that real quick is, I believe, if you have a niche, you should own it, you should double down on it, you should, you shouldn't make that what you're known for. But there's a mass majority of us that don't have a niche, we haven't figured out what that is, or, you know, those of us with ADHD, especially, you know, for me, I get my fuel my passion for my ability to do many things. And when I would hear things like, oh, you know, you know, you're you do too many things. So you're a master of nothing, or those that teach or those that can't do when I hear those things, and it's just part of my nature is prove people wrong. And I'm like, oh, is is that how you feel? Or you don't believe multitasking is possible, I challenge you to sit with me for for two hours. And what's the way that I work? Yeah, so So, for me, one of the things that was interesting was, you know, when I pivoted out of cybersecurity, and really on my own, I made it a mission to not really talk about my cybersecurity background, as I was kind of pivoting into the marketing of the digital marketing space. And I'm not sure if it was the the best the right decision at the time. But I really wanted to be known for what I was able to do in that space before I could tap into this amazing background that I do have. And I can tell you, I applied to speak at Social Media Marketing World, Content Marketing World, and inbound back in 2014. And all of them said, Nice try, we've never heard of you. We don't want you to give me like the side stage or the side stage. Yet in 2013. I spoke in front of 13,000 people on Amazon reinvent and I introduced the CEO of Netflix, I had a fireside chat with the founder of LinkedIn. And so for me, it was a little bit of, you know, humble, humble pie.

Unknown Speaker 14:59

But it was also port Porter for me was so I was very confident, I'm not going to never been one that's afraid of failure. I'm one that I've failed many times. But I think for me, failure sucks. And I always like to caveat that I don't I'm not one that like says you have to fail to succeed, because I would prefer people not to have to deal with failure. But for me, the the thing that I think was the driving force was, I was very confident that I would never settle for failure. And so when I pivoted into these new arenas, and I was getting told no, and I couldn't speak there. For me, that was all just okay, well, let me prove you wrong. And I had, IBM became my biggest clients. And, you know, Dell, when they first started interacting with he was like, we would love to work with you, but we don't want to work with you, because you have too much IBM and your feet. And I was like, well, you want to be, you want to be the feet part of the field like IBM. And the reason they do that is because they hired me to do all these work. And so then someone challenged me and they're like, Brian, can you could you go after, you know, eight to 10 of the largest enterprise Tech brands in the world and work for them all in the same year. And, and I did, I did eight, you know, I did HP, Dell, Samsung, SAP, IBM, Capgemini, Deloitte, I did all of them in one year, I spoke at their event, I was hired as an influencer. And interestingly enough, the thing that became of it was, you know, I became the independent third party. And it was part of it was because I was committed to not being, you know, brainwashed by a brand to selling myself out, you know, I made a lot of those strategic decisions that said, Well, if I'm not going to have a niche, I need to make sure that I am not siloed. And I'm not limited, like, and I would even turn down contracts. That would require exclusivity, like and, and granted, because of my cybersecurity background, I could convey, hey, I understand when I have to wear a shirt and tie when I what things I can't say I understand the importance of an NDA for certain pieces. But I also understand that it's not a zero sum game. It's not like, Hey, if you work for us, you can only work for us. And it was interesting, I would push back and I can tell you most of the time, they were like, Oh, I really appreciate that you're that committed to being, you know, agnostic from a brand, right? And they would, or they would just be like, Sure, well, will we agree with you? And so that's to me, like, that's where I say, you know, I'm teen no niche, you know, as even my Digital Futures fits my label perfectly, because, you know, I work with, you know, insurance companies, real estate companies, I just got back from Berkshire Hathaway, you know, I also work with, you know, enterprise technology I've worked with, you know, pet food companies, Applebee's has been my client, the UFC, I've run social media boot camps for the UFC. And so part of it is, it allows me to do what I love doing. But I can tell you the the hardest part was, if I, if you don't have a niche, you still have to find a way to make it simple for people to understand how to work with you. And that was the hardest part for me and took until the last couple years, for me to realize that although I didn't need a niche, I didn't need to simplify my messaging and simplify the way that people kind of explained my value. And, and, you know, the journey has been an interesting one. But for me, that that's kind of how I allowed all this to happen. And really, you know, social media is the answer. I mean, it's as crazy as it was, I remember the day it's November 2 2013. And I was using social media. For sports, mostly, I'm diehard Pittsburgh sports fan, I, I moved to Virginia, you know, in high school, and I felt so disconnected from my, my, my Pittsburgh sports fans, that I found Twitter, I found a Facebook group, I started being really active, but it really wasn't until 2013 that I turned my focus towards my personal brand and telling my story, you know, and I like to say, you know, 2013, not very long ago, you know, I had less than 2000 followers, I wasn't on any, you know, influencer lists, wasn't getting any, you know, accolades. And, you know, and now, you know, I'm very thankful I've had, you know, five podcasts a little over 3000 live streams, I have close to a half a million followers across, you know, the social media channels as a whole. And a lot of that has to do with me telling my story. And so, you know, it's crazy to think about it but social media, you know, I got known for some of the social media stuff that I was doing and live video, but I look at it always as the vehicle and medium for me to be able to get my voice heard. And, and ultimately, I it's my job now to tell my story. And I'm very thankful that you know, social media existed for me because I don't, I don't believe I would have been able to pivot or kind of live this, you know, no niche life that I have. If it wasn't for social

Kenneth Kinney 19:32

greed, I could not agree with you more. And it's funny, it's I'm listening. I feel like I'm listening to other people talk about me as I listen to you describe it more eloquently than I do. One you've had way too much caffeine and you have ADHD. So that alone it sounds like we're brothers but I had this conversation with somebody in Europe about a gig two weeks ago before Mass hysteria broke out and they were talking about trying to niche me down and and I get that they needed a label to To put it on, but there are multiple things that I've worked in that I have pretty deep expertise. And I don't need to be siloed, as you said into only one. And so really like, exactly like you said, it's giving people something because these are not separate, necessarily marketers, they're event planners, they need something to help put it in terms that they understand so that they can go back and sell it to their audience. They're not just like any other brand, they're not trying to, they're not taking the time to deselect me. And look at the many layers, you know, that makes up who I am, or you are anybody else's, they need something that they can package quickly. It can be more than one package. It just doesn't need to be overly siloed. I think that's what too many of the group thinkers do way too often. But, you know, I've seen some of your posts. And this was when I reached out to you in particular about the pandemic and why I wanted to talk about this on the Coronavirus pandemic, but you will elaborate on what's happened over the spring of 2020 to your own speaking career, and then how are you going to pivot going forward?

Unknown Speaker 21:02

So yeah, it's, you know, it's interesting, as I kind of told a little bit of my story, you know, part of it, you know, was this simplification of the messaging, I also was one that realized what I'm not good at, when it comes to sales, selling myself, especially the negotiation side of the house are, so my speaker agent has really helped out a lot on that. And so, for me, you know, I don't know, when when we hear a lot about speakers, you have to have a book, you have to be, you know, nationally syndicated you need to have all these things, well, I don't have those I, you know, I am working on a book, but that, you know, I didn't have those lists, you know, and I've been very blessed to kind of make my path up the chart without that. And so, you know, at the end of 2019, I decided to pivot completely into speaking a lot less, you know, one off clients, you know, if you hire me to speak, I will also consult, I do have a couple of events that have me on retainer. And so I was really all in on that space, I was working on a couple other, I have a clothing piece that I'm working on, I have a couple other little pieces of things that I've been dabbling in. And then, you know, over the last couple of weeks, the Coronavirus and the, you know, the pandemic has impacted everything. And I can tell you, I, you know, over the 90 days, March, April, May, I had 14, speaking gigs scheduled, and over the last 10 days, it went from 14 to eight to two, and I executed on one of them this past week. And that's my last gig through the month of May. And just recently, just in the last 48 hours, I lost a gig in July and a gig in August as well. And so, you know, I'm a dad of three girls, I am divorced. And, you know, I have spousal support child support to pay as well as my own bills, my agents, the couple of people that work on my team for content creation and syndication. And so it's not the ideal time, I definitely remember three years ago, my mentor advising me on the list of things I need to do to recession proof my speaking business, I wrote them down on a piece of paper. And that was the last time I looked at it. So I was I think about that now and be like, Wow, I should have done that. So really, you know, part of if you've listened to my career, and part of my my entire thing is I've never been afraid to change or pivot. But I also am a big believer in kind of the greater good. And so one of the things for me, when this first happened is I immediately was like, Oh, my goodness, I need to create an online course, I need to create this, I need to do this. So I started working really, really hard. And then my mentor Scott had reached out to me and one of the things Scott had kind of reminded me was, you know, hey, in this time of crisis, make sure that you're not doing anything in the short term that will not only jeopardize your long term, but also that might impact or hurt the things that you've been working on for the last five years as a speaker, the relationships, you've built the community that you've focused on. And so, you know, I spent, I spent many, many hours a week ago, crafting all of this stuff, I was gonna, you know, all of a sudden make all these digital offerings. And I had to put a pause to that a little bit. And I wanted to sit back. And so I've done about 30 phone calls with both previous clients as well as sponsors, as well as connections that I had really just asking the question, what did they need? Where can I help? And ultimately, like, where what are they? What are the things that they're getting? told that they need to do and now I'm looking at this little bit from a different lens and saying, Okay, I still need to make money. So I'm not one of those people. That's gonna be like, Hey, I'm gonna spend the next three months you know, giving away stuff for free, but I really wanted to come down and say, okay, rather than selling, creating something that I need to sell during this crisis time, I'm going to create something that I know is going to help that people will purchase Not because I'm selling it, but rather, there isn't something else available. And so, you know, part of that me is, you know, I've done over 3000 live streams, I've, you know, myself individually, I launched the Super Bowl, SAP, Adobe, IBM, Oracle, I launched all of their very first Facebook Lives, I've done Instagram takeovers, and so one of the things I realized was wow, like, part of this whole work from home new virtual environment is people have to get comfortable in this uncomfortable world of video creation and doing it from your home or doing it from a studio. And so I'm kind of looking at that I spent this weekend, I created about 11 videos this weekend, on really helping, you know, in a big pieces, you know, I have three daughters that are out of school. So my first content that will roll out this week, is about for teachers and helping teachers being more engaged, and I'm not selling that it's 100% free, it's, I'm gonna throw it up on the website, I'm gonna give it out, you know, hey, here's, here's ways that you can be more interactive with your tone, here's ways that you can use video differently, here's why you should, you know, invest in lighting and not an expensive camera or whatever it may be. And so that's kind of where I'm looking at. I'm also working with a couple brands to redesign what the dashboard of a digital event looks like, I, I do not like that we sometimes not we sometimes, you know, there's a reason that virtual conferences have not replaced offline conferences is because they can't. And sadly, most companies, they'll do a back to back webinar and call that an online Summit. Or you'll have summit based software for online. That is just production video that has like a catalog. And mean, there's one thing that we know, and it's you know, as a speaker, it's the greatest, the thing that I take the greatest responsibility in is that as a speaker, we have captivated audience. For our time on stage, that is the hardest thing to get in the world today, right? We have more distractions, more things coming at us. And as a speaker, when you take that stage, those people in that room, yes, they might have their laptop out, yes, they might have their phone out, but they are giving you more attention than you're gonna get anywhere else. And I take great pride in that and great responsibility. But in the digital world, and someone's on the in front of their machine, or they're watching on their phone, it's the complete opposite. And sadly, when I see companies go virtual, they believe by just live streaming, a 90 minute keynote, onto YouTube Live, that all of a sudden, that's going to be the same experience that someone gets when they're in the room. And so I've made part of my goal. And I can tell you, I've worked with a lot, I spoke to a lot of software companies over the last couple of days. And they don't really like hearing what I have to say. But I think they respect the fact that I don't, I don't even know, I know that they're trying to market towards this audience that's at them. You know, I'm a big believer in, you know, if we want to make virtual and digital, something that can truly be valuable, we need to rethink it completely from the ground up. And so that's kind of the other place where I'm playing this. And you know, I've, I've interviewed speakers talk to a couple bureaus, and really just trying to say, hey, like, if we redesign events, and I spent, I spent probably nine hours on Friday, this past Friday, taking one of my my keynotes that I've given, you know, well over 100 times, and redesigning it into eight minute chunks of content to where when I give it, it's an eight minute chunk, and then I can throw it to a video, I can throw it to a podcast, I can throw it to, you know, maybe a quote from an influencer. And then you know, bring in some q&a, and then jump into another eight minutes. And it took a while. I mean, it took a long while for me to occur. But you know, that's, that, to me is where I'm going I I think for me, one of the biggest, I would say my true passion, as much as I love speaking is I love the intersection of technology and humanity. And I don't believe technology fixes people problems. But I do believe if we identify the people problems and solve them with people, technology can amplify and extend the good things that are going on. But it's not like a one replaces the other. And, you know, my experience with cybersecurity, my background with data center I worked for, you know, I've tried all of those things incorrectly. And I've thrown like, oh, the team isn't collaborating here. Let's use a collaboration tool. Oh, that didn't work. Let's do another collaboration tool. Oh, that didn't work. Let's do another tool. And then you realize, wait a second, the tool isn't the common variable. It's the people like, let's go back and figure out how we can help people understand why they should collaborate. And then let's find a tool that fits our needs. And so I'm trying to take that same mindset to this virtual area that we're being thrown into and, and it's scary, it's going to be hard.

Unknown Speaker 29:41

I can tell you, like, you know, my bills are something that are weighing on me I you know, I didn't have a runway I did pivot recently. But at the same time, you know, there is something to be said about, you know, doing it the right way and remembering those long term goals.

Kenneth Kinney 29:56

Let's pivot into social a little bit. You know, I speak with a lot of friends who are socially mean influencers with large groups of followers some have great advice on this and some don't. But I'd love to get your thoughts on how brands can take what they learn from people that have large followings personal followings in the personal advice they give them and translate that into brand speak on a social channel.

Unknown Speaker 30:19

So I think, you know, I think one of the things that we have to think about today is that, you know, and this is a lesson that I got from my dad, my dad's a candy salesman, and one of the things I always say is that, you know, social media will never replace a handshake. But if you invest in social media, in the social listening, in the engagement in creating stuff that helps, it will give you the opportunity to have more handshakes. And I always like to say, intern handshakes and hugs, right. And if you think about that, from a brand perspective, you know, we've always heard that people buy from people they like, but the weird part about that statement is that the the, the, the rest of that comment has always been, we really just don't buy from people we don't like if we have a lukewarm feeling, or no emotional attachment at all to someone. And it's the cheaper option, or the solution in front of us, we will purchase from that, right. So like, I've always challenged that notion. And so if I look at it in 2020, and beyond, I'm going to add a new one. So people always buy from people they like, is that people always buy from people that they can relate to. And so if you're in a brand or a company, nobody trusts a logo, nobody trusts, just because you've been around for 60 years doesn't mean you have a trust, especially for those under the age of 40, that will oftentimes tell you that, oh, if you've been around for 60 years, I'm guessing that you don't relate to me, you're stuck in your ways, it takes a long time for you to change. And so when we look at that, you know, my biggest pitch to every brand is we're all in the same game. We're all in the business of building trust. And the question starts to become how do we build trust in this digital era? And the first answer is, it's not through your logo or your website, it's through the people that make up your company, great companies are great, because they have great employees. It's our turn now to switch our social media focus to highlighting them, right. And we're starting to see some brands doing that with their blog, being blogs being written from different employees across the company, we're seeing employee takeovers, we're seeing, you know, people that are getting even reshard, or highlights a video where we're talking about, hey, you know, this is one of our employees in the product team, and they're going to share their story. And so it's starting to get that way. But that's my my advice is that it isn't about, you know, when we hear the word personal brand, most people are like, oh my goodness, that's because it's one individual. But really what personal branding means is, it means you're building trust through a relationship through a community. And you're, you're establishing your digital first impression, to be your story. And so, you know, the keynote that I give, the book that I'm I just finishing writing is called press the down button is the name of it. And the whole premise of that is the old school way of letting your work do the talking for you no longer works. If you are waiting and letting the work do the talking for you, you will be out of a job, your company will go out of business because right now, we have the ability to tell our story and those that are faking it till they make it. They're selling unicorns and rainbows. And they're, they're using, they're telling their story, and they're drowning out all the great companies that are doing great things. And so the option now is it's our turn to press that button, right? It's our turn to tell our story. And and part of that becomes how do I empower those people across my teams. And so I look at social media, the social listening component is extremely important. The engagement customer experience side of the house is extremely important. But I would argue especially in times like right now 2020 I think employee advocacy, social selling employee takeovers, influencer collaborations, we haven't even seen the explosion of that yet. It's mainly because we're just now starting to see customers demand, transparency, authenticity and trust. We're living in exciting times. But for brands that are out there, my my, my advice might be a little tough in the sense of, you know, if you're not telling your story, you're gonna be out of business. But the truth is, you know, think about it. I mean, who if someone else is, on every channel, they have a podcast and putting out all this information. And although you're doing great work, your work is never seen by your target demographic. It's kind of just, you know, inevitable where this will lead us. And so that's how I look at social, you know, social media in 2020 is so much different than it was in 2016. And I think we have to kind of respect that and, and see how that we can kind of connect that in in today's day and age

Kenneth Kinney 34:45

Cannot agree more specifically about using employees to help tell the story because that to me is really one it'll fix a lot of the employee advocacy or at least it gets it started to fix to that's really your biggest set of influencers. And companies that let communications team who mean well, but when they are the only ones who are shaping the brand, to the rest of the world through some written type or story and trying to, you know, message that it becomes wrong, it just, it doesn't work, it falls flat. So, you know, we're in the midst of chaos, especially now with viruses and pandemic, have you thought about, especially now when you see it? What kind of social media posts a brand should be putting out there right now? And what's your advice on how much somebody should mark it? In social media? With a lot of the brand speak that is already bad anyway, but it just seems like they're really killing it right now, when you're talking about, you know, COVID, and everything else going on? COVID-19?

Unknown Speaker 35:44

Well, you know, one of the things that we have to remember our respect, is that with the word unprecedented, or, you know, first time, you know, those are words, we've thrown around for a long time. Yeah, the current crisis is unprecedented. We've never experienced this. And, and so I don't believe there's a playbook I don't believe there's even a crisis management book that understood the disruption to life, while the disruption to not only the stock market, but to the local mom and pop to, you know, the stay at home mom, or the mom, or dad that you know, all of a sudden, are going to have their kids home for one month, two months, maybe even, you know, six, nine months. This is all unprecedent. So, you know, part of it as a brand, I look at this and say, when we're dealing with unprecedent times and the unknown, we have two ways of doing this, right, we have one way of being silent and kind of allowing things to happen and focusing on engaging the customers that we already have. The other piece is doing something that is helping that is providing value. I don't believe it. You know, I made this comment yesterday, and I got attacked on Twitter, by pretty much everybody in advertising. But I I believe using Facebook ads to target your, your your community, during a time of crisis is is very naive. Because, you know, and here's the interesting thing is I think Google ads and search ads should be using money right now. Because we have to remember the emotional states of those that we're trying to reach. And yes, Facebook, you can hate it or you love it. But right now we are we're we're on lockdown. We're feeling lonely, disconnected. And when we're going to something like Facebook, we were seeing posts of our friends losing their job. This unknown is this fake news or bad news around the Coronavirus? And then we see, you know, an ad promoting something, you know, like, Hey, here's a, you know, something that you know, this is the greatest tool to help you if you lost your keys, or did you ever think about you know, buying a, a shed for your backyard. And I think when I look at it, we have to be very understanding and respectful for the emotional states of the audience we're trying to reach. And what that means is, it's changing our perspective of, hey, Facebook allows us to customize and personalize our messages down to the exact person. Well, that's great. But let's go back the other way. And remember that because that exact person is feeling emotional in ways that they never have before. What what is, what is the value of us being in their feed? How many people are purchasing there? Now, the reason I said search is different is that if we're going online to search for something, our emotional well being at that moment, or our mindset is, I need something to accomplish this, therefore an ad in that environment, you're actually helping someone answer their question, or you're providing your solution there, versus social media where we're looking at Facebook ads, you know, even YouTube ads for you know, and I think YouTube's blurred area right now. But I mean, I look at this, as you know, and I saw an article on the verge today about, you know how much this is going to hurt the advertising space. And I do believe it's going to hurt advertising, gonna hurt marketing. But if I was a brand, you know, and I can tell you, I probably talked to 12 brands last week that reached out to me that were friends that either run teams or the CMO of different companies, one of the CMOS of one of the largest fortune 50 companies in the world, happens to be a good friend of mine. And I was talking to him and I just said, you know, one of the things you can't go wrong with during this time is showing that you care. Yeah. Right. Like if you if you look at your entire content, strategy, social media content, if you are doing if everything is from the lens of caring about your community, there won't you can't do anything wrong. But as soon as we're like, Oh, can I lead them to my website, or I'll just keep doing the same thing. And using the excuse that people want some part of normality. I agree that people want some form of normality, but being marketed or sold to does not fit into that mark. So I, you know, I and I was and I'll kind of wrap this part up just saying it is something we've never done before. The other thing about it is, you know, every day it seems like we're getting different news, more bad news, more things closing I think maybe even more important than ever before is don't schedule or automate anything at the moment.

Unknown Speaker 40:06

Oh God yes.

Unknown Speaker 40:06

This is, this is like a a daily pivot adjustment. You know, my girlfriend works for a social media tool company is called Agora Pulse. Oh yeah. And they do social media scheduling and so on. And she runs their digital channels, she used to be the, the digital manager for the Weather Channel running all the Weather Channel, social media. And you know, her and I last night on on Facebook portal, we're going through like, Okay, what makes sense for her brand, what makes sense for what she's doing. And it's an interesting balance. And, interestingly enough, the things that her and I were talking about last night, were so different than what we talked about Thursday night, just because the landscape had changed so much. So I think it's interesting times, but I will, I will say, if you're going out of your way to show that you're caring, there's really no way you could go wrong,

Kenneth Kinney 40:53

I'm tend to lean the other way against you on ads. But I don't blame the brands, as much as often do Facebook and Instagram, could change our algorithm and pull some of that back. That's not like this, Zuckerberg could sure help in this in this process to make it a little more contextual. And one other thing I'll say, I do think there's going to continue to be a shift in priorities, at least even with social over the next year or so if we go into a recession if we don't, but whatever we do, I think so much more of that is going to be trying to build that that padding, you may even be the same way you look at your own business, and how you leverage social to get more gigs. I just, I noticed that with a lot of folks that are speakers in the space, how the moment this stuff started kicking up, they started selling their own services and speeches, not that you did I just mean, it's just by nature, it seems like all brands of all kinds of personal and corporate are starting to sell more just in necessity. And I'm wondering how much of that will continue, as we try to get through this whole thing and get back to some sort of normalcy whenever that is.

Unknown Speaker 42:02

You know, I want to think we have to remember in that case, is that the consumer today has never been more smarter. Yeah, never been more connected. And they know an ad when they see an ad, they know a sales pitch, when they see a sales pitch. They know a blog post that is disguised as a blog post, but really is a white paper that has, you know, 19 calls of action. And so, you know, there is a tendency for us to, you know, as business owners, especially in this space, where, oh, my goodness, I need to tap into this, I need to, you know, kind of go all in. And I can tell you, I felt that. But the other piece of this is is that, with the consumer being as smart as they are, we also have to respect that in the sense of is, or what we're going to do, or this idea of all of a sudden, if you're selling an online course, and you've never built an online course before, you don't understand the learning objectives in that kind of environment. And someone buys your course. And they get zero value out of it. The the chance of them being an advocate for you to ever speak for their brand or work with them in the future is lost. And so when when i My My advice to this to a lot of people is that, you know, the risk isn't just that you sell something that isn't a value, the risk is that you lose that person as a current customer, a future customer and an advocate. And this is where I, you know, I I originally was thinking, How do I sell a whole bunch of stuff? Now I'm thinking, How do I get the value to the people that already know me? Right? And like, I do think that little bit of that comes into this idea that we are living in this time where we do have to respect today's consumers? And I mean, not only are they smart, but you know, even if we're getting a financial help from the government, even if some people that have, you know, that we're planning and had some residual income set up, I think part of their whole piece comes down to this idea that says, What are they going to spend their money on? And what where, where does that not matter the most to them. And I'm gonna guess this is my prediction is that those that have built a community, those that are that have been establishing trust in the long term, you don't have to have the greatest funnel at this moment. You don't have to have the greatest advertising strategy this moment. You just need to get what you do really well, to the in front of those existing people that have trust you. And you will get through these times. Because I think that's the the overlooking of this is, you know, I'm creating some content around working from home. I don't have a work from home product. But I know that the people that are my closest network are dealing with this problem that they've never had a work before. And so when I literally yesterday on a phone call, one of my good friends said I don't understand Brian, while you're putting out content and work from home like not one of your keynotes is on that and not one of the things you do is on that I was like I know, but all of the people that are my advocates that have hired me in the past are impacted by this problem. Therefore for me You know, we always think about like, how do I help? How do I provide value? How do I care? Caring doesn't have to be directly linked to the product or service that you're selling. And in most cases, when it's not, it comes across a lot easier. And, and that's kind of where I'm going with a lot of this.

Kenneth Kinney 45:13

Well, so going through this 2020 change with the virus and the pandemic, everything else. Have you learned anything differently about social media that you didn't know today?

Unknown Speaker 45:24

Well, that's a good one. Um, I....

Kenneth Kinney 45:27

I was trying to stump you some how.

Unknown Speaker 45:29

You know I think, I think one of the things that I talk a lot about from a strategic standpoint is, every platform to me, I think of completely unique, right? The not only the, the users that are there, but the user experience they know like, and we can say, like, you know, Instagram is the only platform in the world that we can guarantee 99% of the audience is on their mobile device, because no one goes to instagram.com. But I think even take it a step further and thinking of it from the psychology of what we share how we share when we share it. And I've always said, like, you know, I'm, I use different texts for sharing a video on LinkedIn than I do on Instagram. Right? That's, that's nothing new. But one of the things I have found in this time, is that if you find a piece of content that resonates on one platform, there is the ability to craft that same piece of content in a way that resonates on another platform, if you're really willing to be creative. And what I mean by that is, you know, when we think about the the fake news and bad news, we immediately think about Facebook, and I think part of is because Facebook's the, the big gorilla, they're the brand that everyone's on. So they're the ones we like to bash and attack. It's just our human human nature. And I'm actually a fan, I'm actually pro Facebook in a lot of different ways. But when I when I started to look at it, and I started to connect, I had, I had a lot of people coming to me and saying, Brian, I really wish you do a video on LinkedIn. I'm so disappointed by everything that's being shared here. And I started to think back and realize, you know, in the social media landscape today, there are places that we, as humans go to, for your social media interaction, whatever it may be. And, you know, I'm on Twitter, I Twitter's my favorite platform in the world. And, But funny enough, like when I talked to my girlfriend, or I was even talking to my mom, like, neither one of them are as active as I am on Twitter. And so they like, Brian, how are you? So well informed? How are you? How do you know all of these things? And I was like, Well, I live on Twitter. And they're like, my mom was like, Oh, I log on to facebook twice. And she likes one Facebook group. Right. And, and I was, and I think the lesson to me on that was, you know, I've always said have a unique strategy for each. But I would take the thing that I think I've learned is that have an appreciation for the users that aren't fully power users of social media, but that are still looking for the same basic things, right, trust information that they that they that can help them the idea of people that they like, or people that they know, providing them insights, not just a brand or a logo or company. And I think it's an exciting experiment. It's one of those ones where, you know, I was always strategic with how I posted, but I think this over his last, I'd say 10 days, one of the things it's reminded me is that, Hey, Brian, you know, just because you're active on this platform doesn't mean others are, and you kind of have to take your message to each platform, and respect, you know, kind of what that audience is doing. And I think the other piece of this is, is to remember that, you know, we all learn differently, we all consume differently, you know, a lot of my podcasting friends were immediately like, Oh, my goodness, everyone's gonna be home. Everyone's gonna be listening to more podcasts. And I was like, Well, I'm curious to any of you want to listen to business stuff right now? Like, right? Like, wait, like, Yes, more people are gonna be home. And yes, podcasts that are inspirational, that are positive outlook, are going to be are going to expand, but there's a whole group of us that are probably going to have a lot less listeners than then we expected because the community is like, Oh, my goodness, or, you know, anyone that's worked from home knows that, you know, the commute was when you consumed the sitting in the meeting room waiting for your boss who's 20 minutes late, is when you consume blog posts, or all of a sudden, when you're working from home, all of those times disappear. And so I think it's one of those things for us to not take for granted the audience that we have on each platform, and also to almost revisit each platform and saying, what is the right way for me to approach it and what type of message would resonate and help the most and so that's been it's been eye opening. For me, it's been kind of fun to see. I've tested a couple of things that didn't work and and now I'm testing out a couple of things that I think will be a little bit more strategic. I'm using LinkedIn live for a couple of things that I in the past, I was kind of hesitant to using it. But now I believe that I can kind of help people in a way that, you know, the LinkedIn community doesn't usually receive and so I think that's that's where social media is going to evolve and I can tell you social media has value for a business one year from now will be nothing like it's been in the past. Oh, yeah. And that's that's that's a that's a scary but also exciting opportunity.

Kenneth Kinney 50:11

It is not you know, I wrestled through this as well, I've got several shows that are typical marketing, business growth, leadership stuff I want to post but I also know that a majority that people are watching a stock market that's down 1000 points, and I guarantee you that Fox, MSNBC and CNN numbers have spiked just like podcasts have fallen. And there's a lot more people watching outbreak on Netflix, you know an all movie about a pandemic than they are wanting to consume new new content from any brand anywhere so well Brian it you're known as being a pager wearing millennial who's a digital futurist, but I asked this of all my guests, what is your favorite kind of shark and why?

Unknown Speaker 50:59

Ooohhh. So it would have to be a hammerhead shark would be the first one that that comes to mind.

Kenneth Kinney 51:04

Is that the fish that saved Pittsburgh?

Kenneth Kinney 51:06

I'm sorry what?

Kenneth Kinney 51:07

Is that the fish that saved Pittsburgh? Old movie reference.

Unknown Speaker 51:13

Yeah. So for me, you know, it's funny when you said sharks, like I'm, I grew up on the beach, I got to surf before high school every day. I'm a lover of the ocean, you know, being able to travel the places I've traveled. But I've always, you know, like, I have an appreciation for those things in our lives that remind us how little we are, you know, and the ocean is probably my favorite thing for that. But also sharks in that demeanor as well. And when you ask when my favorite one is probably the thing about the Hammerhead that I've always just kind of like I'm a big Be yourself, live your life your own way. And you know, for a shark like that shark. You know, when you see a hammerhead you don't you don't need to be a shark experts to know that that's hammerhead sharks, I almost appreciate the uniqueness of that of the Hammerhead more than I do anything else

Kenneth Kinney 51:56

Agreed. I'll tell you as a speaker, my favorite speaking gigs, oddly enough, are not the ones necessarily in Vegas, or, you know, the big massive stages to keep my sort of self centered. A lot of times on places if I'm on the coast, I jump in the water and do a dive the day I land or the day before the day after I land but before I speak and then travel again. So it kind of helps keep focus of what's important in the world, as opposed to how great I think I am on stage or you know, oh, yeah, what anybody's ever gonna say about me, but, Brian, it's a special time on my show. Are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions that you're going to be asked today? Let's do it. Alright, number one Pittsburgh Steelers or Pittsburgh Penguins. Pittsburgh Steelers. Why? So I thought you were did you play hockey?

Unknown Speaker 52:45

I did. I played hockey in college. Right? So that is probably the the answer you didn't expect. So for me, you know, my dad's had season tickets since 1969. For the Steelers, my brothers and I got involved with them in 99. The, you know, the culture the, you know, since my I was a little kid, you know, going to my first Cleveland Browns game. And it's interesting, like the section that we sit in in the sealer stadium are the kids of my dad's that went to the first four Super Bowls. And my attachments use the Steelers goes deep, deep enough to my roots to thinking of it as for me, it's a way of life. It's blue collar. It's community. It's, you know, the people that are out there and I love Pittsburgh, I love hockey. But there's something about the Steelers. And just the you know, the idea that you you were bad for many years. We're good for many years, but there's a reputation and kind of like a respect with the Steelers that is untested, you know, across all sports. And so yeah, as much as I love hockey, I coach high school hockey, and I'm I didn't miss a penguins game, watching it on recording this year up until the end of the season. But at the same time I haven't missed a Steeler game. And in many, many years, yeah, Steelers over penguins for me.

Kenneth Kinney 53:58

Well, the Steelers did have one of my favorite running backs of all time, even though he only played there for a very short time. But DeAngelo Williams, who ran his career in Pittsburgh was a phenom in college in was amazing. And Carolina's Yep. And then took over for somebody who had a little bit of a drama to him. And that's another story. So number two, your dad was a sugar daddy of sorts. Selling is working in the candy candy business. So this question is really important. Reese's Pieces, or m&ms?

Unknown Speaker 54:31

Ooh. Oh. I'm gonna go m&ms. That was a good one. I am funny enough. My dad. He sold peanut brittle. And I don't like peanuts. I do like peanut butter. I do like peanut butter. I do like greasy cups and receive receipt pieces. But my my joke was always like I would have been 400 pounds if my dad had sold a candy that I actually liked because my friends would come over and they'd eat the Butter Toffee peanuts and the peanut brittle. And they're like Brian, you don't eat it. Like I don't like peanuts. So. So m&ms were always like my outlet. I was like Hey, this is a non peanut flavored thing. And so my dad would go to conventions everyone would care about his product, and then he'd have to go get me. You know, m&ms just to kind of get me through so that's a good one.

Kenneth Kinney 55:12

Number three Whopper or the Big Mac?

Unknown Speaker 55:17

Ooh, I'm gonna go Whopper but if I had to choose Five Guys Burgers is my favorite in the world. I lived in Arizona for a long while and everybody's sold me on In and Out Burger but I'm a Five Guys guy through there actually ate it yesterday with my daughter so I go Whopper if I had those choices, but I I will drive by multiple Bear Burger Kings McDonald's in and outs Fuddruckers just to get to a Five Guys.

Kenneth Kinney 55:42

I've never enjoyed necessarily McDonald's but the Big Mac was invented in Pittsburgh.

Unknown Speaker 55:48

It wasn't even in Pittsburgh, which you know, and take a look. We'd like we'd like to invent a lot of things where you throw a bunch of stuff on sandwiches like french fries or coleslaw. We kind of like that. So it doesn't it doesn't surprise one bit that that was from our from our neck of the woods.

Kenneth Kinney 56:00

All right, number four, Captain Kangaroo or Mr. Rogers?

Unknown Speaker 56:05

Mr. Rogers is Pittsburgh is he's also He's like, he's like the spirit animal. I mean, I often, you know, when someone asked me, you know, who, you know, thinking about like these day and age. Like, if Mr. Rogers was around right now, he would be the leader that we would all lean on to right he had he had a way of calming the unknown and approaching things in ways that, you know, people of all ages so yeah, I'm Mr. Rogers all day.

Kenneth Kinney 56:31

Yeah, that would be amazing. I mean, even even Tom Hanks as great as he is.

Kenneth Kinney 56:35

Yep.

Kenneth Kinney 56:35

Can't even set the bar. I mean, that hide number five and the most important question that you're going to be asked today is biscuits or cornbread.

Unknown Speaker 56:45

Oh, you might have stumped me that biscuits or cornbread. I'm gonna go cornbread. All right. Yeah, that I guess cornbread I mean, that's a tough one I like biscuits and gravy but I like cornbread you know in multiple different facets and I'm a big I like I'm a big chili eater. And chili you know, Cincinnati chili over cornbread is is a go to of mine actually, when we were stocking up for the you know, the possibility of being on lockdown. The first thing my oldest daughter said was Daddy, make sure you get enough stuff for your, your cooking your famous chili a couple of times and, and one of those things I need to get with cornbread. So I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna go with that.

Kenneth Kinney 57:20

I won't make any toilet paper jokes to go along with that. Because trust me, I can't the other pandemic.

Unknown Speaker 57:26

It is I can't find any toilet paper. And I've been putting it out there to the world. And I really do hope that those hoarded toilet paper with Ill Will they get they get paid back with really bad karma somehow. Because, you know, I hope that maybe they're constipated for like, three months so that they can't use what they had. But yeah, the idea that this pandemic caused a toilet paper shortage makes no sense at all. And at the same time, it makes sense. But I went to five stores, I end up having to go to my ex wife and saying, Hey, got no paper from us. So that's that's how bad things got when I was like, Hey, this is where I have to go.

Kenneth Kinney 58:01

That's great. I we ended up buying some that we needed. This is the first time in probably the only time we'll ever talk about toilet paper on the show. But we've we bought some over the weekend. And I posted something about it and held it up because I don't know it just seemed like we had accomplished something after hearing all the all the nuttiness going on. So Brian, where can people find out more about you keep up with what you're doing with with all of your social posts and, and thought leadership in this space and more.

Unknown Speaker 58:29

Sure, so across social media, it's under my my personal brand I social fans. So letter I social and then F-A-N-Z or Zed at the end. My last name is Fanzo with a play on that. So I always say you know, I'm on every channel, very active on every channel, mainly because I want to be able to help my clients and the audiences understand the channel. So you don't have to follow me on every channel, you might get a little overwhelmed. But pick your favorite channel, give me a follow there. And then my website is Brian fans oh.com NEW SPEAKER website all launched up there. A lot of fun. And the podcasts you might might want to check out is called FOMO fans, which stands for the fear of missing out. It's my weekly show. I don't do guests, it's just me, kind of hopefully, calming and curing your fear of missing out around digital marketing, social media entrepreneurship, even a little bit public speaking in there. So, you know, check out that podcast. I have a new podcast that was actually supposed to launch this past Monday. But I've had I'm going to push it out a month or so because of the current times. But I'll be teasing that out more on the current podcast. So yeah, give me a follow up any of those channels. That would be great. And thanks so much for having me on.

Kenneth Kinney 59:34

Brian, thank you so much for joining us today on A Shark’s Perspective.

[music]

Kenneth Kinney 59:42

So there was my conversation with Brian Fanzo, a digital futurists keynote speaker, the founder of Isocialfanz, a self described pager wearing millennial and a top digital transformation influencer. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from my conversation with him.

Kenneth Kinney 59:56

First, let's talk about one of my favorite topics niches that This is a tough thing and personal branding as it relates to speakers. As Brian said, if you have a niche, then own it. But for my advice as well, just don't let it define you unless that's the specific path you want. Don't let people over silo you. One of the things that I've helped a lot of other people with is owning, if you will, more than one niche, today's guests is a good example. Here's a guy that went from cybersecurity, to social media, to now being a digital futurists working with diverse verticals. He spoke to a cybersecurity crowd of 13,000 people in the cybersecurity space, he had an event planner for a social media conference, didn't have a clue who he was, and he couldn't at one time get on that stage. You know, for a lot of it's just event planners, that it's not a bad thing about them is that they may not be able to package you. The key to me is not necessarily owning one niche. But make it simple enough so that people can understand who you are, how to work with you and what problems you solve. Brian said, and I quote, If you don't have a niche, you still have to find a way to make it simple for people to work with you. That's been a hard part for him. And I've struggled with it too. But part of that is simply just providing a better definition of who you are. And those capabilities and social media gives you a great opportunity to do that.

Kenneth Kinney 1:01:07

Second, everyone is trying to think of what's next with the economy post this COVID 19 pandemic, but Brian received some brilliant advice from Scott Stretton. Brian said, in this time of crisis, make sure that you're not doing anything in the short term that will not only jeopardize your long term goals, but also that might impact or hurt the things that you've been working on. For the last five years as a speaker, the relationships you've built, the community that you focused on, etc. Just great advice. It applies to speakers into every one of us in bad times, or good. Focus on what your customers and audience need. Focus on who you can help. You might need to pivot slightly, but stay focused on your goals. Don't let anxiety distract you. Just because times are tough, that doesn't mean that you need to panic, things have been much, much worse, and there'll be much better Sunday, just on occasion. It's okay for a couple of minutes even more talking about social media to put the social media down. Trust me, this too shall pass.

Kenneth Kinney 1:01:58

Third, I love what he said about trust. My own take is that a lot of brands will take decades and decades to build authority in their voice and their trust. But they can blow it in an instant with what I'll call dumb selling, especially on social during a pandemic, a lot of people have a natural inclination to start aggressively selling. And look, there's not a playbook on this, especially as it pertains to marketing and advertising on social media. I have complete respect for Brian's opinion on ads on social and Facebook, but allow me to explain why I slightly disagree. Like other channels. Facebook is a publisher, it's a channel different from any other But like other publishing channels, TV, radio, print websites, etc. I wish it could be a channel where we only get together to be social. But all channels like the businesses running those ads have to pay bills, keep the lights on and so forth. But he is spot on in that you can't do too much to show that you care. What I'd love to see is where brands should dial back the dumb normal ads during a time like this, and instead put some real money behind showing how much they care what they're doing for the community. The stories of the real people who work there, and how they're being affected like the rest of us show the problems they're helping solve for people don't show the only 9095 offer or the this that or the other holiday sale that nobody cares about. social channels won't get rid of ads even now, it's too big of a behemoth for them, even though I wish they weren't so addicted to it. But no one screams about the other ads on other channels as much. It's on brands, though, to just do much, much better on ads that actually resonate with people and hit them emotionally and viscerally. Because we're all in this together. And look, if you're not in it with me right now, especially now, well then I'm not going to be in it with you, especially as it pertains to my wallet. Love. This isn't rocket surgery, pivot and pivot now. And a rare fourth, I applaud him for getting gift cards for the men and women in the military service. do that same thing expand on and this will help during the pandemic in your local area. Buy a gift card from a local restaurant, for example, and gift that to a local cop or firefighter or nurse or EMT, there are so many people military to civilian. And to each of those I say thank you for your service.

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Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective.com.

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Thank you again for the privilege of your time.

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Remember, we'll get through this. So Don't hoard the toilet paper. Join us on the next episode of A Shark’s Perspective.

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