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Skype Interview with Bryan Kramer

Brian kramer who's going to lead off with an interview er has been a friend of mine for just three or four years he's a ceo of pure matter there's a lot of social media agencies he works with huge companies like pitney bows and ibm and small ones he's got a happy team of about fifteen people work for him, including his wife. Is that a good sign of a good marriage and he's so generous and authentic that he pulls people in? So I thought, isn't this interesting he's built so much visibility for many of us unasked he gives once and steps back actually gives more so what I want to do is have brian give you his idea about becoming a media magnet um oops oh, I'd love to have on my excuse me um how do I bring him up? Oh, brian, you can't see me, but we can see you here in one place. I just told them wonderful things about you and hi ryan are you doing? I've been enjoying watching today such a great job. Not not surprised, of course. Well, brian, you know some people really hunger after media a...

ttention and go after it and always pushing reporters and columnists and you just seem to attract attention from people are significant not only in the social media area but others they just I always say nice things about you do you have any advice for us about how to attract attention of visibility? Several of us here are eager to know that more not just the media but in general I know your humble so this is pushing you thank you because that zack plea where I try to fall I really rather talk about other people than myself that's one of the things that I think you know really helps you know putting other people forward before yourself and you know as cheeky as that sounds that's that's kind of where you get the best you know best relationships but you know I've always had this mentality and from a quote that I heard years ago I wish I could tell you who said it but someday somebody's gonna let me know that they said that's the level of fulfillment that you experience in your life is directly related to where and who you spend your time with and I've always just lived by that that's like one of them the main thrust for where I spend my time is is in how those experiences you know we'll help shape both their lives and myself so there's kind of three things that I try to do to help um help other people and the first one is just that being helpful and it is simple is that sounds just being helpful to others first where it's not just a give it's not a gift yet that's not even to give give get it's a give, give, give, give, give, give, give and maybe get and that is something that I think really goes, goes well with, you know, being helpful. So the second thing is really being valuable two other people and giving them something that isn't just going tio measure the status quo, but pushed the envelope and giving them something that perhaps maybe they might even typically pay for. And and what I find is by giving away things that what people might pay for really helps too push things in the right directions that you can help to achieve something greater then you could ever do on your own. And the third thing is just connection, you know, my connection with yukari is beyond works. I enjoy your friendship and your professionalism, and but the thing that really makes that thrive is the connection that you and I have and the connection that I have with other people that makes it, ah, human connection rather than just a social connection, and there is a real difference there. So those air kind of the three things that I used to really, you helped create fulfilled experiences in my life, I think, because you do that in such a genuine way, but the part about being valuable we're all women here in the audience, in the audience, the students today, but we're we're reminded again again, as we talk about our warm hearted ideas by an about making profits, too, and you have an extremely profitable company by following those three things. I mean, I told them about some of the clients that you have, of course, but you're also attracting people, uh, where they have choices of where they first open news, I mean, to have gary v on and for him talking to you in the way did and jeremy, people break news with you, and it builds the visibility for you both. Are there specific ideas you have about why you attract media coverage the way you do or why you attract celebrities who want to be a part of what you do? You know, that's, a that's, there's two things one people really like to be around, people that they enjoy and would have a drink with and just sit back and have a chat and feel I think like like they're protected and they're safe and we're not here to take advantage of each other. And that, to me, is what I think people are hopefully attracted to, or at least I'd like to say they are I don't want to exploit, I want to help and I think you know, really finding things about people and I find people fascinating I don't know you know I'm pretty sure everyone there in the audience just finds you know, everyone is such a unique difference about them and if you could lock in on that unique difference and help them talk about it that to me is value that's creating that value that you were just talking about and it just allows people to open up and have trust and those things really connect with people so in cases like with gary the he's so busy he's got all kinds of people coming at him so what I did is I actually tweeted him one day and you know, I I know he knows my name but I tweeted them and I said, hey gary all I said in the tweet was how can I help you and that's it and he responded and said and said you're helping me right now by you know, buying my books they said well, you know I want to buy war books and I hope you will you help me give them away and he's he was flat just absolute absolutely flattered and so we're giving away fifty of his books on this show on wednesday but but the point I'm trying to make is is you know it's in that moment of being helpful that people really connect because people are usually trying to get something from gary where in this instance, I think it helped that I was actually trying to give something back to him now say, he's humble, and this is true and specific also say he got me to put part of experience that opened up a whole new community for me, and it was all these wonderful people related to ibm, andi use cases they did, and I actually went to a conference where I love the stories they told, but I also love the camaraderie that he and three people at ibm had created, where they're clearly friends first, but they're also always time about ideas about how to help each other. So when you talked about being valuable and being helpful, I think it's the specificity to that you do in the last thing, because I know that you won't bring it up he's his when you go to his place and you meet this staff clearly, everybody it's like being here, it creative life, they love what they're doing, they love being there, they're proud of it, and they go out of their way to be helpful, and I think that's something that we take for granted, and unless what it's not there, how do you keep your people happy way have drinks on fridays that for you guys are all invited, that certainly helps. Um you know, one of the things that we have is just that we've created a place together where we're all we're all operating under our own independent way so we know what we need to achieve is a company and then it's up to each individual tio help achieve that and so everyone's kind of their own boss, if you will there's there's really? You know, no hierarchy we don't have this top down or bottom up structure it's it's everyone has a a their own position and we're all you know, hopefully treated equally and and trying to trying to have some fun so our tagline a serious fun and that's really where we're always coming from tryingto trying to maintain the balance of those two things is always a challenge you know you can always have too much serious or too much fun but when you have a combination of the best balance of those two, I think for me that's that's where I find my own sweet spot that's where you know we've enjoyed success here a pure matter I want to ask you one last question then see if there's some questions from the students here in the office of science. One of things that you do is that you have people who are like the best in the class kind of subcontractors so your medium sized agency but it seems like you take on some big projects pitney bows and the cable labs and so on how did you vet and recruit those people as partners because your reputation as a company's at stake yeah, you know that we have a system, we have a process in place that that we put in from almost from day one when we started the agency we knew that the only way we're going toe to grow and scale with the economy as it goes up and down and still exist was too goes to build partnerships so it's our partner trips that really keeps I think us, you know, in alive during the day during the more challenging times and what we do is we actually we have ah pretty pretty thorough vetting process way we meet with them, we get to know them, we get to know their projects, we get to know what they're good at, what they're not good at and we are actually kind of rate them and we have things we know you know we will need help with in the future and we have this database of of partners that that can kind of scale in any different direction that client needs us to so size isn't really relative to us anymore it's more a matter of whether we can be helpful to the client and what they're going to need is that something that we can provide is a service that's valuable but but from a size standpoint, that's almost non existent anymore to us because of the types of partners that we have in the way ways that we've approached them to give, give them a cz much, you know, value as much as they can enter in the way that we treat each other as well, you know, in true partnership, there's no, we don't use the word vendor here a pure matter, we only use the word partner, so things like that really helped tio, you know, help people become more a part of the team and and work is one I just said, like two quick things that I realized you do that helped pull in business. I'm in same briefly before the questions because he pulls in other people there's a remarkable individual, dan pellicano, who want to make south by southwest silicon valley style, and it came up with an event like that. We talked earlier, brian, about what are the elements to an event that make him unique and relevant and interactive and that's, a spectacular job, and brian and a set of people pulled in help leverage the media campaign, bringing in the ap celebrities and involving several people on dh secondarily, this is a brilliant partnership I forgot about we have a friend named shell. Israel and robert scoble, they did something where they packaged their book called the age of context, and they based it on what I think in part friended rick smolan years ago. So very briefly, rick small inns realized I do these books called a day in the life of photographic books that were at their base of partnership between photographers and some love you, probably many of people online have heard of that model. Then rick did this extraordinarily smart thing, way said, I need a partner with large companies, and I'm going to go after the hot topic, big data, and I'm gonna have a project called the human face of big data, and I'm going to get amc and cisco and others to turn it into a big book, it's a big it's, like a weapon that big, a big book and a online course, and you can give your data and learn how you relate to other humans behavior in the world. So they scaled up that way, and then, in the age of context, scoble and shell pulling and brian and several key places they designed the way they were going to turn a book into an event, into a cause, into a movement, and got I will leave the amount unnamed, because that ultimately was, but it was quite high money for their book before it was out so I think specifically attaching to other partnerships and adding your insight about how to grow that to reach more people is I've seen no it's actually been three times I'll stick to that that's something you've been pretty adept at doing people want you on their team gets that cell phone I've been I pinched myself because I've been really lucky to be a part of that and I think that you know you're obviously right but all those people that he named share a common trait and they also want to be helpful valuable and connected eso I've I have aligned myself or they've aligned themselves with you know great people and I think that we all share you know you're the same way to curry and share the same traits I think when you can align you know these things with each other than than anything can be created and like jeremiah how young justin us today you know the future of the next ten years you just announced it on on low ebb in paris and I and I also got him saying this on video if you guys want to see this on youtube you can you can look him up there but he announced this whole crowd source movement happening over the next ten years where the power of the crowd the power of partnerships the power people is what's going to drive you know everything, customer service, product development, your your your three d printing, you know, you're going to be able to go home tonight or in well, in five or ten years from now, perhaps, and create a jacket that you want to wear out that night, because because the printers will allow you to do that, and now you're you're crowdsourcing the design, the actual creative that goes into making the making the product that you could have right there and then so these kinds of technologies exist today, but it's, the crowd and the partnerships that really starts to enhance those those those things, coming, coming a life in india and and we're going to see that in our lifetime so it's exciting these neck, we live in one of the most exciting times, and I think in our in our lives right now, especially for share a bowl in those three lead, those three words were so vital and that he would trust you enough to do the interview with, you know, you'd hold it till he made the announcement. I want to turn to the class here and see what questions they have a cz well, and if you haven't heard of shareable dot net it's really a helpful site to learn about different ways to share and they were early in it and the book what's mine is yours and the book called mesh they all cover aspects of the sharing but where brian's gone in this is it's where it's going from here on out in our view so questions that you have for buying our comments or responses to his saddle yes I melissa's betsy hi brian I'm a little unclear s o I might have missed it is brian blogger or journalists and right apologized appear matter is the agency's a seal of it's a social media campaign agency thank you for letting me say that I think all right let's yes brian what do you do? I have to I have three lives I think more than one one life is my family life with my kids and and my wife who you mentioned we started this company together that second life is a were social content marketing agency and so we worked with enterprise clients like karrie suggested to help build bringing together stories and content that that are shareable experiences. So we worked with companies to do just that and then my third life is is in content creation for kind of my own brand a cz curry and mentioned is kind of, you know, uplifting and so I do have a block and I also right for about three or four other blocks a week and conduct on dh try to help create content for other people as a mission so so I'm I'm out speaking and creating content that's helping other people tio gain value and in trying to be helpful well said's others yes angela we have to angeles you get angela be uh hi there. My question is do you have any tools or resource is I don't know how old your children are, but I like to encourage the children that I work with to also share their stories on their innovative ideas but it has to be in a safe manner when it's done online. So do you have any tools that you have let your children use or use along with your children to share their their stories? Yeah that's a really good question and man, this is such an interesting era with children growing up in the digital age and the kinds of class is that they're going to end up taking that we never were able to take over the next, you know, just the next five years I'm sure going to start pop popping up in schools I know that they're already in our college systems. One of the things that I would suggest you do is michael steele's nurse started eh website and the name of the site is escaping me but if you go to social media examiner, you can click onto a site that's created for social media specific to children and it's got not just activities that it can do online but also helpful blog's and and articles that air directed at exactly the questions that you're probably asking so I think that would be really helpful I think just for me personally with my kids, if they want to be on social media then then I have rights to all of their user names and passwords and they also have I have to accept me as their friend to everything, so I pay attention to that and there I don't know if I can say this on video, but being a social guy there kind of screwed so you know there there there definitely watchful and I just have it really comes down to having a good conversation about the new level of you know how you protect yourself and be how you are building your digital resume I mean, the resume isn't just your linked in resume it's what you say and do online, so I tried to talk that over with them, you know, with my kids and talk to them about how that resume is starting to build right now rather than you know, when we're all kids when they started when we're around eighteen that's that's not the case anymore you might also see how he chooses to involve us kids and not and I think the behavior and where he draws the line you can tell on the block that's helpful and as a question, I thanks for taking my question so I'm actually reading gary vander chicks a new book right now I have a lot of content but embarrassed to say I don't really have a great social medias media strategy and that's also why I'm reading gerrymander checks book um can you recommend a resource for like just a basic orientation to carve out a strategy it would it be gary these book or be another resource? We have lots of content that's not a problem um yeah, I couldn't I can kind of shake it recommend so many books books are are my favorite past time so that that's definitely that's definitely good one so I would probably say that um one of my favorite books to two books that I would recommend gosh, I'm coming up with I now have ten in my head okay? So bregman utility by jay bear is phenomenal book it's all about what I'm talking about here today called utility it's all about being so helpful that people would I would even by your marketing I suggested him to their don't you yeah he's going keep guys look I would also recommend epic content marketing or epic content I joke glitzy he owns the content marketing institute president and ceo and he's talking about how content moving forward and or and it's just like when we had direct male what ten, ten years ago five years ago and and and in order to rise above the noise of direct mail, you had to have epic content in your direct mail and now we've gotten to this point where social media has become the scene thing there's so much social or so much content so how do you rise above it? Well, you have to be happy with it. That doesn't mean that you have to go to an agency to create it, and I know that I'm saying that, you know, I'm trying to put myself out of a job here with this comment, so what you want to do is create content that's helpful content that actually drives toward your target audience, not to everybody and then you want to be in the right place where they're going to read it, so just putting it on facebook may not be the right place for some people s oh, those are the three things that he talks about in his book good and hasn't so I feel I feel pretty confident about the content I can always make that better it's more a question about the mechanics and the architecture of various platforms and according it seems like we get gary vander chuck is saying you need to be on all of them and she a pure content to resonate with how that content is consumed in those specific platforms that's so overwhelming to think of so I think my question is more specific about all right? So I've got the content you know who I want to talk? Teo, you know what I want to say? No, I how I can be helpful to them and I've been lame in leveraging social media tools. So is there some starting place? He recommends the that that specific question does that make sense? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and you know you're you are not alone, that is a really you know, that's a question that I get asked a lot, and I think that that you're you're not unlike a lot of companies that even have that issue where they're trying to get set up on social and get started, and the best thing that I would recommend is that you lay out a plan for yourself that starts to designate what you want to test first, second and third, so don't try them all right now try the first thing that that's exciting to you it's kind of like when you work out, if you work out better in the morning or better in the afternoon, then work out at which time is going to make sense for you because otherwise you're never going to want to work out, so do the same thing with social media's try a social media platform that you enjoy and test things that are going toe make sense for you and then moved to the next level and start creating that content in different ways for different platforms but at the end of the day you know, you really don't have a company I think that you need to have ah presence everywhere but you also don't want to just have something up with a coming soon spring and nothing going on you know it's like that old screen that had the the construction worker with the pump that will go up and down saying, you know, coming soon and that thing would be up for like six months I wanted to blow those pages up and just say, you know what? Forget it if until it's there we're not putting it up and I think the same thing about social media if you're not gonna have it ongoing don't use it and use the things that you're just going to use and other than that I would I would say that if you wanted to pick up michael brito's book he talks about actual processes that becomes a little more helpful to what I think you're asking and so he'll talk about he's talking about how your how your company and I think it could apply to you as a person could start to build build yourself, build processes that start to work like where are you going to post things when are you going to post things? How are you going to post them? And he gets a little bit more in the trenches in his book that for what I think you're asking michael brito's book is what same of it the name is is don't quote me on this because I get I don't remember the exact full name, but it's how how companies are becoming media companies all coming so but you can look it up just by the name you've been very generous with your time. Brian, I appreciate that a lot and you might also follow his blood because he's covering some of these topics there and some of the interviews he does that quite engaging and meaty so he gets down to some specifics on that and I'm going to suggest some more as you shape your own persona in the media later on. Um can we give him a hand for us? Thank you so much, brian. Yeah, you you actually questions gone? Sorry. Just when you want to share with us just quickly happy people reach you online just one last time. How they can reach me online at brian creamer dot com b r y e and k r a m e r dot com or you know I'm just about everywhere on social at the same thing brian favor so twitter at brian creamer and so on and so forth and I'll connect with you just anywhere you want to connect like love to chat that's great, we need the name of your decorator gregers nineteen hundreds all right, thanks, brian see you soon and he is humble about what he's attracted I would suggest one of the signs of it is that he can make choices about how he partners with a lot of people wanted to and haven't I'm also going to be talking a bit about their persona and your company's persona and where to go so I'm going to do that even a step before this I think again I go back to specific and the rule of how relevant you stay when people get involved in social myself included you can wander off in so many directions because of the richness, so having the discipline of the planet he was speaking about, I think is vital and I guess I want to say how well can you describe what you're offering to whom and why and do two things look at your own content and how to make it snack herbal but also look at the key stakeholders that you most admire, and again I go to the three kinds of circles with me in the part about quote, ability and connected behavior including partnering there's ten people I most admire big on that topic alone just that topic for a variety reasons and then there's about fifty and then so I've got about six different circles but it helps me focus on it and so my goal is the site the people I am so inspired by because they are a facet of what I d'oh so I'm saying to you one of the things they suggest is have your own race show what's going to be the ratio of number of mentions about yourself as compared to mentions about other people and some say one defy that's why I tried to I do one to ten but everybody's different but be careful how much you cover that isn't directly related to your business facebook you can talk about personal and professional and everything linked in is in a get it's going to be making three or four announcements this year they'll make them profoundly more valuable for you to find piers and customers on I believe that one of those this is a part I can say they're going to actually help people know how to moderate their linked in groups so it's not so spammy or boring and went lacking engagement so I think that's going to make those linked in groups terribly valuable but also going back to what I said about twitter if you're not on twitter being on it but more than that have lists of relate to your niche markets and to your peers and have names for them because the thing that was most helpful for me was seen with whom I want to be associated as a potential partner as an ally as a customer and citing them in a becoming way as examples of what you're doing um so I'm just suggesting when you do it, you can also look up social media club lee it topics there are very well done it's an online site most of it's free social media examiner he talked about michael brito's book, which I also went blank on is the more in the trenches and concrete, but you're going to find a lot of them are going towards enterprise like some of my partners are an enterprise so it's social employees but that's enterprise and socialized by mark fidel meant that's enterprise, but some of the techniques they talk about are worth while there's something coming out I called rainforest r a y n forest it's one word and it's where influencers if you believe you're an influence or you can sign up and describe what your topic areas you need and then brands and agencies they're signing up and they want to see who might be a good spokesperson or brand influencer toe authentically site what they're about so there's gonna be several like that it's just the first um so you want to just figure out uh, what are my which is let me make most my content directed at them let it be helpful and let me cite other people and then as you're looking at the onslaught just remember there's a whole lot of people that don't use online that could be very prophet partners I am to have a sort of high clout score I think I don't think the cloud scores valid I have a friend who learned how to crawl up in the count's clout score but you'd least might know about it to make a conscious choice I do nothing related to it so I have a john this view but others it's working spectacularly for them because their main market our social media related people so that's much more important to them as they see it and I know I'm saying something controversial that way, but when you look at who you're serving that are using mobile and it's deceptive, they're saying everybody's using mobile but most people use it for very little there's only narrow, spiky niches where they're using a lot. In fact, the shopping comparison is going to happen more this year but not as much as people think concerning the whole universe. That doesn't mean though, that you don't want every chance to be a visible face as much as I don't like being a visible face which might be interesting because of this I know that that's our humanity so when you think about instagram and pinterest and you're thinking about those other things where you can show a bit of yourself with others. It's important?