The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast 244 Keith Stoeckeler – VP, Digital at MKTG

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

Keith Stoeckeler - VP, Digital at MKTG

Hi folks, Chris Voss here from TheChrisVossShow.com TheChrisVossShow.com Hey, come in here with another podcast. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Be sure to tell your friends, neighbors, relatives, dogs, cats, get everyone on the show in the household. You know, get those cockroaches that are running around your New York apartment something to listen to.

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Also, you go to iTunes and Spotify and iHeartRadio is actually what I was thinking there, and subscribe there as well, or with any podcast app. As always, we have the greatest guests on the Chris Voss Show, and you'll be seeing more of them coming up with CES coming up in 2019 in January. We have today Keith Steckler. Keith is the Vice President and Group director at mktg digital he's fascinated with brand positioning particularly with design and packaging he's enamored with how

digital makes our lives easier he's always trying to simplify it how it works how it looks how it's said and it's pretty awesome he's's with MKTG Digital, which includes web and app development, social and digital strategy, content development, and video production. Influencer marketing, talent relationships, social listening, insights. Holy crap, this gentleman does it all

and is responsible for their staff of 14 people. Welcome to the show, Keith. Holy crap, man, You do it all on social there. That's quite a mouthful, Chris. Hey, good to talk to you. Good to talk to you again on a Sunday morning. So you've worked at MKTG Digital for quite some time. Prior to that, you did Pfizer, Novartis, Takeda. Wow, you've worked at a lot of brand name places uh procter and campbell uh post new york uh you've got a great resume here i think you took and sent me on your bio uh so you've been how long you've been in social now i've been in social what now seven years uh pretty much when

facebook and digital was really ramping up and and you started to see web development really move into social. I'd probably say about seven years now. Yeah. It's been an interesting ride. I got started on Twitter. I think it was 2008 when I got started on Twitter. It was crazy back then. It was just the Wild West.

No one knew what this new social thing was. And everyone was like, what's going on? Even I was like, what the hell is Twitter? And I did the classic thing in 2008. I joined Twitter. And then I was like, this is stupid. No one's talking back to me. And then I left for three months.

And the classic, everyone comes back after a few months and goes, well, let's try this stupid thing again. Right. Yeah, it's been kind stupid thing again. Right. Yeah, it's been kind of fascinating to watch them turn into an absolute media property. So I remember, I think I started in 2009. And that was just short updates of what you were doing today, what you ate for lunch. And it wasn't all that compelling. And to see where it is now, what, nine, ten years later, is pretty fascinating.

Yeah, at first it just looked like it was going to be more myspace noise and uh you know myspace reached that point where you couldn't load the pages anymore because they had so many gifs and so much crap on it and and uh it just kind of became stupid but it did start to form a community what's kind of funny is I have one friend still through all these years from myspace and really met me somehow on myspace years ago um and she's followed me through my social and uh yeah you just you just never know how it's gonna work out but yeah it's been a crazy crazy ride there was a while there where it was just like uh inane update posts like people post people were posting like what the hell is this what does it mean well this is stupid what's going on and then it went to food

porn and people just started you know it just seemed like food became the you're like well if i want to see really good looking food and then it became you know like you said media properties which is pretty awesome so your job is to work for, I believe, brands like a client and help them promote their stuff and get it done? Yes. So MKTG is more on the experiential side, and we focus on sports and entertainment, music, a lot of entertainment properties that you would experience in person,

and then we're charged with doing the digital, the social, whatever that may be. Awesome, man. So you guys help them manage your Twitter accounts, manage your Facebook accounts, all that sort of good stuff? Yeah, and it varies to varying levels of degrees. So Sunoco in the sport of NASCAR, we were managing everything for them, community management, content development, creative video production, everything was being done in-house by us. And so some brands, they still want to remain on the keys and actually post the stuff. And so

we'll create things and send it to them. But for the most part, yeah, varying levels of involvement just depends on the client. And where are you guys based out of? So we're headquartered in New York. I myself am based in Connecticut, about an hour east of New York. And we have seven U.S. offices, about 1,600 employees. Yeah, yeah. I know you guys are a big company.

It's pretty awesome. And there's so much that needs to be done. I mean, you mentioned it was uh interesting some brands like to have their fingers on the keys and control it i mean we've certainly seen brands i remember ford had some issues years ago i think it was in italy at some of their uh posts they made i think a few brands have had some really faux pas crashes of PR nightmare. Yeah, even down to the one where they just weren't switching out of their personal account and they posted something that should have been sent on their personal account from the brand account. So yes, there are a lot of issues that the space is riddled with that.

And I think that's why there's all these content management systems and platforms where somebody has to green light something before it actually goes out. So you can't really post with the phone and that mitigates the level of error that you presumably would have. But you're still seeing, you know, issues right and left. Oh, yeah. It's still if you watch like I did, did you watch the recent Google testimony at Congress where the ceo testified about stuff i did i caught the highlights i didn't watch it in real time but yeah i caught the highlights pretty fascinating to watch guys and in that level of power unknown how uh social really works these are the guys

making the rules and laws for for internet and our social you know they're it still reminds me i still use that term the inner tubes from that from that politician, I don't know, a decade ago or something, who claimed that the internet travels through giant tubes. Pneumatic tubes. Here's a message. Jack's at Twitter going, let me write that down and put that in a pneumatic tube like they have at Home Depot and shoot that baby off to the Internet.

That's it. Being carried by carrier pigeons. That's right. I think one good thing that came out of the new recent Congress that we have is evidently they lowered the medium age of about 10 years of people that are in Congress. So I'm hoping we can get more youthful people in there who can be like, let me show you what's going on with social and the internet and all this stuff and help you manage it. It's getting there. It's going to take a while. I think people are still unsure if this is really even going to stick, which is fascinating. Isn't that interesting? I mean, we're 10 years in now at this point.

I'm still just blown away that ten years ago this this became what it is and that it's been ten years actually it's been a crazy ride especially for me where it's just been like you know you're on this list you're on that list and you're and you build these audiences and they just you know I keep going to LinkedIn, expand into there. But then also, you know, the field of dead bodies, the Google Pluses, the Path apps, the, who else? MySpace, of course, is dead, but all the Facebook killers, you know, the 50,000 Facebook killers, that thing kind of started to become, with Facebook killers, its own, what's the word I'm looking for?

It started to become its own pun, if you will, or joke. I mean, it got to a point where anytime I said, we're a Facebook killer, I'm like, you're going to be out of business next year. Right. We've seen that enough with Snapchat. I mean, that's the only case you need to trot out. Yeah, Snapchat as well. I mean, maybe they should have sold at the top, but, you know, the two owners did take, what, a billion dollar each distribution when they went public.

So they got their money. Not terrible. Not terrible. If you think you can go up against Facebook and their audience to just build out a function, they can crush you with their monthly active users. Good luck. They'll just buy you, block you, or whatever. It's gotten to that point. More and more

companies, I'm always amazed too that people don't hire more professional companies like yours. I'm still amazed that 10 years into social, people are still hiring. Well, that 19-year-old girl who's always looking at her phone, have her run our social. Yeah, we don't need a contract or anything. I'm sure she'll do what's best for the company.

Yeah, I think I get that if the person doesn't have a ton of experience. But I do think there's certain people that have just been born into it and just have a knack for it. You just got to find the right person. Oh, definitely, definitely. But, I mean, the professional standards of having a professional company or person do it, I think, is really important. They need to make sure they have contracts. You know, one of the biggest thoughts I've seen over the years, I'm sure you have

too, are people that just hire anybody to manage their social account and then when it doesn't work out, they're trying to get their account back from that person. It's a disabled employee or sometimes it's not even an employee. They were just so cheap, they hired a W-9 and then

the W-9's like like i don't owe you anything i built this twitter account and it's mine now and then you got to go to court and you know just the whole menagerie of of the lazy fare that some companies take with with their social is it is uh kind of appalling and they're just asking for trouble when it comes down to especially in a really hyper um a hyper pr world that we live in where you know you can post something and and you think it's funny and cute and you go to bed you wake up in the morning the whole world hates you that's right yeah i i still for some reason you know yeah we're 10 years in and digital and social for whatever reason is still at the end of the marketing plan the end of the budget so, the end of the budget. So whatever, you know, five, six bucks we have left, that will go to social. And I think

it's always like, yeah, whatever. Give us some change on the table, honey. That's it. So until we can kind of turn that tide and start to lead with digital and social and some brands and some agencies, no doubt get it, but we're still in that infancy in some ways, which is, again, to your point, 10 years in sort of baffles me. Yeah. And looking for professionality is really important too. I mean, nothing against 19-year-old people. Like you say, they are growing up and they do know the marketplace.

And they live with it, so what better to put at them? They know the filter is like the back of their hand, but definitely putting more money into it, putting a professional setup in it, putting into like what you talk about where posts are checked, cleared, and you just don't have somebody just running amok. I still find brands, you know, medium to smaller ones, still just kind of half,

half, half asking it, if you will. I've had sponsors that, that I've just been shocked when they've tried to either manage a promotion or something that we're doing for them. And I've had, I remember one brand said to me,

they go, they go, Chris, we really appreciate what you're doing with us at the show, but we're more of a quiet brand. Which means what? What does that mean? Yeah.

Quiet brand. Like you're just going to sit in the corner and hope somebody likes you on Twitter or something? How does that work? I guess you are a personality, and they didn't know how that was going to mesh. Who knows? Well, you know, it's not that hard to read my Twitter. But, you know, so I just say to them, I say, look, you know,

there's a reason I have the accolades that I have. Well, I'll show you the magic, show you the traffic, and then you decide if, you know, whatever. And they're usually pretty good at that point. They go, okay, let the magic man have his little fun. So tell us more about your company, what you guys work for. What are some of the stories or great things that you see in the success cases come out of the work you've done? Yeah, so I think working in sports and entertainment, we really got our start in sports sponsorship.

So we're the agency that negotiated FedEx and FedEx Field and a number of others that you know You just sort of think are commonplace and some people may wonder how that ever happened And so for us we know the contract really well We know we have access to their athletes or their sponsored athletes and so if it's somebody in the sport in NASCAR You may have access to one driver a team of drivers or all of the drivers And so as a brand who's spending sponsorship dollars, we try to move them into the area of creating compelling content. So instead of taking your 10 minutes with driver whoever of NASCAR, and you want to have them

sign autographs, we want to create content with them, take stills, take video and put that out on social. And an eight hour shoot for us, we could get content for the entire year. And so that's really what we move to is predominantly what we work on is social and video content. And that's really coming out of, you know, one photo shoot with an athlete or whoever it might be. And it sustains us for a good number of months, if not the whole year. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a thing where you've got to say, what are we putting out tomorrow? Social is kind of like that song, What Have You Done For Me Lately? Because you've got to engage your audience.

You've got to keep them engaged. You've got to keep them listening. I mean, even I know in podcasts, we take the small breaks. We'll see the downloads drop off and, of course, listening drop off. And then when you try and re-engage it, sometimes it won't come back right away as strong as it did. the small breaks, we'll see the downloads drop off and, of course, listening drop off. And then when you try and re-engage it, sometimes it won't come back right away as strong as it did. And you're like, ah, that's because they've got to have it listening to somebody else. Because the one thing that I've learned with social and just people looking for leadership or people looking for whatever sort of content they're looking for to entertain them,

because most people are looking to be entertained in this world. They're looking to get through the dreary drold arms of, you know, life's nature of what's, what's the subject matter here. Always death and taxes. So they're looking for either some sort of improvement in life's education. Sometimes they're just looking to pass the time. I'm really bad at that. Sometimes where I work or where I when

I'm playing video games or something else of the news playing in the background or some sort of educational video or something like that and so a lot of people are just looking for entertainment they're looking for stories they're looking for life lessons and in they're always looking to fill that void and so they're gonna find something to fill that void. They're going to find something to fill that void. If you're putting out content but not putting out an author enough, then

they're not going to... They're going to go find someone who does. Someone who puts out more interesting stuff than you. It's a competition constantly for who can be the most interesting. Yeah. A lot of brands think they know who their competitive set is. And honestly, your competitors are the internet.

And so just exactly what you just said, there is so much that people can be consuming their time with. You're fighting for attention these days. And if the content's not thumb stopping or scroll stopping, you're not making an impact. And you probably agree with me here. You've got to be on all platforms. I mean, do you feel the same way I do when I work with my clients? I'm like,

you've got to be on all major platforms. You've got to be on Instagram. You've got to be on Facebook. You've got to be on Twitter. I'm losing my brain. LinkedIn is one that a lot of people really ignore and is doing some really cool things and everything else. No, I do. I think you have to have a purpose. And so if it is just a matter of taking a piece of content, throwing it across all five of those platforms, that's not the answer. But yes, I do think provided you have a distinct strategy and a role for each channel, no doubt. I just remember years ago when I was in New York, I saw a Subway ad for the Lion King and they legitimately had at least 10

social icon logos, the bottom right hand corner. So the Lion King on Broadway is yes on Pinterest is yes on Periscope. And it was like, get the fuck out of here. Like you have to have a certain, you know, strategy for this. It's not whatever just pops up tomorrow, your brand is now on. Otherwise, you run the risk of just not making any sense to who that audience is. I mean, why would you exist there if the audience isn't right for you? And you have these segments of where people like to go for their information, kind of like the problem they have in politics where certain people like to go to certain news areas for their political slants.

I have friends that they're just Instagrammers. Unless you give me content on Instagram, I'm not going to see it. Screw Facebook. Screw Twitter. Blah, blah, blah. I know people that are hardcore LinkedIn. In fact, they're very professional business people. I have a big group over there.

It's like 135,000 I've built on a group on LinkedIn. And I'm maxed out on LinkedIn. So I get just tons of invites all day long. And most people there are very professional. They're looking to make money. You know, a long time ago, and I forget who said this, so I credit whoever it is. I don't want to take credit for it.

But a long time ago, someone made the comment, this is like 2009, they said, you know, LinkedIn is like your work. Twitter is like your bar, is like going to the bar. And Facebook is kind of like being at home. Because you're with your family, your relatives, your pictures, kind of your more personal stuff. And I always thought that was a great analogy. People really need to, and when these companies, you know, they, they just

kind of throw whatever's changes left on the table to, you know, somebody and they, they don't sit down and go, uh, you know, why don't we have this professionally set up with a professional company with professional contracts? We know what we're doing. We have an exit strategy in case we need to do callbacks. I've had clients that sometimes have tested me and gone, hey, Chris, if we were to cancel

services with you, is it okay if we get our email passwords or our passwords back and everything? I'm like, yeah, sure, because we don't want to hostage accounts or something. I read about that all the time. In fact, sometimes when clients have left me, they usually come back,

and I can never figure out why some marketers would burn a bridge. But if you deal with other professional people, you're just – basically, that's what I'm saying. You're just asking for trouble. And so basically, you guys work to help build content, make sure it's good. What are some other examples that you guys do that really help your clients out? So influencer marketing, and I know right now is a very, you know, it's a word that you're either going to love or hate right now because it's taking a lot of different definitions.

But, you know, our approach is we don't see influencers strictly as amplification. We see them as content creators with us. So we bring them into the brand, and we co create with them. And we, we, you know, build long term partnerships with them. You know, we've, we've done work for AT&T, for example, we've given an influencer a phone paid for it for the whole year. And you can imagine somebody in their 20s, who's building a career on Instagram as a content creator. Now my phone and my plan is paid for, you know, I'm going to go above and beyond what the contract or the ask is. And we no doubt see that. So, you know, currently right now, we're working with IBM on their fantasy football program. So if you play ESPN fantasy football, you may be seeing that. That's, you know, the social and the digital that you're seeing is done out of MKTG.

So something we're proud of. And we created a 10-team league. And we're talking about how IBM Watson powers that fantasy football product. So it's been a lot of fun this season. So there's a whole thing about influencers that goes on. It seems like it's been going on forever. so I don't give it much merit anymore. But some people say that influencer marketing is dead. Then they came up with this micro-influencer stuff, which I just kind of giggled a little bit about.

And certainly when I work with people and companies, they're getting access to my curated audience and that's basically what they're selling engaging with but you bring up att and tt as a great example there's an ht t note eight um i think we're waiting for the note nine to get delivered it's it's been pretty tight on the availability there's an s9 around here somewhere from ATP but I've been working with AT&T as an influencer since 2011 I think it was and it's been a great experience with them and originally we were doing phone reviews with Sprint Verizon and putting those on our channels Sprint Verizon Virgin mobile I mean you name it every we're gonna miss everybody back then and then like you say

AT&T developed a relationship with me uh and it's been incredibly profitable for me some of my top videos on there some of the top brands that I've worked with on the YouTube channel um but yeah I have an influencer phone um people it's gotten to the point where people that know me in the marketplace uh and that are in my audience ask me all the time, you know, what brands I recommend. They come to me, quietly pull me aside and go, you know, we know that you reviewed, you know, 3000 products, but which Bluetooth headphones do you like? I'm like, I like these. And I do give my honest opinion. And as people have seen, I've failed enough products and been wickedly mean to products that suck to a point that people are like, yeah, I think Chris has given us the honest truth.

That's right. That's right. There's a few brands that hate me, including Apple. But that's okay. Whatever. I speak my mind, and I think fortunately for some of the things that I've reviewed or some of the brands that I haven't liked. I usually don't like them because they are consistently not good.

But yeah, influence marketing is huge. And I've got people that are friends of mine writing books on influence marketing. I've got one kind of half kicking around. And then you've got other people going, influence marketing is dead. And it's always funny too. It's usually the people who are saying

influence marketing is dead. It doesn't matter how many followers you're having your audience is and i usually find that's the that's the uh the baby cry of the people who just don't have an audience and they haven't done the work to build it so they're angry at everybody else who put the work in yeah i think their hope is you know all the people like you have spent time amassing a following it's not going to be worth much coming soon. But I just think those days. And the other thing is people don't realize, too, this goes back to what we were talking about earlier, it's a constant war of attrition. I mean, I have people that have been following me daily.

I have people that follow me daily. You know, brands just can't go on and post on social media and go, well, you know, we made a post last week. I think we're done here for the year. That's right. Everyone just go look at that post, I'm sure. You know, they don't realize the – I think I saw something on someone's website. I don't know how accurate the date is,

but I was looking at somebody's website yesterday, and I think they said the view life of a tweet is about five minutes or something like that. I don't know if it's true. I'm just going off the PR that's on their website. Twitter, the average lifespan of social media posts is 18 minutes on Twitter, five hours on Facebook, 21 hours

on LinkedIn, and 24 hours or 24 hours on LinkedIn, 21 hours on Instagram. So, and you constantly have to be reengaging your new people you got to be selling them on why do you want to listen to me and then of course you're losing your old people maybe they come back maybe they don't you know is I've I've gone through a huge transition with my follower base where my follower base, you know, they listen to me on the social media, blah, blah, blah of the week.

And then next week they're probably off to you. And, you know, and there's kind of this consumption of this crazy sort of a one night, one week stand or whatever. And brands have to constantly think about that. And then they have to constantly re-engage their new audience and get them on boarded and you know hopefully make content that seems interesting that they don't uh they don't go right back out the door again yeah no it's it's the network effect i mean i i believe that article i think that's probably true of of an average post from an

average person that is probably the lifespan but the network effect allows that piece of content to travel well beyond five minutes or 21 minutes or even 24 hours. And that's really where I think influencers come in. But that's certainly the power of social. Definitely the power of social. I mean, what's amazing to me, well, we'll take AT&T as an example. What's amazing to me is I have videos that AT&T

back when they began their influencer marketing campaigns with me I think it was 2010-2011 there are people still watching those videos in the secondary market they're still buying old AT&T phones on eBay or other places and they're still

engaging with those products they're researching the products on the YouTube channels I mean I look back on it I'm like I should charge AT&T a lot more money lifespan of a content on a piece of content I guess that's how you got a price it yeah yeah I'm just shocked I'll see I think we started doing reviews in 2010 and like once or twice a week i'll get some comment i don't get you know they don't notify me on views but i'll get a comment and somebody's like yeah i just bought this phone and blah blah blah and they're like in the philippines or some super secondary or third

uh marketplace where they're they're just buying i guess somebody's unloading old nokia phones or something whatever um there's still people buying the Samsung Galaxy 5 and the iPhone 5 and they're watching my old videos when I reviewed them and they're just like, yeah, this is a great phone or what do you think about this phone? What's kind of interesting to me that I don't know

a lot of content managers or brands think of, but I get a lot of customer service questions on my YouTube channel. get a lot of customer service questions on my YouTube channel, like a lot of them. Like people, you know, even though I've reviewed so many different videos, you can go and I hope that make it clear that I don't represent or work for any single brand. It's interesting to me how many times they come to the YouTube channel for customer service

as opposed to approaching the company. Right. Yeah, no, it's a good point. I don't think a lot of influencers take that into consideration of, am I responding to people? Probably not. Should I? Yes.

But why would you do that on behalf of a brand if there's no form of compensation? And so usually I have to say to them, I have to say, hey, look, you know, we just reviewed the product. You're going to want to contact customer I have to say, Hey, look, you know, we, we just reviewed the product here. Yeah. Contact customer service. But it is interesting to me. And a lot of times they're not, they're not necessarily asking me, they're asking within my community for help and for that thing. And you've probably gotten like I do,

if you'd buy a product and like you're having some sort of issue with it, usually go Google it or search YouTube on how to resolve it. Right. And it has helped companies when it comes to customer service because sometimes the community fixes the problem for you. I remember years ago, I think it was the GoPro 3, and it got launched and it had, wow, just a lot of issues. There was like 20 issues or something. And I bought one and it was just a

fail and and they they had these long websites of like GoPro just released the release and fix this GoPro's fix that but there you know but there's still this other stuff and it can really hurt companies you know it can really it can really go big the viral list of the internet is pretty interesting. Do you guys get involved in many viral launches? Let me think of one. It's tough when a company comes to you and they go, we want to go viral in your line.

Well, yeah, that seems to be every brand's KPI these days, which brings us together. First of all, it's not a KPI. But second of all, no, that's not what you should be looking to do. Viral launches. Let me think. Yeah. I mean, we've had a piece of content that similarly to what you just said, given that it's been on for a number of years, you've just started to see, you know, the uptick in views and maybe it's because it's around a sporting event that happens every year and people are searching for something but um i'm trying to think of one that we can come back to that one yeah and and but but to what you said though that it's it's better to be i mean you can go viral

and you know if you want to spend a boatload of money and hire a bunch of you know community writers and you know do things like uh different brands have done with going viral uh and then hope you go viral because it can implode um it's better to make long-term content i mean like i say all 3 000 of my videos 3 000 plus the thing that's 3300 or something that's on the youtube channel or on the chrisfossshow.com um it's it's amazing how much of that content is still being used. I mean, I've told my family, if I ever die, make sure you get into my checking account that has the Google automatic

payment sent to me because that YouTube money, I don't know, will probably be coming to me as long as YouTube's in business forever unless they seriously change their model. Right. But it's a testament as to people are still watching those stupid videos like like i say i'm still amazed i'm like i should have charged some of these companies a lot more ad money because they have these ads that are still out there and and and i'll have an ad or i'll have a video that i've done and it's just kind of plugging along you're like okay yeah

and also boom buzzfeed will pick it up or or some sort of website you know picks it up and puts it on their thing i kind of have the excuse me i have the same sort of thing that happens with my podcast uh it's really interesting with the podcast people go way back in the podcast and just consume it all they're just like why are people still listening to something i did four years ago? They're really listening to that back then? That's how people want to consume content. It's that Netflix effect.

It's like a bag of potato chips when you're starving or hungover or high. You're just like, one's not going to do it. YouTube being the number one search engine. People aren't going to Google typing something in. They're going to YouTube.

They want to see it. They want to know how to do it. Even those new homeowners think they can fix anything from YouTube. So, yeah, YouTube is the platform. My mom is, I think, 75, 76, and she lives at home. And she lives in Utah, a whole state state away from me so it's like an eight hour drive to get to her so i can't take care of her like i probably should um but she'll she'll do her home repairs around the house or fixing like you know a lot of sprinkler on the

lawn broke i think one time and she's like yeah i went on youtube watch the video and fix it done and uh it's pretty powerful and pretty amazing, and I don't know if anybody's even charted the money that companies are saving in customer service thing. I remember back when we first, when we were on Twitter, Twitter had, I think it was 42 employees

or 38. They put some crazy number locking how many employees they were going to have, and back then their their systems were all crazy and so they were constantly ejecting people and suspending people and there was all sorts of crazy stuff where if you push all the wrong buttons it would suspend you and so there was a few of us that were social media leaders back then that were doing customer service on behalf of Twitter. And I actually wrote a little e-book that sold really well called How to Keep from Getting Suspended on Twitter because it was so prevalent and happening so often.

But yeah, brands really need to realize the power of being able to have that exponentiality I remember years ago it was the gentleman who funded Twitter and runs force where Fred Wilson who runs four square partners in New York he took in talked about the exponentiality of social media and the great thing is is that this can get shared and shared and shared and shared and that's the real power of the brand and the power of that exponentiality of getting eyeballs on something and you never know what's going to trigger somebody I've had just stupid quotes I admit I put out a little quips or even political posts I put out and somebody

says hey I like what you do and here you know let's do business together and you just never know we're gonna turn that key and pick up clients that's right no but but to to that point of the exponential effect i think it works for brands and their content and their audiences but i think that's why so many brands smart ones are on social for customer service you know i think a number of them do it very well i think delta does it very well but. But I think it's in part of knowing that if I have a gripe or something negative, my sphere of people or influence are going to see it. So as a brand, I want to mitigate that as fast as possible. Yeah, it's something where you're in a constant competition with the whole world. And just when you think you're the funniest person on Twitter there's a lot more funny people I mean I I've gotten to the point where

I like to be I like to go on a different controversial fire posts or whatever is ranking the news and read the comments the comment section is like the best and in these these little cosmos of of communities that get built around just around comments or youtube videos or content that anyone's putting out they kind of become a life of their own the cosmos of their own a tide pool of these organisms that float around this thing and it really becomes theirs i mean i have people that still to this day will approach me and they go, hey, remember that one post you made or that one video you made? And oh, my gosh, that's the one I always remember you on. You're like, really?

That one? Idiot content that I made that I thought no one's ever going to see this. Press send. And then you think about all the ones that you did. You're like, I slaved for tens of hours to make that one post that no one liked. And you remember that one? Yeah, you never know what's going to have an effect on somebody. But that, you know, I think we talked about it in the beginning of you can't just push something out once a week and think you're done.

So that's the reason that you need to be looking at multiple things a day and, you know, multiple things a week, sure. And it's for that reason. Who is the audience and what is each subset going to get out of it? And you never know what's going to pop off. And I'm amazed at how many brands, and these are not large brands because large brands these days are spending the good money with companies like yours. But I'm amazed at how many brands don't even monitor their results like they're

just like well we got the the social guy the one we heard and we're not sure what he does it's some magic and room soar yes and he's making like five posts a day so we should be the money should come anytime now right they're not monitoring like is anybody listening isn't come anytime now right they're not monitoring like is anybody listening isn't even engaging or worse they're not engaging back when people are you know i'm doing a whole lot of ces work right now bringing on sponsors for coverage of the chris voss show at ces and i'm just blown away as to how many brands i'm talking to that uh when you go to their websites their websites are either down or no one's answering their Facebook fan page for their company.

You're just like, and they'll even have the bot. They'll have the bot on Facebook that the Autobot talks to you. And you're like, hey, is there anybody alive over there? Is everyone dead at the company or something? Do we need to set a welfare call over there or something? Hello? Hello? Hello? Yeah, there's a lot of set it and forget it mentality in digital and especially social.

Even if you put something out there, they think their work is done. And, you know, there's so many things you can learn about the content and how people are consuming content. Even something as easy as, you know, something like 90%, if not a little less or a little more of videos are watched without the sound on because people are commuting or they're somewhere where they don't want to throw headphones in. So that's why we're seeing such a rise in, you know, captions and text on screen is because nobody's listening to this. So if you think about a piece of advertisement or content that you can't hear, you know, how effective is it? And I actually saw a jewelry ad. I don't know if it's Kay or Jared or whatever it is, but it's the one you might've seen. It's the one where he's asking a young boy if he has permission to ask

his mother to marry him. But if you watch that ad with the sound off, it's a guy proposing to a little boy. So that's why this is very important that you hear what's going on in the ad. That's very true. I never thought about that. I remember there used to be – someone wrote a review of David Letterman one time. And they said if you watch David Letterman, he's funny. But if you listen to him, you go, what the hell is going on? Yep.

Yep. Totally. But if you listen to him you go what the hell's going on. Yep. Yeah So yeah See those facial expressions and and some of that in the comedic delivery to really get where he's going with it That's one challenge. I have I'll have people say that I'll be like, you know You know, we changed some things in the videos on YouTube. What do you guys think? And they're like Chris, we don't we don't want you. I mean seriously look at this mug no one watches this face um there's no one tuning in going let's look at chris yeah um but uh my audience will tell me they go no we listen to you listen to you in the car um we wander around the house play your videos and do chores and i'm like you're washing the dishes while you're listening to me it seems, but however you want to consume me.

And so that's what people do. And I'm like, you don't even watch the product videos? No, we'll listen to them. And then if we need to see the product, we'll look at it. There's the product there. But, you know, we're more interested in hearing about the product and what your opinion is of it than actually looking at you. Now, I'm sure that if I was a pretty young girl and everything else, I might

get a few more views where people are like, we want to see Chris on screen. Yeah, you might. No, the power of the voice and the rise of podcasting, I mean, people don't need to see it. I think it's easier to multitask. You can just hear something and do whatever else you got to do. I mean, I do the same thing. Like thing like i said a game i'll play the news in the background on the tv behind the monitor i actually have a monitor and a tv behind it nice uh so that i can you know it's we've we've got so addicted to multitasking that uh we're just consuming just all this stuff and and brands that work with companies like yourself have to ask themselves how do we cut through all themselves, how do we cut through all the noise? How do we cut through all the competition that is out there?

There's always somebody trying to be funnier, and it's the Internet and the world, and you're competing with them. I mean, every time I think, I'm like, I can't wait for something really funny to spin on this story or whatever. And then you go on the Internet, and you'll see the first five comments, and you're like, oh, wow, yeah the first five comments. You're like, Oh wow. They, yeah, that's, they beat me. That's funny.

And, uh, you know, then you've got, you know, the daily things people are going after, like Monday motivation, uh, fall Friday,

you know, it used to be big. And then, you know, it seems like there's a different day of the week every now and then where you got to hit certain targets, you know, the trend on Twitter or whatever.

And you got to know what's trending on the different things. Certainly Facebook has changed over the years. That's been an interesting thing to try and figure out what Facebook is doing. I told all of my clients, brands, and friends years ago, I'm like, Facebook will eventually charge for access to that. They're like, no, it's awesome. They're just going to, you know, you're just going to build their fan page. I'm like, no, they're going to charge you someday. They're going to wait until everybody

gets in the prison, then they're going to lock it down. And sure, they did. And, you know, now brands are having to deal with, you know, these walled off content, garden issues and pay for play sort of thing where you've got to pay to advertise. And I think that's appropriate. I mean, it is an advertising forum. It is a place for ads. I mean, you can't certainly work for free and give away a free product without charging somebody for something. Yeah, no, that's right.

I think so many people forget that they are the product on these platforms. They have so many gripes about them. And it's like, do you pay to access this stuff? And the answer is no. And you're giving your data. That's your pay. That's your entrance. I'm just waiting for

Zuckerberg to send me my first check. It's been 10 years. It shouldn't be coming any moment now. I would think so. I would think so. You must be using the postal service. Don't make me start on the postal service. We have a few really good people working

the postal service though. There's a few really good people who work at the postal service, though. It's a slight few. I have a really good postal gal right now, but in my prior house, it was a nightmare. Something else. So what are some other things people need to know about your guys' brand, what your guys' company does, what you do? I think we are looking into what's current right now. I think everybody's now it's onto the what's my VR idea. And there may not be a VR idea, but I think in sports and entertainment, there probably is a VR or an AR idea. So we're doing

more with that. And I think we're trying to figure out how a live experience can be amplified or how, if you can't make it to a live experience, how do you feel as if you are, you know, just as intimately there as, as any guests sitting in the front row. So it's been a lot of fun, you know,

the last three years, I've only been with MKTG about three years, um, was in pharma advertising before that, because I thought it might equate to me feeling better about myself. And it did not, um, you know, and pharma companies have massive budgets, and I just saw the ugly side of that as well. So it's been a fun run with sports and entertainment, though, and I've been quite happy at MKTG. And people love that sort of stuff. I mean, people are loyal to their fan

brands. I mean, I've been a Raider fan all these years, in spite of how many times that we just have losing seasons. I just have to remove all the knives and sharp objects from the house every Sunday if I watch a game. Usually I quit watching football about four games in with the Raiders. No, you're talking to a Giants fan. I hear you, bud. It's tough. But, yeah, I'm loyal.

I'm loyal to the brand. I'm a sucker, I guess. I think a year or two ago I was like, but yeah, I'm loyal. I'm loyal to the brand. I'm a sucker, I guess. I think a year or two ago, I was like, I really should just get me another team like the Broncos or something. Yeah. It's fun. I flip political parties back and forth, but I'm still with the Raiders.

I suppose working with sports brands is a good thing. What do you see in the future? What do you see coming into the next year, 2019, being big? Is VR ever going to take off, and AR ever going to take off to where people are just using it necessarily? Or what do you think is going to happen in 2019? Yeah, I think it definitely can. It's going to take a little while for the headsets

and what you have to wear to become a little less cumbersome. And it's getting there, but it's not there yet. I don't think you have, it's much like Google Glass, you know, the select few were wearing it and they were sticking out. And once it becomes a little more passive and a little more, you know, doesn't hinder what you're already doing, I think it definitely could be. I think as you're seeing, everything right now is centralized around chat, even Instagram right now with now you can send somebody everything right now is centralized around chat, even Instagram right now with now you can send somebody a voice memo or voicemail, if you will. So I think as every social network becomes successful, they inevitably cram a chat function in there. So

I think all the networks are really, or all the platforms, if you will, are really starting to look much like each other. So it's, you know, trying to figure out what the point of difference is. And I think, you know, chat's going to be big, but I also think it's going to be taking your sphere of friends or the people you've amassed along the way, and then figuring out how best to communicate them and where best. I don't know if it's an arms race to continue to, you know, gain more followers. It's kind of putting out the best content you have with those that you do and on the platform that you found the best success. It definitely is. LinkedIn seems to be making a lot of progress to

becoming a more social network. They've added where you can now post videos. You can do more engaging stuff. there was a brand new reference earlier which reminded me of something uh google google glass i remember google glass and i actually still miss google glass i wish they would uh kept that thing going and made some iterations i didn't like wearing glasses i don't like wearing glasses I don't think most people do that's why we have contacts um but uh you know my friends like I have some friends they love VR like my good buddy Robert Scoble and and he loves VR he loves AR he loves wearing the the the stuff for hours and the joysticks um but I can't I can't do that I mean i love to game i have a huge gaming community that's part of my audience giant discord and i love to game and i love vr gaming for i don't

know about a half an hour once that thing becomes this sweaty massive of goo and stuck to my face and my head's like i'm tired of holding this thing it just gets a little too much and then and I don't know if maybe it's because my age or because not being born to this era you know maybe millennials like a lot better than I do but but wearing that thing on your face is just a lot of stuff I mean even when I look at Google glass now I'm like that was really non-obtrusive and and actually really efficient in the way that was really non-obtrusive and actually really efficient in the way that it was set up and the way

you could view stuff. But for VR, you do have to have that thing, so it's going to be interesting. Are you guys going to CES 2019? Yes, we will have representation there. I think we typically do there as well as South by Southwest. South by Southwest is

just becoming such a large, you know, thing these days. I mean, I remember the years where it was such a small community, but as all good things do, they just get massive and unwieldy. And here we are. I wish they'd move that thing to Vegas. Yeah, that would be good. It's too big for that city.

Yeah. Austin, Austin's a lot of fun, but not, not during that week. Yeah. During that city. Yeah, Austin's a lot of fun, but not during that week. Yeah, not during that week. I would not want to, like, if I lived in Austin, I'd just, like, go on vacation that week. Yeah, leave. South by Southwest,

I love South by Southwest. It's a lot of craziness. It's a lot of work to fly in there and do stuff and promote brands. It definitely is harder because you have stuff spread out of the city and trying to get your messaging there. It's very different than CES where everyone is kind of locked into the CES sort of area. Any trends that you want to predict coming in 2019? Don't want to put you on the spot, but anything you want to plug for 19

that you think is going to be big or huge or advanced? I think the, it's interesting. The VR, I think, could be a lot of fun just for certain things. I like it in sports. I like the ability to watch a game and be courtside. And a lot of people will never sit courtside due to the price and their lifetime.

And so I think that could be, you know, rather compelling. So with certain things like concerts and all that, but there's so much I see at CES, robotics and all this stuff. And it would be great, but, you know, we're years down the line from that. So all these things are great in theory, and it's all now about, okay, how do we put them into practice? Yeah. okay, how do we put them into practice? Yeah, in fact, a plug for CES, I think next week on the 19th, we have Robert Shapiro, the CEO of CTA and CES, who will be on the Chris Vosha podcast. Nice to get there.

So we're going to have him on to talk about CES 2019. It's always a struggle to get him early. I'm friends with him on Facebook, and he's a really great guy. Really brilliant guy. We're going to have him on to talk about what's going on at CES. Yeah, you're right. A lot of stuff at CES is two or three years in the future. Even when I look at

products at CES, I'm like, when are you going to send that to review? They're like, I don't know, September, December. That'll be the next CES. The earliest, September, December of that'll be the next CES. Yeah, the earliest September, December of that year. It's cool. I'll just see it at the next CES.

How about that? Well, if it's out. It's cool as a playground and an inspiration. All of those things, it's great for. Practicality, it has never been. Yeah, it's an interesting show. I love going to it.

It's just like a giant toy store. And seeing all the toys, seeing all the innovations, sometimes seeing the bored ones. I've gotten good enough, and I've gone for so many years now, where I know which booths just to walk by. I'm like, nothing new to see here. Whatever you've got, what everyone else has got, I'm looking for something kind of interesting

that's going to stick out. Their audience is going to go, wow, that's really cool. Instead of like, visit the iPhone case booth. Here's that. Not to knock people in the iPhone case booth. It's the CES. No. You may want to talk to them soon.

You don't want to knock anyone. You may want to advertise in the Chris Voss Show podcast because we'll be doing the podcast at the show. Yeah. to knock anyone out. You may want to advertise on the Chris Voss Show podcast because we'll be doing the podcast at the show. Last year I saw that robot that folds and sorts your laundry and it's like, man, that would be great, but when's that coming?

How much does it cost? Do I have to sell one of the kids' kidneys to buy that thing? The reason I had kids is to have them fold the laundry. I'm still looking. I mean, technically, the reason I had kids is to have them fold the laundry. I mean, I'm still looking. I'm looking at adopting at my age several small children. I need one that can game very well

in the game Destiny from Bungie because I need them to work my characters every week. I need one to do laundry. If I had another child, I would send it to that Cordon Bleu School of Cooking. You know what I mean? And like six years old, it'd be like military school. I'd just ship the kid off to a cooking school so he could come back in a couple years.

And be like, hey, eight-year-old, make daddy some creme brulee or some kind of crap like that. There you go. And that would be their job and i just i just give them a little bed in the kitchen right by the sink so they can you know they know their place in the ecosphere of the environment and their their value of worth of delivery to daddy and then they send another one to massage school so you know i can get my back massage my feet massage um somehow this is probably the reason i'm not a dad is because i know that none of that is ever going to work out tough household over there

I hear you my dogs are the same way I'm always petting them, rubbing their back and I'm like when does dad get can you rub dad's back, I'm always rubbing your back and giving you treats, why don't you go get me like a treat or something run to the store and get a beer

dogs have it figured out they certainly do yeah I have huskies too, they just kind of look at you and go treat or something like run to the store and get a beer or something dogs haven't figured out they certainly do yeah i have huskies too they just kind of look at you and go that's nice we'll get back to you on that yeah we're gonna do something else um so yeah it's gonna be interesting what where things are going it's gonna be interesting where social is going um do you do you see do you see in the next year or in the next future of social, do you see just basically the brands get more powerful? LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest.

It just becomes more of the silos of these brands. It doesn't seem like any Facebook killer can mount an attack on Facebook and, you know, blow it up. A lot of people were joking for so many years about how there's kind of a lifespan of these social media networks based upon MySpace's lifespan. There's all sorts of people who have tried to bet

that when Facebook is going to die, in fact, they just saw somebody trying to start another Leave Facebook campaign, which is always funny that they post that on Facebook. Hey, everyone, screw Facebook. Leave now. Like this post, that on Facebook. Hey, everyone, screw Facebook. Leave now. Like this post, by the way.

Right, right. Yeah. No, I think it's been interesting, you know, with the power of the Internet, you can go anywhere and there's all these sites and, you know, you could spend so much time. And now we're really truncated to a handful of sites. It's gotten down to that where everybody spends their time. Same with their phone. It's the same four or five apps.

Yeah, it's hard. I think MySpace, as we both know, is just well before its time. Now with the audience and monthly actives that Facebook has, it's incredibly hard to put a dent into that. Otherwise, if you do, they'll just buy it, rip it off,

or do something else, and then you're you know hung out in the cold well when google plus came out i was one of the first people to call it uh at first it was kind of exciting but within about six months i was saying this isn't going to fly this isn't going to work um and i could see people you know people like my good friend robert skull were coming over but his wife was going but our family's over here and our family's not over there and i want to post pictures for our family's over here and our family's not over there and i want to post pictures for our family and our relatives or grandma and grandma and cousins

all that sort of stuff and they're all over here we're all talking why do we want to go over there it's like we're over here you know it's everyone's in that favorite restaurant for thanksgiving or whatever they want to go to you know uh my mom she likes certain restaurants that she likes to go to and they're very family oriented so i think that this that's kind of the draw for her but she likes the food she knows what she's gonna get and Facebook kind of reached that point with consumers where you know there's a familiarity that people like but the other thing I the other reason I predicted the failure of Google Plus back in the day and then I got a lot of arrows for it was the fact that it was taking too much oxygen out of a room that there was

already too much oxygen that was being taken out of it and very little available and I said you know what people have LinkedIn they got Twitter they got Facebook they've gotten you know Instagram I don't think there's room for another social media network to be in the room without uh and be able to get oxygen to live and i was correct it was it was uh people were just it was just too much too many apps that you flip to and uh yeah you're right i mean for years my arguments with people whenever something new comes out like this is the hottest thing like give me your opinion if you want i mean i don't want to put you on the spot either.

What do you think of IGTV? Is that taking off? Am I not paying enough attention to that? No, I don't want to say that's dead at the risk of saying something on your show that would denote something like that. Ten years from now, it'll be the biggest thing. You're like, he said this in 1999.

On the Chris Foss show. You'll be running the biggest thing. You're like, he said this in 1999. On the Chris Voss show. You'll be running for president or something, and people are like, you'll be hosting the Oscars. They'll be like, what did he say about Instagram TV? Oh, they bought Facebook. Oh, what an idiot. No, it's a tough go, and I know they were trying to compete with YouTube, and the amount of hours and time spent on it but

it's just not been adapted the way I think that they thought. Facebook has been trying to chip away and climb that hill too. I just saw some new video spin they're trying to do on their site to go with YouTube and YouTube is just the TV of this generation

man. Yeah. I haven't figured out why when Facebook bought Instagram, why they didn't bring over some of the, you know, privacy or settings, if you will. So, you know, for me personally, my Instagram is personal. It's private. I don't let a lot of people into it. But what if I could post just as I can on Facebook where something could be public, something could be for these five people, something could be for this batch of close friends. Much like you can do on Facebook. I've never really understood why they haven't adopted that for Instagram.

Yeah, I think they just serve the market. They let it say, well, this is a different segment for those people who want to maybe be more private. It is a more intimate platform on Instagram um that you you I don't know if it's because of the photos that seem to be more intimate you know yeah people post stuff on Instagram that that are just more you know the poster kids like I know people will post the kids on Facebook because you know there's all sorts of creepy stuff on the internet and people but they'll post them on Instagram and maybe it is

because those controls are there and I think maybe Facebook did it just differentiate the brands like here's our brand over here that's very public and and here's you know Instagram where you can be the thing what's what's a kind of amazing to me I had heard I given up on them a long time ago, and I guess Yahoo hadn't. I guess Yahoo paid them when they were almost bankrupt and bought them out for $2 billion.

But Tumblr, I mean, Tumblr just hasn't seemed to be going anywhere. I just recently heard that they're going to try and eliminate porn on their website, which is out of control. By the time I left several years ago. I was like, Jesus, does anybody put their kids on here? Holy

crap. There's blatant porn going on this thing. It's not cool. I guess now they're trying to attack with AI and you're just like, do you really want to save that turd? No. That one's done too.

It has been done for a while. Unfortunately, it was once Yahoo got their teeth into it. Forget about it. It's not been a viable platform for a very long time. We saw the downturn of Reddit, and now that's back up. It's feasible that it could take an upswing. I just don't see it happening. Yeah, I wrote podcasts off early on.

We started the Chris Foster podcast, then we stopped for a few years. I'm like, ah, this isn't going anywhere. And then all of a sudden I woke up one day and I was like, podcasts are it. And, yeah, I read it the same way. Reddit used to be this cesspool that I avoided of just ugly, toxic. There was a lot of weird porn and weird stuff going on in there. It was kind of like the 9Gag or one of those other ones now that's kind of become the site of cesspools. And now it's back.

Now it's almost a news agency that I turn to almost daily and go, hey, what's going on there? If you need to laugh. It's still got a really hard way to post and share data, but maybe that silos it better. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. No, same thing with I was on Craigslist not too long ago. I hadn't been on in a very long time.

And it's amazing that that platform has not changed one bit over the years. You know, I've hung out with him what's his name something Craig hung out with him at dent one time and had dinner with him really nice guy very quiet guy he loves birds he's really into birds and he's just a minimalist sort of you know I mean I don't know if I should be calling the minutes but he's a real down-to-earth guys but that was very simple guy very nice guy and I think that's the way he likes Craigslist but when you look at the unicorns that have come out of Silicon Valley they're all based upon someone did this a long time ago I don't know who it was they did an analogy of all the popular

posting areas of Craigslist and what they become like you know uber ebay of course is is a feature you know selling stuff at auction and everything else all the all the different aspects of some of the different things of you know dating apps you know there used to be you go on Craigslist if you wanted to date I've known people that have done that and you know now you go to tinder and you go on Craigslist if you wanted to date. I've known people that have done that. And, you know, now you go to Tinder and you go to these other things. And so basically a lot of these unicorns just came out of pieces and parts of Craigslist and served those functions and just expanded them into a full-blown app to serve a community.

That's it. Yeah, he's started and fostered a lot of communities that have gone elsewhere these days. But I always figured that was the reason for him, just him personally. That's what he believed in. But it's been fascinating to jump back on after years of not using it since leaving New York, I guess, and finding nothing has changed.

It's great. Yeah, it's just that simple thing. And I guess they're making enough money. Like I said, i met him he doesn't seem like he's the sort of guy who's like i want to make a billion trillion dollars i think i think he's put off some uh invites to buy him out people wanted to change the site and turn into something else but yeah it's been pretty interesting how popular that site uh still has been and uh you just never know what some of these different things are going to do.

It'll be interesting to see if Reddit, I mean, I know Reddit has cleaned itself up. I think some of the different things they put into place with their moderators, where they kind of put the clamp down, I think a year or two ago, where they said, hey, look, some of the toxicity has got to come down. And now when you go into their uh areas you see like that little statement they have like you know here's a community uh one of the biggest things that that uh that i had to learn after all the years of me being a social media influencer whatever that means four bucks will buy a cup of coffee um is is that uh it's not necessarily always about building an audience. It's about building the community and having that community there for the audience.

And I didn't invest a lot in properties that would have that community effect. I mean, there was Twitter, Facebook. But over the years, I've started investing in building communities that are based around either my brand or based around some sort of thing. Like now I have a gaming community. I think in September, I started a gaming community on a Discord server. And I was pretty amazed at how big this Discord server thing has gotten. I kind of heard about them and I'm like, yeah, what's a Discord server? I figured this stuff out. Now I have a living, thriving Discord server.

It's a gaming community. And these people are on there just chatting it up. And, of course, we're representing brands on there. And, of course, I'm promoting the Chris Voss Show and gaming. And, of course, a lot of the products we review we put on the Discord. And so it's amazing to me. Facebook groups, of course course has been another big one where i i'd almost rather engage and be involved with a facebook group than be uh pushing my facebook

page because i don't have to pay for that right that's right i mean there's a lot of brands that i see that uh or people that are have just created own communities, their own forums of brands, and people are on there talking. Like recently the GoPro 7 came out. GoPro sent us a new 7, which I love. Plug for GoPro. And there's people on there that have been in the GoPro 5 group, the GoPro 6 group when it came out.

Now they just recently noticed they changed the name. It's the GoPro 7 group. It has tens of thousands of people in it some of these groups have hundreds of thousands of people and in fact some of the political groups that were started during the 2016 2015 campaigns have hundreds of thousands of people and they're really active and these there's these pools of people that that are you know they're talking about what their passion, their interest is. And some are in photography and photography groups. Some are in gaming. You know, it seems like there's a group for everything nowadays

when it comes down to it. There really is. Building those communities has been really important because you've got content delivery in them, but also just creating these spaces. YouTube came out with its, they're trying all sorts of different things but they came out with something that was a community thing where i can go and i can post updates to the channel without having to make a video

and i can talk to my channel and engage with it and people do comments really hasn't caught on but um creating these sort of areas where where my community can sit and talk about my brand and they can network with each other and it just becomes this fest of whatever would be really great. And so I think a lot of brands need to look to these communities and these groups and go, how do we build a community around our brand where people are constantly talking about with without us that's the real power of using influencers I mean I talk about AT&T because I love the product if I really hated the AT&T service like I'll give you an example I like Sprint they're very nice company they have horrible horrible cellular service and after doing years and years of product reviews for him we just got tired of it I mean I would I would get you know I get a message being like, hey, just so you know, certain parts of Vegas we can't have you go down to because you won't be able to get a signal.

And I'm just like, okay. And so I, as an influencer, especially working with brands like AT&T, found myself wanting something that was good for me and if it's good for me and I like it after you know thousands of other products they test then you know there it is that's I think this recommend a recommend I think it's something I can recommend to my audience taking listen to but you've got to have people that want to talk about these things it used to be my youtube channel would do that where the comment sections were really vibrant and then Google Plus came along and forced identification and really killed that sort of community group. Yeah, I think there's so many places to your point that people talk about brands or things and these brands really don't know about it and don't care to tap into it. And I think they spend so

much money on social just yelling at people and they're not sure who they're yelling at. They need to be tapping into these communities that have already been created and fostered without them even knowing it. Yeah. Yeah. And I've actually reached out to my brands and said, Hey, you know, this video is getting a lot of comments and you guys are getting killed on the issues that this product has, you guys might want to have someone start watching that, that comment stream. And I've had other brands that have come along and, and they're actively paying attention and responding. Hey,

can you contact us? I've seen that as well. There are people that are using, like you said, with your company, social listening, where when they see people talking about them on social complaining about the social you'll get a message and be like hey hey we heard that you're having some issues

how can we resolve let's go on DM let's go direct to the thing and it's amazing to me how big of a difference that can make in fact I'll give you a good example is we're plugging GoPro years ago when the GoPro 3 did come out. I bought it myself. They wouldn't send one to me and And right away it had problems. Well, we finished our review We reached out to the company tried to get information on what was going on I could see the fault that was happening and so we did our review and Within 24 hours. I was getting phone calls from the head of communications GoPro going dude you're killing us and social is your your post

destroying us can you please get on the phone and can we have a conversation and so I got on the phone with them had a conversation with them we talked about their issues talked about what's going on with the brand talked about how they're trying to resolve the issue and they'd launched a set of products out to the marketplace that were failing and they had new products that they had fixed and repaired and they were going to send me one and the guy was like just we're gonna send you one and try it if you like it say whatever you want I don't care we just want to reach out to you

and and try and let you know that we we do care and we're trying to fix it we're just really we really screw this one up and so I did the review on it and said you know you know here's the situation I was totally transparent said you know they sent us this new unit and yes it's working and and what we recommend for people who listen to Chris Voss show is that you don't buy one off the shelf you go in order from GoPro directly because clearly the ones they're making in the factory right now are very different than the ones that are on the shelf. And that was my recommendation. And since then, I've had a great relationship with GoPro.

And it came from that ugly sort of experience that we had on social. And it just started out as an ugly post. It was a bad review that said, you know, fail GoPro 3. And it just started out as an ugly post. It was a bad review that said, you know, fail GoPro 3. And it just ballooned. And sometimes these brands don't realize is that by waiting, it just compounds. It gets worse and worse and more viral. And then you wake up one day and you're like, why is our brand on fire and the building is burning down on social? But out of it can come really great relationships like I'm you know

I'm sitting here plugging the GoPro 7 will actually be using this CS. They send me a new one every year for CS coverage And I love the product. It's a great product. In fact, I moved away from large DSLR cannons To move to GoPro because they're just easier to do and the quality of video that I'm going to get are awesome. Not the quality of photos that I can get from, say, Canon or Nikon or other brands, but that's just an example of how some of these relationships can last for years and if you can turn your impression around, you can save it. But if you don't, you're going to wake up one day and you've just got ugly posts on Google that somehow you've got to bury.

Yeah, it's fascinating to me that as a brand, you're going to launch a product and not just think, well, what if this goes sideways? What if this goes negative? We're not even looking, scouring the internet for people like you for this content that bubbles up. I think so many brands are just focused on, they get too close to it. They think, of course, this is going to be positive and they expect nothing less than that. They think, of course, this is going to be positive and they expect nothing less than that. But it's fascinating to me that they're not proactively searching and doing some social listening and try to find people like yourself who are bubbling up to the top who may not have a positive reaction. And even if you did,

they should certainly congratulate and thank you for it. But they're just, they're so ill-equipped, which is still, you know, as we were saying ten years in it So it's a bit fascinating It's in it's harder. It's hard to get listening tools now these two I mean I remember back in the day It was really nice yet Hootsuite yet tweet deck that wasn't owned by Twitter and you how these that in in kind of this everyone was trying to issue these different things I remember the week But everyone was trying to issue these different things. I remember Loic had Seasmic that he had where you could take a listen.

There was a few other different services that were out there back in the day. And there's a lot now, too, as well, that you can compete with and spend a lot of money with for listening. I remember years ago, AT&T, when I was working with them, they would bring about 20 different influencers or bloggers into the new phone launches. And then after a while, they just started pulling me in. I'm like, where's everybody else? And they go, we figured out we just need you. And I go, well, how did you figure that out?

And then we pulled your Radiant 6 stuff and you get better eyeballs and turns than the LA Times. And I was like, holy crap. So your price went up the next year, right? Your price went up the next year. Your price went up the next year? That's how you did that one? Oh yeah. But you know that sort of

AT&T was really smart. Their relationship with me broadened and has been great. When I lived in LA for several years I'd be at the iPhone launches inside the stores playing with the iPhone launches inside the stores, playing with the iPhone at 5 a.m., filming and doing all this stuff

and showing it to people through the windows in the line at the AT&T store. But it was a lot of fun. It was a great relationship. And brands, I don't think influencer marketing is dead. I think brands just need to figure out better targets as to who's going to talk about something. Like for me, it gets to a point where I almost need a 1-800 number where people can call and go,

what's the best Bluetooth headphones, Chris, that you like in this price range? Everyone comes to me and they go, you know, you've reviewed hundreds of headphones. What's the one that you keep? And they figured out that the ones that i keep are probably the best we we do use some sort of reference ones like we keep multiple headphones that maybe i like the sound on them but i don't like the feel on them and we use those for comparisons for when we test out or read headphones but normally the stuff that i keep is the stuff that i like and that i feel is the best especially when i've done it so that's what everyone comes to me for they go they go we know we saw your

post review of what you call it but what do you really like Chris and so influencers have a lot of power in that I get I get asked all the time yeah AT&T has kind of become to a point where people like Chris the AT&T guy so they kind of know if they ask me you know what service you like the the AT&T guy. So they kind of know if they ask me, you know, what service do you like the best at AT&T? And I do. I've tested Verizon. Verizon has some really good areas in San Francisco that are better than AT&T. But overall, for my money, when it comes to data and everything else,

I've had great experience with them. So, you know, people have these reputations. But I think people have to be smarter like i saw i saw recently or i worked with a brand recently who talked about how they hired a bunch of pretty girls on instagram to market their product their product wasn't really in the pretty girl segment it was like uh i think it was like cases or computer it was like I think it was like cases or computer inside computer sort of stuff basic and in that really didn't fit the venue and you're like hey you can get pretty young girls to promote that but that's not you know makeup or

something or you know maybe different shampoo or other brands like that one thing I'll put you on the spot here and get your opinion. You can, you know, if you don't want to give it to me, you can avoid it. But, uh, what do you think about recently? We've been seeing this Instagram sort of pushback where sometimes these, these sponsored posts on Instagram and they're, they're, they're sponsored. I should probably use in quotes, uh, where they're hiring influencers and they create this kind of utopic sort of post that has the product in there but it's it's so unreal in its ad that that ends up getting mocked i'll give an

example there was a there was a gal recently for i think a shampoo brand or some maybe skincare brand i think it was a shampoo brand um and this uh very pretty beautiful young girl on Instagram who does these posts she made this post of this is how I wake up in the morning you know and and it was this beautiful poster her hair done her makeup on she's sitting in her bed and kind of some pajamas and she's got like a bowl of strawberries and blueberries on the bed and she's eating cereal and over on the counters the shampoo like everyone's walking and going no one puts their shampoo on the side of their desk on the side of their bed dresser that's not something you do with your shampoo and then you know just the whole fakeness of it um what do you think about those if i can put you

on the spot sure i think there's a lot that's unfortunately not authentic on Instagram. And that's mainly just because people spend so much time getting that perfect shot. It's not of the moment. It is not, you know, without hours of editing and making sure we get the right, you know, pose and look. And the posts that you're talking about,

I think are brands who want to capitalize on a specific influencer and they think they know the recipe. And that is not an authentic partnership or relationship. And obviously, you're not going to get the most positive results from it. So you really have to pay attention to what's working for that influencer. And if a photo like that is, that may not be the right place for you as a brand. You know, you nailed it. Authent it authenticity that's a really big word being authentic being real being honest you know I have I have product reviews

that say this product fail and I've got product reviews that I have torn the crap out of the the company's product not touring the crap by the company because I'll do I'll do a review for you just like we did with GoPro where the next product you probably fix the technical issues on using what I'm most beastly to a product is when they either don't respond or don't care I've had PR companies tell me that they you know the product is broken but they're gonna sell it anyway because they can't afford to retool it and re-inventorize it and lose all the money.

So they're just going to play the game to see if people return the product or not, which is very few times that happens. But authenticity is a really big thing. I mean, I'm not a pretty face on social media. I mean, I think we can all agree to that. There might be some circles, I don't know, that I might be pretty in. Who knows? There's also weirdness on the media. I mean, I think we can all agree to that. There might be some circles of, I don't know, that I might be pretty and who knows. There's also weirdness on the internet, but we'll go there. But people have always loved me because of my authenticity or my

attempts to be authenticity. I think it would be unauthentic. I can't say that word. I think it would be unauthentic if I tried to, if I said I was perfect at being authentic at all times. I think that would be my own BS. But the fact that people have seen me in the good, bad, and ugly, they've seen me fail products, they've seen me be ugly at products, they've seen me laud products and go, this is really the awesomest thing you could ever have in the world and have

other products that go, this is trash. Speaking of my mind on social media, there's a lot of people that don't agree with either my politics that I've espoused or sometimes my point of views on life that I've espoused, but a lot of people, and I'll even catch them in my social listening.

I've actually had people that I've caught on Twitter going, I hate Chris Voss. He's stupid. He's arrogant. Blah, blah, blah. Pick your verb. He's just an idiot. But I follow him because I want to see when the car crashes. Yeah.

I'm sure no doubt people that want to start a car. They want to know that moment that, I don't know, I get arrested or I go off the rails, drive off the cliff, you know, whatever. They still tune in because somehow I'm interesting. And I've

actually found over the years there are friends that disdain me and hate me but they will stay my friends on Facebook and keep listening to my stuff because they're just like, this idiot, see what he does next. And you're just like, well, hate me or love me, as long as you listen and hit the like button. Yeah, well, it's entertainment like we were talking about earlier. That's what somebody wants to sit down for an hour and spend time with you,

even if they don't like you. It's entertainment. I mean, I've actually had people that have said to me um on on youtube it's pretty prevalent it used to be worse before google plus kind of destroyed comments but uh it used to be that people would come on and they would just say you know very ugly things about me sometimes fat shaming because i'm a big guy and i have a few videos where i've gone to places eaten and put on like a show and and it's kind of like you know towering burgers and stuff so you know I've asked for it I've tried to entertain people but I've gotten some ugly comments and at first it used to be hard to deal with you're like wow okay

you know I've had people tell me I should I should end my life because my review video was not to their liking and I'm like the value of my life depends upon quality of some you know earphones yeah um but but uh what's interesting to me is is I realized that I get paid for that I'm like all right so you wrote a hateful comment about how much you hate me on my YouTube channel that just sells my YouTube channel RG rank you know that just YouTube's like hey it's getting comments and put him in front of more people and and you know thanks for that penny I got paid on the YouTube view so so if you want to call me whatever you want to call me knock yourself the hell out because the money's in the

bank baby yeah if it makes people feel better go for it you should um you should build a chat bot for your recommendations that'll cut down on your personal time i probably should yeah when i what i really i should probably i should probably just uh hey i've seen people do this with videos i think uh the one guy who's like number one on youtube I forget his name I forget his name and I want to forget his name um but he's done videos on to why so-and-so sucks I probably should do a channel on why Chris Voss sucks or I hate Chris Voss yes I just have a whole community of people who hate me like I hate Chris Voss. Like, I'm secretly running it behind the curtain like the Wizard of Oz.

Let's do it. Do it for a year. Let's see what kind of metrics we get. Well, it's been a great discussion, Keith, and we love having you on the show. Give us your plugs again where people can look you guys up on the websites, on the interwebs, and interact with you some more. Of course. Twitter's the

place I spend most of my time. I'm at Keith S, So that's K-E-I-T-H-S. And, you know, next year will be 14 years in the industry. And I guess some point of this past year, I really was trying to make a concerted effort to talk to schools and universities and really try to Skype into college classes and help shape the curriculum and the syllabus and give a little bit of the real of what's happening in the world and at agencies. So if you're hearing this and you are a professor or know someone who is, I would love to connect with them because I'm finding such, you know, reward out of jumping into classrooms and really helping to shape some college students and their time at whatever school or university they're

spending their time. So we'd love to talk to you. Awesome. Awesome sauce. And, man, you're getting right in that community of these people that were born with these phones in their hands. And, you know, all they've ever known is Instagram. They're like, MySpace, what? Yeah.

Yes. And so they're real masters of the thing. I mean, I've had brands that I work with where the 19-year-old is yelling at me about the filters on Instagram. And I'm like, lazy. And I'm like, I don't know. And they're the professional filter maker. You know, you got to do it this way. And they're almost like their own Ansel Adams of Instagram when it comes down to it.

Yeah, they're good at it. I just found, conversely, that found conversely that none of them have placed a Twitter ad and none of them even know how it works. And I tell them, look, these properties will take your money. So even if you want to spend a dollar on an ad, go through the process and understand how it works. Because to come to an agency or come to a brand and try to be a marketer and not have that experience, I just think is a myth. So I'm trying to help wherever I can. And I look forward to speaking to some new people and hopefully can continue the crusade. Sounds great.

All right, folks. Well, we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. As always, you're the best guest. Be sure to subscribe to the Chris Voss Show. Be sure to go to YouTube.com forward slash Chris Voss. Hit that bell notification button because that will give you all the mobile notifications for everything we're doing. Geez, we're reviewing so many products right now. As I look to my left here, there's just a pile of products on the floor. We're so far behind trying to cram this stuff

out for Christmas. We're starting to get all this new CS stuff. I got a chess board, I think, yesterday that moves its own pieces. I don't know if you tell it or use an app. I haven't opened it yet, but evidently, the pieces move themselves. Like you're just like pawnade or whatever, and it just like magic, magic. So we're starting to see a lot of the pre-CS show stuff coming in. So be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel so you can see all the reviews we're doing there. And, of course, the podcast, the Siberian Huskies, and all the recommendations we're doing for Christmas as well. Tell your friends and neighbors and relatives to refer to the show to go to iTunes,

Google Play, Spotify, and iHeartRadio. Wow, you can listen on Spotify. So you can have Metallica, Chris Voss Show, Lawrence Welk, mix it all together, listen to Mel and John and all that good stuff. So anyway, we'll be excited to see you guys at CS. Thanks to Keith for coming on the show. Be sure to check out his website his twitter thing and follow him and of course do some reach out to him if you want to learn more about the company he works for or reach out on how to learn how to be better at social and maybe get some of the business side of it anyway

thanks for tuning in to my audience appreciate you guys we'll see you guys next time