Episode 7 -- Bryan Kramer - Speaker, Digital Marketer and Social Media Strategist

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Oh, yeah, we know what that sound means. This is Social Buzz on Air. What is happening, everybody? I'm your host, as always, Sebastian Rusk. Hey, welcome to the show. Really excited for this week's show. My buddy Brian Kramer will be in the house. Brian's the brains behind PureMatter.com, a digital agency. Had the pleasure of hanging late this year with Brian in New York City for Brian Solas' pivot conference. That was right before all the snow hit. I just saw my phone line light up, so let's not waste any time. Hey, Brian Kramer, welcome to the show. Hey, how are you doing? It's good to be here. Hey, it's great to have you here. Thanks for carving out time out of your busy day, and you are a busy guy. So uh it was great to see you in New York. What was that October pivot was?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

That's right. That was a that was a good time. It was a good it was starting to get cold then.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Exactly. It was perfect. It was like like maybe 60 or 70. Or a man I actually we had to use a jacket a couple of days there, but not nearly as crazy as it is right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

I know, right? Absolutely this is uh uh you know I just got back from Las Vegas. I expected to be there for um uh CES and for New Media Expo uh with with uh sleeves and instead it was it was it was kind of cold. Who who knew who would have known?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Oh, absolutely. That's the thing about uh Vegas and that desert. When it is hot, it's hot. And when it's cold, it is cold, that is for sure. So how was speaking of CES, how was how was Vegas last week? It seemed like everybody in the space was out there. Um I attended virtually via Twitter and Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

I saw that. I actually thought you were there. I turned around a couple times thinking, man, I'm gonna run into you. Um that that's the beauty of Twitter, though. Um I uh I really enjoyed it. I've I've been to New Media Expo, which uh, you know, you you know used to be uh called Blog World, right the last couple years. And this was probably my favorite. And and you know, one of the interesting things about New Media Expo is that every year there's always um there's an there's a uh a bunch of people that you know that you run into, and that's always good. It's kind of like that, you know, old friends club that you run into, and and then you get to have a good time with them. But um, like 50% of the people that were there this year were new, and I felt like I was networking all over again. So it was it was a good mix. I got to uh speak a little bit and I I interviewed um uh Mr. Scoble and and um Chris Hewer and and and saw a little bit of around town at the CES show. So all things considered, pretty good. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

How do you you know, quick question? Speaking of interviews when they're on the fly or they're at an event like that, what have you found the most effective way to interview people when you're on the road? Is it something where, hey, let's you know carve out some time and we'll get it, we'll knock it out in my in my hotel room, or is it in a lobby, or is it just kind of holding your iPhone and getting the interview captured?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

You know, that's a good question. So these interviews were actually on stage. Um so uh and you know what's interesting about that question is one of the interviews, the one that I did with Scoble, I wasn't actually supposed to do. Um Sam Fiorella, uh, who who you may know was supposed to actually have the interview. It was a debate between um uh Dino Dogen and Robert Scoble on the future of bloggers. Oh, and we were we were up on uh I was up in the morning ready, getting ready, and all of a sudden I got a call from Sam and he said, dude, I'm sick. I got I got a fever, I have the flu. Can you can you go to it? And and I said, Yeah, of course. He could he said, good, because it's in 20 minutes. So so I I slammed on everything. I mean, I was not even, I was just getting ready. So I got dressed, ran down there, um, got up on stage, and and and the rest was history. But um, to answer your question on how how I do interviews, whether they're like that last minute or not, I really try not to prepare too much. Um, I personally I think walking up to somebody, having a conversation with them for five minutes, and then exploring the rest of that conversation with the microphone is really what people are interested in in talking to people rather than having scripted answers and scripted responses. So I really try to not do that.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Yeah, I I completely agree with that. I absolutely never rehearse, write a script. Um, sometimes with the hosting or MC gigs, they have some some sort of a run-of-show script. But I I I find that when it's exactly it is more of an authentic conversation. Um, and I guess shoot from the hip for for lack of a better phrase. It comes out. I think it comes out in the interview that it's authentic. Um and hey, you know, when you're like us, you're good. When you're good, you're good, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Hopefully. And sometimes if you're not, you edit.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yes, this is true. Absolutely. So, what was the outcome with the debate? What was Scobel's point of view uh with the future of bloggers?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

This was a hard one because they they tended to agree. Um, and that was, you know, it's a debate, and here they are agreeing on the future of bloggers. It's it's the future of where bloggers are gonna go. Um, uh, will they be around? What's um, you know, what what how are they creating news? Um, that sort of thing. And you know, Scoble is an interesting type of blogger because he doesn't actually blog on a blog. He blogs on Google Plus, he blogs on Facebook. So he blogs on social networks. And then you've got Dino Dogen, who on the other side um built and owns a blogger amplification network that works off of WordPress, which works off of blogs. So the two were having an interesting dialogue around where the blog should live, but at the end of the day, they both agreed that blogging is not going away.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

I don't think so. I think it's getting stronger, and uh bloggers are becoming more high maintenance. I'm one of them.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Yeah, and and you know, quality of blogs was really another uh key point there. Um there's so many of them. How do we dissect and and look at the ones that actually matter or make the most sense? A lot of times people are putting out content that's not spelled right, it's not edited, it's there's no research behind it. And so, you know, is it becoming news um when it's when it's blogged like that? Well, um their their opinion, and and I agree with this, is that the cream rises to the top and you tend to pay attention to the people who you trust and you start following them more, and that's where you look for your news. So um in in a sense, it's kind of the same as what we used to do on on TV. We would turn it to the channel we trusted the most and the people that you know were the most credible and put the most effort into their job. Um, it's no different than that.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

I agree. Now, a hot subject a hot subject late uh lately, and I and I want to chat a little bit about what what's going on at Pure Matter and how that all got started and in this recent post you did last month about some predictions here. But um what seems to be a hot subject right now um seems to be the all of the recent changes with Facebook and with Google Plus not really waiting in the wings. I think they've really stepped up to the plate and they're in the game now. But brands are finding that it's becoming more expensive to be seen on Facebook. And is that a strategy that that's really long term for brands? Do you think they're headed to Google Plus? Do you think they'll continue to use both? Um I I happen to think that Google, you know, this is the year that Google Plus really gains some steam. If they can get over that connecting YouTube accounts to Google Plus accounts, we'll be all right. But uh as far as and I read a quote the other day uh which said Google Plus is Google. And I think that's a tough, tough thing to go on. Yeah, right. But what you know, what's your thought process on what brands are gonna do with all these changes with Facebook? What Facebook's gonna continue to do, and how does Google Plus fit into all this?

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, you know, this is interesting. I was just having a conversation with this um on this exact topic this morning with a company, a brand that has two and a half million followers on their Facebook page. And um, and I'm trying to think of what their Facebook page is, so uh when I remember it, I'll say it, say it here on the interview. But um one of the one of the um interesting things that they had happen was um exactly uh what you just said. They had um thousands of people that were responding and and thousands of people that were resharing their um their posts. And what and all of a sudden it turned into hundreds. It went from thousands to hundreds overnight. And so they were on the phone with me saying, what the heck? What do we do? Right. And so this is no different than what I think you're hearing um out there, right? Um people are trying to figure out what do I do with my page? Now I built it all up. I gotta now um do something with this. I'm not ready to, you know, quit. What do I, you know, where do I go? And and I don't think you should. And here's my here's my thinking. I think that on Facebook, all Facebook did is they made those thousands of people that were not as interested in your content. They liked it once, but they aren't as interested. They narrowed it down to the people that are truly interested. It's kind of like dumping half of your email database from the people that never opened your email or clicked on it down to the people that just engage with your emails. And so I don't actually see something completely wrong with it. The only thing that I think is a is a is a um challenge is now you have to engage more and produce better quality content on Facebook so that the people that actually liked your page are gonna see it. The other part of that is as you know, you have to pay to play. I mean, Facebook didn't create Facebook to be free. Facebook created Facebook from a pay-to-play model. They've never hidden that. And so now if you want to get on there and you want to actually have people see your posts, you're gonna have to pay uh to promote your post every once in a while. Now they have this interesting edge rank system, right? So if people see your post once, they interact with it, the chances of them seeing it again a few hours later is a lot better. So use that knowledge and make sure that when you post it and you promote it, that a couple hours later you're also uh using or posting something within the same genre so that people see it again. And then back onto the rented space model, which is what you were talking about before. You know, Facebook owns your content. They you're on rented land. They own everything. And the same thing goes for Google, and the same thing goes for Twitter, and the same thing goes for all of them, which is exactly going back to now my conversation on bloggers. Blogging on a network, if you're promoting a brand or product, makes more sense to host your content on your own site and own the content and then use the hub and spoke model where you're actually pushing that content out on all these different networks. Now, I'm a Google and Twitter Plus fan more than I am a Facebook. That's not to say I don't use Facebook and love it. I just, if I had to choose an order, I would say Twitter is my place to go. And then Google, I'm really loving these days as well. And Facebook, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm on it.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Why why is that? Why why do you why do you love Twitter so much? And and then Google's second second place.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Because Facebook is is a circle of friends. It's the people who've accepted you into your into your friendship circle. You and I uh connected, I think just this last year after we were at a conference together. So that happened and happens a lot because you interact with somebody or something happens to where you are accepted into that circle. That's not the case on Twitter or Google. On either one of those, you can see content without having to like um somebody. So you don't have to hide it. And I love that. It's it's one to many. It's you you get to talk to the world, you're talking to strangers. It's almost it's so it's so ambiguous. Uh say that 10 times. It's so large. Um that that you you almost are anonymous. And I love the anonymous factor for somebody who's an introvert like me, who can actually talk to everybody and still, you know, you're almost talking to nobody, and everybody's kind of interacting. I love that craziness and it really kind of drives me. Where on Facebook it's so focused. And if you put if you uh really post something, you better make sure that you're paying attention to what you're posting a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Right. Right, absolutely. So I see speaking of engagement, like your your blog post are shared, you know, hundreds of times. Is you know, what what's the thought process behind that without, you know, giving away the special sauce? Is that just an ongoing, continuous effort of making sure that you're constantly growing each and every one of your communities and engaging with them? Is there a certain tactic that you use when when when when writing your blog posts?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Um, I, you know, there's there's probably that would be a whole podcast into itself if I told you all the things that I did that actually got to the point where we got to where I'm getting the the the shares that I'm getting. The one thing that I can I can for sure say that stands out is is that um I think that people are reciprocal. And um, and I have really worked hard at sharing a lot of content. And I, if you look at my Twitter feed, you'll see that a lot of things that I share, um, probably about 75% of it is other people's stuff. Um, and and then the other uh the other third is is either it's about me, about pure matter, or about our content. And um, and and that might be even kind of high as a percentage, but I try to really share a lot of people's stuff. And I think that um, you know, it's really interesting. First of all, I love reading. I read four to five hundred blogs a day because it's fascinating to me. And I just love to actually pull that in. I don't actually read it word for word, but I pull in the interesting ones and I narrow it down to the ones that I really like and read them through. And once I've shared those out and I'm reciprocal in that, in that way, or I've shared it out, I get these reciprocal um uh shares. People come in and they want to see what I'm sharing. And it just is this kind of it's not a give to get because I'm not doing it to get anything. I'm just getting these magical return returned um shares, and people are coming in and sharing it back out. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Fantastic. So over to the article that you wrote back in December. I say back in December, like it was so long ago. Uh, 2014, we're in full swing here, obviously. Uh the title of the post was 2014 Predictions for the year of relentless curiosity. What was the thought process behind that post?

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Uh, I probably had a glass of wine or two.

unknown 14:05

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Um, you know, the the uh I do one every year, and I'm always interested in um reading other people's predictions as well as coming up with some of my own. Um and I really just wanted to go through and make sure that I outlined also for myself what I'm interested in for the next year. So it's kind of like a guide for me of what I'm gonna pay attention to. Um, another good person who does that is um Brian Solis. He, if you go look at his 20, his predictions, he actually talks about exactly specifically what he's paying attention to each year. And that's that's that's kind of within the same genre of what I'm trying to do. So I kind of outline five different points. And for the people who are listening, it's the internet of things um that goes mainstream. So as you know, it's that digital world that escalates to the physical world, kind of what Jeremiah Ao Yang is talking about, where um where things are manifesting into the Airbnbs and the Ubers of the world and the and the devices that are connected to our internet, to the internets. Um the second one is social influence. And as you know, influencers are, I think, and I I I'm I'm I'm really passionate about about influence being uh the next the next evolution of social. Um so if you had to look at how um how you can take a few and and and really promote it to many, influencers have a strong foothold on that. And that's um kind of what I'm what I'm saying there. And active listening meets social selling, is really a big one. That's number three. Active listening have always been about, but how you actually combine that into social selling, you know, you really can't uh target people online and actually sell to them. Uh, you have to be an active listener. You have to watch and hear and listen and see and understand what the makeup or what I call a social body language is of a person or or of a company. And once you understand that, you kind of know where they're going, you can actually, you know, start to weave content into the same place and weave conversations and understand how they're working and start to gain relationships, what starts to, you know, manifest itself, hopefully, in the business. And I've seen that happen in the millions of dollars with some of our clients. So, you know, it's it's a different kind of way of working. It's through active listening, not just listening. The fourth thing is social technology opening up. Um, you know, we you've you've seen uh we were at that pivot conference uh together, you've seen hundred hundreds of uh social pieces of software that's out there that um are closed off. They're not that they they don't have what you call an open API. And those APIs are closing out other software pieces, like if you would if take a look at Salesforce, for instance, they're probably one of the most open pieces of software out there from an uh online um uh application, software application perspective. So when you look at at these closed applications that are building these little microscopic things that do wonderful things, but they don't connect to other things. And now you're operating five to ten different pieces of software to do five to ten different things, it's not helpful to a company. And so we need to start seeing companies that are starting to open up and share and and and come up with a certified, consistent way of working so that we can uh have one piece of software, one dashboard. And then the fifth thing is the internet as a concierge. And again, this could be a whole nother podcast, uh Sebastian, but um, you know, the internet really needs to serve us. I think it's heading in that direction. Um when you look at uh I throw out an example in my post here, um, like IBM, IBM's Watson. Um, you know, you could literally with their software technology, and this is where it's heading, you can be online and say, um, you know, help me out with my bank account because I don't um, you know, see where my funds transferred to correctly. And IBM Watson can not only connect you to where the funds transferred immediately online in a chat, um, and and say, you know, we've we've now taken that those funds, we see where they're at, we've moved them back. IBM Watson will take it a step further. Um, this kind of technology will will actually tell you, we've also just taken a look at your uh credit report, and we noticed that your uh mortgage could be handled a little bit differently that would give you an extra $500 in your pocket if you would uh want to type yes, we can actually start that process right now. So it's doing like multitask human functional things based upon one task that you started in a in a very, you know, again, humanistic way. So that's the internet really serving us. And I'm not talking about terminator kind of stuff. I'm talking about the stuff where it's actually helping us versus us having to input information back in to help them. Um so those are the five areas that I think are really gonna come up. Now there's, you know, just a ton more that we could talk about, but that's um that's those those are kind of them.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Yeah, well, you know, again, I don't think these are things that are making us less personable as human beings. I think it's just making life a little bit easier. Um I'm I you know, the the more technology comes out, you know, I find it um you know challenging. I've got a you know a preteen that is just, you know, without her iPod, you know, life just doesn't exist. And I'm like, you know, when I was 12, I had a speaking spell, and all I could do was multiplication, addition, and subtraction. And we had a phone. And if you want to talk to your friends, they had to make it through mom and dad first, you know? Um, so it's definitely, I believe that where I heard uh, who was it the other night? Oh, it was Bill O'Reilly said, uh, you know, technology is making our kids grow up in a false reality.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

And I kind of agree with that. I really do. But at the same time, it's great because it's making life so much easier. Um, speaking of uh of Twitter, uh we we got engaged in a pretty um pretty cool conversation with a circle of guys uh on Twitter uh and our friends over at CrowTief.com uh decided to pull some custom fabric and and make us some pretty snazzy bow ties. So we would be grossly negligent not to give Crow Thief a shout out. They're in San Diego, I believe. And um their website's CrowTief.com exclusive handcrafted menswear. You invest in yourself when you purchase a Crow Thief original. Quality is the core originality and style of byproduct. So be sure to check them out online. I'm stoked to get my bow tie. How about you, Brian?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

I can't wait. I can't wait for us to do our virtual um event um, you know, and get on and all actually have. I think it's the first time I've seen anybody uh crowdsource and and pull together something like this, design bow ties across Twitter and post it and and then um you know return them back, have us approve every step of the way as she designed the whole thing. And now um we're gonna get them in the mail and have have a fun online digital party. I hope everybody can join us for that.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah, no, I'm really stoked about that. Absolutely. Another big shout out to Crothy. Thanks a ton for doing that. And uh, and for really, you know, uh well, what's it called when um they're they uh really disrupting the the pattern of how you normally crowdsource and tell the story of your brand. That was a really cool. So we're almost out of time, but I definitely want I wanted to wrap up with um what's going on at Pure Matter. Um, how did all that get started? And what do you guys primarily focus on right now?

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Yeah, we're we started 13 years ago. We started in the dot bomb. Um we thought that you know it'd be as good a time as any to start a business, I guess. And um it turned out that we were right. We um started it as a uh both digital and traditional uh company. We both uh my partner and I had um uh I had had an internet company before, a um uh website company, and and um and Courtney had a brand development company. And we merged the two, built uh built it and rebranded it as Pure Matter. And um, here we are 13 years later. We've we've evolved over time. So now we've evolved really into a digital social agency. And so we're working with um enterprise brands, you know, Cisco, Pitney Bows, Plantronics, and um IBM companies, you know, of that kind of really uh fun stature to be able to help them with their digital uh transformation. We're helping with uh content uh plays, um, demand generation and um and social um social movement. So we've got um a lot of fun things going on. We're just under 20 people, and we've got um a lot of different people here working over creative and content and programmers and um all kinds of stuff. So it's a lot of fun and and it really helps to you know have a tagline, our our tagline serious fun, and we're really trying to promote that whole balance of serious and fun at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Yeah, it's not hard to do in the social space. I think, and you'll agree with me, going to these events is uh is a lot of fun. Speaking, attending, MCing, whatever the case may be, uh you end up walking away with more than you you got you got there with, and it's always a ton of fun. Um and that's that's I think that's what life's all about is having that uh that lifestyle business where um work is fun. I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

And I'm glad we met um at that uh uh con I think we met at a couple conferences or at least online. Um and that's exactly what it's all about. I mean, social isn't anything without the uh personal or intimate uh relationship that that happens um outside of social. And when you combine the two like like we did um and like so many do, it just makes it so much more fun. And um and it and like I said, you go back to these conferences and you see almost old friends and yet you've only met two or three times because you're uh constantly contacted or or having a conversation online um all the time. And that's that's that's the fun.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

It totally is, and you never know what platform. I remember uh a few months back, Mark Schaefer was here uh on Miami Beach to give a talk, and I noticed a picture that he that he posted. It was like a gorgeous day on Miami Beach. I'm like, wait a second, he's in town. So I messaged him on Facebook and said, Hey, how long are you gonna be in town? He said, I can meet you. He didn't even say how long he's gonna be in town, he just said, I can meet you for a drink tomorrow night around six o'clock. And um, he was on my uh show probably about a year and a half ago uh when he came out with this clout book, and I just remotely had been in touch with him but never met him in person. So this is a great opportunity to finally uh take that on, which is very common these days, take that online relationship um offline and just get a chance to sat. We sat for an hour and uh had a drink and chatted it up and uh got his point of view on you know where you know where we're all at and got some great uh great advice um and told him what I had going on too. But I that is just it and he summed it up. He said, you know, I was supposed to go to a dinner tonight, but I decided to go, you know, I this I love this stuff. Being able to find somebody saw my picture posted, you message me, and we end up meeting in person the next day to continue to further the relationship. It's just really cool how that works out.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Not great.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Totally is totally. Well, uh, we are out of time, Brian. I really appreciate you carving out some time. I know that you're uh just getting the afternoon started out there on the left coast, huh?

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah, that's right. It's 140 here.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Absolutely. Well, we know what that sound means. That's a wrap for this episode of Social Buzz On Air. If for some reason you fast forwarded all the way through this episode, rewind it back and start over. We've been chatting with my buddy Brian Kramer. You can read more information and follow and connect with Brian online. It's so easy to do. Brian, that's Brian with a Y. Kramer, K-R-A-M-E-R.com. Follow him on Twitter, Brian Kramer as well too. Hey, Brian, don't be a stranger. Come back soon to the show, will you?

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Hey, it's my pleasure. Hey, I'm Sebaster Russ, signing off from our studio here in downtown Miami for Social Buzz on Air. We'll talk to you next time.