The Social Media SUCKS Show on Blab w/ Social Media Marketing Author, Speaker, Joel Comm

SPEAKER_02 0:00

What is happening, everybody? Welcome to the social media suck show. I'm your host, Sebaster Rusk. As always, welcome to the show. Today, my co-host, my guest, the one, the only, Mr. Blab a holic himself. Joel Calm. Joel's over here, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

I brought my flying monkey.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Yes. Hey, well, hey, it's it's not a it's not a party with Joel Calm without a flying monkey. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

That's actually a thing. They I hear that they say that.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Wow. So everyone that's just uh uh jumping in here, thank you so much. If you don't know who I am, my name is Sebastian Rusk. Once again, I am a social media strategist, just what the world needs, another one of those. And I wrote a book called Social Media Sucks. If you don't know what you're doing, we do the show uh twice a week, sometimes three times a week, depending on how cool our guests are. Uh Joel um uh and I had some technical blab difficulties last week.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

You you had technical difficulties. I was fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

This is true. This is true. Well, um, in either way, it sucks. Either way, you were extremely uh kind to um offer up a different day, a reschedule, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Well, the good news is I looked at my calendar and there were days in the future, so it worked out for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Yes, yes. Well, when you're not gallivanting around the globe getting paid ridiculous amounts of money to talk about what you do, uh, you know, you can squeeze the little guys in.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

There's there's no gallivanting and there's no such thing as a little guy. We're all the same.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

This is true. So um are are you still doing your night blab?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Uh blab talk live. Uh, when I'm available and Vincenzo Landino is available, we do one. In fact, there is a show this evening at uh 10 30 Eastern, 7 30 Pacific, the center of the blab universe. And tonight we're gonna be talking all about Snapchat because I've been on it now for oh, about 10 days or so, and I've been snapping.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

We can Snapchat right now. We be snapping, we be snapping. Yeah, hey, speaking of, I have not seen or heard from V No, he I did hear from him on Sunday when he was talking about um some NFL uh commentary. But what's that silly little Guido been up to? I haven't seen him. We should get him in here.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

He's uh he's a busy guy there. I just snapped that. He's he's been uh doing influencer stuff and uh you know helping brands is my understanding.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

So here's what we can do. We can just snap him real quick. Hey, what's happening there, you silly little Guido? So I wanted to tell you to join our blab and um yeah, Joe Comm's in the house and uh bow tie.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Everybody snap me.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Everybody snap now.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

I love that. That would be a great parody for them.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

I don't have him on Snapchat. How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

You add him. Oh gosh, Mallory's here now, my stalker. Stalker gal from uh oh, I do have him right here.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Of course I do. I couldn't live without his karaoke. So um I've put together a put together a list of questions for you, Joe Comm.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Ask me the questions. I am afraid.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

We'll just start right from the top. So so first of all, let's let's preface the whole conversation with this whole live streaming thing. Now, I know that you've been in the social game for how long now?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Ever.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Okay. So you're you're essentially a pioneer to it all. This live streaming stuff, the language of live streaming is not new comment conversation for us, but the ability I was live streaming in 2008 when you stream.tv was made available. Right, exactly, exactly. So um um one time for the one time for the stuttering like video, right? Oh, we're we're street streaming.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

No, it actually worked pretty well. We did it out of my office. We did uh JoelCom Live once a week with uh my co-host was uh Dan Nickerson, my VP of ideas, and uh we had a set, it was like a late night set with a desk, and he sat next to it, and I had my toys on the desk, the monkey and my buttons and stuff, and uh we had a big monitor set up in front of us so we could see the chat going on. Uh if you look, just look up uh actually let me find a link. We'll set the Wayback Machine here. I'll find a link to an old show so people can take a look if they I love that Wayback Machine function here. Well, it's a day all the shows are actually still on Ustream. I never use it anymore, but uh occasionally I'm able to log in and yep, my profile's still there. And if I go to my dashboard, videos, and when I go to videos, there are oh my gosh, 138 videos on my Ustream. They're not all my live show, but I will let's see, I'm gonna link to one from 2009. And if somebody wants to uh wow, you can upload them all to YouTube now and download them. Huh.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Interesting. That is kind of well, I mean, what else are you gonna do with them?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

I should like send all up is content to uh to to YouTube so that I can save them. Save them.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Isn't there another one? There's another streaming site too, isn't there? Uh it was uh live stream, right? Yeah, live stream's still around. So all this stuff, but just but all these new platforms with you know Meerkat and Periscope and now Blab. I you know it took me a while to figure out what my place in this blogosphere is. But when I when I no, but when I found out that they send me the archive of the video and then they give me the audio, I achieved three objectives in one. I've got a blog post knocked out, I got my YouTube content, and I've got my Facebook video content, and then I've also got um I got my got my podcast. Yeah, so that my friend is also known as the right answer.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Ding ding ding.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Yes, absolutely. We have um what what what did you I was gonna say what got you excited about live stream, but you since you've been doing it since the since the Ustream Yeah, well, and I did my first YouTube video in 2000 and uh and six.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

So I just linked to a uh a Ustream video there for somebody that wants to open it another window and watch later. Don't watch now because we're here now. Yes, you and me, we're having a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

And if you guys have not done so already, go ahead and uh and utilize that that fun little feature on the left about tell tell a bird and uh invite your friends in here. Everyone that's already in here, I really appreciate your time. I know Joel does as well. We're gonna get right down into the show. I got some real just some just some real good good uh juicy questions for uh uh Mr. Joel Comm. Let me turn the paper right up. Um uh Joel, what did you want to be when you were growing up?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Oh gosh. Um, you know, I don't know that I had a a thing that I wanted to be. I think I just wanted to have I want I know I liked technology and computers. There was no question about that. And so um I I don't know. I I wanted to be me.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

You wanted to be Joel.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Amazingly, that's exactly what happened.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

And what happened? So you went to school, you got out of school, what did you go to college?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

I did. I went to University of Illinois, but I went primarily because it was what you were supposed to do. I didn't really like school, I didn't really try hard. I fell into uh liberal arts and had to pick uh major, so I ended up uh majoring in speech communications with a minor in psych. Um, I didn't pick speech because I wanted to be a speaker, it just seemed like the easiest thing to do. And uh in college I became a DJ. I worked at the radio station there. Excuse me, I got a little froggy that's stuck here.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

This episode of the social media suck show is brought to you by Froggy.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Froggy in the throat. So uh I was uh I was on WPGU Rock 107 FM Urbana Champagne's classic rock for a couple years in college.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Urbana Champagne. Yeah, University of Illinois.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

That's right. Started um DJing in a couple nightclubs around town and did that work on the side. And uh then when I got out of college, I knew I did not want to go back to the Chicago suburbs, and a week later I was in Dallas, Texas, working as a uh doorman at a nightclub on Greenville Avenue in the mid-80s. Uh, and it didn't take long for me to get on as a guy doing the lights for the dance floor, and then as a DJ. Um, and uh wasn't too long after that I started a mobile DJ business, and it was my first entrepreneurial venture. So I started doing pool parties and wedding receptions and getting probably a hundred, hundred and a quarter an hour spinning records, and um that was my first real entrepreneurial foray.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

What was your DJ name?

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Joel. This was before, I mean, we're talking about late 80s, like I was just Joel. I'd come in and spin records and play games and MC, and yeah, there was not like DJ Jazzy Joel, you know, just that I was I thought maybe it could have been, I mean, you know, you never know.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Yeah. Um, so so uh, and you just continue to climb that entrepreneur uh ladder. When when when did you enter the digital space and say, hey, you know, we got something here, um, and I'm not going anywhere?

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Uh so I well, I've been in the digital space forever. I had a TRS-80 model one with 4K of RAM and a cassette player for a storage device in 1980, and I was dialing into bulletin board systems at 300 baud with a coupler modem where you'd put the phone on the modem. Yeah, otherwise it would just be and so I've been dialing in for what 35 years now. Oh man, I'm old. Uh, anyhow, it was 1994 that I started writing to gaming um companies that did computer games and asking for review copies, telling them I was gonna start doing this um uh new software review publication in Dallas. And before you know it was like Christmas every day at my house, software was coming, and uh, and I put together a publication, and then I went to the consumer electronics show in January of 1995, and my eyes were open to the world wide web. And this was a guy who I was on America Online, Prodigy, Sierra Online, CompuServe, Delphi. You got mail. Yeah, you got mail. I was on all those. And um, I woke up to the web in uh January 95, and by uh July of that year I had my first website online, worldvillage.com, which incidentally turned 20 years old this past July. And uh there was only 18,000 sites in the world that year. So I do get to say I am a true pioneer of the web.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

You've been on the internet almost as long as Jay Bear.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

I've been on the internet longer than Jay Bear.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Yeah, I think Jay Jay said I think he's 1994, I think he or 96.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Oh, his website, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

No, I don't know if his website says that. I think we I think we had that conversation over beers one night.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Um okay, let's let's timers around. Yep, I think Hellnet.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Well, it's it's it's funny to see how how the well dropped my vodka. Um it's funny to see how you know the digital space just in general, of course, all the new social media type of agency peeps are the old school, you know, digital agency and traditional agency. It's just it's just it's been fun to see how the the the the turn of the tide has happened with everything being so digital. The tide has speaking of being so so digitally dialed in, uh I'm just stoked about my lighting today. I think it's because it's raining outside and I'm not getting sun in here. I just got got the lighting a little shiny right here.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, I think I'm trying to grow a beard like yours, Sebastian, but it's not working.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Oh, this took me two months. I'm really proud of it.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Too great. I'm gonna shave it today.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Yeah, I I and you're gonna periscope the shave.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

No, I've done that already. I I think that was interesting one time, but I I try not to repeat myself. Yeah, uh try not to repeat myself.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

He's bringing us back there. CompuServe. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

I try not to repeat myself. Uh yeah, I was on CompuServe. I can't remember the number either. I was on uh I was on Prodigy, I was on Delphi, I was on Genie, which it was GE's online service. I was Sierra Online, which was uh done by Sierra Gaming Company, and I was on uh uh AOL when it was America Online installed from a three and a half inch uh floppy disk version 1.x and if you are a software buff, you would love rummaging in my basement. I have boxes and boxes of vintage software dating back to 1980, I believe, including a boxed copy of Microsoft Windows 1.03 on floppy disk.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

And and Joel, what do you plan on doing with these floppy disks from 30 years ago?

SPEAKER_01 13:20

They're part of my collection, it's history. So it's uh, you know, it maybe open a museum one day. I've got uh really most of my collection is old computer games, vintage computer games, because I'm a big gamer. I still am. I play computer games almost every day. If I'm on the road somewhere, you know, I'm in a conference, I don't have time, but if I'm sitting here, I've got a killer PC down here, uh state-of-the-art video, you know, $400 video card in it, and I've got a 30-inch Dell monitor that I'm looking at right now. And if I'm not blabbing or working, I'm blowing up things.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Nice. Well, and all at least so speaking of being so digitized um this day and age, we are in fact digitally addicted. Um, you decided to uh break the addiction for a few weeks, um a few months back and take a digital detox, if you will, uh a hiatus um um of from the digital world. How'd that go for you?

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Oh, it was great. And uh the whole thing that, oh my gosh, you're gonna go through withdrawals didn't happen. It was actually really easy. I went off the grid. I told everybody, I didn't tell anybody where I was going. Some people may have figured it out. I might have told a few people, but at the time I didn't tell anybody where I was going, I didn't tell anybody who I was going with. Um, turns out I went by myself on purpose because I were I just wanted me time. I went out of the country and from the time I got on my first plane to the time I got back over, I want to say Chicago. Um, I had I did not use social media. I did not look at Facebook, I did not look at Twitter, I did not look at Blab, um, no private messages. I had my email, uh, which I had instructed my VA to check my work email and only send to my personal email that which was essential, uh i.e. there was money involved. And uh maybe she sent me six, seven, eight messages the whole time. And there was some times I was taking pictures because I was seeing amazing stuff, and I and I thought, oh, I should share this. And I went, no, I'm not doing that. And I didn't. Uh and it was great, it was very liberating. I I had my iPad with me um so I could, you know, play games and stuff uh in journal. I had my laptop so I could journal, but I stayed away from social and I stayed away from work, and it was great. It was 18 days, and I think that it was um much easier than I would have expected.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

18 days, huh? All right, well, I'm gonna have to give that uh I'm gonna have to give that a shot. I definitely feel that um, you know, I've I've reached a point where I wake up in the middle of the night and start checking stuff, and um now I wake up every night at the same time, just like let's wake up and check social media in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Here's the thing, uh Sebastian, is that you feel like people are gonna forget you, you know, and and no, they just miss you when you come back. They want they they give you even more love. And my and what's interesting is my clout score, which we know is only relevant if you think it is, went from after I got back, it shot up two points. I hit like I went from like an 84, 85 to 87, and it's lingering just below 87 right now. So leaving uh was actually good for me on many on many levels.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Interesting, hmm. So um, well, yeah, all any of you out there that have been thinking about taking it, and I think people take it a little bit to an extreme, you know. You you know, you making, you know, I I remember when people I think people still kind of do it, and it's really stupid, and they and they they should stop immediately, but um announcing because you did it in a productive, respectful way to your community and to your tribe, but like there's a lot of passive, aggressive ways of going. I'm over it, I'm totally I'm sick and tired of it. I'm leaving Facebook. If you need me, hit me up on my cell phone.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Like, you know, I ain't nobody got time for that. My I had reasons for going and it wasn't dramatic about it. And I blogged before I left. I'm I'm go, I said I'm pulling the plug. There's a blog entry that I posted, and then when I came back, I wrote uh 18 days without you, and what I learned, uh part of what I learned along the journey, but it wasn't to be a drama king or queen or whatever kind of whatever type of royalty goes with drama appropriately. Well, you know, where I'm it was for me.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

You know, where I'm getting with that is that you know, you don't have to be dramatic, you can do it in a very productive way, just like your your your your template for the way that you did it was uh was great. Um, and it is okay to take a digital detox, and people will still be there when you get back.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Yeah, amazing. People are hey, look, you're all still there. And uh and in the sh um the break inspired me to start periscoping and start sharing um experiences and and thoughts of mine with a short form periscope, which I've now done 24 episodes of called the top five scope. If you're not following me on Periscope, please do so.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Let's talk about Periscope for a second here. So I started doing my morning motivation scopes, and a bunch of strangers would jump in. And I think the biggest one I scoped that I did, I was at the Ritz-Carlton for swim week here on South Beach. And um, there was the uh there was a swimsuit show, and um I I periscoped that and had like 500 people on there, right? Of course, I so I was like, well, Periscope's very useful to be able to, when you're somewhere that somebody else is not, that's not a copyright issue, like being on the an NFL field or something like that without without previous permission. This is great. It gives people a peak behind the curtain. I love it. That's that's really the message that I continue to push is that social media allows for that peak behind the curtain for brands, businesses, etc. So I got excited about it and then I would do the morning motivations, and it started to be more of a chore. So then I psyched myself into doing them because I'm like, all right if I get on there and I get all fired up and I say some motivating things and get people pumped up, I naturally get pumped up. But then it started to fade again. And um and then I realized that maybe, you know, maybe I'm not a periscoper. And I then I started this blab thing and I've been consistent with this. Um, and then, you know, but then I see the Periscope community growing around me, and the FOMO is just off the chart. So I'm still trying to flush it out. So, with that being said, um, and this is kind of a um uh what's it called, um a selfish question, but it also provides value to the listeners. Why does somebody need to use Periscope? And if someone wants to start using Periscope, what what's a good way to do that? I mean, just in a quick, you know, reader's digest.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Well, nobody has to do anything. That's the beauty of social media, is you get to decide what sites and tools you want to use to engage on, and they should fit with your lifestyle. You know, it's anytime we come out there and say, well, you should be using this, people get overwhelmed. They're like, but I'm already having to do this and this and this, and they start letting social media and apps run their life. That doesn't work for me, and it shouldn't work for anybody else either, because then you begin resenting all the things that supposedly you should be doing. If you want to broadcast your content one to many and engage with people who are watching your content, if you have a message that you want to share, not in this type of format where we're talking to each other, where we have multiple faith, you know, uh people in the conference, but where it's you sharing your thoughts, your ideas, uh showing people experiences and engaging with people that chat with you um via text in the Periscope app, then Periscope could be for you. It works really well for me because uh for example, uh what I don't want to do is get on Periscope and stream for an hour. I'm great with doing that on Blab. Heck, I can do three hours on Blab because we're having conversations, right? It's not just me talking. I even I get tired of the sound of my own voice, but on Periscope, I can do a format that's short. So, for example, what I decided to do, not only so now I'm burping. I don't even know, I haven't even eaten anything today. How is it that I'm burping? Somebody explain this to me, please. So, what I wanted to do is a short form show that would allow me to share whatever it is that I'm thinking that day, but in a format that wouldn't just be Joel just talking. And I came up with the top five scope, and the top five scope are my top five, whatever it is that I want to share on any. given day. So one day it could be top five reasons to have a guest on your show. And I was standing next to Warren Whitlock in Vegas when we did that. Another day could be top five computer games that I'm anticipating. Two days ago I did top five worst kinds of Facebook posts. So it could be business, it could be personal development, it could be personal, it could be travel, it could be movies, it could be whatever I want. And I spend a few minutes welcoming people, engaging with them, then I officially start the show and it goes anywhere from eight to 12 minutes. And then I'm out one and done. Now here's what's really cool. Not only am I engaged every day? Uh I I I try to do it four to five days a week. It really depends, you know, over Thanksgiving I took four days off. But I did one two days ago I did one yesterday. I'll probably do one today. So you know five top five scope makes sense to do it five days a week.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Mallory has a question for you, Joel. Would you uh still consider Periscope a one to many format rather than a many to many?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah Periscope uh live fire which I've not used yet but I want to try you now Meerkat Alive for Facebook mentions they're all one to many whereas this is you know this blab format is many to many. So here's what I'm doing though. Once you've created content uh if you're just doing Periscope and then you're putting it out there it exists for 24 hours for replay and that's it okay you're I think you're missing opportunity. What I do is I have in settings it defaults to save my scopes to my camera role on my phone or my iPad. I sync it with iCloud I go over to my laptop right back there. I download the clip the Periscope into iMovie do a rotate on it because I do all mine uh landscape but when you download them they come in portrait I do a rotate drop them into a template that has moved uh music right from i uh right from iMovie it's this playful little tune comes in I put it at the end I put some titles I chop off the beginning part where I'm just welcoming people and just start it at the beginning of the show export it to a file on my computer say and export it to YouTube. I take the YouTube video I embed it onto my blog into a brand new post and then uh I upload it to Facebook as well. So I'm actually getting you know one to two thousand or more views per scope by repurposing it and it's living forever out there on the web and on Facebook. Yeah and that's all I have to say about that.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Yes and you are uh you uh you you you couldn't have said it better and I'm doing the uh almost identical thing so um except for periscopes i excuse me i do use periscope from time to time when there is something that I do want my audience to be able to see or I'm somewhere like a you know a fashion a uh swim week on South Beach but um um I also did um I do I do all my talks as well I I periscope all my I had I did I did a keynote last week and I was apprehensive to leave the comments on because I didn't have anybody manning my phone while I'm up giving the talk so I just shut the comments off because I didn't need anyone calling me an ass clown in the middle of my um what I'm trying to to to to to to grab some content um and then repurpose it as well too so um what what do you think about that is it okay to turn the comments off when when it's unmanned I think you could do whatever you want whatever works for you there there's there's no rules you know the the rules of social media are this maybe I need to write an article around this I'm gonna actually take notes let's let's let's just come up with these right now shall we because I'm um I haven't announced this yet but I'm writing for Inc.com now and my first articles are going to be uh going up probably this week so let's do the five rules of social media one be authentic we're writing here we go we're writing nobody else write this article this is mine be authentic um choose the tools and sites you want to use where do you engage be consistent engage with others and number five don't be stupid there you go there's the five rules of social media I couldn't agree more with those um what um Joel what's the worst part about being an entrepreneur um trying to think of a bad part because I love so much of it uh you know sometimes it can be lonely right you're on your own doing your own thing especially if you're an extrovert like me uh I've got to uh that's one of the reasons I go to a lot of events even if I'm not speaking is to engage and network and uh the buck really does stop here there's nobody else uh responsible there's there's no regular paycheck unless I'm doing the work and bringing it in but uh you know I I've had staff before I don't now I like not having staff better um life is good yeah I agree with that the freedom you can't put a price tag on on on the freedom of being an entrepreneur um it has its ups and downs but I always like to say you know if I'm gonna have the financial stress of a job and a boss I'm just gonna create that financial stress myself and eliminate the boss part yeah I just I don't work well for others it's you know unless awful unemployable yeah in I think that would be a great that's a great shirt right there unemployable unemployed I am 100% unemployable um um what's oh I need to answer a question here no I do not have uh acid reflux but thank you I do um um maybe it's the bourbon um what um what what's what's the best piece of social media advice you've ever received now you're gonna make me think what has somebody told me well can I can I expand it from social media advice to just general um advice which I can apply to social media and life sure okay well I'm gonna do it anyway you can actually do whatever you want Joel that's right I can because you're not the boss of me I think some of the best advice that I ever got came from Zig Ziglar um back in 1989.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

I was reading his book Born to Win and I went to a three-day seminar in uh Dallas this is before I had you know money so it was $500 for three days back then that was a lot and Zig taught a couple things which still um they stick with me and uh one of them is that you get what you want when you help enough other people get what they want. It's about it's about giving it's about the law of sowing and reaping it's about doing good stuff and not worrying about how the payback is going to come. So many people are in the what's in it for me and I've learned that if you um find out where needs are and help people that uh there are many of them where there'll never be a what's in it for you. But the more people you help the more stuff comes coming back around to you. The other thing that uh he said was uh people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And I'm not always good at caring.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

I try to be I aspire to be but uh you know I can be just as selfish as anybody else and and have that mindset of you know what's in it for me and and I have to be very mindful of that and aware that uh hey guess what it's not about me right absolutely um yeah Bob Berg came up again like as we were just talking about Bob Berg uh right on my shelf in fact I did a top five scope a couple weeks ago and it was it was top five books you need to read and one of them was the go giver all right can someone please uh tweet Bob and let him know that um we we've been talking to him about him on the social media sucks show for the past two days we may need to get Bob on the show here uh before too long Mitch brought up one of his other books yesterday Adversaries into allies yeah yes so uh yeah but and Zig is uh Zig is great and the best part about uh Zig is that um um you know his legend lives on so does his brand and so does all the seeds that he planted while he was here um I believe all of his you can pick up one of his books from the 80s and it's still uh relevant today yeah and it still impacts you just as much. Right. Totally I got a chance to see him a couple it was probably uh like nine or ten years ago for those get motivated seminars he was traveling around the world I remember those.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

And uh you know it was a pitch fest but you still got a good solid hour of zig so uh uh it was good to uh to to meet him um uh let's move let's move right down the list here moving right along yeah we're we're moving right along here we're moving and shaking by the way if anybody has any questions thoughts ideas concerns you'd like to hop in the the uh the hot seat here it's not very hot it's it's a cool seat um and uh chat it up with joel or myself maybe have questions for joel feel free to hop in real quick and uh yeah so you've written about 74 books um you know when did uh when did you start this whole uh when did you get the writing itch because it took me I mean well that whole book project's another story but yeah um you know I want to say it was 19 for me it was more the entrepreneurial itch and understanding that content and content distribution is uh the way to build your platform and and develop an audience so in uh I had a content site in 1995 my first site was software reviews it was all content I wasn't writing at all uh but I was developing sites that were family friendly had two young children at the time and it was important to me to create a value that would um contribute to the internet and and not um not contribute to the part of it being the wasteland in the cesspool and there are certainly those places where it's like that and so um created this family friendly content and in 1996 had an idea for my first book found a co-author uh one of my writers for the site um Bonnie Bruno who lives in uh Oregon or did and we wrote a book called Internet Family Fund the Parents Guide to Safe Surfing and it was like a directory of um of family friendly sites but it wasn't until 2004 when I started making money with Google AdSense and showed some of my friends how I was making $500 a day and up in passive income with AdSense they said you should turn this into an ebook. And I said really said yeah so I wrote this ebook called what Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense. It came out in January 2005 and became an instant bestseller and it was turning that book into a physical book in 2006 which became the AdSense code and that's where I enjoyed um reaching New York Times bestseller status and and haven't looked back I've done a dozen physical books have I'm looking at my shelf over here have I don't know probably 10 or 11 foreign translations and uh just got before our blab today got off the phone with the peer and we're talking about a um a more inspirational motivational book for entrepreneurs that we want to do for 2016.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

That's fantastic. So you're clearly lazy in the whole uh book writing department I am I I hate it I hate writing and of course along with with um with um uh being an author comes um speaking opportunities you were already a speaker before the books weren't you know uh you know I I really had not done public speaking until I just actually just celebrated the 10th anniversary of my first um talk and it was um Charlotte North Carolina Focus for the future in November of uh 2005 so it was actually after the book came the ebook came out and I was talking about how to make money with uh Google AdSense yeah that's that's funny I never thought about how long I've actually been speaking people ask me all the time and um I tell them about seven years and I think I'm right it was 2009 right before social buzz TVA I was contracted with a network marketing company to work on the corporate side of things and that involved uh you know I was essentially the hype man and I was like I spoke at events and whatnot and then I was like this is awesome and then social buzz came along and by default I was like I just got to find stages I just need cameras and people to talk to and that started with um you know Chamber of Commerce uh conference room with three people for free right right for free yeah yeah it was a long time ago in a galaxy far away and I people asked me how many talks I've given and I'm like are you kidding I couldn't even you know begin to remember or quantify them it was it there's just so many and and I love it.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

I love I think I love speaking um from the stage more than than anything because um it it it's all about inspiring people right it's about creating content and bringing value in a way that uh that you can't do with the written word uh I love I love telling stories and I love uh teaching um you know bringing content that people can actually use and I love the the light that seeing the light that goes on over people's eyes when they realize that you know what if this guy can do this um I I can do this too I have what it takes and and if I can have some fun along the way uh just be who I am and and clown around sometimes be funny and sometimes not then uh then it's all good.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

Yeah but people ask me all the time Sebastian I would love to speak how do how do you become a speaker how do you do that and I I didn't I don't really know what to tell them. I I somebody one of my NSA buddies told me a couple years back Sebastian if you want to speak more speak more.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Yeah no the answer is uh the answer is uh find an audience who will listen to what you have to say uh you know and initially if you've never done it before and you don't know where to go then uh you know Toastmasters is a great opportunity to hone your skill um you know if you if you've got an inspirational message something that would be good for for kids to hear then you know high schools have assemblies where they give you opportunities nonprofits organizations that might you know welcome you in um to uh to share your message I think that there's just there's so many clubs they love speakers rotary yep I think there's there's a lot of opportunity out there and you just have to speakers speak so find places where somebody will listen to you even if it's just a small audience um which sometimes can be more intimidating but even small audiences are great opportunities to share yeah that's the only and I mean I'll I've definitely there's not a doubt in my mind that this is what I every time I'm on stage I'm like I was born for this shit but um um nothing takes me out of the game more than um three people in the room um or no people in the room like being the first back from lunch is the worst slot ever to be put in at a conference yeah in fact I usually I'll ask um to be right before lunch I find that that's a good slot but you know I'll talk I'll speak anytime I don't like speaking first thing in the morning but I do like doing opening keynotes because uh the stories I like to tell and share can kind of help set the tone for events and so uh I'm a good opener but I'm also a good closer and I'm I'm what I'm good anything. It's an all-around just good speaker darn it yeah and listen there's nothing wrong with owning that um you know there's there's uh people that would say well that's just bragging uh I haven't given you the list of all the things that I do horribly and there it's a very very very long list so when you find what you're good at it's okay to own that and say you know what I'm really good at this and I recognize that it's a gift. I didn't like it really is for me. I it's just part of who I am. It's not yet there's some parts of it that uh I've honed over the years but the first time I spoke um people after me said you're a natural at this you you make it look like you've done it for years and I'm like well that clearly is a gift then right because I wasn't so smart that I had to learn how to do it. It just happens and uh whatever your gift is it might be speaking it might not but whatever it is that thing you do naturally you don't have to take pride in it because you somehow because you have it uh just be grateful for the fact that you have that gift. Yeah I totally agree with that and I and I I definitely know somebody told me a while a long time ago Sebastian um you've got stage presence and stage presence is not something that is um learned um it's something that you are you you you're born with and you got it um I still don't clearly understand what that means but um just I get great features some people can can shoot hoops right some some people can uh sing some people can dance some people are incredible artists and painters or they can draw or they can sculpt others are great architects some are naturally good doctors right they with even without the training they have a sense for for medicine and uh that's not me don't ever ask me to operate the best speaker Mike B's ever heard did not use one slide deck and he captivated within the power of the story.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

You know that is it that now that is a you know there's a gift to be able to speak publicly and have stage presence etc but to be able to get up there and knock out of the park with no slides is incredible.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

It really is and and I have to confess I've been very dependent on slides and I think a part of it is uh because what I'm showing people I have to show you it's very visual to be able to talk about the internet and websites and social media and not have slides uh you know that's really tough. I do I enjoy using a lot of videos in my presentations uh because I I I I'm I'm just a big fan of video and I love to show I do I show people um videos that I've created and then I talk about the story behind the story or you know the aftermath of it and uh people love it and it gives me a break during my presentation where I'm still telling the story but I'm not have to actively do it.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Right right right right oh look at Bob Burke tweeting us back. Honored to be mentioned in the company what a good guy I was telling Mitch yesterday I met Bob a couple years ago my my one of my mentors and friends here in Miami Bruce Trikel um is uh um hosted a uh two-day um intensive for nsa members to come attend and I had the the pleasure of speaking at it and meeting all those other people one of them was uh was Bob Berg so I'm trying to let you in here Mitch I don't know what's going on trying to let you in here buddy is it not working are you I'm trying to uh something's something's not working here on the blabs oh the blabosphere oh the blabs yeah some of these you know sometimes uh some days on blab you just you know you go from top gun to squirt gun you you take what you got yeah you take the good you take the bad you take it all and then you have the facts of life this is true the facts of life which was a great way that was a great show in the 80s was it 80s something it it was it was something I don't know if it was a great show but it was something I just remember it was on Saturday night and I couldn't understand why all those girls lived with um with the one lady yeah I don't know what was up with that either but um weird but I always thought the butch one was the hottest Blair yes Tony exactly of course Blair and Tootie Tootie was there tootie Mitch we're trying to let you how did she get that name that's what I want to know no joe Joe was the one that was the was the butchy one that worked on cars. How did Tootie get her name was you know she eat a lot of beans what was that all about now we got the conversation going when we start uh chatting it up about the uh the facts of life what uh who else who wants to jump in here Mitch uh I don't know what's going on here I'm trying to uh trying to get everybody in here um but it's not working um uh let's see here let's see here your uh joel's thoughts regarding customer experience is the new competitive advantage and how newer platforms help us help us do just that with Periscope and Blab.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Well obviously it's all about you know engagement and the thing about um the new platforms they allow people to see two things one the real people that are behind the scenes for the brands so it puts a human face to it which adds the social element to social media and two it allows customers and prospects to see uh behind the scenes what's happening because with Periscope you can show you can take somebody into your office you can take them on location in the field you know you can show them your desk and where you work and we feel a connection with people when we find points of connectivity and so uh you know streaming just offers that up in spades on in the and then the rest is

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Copyright. Oh no, Mitch. Oh prank caller. Prank caller. Who was that? Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

Copyright violation.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

Yeah. You know, I I've never gotten my hand slapped yet, other than YouTube just saying, hey, you can't use that music and they take the video down. But when I with my biggest hand slap I got was I was watching a UFC fight um a couple of months ago and I was at a bar and I just did a pan of the bar. Of course, there was TVs everywhere with the UFC, but I used hashtag UFC and they freaking suspended my Periscope account and they sent me a freaking death threat from Periscope. Wow. And the UFC said, Don't you ever try to stream one of ours on Periscope. We will shut your account down forever. I was like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Dang. Yeah. All right. That's there you go. That's uh that's tight.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

Yeah, I um if you can do a review of the song, one can skirt copyright issues. Oh, good to know, Mike. Good to know. So I don't know why I can't let Mitch in here.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

I can't either. It's not letting me. Um Mitch, uh, for whatever reason, uh, you can't let me let's lock the seat and unlock it. Try again, Mitch. Nope. I I can I can reject you, but I can't add you. The green check mark is not working. No, it's open.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Yeah, the seat is open.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

He's trying to claim it. Try one more time, Mitch.

SPEAKER_02 45:31

Just when you're gonna get, you know, gonna get some good company here.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

I'm gonna let's see if me uh unhost me, Sebastian. Okay. Let's just try some things. Let's kick the title.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

No, no, that's unfollow. Let's see here.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Um, I don't see uh it's not working.

SPEAKER_02 45:58

Yeah, it doesn't, you can't I can't the blast. I can't, I don't think we totally did. Uh we got lots of familiar faces in here. Grateful Tony, thanks for being here. Uh Mitch Jackson, thanks for trying to jump on here, buddy, and uh join the conversation. Yes, next time, absolutely for sure. Um, there is a lot of awesome on this blab, uh, Grateful Tony, and it starts with uh people just like you and uh Joel and the rest of the other fine folks that are that are in here. We are uh we're nearing our uh top of the hour uh with the social media suck show and our guest and co-host this week, Mr. Joel Cobb. Joel, final thoughts for our listeners here, uh bits of advice, some two cents to maybe help them know what they don't know that they don't know, or maybe just something to help them uh improve their overall social media game so that it doesn't well suck.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Well, uh, you know, I'm in the same boat with you. I don't know what I don't know. And what I don't know is a lot. Uh in fact, I'm ignorant, and you can too. You are you're we're all ignorant. I mean, when you think about the vast sum of all knowledge in the universe, everything there is to know, if you were to like put it on a uh a piece of paper, all this is this represents all knowledge. You couldn't make a dot small enough to represent what you know. So that means we don't know squat. So, you know, I think to always be learning, to always be open, to listen to others, and to uh to seek to always grow, we'll still never have a visible dot on that you know realm of all knowledge. But uh humility goes a long way when we understand how small we are in the scope of things, and at the same time, how much impact one life can have when we choose to do good stuff. Oh, that's a good place to end right there.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

That was definitely a great place to end right here. Do good stuff at so t-shirts available at dogoodstuff.com. Do goodstuff.com, do goodstuff.com. Well, awesome. Um, if if people want to follow you, um, they do they do you go to your website? Is that the best place to do that?

SPEAKER_01 48:10

Yeah, you can go to doblecom.com on Facebook, I'm Joelcom, on Twitter, I'm Joelcom, on Google Plus, I'm also Joelcom, Instagram Joel Comm, Pinterest, Joel Comm I'm Joel, Periscope, Joelcom. Would love it if uh you followed me on uh on Periscope because I I'm very active there doing my top five scopes. Would love for you to come back. I am not. I'm gonna start giving away prizes too. I have uh I've encountered a site that lets me a tool that lets me track the shares that people do. It's called hang on, um, I'll find it right here for you. I dang it, I closed the window. I'm gonna have to look it up. Uh, but it lets me see people who share on Periscope to their friends, they tweet it, who Facebook it, and I'm gonna start giving points to people who watch and give away prizes. I have copies of Lewis Howe's book over here. I have copies of Shell Israel's book, I have Kaching buttons, I have do good stuff stickers. Maybe I'll do that in today's scope. Maybe I'll give away some stickers. We'll start out small.

SPEAKER_02 49:08

So it's kind of like the treasure box in elementary school, but the digital version.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

It is the treasure box. Joel's treasure box. Come to Joel's Periscope and open the treasure box. Grateful Tony, you can do great stuff too.

SPEAKER_02 49:21

Uh that sounds like a strip club, Joel's Toolbox. Oh, wow. Wow. Um, all right.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

Well, on that note, yeah, that was that's a good that was a cue to end this.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

Yeah, it totally was. Pull this guy's mic, will you? Hey, uh, Joel, thanks for carving out some time to hang out with us today.

SPEAKER_00 49:42

My pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 49:42

And uh come come back again, will you?

SPEAKER_00 49:45

I would love to. Do good stuff. See y'all later.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Thanks, Joel. Peace, man. All right, let's see here. And just like that, another episode of the social media sucks show is a wrap. My name's Sebastian Rusk. If you want to chat about social media, you want to chat about the show, my bow tie, thoughts, ideas, concerns, I'd be more than happy to do that. Drop me an email, srusk at social buzztv.com. You can follow me across the board at Seb Rusk, S-E-B-R-U-S-K. Thanks so much for tuning in. I appreciate each and every one of you, even if we haven't met or connected yet. I look forward to doing that. Hey, without you guys, this show doesn't happen. Well, it does, but it gets a little awkward. Hey, I'm signing off from the social media suck show studio here in downtown Miami. Bowtie's getting a little tight here, a little wardrobe change coming up. We'll see you guys next time. Tomorrow, uh Grateful Tony got you on the show. Tune in. Same time, same place, 1 p.m. Eastern time. Bye.