Hi everyone, welcome to Social Media Hangout Time! I’m so excited today we are here with Sebastian Rusk and, of course, Kimmy.
Hi everyone!
And Sebastian, first off I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate your time. I’m so looking to talking about your new book and we’ll bring that up in a minute but first let me run through what Sebastian’s background so people can understand where you come from and what you’re about. And I’m going to read this because people can obviously see me here.
Sebastian has developed a very unique approach to creating vibes and making noise for brands via social media. His role as an author, emcees, speaker, influencer, personality for brands and social media strategist has enabled him to influence those around him. His forte has been able to make his crazy ideas to reality or what makes socialbuzztv.com a reality today. And I vouch for that because I’ve been watching and watching his stuff and it’s amazing. It is no mystery why Sebastian’s referred to as a walking billboard and the creator of Buzz. Now socialbuzztv.com was conceptualized and founded by Sebastian Rusk in March of 2010, so it’s been a couple of years. And he’s got a large background in the area of marketing online space, he’s been doing it for 12 years or more. And he has a real knack for not only thinking outside the box but showing there could be reasonable thinking inside that box. He has a passion for social media creating buzz for brands and spreading the word on the power behind through the digital space which has been the driving force to launch socialbuzztv.com. And he has a signature look, as you can see, he has a signature look that we always see the bow tie. So if you know Sebastian, you know the bow tie. So hey Sebastian, well thanks for coming on the show, appreciate it.
Hey it’s great to see you thanks for coming on.
Well hey ladies, it’s great to be with both of you and Janet, it’s great to connect with you in this digital space and I appreciate all your support and I do remember us connecting, way back when. Kimmy, you’re a puppet and that’s awesome so I’m just embracing all of these.
When was, have you ever been interviewed by a puppet?
No, I’ve had dreams of one.
First time for everything.
Absolutely.
Well, this is one of our famous questions we ask everyone is ‘have you ever been interviewed by a puppet?’ and you know, we assume the answer but you never know, you never know.
This is true.
Well let’s talk about your new book because you have a book coming out and I saw the name of it and it makes so much sense. So, because it is very, very true. Social Media, here’s the title — Social Media Sucks (If You Don’t Know What You’re Doing). So, can you expand on that, how you came up the name of that for your new book coming out?
Yeah, I sure can and you know the idea of sitting down and I was suppose to travel for Berlin so, when I was a kid, ADD motive, writing a book, sitting down and actually writing a chapter of a book, I’d rather punch myself in the face. But I knew that I needed to get my message out somehow so what I did was I just started, I opened up a Word doc and just started writing a list of potential chapters and then I started to tie each chapter and I tool around with the name a lot. I wanted to be ‘The Social Media is Here to Stay’ and I came up with a couple of different names and this was probably about a year and a half ago and I sat down with my good friend, Michelle Villalobos, she’s a branding strategist and she’s just brilliant at what she does. We were in a strategy session together and I said, I’m working on a book I want to call it this, I want to call it that. And she said goes, wait a second, those names are so not you. Like you have this in your face — unapologetic type of personality, needs to be something that is like … exactly … right there, and I said how about Social Media Sucks and she said that’s it. So I didn’t want it to be, I want to it to be a play on word. I don’t want it to be just Social Media Sucks, I want it to, I want to explain myself a little bit so that’s when I kind of threw in the ‘if you don’t know what you’re doing’ after that. So I knew I what I wanted to call the book and everyday I would commit to like 30 minutes of just writing but yet I still felt like I was chasing my tail and chasing my tail constantly and not getting anywhere. But I knew that when you write a book people consider you an expert even though I don’t think there’s any expert out there with social media because it’s so new but I knew it fit with the brand with what I was doing and creating Buzz and having knowledge about social media and educating people. I came out with the book in addition to the speaking and hosting and I see something I was doing it would be a perfect fit. I found myself in Philadelphia last summer for the National Speakers Association annual convention. I have not been for mood and I say that the NSA that existed for the last 40 years, I know people are professional speakers. I know I’ve been doing a lot of speaking, I really want to formalize what I could do to get in that niche. So I contact the NSA and hey I listen I cover events, I create buzz and with live social media running around with the bow tie and the camera and talk to guest and interact and basically cover the event via social media, would you guys be open to something like that and they oblige and said, ‘absolutely. We’ll see you soon.” So I showed up and one of my good friends, Bruce Trickel, was one of the keynotes and there’s only 4 or 5 of the whole week so that was really a big deal . So there was some hometown love there plus he’s a big deal on NSA space. I had that association. I knew I was there to support Bruce, I was there to cover the event but I really didn’t know above and beyond what was going to come out of it. I got interviews to a company called the Advantage Media that’s based out of Charleston, South Carolina and they are a publishing house and they are a hybrid between I want to self-publish and I want a major publish. What they do is they really walk you through the entire process of not only conceptualizing the idea of your book or taking what you’ve already conceptualized and making it a reality specifically for speakers and specifically for individuals like myself that cannot imagine sitting down writing another chapter and not just getting there because it’s just not my forte. So I talked to them and said what do you guys do about social media and they say we’re not doing anything. And I say what, like you seem to have a great brand, a great product offering and they said, what are you doing book-wise. I said I have about 10 chapters laid out and nowhere close to being even done and the very thought of writing another chapter makes me want to kick a puppy. And I say well I’ve got…
Kick a puppet?
A puppy, a puppy, I won’t kick you Kimmy. And they said we’ve got a product called Talk Your Book. So essentially what you do is give us your manuscript and we assign an editing team to interview you for 68 hours and we take and transcribe that interview and dissect it into an actual book and go through several stage editing process to get your book then print it, publish and then market it. So we get it to put on all the online platforms, we market you as a speaker and a specialist. And we market your book and get your speaking gigs booked and we also do print-on-demand structure where you can order 10 books or you can order 2,000 books, depending on how it works out. I saw an opportunity here where it wasn’t just let’s-make-your-book deal and make peanuts and it wasn’t a let’s-self-publish and keep everything for myself and figure it out how to print it. This is a true relationship in addition to that we have the unique opportunity of coming in and having our agency take over the social media strategy for our publisher. So not only, I am a firm believer that if you want to sell the product you’ve got to be a product of the product. And the way that I can actually get my book done and be able to do that. So we met in July, we had our first conversation in August, we executed their social media strategy in November. Done as far as okay we’ve got 12 chapters done and let’s start getting the process by December. So just got done with the third editing phase yesterday, we’ve got one more and we’re going to head to the structure of the actual book and it should be out, I’m hoping, fingers crossed, late April early May. But that’s how it came together. I knew that I had the name there and the opportunity presented itself. Sometimes, let me say it correctly, not sometimes but all the time it’s about showing up and I had no idea what I in the world I was doing in Philadelphia other than get more familiar with NSA and make some connections and I ended up walking away with the book deal.
Wow! That is really exciting!
It totally is, it totally is and you can read more about advantages at advantagefamily.com and follow my Twitter, too.
I like that, yeah.
They’ve got 2, well they got several products available but 2 major ones are Launch Your Book, Talk Your Book and market your book. Once you get your book done then they say great now what do you do? Well we take that book, dissect it and develop and online product. So I’m really stoked to see what’s going to come out of it. I’ve had a tremendous amount of support, the whole process of existing influencers, names I know you’re familiar with, people that I’ve associated myself with. I had the pleasure of Jay Baer writing the foreword for it, 2-time best seller, and then I have several great testimonials, they’re written at the back by Mark Schaffer and Brian Kramer and Scott Monty with forewording. I just have the tremendous amount of support but that support is a direct reflection of me reaching out and supporting these individuals developing relationships either through an event or supporting when their book came out or something where they said hey, can I interview you? And they remember all that and when it’s time to call and say hey do you mind and then I talked to Scott Monty yesterday and he goes, it will be my pleasure, thank you so much for thinking of me. And I’m like, thank me, thank you! So it’s been an exciting journey, I don’t know what’s next but it’s been so many moving part in this crazy world of building a brand and entrepreneurship and the whole 9 debt. Now we’ve got the agency in place, we’ve got the speaking component, the host, the emcee, the bow tie, the buzz and now we’ve got the book. So I believe that 2014 is going to shine the brightest.
Absolutely! You have been all of there. Like what I’ve said we have been, I pretty much see your every moves in the social media so. I saw your engagement.
That’s scary.
That’s fun, she’s a stalker.
There a difference between, see there are probably stalkers out there watching but there’s a difference between a stalker and the person that actually, because I comment, I interact. Do you want to maybe expand on that because probably that’s something you talk about in your book – just the interaction with others.
Well you know I tell people we’re constantly running into people in real life now in person and oh my gosh, it’s great to really meet you in real life #IRL, And I tell people that’s where were at right now, meet first online and we meet second in person. Eight years ago that would have been creepy. So right now it’s the standard of really where were at and where were able to connect and it’s not as ‘this is kind of weird’, it’s actually how we connect. I was at an event here in Miami Satruday night and the downside to that aspect is that I have people coming up to me because they know me but I don’t know them. And social media creates an environment where it’s like celebrities because you follow them, you’re in touch with them you automatically think you know them. But if had the opportunity to hang out with that celebrity, you would really get to know them. And it’s unfortunate that I can’t remember everybody and I can’t even remember the people that I’ve met sometimes because it just becomes, the numbers continue to grow pertaining to our network and who we’re interacting with so I’m authentic and just apologize and I say listen, don’t take it personal it’s just when you’re constantly interacting and meeting and engaging with people it’s tough to remember names and etc. etc. So that’s my recommendation, if you can’t remember somebody just tell them I can’t remember you, please don’t be mad.
Well, when we’re connected, the connections we have, it’s just you know, there’s social media, it’s just crazy. It’s overwhelming at times especially, like for you, you post a lot and you do it a lot. This is actually a conversation we had before with another person we interviewed, you’re in the same situation where you do it more through your personal profile. And I moved away from that one time because we were not supposed to but now I’m bringing it back. It’s like Facebook makes this changes which I started my page which is the same exact name, kind of like Marty Smith. She has the page, she has the personal profile. And the thing I noticed you have your page but I think you used your personal profile and you talk about what you do in your business and promoting stuff there, too, correct?
Yeah, I do and there’s, I believe there’s not really a need for personal fan page per se because Facebook integrated the follow feature. So even when you reach 5,000 fans, it doesn’t really matter, or 5,000 friends, it doesn’t really matter because people then, by default start to follow you. So instead of me going and developing a completely separate Sebastian Rusk fan page, which I’ve done, I just enable people to follow me and if I don’t know you and haven’t physically met you I’m not going to connect wit you just because for meaningless number of purposes. I would rather just have you follow me and when we finally get the opportunity to interact we can connect at that point. But I believe that social equity is incredibly important in today’s market. People, who you are in business is who you are in your personal life and if it’s not that way I strongly suggest that you revisit that area and find out how to do that. The days of drawing a line saying here’s who I am on the weekends and here’s who I am in business are long gone because we live in a transparent world that if you’re looking for a job and applying and you’re sending your resume out, 9 times out of 10 they are using your resume for 1 reason – that’s to find our the correct spelling of your name so that they can go online, Google you and learn more about you. My buddy Gary V says it best, authenticity and that’s the absolute truth. It just is.
Absolutely. I agree 100%.
People say I’ve got two different profiles and I have one for work and 1 for personal, like why? It just doesn’t make any sense. Embrace the ability to be authentic with your community people, resonate it with realizing that you’re a real person, the real brand. The social media aspect – buzz, events, education, news, etc. it all goes out through my brand but it’s endorsed by me. Why, because brands have social equity but I believe individuals, human beings have far more social equity than brands ever will because they are the ones that actually engaging and having that relationship.
Great. I completely agree, couldn’t agree more. So that brings up my point, let’s back up with what we’re talking about with the bow tie. Where did it come from? Was that something like you just have always one bow tie or what is the brand you added later? How did that come about?
Well, what happened was I actually use to wear big, like point extra glasses, I don’t know if you can still remember.
Yeah, you were.
Cool, so I used to wear point extra glasses because I realize at the rapid rate the information is being exchanged and how we’re all connecting that people can forget about you like that. I don’t want that to happen, I wanted to, I told myself that when I launch this brand let’s just back up and kind of give you the 30,000 book perspective on how it all came together in general pertaining brand. So I was in southern California for 8 years and moved back in 2008 after the real estate market crashed. We all know what happened there. I was doing direct marketing for companies in the real estate space and that was obviously a horrible space to be in 2008. So I knew I wanted to build a sustainable brand. I should have back in Miami with a duffel bag and my daughter in 2008, frustrated, how do they get here? How do I get back, I was on top of the mountain, I was at the bottom of the mountain. It took me a couple of years to wrestle through that and I tell a story throughout the book but I had a friend. I shot a video for the business I was currently doing, still the same thing I was doing in California but half the time for half the money and twice the time which obviously doesn’t work. I shot the video and shoot it to a friend and she said you needed to start a YouTube channel. I think that you will be craved and you will have tons of subscribers, etc, etc. And I said what am I going to talk about? Well, I’ve been on myspace since almost the beginning so social media makes sense. Maybe I can monetize the whole social media thing so social media, social buzz, social tv shows, social buzz tv, ah, that’s it. So I sent those 3 words to my designer and 2 days later I had what is now the socialbuzztv logo. So I started going to networking events and started figuring out video editing with a flip cam and say hey listen if you let me come to your event, I’ll cover it. I’ll create a video for your event and I’ll also tell everybody about it as long as you tell everybody about they know of that. Then I started going to events and said how hard is it for me to do my own events? So I started to do my own events and took a step further and said hey meet me in downtown Miami on Tuesday night but then comeback on Thursday morning because I’m going to do a social media boot camp. So I engaged with someone at a networking level, I got them in my ecosystem and then I got them to come back for social media boot camp. Well that flow I’ve met you at your event, I’ve met you at your event. I’ve been to one of your boot camps and you obviously know what you’re doing helped me to conceptualize and launched the actual, original model revenue model for my brand which was our agency of handling set up strategy and monthly management of brand, social media strategy. So, I started to do that in November of 2011. And that’s why on 2010 I had no revenue of my own, no clue what I was doing, taken the bus everywhere, riding my skateboard, broke as a joke and no clue what I was up. But I knew that I was hungry enough, I knew I have the desire to get back to where I was before but build a sustainable brand. This time I’ll run a brand that people were investing me with. So as things progress, wearing point-extra glasses and running around town everybody in Miami started wearing the same glasses so I thought I’m not going follow a trend. I want to create one. Totally…. So in 2011… that same year I launched or no, I’m sorry, 2012 I want, I knew that I had the ability to bring agency client on , help people set stuff up and help manage it monthly but that stuff comes and goes especially when it’s all evolving and brands have all that tit-for-tat, it’s going to cost me much and I’m getting this much back. Gary V talks about social media being a marathon. I got sprinters close on but I’m a marathon runner. It’s small moves day in and day out that eventually turn into big moves. So I know I needed a product. I launched an educational product two years ago, I guess that’s 2012 and I was way early for the market. It completely flopped because people could barely spell Twitter much less know they have to spend money on educating themselves. So I launched the Social Buzz University and through a series of creating online boot camp and sending people videos and having them subscribe to my newsletter and basically allowing them to have something they can buy from me. It was a ticket in my sandbox – if you couldn’t afford to hire me, if you saw me speak or my book isn’t out yet, you could at least get involved with that but it was so early that the market, we couldn’t gain enough momentum to get it off the ground. Thankfully, we’re actually in the process this week right now, we’ve partnered with Learner Nation, it’s an online platform that takes all kinds of educational products and they approached me here in my office and said we need social media content, can you help? So we’re actually in the process of resuscitating the Social Buzz University but my point is when I initially shot the videos I thought “Social Media Professor.” Now I really went to college but when I think professor, I think I don’t know, bow tie. Maybe I’ve seen too many movies.
There you go.
I shot these videos, I put a bow tie on. It was tied all wrong but at least I made it look it was tied and I started to shoot this interviews like hey welcome back to class, I’m your social media professor Sebastian Rusk, etc. Well when I put the bow tie and I thought wait a second, the glasses aren’t working anymore, but I kind of like the bow tie. In fact, I think I can go out in public like this, I think people will actually take me seriously so needless to say, the bow tie stuck. I showed up at Social Fresh, which I’m now the emcee for. One time to cover the event in Tampa and I met Scott Monty for the first time and of course Scott loves the bow tie, as well. And I had the chance to interview him and I’ll never forget he said Sebastian, remember bow tie is never going out of style because bow ties were never in-style.
That’s true.
What’s funny is I asked him this week do you mind reading early the copy of my book and just give me a quick blurb for the back cover I’d like to quote and he said thank you so much for thinking of me. I’m going to write you a blurb that’s going to make your bow ties spent. So I can’t get away with bow ties to save my life. I tell another story in the book about going down to Miami beach one morning for a run and taking a picture on Instagram about a beachy morning shot and my buddy who’s the head marketing of Perry Ellis commented and said and said oh it looks like another Perry Ellis’ ad, kind of unfortunately. Well that’s all about change with our new spring collection ad I was joking I said well I hope bow ties are involved like he said how did you know? So 2 weeks later I got a knock on my door, it’s FedEx and they have Perry Ellis sent me a package of 5 bow ties from the new spring collection and thank you note that say I hope you enjoy wearing this bow ties and I say wait a second we’ve got something here with these bow ties. And now unfortunately I can’t leave the house without someone saying where’s the bow tie, where’s the bow tie?
I think there was one time you had it I even noticed too that I made a comment, where’s the bow tie!
Yes, yes, exactly.
And Kimmy, look at Kimmy the puppet. I mean I’m not going to get anywhere without my Kimmy.
Oh great!
So awesome, that was…
And there’s actually a chapter in the book that talks about the birth of the bow tie.
Awesome, awesome.
I can’t wait to read your book. I think it will be just fascinating.
Puppets know how to read?
You bet you!
Awesome, that’s fantastic!
Yeah and backing up with Kimmy, I don’t know if you’ve heard her story but she’s a business owner and we teach all about social media. She brings the stuff in, she loves to learn social media so she’s definitely going to be reading your book.
That’s great, that’s fantastic.
So we’re going put show notes together and we’ll have all these information, all your links on the show notes. And your book is, once again I want to repeat that: Social Media Sucks (If You Don’t Know What You’re Doing).
Or Social Media SUCKS, If You DON’T Know What You’re Doing.
I like that version better.
Leave that to Sebastian to put that together, exactly. And by the way it is a perfect title for you and when I saw it it grabs people’s attention. That’s the other thing I love about it because I was like why is he writing a book on social media sucks but then you read that after effect and it’s like, ahh, yep, he is right!
My book actually, he’s got his own Twitter handle, too, so it’s @smsucksbook.
Okay cool.
And he’s got a mind and a voice of his own so feel free to strike up a conversation with the man and ask questions. I wrote the book to tell my story, I wrote the book to give my opinion and I wrote the book to help people better understand exactly where I think we’re at now and where were going. Again it is very opinonative, a type of book but I keep your attention because I constantly telling you a story, I’m telling you my story and you resonate with that story but I’m also giving you examples that work and haven’t worked. People have influenced me, what brands are doing it right, not doing it right and why they should be doing it right, so it’s just basic. It’s not a how-to, you’re not opening up and going to chapter 1 Facebook, chapter 2: Twitter, it’s not that. Let me tell you my story. Let me help you better understand how I got there. Let me help you better understand where I’m going and let me help you better understand, at least in my point of view, on social.
Perfect.
I love it. I love the unique voice that you have. I love, I think you’re doing that to do something to the world today to make yourself stand out and allow the social media world that there is and we’re kind of on the same page there where were doing something different, unique but your own voice and a little bit.
But you have to, and people ask me when they watch my brand what is your revenue model and I absolutely no idea and they look at me like I have 10 heads. And I said but I know 1 thing that if you make enough noise someone will come knock on your door and I believe that I’m making noise on a daily basis, not slowing down, God willing, I’m going to keep rocking.
Awesome, well thank you so much for your time Sebastian and we will get this out there and looking so forward to your book.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot.
Awesome. Thank you so much ladies for having me and I appreciate you guys, I really really do.
Thanks, appreciate you too. Thank you.
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