Meet Comedian and Marketing Expert Brian Carter

Written by anni on Monday, February 13th, 2012 with 0 comments

Brian Carter is an Internet marketing expert and the bestselling author of The Like Economy and Facebook Marketing. He is also a consultant, working with a wide variety of companies, including Universal Studios, The U.S. Army and Hardee’s. His specialty is building search visibility and social marketing fan-bases via new media.

With his prolific background in Internet marketing and his experience as a stand-up comedian, Carter is a sought-after speaker for marketing events worldwide. He has been quoted and profiled by U.S. News & World Report, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and Entrepreneur Magazine.

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How did you get involved with marketing and social media?

Short version: I developed a passion for communicating clearly when I went to Toastmasters in 2000. I taught myself SEO while running my own alternative medicine site from 1999-2004. I did well and enjoyed learning internet marketing so much that I switched careers. I kept experimenting, reading, learning and helping clients, then built a search/social department at an internet marketing agency, then went freelance again. I was drawn to Internet Marketing because it combines creativity and statistics- left and right brain. You can quantify psychology- figure out what words and phrases and ideas and images people respond to or don’t. It’s endlessly fascinating. I also love writing, so I blogged and tweeted my way to some prominence (I call it micro-fame), which gave me more speaking opportunities.

 

How has the playing field changed over the past couple of years?

Internet marketing, much like history, always has a new opportunity, along with fading stars and oversaturated networks. Just like the automobile pushed out the horse and buggy, Internet marketing has overshadowed traditional marketing. The same cycle repeats when Google outdoes AOL and Yahoo, or when Twitter comes out of nowhere, or when Facebook overtakes Twitter in social media and challenges Google for dominance on the entire Internet. And now, we have to wonder how big Pinterest will get and if there’s an opportunity for marketing there. We have to keep riding the wave of the most mature but least competitive opportunities if we want to stay ahead, but at the same time, don’t stay so close to the cutting edge that you end up bleeding.

 

It’s clear that social media has presented businesses with new tools for connecting with consumers. Is there a down side?

There are a few issues. There can be negativity from consumers, but there’s less of this on Facebook since there’s no dislike button. There’s already negativity on sites like Yelp and YouTube, so you can’t avoid consumers expressing their opinion, but you can moderate and lead the conversations that happen around your brand, if you’re proactive in creating and contributing to a community.

If you engage in social media without goals, metrics or strategy, you could waste your time. There are a lot of different ways to do social media, and some are very labor-intensive. Some areas require skills like persuasive writing, tracking and analysis of analytics, creativity, and branding- there’s this misconception that because anybody can type or talk that somehow all interaction is equally good, but it’s not- boring social media on Facebook can lead to people not seeing your brand’s posts anymore.

People doing your social media without PR or marketing experience (the “just get any young person to do this” syndrome) can lead to public missteps that hurt your brand, or at best keep you from getting the kind of results that proficient social media marketers get.

 

There are so many people out there looking to you for guidance. Do you ever feel bogged down by your army of Facebook and Twitter followers? How do you avoid burnout?

No, but it is very time-consuming. You have to shut it down sometimes and remember to have a life! Go outside, exercise, have family time… the most active social media people can be connected several times per hour all day, every day. There’s not really a weekend for this kind of work. Personal and professional are merged more than ever before. In a way that’s more fun, but you also have to seek balance and be selective about what you share.

 

What is the biggest challenge you face when speaking to large crowds?

The biggest challenge is that people are at various of levels of understanding. Some audience members are already doing a good job with internet marketing and want advanced tips and tactics. Others are just getting started. And yet another group doesn’t really like using computers at all, especially if they didn’t grow up using them. I use a mixture of levels of material, and it depends on the audience- a speech to an association is very different from a speech to marketers.

 

How do you keep your presentations fresh and exciting?

I’m always trying to evolve how I say things, how I can make it clearer, what the last audience taught me, what I’m learning, and what I’m realizing. I am still trying to get across the more basic things about how I think and work- fundamental things that are natural to me after 12 years of work (these are like Seth Godin or TED Talk concepts). I feel like the most important things I say are the most basic ones, and I can’t get basic enough. Experts don’t have the patience to listen to those things, sometimes, but these are the things that can multiply someone’s business by 10x rather than just 10%.

As social networks have become an integral part of people’s lives, have you found it easier or more difficult to use those venues for advertising? In other words, do you find that there has been a change in consumer attitudes towards profit-driven messages in their feeds or on their profiles?

It’s easier to advertise- and in a way that people like. The advertising isn’t necessarily profit-driven… Political ads aren’t profit-driven, nor are charity or awareness-raising ads. What is an ad? It’s an opportunity to place a message in front of someone, to create a bridge between a person and a webpage or Facebook page, or even to just change perceptions. Ads can complement marketing and PR.

To answer the other part of the question, there’s nothing that 100% of people pay attention to or act on, whether it’s marketing, advertising, conversation, or a blog post. The best ads I’ve ever seen get at most one out of 10 people to respond to them. But usually it’s more like one out of 100 or 1,000. That doesn’t really matter, because you only pay for the people that respond. If what happens from that click is profitable for you, that’s all you need.

 

Describe your marketing philosophy in three words.

Empower individual dreams.

 

What is your favorite social network and why?

Facebook. It’s the most positive, most popular, most affordable, and most fun.

 

If you could give aspiring keynote speakers one piece of advice, what would it be?

Do stand up comedy and improv for a year. After that, all other speaking is a piece of cake and you can handle any situation that arises.