Jay Baer is a digital marketing and business consultant, author of the bestselling book “Youtility“. His next book is called “Hug Your Haters” and is coming out later this year. He is a speaker, blogger, and podcaster, having a (almost) daily video podcast called “Jay Today”. Here, he shares some of his opinions on Digital.
What major trends are you seeing in the digital world today?
Huge shift towards visuals, most especially video. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat. All are becoming more and more video-oriented.
Can companies become digital by default?
I don’t think so, but they can be forced to embrace digital by their customers’ expectations.
How do you get the digital message across to a non-digital C-Level?
Show them customers participating and asking for digital participation. The tendency is to show them competitors, but showing them customers works much better.
A big Portuguese company decided to end their Facebook presence after huge protests on their page concerning a business decision. What do you think of this option?
Nothing is ever gained by ignoring a problem. So, they take down their Facebook page, a place where they can respond and communicate with people who are unhappy with them. So what happens? People go to OTHER Facebook pages and online venues to complain, and those venues are places where the company cannot respond or communicate directly. So, they just eliminated their ONLY chance of telling their side of the story. Short-sighted and foolish.
How do you cope with your traveling schedule? Does work/life separation exist?
Certainly, I’m always working at some level. It’s good and bad. In terms of the travel, I’ve gotten very adept at being able to jump into a project or a blog post or whatever with know mental ramp-up time, and I can work in short bursts in almost any environment. I am not easily distracted, which helps!
You are also an educator. What importance does education have in someone’s development?
Especially in digital, it’s everything. Technology and best practices change so fast that if you aren’t devoting time to stay on top of it, you are literally falling behind every week.
What can we expect from your next book?
The next book is called Hug Your Haters and is all about answering every customer complaint across all channels (online and offline). Sounds like your big Portuguese company would be a good case study! I’m also spending a couple of weeks in Portugal this summer on holiday, so I’ll be writing some of the book there.
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