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Introduction 0:01
Welcome to the pirate broadcast, where we interview interesting people doing interesting things where you can expand your connections, your community, kindness is cool and smiles are free. And let's get this party started.

Russ Johns 0:19
And it's beautiful day for the pirate broadcast. And we're here interviewing interesting people doing interesting things. So you can learn something today. And I also want to thank you for being here. All the gratitude in the world. If you're watching this live, let us know where you're coming from. Ask us questions, and let us know that you're here and excited to learn something new today. And also, if you watch this in the future, drop us a line connect with us. You know, we're all the pirate communities open and welcoming to anyone that wants to join in and participate in a little bit of kindness, a little bit of generosity, and a little bit of gratitude. So if you're anywhere on LinkedIn, or you're anyone on Twitter, you know, Bernie, and Bernie, welcome to the party, you're now officially a pirate. Thank you so much for being here, Bernie.

Bernie Fussenegger 1:09
And Russ, thank you very much for the opportunity very much appreciate it. And my gosh, Happy Thursday,

Russ Johns 1:15
Happy Thursday, it's Friday Eve already, I cannot believe it. It's like it goes quickly.

Bernie Fussenegger 1:21
I mean, these weeks have been going super quick, like this since March. It's, it's amazing.

Russ Johns 1:27
It's crazy. Now I want to dive in, we were talking before the show, and I know that you're looking at, 2020 and it has been a monumental year for you, in a lot of different ways and unique circumstances. For many of us, right. And so now you're, you're looking at the opportunity to make a few adjustments and changes in your future. And, I want to talk a little bit about the Twitter chat and some of the things you have going on over there. And also, I want to cover some of the projections that you've seen in the last year, and where you see some of this activity going forward in terms of social and digital media and, where it's headed in your perspective, because I think it's important for us to understand, and gain a little bit of knowledge and understanding about what's taking place. So first and foremost, how are you doing family, is everything Okay? I know, there's some changes in your future, if you want to talk about it.

Bernie Fussenegger 2:33
Yeah, so a little backstory, I've been at Papa John's for Gosh, the last 20 years. And, you know, when I joined Papa John's, we were at like, 1% total online sales. Today, we're up over 60 whatnot. But you know, there's a transition within, the company where, where they're moving other operations and marketing and whatnot down to Atlanta. And, unfortunately, that's not in my cards with the family that we have here, here in Louisville, Kentucky. So it's going to be a definite opportunity to really get back out into what I enjoy doing. And that is digital and social and growing email programs, SMS programs, getting back into content marketing, social campaign management, creating strategies and all that. So that part of it's very exciting to actually get back out into what I love doing and how I love helping brands and organizations achieve their goals.

Russ Johns 3:34
It's an amazing opportunity. And if for anyone listening in, you know, Bernie is a brilliant strategist, when it comes to putting together things that will be noticed online, in the digital strategy in the digital arena. So reach out to Bernie, make a connection, if that's something that you're looking for in your organization. I can highly recommend Bernie's activities. I've seen him, I've chased him down and finally got him on the show. So join in and connect with Bernie if you're not already connected. So I, had a similar circumstance in 2010. I just relocated to Houston. And they had a temporary CEO in the company, and I worked my way all the way through the organization relocated my two boys had followed me down to Houston for Seattle. And all of a sudden, here I am, and they tell me my position is going to be eliminated. We're going to consolidate. And it has already been the downturn and I survived that. It's like, okay, I was six months into Houston, a brand new city, I have, no network to speak of yet. And so I dove in full tilt into the digital arena and haven't looked back since.

Bernie Fussenegger 4:52
yeah, that's interesting, especially when you look at how digital has evolved, not just in my career from the last 20 up until today. But just how much everything's evolved, gosh, within the last eight months, nine months. And we were kind of talking about this earlier, it's, you know, people were forced to innovate, and, improve the way and change the way they engage with their consumers the way they listen to their consumers. And, just that last eight months of what COVID has. A lot of this hasn't necessarily been the CMO or whoever saying ok we're gonna innovate and create all this new features and functionality. That was something that had to happen in order for a lot of these organizations to stay functional to still stay engaged with their consumers to still allow their businesses and brands to still be relevant. And it's been very interesting to see how fast things have evolved just within the last eight months alone.

Russ Johns 5:50
Yeah it's amazing to see, if you had told me a year ago, that I'd be waiting in the parking lot for an order of anything. You have to wait until your called, you get called, or something like that. I'm actually part of a startup that's called, "Hey, it's ready". that notifies you when your order is ready. So even now, in some locations, you don't know when your orders ready, or you don't know whether you should go in or not go in. All of these little nuances in the marketing and the media piece. I know, restaurants, I've talked to restaurant owners that they say 70% of their business now is takeout. Then the delivery, you know, Uber, and doordash, and all of these little elements are out there. And they're all kind of unique and doing their thing and grown in their own little way.

Bernie Fussenegger 6:50
Yes. it's like, they each have their own little niche. But, once you build that, audience, your customer base, and you've got the solutions for them, you start building that loyalty, you start delivering on their expectations of how they now want to be communicated with how they want to engage with you, and how they want to talk to you. And the important thing is to make sure you're listening to your audience, what is it that they want, and don't automatically assume that you think you know what they want, with social, it's so easy to listen, it's so easy to reach out anymore, it's so easy to be part of the conversations, to truly start taking that data and bringing it back and then developing those programs, those strategies that are geared towards what your audiences and what your consumers actually want. So you know, about a times in the past, there be well, this is what we think the consumer wants, in reality, use social to find out exactly what it is, and don't be afraid to reach out and talk and actually have that one to one conversation with them.

Russ Johns 7:54
Yeah, it reminds me of the fact that I've created so many products that I thought what people would just love and enjoy and just run to the door by like, crickets, crickets. Sorry. So, that brings up a great point in it. And I want to come back to what you said is that when you're doing social listening, and when you can actually have like LinkedIn as a huge opportunity to have a conversation, and you know, your engagement is really high. You can actually get involved and understand what people are doing in their personal life. And then all of a sudden, you can take it to the next level and talk to them about product development, what they're doing on social or what's working in their business and what's not working in their business. What are they struggling with? I think a lot of people think that it's quick and easy and that social media is an easy path. It's not an easy path, it's just a different path.

Bernie Fussenegger 9:00
It is and when you think about it you move into a new neighborhood, or you go to a new place of employment, whatever it is, and you walk in the door for the first time, you don't automatically start selling, you try to get to understand you try to get to know, the people you're working with, and, social networking is no different. A lot of times, you get the cold emails and, you know nothing about me, you're asking me, not even my responsibilities, but this is no different is meeting your neighbor, whoever that you know, come in, listen, you really, want to know more about the person understand what it is that they do understand, you know, what the problem is that they're looking to solve, what issues they're having, but really, you know, building that relationship, and it's not just a, it's all about me, but it's all about me, and how can you help them and, how can you promote them? How can you help them with, you know, some of the issues that they have, and then at that point over the long time as you build that long term relationship then you can start getting more into, okay, this is some of the stuff that we can do to really help you. But that's, that's a long term or a long tail. And it's not something that just happens in one day or two day, just think about the relationships that you have with those around you. Those have been developed over, you know, many, many months, years, you know, whatever it may be, and social is no different. So, that's the approach that I've always taken with it is, you can come in, learn, but really, truly, truly try to understand and learn more about that individual and build that relationship going forward.

Russ Johns 10:34
I think it goes back to, when you're really when you really attempt to help someone solve their problem, and you try to understand that problem to the degree that you can actually help them with that. I think that's when the magic happens. And when you can actually, when you can actually articulate what it is they're, they're suffering from. It takes a little while, it's not just a one time thing, it's not just, send an email out and say, Hey, buy my stuff.

Bernie Fussenegger 11:05
That's exactly and it's, you know, it's, about being consistent, and it takes effort, building relationships is not easy. And you know, you've got to have that one that desire to truly want to reach out and learn more about them. And you know, you got also provide value along the way. And it's, like I said earlier, it's not all about you, but it's about we and how can you have a win win for everyone?

Russ Johns 11:28
Yeah. Hey, I want to give a shout out to some of the individuals that have joined us today. And just Hey, Phoenix, Arizona. Morgan is in the house. Thank you so much for joining us, Morgan. I think I'm Matt, Mohawk Denny watching from Washington, DC. I think we're gonna catch up here pretty soon, Matt. How you doing? Eileen, Happy Thursday. Cassandra's in there. frcc. md thanks for joining us Andrew is here. Morning gang market core in the house from Houston. So OGGN network. We're going to have an event later on today. give a shout out to mark and the team over at o gn and reproducing a show live at one o'clock. Pacific Time three o'clock central time today. So join on that one that's on LinkedIn live streaming live on LinkedIn as well. I'll be in the background working on that one. Denise Millen? LinkedIn user, I found it. So somebody is trying to help somebody find the live stream today. Bernie Ahoy. Bernie. Michael is here. Thank you, Michael. I look forward to Saturday. Michaels in a workshop I'm doing so Morgan. Hey, guys, let me know if anyone is looking for someone at director level for marketing and or business development. I'm looking to partner with a company and ready to take on a new project. So sounds like Morgan's in the same situation that you're looking to accomplish. So, Morgan, let's connect I've got some great connections as far as resume help and all that that some people that do some fabulous work. And I want to get into that in a moment. And so Wendy says Good morning pirates. Welcome Bernie. Wait, are you the first pirate in history named Bernie? Arrrgh Yeah.

Bernie Fussenegger 13:28
I don't know if that's true.

Russ Johns 13:33
Listening is the most important part of communication and one of one I forget to utilize while I firehose people with our story. She's a firecracker. So you got to keep it keep on top of windy. So it's one of those things. Oh, and Denise. Mike Baker says Good morning, Russ. And Bernie. I just wanted I just want to take a moment here and and then there's Gabriel, if you don't know Gabriel, Gabriel is in the house. He's an advocate for live streaming, everything that's going on in live streams. And Matt says great conversation. Oh, Howard. I was just thinking about you, Howard. As brushing my teeth this morning. Howard. Creates oral hygiene some great oral hygiene products that are out there in the market. So Product Marketing, Bernie I don't know you guys should talk you have conversation with with Howard. He's here in in Arizona as well. So and I know we'll go through and there's a few more people and I just want to thank everyone for being here. It really means a lot and I love the opportunity to share the community with the new pirates in the join into our conversation here today. I know Bernie that one of the things that really popped up in my feed. I know we're connected on LinkedIn. However, what really interested me was the activity you're putting together on Twitter. And we're talking before the show, and I wanted to to kind of expand on that for those that are not familiar with Twitter, or not familiar with what is available to take place on Twitter.

So yes, so I love Twitter. And when you look at LinkedIn, and Twitter, I kind of have two different audiences. For LinkedIn, I spend a lot of time with career barn and some of the things helping other people to find jobs and with the resume, and we've got an audience that's very engaged on the LinkedIn side, but on the Twitter side, that was one of those probably four or five years ago, Okay, got a Twitter account. on it occasionally, I'm looking at news, I'm looking at sports. And I'm following a few celebrities. And that's it. I was like, there's got to be something more to this. So you know, with that said, I need to find, my interest are digital and social. And I need to look at, who are the people that are performing out here? And how are they using Twitter? What are they using it for? How are they posting? What is their topics? How do they engage with people? So, I created a Twitter list, and I followed, probably took six months to follow. I think it was 30 people to truly understand what it is that they were doing on Twitter, then one day, I came across Madalyn Sklar. And she's the host of Twitter smarter. It's a Twitter chat that happens every Thursday. You know, I jumped into that. And I was like, wow, okay, this is pretty cool. So how these Twitter chats work is once a week on the specific day at a specific time, with a specific hashtag. There'll be a topic and seven questions. And you can have anywhere from 10 to 200 people that participate in these Twitter chats. So the topic may be digital marketing, for example, and the tools that you need to engage with your consumers. And, you'll have seven questions around this. But the nice thing of it is, really one to one peer interaction with people sharing in real time, their thoughts, their comments, and sharing the tools that they use, the programs that they create, how they engage, and so on. So I've participated with this for, gosh, four years now. And I guess two years ago, I started my own Twitter chat, which was digital 360 chat, it's every Friday at noon, Eastern Standard Time. And you know, I started it off the same way as all the others. Okay, let's have a topic. Let's talk about digital, let's talk about social. And it got to the point of, no, that's great. But you know, we're on social for a reason. And that is truly to know those individuals were connected with, what are they about? How did they reach their careers? So I've kind of flipped mine on on its head to be more very similar to a podcast, but just on Twitter. So I'll have a guest, I have seven career questions that I'll ask that individual and, a lot of it is how did you get started? And what's the career path that you took? Then, as I do recent research on that individual, I'll do three, four questions just based on their personal career, and they might be involved in a community, they might have a side solo business, you know, how did you get there? Why did you decide that you wanted to go solo? What are some of the pitfalls, so that we're learning more about this individual more about their career as opposed to Okay, here's this person that's on Twitter, you know, this is kind of things they do look, the bow, but they truly understand more about them to build deeper connections, what it is that drives them, what makes them tick. And really, those are some of the things that I'm seeing on Twitter. Now, when you join these Twitter chats. Another great one is when you join one cm world is another one content marketing world. So they have one that every Tuesday at noon. And, participated in that one for Gosh, a couple years and actually went to their conference two years ago. And the nice thing about that is, I got to meet people in real life that I've been engaging with for two years. When you meet these individuals in real life, it's not handshakes anymore. It's hugs because you truly, you truly knew know them individually. You know, they've got three kids, you know, that, you know, one of them's in high school, you know, that they're struggling with this, because you share so much in these chats. And you are purely there to learn and understand and listen in a builder relationship. So, you know, that's the part about Twitter that, you know, that I've able been able to truly understand and get into. And that's your, in these chats, you're really building loyalty, you're showing your knowledge, and you're building that long term of Hey, okay, if we need this type of service, we can always, pull in Bernie, because, he's been talking about this for three years, obviously, hopefully, he knows what he's talking about. And you share that knowledge and that's long term where you're still promoting yourself, but just in a different way, as you're helping others along the way. And that's the cool part that I did really love about Twitter, because I'm about half and half on Twitter, LinkedIn, and you can find me in both places, but Twitter, you know, that's something and you set up the hashtags, you follow them every single day, and you join in conversations. It's very similar to the LinkedIn side of it.

Well, that's what I love. That's, that's the thing that's fascinating about social media is going to an event, somebody walks up to say, Hey, we're connected on LinkedIn, or I know your Facebook or I know you on Twitter , it's that moment where you're thinking, Okay, what do you say? It's like, okay, you know, we're involved. And what you're doing is, you know, in these Twitter chats as you're getting to go to the next level, and that's like a LinkedIn local, going to LinkedIn local. I've been involved and engaged with some of these folks for a long time you finally get to meet them in person.

Bernie Fussenegger 21:03
Yes,

Russ Johns 21:04
it's really amazing to be able to do that. And I've got friends all over the world as a result of social media. And people say, it always amazes me when business owners go, are, we don't get business from social media, it takes, it's a waste of time. It's like, then you're doing it wrong. Yeah, I was gonna say, I totally disagree with that, because you have the ability to truly listen, I really can't put a price tag on that, when you've got to, your audience is telling you one thing, and you actually act on that, and you engage back with that individual, and you start creating that relationship. And as that relationship grows, then you start going into word of mouth, and referrals, and whatnot. That takes time to develop. But you've got a loyal customer and a loyal audience. At that point, when they start saying, Russ Johns, you need to go check out their product of how they recommend this individual. That's not going to happen in one day. And it takes that time, and it takes that relationship, and social is the place to really build those long term relationships with your audiences and with your customers.

Yeah. And it really boils down to the relationship that you have, I mean, all of my business right now, all of my revenue, I can point back to an incident where it started with the relationship, it started with the conversation with somebody and meeting someone, and building and developing a relationship with somebody, right? I don't have anything that I have right now in my revenue stream, that is related to a resume, or, anything that I can relate to outside of actual relationship, a conversation that took place, and some activity that went in place to generate that conversation. So I'll before we walk away, and I know that we're busy and have things to do and the rest of the days open for us. I want to talk a little bit about what you see, based on the last, 2020 what do you see changing or evolving? That's kind of unique. I know, a lot of people are, you know, there's, zoom fatigue, there's, some things that are going on? And what do you see that is top of conversation, in your arena, on social media in the digital world, and what's taking place.

Bernie Fussenegger 23:35
A lot of what I've seen just in the last eight months, is the way brands are listening in the way they're engaging back with their consumers. At the very beginning of COVID everyone was in a rush to distill this message that was still this message out, but really is stepping back and understanding what it is that your audience really wants from the brand, especially as our our needs are changing. As a consumer myself, my needs have changed tremendously. And how does that change going forward? And how does social become part of that? I think it's a very big part of it of the listening part, then engaging about this, just over the last few years, it's always been that one message for everybody, let's just blast it out. Let's send it out. But we've got the ability and we've got data, every brand has that data on their audiences and on their consumers. And how can you be more personalized with that? How can you create more one to one relevant content within your channels to where you can target and be more specific? And I think, you know, that's another part of what hopefully comes out of this is the targeting and that ability to be more specific and more relevant for each individual post to the one message that's really sent out for everyone. And, as somebody that's had that happen before, it's well, this really done that kind of turns me off. I really don't want anything to do with that brand because I have no interest with that. But we've got the data, we've got the insights, and let's be smarter, as marketers, and within decision, social digital space, to really use that to improve our relationships with our audiences, but really to be more relevant, and more real time, based on the needs that they have.

Russ Johns 25:22
Yeah. And I think it's really the needs are changing, too, I think a lot of backlash on, traditional media, how innovative it can be, and in what is taking place in that arena. So I think it's really a fascinating idea. And I think social media is if we can create better relationships over time in listen and pay attention. I think we're gonna be much better off

Bernie Fussenegger 26:00
It's also more than just jumping into social. Okay, I've got a brand, I need to jump in these 15 channels. No, you don't Step back. Who is your audience? Your customer? What is it that they want? What channel do they want to be in? Or what channel are they not what they want to be in? Yeah, and talk to them in those channels, and create and curate content that is relevant within the channel that they're in? Get some small learnings understand, how you deal with the channel? How the consumers engaging back? What is the content they want as a video? Is it graphics? Is it straight content, test, test, test and grow slowly? And as you evolve and bring in more channels, you understand the resource needs that you have you understand the problems that you're trying to solve? And more importantly, how you measuring all this along the way. So that, at the end of the day, okay, we ran these 10 campaigns? How did they perform? And if your answer is, I have no idea, well, then you're not looking at the data, you're not looking at the analytics to truly understand how you can improve and pivot and really stay ahead of where your consumers are.

Russ Johns 27:09
Yeah. And the beauty of digital also, and I've talked about this in the past is, is when I got into outdoor advertising and 85, you know, is based on a transaction of how many cars were on the road at a certain time during the day, and with radio, how many how many people could you reach with your signal? Potentially, not? How many buyers? Not? How many people are interested in your product, but how many people can you reach? And so you have to decide, okay, well, if I'm reaching a million people, how many out of that million could potentially be interested in, so you have to work backwards in that now with digital, you can actually look at the data, and you can see who's paying attention or, or who's engaging in the con,

Bernie Fussenegger 27:55
Right. And the other nice thing is as your campaigns running, it's not just a set it and forget it, I mean, you can come back, you can optimize, you can change just based on the results that you're getting in real time, then that is just so powerful, to be able to do that definitely helps your ROI and your investment and all that. But I mean, you know, you have that ability within digital compared to even when I started, you know, 20 something years ago on the print world of gashi printed, we made a mistake, oh my gosh, now, everything is gonna cost thousands of dollars.

Russ Johns 28:29
Yeah, I know, it's crazy to see it evolve.You and I have been, in the business long enough to see all of these transitions and all these changes, and video, even a few years ago was not available, Live stream, it wasn't enough bandwidth and there, and now you can jump on, you could fire up your phone and have a conversation with your, audience and tell them about something that's coming up new, and there's a lot of different ways and unique ways that you can actually present your products and services. And, I encourage new startups not necessarily to be everywhere all the time.

Bernie Fussenegger 29:12
Yeah.

Russ Johns 29:13
And maybe master a couple of really good ones, like, you with Twitter and LinkedIn, you master those platforms, and you get the authority that you you've worked for. And so, so much

Bernie Fussenegger 29:28
I think it'll be interesting in, the remainder of this year into 2021, to see where video does go when you look at video search. And I think also, you know, voice assistance is another one that's totally untapped at this point. I mean, meaning, you know, I've got Alexa and it's always Alexa, play the song or Alexa, what time is that? But truly, how are brands going to evolve the voice assistant part of, that technology to where it's more of a utility and actually provides value I think it's a, like a St. Louis University, they have a voice assistance that they give to all the freshmen as they come in. And, you know, they built out content that's relevant for that community to really engage with that voice assistant. And as brains become, more aware of how they can truly utilize voice assistance, we're gonna see a shift there as well. And hopefully, it's relevant. It's something that plays out a little bit more than voice assistants have to have since you know, today.

Russ Johns 30:34
Yeah. Well, Bernie, it's a pleasure hanging out with you. And I look forward to many more conversations like this. Any, last legacy thoughts, knowledge nuggets that you want to leave with the crew today?

Bernie Fussenegger 30:49
Yeah, well, sure. And well, that one I would miss thank you very much for this opportunity to be on here. And if anything, is a walk away from here, please respect other people. Say hi. Smile, you never know what the other person's going through. And you know, something as simple as that gesture, can make the biggest difference in the world for somebody else that you may not know. And, it's the respect part. And, you know, that's kind of kind of what I want to leave it with.

Russ Johns 31:16
Yeah, thank you so much, everyone. I love the fact that you joined us today, Bernie's monumental piece and gift to the world and connect with him join in his his new adventures in follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn and wherever else you happen to be hanging out that you can track him down on and also connect with each other. I know love the feed here that are going on all the time. And I just encourage conversations to take place. Because that's where the magic happens. That's where things take place. And as always, #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree, and you #enjoytheday.

Great Day and thank you all. Take care.

Exit 32:09
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