By Cheval John

January 17th, 2018

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Today’s episode of What’s The Word? features Chris Strub, author of “50 States, 100 Days: The Book.”

The live streaming revolution officially started in early 2015 when Meerkat, now defunct, and Periscope was introduced at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

This led to many small business owners joining the live streaming community and building a strong personal brand.

People like Cynthia Bazin, Brian Fanzo and Sabrina Cadini.

Mr. Strub set a goal of live streaming from all 50 states of the United States while volunteering at non-profit organizations.

From the accomplishment of live streaming from every state, he got the opportunity to work with brands in the non-profit sector and was the good will ambassador for The Salvation Army late last year.

In this episode, you will hear:

-what led him to live stream from all 50 states
-the importance of businesses embracing social media
-the relevance of snapchat

Snippet on Vallano Media TV

Full episode on BlogTalkRadio

Website: www.teamstrub.com

Twitter: @chrisstrub

Quotes from Chris Strub on:

FUNDING THE TRIP TO LIVE STREAM IN ALL 50 STATES

At Binghamton, I studied English and Economics.

From the economics perspective, when you think about the value of your life, when you think about opportunity costs, which is if I don’t do this today.

What is the cost of not taking action?

What is the cost of not starting my own business?

What is the cost of just sitting there and do nothing?

For me, the cost of visiting 50 states in 100 days was somewhere around $11,000 to $12,000, which is a lot of money.

In the grand scheme of things in life, $12,000 is not the end of the world.

Certainly when you are comparing that to the cost of college, when you are comparing it to the cost of a graduate degree, it’s nothing.

It can be a drop in the bucket especially if you go to a State University of New York (SUNY) institution like Binghamton.

I’ve been reading this book by Chris Guillebeau, the first person to visit all 193 countries around the world, called “The Art of Non-Conformity,” where he talks about the alternative college experience and the way that the world has changed over these last few decades.

You can really gain so much valuable experience at so much less of a cost than going to obtain a traditional master’s degree just by reading certain books, connecting with certain influencers or download an app that will teach you a new language for free.

That is the philosophy I took with 50 states in 100 days.

I believe that I earned a master’s degree in the United States of travel, live streaming and social media.

That’s very special to think about.

I do not have a piece of paper on the wall to mark it down.

I think that having the chance to speak at conferences around the country, being entrusted with brands like The Salvation Army and working with Humana last year.

These are enormous opportunities that did not require me to get a master’s degree.

I went out and did all of this on my own.

You can make more money, but you can not make more time.

When you are thinking about what you are doing with your time, where are you investing your time, where you are living and who you are spending time with.

Even now in 2018, I have been thinking more and more about where I am spending my time, who I am speaking to, what stories I am watching on Instagram, what am I watching on YouTube, because your time is your most valuable asset.

It’s the one thing that we can not make more of.

When you invest your time in big idea and reading books and learning.

Reading books like “Talking In Pictures” by Chelsea Peitz.

You can learn so much just from taking action on what some of these influencers are recommending.

It is not rocket science to get a Gary Vaynerchuk book.

SETTING GOALS

The more you define your goals, the more you understand what success looks like for you, the better you can understand the importance of taking these steps along your journey.

For me, I think I have been a victim almost of not setting goals high enough.

In 2015, my goal was to visit 50 states in 100 days, that was it.

Know what happened, I visited 50 states in 100 days and then I looked around and said, “Now what happens?”

You almost expect the universe to deliver you something if you achieve your goal.

You are not promised the next step up.

You have to know what’s next.

BUILDING A STRONG NETWORK

If you are podcasting, if you are writing a book or going to a social media conference, what do you want to get out of it?

I’m blessed to have a lot of people from houston deep in my tribe like Rebecca Councill, Kristy Gillentine and Kristyna Torres-Cruz.

They are all such incredible special people.

I want to leave each conference with at least person who is in my circle.

BUSINESSES EMBRACING SOCIAL MEDIA

I would say that the biggest change we are seeing is good customer service being the new marketing.

We as customers come to expect, maybe not necessarily this great institutional social media strategy.

If I send them a treet, if I send them a facebook message, am I going to get a response?

What is the value of that response?

This one person said at Wendy’s, “how many retweets for free chicken nuggets for a year?”

Wendy’s said, “Eighteen million retweets”

So this person went out and get eighteen million retweets.

This was not a planned campaign.

It was a customer service representative at Wendy’s intelligently replying on-the-fly and that turned into one of the most brilliant social media marketing campaign of all of 2017.

What did it cost Wendy’s?

A couple hundred dollars of free chicken nuggets?

So I think that businesses need to be able to listen better.

They need to be able to understand the conversation that is taking place around their brand.

I would start with focusing on the micro-level.

Making sure that if someone is looking for a response from your brand, that you are answering it.

I think you are going to get a lot more return on investment (ROI) from starting there than you might get from trying to envision this enormous awesome social media strategy that only promotional.