Powerful Digital Trends You Need to Know in 2020 with Brian Fanzo

Sure. So, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—hence the brand being black and yellow, because everything I have is black and yellow. I moved just before middle school to Virginia Beach, Virginia. I grew up about a block and a half from the ocean, which was really the best place in the world to grow up. It was a big city, but not really a big city. I kind of wish they had a sports team, but most of my family stayed in Pittsburgh. We still have season tickets for the Steelers—my family got them in 1969.

So yeah, I grew up in Virginia Beach and then went to college at Radford University, which is a small school exactly 11 miles south of Virginia Tech. I was there at the same time as Michael Vick, which was a heck of a lot of fun. I didn’t miss a home game of his during his two years there. I played hockey, I was president of my fraternity, and yeah, that’s pretty much where this whole journey started. I ended up moving elsewhere in Virginia, worked for the government, and then ended up in Arizona for a little bit. Now I’m back here in Virginia.

It’s an interesting place. So the cool story there is that Garland Mosley is actually Timbaland’s name, and his younger brother, Garland Mosley Jr., was in my high school class. So his brother got a brand-new Beamer. I remember—it might have been ’98—and Timbaland dropped the car off, and the one behind him, which he was actually picking up, was a neon green Lambo driven by Missy Elliott. Missy Elliott grew up in Chesapeake, that same area. Crazy, right? That part was insane. I’ve seen Pharrell around local parties in the early 2000s, and I like sports, too. It’s a very Navy/surfer town—not huge on big businesses, but Allen Iverson holds a lot of records for high school football and basketball. Of course, Michael Vick and Marcus Vick are from there, and Plaxico Burress, Bruce Smith—Hall of Famer Bruce Smith—he’s got a golf tournament there a lot. So Virginia Beach is an interesting city.

The reason we moved there was because my dad got in a bad car accident in Pittsburgh, and it was the longest one-day drive to the beach from Pittsburgh—a nine-hour trip. That’s where we spent our summers. When his doctor said, “Hey, you need a warmer climate,” and Pittsburgh doesn’t really have that, we relocated to Virginia Beach. I remember thinking, “I’ve never even heard of that,” but it turned out to be really nice. It’s kind of unsung—you know, it’s on the map, but it’s not super famous. A lot of musicians and sports people go back there, because it’s an interesting place where tourism sort of runs things, but at the same time, it’s very military. Kind of a neat place to grow up.

Yeah, nine years. I actually got out of college, proposed, and got married right away. My wife’s family is from the Northern Virginia/DC area, and I couldn’t get a job in IT. My major was Business Information and Computer Science, but I couldn’t land anything in that field. So I started working for UPS, delivering packages, and joined the union. Honestly, it was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had—I made good money and was in the best shape of my life. But after about 18 months, I realized if I didn’t get into technology—the thing I loved—I’d end up a driver forever. That wouldn’t have been terrible, but I decided to make a change.

One day, I was in line at a grocery store buying milk, wearing my fraternity letters. The guy in front of me was best friends with someone in my fraternity, and he basically offered me a job right there. He asked, “Do you know cybersecurity?” and I said, “No.” He said, “Do you know what a vulnerability is?” I said, “No.” Then, “Do you know what remediation is?” Again, “No.” He asked, “Do you like to learn?” I said, “Yes.” And finally, “Can you get a security clearance?” I said, “I think so, never tried.” He was like, “I can hire you now.”

I was making about 90k a year as a UPS driver out of college, which is nuts. This new job was a 31k entry-level, overnight help desk role at the government—supporting one of the most boring software installations you’ve ever seen. But that’s where everything started. I took a lot of chances, seized a lot of opportunities, and it all snowballed into amazing things. Eventually, I was running a team of 32 direct reports, had a multi-million-dollar budget, and traveled around the world—three trips to Iraq, two to Afghanistan, 54 countries over four years. My first 30 hires were all older than me because in cybersecurity—especially back then—very few people wanted to be in that field.

That’s where I started speaking, too. I had a boss who told me, “I’m gonna make you the face of cybersecurity,” because I was the only young person who didn’t mind getting on stage. Literally, that was his reason. They sent me to a communications course that basically taught “Don’t talk with your hands, don’t talk fast,” which is everything I still do today.

Yeah. And I remember coming back that night and thinking, “Well, there goes that.” But they told me, “You’re the exception to the rule.” I ended up speaking for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, every quarter for four years. So now, no stage ever really scares me, because once you’ve faced four-star generals in full military regalia—and tried to make them care about an expression, while you’re talking about the most boring things like a cybersecurity takeover—everything else feels simple.

I spent nine years there, and it was one of the hardest things to leave. I loved supporting the military—especially active duty—and traveling to so many bases. But I also got frustrated. We were always deploying software that was four years behind the times. We’d literally tell them, “Don’t go to the website. Whatever you see there, you can’t install it yet,” because it wasn’t approved. Many of the people I trained had only put “proficient with iTunes” on their entry paperwork, and the military placed them in cybersecurity to secure the drone network over Iraq. But at that time, it was pre-iPhone, pre-Facebook, pre-social media—it was wild.

I loved the impact I was making, working with young men and women in the military, but I realized I wanted to make a bigger impact in the world. After a promotion, as our contract was ending, I just knew it was time to leave. I gave up my security clearance and left the government. Interestingly, I use stories and examples from those nine years now more than ever. It was all about collaboration and community—my team’s job was literally to get the Army to share cybersecurity policies with the Navy. You couldn’t pick a tougher collaboration job: not only did they not want to do it, but everyone thought they already knew what they were doing. At the same time, we were protecting people putting their lives on the line.

Those nine years flew by, but I’m grateful for that experience and I still leverage it often in my speaking today.

Yeah, you should’ve seen me going home to my new wife at the time. She was like, “Great—so you’re taking a third of your pay?” But it’s been a life lesson for me about being transparent and authentic. The crazy part is, the guy who hired me in that grocery line ended up working for me after I got promoted. We built a great bond, and that relationship taught me a lot about handling scenarios like that. I remember asking him later, “What did you see in me—were you that desperate? I mean, I didn’t even have a clearance.” He said, “I didn’t have to unlearn you. The way you answered questions, plus a bit of your background, told me I could give you any problem, and you’d find a way to solve it.”

This was 2003, 2004—YouTube wasn’t much of a thing yet, and I was using tools like SharePoint. That’s basically how I’ve always learned. Even now, when I hire or work with people, the top skill I look for is their ability to roll with the punches. And yeah, we’re all getting punched pretty hard right now, thanks to the “beer virus,” but it’s interesting how those worlds connect. Fast-forward all these years, and it’s been quite a journey.

So it’s interesting. I was diagnosed at 31, and I’ve been medicated since then. That day changed everything for me. It wasn’t even about the medication itself—it was that I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I thought, “Okay, I’m different, I’m unique, I operate differently, but that doesn’t mean I’m bad at what I’m doing.”

I struggled in school. I remember my junior year, my guidance counselor asked what I wanted to do after graduation. I said, “College,” and he basically fell out of his chair. He goes, “You have a 1.4 GPA—what do you mean, college?” And I was like, “But I love school. I have perfect attendance!” And he said, “Yeah, but you don’t go to class.” I actually got into college on academic probation—my SATs were rough. Even though I liked college more because I could choose my classes, it was still a huge struggle. Yet I became the youngest president of my fraternity, I was assistant captain of my hockey team, and the only person running for student body who was in a fraternity, played hockey, and was a computer science major. My mom always said I was “unapologetically authentic” and did things my own way. But let’s be real: it would’ve been easier if I could just sit down and read a book. I was always the Cliff Notes type. Before I turned 30, I’d probably read two or three books total. Concentration and comprehension were just hard for me, but I found my own ways—like watching videos or recording people explaining things, then playing it back later.

When I went to the doctor at 31, I wasn’t actually trying to get diagnosed with ADHD. I just couldn’t turn my brain off at night. I’d lie awake four hours straight. My brother had been diagnosed earlier, and his meds scaled so fast they changed his personality, so I was really hesitant. Fortunately, I had a great doctor who set me up with “drug holidays” every week. One day out of seven, I don’t take my medication. That day is tough, but it’s allowed me to avoid increasing my dosage. I’m still on half the dose my brother had when he was four, and I haven’t gone up in two years.

Getting diagnosed lifted a huge weight, but it wasn’t until I was about 34—going through a divorce, raising three young daughters, and watching my brand and business take off—that I realized I needed to figure out how everything fit together. I worked for the government for nine years, did a startup for five, and now I’ve been an entrepreneur for five years. Being an entrepreneur is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done, no question.

That’s where ADHD became key. I started focusing on how I actually work. It told me, “Yes, you’re different,” but I also had to change things to embrace it. Now I’m super transparent about having ADHD—it’s a big part of my story. Five years ago, I never would have talked about it on stage or on a podcast, but it helps people understand me better. My girlfriend and I talk about it a lot. Once you understand it, you can set things up to make life a little easier. I also have to accept and own the fact that, for example, I have this hyper-focus. If I want to rebuild a website, I can run at 60 hours a week, on top of travel and speaking, and still squeeze in 20 podcasts to learn SEO. That’s the blessing side—it’s my superpower. But I also tell people, “If I don’t reply to your email or you think I’m ignoring you, it’s not an excuse, it’s just how my brain works.” It’s always a learning process, but the day the doctor said, “Wow, you max out on every line,” was probably the best day of my life.

That’s one of the biggest byproducts of self-awareness, right? When you understand who you are and you surround yourself with people who know what you don’t—and who also understand how you operate—it’s powerful. They don’t really teach you that in college, though. That concept allows us to chase our purpose and passion.

I love talking about collaboration, but you can’t truly collaborate unless you’re self-aware. You and I are similar: we’ll have a hundred people say, “Oh my God, we should work together!” We’ve got this idea, but then nothing comes of it. Part of that is because, until you know what you don’t know, it’s hard to gather the right team to move you forward. So kudos to you for doing that—it’s taken me a long time as well. I’ve been a one-man shop for so long, and now that I’ve got three or four different components on my team, it’s cool to see things come to fruition and push us forward.

So, yeah, it’s interesting. As I left the government, I ended up getting my dream job. I remember getting out of college and seeing what Guy Kawasaki was doing with Apple—building this cult as an evangelist—and I saw what Robert Scoble was doing at Microsoft. That was my dream job, and I was able to take it at a data center company. It wasn’t sexy at all, but it was a booming startup. I was the 256th employee when I started. I was there for a little over two years, and we had over 600 employees. We were hiring 12 new people a week, and I built the dream job where I reported to the CEO and had a direct line to the CIO and the CMO. I operated in this non-KPI freedom environment where I was in charge of deploying internal collaboration software, as well as external collaboration with our clients. Then I kind of became the CEO of the company—one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my entire life. Shout out to George Lessman; he had no problem talking, but he wasn’t a huge fan of speaking or doing a lot of interviews. So I quickly became the face of that company—in the sense that, you know, the logos, and we went to events we sponsored. I was getting thrown on stages at Gartner, AWS re:Invent, PM World, because our brand was sponsoring those events. I was speaking there on behalf of those, and it was amazing. I loved it. I would go to the event and tweet from a handle called Pittsburgh Fans, because I was a Pittsburgh sports fan—that’s what I used. For me, it was all just part of my job as an evangelist. At that time, the company was looking at being acquired and making some big changes, as you can imagine with that many people.

I remember it was November 2, 2013—I was talking to my mom. I’m a mama’s boy. I was talking to her about life, things I was working on, and what excited me. She said, “I really worry about what you’re doing online.” She was worried because I didn’t like social media, even though I had a marketing team I worked with. I was like, “I really like social media for my business or my brand. I like to connect with sports and that world.” And she said, “Are you actually the same person offline? Are you being yourself, Brian?” And of course, I was like, “Yeah, of course, Mommy, of course I am.” Then she said, “Well, it’s weird—you don’t have a hat on in your profile picture.” And that was just something little, right? I’ve worn hats my entire life—they’ve always been a part of who I am. I remember getting off that call, walking into the mirror, and writing on it in Sharpie: “Be yourself.” That day, I started to assess why I was struggling with what to post and how to share my business on social media. I realized I was trying to be what I thought other people wanted me to be, instead of doing it my way. And, yeah, that day changed everything. It was a big pivot, a big change. I became instantly transparent—which, I can tell you, is something you ideally want to bring people into gradually, so they don’t wonder, “Where did that come from?” I was there the whole time, kind of faking it, but that was the turning point.

Around that time, I was working at the data center and speaking, and things were taking off. I had just had my third kid. Things were really rolling well. I even got an award—an award by The Economist as one of the Top 25 Social Business Leaders of the Future in 2014. It was interesting—my CEO came in and said, “I don’t know how you got this, but apparently you’re going to TED talks, and The Economist thinks what you’re doing at our company is cool.” That comment really hit home. It wasn’t a bad thing; it was just his way of saying he didn’t really like the social media side, but he understood why I was doing it.

What I found out was that a partner of our company stayed at our office for a month and was blown away by the internal collaboration tools, employee advocacy, and social selling stuff that I was doing. He submitted me, and then all of a sudden I got awarded. The other people awarded were, like, Scott Monty—who was running social and digital for Ford. I remember thinking, “What?” That was the first moment I got a social card to share on social media. It was insane—this was 2014, when even a social card didn’t really exist. They sent me around to different events as an influencer—to speak, collaborate, and share insights. At the same time, the data center ended up getting acquired by CenturyLink, and part of their challenge was that they didn’t understand what an evangelist did. My CEO kind of gave me a golden parachute kick in the butt to get into entrepreneurship. He basically said, “Hey, this needs to be your last day, but the companies I invest in will be your first clients, because I know you have new kids and need to spin something up.”

That’s how it started. I tried to launch an agency, and I failed miserably at it on my own. My business partner is running the agency now and killing it, but it just wasn’t the lifestyle I knew. I did some consulting, a lot of influencer work—like 18 IBM events in one year—and that’s probably when you and I originally crossed paths. My brand was iSocial Fans. The weird thing about iSocial Fans was that at one point I had eight Twitter handles. My last name is Fanzo, so I put “fans” at the end of every one of them. For those that don’t know, I don’t have a niche—I’ve never had one. I was a guy, a hockey player, a fraternity guy, a computer science major—and then there was surfing, which I didn’t even know about. I played poker for a while after school, I’m a die-hard Jeep fan, I’ve owned pit bulls, and so on. When I jumped on Twitter, I felt I needed to account for everything. One of the accounts was like, “How do I merge my Apple fanboy side with my social media side?” And that’s where iSocial comes from—the “i” as in iPhone, iPad—and then iSocial Fans. I had eight accounts, and I ended up tweeting from that one. Then, when I got that award, I thought, “Oh, that’ll be the account.” When I started the business, people started introducing me—they didn’t even know my first name. They’d say, “Oh, this is iSocial Fans.” It became a brand. From 2014 to 2018, I don’t think most people knew my first name. It was interesting because I went all in on iSocial Fans as a brand—every account, every website, I built the business around it. It took a while to figure out that entrepreneur world as I was evolving with influencer work. I wish someone had given me a heads-up earlier. My good friend and mentor, Scott Stratton, told me that when he was 14, he saw Les Brown on TV and knew he wanted to be a speaker. I wish someone had told me that professional speaking was a gig. I spoke at the government from 2004 to 2010, and from 2012 to 2014, I was the face of a data center, speaking at huge events. I didn’t take a picture, I didn’t document a testimonial—there’s not one video out there of it, even though it was the largest event I ever spoke at. That was when I was a sponsor for the data center company, speaking in front of 22,000 people. I never documented any of it.

Around that time, I was gaining influence at work. I want to give a massive shout-out to IBM and Brian Kramer—Brian Kramer was the agency of record for IBM, and we became really good friends. They put me on stages, and I was like, “Holy cow, this is my thing.” But I still didn’t know how to monetize. I was still figuring out how much to make, what to charge—an interesting journey, but that’s how I ended up where I am now.

The interesting part is, I’ve rebranded under what I now call “The Digital Futurist.” In 2014, I got that award for Future Social Business Leader, and the tagline said “Millennial Brian Fanzo.” That stuck for a long while, and I owned it. I called myself a pager-wearing millennial—I even have a pager on my desk that I wear on stage as a gimmick—and I owned that identity. I was the token millennial. When someone said, “We need to hire a millennial influencer,” that was me. But it didn’t really describe me when I had no niche and did a little bit of everything. It has its limits. Recently, I rebranded to “The Digital Futurist,” which gives me the greatest clarity I’ve ever had. It connects my background in cybersecurity and everything I’ve always loved doing with the digital marketing world I’ve been living in. That’s where I’m at now. I’m in a transition point, even moving away from iSocial Fans. It’s amazing how fast this world works. That’s how I got here, and it’s been full of learning and lessons. And like I said, entrepreneurship is the hardest thing out there.

Yeah, 95% of my revenue now comes from speaking. And I can tell you, it’s never smart to put all your eggs in one basket—especially when some virus comes out of nowhere and you’re losing gigs like crazy. For me, part of it was also that I needed to recenter, to restart. I was speaking—2017 was probably 40% of my revenue from speaking, and by 2017-2018 it was up to 60% as I hired a speaker agent and really went all in. I was still balancing client consulting, but speaking is the greatest job I’ve ever had. It’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I’ve also been a big believer in surrounding myself with a team. A lot was going on in my personal life, and I made the pivot to add clarity so people could understand how to hire me. I now realize that the clarity should have been the digital futurist brand, not just switching revenue streams. But that’s a lesson learned—it’s where I’m at now.

I’m very blessed. I did a little over 66 gigs last year, my best year as a speaker so far. What’s interesting is how the industry evolves: there’s no set way to make money, no fixed rate for what you charge, and no guaranteed way to get gigs. One of the things about speaking that drives me crazy is that, and no one really tells you this ahead of time—I wish I had known—that it’s the most business development-driven job I’ve ever had. You can crush it one week, like last week I spoke at an event called Beat a BMX in Scottsdale, Arizona, for the third time. But guess what? They’re never gonna hire me again; I tapped it out. I spoke three years in a row, and they might hire me again in three years, but not immediately.

It’s an interesting world where you do your best, and more than likely the place that hired you won’t hire you the next year. That part took a lot to get used to, a lot to evolve. But I love it, and I’m spinning up a couple of other revenue streams here soon—a book that’ll be out soon, and a couple other things I’m working on. Right now, it’s all speaking all the time—or it was, before the virus came out.

So, you know, especially in the world we’re living in now, we have access to everything and everyone. I love social media, but so many people look at a social media manager and be like, “Hey, I’m on Facebook—I could do your job,” right? And then you think, “I’m not afraid of the stage. Why am I not getting speaking gigs? Why am I not getting opportunities in this world?” I remember growing up in Pittsburgh; I didn’t have access to anything. I didn’t know what anyone else was doing anywhere, let alone even in Pittsburgh. My exposure was literally limited to the people I grew up with. And now, we’re able to see how people do things, where they do things, with courses available everywhere.

It’s such an amazing time, but at the same time, figuring out your path, your own strategy, and your own way of standing out while also being hireable is a challenge. I think today, in the digital age, these are things that no one before us ever thought about. Everybody used to worry about competition in your local area. Before the internet, you didn’t worry about competition in, say, Vegas. Now, if all of a sudden speakers in your area start doing great things, they can cost you gigs in a heartbeat, whether you’re in Mumbai or anywhere else.

It’s amazing—we have this incredible opportunity to connect, but it does take a lot to prioritize and figure out your own path.

Sure. Yeah, I love that. I love that where you’re going there. I think, you know, it’s interesting. You know, the podcast I host—I’ve hosted it now for like four years—called FOMO Fans (the fear of missing out). Last name is Fanzo, and I launched the podcast originally with the mindset that I wanted to help people embrace their FOMO, embrace fear of missing out, because I live on that edge. For free time, I used to hack my iPhone. I listened to a podcast about technology and business as my escape, and I learned it took almost a year of that show to realize that, holy crap, not everyone really wants to embrace FOMO. There’s a small percentage that does, but most would rather find ways to focus on what they’re doing and still be in the know with what’s coming. And so, I kind of changed, you know, internally as well as in the language of the show—rather than helping you embrace your FOMO, I try to cure your FOMO, right? And I tie that into where we’re at now. Because if you look at where we’re at in 2020, I think we are in very interesting times, even before the current state we’re in. You know, at the moment we’re more connected than we’ve ever been before. We have more technology and more opportunities to have our voice heard than ever before, while at the same time we’ve never been more lonely.

We look at the state of the #MeToo movement, where we exposed these ridiculously horrible behaviors that have been okay and that we’ve been turning a cheek to for years, while at the same time some people blame digital and social media. But it was like, no—this just gave people a voice to stop the bad from continuing. And we have to get to an inflection point, which I think we’re at. We’re getting there at the moment, reaching an inflection point of balance. This is where I really focus my attention—the balance and the synergy between innovation, technology, digital, and humanity, and what we want. What do we believe? The idea that we can come together. I mean, the Coronavirus is, of course, huge right now as we’re recording this. I said yesterday in a big group call with some other speakers that I think it’s, weirdly, going to be the unifying thing for humanity worldwide—to realize we’re all in this together, fighting something we’re not even sure how it started or where it’s at, and the only way we’re going to move forward is by sharing information and realizing it doesn’t matter what political party you are, what your race is, or what your background is. And so to me, this is that.

There are these elements, while at the same time the election in November will make us the most divided country we’ve ever been. So we look at all that. I look at the future and trends where it’s really about marketers, about experiences, and there’s a lot of that buzz—not even a buzzword, just experience. But I think what we have to start looking at is what I call digital empathy, and it’s kind of a big soapbox for me recently. It’s about how we can make sure that what we’re moving forward with brings us closer to humanity, to mankind, rather than further apart. And I’d say, we use websites, digital, social media, and phones to get further away from the people we love, from our customers—it’s amazing, right? Like we said earlier, we can reach the world; we want the world to go to our website through a contact form, get an automatic reply from a bot, get put on an email newsletter that says, “We love you, but don’t reply to it.” That’s the world we’ve created.

And when it comes down to it, the weirdest things are what my dad told me in high school (my dad was a candy salesman) about relationships: People buy from people they like. We want to know that we make a difference. We care about belonging. Those are probably more important today than they’ve ever been. So I look at the future and a lot of things, and it’s kind of exciting to see. We’re at that point, right? We’re at the point where I’m hearing it on lots of stages. The word “community” has come back—not as a buzzword, but as a community of realizing, “Let’s surround ourselves with our team.”

And when I look at these trends—like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, machine learning, and all these crazy innovations—they will never be successful until we get over the current hump where technology will never solve people’s problems. We have to identify and solve people’s problems with people, and then technology can scale, amplify, and allow us to innovate even when we’re sleeping—like all the things that technology promises.

And so, you know, I look at things like TikTok, as crazy as it is. I’ve been studying TikTok for 18 months. I have no desire to be TikTok famous, no desire to help brands, my own brands, or brands I work with to actually get on TikTok. But the psychology of the creators, the people using it, the amount of time people spend on it, blows my mind, right? I’ve interviewed 24 different creators and eight different brands on the platform, and they laughed. They were like, “Brian, you didn’t really ever talk about TikTok.” They said you talked about the platform, but you didn’t talk about growing followers or what kind of content works. I really wanted to understand the psychology.

One of the things I felt was really interesting—which I think was my whole goal: How do I know it works here so I can help integrate it into everything else we do? That was literally my goal. And I can tell you, this is what’s successful for me. I dove all in on live streaming, and everybody thought I wanted to be a live streamer—that was the brand people thought I had. Meanwhile, they had no idea that it was really me testing out how to tell our story in a live environment with transparency, showing that perfection is a fairy tale and we can’t control all variables. Then I integrated that into my speaking, into my marketing, and into onboarding clients.

So what I’ve looked at from a TikTok perspective is that one of the most popular hashtags on TikTok, which unites the people there, is #momlife. One of the second most popular ones is #singlemom. Then there are hashtags for nurses, doctors, lawyers. My favorite TikToker is actually a lawyer based out of Charleston, South Carolina. And so I started asking them, “Why aren’t you using Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or any of these other platforms?” And they were like, “You know what, Brian? I got on there because I wanted to see what it was about.” Then I realized there were people like me creating content, and that I didn’t even have to use my voice. I could create videos by dancing to music or using someone else’s audio, and I could share my personality that way.

One of the common themes was that these people weren’t traditional creators, but they had a story to tell and wanted to find their people. There’s no other platform today where, when you log in, the feed is full of the hashtags you watch and create. So if you’re a mom and you only follow and connect with people who use mom-type hashtags, you’ve now found your tribe—and it’s really interesting. And so when I look at that—and it’s not about TikTok influencing us, it’s actually about how today’s users are already using it—we all like to believe that the platform simply facilitates something we’ve always believed: we want to find our people, to connect with them, and for them to accept us for who we are.

The number of mental health conversations and similar topics on that app excites me to a level I never imagined, right? Because we just talked about ADHD in a show like this, and it’s taken a long time for us to get comfortable enough to talk about it. And there are kids growing up—especially those under 30—who are now finding ways to find their people and not feel alone. So I’m super excited about where we’re going.

I do feel like 2020 is going to be a tough year. I mean, Coronavirus is, you know, kind of out of nowhere—we didn’t expect it. I thought it was going to be a tough year before that, but then it came. But I think, you know, if I look at it, we hear things like “marketing will soon not look like marketing.” I don’t like using that phrase, but one of my bold predictions is that we’re gonna stop measuring engagement. We’re gonna stop reporting on engagement because, let’s face it, engagement on Twitter is different from engagement on an email list versus engagement on a website. We’re gonna start finding ways to categorize and manage our connections.

And what that really means is that the people who are our super fans are our super customers, right? I like working with big brands—IBM, Dell, Samsung, all of them. And the idea is, yes, we can market to everyone. We can still operate in this world, but when we find our tribe, how do we activate that tribe to do the marketing for us? All the things we’ve heard. I think one of the biggest problems has been that we all believed in community, in customer experience, and in the power of social media to give everybody a voice—but we didn’t build the foundation underneath to facilitate this at scale.

That’s where I’m most excited. I look at this as the new version of community, a new version of a direct focus on, “Hey, we’re going to embrace, amplify, and invest in these people and in influencer marketing.” Let’s face it—while influencer marketing wasn’t new, in this world it suddenly has vanity metrics and all that. But every business is in the business of trust. The problem is, in this digital world, how do people trust you? It’s very hard, and it’s hard to stand out.

I believe that if you facilitate and build that community and tribe as the foundation of your brand and business, they become the vehicles for extending your trust. It doesn’t matter what account you’re on, what your current business is, or what your business will be tomorrow—they will follow you wherever you go, and they will fuel your fire. And so, yeah, I’m fired up about it. I’m fired up about it. I’m not sure that’s exactly where you want me to go with that, but it’s interesting to me where we’re at now. And I couldn’t be more bullish on the future.

Three individuals. Yeah, the first one that came to mind was Roberto Clemente—the Pittsburgh Pirates humanitarian. He died in a plane crash, kind of before he reached his peak, but he had an uncanny ability to understand his meaning in life and in the world. I’ve studied him a lot; my dad always looked up to him, and I didn’t really understand why until later. The idea of putting those you love before yourself in an individual sport like baseball—well, without question, he would be someone I would love to sit across from and just understand his perspective.

The second one is probably obvious, and I don’t really care—it’s obvious because he inspired me by showing that being a geek was okay and that having your own style and doing things your own way matters. The second one would definitely be Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was taken from us way too early. If you think about how old he would be today, it’s just tragic. And honestly, for me, Steve Jobs is less about Apple and more about the fact that you create a company, you get fired from your own company, and then you create another company. It’s about resilience, sacrifices, and the regrets that come with that—like, for example, the family life he is known for neglecting. I don’t see any of these people as perfect, but Steve Jobs would definitely be number two.

Then, the third one would be interesting, because I think there are lots of different people, lots of different brands, and different ways you can go with those you look up to. I’m a huge believer in studying, researching, investing, and spending time with people who are outside your niche. So, interestingly enough, the third one—one that I don’t think anyone else’s table will be this diverse—would be Dax Shepard. Dax is from Punk’d; he’s the host of my current favorite podcast, Armchair Expert. Actually, as soon as I get off this, I’ll be listening to the episode that went live today. He’s the husband of Kristen Bell, and on his podcast and in life, he’s very transparent about who he is. He went to AA, he found the love of his life, and he’s also very open about all the things on his podcast. Those are some of the most intimate, greatest interviews I’ve ever listened to in my entire life. I believe he’s a more dynamic interviewer than Joe Rogan—who, by the way, I’m a Joe Rogan fan and I put him up there with Howard Stern when it comes to talking to celebrities and getting them to share things they might not even understand.

Part of the reason I would want to sit down with Dax is that he is a fellow proud dad. Being a dad is my greatest job—I wanted to be a dad since I was 11 years old—and I’ve been through a divorce and a lot of challenges. There’s something about connecting with someone who has been there; I would have never thought the guy from Punk’d, with Ashton Kutcher running around like a crazy person, would be someone I’d select. But at the same time, I was running around like a crazy person for plenty of years myself. So that’s a heck of a table, right? I think Roberto Clemente, Steve Jobs, and Dax Shepard would be my dream table.

So on social, I’m iSocialFanz on every single channel. My new speaker website is BrianFanzo.com, so BrianFanzo.com is where you can get in touch. Of all my programs, everything from hosting and emceeing events to speaking and virtual products, I’m launching a new podcast in less than 10 days. It’s all about interviewing—the end, basically, and the future of everything. It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s about how the future of everything is actually pretty simple, which is really where I’m going. I’m going to be interviewing people from all walks of life. My goal is to make it very anti-niche, or no niche, like me—since I’m on every channel. I’m literally active on every social network. I don’t necessarily suggest everyone do that, but I do it so I can help my clients understand.

So my call to action is—I don’t have an email list or anything to sell—pick your favorite social network and give me a follow there. Whichever one is your favorite, I can promise you it can be Pinterest. I’m pretty active on Pinterest at the moment. I’ve even spent a lot of time on Reddit, although my username on Reddit has never been what it probably should be. But if your favorite social network is out there, reach out and connect with me. Ask questions. I love being engaged, and Shane, I love that you have me on. It’s funny—when you reached out, I was like, “Man, we’ve done shows together,” and I realized we haven’t, like, connected so easily on social or Twitter and offline. We’ve been to numerous events together and hung out, but it’s cool to be able to engage like this, with someone you feel like you’ve known for so long. So thanks so much for having me on.

Cheers!