Leading The World In Digital Transformation With Vladimer Botsvadze

As the world goes through an unprecedented digital transformation, more and more people are starting to realize how much power they can actually wield from their fingertips. Most of us have witnessed how the internet, social media, and mobile technology overtook all other forms of social and business interaction in just a few decades, and this transformation is only starting! Leading the world in this revolution is Vladimer Botsvadze, a globally-renowned, multi-awarded thought leader, social media influencer, digital marketing consultant, professor, keynote speaker, and media personality. Join in as Dr. Diane Hamilton picks his brain on several topics, including digital transformation, the role of curiosity, succeeding during the digital age, and social media strategies. This episode is going to be bombshell after bombshell of valuable and relevant information that you don’t want to miss!

 

I’m glad you joined us because we have Vladimer Botsvadze here. He is a globally-renowned speaker, digital transformation and social media influencer. He has a lot to say about social media and how to be a success. We are going to talk to him.

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Leading The World In Digital Transformation With Vladimer Botsvadze

I’m glad you joined us because we have Vladimer Botsvadze here. He is a globally-renowned speaker, digital transformation and social media influencer. He has a lot to say about social media and how to be a success. We are going to talk to him.

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I am here with Vladimer Botsvadze who is a globally-renowned, multi award-winning digital transformation and social media influencer, Fortune 500 consultant, thought leader, professor, keynote speaker and media personality. He’s ranked number one by Thinkers360. You’ve seen him everywhere. It’s nice to have you here, Vladimer.

Thanks for inviting me to your show. I am delighted to share my expertise with your show.

You have quite a background. You’ve won many awards. What you’re working on is amazing. It would help though for people to get a background on you. Do you mind telling us a bit about how you reached this level of success?

I am a top social media and digital transformation influencer, a professor and startup advisor with fourteen years of international experience in marketing and innovation with a proven track record, providing guidance to executives and top brands worldwide. I am renowned for my work as a tireless brand builder. I use my experience to motivate my audience. I’m honored to be ranked No. 1 Marketing, Innovation, Retail, Sales, and Supply Chain thought leader by Thinkers360. I’m also ranked No. 2 Global Retail Influencer by GlobalData. I’m also proud to be among the Top 5 global B2B thought leaders by Thinkers360, alongside Brian Solis, Marcia Collier, Evan Kirstel and the other top influencers. Overall, I won over 200 awards in digital transformation innovation. Millions of people around the world recognize my inspirational insights and millionaire entrepreneurs seek my advice.

My presentations, masterclasses and online publications turn managers into practitioners. I’m frequently invited to top global business calls, summits, podcast episodes, and corporate meetings to deliver my talks. I’m recognized for my leadership and trailblazing innovation. Through my consulting, speaking, teaching and mentoring services, companies have grown from a groundbreaking idea into the fastest growing companies. For example, my expertise is trusted by London Business School, Forbes, The Economist, Audi, and other global brands. I do utmost every single day to help the entire world achieve more. I have been praised by Intel and other Fortune 500 brands for my experience, track record and professionalism. My clients accomplish record-breaking success. I have been interviewed by TV channels, radio and talk shows, and podcast episodes on topics related to social media marketing and innovation.

I’m always driven to inspire audiences to reach new heights, think forward, and solve marketing problems. When I moved to the United States at the age of eighteen, I knew from the first second that I was going to move up in the world and go places. I worked hard and smart on myself. I have been disciplined and driven everywhere. I demand ultimate results from myself every single day, and I’m lucky to live in the best era of history when I can achieve so much through social media platforms, which I use every day for professional purposes. I agree with James Clear, who said that, “It has never been a better time for self-motivated people, anyone connected to the internet has the education power of a university, a distribution power of a media company at their fingertips. Curiosity, courage and persistence are the new gatekeepers.”

I worked and lived at the age of eighteen in New York and Washington. I worked and studied at the age of 22 in London. Also, I worked at the age of 27 in Dubai. I became obsessed with growth in business and tech, and I’m passionate about what I do that positively impacts 40 million individuals annually. I’m proud of my efforts, which show that through hard work and persistence, everything is possible. It is in my DNA to work outside my comfort zone by going for my dreams, exploring new things and getting the most out of my life.

I have risen to global prominence since I became a top influencer across multiple social media platforms, including Twitter, 57,000 followers, LinkedIn over 24,000 and Instagram over 10,000 followers with a total of 125,000 followers over a thousand cities and 185 countries. I have been recommended by a lot of businesses like KPMG, MasterCard, AC Milan, Forrester Research, PepsiCo, and other leading global brands. I enjoy helping others to succeed online. I’m on a mission to make a difference and impact as many business owners as possible. I help corporations with strategies that drive growth.

 

Do you sleep? It sounds like you’re doing a lot of work.

I’m very committed to providing value and helping other brands to triple and quadruple their results. I am committed, dedicated and as you can see, I have sacrificed so much in the last 10 years. I had to say no to many social activities in order to grow my personal brain, in order to build my business. It is interesting to see that it cost me $0 to build my Twitter, my LinkedIn, my personal brand, which allowed me to become a speaker with many great speakers bureaus like All American Speakers, Champions Speakers UK, Las Vegas Speakers Bureau, and other global brands, which I had not imagined many years ago. When you work hard and when you are patient about what you do, you open many doors in business and fortunately, our world rewards hardworking, passionate and dedicated people.

You mentioned that you moved to the US. Where did you move in the US?

I was eighteen when I moved to Washington, DC. I had training and I got my work permit from the State Department, got my Social Security card. I started working in Manassas in DC area, 25 minutes away from DC. I worked 2 to 3 months in Manassas as a manager. I spent a few months exploring the United States. I lived almost two months in New York City. This period totally transformed my career and my vision. I started seeing the world easier, faster and clearer, which allowed me to be passionate about what I do, to be driven and to be enthusiastic every single day. When I wake up, I’m grateful and I thank God that I have energy, drive and motivation to impact lots of people worldwide and to make my dreams come true.

That’s inspirational. You get to an area that is interesting and became an expert in digital transformation. What made you interested in going that direction?

Success is like an iceberg. People only see a tiny part, but what happens is it is a desire of patience, focus, effort, late nights, purely perseverance. Without these qualities, I wouldn’t stand where I do today. In 2014, I connected with Glen Gilmore on Twitter, who inspired me to build my personal brand. He helped me to connect with entire tech audience on Twitter, then I started putting out content on Twitter and I became very enthusiastic about growing my personal audience. I connected with many trade associations, media companies and everyone through Twitter.

My hard work on Twitter truly moved mountains. If someone googles me, they will see everything I achieved, like my interviews, Speakers Bureau Memberships and contribution to digital transformation, industry growth. I’m always happy. My optimism, positivity and patience drive my results. It’s also about making yourself better every single day. I spent a couple of hours reading management, marketing, business leadership books. Jim Rohn said that formal education will make your living and self-education will make your fortune.

Self-education is everyone’s responsibility in this decade. It is a duty for every modern professional because what you study at a business school is not enough. It is a drop in the ocean, and you have to be constantly outside your comfort zone to expand your horizon and learn daily what’s happening in your industry, because a lot changes. If you don’t learn a lot, and if you don’t put out content across 8-10 social networks, you get left behind. To stay relevant in the age of digital transformation and disruption, you need to learn daily and to be committed to providing value.

Soft skills also play a big part in my success, which include leadership. I’m able to lead, inspire my colleagues with my inside experience, innovation and creativity. I bring new ideas on ways to help the world to be successful. My strategy in digital transformation technology helps brands grow and maximize their success. My marketing great track record is exceptional, which is the reason why many leading executives trust my expertise. TV and radio shows and podcast episodes like to feature my voice. Regardless of my success, audiences love my personality and they enjoy interacting with me. I always put helping others first, and I constantly focus on adding value to other people’s lives.

[bctt tweet=”Success is like an iceberg. Beneath what people see are focus, effort, late nights, patience, and pure perseverance.” via=”no”]

It’s interesting when you talk about the digital transformation and you said the new ideas you bring. I want to get a focus on digital transformation. What areas of digital transformation do you help companies with and can you describe what you mean by digital transformation?

These are mostly the new trends in this decade, which are AI machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality, IoT, big data, big tech and retail tech. I’ll start with AI. AI is a battleground on which the long-term business success will be decided and AI powered organizations are getting ahead. AI technologies learn, understand, express, foresee, develop, and function autonomously. AI can develop company’s business models, relationships with customers and marketing. I help brands in this area. Also, machine learning is a process, using data to gain experiential intelligence or time works by understanding information, using neural network. It can offer something to every industry and it can offer to understand consumers like never before. As everyone knows, chatbots are set to revolutionize how customers interact with brands.

AR/VR are changing the reality in the way that people perceive and interact with the digital world. IoT from mobile first to mobile only. IoT is going to change the face of mobile device forever. People are able to enjoy this protection for their homes at lower cost. Big data continuously drives business innovations, real-time insights, optimize, and boost profits. In terms of FinTech, consumers now have access to a myriad of ways to pay eCommerce and mobile commerce and one click commerce are becoming popular. Last but not least in digital transformation, retail tech, retailers have to meet expectations of customers who are increasingly shopping on mobile devices. By targeting and personalizing experiences, these companies can increase sales.

I teach for a lot of different universities here in the United States. I’m teaching a course for technology students, and their job in this course is to create a technology, a service, or a product type of idea that they’ve fleshed out a plan by the end of the five-week course, which is fun to do. It’s fun to see the creativity that they come up with. I know that there are chatbots, as you mentioned, in all these different types of things that we’re going to see. To develop some of this innovation, going back to your self-education discussion, that’s why my expertise is in the area of developing curiosity and soft skills and all the things that you were talking about that fall into that area. How are you helping these companies become more curious to get out of the status quo ways, the old ways of doing things?

What I see nowadays in the business world is that people lack curiosity, interest, enthusiasm in what they do. They think that they can go to work, earn money and go back home. They are uninterested at the end of the day. They rarely put out content, rarely blog, rarely share their expertise with everyone outside their company. I think business schools produce such people and we lack people who provide value and lead by example. What we should do in order to make people become more curious is we need more practical technology conferences to share expertise. For example, how I achieved everything through Twitter.

I have put in the work, sacrificed, showed interest, showed curiosity to build relationships with some thought leaders, influencers and to pick brain from other leaders. I see that people lack enthusiasm and curiosity in technology and innovation. Many brands went out of business because they believed in strategies that existed twenty years ago. I know so many professors and sometimes what they teach in 2020 is not relevant because whatever they teach, it used to work in 1985 and 1995. They need to teach contemporary, practical marketing strategies.

For example, what allowed Gary Vaynerchuk to become big in marketing, innovation and to build multimillion-dollar companies? Anyone can go big nowadays in business without earning an MBA degree or PhD. Everyone I see nowadays on the influencers’ lists, thought leaders’ lists, everyone is self-made millionaires and self-made influencers because they downloaded Twitter, put out content, connected with other people, built their personal brands and it cost them $0 to gain ground and go places.

It is a very interesting perspective. We need to push and change the conversation of business world nowadays. Everyone stands a fantastic chance to stand out in 2020, not just to fit in the society and survive. Anyone can stand out. I wasn’t born in the United States. I wasn’t born in the UK, but I showed curiosity. I showed interest to move to the United States which allowed me to open many doors, educate myself and expand my horizon. If anyone sees me in 2020, they see on the influencers’ list, at least they see me, I’m a speaker with Speakers Bureau, they see I’m a member the CMO Council and the IoT Council.

 

I am nominated for the world’s best awards. I’m grateful for every opportunity. It is a godsend opportunity for me, whatever is available at my fingertips. I teach, inspire and motivate everyone at top companies, Fortune 500 brands, business schools, trade associations and in every sector that they need to be more curious, to be more interested, to be more patient because everyone wants success at the drop of a hat. It’s impossible because they need to show more patience and to be more determined. When I’m connected with top influencers like Gary Vaynerchuk, Guy Kawasaki, Glen Gilmore, influential business leaders, I’m motivated, but I can’t slow down.

There were moments in my life when people used to tell me that, “Don’t put out content. Don’t blog. Why should you do that?” I never slowed down. I have never taken any vacations. When you listen to Gary Vaynerchuk, he’s such a hustler. You know that by putting in the work, you can make all your business dreams come true and you can build incredible businesses. You can become a top professional speaker and you can move up in the world in every way. I always believed in putting the work, connecting with other thought leaders, putting out more content and exploring emerging platforms. Everyone knows that things change like greased lightning in our industry.

You need to stay on top of the game in order to win and to be successful in this decade. When there is a will, there is a way. People need to be more curious. I agree with you that focusing on curiosity is what leads to success. If people show more interest, if people show more curiosity, and if they are more bound and determined, they will achieve more than what has been told at business schools to achieve something. I have done my Master’s and PhD, but whatever I learned outside my comfort zone led to more success. It allowed me to open so many doors.

What was your Doctoral dissertation? What did you write about?

It was about digital transformation and artificial intelligence. It was about creating logistic hubs throughout Europe. It was about trade and economy. I started building my Twitter in 2014 and I completed my PhD in 2013. Building my Twitter turned out to be like a road to Damascus, which totally changed my way and transferred my vision. I started seeing the world faster, easier, clearer. I’m going to write even more books in the future. I’m happy when I wake up and I’m nominated for some of the world’s top awards. London Business School and Forbes follow me on Twitter. I am happy because I deserve to be followed by top big media companies and to be interviewed globally and to share my practical tips and strategies. Everybody can inspire the world to achieve more and to gain a competitive advantage.

You brought up many interesting points. I want to touch on some of the things you said about tech conferences and some of the things. You probably run into this with technology. Students in my courses, in tech conferences where I attend, they love tech speakers. They want to get into the technology, but I think it’s important that they get into learning the curiosity or the soft skills and some of that stuff. What’s interesting when I worked as the MBA Program Chair at the Forbes School of Business, I created a brand publishing course about marketing and different things for CMOs, with Forbes and all that, to talk about some of the marketing strategies that you were talking about.

I think that a lot of people are very confused by all the choices for vendors and how to reach their followers and whatever with their brands. They have a tough time knowing how to publish content in meaningful ways that reaches people on an individual basis, but at scale. I think that some of the things you’re talking about is challenging. You talk a lot about Twitter and some of the social media that’s available, but do you think that they’re also struggling with all the other vendors of how to get messages out and how to have content calendars and all of the things that you have to do to get your products to be recognized by the consumer?

We experienced many brands that went out of business, like Blockbuster and other brands because they believed in the strategies that existed many years ago. How Brian Chesky, who co-founded Airbnb, disrupted big hospitality brands, and this guy tweets questions on his products and services. He builds relationships with his Airbnb’s users through Twitter. This guy earned a thousand followers and he disrupted and built a multibillion-dollar company through Twitter. Another great example is Travis Kalanick who founded Uber. Travis hired the first product manager through Twitter. This former product manager is now a billionaire.

[bctt tweet=”In this age of digital transformation, we need nobody’s green light to be successful.” via=”no”]

This is a great example to what extent social media helped hungry entrepreneurs build multibillion-dollar companies. You are also connected with everyone else on Twitter and you see to what extent these people achieved success in the last many years. Why should not business schools teach contemporary practical marketing strategies to their students, and to help them to stay relevant in the age of automation, age of disruption? My question is why don’t students deserve to build their personal brand on social media and not to share the tactics on Instagram or on Snapchat or something?

Why everyone deserves a chance to build their personal brand in order to build a multimillion-dollar companies at the age of 20, 21, 22, because people should strike while the iron is hot. Once that golden era of social media is over, they will miss this chance. I tell my clients that if they don’t put out content across 8-10 social networks, they’ll regret not putting out more content in 2035. We all know when it was the golden era of MySpace, some people neglected Facebook and those people lost. There are many examples that we need to win attention in every social network that dominates the screen, there is no doubt about that.

It is confusing and mystifying for me why business schools don’t focus on practical marketing strategies. They existed and they teach strategies like Nike’s 1985 billboard strategy. Who is interested in Nike’s or Adidas’ 1985 strategies? We live in a mobile-first world. As Gary Vaynerchuk said, mobile became TV and TV became radio. We transitioned from radio to TV and from TV to mobile. Everyone’s attention nowadays is on mobile devices. As I see, people are still stuck in TV advertising. They don’t want to download Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, TikTok and other social media networks that can help them to impact their business and grow them faster.

People who take risk and who say yes to new things, they win and triple and quadruple their results. We are very grateful to have hungry and voracious entrepreneurs in our industry who put out more content, who provide value, and who speak at conferences to share their practical marketing and social media strategies with us to inspire us also to become practitioners, to build our business from home. We need nobody’s green light in 2020 to be successful and we don’t need a Harvard MBA to stand out because everything is available at our fingertips. If people recognize what is available at their fingertips, they know that it takes $0 to open a Gmail account, to sign up in LinkedIn, to start tweeting, to create blog posts on WordPress, Tumblr or Medium. This opportunity did not exist many years ago. It used to cost a fortune to reach global audiences.

I teach a lot of marketing skill and leadership in business and different courses. In some of the courses they have, you were saying about business schools and what they’re teaching and I know at some of my schools, we have Twitter feeds in the class. Instead of sticking with maybe Enron, we’re talking about Theranos and some of the newer issues. When Gillette had their ad, that freaked out everybody on Twitter. I have them follow that kind of stuff.

I agree with you that it’s important to keep up with the latest things. You mentioned looking at what the next Facebook is, that you’re maybe hanging on to MySpace without recognizing the value of Facebook. I know there’s a lot of discussion about TikTok and some of the things, they may or may not want certain companies in the US. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and some of those are obviously huge. Do you foresee that something could take over in those spaces or do you think we’ll see something in addition to them?

First of all, I can’t predict anything because I market in the year that we live in, but what I see in the future is that voice technology will dominate this decade. To what extent do we use voice technology? Voice is a time-saver and simultaneously, we do other things. To what extent do we use Alexa and Google Home at our home? It helps us save time. What I see is commerce is integrated into Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. Augmented reality and 5G will also impact marketing. Sometimes it’s not practical to talk about AI and IoT all the time because we need to focus more on practicality, what is available at our fingertips.

Through practical social media strategies, we can start building a multimillion-dollar company. Why should everyone put out 100 pieces of content across 8 to 10 social networks? For example, on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, everyone can start building. I became a member of the CMO Council in March 2020. I also became a member of the IoT Council, I also became a speaker. I started joining speakers bureaus in May and now, I’m a speaker with almost twenty speakers bureaus throughout the world. They asked me to send them keynote topics and my biography, my awards, my photos. I’m thankful that they appreciate my hard work. I’m grateful.

 

I’m 33 years old and probably the youngest person on the influencers’ lists because the majority of influencers are much older than me. I started building my social media networks in 2014 when I was 27 years old. I know where the world was going and I started going in that direction. It’s paid off because whatever I achieve, my results always speak for themselves. Having 125,000 followers, sometimes I can’t believe, and I demand more from myself to achieve more. I track my progress every single day. For example, I’ve been tracking my social media growth since 2014 from months to months, how many more new followers I have in these months? Have my influencers’ scores increased in these months?

Social media impacted my journey. I think everyone can achieve the same. During this pandemic crisis and the COVID-19, negativity is louder because many people are unemployed. Many people are worried about the future, what will be the future. They are due to start organizing events from May 2021. It’s easy to be pessimistic, but it’s hard to be optimistic. If people choose optimism and positivity, they know that in the long run, they will win. They should start putting out more content and everyone should show more interest.

Everyone should show more curiosity. Why do these networks exist? The entrepreneurial journey starts through Twitter. My journey demonstrates this example that entrepreneurial journey starts with Twitter. There is no doubt about that. I’m proud to have organic growth. In organic, winning attention across 8 to 10 social networks is the best thing anyone can do. There are two kinds of attention nowadays: underpriced attention and overpriced attention. I have grown my social media networks organically. I have not paid any dollars on advertising myself on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn because I have gained everything through my hard work. Putting out content, creating blog posts through putting out slideshows, PowerPoint presentations, and all kinds of content, because content is the number one key to success. There is no doubt at all about that. Gary Vaynerchuk puts out content to such extent. Everyone knows who Evan Kirstel is. Everyone is inspired by Marsha Collier who is our great colleague. Gordon Tredgold is a fantastic pioneer in leadership. Our industry is very grateful to have such people who share their blog posts, their insights, their results which are the best.

I’m also a product of discipline, of curiosity, of self-esteem and persistence. Without these qualities, I would not have achieved anything. I have been lucky to surround myself with the right people at the right time and who inspired me to put in the work and to become who I am now. I’m grateful from the bottom of my heart for everything I have in this decade in 2020. I always believe in giving back to society, to my followers and I always provide value and I have nothing to sell. I can only sell my expertise at conferences, at speakers’ bureaus.

On Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, I put out content that is in my followers’ best interests, not in my best interest, which allowed me to build my personal brand to such extent. I see nowadays that more people are more sales-oriented and only maybe 2% are brand builders and marketers. Brand building is very important and salespeople struggled to build their personal brands because they’re always selling on social media. Every time I connect with someone on LinkedIn, they send me their pitch and whatever they sell. I’m tired sometimes of interacting with such people who knows and they need to provide value first. They should give and then ask something. Initially, from the outset, they ask and not provide value, not give. Giving is number one key to success, not asking. Asking is the number one way to fail in 2020.

I think people should differentiate what is giving and what is asking. Givers always win more than the takers. I see many more people looking forward to taking and I’m tired. You need to give first before you win something, before you ask for something. I connected with someone and someone never said hi or something. He asked me to like his LinkedIn company’s page. Sometimes I don’t want to interact with such people because, first of all, you need to like some content. Say thank you, say something great to build a relationship before you ask me to like your company’s page, which is not acceptable for me. We know to what extent on Twitter we build a relationship because it is like a family.

Twitter is like a cocktail party for business world, because everyone knows everyone, everyone retweets everyone, everyone supports others and they support each other. On LinkedIn, it is sometimes hard to build authentic relationships because they focus on selling. If you see people like Jay Shetty, Gary Vaynerchuk, Simon Sinek and other outstanding and amazing thought leaders, they always provide value. They are brand builders. They provide content that is in their followers’ best interest. They provide motivational quotes and blog posts. Some pay them $200,000 for each conference. They pay them because they deserve it, because they have done so much for their followers on social media and their insight and their results inspired others to build multimillion-dollar companies.

On Twitter, it is a different kind of conversation than it is on LinkedIn. I was looking at your Twitter account and I know you share a lot of content from a lot of different sources. I’m curious how you find your content. I’m wondering how much time you spend a day on Twitter. Are you using anything like Hootsuite or MeetEdgar?

[bctt tweet=”Content is the number one key to success in the digital age.” via=”no”]

I don’t use Hootsuite or Buffer for social media listening platforms. I have built my Twitter organically. I never spent any dollars on advertising or I never asked anyone to follow me. People followed me because I provide content. I put out content that is inspiring, that is motivating.

What time do you spend finding that?

We have 24 hours a day and probably, I spend around 7 or 8 hours on Twitter a day. That is a big responsibility for me to have 57,000 followers on Twitter. It is a big duty. People expect motivational, inspiring and informative tweets.

Where do you get your information?

I spend so much time on the research. I’m inspired by everybody. I’m inspired by how people built multibillion-dollar companies. I’m inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk, Jack Ma, Simon Sinek, Henry Ford, Elon Musk and these outstanding leaders show great examples, how they should build businesses, how they should be optimistic, how they should neglect noise around them and how they should choose positivity and kindness, because choosing kindness is hard. You need to keep focusing on positivity all the time. There are many factors. This is what stops us from succeeding, but we need to keep going, keep pushing. We keep growing and keep chasing our goals and dreams.

I also build my LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Medium and having totally 125,000 followers. My hard work has truly paid off in the last ten years. I pushed to grow my personal brand to provide value and to build relationships with my audience. Being grateful, sensible and kind towards your tribe and community is the number one key to success. I always say thanks to everyone when they reach me, like or comment my tweets. Also, across other social media networks, I always show gratitude. If I have 31 recommendations on LinkedIn nowadays, I have these recommendations because I have earned them by my hard work.

Truly, Twitter helped me to earn those recommendations on LinkedIn because as you know, it is a fierce competition on LinkedIn, but on Twitter, people are more opposite. It’s like a cocktail party. It is much easier to join a conversation, to engage in conversation, to say hi, and to build a relationship with your audience. When there is a will, there is a way. You need to strike while the iron is hot, you need to build your Twitter. You need to build your social media networks. Mark my words, when the golden era of social media is over, people will regret. What we do on our mobile devices, we will do everything on voice assistants in the next few years. I think we will transition from mobile to voice. Things change like greased lightning and these new trends, like AI machine learning and IoT, VR, AR and mixed reality impact marketing tremendously.

I remember watching one of your videos and you were talking about how people can share insights on social media. You said it takes curiosity to download and share these things. You said some people are scared of that. For somebody who’s scared, how do you get over the fear of getting into a negative conversation on a social media site and how do you deal with the negativity?

 

I have coped with negativity on Twitter. I’m simply neglecting. I don’t engage in nonsense with people. I don’t have time. There are always people on social media who are doubters and skeptics. There is no point in spending time to convince others who you are. It is a waste of time for me to spend time on nonsense with other people. I have blocked so many people on Twitter because when you have 57,000 followers, and we expect people to come to your profile and to speak random. I’m not that kind of person who does the same. It’s much the opposite. I always inspire, motivate and encourage others to achieve more because there is always a great chance to succeed and everyone can win in 2020. Life is short for grudges.

It’s all sorted as we see on Twitter. Marsha Collier, Evan Kirstel, Brian Solis, they are optimistic, positive and kind people. They are very driven to help others succeed. I’m thankful to Brian. He is one of my inspirations in marketing and innovation, alongside Gary Vaynerchuk, Simon Sinek, and other people. People on Twitter who have 200 followers, we expect them to be negative and to say something bad in the comments or something, but there is no point in attacking them back. I’m not that kind of person who texts them back. It’s bad when we experience something like that, but what should you do? Spend time to attack them back or should we continue to inspire our community? We need to be grateful if we have 57,000 followers and can resolve and they encourage us and we are always in this journey together.

There’s so much we can learn from all the things that you work on. Obviously, you’re on Twitter and some of these other social media platforms. Where’s the best place to reach you? Do you want to share some way that they could find you?

They can also find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook by my name, Vladimer Botsvadze. I’m also on other social networks like Snapchat, TikTok, Medium. I provide content across 15 to 20 social media networks and this has been the driving force behind my growth. Providing content has been instrumental in my growth.

I know you do a lot. I think a lot of my students, readers and everybody who’s been confused about where’s the best place to connect and how to do it, could learn a lot from you.

Facebook is still far and away the most popular social media platform. It boasts 2.6 billion worldwide users. Facebook is good for local brick and mortar stores, nonprofits, B2B companies. LinkedIn is a professional driven platform, which is best for link clicks and event registrations, good for luxury brands and services, software providers, and B2B companies. Instagram is a powerful brand-building platform. You need to have lots of high-quality images and videos to support this platform. It is the best for word of mouth awareness and engagement. As everyone knows, Twitter is fast-moving, real time, news-driven platform where there’s strong customer service element. Be prepared to engage and respond to customers there. It is best for link clicks and engagement.

Pinterest is best used for companies that provide products and services to female audience. That platform thrives off posting and reposting images to boards and you will need to have lots of quality content. Tumblr is the best place for artists to show off their work. This platform is very art and blogging focused. If your audience is interested in art or for blogging, Tumblr might be right for your business. Brands should leverage Snapchat’s Geofilters and sponsored glasses to create interactive content.

TikTok has 800 million users worldwide with the majority of them aged between 16 and 24 years old. Users share videos bound to be successful on TikTok. Users share videos and ranging from 50 to 60 seconds in length, brands that create original videos are bound to be successful in TikTok. Everyone should start small and they should not try to go viral with their first post. Influencers determine what is current and will garner the most views. People find influencers to be relatable, which stops the brand from being viewed is as overly as oriented.

[bctt tweet=”Givers always win more than takers.” via=”no”]

Those are all good tips. I think that a lot of people could learn a lot from you. I hope they take some time to check out your sites and everything that you do. Thank you for being on the show. This was very interesting.

Thanks for allowing me to share my journey, experience, know-how and every insight with your audience. I hope that everyone will benefit from my journey and everyone will recognize to what extent powerful social networks are available at their fingertips. They should push more positivity, optimism, kindness. When there is a will, there is a way. Everyone should put out 100 pieces of contents every single day, across 8 to 10 social media networks and the entrepreneurial journey starts with Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. If we see successful thought leaders like Gary Vaynerchuk, Simon Sinek, Jay Shetty and other social media influencers, they also started from zero followers and they showed persistence, kindness, positivity and the discipline to build their businesses and tribes. Everyone should do the same. Always stay outside your comfort zone and explore more. Everyone should strike while the iron is hot and everyone will be proud of their efforts finally.

Those are great words of wisdom.

—

I’d like to thank Vladimer for being my guest. We get so many great guests on this show. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you join us for the next episode of Take the Lead Radio.

Important Links:

• Vladimer Botsvadze
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  Twitter – Vladimer Botsvadze
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About Vladimer Botsvadze

Vladimer Botsvadze is a globally-renowned, multi-award winning, digital transformation and social media influencer, Fortune 500 consultant, thought leader, professor, keynote speaker, and media personality. He has been described as ”the world’s best digital marketing consultant and speaker”, ”a visionary and an early adopter in the digital realm”, and ”a wizard at social media”. He’s achieved No. 1 Marketing, AI, Retail, Management, Sales, Digital Transformation, and Innovation global ranking by Thinkers360. He is ranked No. 2 Global Retail Tech Influencer by GlobalData. Onalytica included him among Top 100 B2B Marketing, Top 100 Digital Transformation, Top 100 Fintech, and Top 100 VR Influencers. He is among the world’s Top 20 Marketing Speakers by Social Media Club in 2020. He has won 200 global awards. Vladimer has risen to global prominence by becoming a top influencer on Twitter (56,600 followers), LinkedIn (24,200 followers) and Instagram (11,100 followers), a total of 125,000 engaged followers from 1142 cities and 185 countries across all his social media platforms. He has worked on billion-dollar marketing projects with Fortune 500 brands and his practical marketing and social media strategies have inspired the top executives to quadruple their results.

Vladimer is widely recognized for his visionary leadership and trailblazing innovation. Through his consulting, speaking, teaching, startup advising, and mentoring services, companies have grown from a groundbreaking idea into the fastest growing companies. He has been recommended by the professionals from London Business School, KPMG, MasterCard, AC Milan, Forrester Research, PepsiCo, Dell, Accenture, and other leading global brands. He is trusted by Forbes, The Economist, Social Media Week, WebSummit, and Social Media Club. He has been interviewed by Onalytica, Kred, Emerging Europe, Thinkers360 and Engati Engage. Vladimer is a member of CMO Council, IoT Council, IoT Premier League, Global Entrepreneurship Network, XR4ALL, Amsterdam Economic Board – Amsterdam Smart City, Sydney Startup Hub, and D&AD. Vladimer is ranked among Top 400 most influential business people by Crunchbase alongside Robert Herjavec, Elene DeGeneres and others.

If you wish to maximize your success, he’s always the right person to have him at your event, corporate meeting, or lecture to inspire your audience. Connect with him for media opportunities, speaking, or consulting engagement requests.

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