Stuart Foster is a east coast blogger and marketing strategist. A former top Digg user and prolific blogger, his brain is bursting with a never-ending flow of content and ideas. Stuart’s media strategies aren’t “theoretical” – they come after many thousands of hours of experience with the ups and downs of real-life social media. You can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his blog, The Lost Jacket …
Where do you live, what do you do for work and fun?
“I live in Boston, MA, but I grew up in Maine and went to school there. I work as a Managing Partner at The Lost Jacket and as a Social Media Strategist at Mullen. I also have a wide variety of side projects and consulting work that I do through both entities. When I’m not working, (which is almost never) I’m running, reading, going out to a variety of cool events and getting involved with the entrepreneurial scene in Boston.”
What’s this whole “social media” thing really all about?
“Social media is basically cutting down on the time needed to organize, establish relationships and build communities. It’s a time saver and immediate opening to exploit when building relationships. It’s gotten me access to a variety of people that probably wouldn’t take a call from me (but are more then happy to listen to me online). I look at the internet as being a road. Social media has transformed that road into a four lane highway.”
What does your day or week (honestly) look like?
“I probably end up working 12-16 hour days almost everyday. Sleep is not something that I end up seeing a lot of, for better or worse. I spend about 2 hours on every blog post. 4-6 hours a day responding to comments and adding comments onto other blogs within my network. I’ve cut down on the social bookmarking (I’m only doing outreach now) so only about about 5-10 hours a week on that. Most of my time is now spent doing client work and building the foundation/model for The Lost Jacket. I’m currently working with Stonyfield Farm, Ask.com and Global Post.”
What’s your overall strategy towards being successful at social media?
“Realize that you have to just keep climbing. You’re never at the top. You just keep reaching new level after new level. If you keep this attitude up, you’ll end up pretty high. The key is not looking back and to just keep plugging away. Successes and failures are similar to any type of business. Keeping them in perspective and believing strongly in what you are doing is the best way to be moving forward…”
How is social media adoption affecting human consciousness?
“I think it has to be making people smarter. If I looked at my baseline knowledge a year ago and compared it to today… I’d scare myself. I knew nothing, comparably. But that’s the speed at which you can digest the lessons via blogs, Twitter and from leveraging relationships. You’re at warp speed via social media and you learn just as fast…”
Is social media making us smarter or just getting us high? image: vaXzine
Are there any dark sides to social media / social media culture that people don’t like to talk about?
“I’d say that SEO/social bookmarking is not really understood all that well. I tend to find that anything that isn’t understood usually is perceived as being “black hat” (even if it isn’t). Bury groups and other more subversive techniques are common place on places like Digg but I tend to not pay that much attention to them. They aren’t really worth wasting my time. Are you creating great content and not being a tool? You should be fine.”
What are some of the biggest mistakes or misconceptions that you see novices consistently make?
“Endless self promotion. It’s annoying and makes you look incredibly stupid. Save your bullets for one big push…don’t spam out every blog post or Digg link.
Also…the concept that “social” is free. Nope. If anything, it can end up being more expensive because you are spending more time actually catering to your client/customer’s needs.”
So what’s the “secret” to building social influence?
“There is none. Just be consistent and relentless. Never stop working, learning and creating. Otherwise you will be overtaken by other more hungry individuals. A lot of competition is out there at the moment…just find your niche and own it. The business side of social media is the most important in my eyes. Without money to fire the engine behind innovation? Then you wouldn’t see a lot of the advances that are coming out these days.”
Stuart at a Boston cafe.
Do you think that social media is a bubble, like the .com bubble? Any chance that people’s enthusiasm will wane, or it will pop?
“I think — because it’s a philosophy more than a technique — it won’t die. Techniques become obsolete. Philosophies become integrated into the business psyche. People’s enthusiasm may wane to the bullshit surrounding the medium…but it will eventually be overwhelmed by new shinier stuff..”
Who are some up-and-coming social media geniuses who are worth following?
“David Spinks and Lauren Fernandez are some pretty badass PR/Social media peeps. If you haven’t started listening and learning from them, yet, I’d get on that! Carla Blumenthal who is my partner at The Lost Jacket is crazy smart and will only get better at exploring the ins and outs of business as time goes on. A new wave of people is coming. They’re more relentless and hungry than those that have come before them. These names will be familiar before very long.”
What are some predictions for the future of social media? What are two or three things that you think will happen?
“We’ll stop talking about social media for one. Social solutions will just be integrated into business in general. Models will change and rules will be broken…but social media will eventually go the way of email and just be integrated into everyday aspects of business.
I’m very excited to see the new models and ideas coming out from the likes of Dachis Group and the Altimeter Group. The social business concepts are interesting and exciting. It will be exciting to see who knocks it out of the park first. ”
What are your long-term goals? At what point will you be really stoked and able to relax, knowing that you’ve “made it”?
“I think the answer to that for me is ‘never’! I’m a pretty intense, driven individual. I want to succeed beyond anything that I thought possible. Although, at this point, being the head of an integrated agency would be my biggest dream. That way I could build brands and strategies utilizing a variety of different marketing techniques. It’s definitely a lot of hard work, but something I can definitely see myself conquering in the future..”
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