Keith Keller, Global Twitter Marketing Specialist
Keith Keller has spoken at leading events around the world and appeared on many radio shows and podcasts.
He is considered to be one of the leading authorities on Twitter marketing. He is well known internationally for his knowledge and creation of Twitter marketing strategies.
He is also a popular speaker on the subject of ‘Social Media’ (especially Twitter). He has appeared on numerous radio shows, teleseminars and webinars across the United States & Canada, UK & Europe, as well as Australasia.
Keith also now offers personalised coaching to his clients and signature system 'Crack the Twitter Code' which is a coaching program focusing specifically on harnessing the possibilities of Twitter for marketing yourself or your brand.
Tell us a bit about you and your career and areas of focus.
I live in Melbourne, Australia, and I live an hour from the city and a ten-minute walk to the beach. The reason I say that is because I don’t have a conventional life. I don’t suit up and go into the city. I hardly ever go to the city.
In fact, I’m speaking in the city next week, and that’s like an adventure for me. I never speak in the city. I never go to the city. What I do is I spend my whole life online connecting with people exactly like you. That’s my reality. That’s the reality I love because there’s so much diversity in the world and I’m just like hanging out with everyone in the world without actually having to go there and fly there and all of that load.
I’m a Twitter marketing specialist. I’ve decided to specialise in using Twitter for marketing because plenty of people do a bit of everything and that’s great too, but I’ve decided that I want to be the best in the world at Twitter and I hang out with people that are the best in the world at Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and blogging. We form a bit of a club.
I’m in the top 100 of Twitter users in the world. That’s not a bad idea because there are 126 million daily users and I’m in the top 100. The reason I’ve been able to do that is that I do it all day, with a very specific focus. And my focus is that I specifically target videos on Twitter because Twitter allows two-minute videos, and it’s a very powerful way to get the word out about what you’re doing.
I’ve just decided to become really good at that, and I help clients sort of maximising their message by using video, and I teach that, and I speak about that, and I blog about it, and I make little videos about it. It’s a pretty exciting time.
How did you get into this line of work and why?
I like many other people that I know had a job in the city that I hated and I’ve still got friends that are trying to get out of that.
So I did that for 20 years, various jobs that I hated, really hated. Then I just quit on my 40th birthday, which is a long time ago now, and then I just decided, “You know what? I’m going to find something that I love, and I’m just going to get really good at it.”
I picked Twitter. I picked social media because it just resonates with my personality, and now I hang out all day, every day, on the internet and talk to really amazing people and I have all these really great online adventures.
What is the best advice have you ever received?
There’s a really fantastic person that I like called Brian Tracy, and he’s a motivational speaker, and I was watching one of his DVDs once to get sort of inspired about productivity, how to get more out of your day. He actually said, “If you don’t want to be in the top 10% of your field, you’re in the wrong field.”
What a great quote! If you don’t wake up every morning and think of ways to get better and to make what you do easier and to really hone your craft, then really he would argue that you’re in the wrong job.
So I found this ad in 2010, and I went away for the weekend, and I just took a journal with me, a little blank book – I went bushwalking during the day and had a glass of wine at night and did all these like holiday things.
I would actually at night just think about this question. “What do I want to be good at? What do I want to stand out at?” The reason why that’s so powerful – and I resonate with that model so much. It’s because there are eight billion people on the planet, a hundred million people on Twitter, two billion people on Facebook. It’s crowded.
There’s a lot of people to compete with, and if you don’t make your mark by being good at a specific thing, you get lost in the wash. You know, you just get passed over as another one of those. “Oh, yeah, he does a bit of everything.” OK, no worries. I know plenty of people on that. Whereas I’ve decided that I want to be the best in the world at the dot, dot, dot. So when people think of Twitter, they think of me.
What are your thoughts about the future of social media? And what is your wish for that?
I’ve been doing a lot of research on this because I do this all day, every day. So a couple of things – where now in 2019, there’s a phrase that I coined called the “80-2020 rule”. Everyone has heard of the 80-20 rule. I coined the phrase “80-2020” because, by 2020, 80% of the internet will be video.
It’s already 75% because the video is easy to make. It’s so easy to do. You turn on your webcam. You grab your phone. You turn on your laptop, and you’re on the internet live, and because it’s so easy to do, everyone is doing it.
So the first thing about the future of the internet is that it’s all going to be video. There are videos everywhere, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Pinterest. Everyone is doing videos.
Now the thing that is good and bad about it is that everyone is doing it. So it’s crowded. But if you can get good at it and set your tone, get really, really in the space, then you can stand out. Again, it’s this idea of standing out in a crowded marketplace.
So if everyone is doing videos, how do you stand out? That’s one particular stream that I think social media will take. There will be this real emphasis on quality content rather than rubbish. Grabbing your phone and saying, “Hey, I’m here, and I’m walking the dog, and I’m rollerblading down the beach and guess what, the sun is shining, and there’s a pretty girl, and there’s a surfboard,” and that’s rubbish. No one wants to hear that sort of stuff, right?
That’s common, and it’s a bit sort of too easy to do. So one of the secrets to really good quality social media and content is to have a considered thought, to have a strategy and to do it very deliberately in the style that’s authentic for you.
Social media has anything to do with marketing and has to fit into the life of the person that you’re targeting. So no one has any time anymore to watch the long ads on the TV or to read a long blog post or to be bogged down in reading e-books. What you’ve got to do is you’ve got to have short, sharp content. We call it snackable content, content that’s two minutes.
Some people will listen to a podcast if they’re on the train or when they’re driving because people love driving. You might be able to do some long-form content as we call it if you tap into a person’s commute, the train trip or the driving. But most importantly, the future of social media is going to revolve around short, sharp, digestible chunks of information that fit into people’s lives in between going to the school to pick up the kids, in between cooking dinner.
Have you had a mentor or mentor anyone?
When I first started, I had friends of mine – they’re now friends – who were able to say, “You know what? I can see you’re very keen and you’re very interested in this. I will help you.” So I agree with both principles. I am a mentor to many people, and if there’s anyone reading this and they need help, I’m very happy to help.
That’s because when I was younger, I had those people that reached out and said, “Look, you know, you haven’t done this before, and you don’t know what the rules are. I will help.” They were very accommodating and very giving, and it was great, and they’re now very good friends. So I do a bit of both.
How do you network and why?
I’m a very friendly person, but I’m targeted. So I will spend all day on Twitter or LinkedIn. Not so much Facebook or Instagram, and I will send little messages to say, “Hey, how are you doing? I noticed you have an interest in the dot, dot, dot. So do I. Would you like to have a chat about that? Can I ring you or would you like to have a coffee?”
So it’s almost like an appointment setting. I go out into the world of the internet, and I say, hey, here’s a person that’s interested in photography. Well, I like photography. Here’s a person that has been to Japan. Well, I want to go to Japan. Here’s a person that loves Star Trek, let’s say. I love Star Trek.
So suddenly you’ve got something in common to start the conversation, and I do all that research online. Then if they live in my town, I will reach out and share them a coffee, go out for lunch, maybe a beer. But then it feels much more useful, much more reasonable. It doesn’t seem so random.
We were networking naturally, organically, traditionally forever, and that still goes on. I think maybe a lot of people haven’t caught up to this new model, that maybe they don’t like it.
I can see why networking events would have that vibe and why people would love them. This sense of adventure, this sense of, “Look, I might meet someone really cool tonight. I don’t know. If I don’t go, I’m never going to know.”
I understand why people do it that way. I’ve just found that within my personality type, it’s not a really good use of my time, and I often come home feeling a bit deflated.
What you wish you had known when you started out?
I’ve often been asked this question. My answer to that is very unconventional, and that is that what I’ve learnt, I’ve learnt as I go. There’s no way to do it other than that.
I didn’t know what I knew, so I had to learn it. So the reason why that makes sense to me is that when I started doing social media in 2006, no one was doing it. I had no one to ask. There were no courses to do. I couldn’t go to school and do it. I couldn’t read a book on it because now I knew what was going on. We were all mucking around at the same time. It’s very exciting in a way. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. “How do they work? Are they any good?” We had to make it up.
So even if I went back in time and knew everything that I know now, then it wouldn’t make sense because I had to learn it from scratch and in a way, that’s very much a part of my personality. I’m a bit of a have-a-go type of guy. I like to get in there and try it. I’m not the sort of guy that reads up about it and gets everything first and then tries it. I have to get in there and try it out.
In reality, whenever I’ve been asked that question, “What would you like to have known first?” there’s really nothing, that I could have done any differently.
In your opinion, what is the reason for people falling or giving up?
When I first started this journey, 2006, I left my job. I was 40, and I just quit. Jumped off the cliff so to speak metaphorically. I didn’t have a job to go to. I really didn’t have a plan. Very scary place, but I knew that I was very unhappy. I had hit the wall as they call it.
Now I was right at the bottom. I hated my job. I couldn’t go anywhere. So I quit, and I’m very proud that. I had the courage to do that. As a result of doing that, I actually became a career counsellor.
I did a radio show on the internet, 2008 in Australia. Everyone, without exception, was really hassling me about it. I said, “I want to try something different.”.
So we ran this radio show every Monday for two years. Every Monday, we do this free radio show on the internet. We had people calling in from all over the world, Peru, Ecuador, London, and they would say, “Mate, I’ve stayed up all night to watch this show. Sometimes I go to bed, and I try not to sleep, but it’s just easier if I stay up. I set my alarm just in case I fall asleep, and I always listen because no one in my town, no one in my family talks like you. You’re an upbeat, sort of problem-solving type of guy and you actually give me ideas. Everyone in my town tells me how hard life is and just get a job and sit down and keep your head down and don’t try anything new.” - 108 shows on the internet for free.
When I look back on that, I think I’m so proud of that. I’m so proud that every week I gave an hour of my time and it’s still there if you Google “Career Success Radio”. It’s still there on iTunes, 108 shows, that will live on the internet forever.
I think it’s one of my proudest moments. I created something from nothing in amongst a mountain of opposition, and I think there’s a lesson in that. Naysayers are always facing us. “Oh, that’s a stupid idea. Don’t do that. No one has ever done that before. You can’t possibly win. That’s going to fail.”
How do you define success?
I don’t personally define success by how much money I have in the bank. Making lots of money doesn’t get me out of bed. I can’t get excited, and I know it’s a very fundamental thing to most people, but I can’t get excited by just the idea of making money for the sake of making money.
Success for me is I’ve created something, and people have enjoyed it, or learnt from it, or got value from it, or it solves someone’s problem, and suddenly my actions, my combined wisdom. It has been put into some format, an e-book, a podcast, a video, and people can enjoy it and can learn from it.
That’s what motivates me. That actually is what gets me out of bed.
What do you think your unique skill is that has helped you become successful?
The ability to ask. The ability to help others first. It’s a mindset, this idea that one day, I want to ask because asking is hard. Some people are fine with it, but a lot of people don’t want to ask. They always put themselves last. They always put themselves down.
The ability to ask in a time when you need the information is when the magic happens, but in order to fairly ask for that transaction to be fair, you have to give first.
The ability to give. Is that a skill? It is a skill because some people are so focused on their own needs, their own importance, their own sense of ego that they never think about the others. Give first, to be able to give of yourself without expectations.
The second is trust. It’s a mind-set. The idea that if you can give first with the trust in the universe that you will get what you deserve. You will get what you deserve.
Then when it’s your turn – and that’s not every day, but then when it’s your turn, you can say, “Hey guys, if it’s no trouble, could you help me? Yeah, yeah, of course. No worries. You’re always helping me. I don’t mind helping you.
”Give, trust, ask. It’s a principle for life.
Is there anything new that you are working on and you could share with our audience?
There are eight billion – almost eight billion people in the world. I can’t go to everyone’s house. I can’t go to everyone’s town, but with the miracle of technology, we can share some of the essences of what we do. Life is finite. There’s only a certain amount of time in the world, and there’s a lot of countries in the world to visit.
I’ve created what I call the “virtual world tour”. This is something unique to me, and we’re going to create some really interesting adventures around it. I’ve been doing it a long time, and it’s the natural extension of what I do.
Where is your favourite place, and why?
I live near the beach, and I love it. I live an hour from the city, and there’s no reason to go to the city because I can go to the beach in 10 minutes and I can walk on the beach, and I can have a coffee because there’s a really cool coffee shop there.
So my favourite place is my local place, and it’s my favourite place because I can go there anytime. There’s this real sense of joy knowing that if I’ve had a bad day, I can just leave the house and go to the beach.I’ve been to other places. I’ve done a lot of travelling.
I’ve been to Machu Picchu, and I’ve been to the Taj Mahal, and I’ve walked on the Great Wall, and they were great. Not everyone has done that, and I guess that’s sort of something to say I’ve achieved, but it was gone.
The next day, there wasn’t something else to do, and I’ve got photos of me on the Great Wall and in front of the Taj Mahal and the Machu Picchu and all these things. I’m not pretending to be someone else on holidays for one day a year or a week a year. I’m here every day, and so my favourite place is something I can do all the time!
What is a positive phrase or saying that you would like to share with our audience?
I often come back to Henry Ford, and he said, “Whether you think you can do it or not, you are right.”
It’s up to you. If you get out of bed and you think, “Oh, it’s too hard”, you’re right. Don’t try it, just give up. Just go and sort of sit on the couch and watch the cricket or the soccer or put on an episode of Star Trek and just sort of lull out.
But if you wake up in the morning and you say, “You know what? I can do this”, you’re right. You can! So that phrase really encapsulates the whole of the essence of life because it’s up to you to change your mind-set and we need help sometimes if we’re not in a good place. I’m very happy to help there if you need that, but you need to surround yourself with positive people that keep you buoyant.
You need to disassociate from people that make you feel flat because if you think that life is hopeless, it is. If you think that life is worth living, it is, and it’s up to you. So the phrase I love best is, “Whether or not you think you can do it, you’re right.”