Becoming a Video Marketing Expert Through Experience with Joseph Rubelli

Brand Intentionally with Friends Podcast
Season 1 - Episode 2

Jospeh Rubelli and I have been friends for a few years now all thanks to the power of social media. Joseph is largely the reason I am so comfortable on video now as he pushed my outside of my comfort zone to record a Digital Bosses podcast episode and do a few Instagram LIVES.

As a video-content marketing expert, there wasn’t a single hesitation that I wanted to bring Joseph on the podcast to talk about his journey through to get to where he is and of course, he did not disappoint.

We had so much to talk about this episode is actually part 1 of 2 we did together, but in part 1 you’ll hear about his journey to becoming an expert on video, what we think about Meta Verified, the type of content we hate making, and so much more.

In this Episode of Brand Intentionally with Friends:
  • How to build confidence on video
  • Overcoming Impostor Syndrome
  • The biggest video turn off to your audience
  • How Jospeh pushed Garett out of his comfort zone
  • Why comparing yourself on social media is a losing effort
  • How video can help overcome mental health struggles
  • Joseph’s clothing color theory secret
  • The importance of progress over perfection

Jo and I came with lots of laughs, inspiration, and expert insights to learn more how you can find your community on social media without draining yourself and become comfortable on video.

Check the episode below, join the conversation, and make sure you check the shownotes below for anything we mentioned including some of our other collaborations and how you can keep up with Joseph Rubelli.

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Relevant Things Mentioned in this Episode
Transcript
  • Click to Expand Episode 2 Transcript
    Garett Southerton [00:00:00]:

    How confident are you in yourself on social media? In today’s episode, we’re going to discuss the ins and outs of social media. Things like being on camera trends, your content, being bored, and even meta verified. Nothing is off limits. So sit back and get ready as we dig deep in this episode of Brand intentionally with Friends. I’m so excited because today my guest is a true powerhouse in the industry. He’s video marketing expert and a social media manager. He runs his own creative agency, Rubelli Digital, as well as the co founder of Digital Bosses. And maybe most importantly, he’s one of my best social media friends, joseph Rebelli.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:00:36]:

    Hello. Hi, Garett. Thank you for having me. I’m super excited to be here.

    Garett Southerton [00:00:39]:

    Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. And I’m so excited to do this. How are you doing?

    Joseph Rubelli [00:00:43]:

    Very well. How are you?

    Garett Southerton [00:00:44]:

    I’m good. I think before we go any further, really, I have to give you your flowers. Like, none of this podcasts reels, none of this would be possible if it weren’t for you because last year we were talking like, hey, buddy, why don’t you hop on the podcast? I’m like, okay. Cool brand. You’re like, okay, well, this is the day we’re going to do it, and it’s going to be on video. And I’m like, oh, okay. And we did that. And then a few weeks ago, you’re like, okay, now we got to promote the podcast. So are you free on Monday? Because we’re doing a live. And I was like, no. Okay. I guess I can’t let Joe down now, right? And from there, I mean, I just got more comfortable and more comfortable and started flowing, which is really cool. So without you, none of this would be possible. So just thank you.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:01:34]:

    You’re welcome. And thank you for this incredible presentation. And I have to say, I did put you out of your comfort zone several times in the same week.

    Garett Southerton [00:01:43]:

    Definitely if it wasn’t you, because we already had that relationship, I would have been like, you know what? I don’t think I can do it. I’m sorry. But when it was you, I was like, I can’t let Joe down. I love Joe. How can I let Joe down?

    Joseph Rubelli [00:01:58]:

    Thank you. And we had an incredible connection on social, and it started last summer, remember, because you helped me to rebrand the whole page. And I always mentioned this every time someone asked me, oh, my God, I started following you last year. And then I look at your page last September and there was a revamp and it was great. And it felt like, what? This is Garett. And we did a post about it. We did talk about it. But it was really interesting to me because when we have you on the podcast, on the Digital Bosses podcast, it was all about having you to talk about intentional branding. But it didn’t even occur to me that you never done alive until after we did it. That was your first live?

    Garett Southerton [00:02:44]:

    That was my first live, my first video podcast. And I was terrified and I thought I bombed, to be honest. And then I watched it back and I’m like, oh damn, Joe’s good at this. Joe Joe really helped me flow with this and everything and I never did any of this before. Amazing. I mean, it’s true to what it is. You are the video expert. Anybody I ever talk to that’s telling me, oh, well, you know, I’m struggling, I tell them what I did and I tell them you need to check out Joe. Joe is the best person for this.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:03:13]:

    Thank you. I’m glad. And I love that you found the confidence. This is the whole point of my content. I started to niche down to video marketing in 2020 during COVID and it was one of the best thing I ever did because I want to kind of dive into a little bit where I started with social media because not a lot of people know this. So I used to work in corporate, I was a social media manager. I started as a salesperson for a skincare brand in London. I am Italian. I moved to London when I was 20 and I worked in the beauty industry for about ten years and I worked in sales. I then shifted into marketing. And when I worked in marketing, I work as a social media executive. Then I became a social media manager. Then I became an influencer marketing coordinator. So I was in charge of the partnership with the influencer. So I did quite a lot of work incorporate with influencer marketing and that was kind of my jam at the beginning. But when I went to be a brand manager for another brand, I worked for a skincare brand for four years and then I worked for another brand where I was the brand manager and I was responsible for the market of the UK, Italy and the Middle East. And it was really about sales and marketing together and that’s when I started to realize what was really lacking in the industry. What happens is you have a lot of brand that are really good at sales in store and a lot of brands that are really good at sales online. And often the sales and marketing strategy are not connected, which was a big gap in the market. So when I quit my job because they asked me to move to Dubai and I say no, I decided to start consulting and work with skincare brands. I wanted to still be in the industry and then I kind of branch out into travel. So if you go to my page back in 2018, there was a lot of travel content. I will go and travel. I was living in Europe at the time. Now I live in New York. So there was a lot of city breaks. And what I was doing, I was telling the story of the place and a little bit about me on the caption. We are talking about the time before Instagram story. So it was very much a static platform. Instagram was very much a photo app.

    Garett Southerton [00:05:26]:

    It sounds like it was so much easier then too.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:05:29]:

    It is. Yeah.

    Garett Southerton [00:05:29]:

    It was like there’s so many less things to worry about.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:05:32]:

    Yeah. And it was crazy because there was only one way to connect with people. There were not DMs, I believe it was only comments and static pictures. Then they started to introduce carousels and et cetera. So it wasn’t until the Instagram story era where I started to talk about marketing on stories, where I started to build the momentum. So what happened was I had to shift and pivot from travel content to marketing content. So I initially started with Instagram because I wanted to get the followers and I wanted to get the likes. And we have to be honest about it because everybody makes it look like it’s something different at the beginning. You want to grow the page, otherwise you’re talking to yourself, which is great.

    Garett Southerton [00:06:08]:

    But it’s not great for your confidence exactly at all.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:06:13]:

    So I pivoted into Instagram marketing and I then launched my very first podcast, which was a Capo Joe in 2019. And it was a way for me to build the authority in the industry. I knew I was good at what I was doing, but I also didn’t have the authority online. So the podcast was a great place for doing so I had people coming over and I generate a little bit of momentum with it. And then I then shifted into video marketing in 2020 because I did it actually for a personal reason, because I was going through a very tough time. I had a very tough time during COVID I had an Air Force breakdown in August 2020 and I have to stop everything. I was launching my own agency, Rubelli Digital, which launched during 2020 during challenging time of COVID and everybody was making bread during lockdown. I was launching an agency. So that’s when I realized that I was biting more than I could chew. And it kind of had the best of me. In August 2020, I had a breakdown. I went to the hospital, I had to take a full break, and then I started to go to therapy. One of the best thing I ever did and what my therapist told me was to start doing video journaling. Video journaling was a huge game changer for me because I will film myself every day and I would talk for about a minute on camera and use that as a way to share how I felt. And that video was only for me. It would not go on social. I took a break from social media for like six weeks at that time, and I was only doing this for my mental health.

    Garett Southerton [00:07:50]:

    Wow.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:07:50]:

    What I realized was there was a lot of power on those videos. And I was like, Will I share them now? Because these are not meant to be for social. This is content for me. But the process of it made me realize how powerful video could be. And that’s why when I came back, I was just like it was end of August. I think I started back on social in September 2020 and they just launched Reels.

    Garett Southerton [00:08:16]:

    It was like, perfect timing.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:08:18]:

    I know, exactly. I was like, you know what? I’m going to come back with video. This is the thing. And it was also a challenge with myself because I wasn’t fully confident myself. I wasn’t fully confident on camera because of my accent. So being Italian, living in the UK, I used to be a radio broadcaster in Italy. And I was very confident with my own language. But when you do it in English, the pace and the type of language that you speak, everything is different. So you have to adjust and change. So I took on a full training again, and I used social media as a challenge to myself. It was a way for me to be accountable. So I did that and I essentially shifted everything to video. I like to say this because I became a video expert. I wasn’t always a video expert. This is a title that people gave to me. And it was like a year later that people started to refer to me like that. And it was really interesting because I changed the title of my Instagram handle only at the end of 2021. It was quite a long time after I started to talk about video. But the way I did it, it was really about learning with me. I will do a series called how to get confident on camera. Then my vision was, I want you to come on the page and feel that you are watching Netflix. I want you to binge each and every wheel, one after the other, and learn different hacks and different tips. And that really allowed me to build momentum in the industry. So that was how I took off with video. And it was like a challenge that I did, and it was a way to make myself accountable. And it was a Learn with Me series. I teach you how to be confident on camera because I’m learning as well. So we’re learning together.

    Garett Southerton [00:10:03]:

    So while everybody is, like, doing dancing and pointing reels, you were trying to make something more intentional in the fact that you wanted people to actually watch us learn with you grow while everybody’s still going, oh, yeah.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:10:15]:

    And you know what? It was terrible because I did it for a bit and I did a video where I was incredibly bored. I was in the garden in my house and I was doing this video where I was dancing Britney I was wearing a Mickey Mouse T shirt, a Mickey Mouse hat. Honestly, if they didn’t hire me for a Disney advert, they never will. It was so funny because there was this video of me dancing, and that video went viral. I got about 600K views from it. Wow. It was brilliant. But then that was where I realized that that was not the audience I wanted to captivate. I was like, Viral is not for me. I rather focus in on quality over quantity. I started YouTube at the time as well, and I remember talking about confidence on camera. My very first video that I did on YouTube, I think I recorded it 18 times.

    Garett Southerton [00:11:08]:

    Wow.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:11:08]:

    Because I wasn’t confident with the way I sounded. I thought people could not understand me. There was a lot of roadblock that I put within myself about my language gap. And when I started to shift my mindset to, okay, people are not coming for me. They come in for the message I have to share. That’s where everything shifted for me. And that was a big shift because you realized that in reality, you are the messenger, not the message. Brand when it comes to confidence, that’s a big step you’re taking towards being more confident on camera and showing up to their real, authentic you.

    Garett Southerton [00:11:41]:

    Oh, I agree with that. I think that’s something that we don’t take into consideration what we perceive as a flaw. Someone might else see the beauty in it and admire that. So for context in my household, between me and my wife, you are a big topic. We love you. We love everything you do. We always talk about you. Right. So with that context, we saw older videos of you talking in Italian.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:12:01]:

    Right.

    Garett Southerton [00:12:02]:

    It was captivating. Like, I can’t speak Italian at all, but watching you speak, I felt like, just here, take my credit card and whatever you’re trying to sell me, I will buy, because you’re so self conscious about your accent. And meanwhile, I’m over here captivated by it. It doesn’t sound like the same reels, even especially in English. It doesn’t sound like the same reels that everyone else is doing. You have your own style. You have your own poise to it. It’s great because I would never guess that English was your second language, to be honest with you. You know what I mean? You just sound so natural when you speak. And it’s crazy because you sound more natural than people that do speak English first sound.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:12:41]:

    Yes, I’ve been told this before. It’s really interesting because I became so confident with my second language that sometimes when I speak in Italian, I don’t speak in Italian very often. I always speak in Italian with my family and my best friends, is Italian. So he lives in the UK. Now I live in America, but we live the bros for so long that we just speak in English all the time. So it’s really funny because sometimes we will speak in Italian and then my partner would be like, wait a minute, are you speaking Italian? But I heard an English word. Is that correct? Yes, because this happened. You don’t remember the words in your own language, so you shift to English. So it’s just very confused. But what is interesting, it’s how I sit down in 2020. I was like, okay, I need to change my strategy. And I thought, what do I like? What am I passionate about? What would I like to see on.

    Garett Southerton [00:13:30]:

    Social media that’s so crucial?

    Joseph Rubelli [00:13:32]:

    I thought I wanted to see a very good produced video, very good lighting, very good dressing code. Someone who is dressed really nicely, that is presenting a topic in a way that is professional, captivating and engaging.

    Garett Southerton [00:13:46]:

    And you are always, always so perfectly dressed.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:13:50]:

    Thank you. Well, I love fashion, and I work in fashion for a while. One of my second jobs when I was working in corporate, there was a time where money were tight, so I did three jobs at a time. I was a graphic designer, a stylist, and I was working as a social media executive. So I was in my early twenty s in London. London is extremely expensive, so you have to do what you have to do. And I was really lucky because my jobs were always something I enjoyed to do. I never did a job that I didn’t like. So that was something that I always feel very privileged about because not always you have that privilege to be able to do what you actually like. And I always have. So when I was working in fashion, what I was doing was really taking people out of their comfort zone with their color scheme, with bringing colors into their wardrobe. I remember one of the phrases that I will ask to my clients will, okay, what type of woman would you like to be today? That was one of the question I will ask. And I will do a makeover. So I will go to this person’s house and I will look at the wardrobe and the first question would be, okay, great. So is this the woman you are today? Or is this the woman you once wear? It’s really interesting how this falls back into social media because now we talk about color psychology. And color is a big trigger for emotions. And if you use color in marketing, it’s one of the most underrated estimated tool. And it’s really interesting how I’ve been able to connect all my passion into my content. The clothing is something that people always remember. And I do that in a way that when people talk about scroll stopping, you stop scrolling because you have a hook. No, you need to stop scrolling for the way you are visually presenting yourself. The hook will do it, but until.

    Garett Southerton [00:15:35]:

    A certain extent, there’s actually a statistic by Kiss metrics that’s like over 80% of buying decisions are on color alone. Nothing else. Just color can influence over 80% of purchasing decisions.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:15:48]:

    That’s right.

    Garett Southerton [00:15:49]:

    Mind blowing. We always try and we try and get our presentation right. We try and make the perfect copy. We try and get the video quality perfect. And it could really all come down just to your colors and how you actually connect to somebody to evoke that emotion.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:16:02]:

    It’s really interesting you mentioned that because I am a recovery perfectionist. So that was one of the things that stopped me for a long time. I could have achieved so much more if I go back, if I wasn’t that perfectionist that I was. And now my approach is better get it done to get it perfect. And sometimes it’s good, sometimes it could be better. But the whole point is shifting your mindset into thinking, okay, great. If someone is coming to your page today, this is who you are today. It would be amazing if they could go back into your feed and go back into your social content and see the progression of it. You don’t relate to perfection, you relate to process. So I always mentioned, stop comparing your stage one to the stage twelve of your favorite speaker or your favorite coach or whoever you follow that you inspire yourself from, because that’s a very big point. Often we compare ourselves to a version of a person that is not the same stage, is not at the same stage where we are right now.

    Garett Southerton [00:17:03]:

    I think that’s one of the key factors for Impostor Syndrome. And I mean, I know we’ve both struggled with that. Definitely. Sometimes it’s just like we see somebody else in our own niche and they’re like so far ahead. Not that the followers matter in this aspect, but they have 100, 200,000 followers and they’re making content daily, and every post gets 150 comments. And it looks like on the outside that they’re doing great, but we don’t consider their actual business to it. Like social media and business are two totally wild different things, right? So we’re over here comparing ourselves to their stage 20 where, yeah, their social media might be popping, their social media might be great, but how are they actually feeling? How is their actual business doing? How is their internal feelings? Because I’m sure, just like you and me, they have their own Imposter Syndrome about somebody now who’s at a million followers and the Gary Vee’s of the world who are running the content game, that next stage for those people. They’re looking up and looking up and looking up. And when we play the comparison game, we just always lose.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:18:08]:

    It’s really true. And comparison is the thief of joy. You 100% compare yourself and you’re taking away the joy of everything you’re doing. You are so focused to compare your work to someone else that you are losing the authenticity of your own. And it is really important to understand also the capacity of these people. So how many people are working with that person? Sometimes you have a team behind it, and the team is not shared. And I started to work by myself, and then I hired and fired a team. It’s really hard to find the right people to work with. And this has been one of the biggest challenges for me, trying to scale the business, because it has been a huge on and off moment with people. And sometimes you’ve had the right people, sometimes you don’t.

    Garett Southerton [00:18:53]:

    There’s that balance between what the budget allows and what you need, and you have to try and find that right balance. You can’t blow your budget and make the company poor because you need the top talent, but at the same time, you can’t hire the lowest cost people, because then your quality of your work goes down and then nobody wants to hire you.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:19:15]:

    It’s very true. And if you’re someone listening to this and you’re working alone, you’re a solopreneur, you look into, you feel like you’re jiggling between many, many things, and you’re wearing so many hats. In your day to day role, I will say look at your to do list, look at your task, look at your skills, and think about what can you outsource, how much would that cost? And if you can afford to do that, I will say look at how you can simplify that task that is taking you so much time. So, for example, if you are someone who takes a lot of time creating carousels, or if you are someone who takes a lot of time editing, how can you simplify that process? If you are someone creating carousel and it takes you X amount of time to do it on Canva, why don’t you create a cover and then you go on your notes and you write the content, and then you screenshot it, and then you square it. And that’s how you have a carousel. Sometimes better getting it done than getting it perfect. And you can always progress. It’s easier to progress over time rather than doing it all at once and then going backwards, because that’s not productive. Yeah.

    Garett Southerton [00:20:26]:

    And I think that another thing that people can do is instead of if you don’t have the budget to constantly hire somebody to keep doing the same thing, instead of hiring somebody to do something ongoing, you can hire them to do it once, and it might cost a little bit more, but then they can make a template and you can use the template to kind of help work your flow better. And in the long run, it will help you save a little bit more and get a little more done in a more efficient way.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:20:53]:

    Exactly. And me and Claire, which is my business partner, I launched Rubelli Digital in 2020, and then in 2022, we launched the Digital Bosses branding agency, which is where we help businesses in beauty and fashion with everything branding, so very similar industry to yours, Garett. But at the same time, we launched the Digital Bosses podcast, which is an incredible resource for anyone looking to get tips and hacks about entrepreneurship, brand building, and digital marketing. So I was the person behind the editing at the beginning of the show, but then what happened was that task was taking a lot of my time. So me and Claire decided to outsource the editing to an editor, and we decided to do it as a project. So we will record more episode at once, and then we will send this package to the editor and we will pay a fee to get all the season edited at once. And then there will be a cost that you take out maybe in one or two months out of your business expense, and that’s done. It is a very good way to do it. And I completely agree. Sometimes you need to look at the bigger picture rather than looking at the month to month expense and see, okay, great, this is costing me X amount now, but it would not cost me anything later on. So that in that case, that’s worth it.

    Garett Southerton [00:22:09]:

    It’s so important to plan and budget and look towards the future instead of like, I just need to get off my plate today. No, you have to learn how you can plan it so you can grow as well. Something like with social media, that gets to me is I find it it can get a bit boring sometimes, right? Incredibly boring sometimes. When one thing trends, that’s all you see on social media for the next month or two. It’s kind of like the meme rotation, right? Like, when there’s one meme, everybody has to remake that meme until the next big thing comes along. And it’s kind of like that with social media, and it’s getting so repetitive, exhausting repetitive. And like, I know one of the hot topics lately that we both despise is this whole metaverfied thing, right?

    Joseph Rubelli [00:22:55]:

    Oh, my God, these blue ticks and people bananas.

    Garett Southerton [00:22:59]:

    And it’s weird because even in DMs, people are like, so I see you got the meta verified. I see you’re verified now. Why did you do that? What’s the point? Why are you giving them your money? Well, for one, more than just the verification mark, it’s supposed to help you safeguard your account, right? You have a very popular account yourself, so of course you need to safeguard your account so that nobody tries and hacks it. But for me, I have the username at Garett. Having only your first name as a username is pretty rare. And I get almost daily, I get, like, password reset notifications, like somebody’s trying to reset my password. But since I went to made a Verified, they went away. I emailed support once. I’m like, Listen, these IPS that are all over the country, they’re not me. I’m not trying to reset my password. Stop it. Because it’s annoying if it’s not that. People are messaging me asking me if they could buy my username.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:23:49]:

    Wow, that was a big trend in 2018. People were doing that. They were selling accounts for thousands of dollars to do that. They asked me to sell my accounts in 2018. And I say no. But I remember they were offering me quite a lot of money for it was an agency that offered me it was a popular agency. We’re not going to mention who it was, but it was quite interesting because they could see I’m momentum happening. And then I was just like, no, I don’t think this is right. For me, meta Verified is the best thing that ever happened because I had a total of 22 impersonation last year. I had 22 accounts that pretended to be me. They will take my content from stories. They will take my content from my feed. They will copy and paste the use in my name with a dot in it. Something very subtle that people will not notice. And then they will message my followers and ask for crypto money. So that was huge. And I got to a point last September where it was unsustainable. It was happening every week. Every week there was somebody reporting. And then what happens is you have your whole story. Basically you share this on stories and then people go through your stories and you’re like it’s basically people sharing this report report. It’s a nightmare. And then they introduced Meta Verified, which has been amazing. I got verified straight away. It was really good. Now everybody that have fake accounts with my name has been blocked. And I was terrified last year because I never seen so many accounts getting restricted. This was happening daily and I was terrified this was going to happen to me. I mean, my account was open years ago. I always mentioned this, that my account is from the never get any updates. I never get anything. I got the caption like two years later. Everybody was captioning their story and making it really cool. I never had the feature until I complained about it on Live. And then I think somebody must have listened and they gave it to me. I tagged Misseri and I said, Listen, I need this. I remember doing every o with the Face of Misseri on the green screen and sending to you on the end and say, do you think I should post this? And I was like, no, you got Shadow Banner.

    Garett Southerton [00:25:57]:

    Well, then you did and didn’t get shadow branding. Well, I’m shocked.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:26:00]:

    Yeah, no, it was funny. Mr. Museri, this video is for you. I am incredibly thankful to see your lovely face every week on my feed. However, I would appreciate less updates and more working features. Something like that. But going back to your point about repetitive content, I think what happened on Social. Media in the last year is really interesting. We are having a huge shift on topics. Everybody’s complaining about the reach. Oh, there’s not enough reach, there’s not enough engagement. My complaint is lack of creativity. Everybody does the same thing 100%.

    Garett Southerton [00:26:42]:

    Agreed.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:26:43]:

    It’s literally the same thing. Recop it and paste it. And that’s why I try always to think out of the box with my content. And it’s not about coming up with something new, but it’s about giving a twist that it’s yours. So I don’t have an Instagram marketing niche. Okay? So people don’t come to my page to get all the Instagram updates. So if you’re an Instagram coach, that’s brilliant that you are keeping your audience up to date with all the updates because that’s very useful. But then I see people sharing topics about Instagram updates and Instagram news in a feed that isn’t Instagram marketing. So to me, I’m like, this is off brand.

    Garett Southerton [00:27:22]:

    It looks desperate.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:27:23]:

    It looks very desperate. I agree. And I’m like, how many posts do we need for you to tell me that? I can put five links on my bio? I had it. It’s just like, I can’t deal anymore. Also, people are never happy because before it was like, oh, I want to get a bluetick, but it’s only for celebrity. Now you have the blue tick. Now there is the whole process around the bluetick. People don’t want it.

    Garett Southerton [00:27:46]:

    Yeah, you paid for it. It doesn’t mean anything anymore.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:27:48]:

    And I’m like, Just calm down. And first of all, it’s a free platform. People need to make money. It’s a business. Meta is not a charity. Mark Zupenberg doesn’t live in Palo Alto because it has a charity organization. He lives in Palo Alto because he has a business.

    Garett Southerton [00:28:05]:

    It’s a very successful business.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:28:07]:

    Exactly. It’s really interesting to me and there is this big shift. Everybody’s very repetitive. When I do community management, I do not remember whether I am engaging with somebody that I engaged before or someone new because the content is the same.

    Garett Southerton [00:28:21]:

    Yeah, it’s hard to stand out.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:28:23]:

    Very true. And it doesn’t help if you don’t show up on video, which is why I’m so strong about video presence and showing up on camera. Because when you show up on camera, it does not matter what you talk about, it’s you. People will remember your face. People connect to people with the caveat.

    Garett Southerton [00:28:42]:

    Though, that you have to be yourself like this, talking, saying, well, Meta added five links to the bio, then nobody’s going to care. Exactly.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:28:51]:

    This is leading me to an exploit, which I think is really important. I don’t know if you agree, but I noticed a lot of arrogance from a lot of experts and people that stop doing this. This is why you’re not getting this. And I know sometimes this is a ton of voice due to the hook that you’re using because you need to kind of debug the myth in the industry, but sometimes the delivery is extremely important. I don’t feel invested in an account where the person is very bossy and is just telling you off all the time. Because you need to think about why people are in social media. If they’re in social media for business, they want to feel welcome. They want to feel that they belong to a community and they want to feel helped because you giving them resources that are useful. So what I mean by resources is giving actionable tips that are useful at the stage where they are right now. But before you do that, you need to understand what stage are they at. Within my personal brand and within the digital boss’s brand, we do this thing called full transparency. It’s a hashtag that we use when we talk about something that could be defined as off brand, but it’s just a personal perspective. So I use the hashtag because it allows people to understand that that’s my view. It doesn’t have to be a rule.

    Garett Southerton [00:30:05]:

    But you’re not bossy with it either. You’re more of like, from an educational standpoint of like, hey, this is my view. You don’t have to agree with it and that’s fine. You could still grow if you don’t agree with it. But since everybody’s being so demandative about it, here’s how I feel. And you could take from that and build your own perspective.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:30:22]:

    For me, it’s about my approach and my delivery. It’s about this help me. This is how we can help you to give it a try. And it’s really about that because if we’re going back to the core marketing, it’s all about testing, optimizing or repeating. There isn’t anybody giving you the rule that is going to be for life. People that are telling you that they give you the blueprint to grow on Instagram. Just because you work for them, it doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you necessarily. So also when people are marketing numbers and figures rather than result, that’s where you have to wonder whether it is the right person or not. When people have their own marketing strategy based on how much money they make, step away because that’s just a very slazy marketing that never works. And that’s really when you dive into this and you realize that the actual resource and the results that they deliver isn’t really there. It’s just about what they achieve.

    Garett Southerton [00:31:18]:

    I love when people are like, oh, well, you could ten times your income right now if you stop and make videos like this. Okay, but what’s that context? That what’s ten times mean. If I was making a dollar, you meant to make $10 now just because I stop you and go, hey, stop and stop the feed for you. Like you said, it’s sleazy and it’s lazy because everybody can try and connect on money because money is a topic. Whether for better currency I’ll need to make it when people do that. Like, yeah, of course it’s going to get attention, but that’s so lazy. Why don’t you connect on something that’s more personal?

    Joseph Rubelli [00:31:50]:

    I agree. And I will say this, and this is something that I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. People are driven by two currency money and awareness. Everything in between is why people stick to it. It’s really about understanding what that means to you. If you’re driven by money, that’s good. What does that look like for you? How much money does make you feel.

    Garett Southerton [00:32:13]:

    That you what’s the bigger picture?

    Joseph Rubelli [00:32:15]:

    Exactly. So money are a currency. It’s an exchange. You either have them or you don’t. Sometimes you understand, okay, great. I want to make money. You need to make this choice. The business is a different story. Having a business and having a brand, it’s a very different story. You can have a business that makes a lot of money. You don’t need the brand. Not everybody needs the brand. But if you want to build a brand, it’s more about the impact that the product and service is having on the people. And this is why you should market on social. The money will come along if you have the right product, if you have the right offer, if you deliver it in the right way. And I think people want two things when they go on social media, they either want to make money or they want to grow really fast. Everything in between is what people do wrong. So I feel like if you’re listening to this, think about your plan and think about, okay, what does awareness bring to me? What does money bring to me? What is in between these two? That’s where you need to work on.

    Garett Southerton [00:33:13]:

    Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I like how you split that up into two things. Right? Like, for me, it’s awareness, right? I want people to be more intentional. I want people to live their life with a purpose. I want them to run their businesses and their brands with a purpose. Everything’s just too transactional. You pop onto social media and half those people are just transactional about, hey, well, buy this and do this, buy this and do this. Help me see that. Like we said, the bigger picture of why do I want to do this? Why do I want to make more money? Why do I want to get more time? In my day, people don’t realize, like, the transition. They only see, like, point blank, like, what’s in front of them. And it’s not just about what’s in front of you. It’s about where you go. Let’s say, like, 20 years from now, right? When you’re ready to retire and everything, does it really matter how many followers you had? Does it really matter how much money you did make? Or what’s going to matter is the experiences you’ve made, the people you’ve met. Like, 20 years from now, I want to be able to say, wow, I remember Joe. He helped change my life, he helped my business grow. But more than that, I made a great friend. I made some confidence in my everyday life to be better. I’m not too afraid to show up on FaceTime with somebody random or meet a new friend or be more social when I go to the store and meet somebody new because Joe gave me that confidence on video, which translates then to real life.

    Joseph Rubelli [00:34:33]:

    I agree.

    Garett Southerton [00:34:34]:

    Like it’s so much, much more than what people are making it. It’s no secret that I owe Joseph so much. And in this conversation, I hope it empowers you. Make sure you follow at garett at brand intentionally. And of course, if you’re watching this on YouTube, make sure you like and subscribe. Stay tuned for the next episode. And remember, brand intentionally.


About The Author

Garett Southerton

Garett Southerton (Garett®) is an Intentional Brand Strategist & Designer that has been a professional creative for over 18 years. He helps passionate changemakers impacting the world with their abilities through intentionality in visuals and strategy as a means to not only scale their brands, but to also cultivate a community where they can truly make a meaningful change while maintaining sustainability - making an impact without sacrificing an income.

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