{Interactive Web Design Blog}

Kris Krug is a man who wears many hats; the quintessential jack of all trades. He is equally well known for his work as a fashion and street photographer as he is for his work with Social Media. He is an innovator, a maverick, a TED talker, a shameless self promoter, and one of the most engaging people D.O.G. has ever talked to.

D.O.G: Any advice for up and coming social media people? How do you separate  yourself from the hacks?

Kris Krug: I think the one thing that is missed in the whole popularity of it all is that it really comes down to producing rad content all the time. Whether it is myself or Rebecca Bollwitt or Dave Olson, you look at these guys and the stuff they publish is awesome, it provides a service to the community, it’s deep, it’s not superficial, there’s solid leadership represented there. It’s great stuff. And then they go back and do it again tomorrow and they do it again the next day.

D.O.G: So it is all about content?

Kris Krug: Well I think that is huge part of it. And from there you can start to layer stuff on top of it. So, I am a big fan of identifying heroes and then reaching out to the them by following them. I can say hey Gillian Shaw, digital life reporter for the vancouver sun, I love your work, here is my work, check me out. I mean that is the cool part of the social media revolution, the dis-inter-mediation of the communications realm.

You can just talk to people. You can just look up the New york times digital life reporter guy and pitch him on your stuff. You can pitch him right there. He is going to see it and you know it. Before you might have had to work to get that foot in the door. If you are publishing awesome stuff and you reach out to these people, you are going to find that you are met with quick success.

D.O.G: So it is really about being social and being out there more than anything else?

Kris Krug: yeah yeah, but you have to do it on top of this platform. This platform of awesomeness. whether it be awesome photos, cool Canadian stories like Rebecca Bollwitt, or old timey wanderings that Dave Olson does. These are deep, unique, and awesome perspectives. If you have that, you are set.

Where it falls down and you look like an ass is when you are the guy tweeting about twitter, or the guy blogging about blogging. Those are the nightmare scenarios. Don’t be that guy. If your talking about differentiation, about how to separate yourself. Don’t be that guy. It sounds cheesy, but you should write about stuff you are passionate about.

For example, I am out at New York Fashion week, I am following the Olympic games and I am shooting photos every day. Give yourself some fuel for the engine that is Social Media.

D.O.G: So how can we turn all of this awesomeness into profits?

Kris Krug: So, the social media approach to things acknowledges that markets are conversations. People my age and your age can smell advertising and marketing coming a mile away. So if you start using these channels to throw marketing and advertising up on them you will fail. You will actually lose credibility instead of gaining it and it will backfire. The whole popularity of this stuff is a response to people not wanting to be marketed too and working around marketing.

The whole point of it is that it is authentic. It’s people to people communication. So ways that it can be used effectively are when you see people using it effectively for customer service and support. Like last week a buddy of mine was bitching about the service he got at fido mobile and so he tweeted about it and someone responded from the fido twitter account and helped him on twitter.
I think that is great example managing public relations using social media and also strengthening the fido brand by creating stories like that.
I think the way to monetize this social media stuff is not through talking marketing speak; it is using it as tool to actually talk to, and engage with customers. You obviously can’t use social media to engage with every customer one to one but you can pick out customers with good questions to answer. They say that if one person in a room asks a question there is a good chance that other people in that room are wondering the same thing. It is the same with social media. If Gregor Robinson, the mayor of Vancouver, is using twitter to respond to his constituents, he can’t respond to all of his constituents. But if he can notice some trends, or some issues bubbling up, people talking about the same stuff and then respond one person about one of those issues, that is a real deep engagement, that’s priceless

D.O.G: What tips do you have for “making it” as a successful freelancer?

Kris Krug: I think it’s really, really important to just get out there. That means going to networking events, keeping you ear to the ground and showing up with enthusiasm. I say yes to a lot of stuff. I am always keen to take on new things, and try new stuff. I’ll say yes to jobs that maybe don’t pay the best rate or whatever. I am also, constantly scanning for those great jobs. But, you are never going to get those great jobs unless you are constantly out there doing it. Unless you are out there getting stuff published and getting people to talk about your work.

Get your work out there into the wild. I use a creative commons license to publish my work, which allows artists and other non profits to use my work for free with credit. And it gets my work out there and seen all the time. For instance, my photo is the front page of the Dalai lama’s website. My photo is the front page Eckart Tolle’s Website. Both of those people are using my photos for free with credit. But it gives me huge notoriety. and their linking back to me.

D.O.G: My mom would cry if  one of my photos was on the front page of Eckart Tolle’s Website.

Kris Krug: Yeah, ha ha ha ha ha ha….. and the flip side of that is that every time the Dalai Lama links to me and Eckart Tolle links to me I become easier to find using search engines.
So if you search for Vancouver Photography, Vancouver photographer, or any similar combination of those words you will find that I am the number one hit that comes up on Google. The idea there is by giving away my work to non-profits, creatives, artists, and other people to use and encouraging them to link back to me I am ensuring that I am the top hit on Google for those key words. It helps with getting my work out there and bringing notoriety, and it helps to get me great search placement on google.

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