It’s all about the quality! The very important thing to consider on social media is the value and the quality of the content you provide. It’s not necessarily to post a huge amount of content to get noticed, it’s more about the value of the content you provide.


We often use the term “Influencers” to describe people with significant social media followings on platforms like Instagram, Twitter TikTok, Youtube, Linkedin and Facebook. Influencers have become today’s media titans, sought after for everything from product placements to timely trends. What’s the difference between influence and impact? Fans and followers? Sizzle versus staying power?

In this interview series, called, “How To Cultivate Community In A Click to Connect World” we are talking to influencers about how they define success and what we all need to discover about the true nature of influence. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremy Goldman.

Jeremy Goldman is a futurist, author, business owner, and entrepreneur. He is the founder of FUTUREPROOF , where you can understand and predict how the next few years may look like, along with the sharpest minds and experts in high-tech, as well as societal issues. Jeremy was the Former Executive Chairman of Firebrand Group, which is a management consultancy whose sole mission is to build a brand by improving marketing, communications, and corporate strategy. Also, he is the author of Going Social (2013) and Getting to Like (with Ali B. Zagat, 2016).


Thank you for making time to visit with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. How did you discover your career path and what got you to where you are today?

For nearly 20 years, I have been spearheading long-term marketing strategies and developing deep insights for world-class brands like Consumer Reports, Amtrak, Kiehl’s, US Marine Corps, BECCA, Colgate, Unilever. I developed the branding for Mobileye, later sold to Intel for $15 Billion.

I run strategy for the evolution of pioneering digital research brand eMarketer’s Briefing going out to all subscribers. We have some really exciting things coming up that I wish I could tell you but they’ll shoot me. In addition to managing, I’m also writing for the Briefing, covering marketing, advertising, social media, customer experience, and more.

As Principal Analyst in Insider Intelligence’s eMarketer vertical covering customer experience, brand marketing and digital marketing strategies, I wrote research reports on transformational trends, and right now I host the podcast FUTUREPROOF which has featured guests such as Seth Godin, Tim Draper, Dorie Clark, Rand Fishkin, and many other thought leaders.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned along the way that influences how you operate now?

Being an influencer is a responsibility more than anything else. Influencers have the power to influence followers’ opinions and emotions. Also, influencers can affect largely followers’ decisions in different aspects of life.

That’s why today “influencers” consider one of the most important tools of marketing.

From here, I believe that influencers should be honest, genuine and choose carefully the type of content they post because it will have a positive or negative impact on followers who consume it.

We’re all searching for some good news. How are you using your platform to make a positive social impact?

Through using social media we provide the needed knowledge for graduates/students/business owners to navigate their professional life. I have my own podcast Futureproof where we host the sharpest minds to predict the future of businesses, finance, work, or high tech with examples and discuss them to make the future more predictable and easy to navigate. Also, sharing these pieces of information on social media platforms such as Twitter makes the information more reachable.

Many of our readers are influencers as well. Others have tried and have yet to succeed. What words of advice would you offer to aspiring influencers, knowing what you know now?

Be real and authentic in the provided content on the right platform. Knowing exactly the type of content that matches your target audiences’ needs and interests. Also, knowing which platform is the right one for your content; Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. Keeping these two things in the mind of the influencer is a key player for all aspiring influencers’ life.

Success is often a matter of perspective. I’ve always resonated with Henry David Thoreau’s quote, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” How do you see success — or define success — for yourself now?

Success from my perspective is while trying to achieve your aims, teaching yourself to have a strong mentality, emotional strength, and willpower. Basically, success definition perspective, but at the end of the day to be successful at something, you have to achieve a goal. However, what makes a successful person stands out from others is the level (and extent) of experience the person gets during his journey to the goal. So, I truly believe that success is more about the journey than the destination.

What are your strategies to make room for who and what matters most?

Making a list of priorities, and explaining the details to see where I can create the room is my first strategy. Through establishing priorities we can have a clear vision of urgent tasks, important tasks, and “lower unimportant tasks”. From here, determine what to do first and how much time does it take becomes easier and clearer.

How do you reduce or mitigate stress?
I have long-term techniques to reduce stress for long-term effects and other techniques fast onset of action to deal with stress immediately.

Regarding the long-term techniques, practicing yoga (ten minutes) two-three times a week. This has a great impact on many aspects of life; it brings peace to the mind and reduces anxiety and chronic worrying. Also, it helps in bringing relaxation to the whole body and increases muscle strength. All together less stressful life.

Regarding handling the daily stress resulting from work or daily responsibilities; my favorite one is doing quick exercise for five or ten minutes; running, walking, or pushups. This reduces the stress largely and controls the negative emotions and thoughts.

I’m going to try a few of your tips, and I’m hopeful our readers will, too. Now it’s time for the big reveal — the moment our readers have been anticipating. What are your “five strategies to cultivate a large & engaged social media community?’ Please share a story or example for each.

  1. Stick to a specific niche: sticking to one specific niche on social media platforms helps influencers to create consistent and convenient content. Also, it helps you to learn more about your followers/audience interests, consistent content is a crucial tool to build trust between the influencers and their followers. Content always should be valuable (in the niche) all the time, this is the super way to gain respect and trust from the followers.
  2. Add a touch of personality (humanity) to the posts: post useful and consistent content is the first thing to do to become a successful influencer. However, the sense of perfection every single day in every single post makes the account unrealistic and detached from the people’s life. you know that the smile with passion and full energy to the work along with the cup of coffee and the laptop like nothing happens in the world would disturb you! or like you’ve never experienced boredom or exhausting at work because you love it! That’s really unrealistic and farther from the truth. Influencers have to be genuine. Therefore, it’s necessary to add the touch of personality and humanity to your posts, and share moments of real-life in different situations and would be great to find solutions and discuss these issues with your followers.
  3. Engage with your followers: engagement with followers’ comments, questions and opinions is an important step to do. Also, to reply to their queries when you rising a hot topic to discuss. Keep in mind that you don’t have to handle or pay attention to the negative comments! Better ignore them.
  4. Always be socially responsible: Influencers have real power over people and they can encourage them to be more responsible towards society. For example, during the pandemic and quarantine times, some influencers played a great role in publishing the right information and raising awareness of this pandemic. Also, they encouraged people to help each other especially those who lost their jobs. This is important for many reasons and at different levels; first of all, it’s necessary because we’re humans who live the same destiny. Also, this social responsibility builds the trust bridge between influencers and their audience.
  5. It’s all about the quality! The very important thing to consider on social media is the value and the quality of the content you provide. It’s not necessarily to post a huge amount of content to get noticed, it’s more about the value of the content you provide.

What do you do to create a greater sense of connection and community among your fans?

Two things, as I mentioned before social responsibility and understanding the audience’s needs and interests.

Influencers who understand their audience, usually post content to discuss topics and issues that matter to them. This makes the followers more engaged in the content and the account. Besides, showing the social responsibility that the influencer believes in and sharing activities on social media platforms to encourage human values within the society, is a perfect way to strengthen the trust relationship between followers and influencers.

As an influencer, you are, by definition, a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I already started it! The FutureProof and I hope this idea reaches every single person especially young people. The idea of this movement is to raise “reliable” awareness in the business world future and deliver this knowledge to youth, entrepreneurs and business owners. So, we can create an agile and resilient generation of business leaders. So, the effect of any unexpected disaster; financial, health, or natural would be at the lowest level.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you’d like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He, she or they might just see this. 🙂

That is a difficult question!! But I’d love to discuss some topics with Tim Cook, as he the CEO of one the most innovative companies in the world.

What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygoldman/

Thank you for these thought provoking insights. Here’s to your continued success!