#H2HChat: Using Video to Build a Stronger Community: From YouTube to Blab with Mia Voss

We're live.

Hey, how's everybody doing? We are back for another H2H chat. I'm very excited about this one because we're going to hit a hot topic that is talking about video, which is something that's been going on now, I think, for a long time, but we, we all talked about video as being— this year being the year of video, and I think it came true. I think it's happening, and I couldn't be more excited about it because— well, not only because I predicted it, but— I'm kidding— but because I think it's one of those things where things are happening that we didn't even see coming. Things are upsetting us about certain platforms. People are debating over this stuff right now. It's getting crazy. So I'm excited for today to talk to Mia Voss. Mia, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

BK, have it your way. I had to say it. It's my favorite thing. Are we okay with the tiara? I'm just making sure.

Oh, I love it.

Of course, of course.

I'm

a fan. And we've got Susie. Welcome, my wonderful co-host in New York. Live from New York. How are you doing?

Doing well, doing well.

Awesome.

It's fun to be here. I'm incredibly excited to chat with Mia. This is like, yeah, we've been going back and forth, as you guys have probably seen on Twitter for the past couple days, and just, we're all super, super pumped, and it's gonna be awesome.

Yay!

Cool. Well, good. Why don't we go ahead and get started? Mia, could you do me a favor and just give everyone a little bit about you, your background?

So I was born in 19— just kidding.

I want you to describe how you got

here. Yeah, exactly. So I am a YouTube show host. I originally had a show on Google Hangouts called Mia Connect Power Chat. Started 2 years ago, and before that I was a building inspector. I still am once in a while, by the way. I have a kick-ass hat. But we all had to reinvent when the economy tanked, right? I'm just saying.

So you inspected buildings. That was one of your many hats that you wore.

Yeah, I go and boss men around, and I love it. I still do. Once in a while my clients will call me and say, Mia, get out here and whip some people into shape. It's super fun.

Nice.

You have different revenue streams. I did start the Google Hangout show about 2 years ago, just inspired for storytelling. Absolutely love it. You've been on my show, which is awesome. It's been fun. A couple months ago, and I'm now— I actually do a lot of video production for people. I help them tell their story, help them look and sound good in video, because a lot of times it's like, I'm shit. Please don't

do

that. I try and get people to not do that. And then I'm traveling and doing Mia on the Go. I'm leaving for DC tomorrow and taking my show on the road with storytelling, which is super fun. And I have my show on Blab now. Hey! So let's get into that.

Which we will definitely talk about that. That is one of the biggest things that I think, you know, has happened in the video land to debate and help heighten the awareness around crappy video, if you will. And, you know, I'm agnostic personally. I think it sounds like you are as well. I like— I'm a switcher. I like to switch when things get better. A lot of people get really— That

sounded odd.

Did I just say that out loud? So what do you think about— I mean, you just got tired of Google. We were just talking about this before we got on. But you love video, you still love video, but you just quit Google Hangouts and said, I'm done. Why?

Well, and for me, I deferred to video because I can't freaking stand writing. Like, I'd rather poke a stick in my eye than write. So I started doing video as my easier way to tell a story than to write it out. I'm a great reader though, just so you know. Anybody got some good things for me to read, I'll do it. But it just became increasingly difficult and I think I said this on our blab on Friday that I just all of a sudden, everybody kept saying, you know, it's breaking, they're like, Mia's always able to handle it. And I was finally like, this is like a really crappy boyfriend, Google Hangouts. I mean, every week, you know, and I did this every week for, I think I had 100 shows in the can, over 500 guests for 2 years and I was going back and reviewing all of the shows. Noticing this constant theme of like, oh, my ATR doesn't work, lower thirds doesn't work, there's an echo, there's something. I started to see this crappy behavior pattern. I just said, I've got to take a break from this. It was running to stand still for me a little bit. I felt like we were also not getting as much engagement because of the Google+ factor, which is a whole other thing. I want to clarify, a lot of people get aggro with me because they think I've quit Google+, which I still love. I have a fun audience. fun community over there built on the shows. But Google+ is a whole different thing from Google Hangouts On Air. And that's the Hangouts On Air piece.

They're like 2 totally different companies. Have you ever heard from Google Hangout from anyone that works there? Have you ever talked to a real person?

You ready for the F-bomb? Are we ready for it?

I'm ready.

Fuck no. Fuck no, I am. I didn't. And I never really— I'd reach out to people like Ronnie Finster. There it is. Sorry, I didn't have that ready. I need that in person. Walk in a room and you F-bomb, somebody's impressed. But, you know, I was more— we crowdsourced it a lot to problem solve. So we would be in like the Hangouts On Air group or something like that. But, you know, again, I'm going to jump the show, jump the shark a little bit. That's what I'm loving about Blab is everybody gets, you know, they're either told no, we can't do that yet. Here's why, or here's how to problem solve it, or we fixed it. Hello.

Yep.

You know, I think they came out with too many bells and whistles. I mean, I have my effects over here. Please make a TR, Sean, and everybody that's over at Blab. But, you know, there's a lot of stuff that doesn't work that still sits here, right? So that was kind of the hard thing.

What is— how do you leverage video? This year versus last year. How do you leverage video to get viewers? How do you build a community using video?

Well, I love— I wrote a blog for Curati called Building Your Know, Like, Trust Factor, which is great. And seriously, video, when you get that combination of the sound, the sight, the vision, your product, whatever it is, your experience, that really does affect people and it does create that like, oh, you know, just like TV did for years and still does. I think when you can create that know, like, trust factor and there's a transparency, you can't really fake it. Except you can really look different on the bottom than other people think when you do these things. That's why I do what's on the bottom of my shows. It's on the bottom. I want to see the whole picture. For me, the storytelling is how I created community. It's so much fun. I'd meet these people on the street. I'd meet somebody doing something really cool in the community, something that's changing, that's a game changer. I'd say, come on my show. Let's talk about it. Probably my most fun one was Temple Grandin, the high-functioning autistic professor here in Colorado. They did a show, a movie on her on HBO, and I just sat there like— she was a bucket list one for me too. So talk about being able to storytell with video.

Right. So there's this debate going on around live streaming versus listening, watching video. After the fact, replay if you will, or consuming content when you want. I think Chris Brogan brought that up as one of his debates. He's a replay guy. Sure. You know, there's debates going on about all of this, like when, how, how and when you consume video.

Right, and there's an app for that on the replay, by the way. There's an app for that.

There is an app for that. So what do you think? What do you think about live versus replay?

Well, I mean, I think we said this in the green room, that's sort of the podcast mentality of, you know, that you just wanted to do that. What's great for the podcast is you can make it perfect. You can toy with things, you can fuss with things. So I get that, that's fantastic. You know, you can make it more of a perfect product. The thing I like about live streaming— well, the thing I like about it and I don't like it is everybody has a broadcast tower. That's good and bad, right?

I like that. Everyone has a broadcast tower.

You know who I got that from? From Sarah Hill, who was one of the first people to start doing Google Hangouts, one of the first adopters of Google Glass, which I think was another downfall. The biggest downfall for Hangouts, to segue for a second, is the fact that you could not start Hangouts on mobile. I mean, man, that's the worst thing. So now you can be— I use Periscope for my adventures. Like, hey, I'm here in Austin. I'm at the Bat Bridge. Watch a million bats come out. You know what I mean? That's super fun, and then you hashtag it correctly and people are going to find that experience that they want. So I think live streaming is great, and in 2 ways. One, for people who want to broadcast. 2, for people who want to make connections. They may be what's called a lurker, they never actually broadcast, but they sit there and they talk to one another. That's how I got to know Jay McMichael. Let's give him a shout out. He came into my Periscope and was like— Hi. Who are you? Like, who are you? So, I mean, that's how it works, right?

Yeah, you know, so that is right. And when you're playing something back, you're watching the interaction of something that was live. There's a difference between playing something back that was live and playing something back that was produced.

Definitely, yeah, yeah, oh, definitely.

Like, there's studios that produce Quality video, and that's not to say that live isn't quality, but it's a hot-ass

mess. I celebrate the hot mess. Like really? Go watch TV then. Right.

So, and I wish that I was. I would rather have done anything else than watch the VMAs live.

You can't. Hey dude, you can't unring that bell. I said. I said to you in the green room. I like it's like a. That's the visual version of doing whippets, you know, a visual version. You just killed a lot of brain cells.

Oh my God, I really did, and I didn't drink last night, but I feel like I did. So what do you think about that? I mean, do you think there's a place for both still? You know, quality— where's the quality? Where is quality in live versus produced?

Oh, there's a lid for every pot, honey. You know what I'm saying? Like, I think you're going to want to watch these well-put-together broadcasts that can can go in and you can see it and hear it well, that's what you're relying on. Then it's also going to be— yes, we can get the news out pretty quickly. I learn more news things now I have CNN on my phone, but I learn a lot more of it about stuff that streams through on Facebook.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? Or that people are live at the scene and they're showing you the forest fire or whatever. I'm agnostic like you. I do what works for me. I like a little bit of everything. I think what you lose— and this was how I liked bringing people to my live broadcast. The great thing about a live broadcast is that I could interact with them right away and shout them out and say, hey, look who's watching. It was like a reward for people. You must be present to win kind of thing. That's the great thing. With podcasts, you kind of lose that, but then again, you do have people— that's how they consume it. They do feel a little bit fussy, like, don't tell me what to do.

Yeah.

That's what it is, you guys. What do you think?

I love that about you. I love that. You and Suzy, I can see why the two of you get along.

I'm coming to New York, by the way, and shit's going to get real.

You better. We're going to have way too— Periscope, see?

Can you imagine? Hey, listen, DC is not that far, so I may try and— I'm going to be in DC for 2 weeks, and I may pop up to New York.

There you go.

Just saying.

It's going to get real.

So that's the thing. There's now options. Back at South by Southwest, it was just Meerkat. That was huge, dude.

I love how you guys talked about that. What was it? Was that you guys on Meerkat? This is my imitation of you guys on Meerkat.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now we had Meerkat, we had— and then Periscope, and then Facebook came along. Hangouts has been there for a while. You were a pioneer there. I think it didn't really catch on, and then did it really catch on is the question.

No, and then the difficulty of use, just to say that, it really because of the difficulty of use for that, of getting people onto your show, you know.

So here's my question for you. When you look at all these, now we've got options just like we did with social networks. We had Facebook, then we had Twitter, then we had LinkedIn, then we had Pinterest and Instagram and blah blah blah. It's starting to become the same thing with video, don't you think? Like, we have all these options.

Sure, sure.

Where do you see what's working? What do you think will work? Like, put your crystal ball hat on and what do you think? Predict some stuff for us.

Well, first I'm going to find out what the lotto numbers are, then I'll get back to you. If I get a crystal ball, I want it to work for me.

Chat those to me privately, you don't have to say them on the show.

DM, DM. I really think it's going to be about what works for you, and this is why we were talking about these different arguments that are going on with some influencers online. Not even arguments, but debates per se, because I think it's healthy for everybody to disagree and be disruptive to one another in a sense of like, well, I see it this way. The thread we were talking about in particular, I loved your answer to it. This was Chris Voss, my brother. I said Chris Voss and I need to be sponsored by Voss Water. I'm going to say it again, just a little plug. I think it's what works for you. Right. For me, it used to be Hangouts, and then I quit abruptly and started doing my video. I turned it into a product based on all the work that I did and then kind of shelved that. I was sick of it just because of how much work it was. Then I saw Periscope because I'm Android, so late to the game. And I always get aggro. You should hear me get on my soapbox on it. Because people are like, I'm number 1 in Periscope. I'm like, dude, half the population isn't on it yet. So go ahead, wait till Android gets on there. But this is what I love about Blab is that I can— I'm Android and I can still participate, right? Right. But there's something— but again, lid for every pot. That's what I figured out worked for me. I tried Periscope. I do like it in the sense of the live broadcast. I think for me, I use it more for adventures as opposed to I'm just sitting here and you look at me because I'm just sitting here and I told you so and I'm drinking coffee. Although I do drink wine on my Blab. Watch me drink.

It's pretty fun.

I need to join that.

You don't want to join that. I think we need to do it live actually is what needs to happen. That's when things get real. Now it's a party. But then I knew that it wasn't working for me because I was trying to incorporate— I had this whole rigged up thing that I had. I was doing Periscope and then I would turn it and do Google Hangouts. But then I was double teaming our timing because I was trying to respond to the comments here, respond to the comments there, but I knew in my head, I think Fanzo calls it, he's like, I kind of gamed it a little bit because I wanted to figure out how to, or hacked it to figure out how I could still get my people in there and then Blab. Ryan Bell is the first person I heard about it. I was at Podcast Movement, speaking of podcasts, watching my brother Shannon Hernandez and Jeff See and Ryan Bell all spoke at that. Ryan Bell's got this Blab t-shirt on. Of course, you know what our first reaction was to Blab. I bet you had it too. Shit, another thing I've got to learn.

Yeah.

Then I saw it because Jay told me about it. I was driving back from Austin. We heard about it. I was driving back from Austin and he's like, have you seen it yet? I'm like, no, I'm tired. Then I got on it that night and pinged Ileane Smith, who I love. She's keeping up on that. It's 3 o'clock in the morning and I'm like, girlfriend, tell me about this. And then I got on the next day because it worked for me. That's what worked for me. So all these arguments about different things, I think you just have to find what it is, and it may be just a viewing thing that you don't even— not everybody's got a broadcast. I'm just saying.

Well, so yeah, everybody can make their own decisions, and that's the beauty of it. The same for social media. It's just an extension of social. It's an extension of building a community, and where do you want to build your community? Now let's, let's go ahead and just dive straight into Blab because I think that's, that's really kind of become the, the new, the new thing that really works all the time, 100%, right? Like we get on it and yeah, there's little bugs here and there, but you can get on right away. Here's what I love. So give me the top 3 to 5 things that you love about Blab. What are you finding Definitely

the views. I mean, that's huge for me because I'm just not— I mean, I felt like by the end of it when I was doing Google Hangouts, remember that machine on Princess Bride when they put them on and they go, you just lost 5 years of your life, right? Like, I felt like every week I was just like, the stress level, I was losing like, like it was just more crow's feet because the stress level was really high. And, you know, I wanted to give a good product. I had, you know, I had guests, you know, then when you have this It's supposed to be this really great production and you're spending half the time with people going, there's an echo, there's a delay. That disrupts it. It's so disruptive. You can't think straight, right? Yeah. The other thing that I love for me, you guys, I'm getting to meet people that have been watching my shows for 2 years and I've never seen them face to face. Guess what? All I do is click a button that says join the seat because now the way I do my shows is called 5 Minutes in the Box. Yeah. Right, because there's the 4 little boxes and so I just have them come in and all of a sudden I'm like, hey, that's you. I mean, that to me is the coolest thing. Talk about— Isn't that great? Oh, it totally is and it's very, very easy to bring them over and again, there's still some fuss factor. There's some aggro of, I don't want to come over. I'm like, okay honey, then don't come over. You know what I mean? But I get to bring people in. I also love the I've been saying this a lot, that it's not so siloed. Google Hangouts, it was very difficult to share over on Facebook. People were like, what the fuck is that? It was alienating to a lot of people on Facebook. There was not a lot of integration between those 2 platforms at all. Google+. Google+. Let me clarify that. Now I can click to tweet, which I love. Sarah Moorer was on Bryan Fanzo's today. She did mention that I think everybody is getting an influx of Twitter. You get off of Blab, you've got 80 notifications, right guys?

Yeah.

Which I love. I think it's awesome. That's a little bit of a fish in a pan. Sarah's point was that now what do you do? You can revive your Twitter, but what's the interaction? Then you go over and have a conversation, but it's a lot easier because one, I followed you on Blab right away and I can go tweet. I love that integration. And then the chats, and then they're changing stuff every day, you guys. It's kind of cool. I'm not even keeping up on it. I don't even front like I can keep up on it. I'll just go, oh really, that's how it works now? Oh cool.

So it's funny because I just literally today launched a new ebook for Blab. I didn't see that. We'll push the link out here over the course of the chat. But what's funny is I realized quickly that, I mean, I was working on it all the way up Until yesterday, and as I'm working on it, I'm thinking, oh man, I gotta change that because they just changed something yesterday. So, you know, that's the thing, like, so how cool, right, that their platform is changing daily, their app is updating daily, and Google Hangouts and all these other platforms, really, you know, you're not seeing that as much. Sure. The updates are really there.

The updates are there. What I like too, because I saw all the guys on a Blab— I started to say Hangout, just so you know. I started to say Hangout.

That is an issue, right? It's become part of our lexicon. Yes. So we're going to have to switch. That was awesome. Blab needs sound effects.

It took me a second. I'm waiting for something to creep up behind me like— My bad.

Uh-oh.

Oh no.

We lost our guest.

That's what happens when you badmouth Hangouts.

Apparently. You know what happens to me? I usually get booted out when I say Star Wars.

Wow. You know what's funny is, like Susie just said, right when you said bad things about Hangout, it booted you.

Seriously, why?

It totally did. Look at my charisma. Now you can see, by the way, Because I'm traveling so much, I hang at my friend's guest house up in the mountains. I travel with a big fancy pillow. This is a big fancy pillow, by the way. And so I put a big fancy pillow to cover up. That's my guest bed. So there you go. Thank you. I don't even know where I was. Oh, I was on the Blab. And what I like about those guys is they'll tell you what they can't do. They're okay with saying, no, that's not what we're going to focus on right now. Have you guys caught that too?

Yeah.

I like that about them. I did love the integration of YouTube. As soon as we're done with this, this uploads to YouTube and then as soon as I'm done watching this, you know I'm going over to YouTube channel and adding this to my playlist of Hangouts that I've been on. That was probably the hard thing with Periscope. That's a little pro tip for everybody. If you go on something and somebody uploads it to YouTube, if they have the capability, you can add that To your playlist. It keeps all the views, so you're not downloading it, but it says, hey, I was on Bryan Kramer's show, because he's that cool.

I just learned something today. But you know, you're gonna get way more views because people know that Susie's here. Trust me.

And Luna. You should just bring the cat on.

I know. I need the cat. She'll come back. Yeah.

So we have just a couple more minutes here before— I mean, you think I was nice, then when Susie takes over, you're gonna— but—

I just feel like it's a crazy I see threesome tag-teaming going on here. I know.

Yeah, it's going to be nuts. You just wait. I'm throwing you softballs.

Seriously.

Feels. What I'm curious about is how do you see the monetization side of any video working for you or working for maybe your clients or the people you work with? Where do you see monetization happening? Is it sponsorship? Is it through other means? What do you think?

I think there are underlying means. It's not just a click here and somebody's going to give you money type of thing. Everybody's looking for that. That's a question. In fact, I encourage everybody— I haven't been able to watch it yet, but Hermine Noumir, she's on Blab. She did a fun drinking Blab but talked a lot about brands and monetization. Jay Pingme said it was brilliant, and I'll try and find it. I think she might be Persona Brand on Blab. I'll try and find that. Apparently she kind of gave some— dropped some serious knowledge about brands being on here for sponsorships. For me, I monetize it, one, because I have people that hire me to do videos, and then they have content that shows that they're an expert. I share it on mine, so it's actually part of my brand. I do videos for people, these conversational brands, videos that tell their story. It's part of being part of Mia on the Go as well, or the Mia Connect, as opposed to just this, this off one-off that I just give them content and then they share that out. So that's a new thing that I'm doing. I also use it to get sponsors. So as I travel around, I mean, when I traveled to Italy, that was mainly—

Which I just missed you. I think we were like passing each other. Dude,

I think we were more like, ciao, ciao, you know, drinking.

I yelled out. I was like, Mia!

And then they're all like, why is he saying mine?

Yeah.

Right, because that's what it means in Italian.

Oh, is it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were very confused when I was in Italy. But part of that— God, I was so bummed out about that too because I know you were speaking and I was following you on that. Part of that, I went to brands, hotels. Winerist was one of my folks and I said, hey, I'm going to talk about shit I love. Would you like to be a part of that? Would you like to put me up in your hotel and I'll tell you what I think? If I'm talking about you, it's That's the thing. That's a form of monetization that I use, which is using video and bringing eyes to it. I did it organically. I went to this Airstream park in Austin. I don't know if you guys saw that.

No.

This guy put together these 5 old Airstreams on this property off of Congress Street, South Congress Street, which is like batshit crazy down there, literally because of the bats, and then it's just this oasis. So I went and did a video for him, I stayed there a couple days and I got people saying, hey, I went and looked that up and I went and stayed there. Boom, social proof that video is working. They see you, they see those pictures, they're— I mean, everybody loves Airstreams too. Such an easy— it's like shooting fish in a barrel. But I use the video for that, he uses it on his website and then I use it for my brand. So that's how I do it. But I think there's a lot to it. I think you can go sell stuff. I think you can cook stuff. You can show stuff. You can be like, hey, I've got product placement back here.

So it's funny because I had a couple of Shareology interviews this weekend, and in between I would jump on Blab while I was sitting there waiting for the next person to start. And, and, and, you know, what's funny is when you jump on it and then I tell a little bird because that's how it tweets out. So, so Courtney like has like, I guess I popped up on her Twitter stream and she's like, how many interviews does he have today? What is he doing? Because every like 10 minutes I'd be on a new one and I'm like jumping it. And so for like 6 hours I'm on either, I'm on Blab and I got so addicted. I was like, I think I need to watch the VMAs. And then I did, and I was like, no, I want to go back to Blab.

Terrible alternative. You're like, what was I thinking? It really is. There's a lot of things we call it like Blab Flab because you're like, I'm gonna go work out, and you're still sitting there in your yoga pants like 4 hours later. You haven't eaten, the water glass is empty. You're like, Jesus. We were like, we need to have— we need to like have Depends diapers as our sponsor. Like, nobody wants to get up. That was an innovation.

Right there.

Hey now. Exactly. The other way that I'm using it is I actually joined this company called Wine Shop at Home and that's what I do my wine blabs because I just want to make money drinking wine. If people want to buy wine, my distributor link. I'm not asking people to sign up, just buy wine. You can get these personalized labels. I have wine labels of a picture of me drinking wine on a wine bottle. It's like Inception. Look at Mia getting loaded while she's getting loaded. But I do think, yeah, there's a little bit of a blab. You can't walk away, it's so hard. But then here's what I'm annoyed about, and you don't have to worry about this because you're so pretty, Bryan Kramer, but it's putting on a face because then you'll get pulled into them. They're like, ooh, Bryan Kramer's here, ooh, Suzy's here, and she's pretty too.

I want to jump on but I can't. I think we should all go faceless. You know, we're all good, we're all good. So here's the deal. I'm going to jump back in again here and there, but I'm gonna turn you over to the lady with the red hair, and you are about to face the most interesting time of your life. Are you ready?

Oh my, oh my.

I feel the sensation and it's not from a York Peppermint Patty. That is insanely

awesome. I love that response. So here's the deal, lots of questions coming in. I saw stuff about monetization and—

Yeah, good. I have stayed very focused on you guys. I have not been— I have not squirreled. I'm letting You tell me.

Okay, well guess what? Suzie's about to tell you, so I'm passing the baton. Suzie, she's all yours. I will jump back in as needed.

Okay, thanks Bryan.

Yeah, cheers.

Alrighty, so—

Let me put some lip gloss on for this. I know, like psych!

Do you call it lip voss? No, just kidding.

Lip voss, exactly.

There you go, another branding, lip voss.

Writing that down.

Right? So first of all, we are having some amazing, amazing questions and conversation coming through on our tweet chat, which I absolutely adore. Me too. And we're just like tons and tons of different comments and thoughts. But guys, keep— please keep sending them over and I will keep curating them so that we can keep this conversation going. I think at this point we kind of already have our hands full. So keep them going though because I also know Mia, you'll probably jump on the stream afterwards to interact.

I will, absolutely.

Alright, so let's get started. First of all, let me see what— so first of all, let's continue kind of the conversation about monetization. That's kind of— that's been a big one. Where do you see this going in terms of How does that work? So you have the quality and the genuineness of this conversation, right?

Yes.

And then the aspect of monetization and also the quality aspect of live streaming versus produced. So where do you see that going?

That's a good question.

Yeah, it is. Hopefully I'll answer it right. I mean, first of all, I think everybody should be for profit. It's bullshit to say like you're just doing this to be altruistic. I think time is money. So I'm going to get on that soapbox if you like that one.

Yeah.

So I think in terms of— in a lot of different ways, you can think of monetization as not losing money by watching a bunch of bullshit all the time. Like, you got to be careful with your time, right? Yeah. So what I'm going to encourage everybody is it's Wild West right now, so there's a lot of blab about blab. I get that. That's why I try and do mine either about booze, food and booze, because I also do food and booze shows, you know, like, hey, check out this great restaurant, or I do mine more about storytelling and people coming through. So I know a lot of the blab is just going to be more of the discovery period for right now. I think brands are going to love it. I think they've already embraced Periscope and Meerkat as a way to showcase. I mean, I know Applebee's has gotten on board, right?

Yeah, Benzo.

And I think everybody's really pushing towards that. So I think reaching out and showing brands that one, you can show this transparency and get out here and show a face to it as well as tweeting and responding because that was the big thing is brands are responding. And BK, I know you've had a ton of brands respond to you when you say, hey, I like this, I don't like this. Ted Rubin is really big on it. Bryan is big on it. I think this is the new version of it that brands can come on and showcase. I'm sure there's going to be sponsorships. I think that was Chris Voss's argument of No, 30 views or 280 views aren't a lot. I get that. I mean, even I don't get a ton of views. I'm a billboard. I can't guarantee how many cars are going to drive

by.

Yeah. Beep beep, whatever. But I do think that you can— I think this is more about building a brand, a brand identity, going through, talking to people, responding to them, and then you can direct them to whatever your revenue generator is. Is that a product? Is that a— what's that called— affiliate link? Is it something you want them to do? So this is more about conversation as opposed to push, push, push. I think live streaming is an opportunity.

Yep, yep. No, I think I like that too, and I would say too, you know, the thing for me with a lot of this is it's basically that initial touchpoint, right? So that's the same as a billboard. A billboard's not I'm not going to go up to a billboard and be like, ping, I sign up.

Where's the sign up?

Push on it. Right, exactly. How do I push on this billboard? I'm having a mental image now.

Where's the subscribe button?

Right, but it's like the— I mention on H2HChat all the time, but it's going back to the marketing basics of the 7 points of contact or the types of interaction. I definitely agree. I had one person, I think Nancy Rubin, just sent a tweet and said a comment that she finds Blabs really refreshing versus webinars where a lot of times they immediately have the push for a product at the end or push for something else.

They're like this.

Right. Bye, Nancy. Put that away.

I'm not ready to see that yet. You've got to romance me a little bit more.

And it's so interesting that you say romance because that's part of it.

It is romancing.

It's this thing. It's this relationship building. So this is H2H Chat, so we're talking about connections.

Don't go to third base. Come on now. I need a date. I need some dinner.

So this kind of moves into Ailey Nielsen, who I think is one of our recent members of the H2H Chat community. She says, what does Blab bring to the table that others don't? Maybe we can talk about this in terms of where we were just going with relationship building, even versus Periscope in some ways. We talked a lot about Hangouts. What about Periscope and Meerkat versus Blab?

Periscope is a peep show. So is Meerkat. The way I used it is that I would be— uh-oh, BK likes that one. He's trying to stay quiet over

there.

Wait, what kind of Periscopes have you been watching? Where can I get on the subscribe button? How I use Periscope is that I would do that and be like, hey guys, what's up? I just did one the other day. I went to this local hotel and this restaurant, they had all these mecca, they had a wine tap and then they had these beer taps. So what I did was I held it up and I interviewed. The marketing people are like, hey guys, what's up? I'm Mia Voss. I'm here at Native Hotel. Check this out. And then that was experiential as opposed to me just laying in bed drinking.

Right, right.

So I made it more about, you know, which is unfortunate because you can't do landscape, so everybody's got to get real close, you know, you got to be really friendly with the people. But that's what I use it for. So again, that's just like a one-way broadcast, although you can, you know, have the comments. I can't remember who it was, the one guy that Lenny, his name's Lenny out of LA and he broadcast the Republican debate. Honestly, he shouldn't have done. That's actually what's called copyright infringement or something.

Right, right. That's like a whole other—

Exactly, which is, you know, I mean, I know I've even done for 2 seconds played, oh, I think I played Big Pimpin' or something because I love Jay-Z and it was like boom, I got pulled right off of YouTube right away. They are policing for it. So guys, be very careful. on what you use. Music, I mean, you can't even really sing Happy Birthday, I think, on YouTube. They'll ding you on that. But it was very fun to watch because this guy was just sitting there. He was getting loaded, I'm pretty sure. He's watching the debates. He's got a sign, how many times do they say, like, you know, just whatever the buzz phrases were, which were hilarious. But I loved how he did that.

The drinking games.

Yeah, exactly. Drink. So the difference with that, it's almost like Google Hangouts was almost a version of that because You really were broadcasting one way and you only chose to get a couple people in. Yes, you could just leave it open, but nobody did that. You guys remember, you guys are doing this. You'd be terrified to just open that up of what's going to come walking through the door.

Totally.

What kind of sound and connection issues are going to happen. Then for me, what I love about Blab is the 4-square, either Hollywood squares. I just want to be Charles Nelson Reilly. Anybody who's old enough to remember that guy. It's kind of the Brady Bunch thing, but they need you to have this revolving door. It's interesting though how long these things last. Labs last a lot longer than anything else.

They do.

We're all like little kids that are supposed to go to bed and we're tired. We're like, no, I don't want to go to bed. I don't want to stop watching.

It's like when you've gone out to dinner with people and you're like saying bye, right? It's like the great circle. You're standing around being like, all right, see you later.

Oh wait, oh, it was so good.

Oh wait, yeah, hugs again. We gotta hug.

Yeah, one more time. You hug like 18 times, which I love. Right, so true.

You know I love it. But someone has to break the circle. And it's the same like with Blab. You have to like be like, I'm leaving now. Yeah, that's like important too, right? Because that also It all speaks to that human interaction.

You need to go away so people can miss you too though, I think a little bit.

That's a very good point. You can over—

yeah. Did I hear human?

Yes, human. Here's what I'm loving because you're going to love this. This is the way I'm doing things. I'm meeting people. I'm going to these different cities. Again, I'm going to DC for 2 weeks. If anybody's in DC, I'm having a meetup in DC. Go check me out on Facebook. That's what I'm doing is incorporating that. I've crowdsourced. And said, I'm gonna be in Austin, for instance. I'm like, and then I got this like firestorm of, you need to meet, you need to meet, you need to meet, right? Well, then I was like, wait a second, who gives a shit about me? I don't live here. Like, why don't you all meet each other? And so I got to introduce cool people to cool people.

That's really cool.

That's really why I'm only doing, doing that, is like, okay, great, it's great to meet you, but my friend Adam, meet my friend Jay, meet my friend that works here. You guys all live in this town, and it's been magical to watch

So let me get this straight. You're basically like a social network.

Kind of a traveling social network.

You are like your own algorithm. Yeah, right.

But then I always say, this is why I drink at home.

Right.

I drink out in public too. So I have the combination of the blab part when I can meet people and then to say, hey, you know, then there's the face-to-face. But I definitely love the traveling. the human interaction to it too. I think it's hard. The other thing I have to say about doing too much blab, and BK, you went through it this weekend, I've been going through it, is the FOMO JOMO we talk about, the fear of missing out, and then trying to celebrate the JOMO, which is the joy of missing out. Just not being too like, what am I missing? What am I missing? I think also if you are someone who is professional and you are on there all the time, it does make me wonder When the hell are you working?

That's a really good point. That's a really good point. I think, and I do, so then that's actually something, right? So there are, how do we decide when we're going to go live and what do you think is a balance, right? If we're talking about this, I'm kind of thinking off the top of my head right now, but what is that balance then for our audience as we get excited and, you know, yeah, So Fanzo is all about FOMO, but I like the idea of— I like this. He's embracing the JOMO though.

I got to shout out my little brother because he is embracing the JOMO because we've had—

Does that make me a JUMO?

What are you?

Under missing out?

A JUMO?

How

about you?

How about you, man? I'm going to tell IFAKCO on that one because she loves to be like, how are you doing? And she'll spell it.

Nice.

My favorite Israeli. You know what, so I'm giggling because my analogy that I use, have you guys ever seen the signs for like how to— like it's here in Colorado, obviously, like what do you do if you see a mountain lion? And when you read these things, it's like it's the most mixed message thing you've ever seen. They're like, look at them directly but don't turn your back, but don't make eye contact, but make yourself small but not too big. What am I supposed to do? Am I going to lay down?

Basically, don't fuck it up.

That's

what they're really trying to say.

You got one shot.

It's very imminent.

You got one shot. So it's kind of the same thing. It's like, don't wait too long. Don't try and make it too perfect, but make sure things are— check your background. I've seen some weird shit. Like the rumpled bed or big fancy pillow.

Or, you know, strange blanket thing which is covering up my clothes because I live in, you know, not a city area. You live in the inner city. You

could reach over and flush the toilet right now. I know, I did my time.

Versus Bryan doing his fancy backdrop. I'm so jealous.

I miss that. That's the thing about traveling right now. I'm on the road for 2 months and I do have this varied background. It's kind of a crapshoot. But I do think it's The thing I would do is don't copy. You can gently lift and emulate, but don't copy, dude. People will find out. It's way too transparent. Go around and look at the things that you like, the styles that you like, and definitely don't try to be funny if you're not funny. Yeah, right. It's so painful. I was just talking with Vincenzo Landino, cutest guy on Blab, I'm telling you. Just got to say. He's out there. We were talking about how people really do need to learn how to host. Yeah. You know, you gotta learn how to pick that— pick up what people are laying down. You can't— you need to listen. Listen to what people are saying that come on.

Yeah.

Does that make sense? Is that good advice? I hope.

Yeah, yeah. No, I love that.

I would not be afraid to say, I'm not gonna do this because it's not popular. Guess what? Again, with a lid for every pot, if you're gonna talk about yoga for 50-year-olds that only drive Lexuses, guess what you're gonna find? Do that. So don't be a number. Don't be a size queen. Don't be a size queen. Don't be a numbers queen. Don't think that you're not successful based on numbers. Just build your— I don't have a bunch of big numbers, but the people that do come and see it is because they like— just like you guys, except everybody loves you too.

Well, it's the thing that— thank you. But I think the thing with that is you're talking about niche communities. Some of those communities, really a lot of it is the percentage of engagement. So if I am, you know, if I can go and say, okay, every single person, say I only have 200 views, but I know that those 200, I have like a 75% retention rate, they're all engaging with me.

Yes.

That's better than having 1,000 and having a 10% retention rate.

That's where comments are very interesting.

Absolutely.

That's what I loved about Google Hangouts is that I think a couple of times we broke the 500 comment limit. Which they never fixed, which is so funny. Yeah. They never fucking fixed that, which is so interesting because that was a gauge. That was a gauge of engagement. If you had 500 comments, that was almost as much as views because you had people that stayed on unless they were dorking out. But you know what I mean? That was people that were engaged, they were tagging, they were sharing the whole thing. So yeah, I think don't get fooled. I think we've all gotten fooled by people that we thought were influencers and they had the numbers, but then you go and they don't have anybody resharing it. There's nobody, you know, it's like a big clanging bell. There's nothing. Nothing's getting shared. But I do think building those loyal people and then responding to them, right guys?

Yep.

Hey, thanks. Hey, I'm tweeting. Hey, I'm going to go back and let you know I was listening to you.

That's the thing about— sorry, just real quick. This is the thing I've had a problem with Blab on. It's not truly integrated with Twitter like what we have here. We have a tweet chat running alongside this. I'm not saying that it's integrated because it's actually not. We all have 2 screens open. I appreciate everybody actually being in 2 screens. I wish we had one.

Oh my God, I have 99 notifications already. I just went over to Twitter. Holy shit.

Hey, you have mail.

I'm 2 of your notifications. So that's the thing, like it is integrated in Blab but it's not totally. Like the comments on the right are not tweets. And I like— I wish it was Twitter. So that's my only complaint.

You know what, what is it that you could choose on Periscope? Couldn't you choose whether you wanted that comment to tweet? So it wasn't automatic. I would like that option. I would like that option.

I would like that as well.

How's that? Somebody ping the Blab guys. That would be actually a fun thing.

If we @help them, will that work? No. You have to be on Blab.

It's one hand clapping. I don't know, trees fall in forests.

Yeah.

But I think that is one thing that was very problematic about Google Hangouts is that if you signed up for it and you didn't have your notifications set correctly, you got this firestorm every time somebody said something, which was alienating because you couldn't explain it to everybody how they thought it was you. They thought it was you, the host, that was spamming them. There's a little bit to it, but Twitter is, I mean, gosh, that's what it's made for.

It is. I think that's the aspect. The thing that I love about integrating Twitter is that it allows me to pull in additional people. So other people are seeing the hashtag. They're going to check it out. And that's always my issue with the just single community. But it is kind of a, you know, it is this balance I have some great practical questions. One is from Jeremy Murphy.

Hi, Jeremy. Hi, honey.

He says, how can small biz owners increase our resonance on Periscope and similar channels? For example, ask people to share. How does that go? We have a great small business and entrepreneur audience. Taking these and putting them into practice into how they can use this then in their own setting is always so helpful.

Let me think some shit up.

Come on, come on, go, go,

go. I'm going to have to think some shit up. You know what I found? There are people that are doing really fun stuff. There's the mechanic guy. It's the You Are Mechanic. Bless his heart. I've got to find it. I'm so sorry. He'll do these car mechanic things. Yeah. I think it's just don't think that you're not cool enough to do one. I think people are getting very overwhelmed with this influx of the huge discussion just about social media leaders and influencers that it's just for that. Just like Google in the beginning, because I was invite only and that was, what was it, a bunch of developer guys inviting all their guy friends. I went through the same thing when I went over to Google. It was a sausage fest. That just made me spit. But I was like, okay, so am I going to do the show? I'm going to show up with this tiara on as a female and they're like, who the fuck are you? But I persevered and said, there's going to be somebody that wants to watch storytelling and have different things come up. So I just encourage people that don't think you're not interesting enough to start something. And then yes, I think you can tweet it out. The one thing I don't like, and maybe you guys are in the same way, so I apologize if you don't agree, but I don't like getting tagged in things that I have nothing to do with. I feel like you're sticking your bumper sticker on my ass a little bit.

How so?

Well, like if you just haven't told me, Mia, promote this, and all of a sudden I'm tagged in, you know what I mean? I've gotten tagged where it's like 57 people are tagged on it and I didn't— Oh, I hate that.

Yeah.

You never asked me to. So that's why on Facebook I have it set up that you can't— those pictures I have to approve if I'm tagged in a photo. Plus what if it's a crappy photo?

I know. I have the exact same thing. I saw people do that and thank goodness it stopped. People using, for the most part, but there were a few chats that were using the social tiles Yes.

And you guys did it right. You guys did it right because these are people. These people have signed in and said, and by the way, do I feel like my ride got pimped or what being on this show? You guys, if you ever get a chance to get on this show, you're going to feel fancy. That's one of my favorite hashtags. I feel fancy.

I saw you use that.

I did, I think, because that's when I was like, God, I'm going to have to think some shit up now. So Jeremy, I hope that answers your question though, sweetie. I think that nobody should think that their business is not cool enough. You are in business for a reason. You have a story. You get your stuff out. Marianne Williams talks about that. Don't play small.

Yeah. I love that. And I think this plays into a great question that Shaval asked. Shout out to Shaval. He said, why do you think that many companies aren't using live streaming for their business? I think that kind of answers a lot of that.

I think they're starting to. I wish Fanzo always can give you 15 examples of cool companies. I'm not that— my brain cells are not that good. He's young, he's a millennial. What do you want from me? I'm over 40.

Oh, come on.

You're good too though. You're a little font of information. I think they are starting to—

I think it's probably what he's speaking to is there's always certain industries. For example, a restaurant. Great on Applebee's, but it's kind of also like, well, that makes sense. But then there's always some of these other things where you're kind of going, how do I make this work? It can be scary.

They do, they get overwhelmed and I think it's the perfection factor too. I think everybody's thinking that if I— there's a little bit of an old-school thing and that's what I work on with people, that's why I partner with Chef Dennis Littley and we do the food and booze shows. We just go eat and drink. I'm just like, hey guys, you want me to sit there and eat your food and get drunk and put this on live streaming? Awesome!

Nice.

And then people go like, okay, I don't live there but when I come to Denver because the meal was all loaded or chef was all full or whatever, I'm going to go there. So we're trying to bridge that gap but I think it is I think it is the fear of perfection and thinking if I put that stuff out there, it has to be picture perfect and it doesn't. You're a restaurant. Shit breaks. Probably a little bit to do with broadband and things like that. I've been loving to do these from conferences. It's really fun.

Yeah, that's what we've done as well. Some of the conferences that we've gone through. Yeah, exactly. It's just, you know, it's having that great interaction with people, right? And having that. So I guess the— I know we're about to—

I hope I answered it.

Yeah, no, I think I got a ping. Shival appreciates it. Thanks. But I think closing out, one thing I wanted to ask, and it's been really this back and forth since— and I'm sure you've dealt with it early on. This concept of producing very fancy videos, right, we talked about at the beginning, but I want to kind of bring this around versus something that is like this, for example. We're going to put this up and people are going to see it. We've had some video issues at various points. Sure. This is valuable. What does that say? Where are we going with video? What does that say about us? How do you see that all playing together?

Hold on, I was just going to Instagram this. Instagram it. I got to photo document BK doing that whole thing. Okay, so do me a favor, ask me the question again. I'm the pain in the ass that got distracted for a second. Where do we think it's going with video, with live streaming?

Yeah, so balancing the quality and the content.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That issue, because this has been a consistent Sure,

sure.

Over the past many, many years at this point since video first came up and where are we going with this? Will this continue to be an issue? What's the direction?

So I think that's the kind of hard thing. Now you guys have kind of cracked the code because I know that you, which I love you guys, I love what you all are doing. I don't know if you're going to move out of Google Hangouts. I know it's HD but you are so smart to put your video over on your real estate which is your website. More than anything, I just think that's uber smart. What you've done in order to get in the gate, say, hey, we're not going to spam you, but give us your email address. I think that's brilliant. This is your real estate, you guys. It doesn't matter what platform it is. You don't own any of this. This is a Denise Wakeman rant, which I love. Yeah. Anything could break at any time. My 35,000 followers on Google+ or whatever, my whatever on Twitter, I don't own them unless I have their email address and they said it's okay for me to romance you. That's my little rant. I think this is not— even Blab itself, it really is more of a gateway drug to connecting with people so that it's not going to be this polished movie or this polished production. Right. If you want to invest in yourself, yes, you should go get somebody to do a nice video That comes to your place and brings a GoPro and does stuff like that. This is just more— I wouldn't say this is just— this isn't like— it can be content but it's more gateway content.

Yeah. I love that. I have to say that's probably one of the best— I just made that up. Well, good for you. You know what I always say is because I do the same but it comes from someplace, right? Here, you want a photo of me and my dolla?

Yeah, because I love your swag. I know, and I don't have any of my toys. I love— you have more toys than I do. I

have way too many toys.

I can't even find my easy button.

Oh.

Let's get together.

I have my shark hat someplace. Oh,

I know. Jay loves that.

So

guys, we have just 3 minutes left, and I just want to make sure that—

no, I'll go.

So I want to make sure— there was a good question here from Kathy LePage. Sorry if I said your name wrong. She said, what about data usage and overages on mobile devices versus Blab and video?

Dude, you gotta pay attention.

I know we've talked about that before, Suzy, but what do you think about that, Mia?

A friend, Nazim Beltran, Kazakieze, that's on here, he's in Italy and they definitely struggle with it. That's why I didn't do a lot. I do have the little personal Wi-Fi thing. I think just be very cognizant of it. You really need to because you're going to get pissed. You're gonna be pissed, you're gonna be broke, and you'll be mad because you've been watching stuff that you just thought, you know, you had the FOMO JOMO. So I think you just need to, you need to take control of your experience and manage your finances. It's kind of like managing your finances, I think. Mm-hmm. That's why I do, that's why I was doing a lot of Periscopes at home. I'm very careful about it because I don't want to just Periscope to Periscope and then I'm, yeah, I've just, I've put out way too much content that nobody cared because I just felt like I had to put content out. So I think you just need to keep a really close eye on it.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm lucky enough I got grandfathered in on AT&T into that unlimited right now. Me too, brother man. So I'm sure they'll squeeze me out one day, but for now— Yeah. Oh my God.

And you'll tweet about it and you'll dog shame the shit out of them.

Yeah. I already wrote the tweets, so I'm ready.

Yeah. Push the button.

Yeah.

Awesome. Where can everybody find you? Where can they find you?

Where can they find me? Well, I have Mia Connect that's on here, but also go to Mia On The Go. That is more of my experiential website where you can go and see kind of all the fun stuff. And listen, DC, if you're in DC this week, hit me up. Just tweet me. We're doing an event on Thursday. And then I think, get this, I think Fanzo and I and Jed Record are going to be kicking around DC and getting into trouble on Friday. Pay attention because we're going to live— speaking of Periscope, that shit could get real and that could be fun. I'm kind of excited.

I'm excited.

Just know this. You are with Bryan who spells his name wrong.

Wrong. I know, right? I saw what he did to your book. I saw what he did with putting that little label

on it. At least it's just a Post-it, right? It's

so cute. I love it. You guys, what a treat, by the way. I made it all the way with one phone call during the whole thing. Thank you so much for having me on. I hope I added some value for you party people out there.

You always do. Oh yeah. And thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you guys. And as always, we love our community, so thank you everybody for watching. We have a really fun one queued up for next Monday, so Susie, you want to announce Who our guests are this next Monday?

Yes, we are going to have an absolute fabulous time. I am for the first time doing my own solo chat, so make sure you all come and cheer me on, give me lots of questions. I'll be multitasking. We're going to have Rachel Miller of Social Business Hour is going to be joining us, which is absolutely fabulous. As is one of my great friends from an old job that I used to, used to do, and I'll be announcing him on Twitter a little bit later. The reg page is going to be up soon. Big thing, it's going to be happening on Tuesday as opposed to Monday so that you all can have a fabulous Labor Day.

And you can wear white pants on Monday too.

We're going to be talking about community, building community, listening, and engagement.

Oh man, I love you, Mia. I love you, Matt. So one of the other things I want to make sure that we thank our sponsors. Without them, we would not be sponsored. So I would like to thank Newstar, MasterCard, Cisco, IBM, Little Bird, Hootsuite, Freshdesk, Speakeasy, Influitive, Mutual Mind, and Cox Communications. Thank you guys so much, and thank you everyone on H2H Chat This is for your sponsors. We will see you next Monday. Sponsors! It's every sound we possibly can do in honor of our sponsors. Thank you everyone. We'll see you next week.

Bye guys.

Bye guys!