The title of this post was the first question I was asked in my Hangouts On Air live broadcast interview yesterday.
Quite the ice breaker!
Luis London, who along with Andrew Chen, run Kai Design & Communications, interviewed me on behalf of Social Media Breakfast Montreal for my upcoming appearance there on July 4th.
We tried to keep it short, and while it is shorter than my test run last week, it still runs about 10 minutes.
In case it’s too long for you (even in light of its compelling content), I include a summary below.
(BTW – On a technical note, we discovered that we should wait a few seconds before starting the broadcast once we click on the broadcast button. You’ll notice that we missed the very beginning intro.)
Luis London interviewing Ray Hiltz for Social Media Breakfast MTL#11
Luis – What drives and inspires you?
Ray- What inspires me is creativity and the passion that goes along with it – regardless of the field; performing arts, social media or marketing, watching people’s creative process as they do the things they love is inspiring.
What drives me is tapping into that passion. Social media has allowed me to do that. I was in theatre for a long time many years ago and not since then have I been so passionate about something that I love to do.
It’s about communication; the social conduit that allows us to bridge communities and build social networks on a scale that never existed before.
Luis – You use several platforms to share your thoughts about social media. Do you push everything you produce to all platforms?
Ray- No. I hate it when people do that.
All platforms aren’t the same. Everything has its own place, its own demographic.
The obvious example is LinkedIn. it’s a platform for business networking, making connections, finding jobs, so you’re not going to be posting your Rhubarb & Strawberry pie recipe there – It wouldn’t make any sense.
You might want to pin a photo of one on Pinterest or Facebook and share it with your family or ask your grandmother for hers.
It also depends on your own strategy; how you set up your accounts.
Most freelancers will have a personal and a business page on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Even on a single platform, you distribute messages differently.
You have to be aware to whom your speaking & where they are – then create your content accordingly.
Otherwise your just broadcasting, which is very unsocial.
Ray Hiltz in Hangouts On Air Interview with Luis London SMBMTL#11
Luis – One platform that you use a lot is Google+. A lot of people know you as the Google+ guy… What feature do you think people should use more or is overrated on Google+?
Ray- Well, I’ll tell you first why I’m such a fan (and not a fan boy) of Google+.
What I like most is the ability to balance your personal and profession brands. This is due to the Circles feature. You can manage your friends, clients, peers etc. very easily.
In terms of applications you should use more – circles, and definitely hangouts. We’re doing one now.
There’s a lot of potential, especially for Hangouts on Air – if you’re interested in doing seminars or broadcasts about your product or want to offer training courses, it’s perfect.
Educational institutions are using Hangouts a lot. There are many advantages including the obvious SEO benefits of being on Google property.
Luis – You produce a lot of content. You have a blog and are very prolific. Which items from all that you produce would you say would be most useful to small or medium sized businesses.
Ray – I do a lot of posts about small business and social media because that’s how I came at social media; from business – not marketing.
So a lot of the advice I give on my blog is related to the fact that it’s important to build a business strategy before building a social strategy.
It’s important to know what your goals are; what your pain points are and then see what social media tools can be used to address them.
Social media can be overwhelming for small business because they don’t have the time to do the research.
Be very aware of what your goals are before committing to social media.
If you’re in the Montreal area, please come by for some breakfast and conversation. Really, when was the last time you actually held a conversation over breakfast?
We’re looking into the feasibility of live broadcasting over a Hangout On Air in which case, you can join us for breakfast in New York, Atlanta or San Diego (if you get up really early 
Here are links to the registration page plus other Social Media Breakfast Montreal sites.
SMBMTL#11 Registration Eventbrite
Social Media Breakfast Website
Social Media Breakfast on Google+
Ray Hiltz is a Social Media Strategist with management roots in restaurant, hotel and performing arts. A strong proponent for the power of collaborative communication and "humanized" digital networking, Ray writes about social media, social business and Google Plus. His clients include hotels, restaurants, consulting firms, entrepreneurs, writers and individuals just trying to make sense of "social". Ray is a popular speaker on Social Media, Social Business and Google+.
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Yep, the intro where I talk about the Social Media Breakfast and that I am doing the interview on Behalf of Jeff Taylor is missing.
Everyone is free to show up at the breakfast and share their remarks and ask Ray questions about Social Business, G+ and more. I am sure that there will be an interesting bunch of questions.
Great information here Ray! I have to admit I'm guilty of pushing the same things across all networks sometimes, but not all of the time. Usually, if it's something really important, I'll hit it everywhere. If not, I tend to stick to Twitter. Then there are networks like my Facebook page which is specifically dedicated to my writing portfolio, but I figure people know that when they subscribe.
@Kristi Hines Thanks so much for dropping by, Kristi.
I think there are times when you can push the same content as in when we're preaching about the importance of filling profile information. That's relevant to every platform
I find, however that each platform has developed it's own distinct network profile.
This wasn't so much through any brilliant strategy on my part, but because the interactions reflected the particular "personality" of the platform.
Of course sometimes we all bump into each other on the Twitter highway :-)
