Building a personal brand is all about serving your audience, educating, enlightening, entertaining your consumers. It's all about communication. I think nowadays marketers are focused on uh algorithms, automation, and they forget uh human connection.

Welcome to the Agency Hour Podcast where we help web design and digital agency owners create abundance for themselves, their teams, and their communities. This week we're joined by Vladimir Boxbase. Vladimir is a world-renowned social media influencer, keynote speaker, startup advisor, and internet personality who drives growth and positions brands as market leaders in their industry. In this episode, we discussed brand building and marketing using AI. We also discussed the importance of remaining consumer-centric, adapting to the reality of the marketplace, and so much more. If you're looking to define your personal brand and target audience, this episode is for you. I'm Johnny Flash. Stay with us.

Hey Vladimir, how's it going? Hi, Johnny. It is a pleasure to be a guest on your podcast, and many thanks for this invitation. I'm doing great. How are how are both you?

Uh, we're doing I'm doing great as well. It's so great to have you here. And um, I wanted to talk a little bit. You know, AI is like going crazy right now. All I talk, all I hear about is AI. I was at a board meeting for the college nearby. They're talking about AI last night. They're talking about AI earlier today on my meetings. Like everybody's just talking about AI. And obviously, you know, as agency owners, um, we're all trying to like put out helpful content. Some of us have personal brands, like I'm Johnny Flash, I run Johnny Flash productions. So there's like a there's a personal brand, but then there's also kind of the the corporate brand, you know, and that kind of stuff. So I thought we could just talk a little bit about um, because I know you have a lot of experience with this with personal branding and you know, content creation and AI, right? So when should we use AI? When should we not use AI? Like, are we gonna get penalted? Is Google gonna come out and just penalize us? Like, hey, you created that with AI, like we're done with you or whatever. Like, give give me your take on it.

Well, you know, I think um you should uh strike uh uh while the iron is hot because it is uh probably the best time in the history of mankind to be successful, to create great content. Uh, I think when I started uh uh on my when I started my journey in 2014 on Twitter, I had only I attended some conferences in Dubai in 2014. It was March or April, and I attended, I listened to uh speakers, I understood how important it was to build a personal brand. I certainly hit the ground running on the uh on Twitter. So I built my following from zero followers to 57,000 followers from 2014 to 2020 by working 16 hours a day, 16 hours a day in six years. So I won a few years, a few awards in 2015, 2070, 18. I was recognized among uh top uh uh 100 B2B market influencers, digital transformation influencers. I was ranked number one uh uh marketing influencer in 2020 by SingSour City. So I was using uh I was building my personal organically without uh ChatGPT and uh generative AI tools, you know. Uh so I think it is much easier now, uh Johnny, to uh stand out in this noise marketplace because I'm also a uh an award judge for the WebBA world, and I see how there is a battle going on for American brands um uh to win consumers' attention, you know. So I think uh AI can help you create better content, it can reduce your costs, it can improve your efficiency. So I think uh what I see nowadays is that uh I I mean uh I mean uh my friends at Techstars and all over the world, wherever I contribute as a mentor, they are building uh multi-million and billion dollar startups through creating content uh by uh uh uh AI because AI helps them create great content, you know. So I think it's my it's better nowadays. I think anyone should create consistently on a daily basis like 40, 50, 60% of content across six, seven, eight social media channels, you know.

There are probably You said 40 or 50 a day, you said? Yes, 40, 50. Whoa, okay. Well, we're gonna have to dive into that because I I that sounds overwhelming to me, but I believe you. I was just thinking as you were talking that um kind of like when the smartphone came out, you know. I tell my kids like back when I was in high school and college, there was no smartphone and it was totally different. And I think this AI thing is gonna be kind of like that too, right? Where it's gonna be like back in the old days, we had to like kind of what you were saying, we had to do organic marketing and all these things without AI. And then there's gonna be a point where in a few years from now, we're gonna be like, how did we do it without AI? Because it's gonna be such a different thing. But um, let's let's talk about that pieces of content that you mentioned. Like, so how how would you recommend if I wanted to create 40, 50, 60 pieces of content in a day with AI? Like, what does that look like? Can you give me a little more detail there?

I have posted more than uh 60,000 times on Instagram, I have capital, I have capitalized on uh uh WordPress, Tumblr, Medium, Blogger, the rest of blogging and micro-blogging platforms to tell my story. So, marketing is all about telling your story, you know, market because you know we are in a streaming economy nowadays. We literally watch Netflix and we watch no ads. We listen to Spotify, no ads, Amazon Prime, no ads, DC Plus, no ads, podcasts, no ads, uh, audiobooks, no ads. Just imagine that consumers are willing to pay more not to consume ads because advertising steals our time, Johnny. Advertising steals our time, you know? So it's all about storytelling, it's all about direct communication, it's all about uh positioning your brand as a media company, and to forget you are a salesperson because nobody cares about sales pitches on social media. So we we we need to forget that we are salesy on social media and we need to become marketers, brand builders, communicators. So communication dictates everything that is going on in this world. You know, um since uh 2020 since 2000, uh more than uh 62 percent of 4500 brands have disappeared from the list since 2000, Johnny. Because why? Because they have not uh adapted uh to the reality of the marketplace, because still in 2024 they are marketing like it is 1995, 2005, 2010, they disregard consumers, they disregard personal branding, they totally uh depend on uh backward-looking advertising like blockbuster. Because when I when I was uh a new kid on the block in uh Menezes, Virginia, when I was uh 18, 19, when I was working in Virginia, I used to see a blockbuster store in my neighborhood because it was still popular to rent uh DVD to watch film. So blockbuster, blockbuster board members, they set in the board the smart people who made billions of dollars and they were considering buying Netflix for buying Netflix for 50 million dollars. They did not buy. They thought that, you know, this fourth industrial revolution is not going to affect our business. They totally invested all their money in advertising, they went out of business and lost market share, you know? Because they did not adapt it, they did not adapt to the reality of the marketplace. This is a problem that majority of brands don't adapt. Like uh, like, for example, hospitality brands uh uh did not adapt to the reality of the marketplace because Airbnb disrupted them. Because nowadays and convenient win all the time. So I prefer Airbnb over source luxury and exorbitant and extortionate, extortionate uh uh hotel brands, you know. So I think uh I think uh uh Brian Cheski is more curious, open-minded, uh directly communicates with uh Airbnb's users through ex formerly Twitter. That's why he has become dominant because of this curiosity and open-mindedness, you know. But I don't think that you remember any anybody from hospitality brands where their executives directly communicate with uh consumers uh on social media. I don't remember anybody, you know, but so this is uh open-mindedness, personal branding. Even Elon Musk, Tesla doesn't have an advertising department, and uh in the last 15 years, Tesla has depended on a strong personal brand of Elon Musk because he communicates, he shares product updates with Tesla's owners on uh X, you know. So this built his community, this has built his his trust. That's why nowadays Tesla's brand value is $71 billion, uh, followed by Toyota at uh uh $30 billion, Mercedes Benz and BMW $23 billion and $22 billion. So personal branding is the ultimate marketing strategy uh in 2024. It's all about emotional connection with your consumers, you know.

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I love it. Can we if we can if we can dig a little bit deeper on that, because I'm I'm totally with you on that, and I think obviously you've had great success with this in your own story. Um, but I think some of our agency owners uh that are listening to this, they're kind of sometimes like, and I and I think I fall into this myself. It's like, you know, I I tell myself, like, no one wants to hear my story. I don't know what to talk about. Like it can feel kind of intimidating to like put out that much content, and it can also feel like, man, it's gonna take a lot of time. So talk a little bit like you know, if the agency's listening, the agency owners listening, and they build websites, they do maybe SEO or Google ads, they do some other like digital marketing for um you know clients, like what story should they be telling on social media? Like, how should like can we unpack that a little bit more? Because I think sometimes it's just like you kind of are not sure what to post. Um, and and I think that that's that's part of the hurdle, I think.

So just imagine that uh is the last uh social media, it is a reactionary business, uh Johnny. You know, it is uh all about listening and responding. Listening and responding. But majority of brands and agency owners uh treat social media like they treated uh uh TV, billboards, advertising I mean uh magazines, uh the offline marketing channels, you know. So uh social media is a two-way communication, TV is a one-way communication, you know? Uh so uh majority of brands were in the pushing business in the last 150 plus years, but social media is all about pulling, it's all about communication, it's all about showing your heart, showing your face, showing your smile, you know? So uh I think uh um many, many many open-minded entrepreneurs uh capitalized on social media to tell their stories, to create content that is in followers' best interests. It is very important, Johnny, to create content that is in followers' best interest, you know? So building a personal brand is all about serving your audience. Serving your audience, you know? But so it's all about educating, enlightening, uh, entertaining your uh consumers. It's all about communication. You know, gratitude um uh uh uh drives uh drives uh personal brand building, gratitude, you know. So when I embarked on my Twitter journey in 2014, 15, 16, 17, actually, you know, I had uh uh 7,000 followers at the end of uh 2014. So in 2015 I already had 50,000, 2016 25,000, and 2017 45,000. So I gained momentum, I gained momentum. Umny, uh I won awards, I I was invited uh as a guest on podcast, then I started uh judging awards because I'm consumer-centric, I'm not uh competitor-centric, I'm audience-centric. And the reason why I, for example, nowadays, Johnny, when you Google digital marketing keynote speaker, my website, VladimirBotwate.com, is ranked number one on Google, Johnny. Number one on Google, you know, because I never worked on SEO, but I if I'm earning someone's trust on podcasts or in magazines, I'm also earning Google's trust. So I have never worked on SEO, but I have built my authority, I have built my reputation. If people don't like personal branding, they should call it reputation because reputation is decisive nowadays. So I now I have been a guest on 60 podcasts, I have 50 um uh media interviews, I have been featured in more than 50 global magazines, so 150 speaking engagements worldwide. So I think I have been uh uh building my personal brand by lives and bounds through passion, long-term thinking, patience, uh coming communicating with my audience. And I I never I have never sold any programs in the backup conference soon because I give away my best advice for free, whether I tweet, whether I speak, or where wherever I contribute, I always want my audience to win, you know?

Love it. So um, and that's great. I that's great. I love the education and lightning and entertaining, you know, uh communication kind of stuff. What what does that look like on a practical level in terms of like, am I so I'll just I'll just give out a few examples and tell me if I'm in the right like ball ballpark, right? So uh entertaining might be, hey, I did this, we did this thing as a team, or we went to this place, or I did this thing with my kids, totally off topic, right? But entertaining, um, then educational might be like, hey, here's five things you can do to your Google business profile to like get you more visibility or something like that. So I'm providing some like helpful tips. Um am I kind of talk to talk to me.

Yeah, you know, I think um even if you attend uh uh you know what Steve Jobs said, right? People who know what they are talking about, they don't need PowerPoint, right? So I you I know my content, so I don't need uh visual help, you know, to read from uh slideshare, slideshows and PowerPoint presentations, you know, from slides. You know, I I I I rarely use slides when I speak, right? Because uh because I practice what I preach, I have built my personal brand. Uh I'm a practitioner of Minecraft. Uh I I know what is happening across 810 social media channels. Uh there are 8.1 billion people in the world and 5.1 billion social media users. Just imagine that power, Johnny, the power from Madison Avenue, Wall Street, big advertising agencies has shifted dramatically uh to human beings. Nowadays, everyone has a voice. Everyone is a media company, Johnny. Everyone is a media company, you know? So it is a very powerful, very powerful. But uh so this has uh this shift has created so many renowned and prominent self-made influencers. Elon Musk's success is self-made, right? Because uh he has disrupted uh traditional tomakers through building his personal brand because he directly communicates with Tesla's owners. That's why uh and still, you know, when I check out uh uh Elon Musk's uh X account, it is incredible how he engages with uh followers, you know. He can he can uh retweet anyone, he can share their posts, you know, uh he can uh comment on their tweets. It is incredible. That's why um we put uh Elon on a pedestal because of his because he's down to earth, because he he's never on his high horse as a majority of uh executives and directors at top organizations because they rarely communicate and interact with their consumers and uh followers. But but conversally, Elon is down to earth, Elon loves communicating, that's why he's a critest entrepreneur of our generation, you know.

Yeah, amazing, amazing entrepreneur, super inspiring. And the fact that he's running like two, three, four big companies between Tesla and SpaceX and uh X, you know, Twitter, you know, all these things, it's just like it's uh it's it's amazing. Uh I don't even know how he sleeps. Maybe he doesn't sleep. Maybe he's maybe he's got a secret formula that he's gonna uh release to us, you know.

I think well, Johnny, I think whoever whoever is consumer-centric, they are dominant in their domains, you know? Uh, and so I think uh Elon is consumer-centric, right? Elon is not uh competitor-centric. Elon is consumer-centric. That's why he's close to consumers through communicating with them on X, right? So it is a remarkable, uh, great example to follow for us. And I think uh I think uh um I still imagine that so many big brands will lose markets here in the foreseeable future because you know that at top accelerators, so many AI startups are being built and they will drive those slow big brands out of business because speed and convenience win all the time, you know?

So let's circle back to AI with what we're talking about with the social media, the personal brand, being consumer-centric, um, you know, communicating directly with your audience. How does how does AI play into all that? Because on the surface, it seems like AI is kind of the opposite of that, right? It's the canned messages, it's the written by the bots, it's the not personal, it feels kind of impersonal. So, how do we mix the use AI but have the personal brand that's consumer-centric?

Well, you know, I think nowadays marketers are focused on uh algorithms, automation, um, and they forget uh human connection, you know? And so I think it's all about um um acquiring and retaining. Retention and lifetime value are everything nowadays, Johnny. Lifetime value and retention. So for me, everything is all about retention, right? Because when I started building my following on X, it has never been a walk in the park, right? But uh I have I have shown uh fortitude, determination, patience. So I have grown my following because of retention and lifetime value, Johnny, you know. So I think what about AI, right? Global AI market value is expected to reach $267 billion by 2027. Only 28% of companies use AI for marketing purposes. Only 28%, Johnny, you know? And only 12% of businesses use AI for content creation. It's very low. It's very low, Johnny. And uh so more than 40% of uh uh global businesses uh use uh uh AI to lower operational costs, and uh uh I think that uh uh 84% of global business organizations believe that uh AI uh gives them a competitive advantage, you know? I believe that I and I it is very interesting that uh 38% of human workforce globally will be replaced uh uh by AI and and uh by 20 2030, and 375 million uh professionals will switch other careers by uh 2030. Just imagine that any anyone in marketing, coding, copywriting is replaced uh uh uh uh uh 85% by generative AI. Johnny, and 50% is your personal brand. 50%, you know. So 50% is all about emotional connection, Johnny. You know, because if I'm a marketer and uh if I if I give my personal brand, if I have an emotional attachment to world, I will not be replaced by generative AI because this world allows picking my brand because of this emotional connection. But if you are a copywriter, coder, blogger, marketer, and you build your personal you never built your personal brand and you don't have emotional attachment to the world, you will be replaced by generative AI because of you you never built your personal brand and you don't have an emotional connection. Emotional attachment. So emotional uh attachment and emotional connection is becoming decisive in this age of AI and automation, you know? So I think that uh AI AI, you know, I think uh total contribution of AI to the global economy will be uh in the ballpark of 50 point 50.7 trillion dollars uh by 2030 and uh nowadays 77% of people use a service uh or device that is ai powered and uh and and 62% of B2B and 38% of B2C or businesses plan to use AI uh to uh for content generation for content generation to assist their marketing efforts uh in the foreseeable future just imagine that uh as as I mentioned that only only 12% of businesses use ai for content creation more now nowadays uh 60% of organizations more than 60% are planning uh uh to use uh uh uh uh generative ai tools to uh assist their uh marketing efforts you know so I think that uh uh uh 64 percent of of businesses expect ai to increase productivity and chatbots for example save businesses two hours and 20 minutes and half half of US mobile users uh use voice search every day half of us mobile users you know it's remarkable so I think we see nowadays uh we use uh AI everywhere nowadays join you know everywhere device service uh so I think ai is becoming a competitive advantage for global brands you know yeah yeah and I think it's I think it's those who are able to use AI to its fullest extent because AI still needs some direction right and I was I was looking at a prompt yesterday of you know you can give a very general description of like hey make this generative image for me and if you're vague you get kind of like lackluster results when you write in the descriptive paragraph of what you're looking for and the details and stuff you can get some really amazing results and so it's sort of a little bit of a junk into AI junk out of AI but if you put good stuff into AI you can get some really amazing results and so I feel like as agency owners as digital marketers we have to be like you said kind of on the forefront of using AI and getting good with AI because that's going to keep us relevant right just imagine Justin Regin Johnny that the ChatGPT 5 point 5.0's IQ will be in the somewhere 180 180 and and Elon Musk's and Albert Einstein's IQ well i albert einstein's IQ was 155 and Elon Musk's IQ is 155. Just imagine that ChatGPT 5.0's IQ will be 180 and you have chat GPT in your pocket that is smarter than Elon Musk you know what um so I've used ChatGPT a lot I've used a few other AI tools obviously and it's kind of like you said embedded in a lot of the different things that we use in small ways Siri here Alexa there different things like that but what are some of your uh favorite AI tools that you're using or seeing a lot of people use perplexity is a remarkable uh search uh engine powered by AI so uh perplexity garners information for from uh 567 different websites remarkable remarkable uh generated AI tool um I think uh I use nowadays uh perplexity more than Google search because uh and it uh uh when you scroll down you know perplexity also provides uh four or five different questions that I'm maybe interested in so uh it is a remarkable tool. Uh I think uh Mixo IO is also a great website but there's so you can build websites in three minutes without coding you know so Mixo IO has already built almost three million websites journey three million websites wow awesome uh well I know we're coming up here on the time is there any other um tips that you want to leave our audience in terms of uh this has been so helpful for me and I'm already like oh man I need to talk to our social media person who who helps with our social media of our agency uh I think um journey it's all about uh being curious on a daily basis um to show more patience um in your journey to be more flexible agility is um decisive you know we need to have this curiosity this this lifelong learning because I have been reading uh 400 400 500 pages a day and I I I also believe that it is all about being information smart not book smart because if you are information smart it is your ultimate competitive advantage because so much is changing every single day you know so you need to keep up yourself with the recent uh trends and recent news and I also believe that uh and but the active listening I think the most successful businesses the most successful startups uh the the people who have built their personal brands are in the listening business listening business because before I start speaking at global events I listen to my audience uh across various social media channels and I engage and I interact with audience you know so it is very important to show gratitude uh to our followers because when I had 100 followers a thousand followers well uh 10 000 followers 25000 followers I was showing gratitude so I'm always uh down to earth and I have never been on my high horse no I have been very down to ears very humble very humble you know so we also need to give more than we take we need to be givers not takers because majority of people are takers nowadays so we if we want to win in the lottery we need to give more you know love it so good man uh this has been so helpful Vladimir i'm I'm taking notes if you see me typing I'm taking notes here uh so I can talk with the with our team internally about how we need to make some shifts love your analogies uh thank you so much you know I'm I'm very I'm very grateful to the United States to my uh I have the best friend in the US and I'm very proud of them you know when I moved to United States at the age of 18 I was involved in a summer exchange work and travel program and I moved uh in 2006 from my country Georgia to the US uh I was on cloud nine when uh I I uh uh I was given this amazing uh uh J1 visa you know and and and I moved to Washington DC where I lived uh on the outskirts in uh Silver Springs in Maryland you know it was an amazing period for me uh then uh when I completed this training uh then I moved to um Menezes you know 35 minutes drive from DC so just imagine that uh uh an 18-year-old kid from Georgia is in DC it was very transformational experience so I started seeing the world faster is it clear then I moved to New York City which is the best the best melting pot in the world so I'm very grateful to the US from the bottom of my heart uh for uh to my friends for helping me to make my dreams come true so I believe in giving back so I mentor amazing startups and entrepreneurs at text you know love it love it thank you so much for all the input this is super helpful and it's uh great to connect with you yeah so I I believe that uh uh you united states uh will have more disruptors because they live and brief uh innovation marketing content creation they communicate with their consumers and it is what sets united states apart because uh united states is the best at marketing uh without a shadow of a doubt you know yeah yeah awesome well thanks for thanks for joining on um i won't I won't tell Troy that you said the US is better than Australia uh skin um but uh great talking with you and I'll I'll catch up with you soon thanks thank you so much uh Johnny and uh please send uh my regards to your entire team you know thanks for listening to the agency hour podcast and a massive thanks to Vladimir for joining us okay folks remember to subscribe and please share this with anyone who you think may need to hear it.

I'm Johnny Flash let's get to work