Hi everyone and welcome to AQ's Blog & Grill.
We're excited today to have Jane Barkley
with us. Now Jane is the founder and CEO
of IM@Events which is kind of a
really cool concept that's happening
right here in Waterloo Region so we're
going to really grill Jane on this to
find out what's really going on.
So welcome Jane. Thanks so much for having me, Alan.
It's a pleasure.
Now tell us about IM@Events. What's up?
Sure, absolutely. Well IM@Events is
really the culmination of years of
experience. I originally started out
building my personal brand. I moved into
consulting and I found that there was a
real niche,
there's a real lack of service in the
event industry. So that's something that
we sort of naturally went into and IM@Events
really grew out of that. And I saw
a need in events to produce, to execute
coverage from front to back so we go in,
we own the channels for the event,
we provide all of the customer service,
we're the buzz creators we're the
excitement generators
so, you know, we really pump events up and
engage with people online through the
events' actual networks. So we'll do that
for, you know, depending on the event, two
to three months leading up during the
event itself. We're on-site capturing the
event and then we summarize all of that
with social data as well afterwards.
So that's our key thing. We also work with
clients ongoing in social media
management as well and something that's
a little more recent because I'm a social
media educator I teach as well.
We're doing a lot more training with clients
as well so that they feel empowered to
sort of do their own social media in-house.
Well sure, and I guess if people
become more familiar and comfortable
with the social media which really
doesn't have to scare anyone, right?
No absolutely. So is this a young
person's game or I know you've written about this. Well I'm you asked.
I have written about this and it's
something that
I say to absolutely every group that I
speak to that I say to my classes as
well, we have this concept that young
people just innately do social media
well because it's a space that they hang
out in all the time, it's something
they've grown up with, it's second nature
to them and that's not untrue. But you
know I have an 18-year-old son and
social media is absolutely second nature
to him. I would never hand over
the client reins to my 18-year-old son
just because he uses social media a lot,
right? There's a difference between use
and then the maturity and the
understanding, all the subtleties that go
along with managing a brand. The strategy.
Absolutely so you know use or
youth in itself is not entirely enough.
Right. You know you have to have so many
other skills and and traits that you
bring to the table. So being a young
person, we see that on the client side
a lot, you know people go out and they sort of
grab a young person and go okay, you know, go to.
You get this; I don't. And that can be
a dangerous sort of situation depending
on the skills that that young person is
bringing to the table, right? And that's
been proven I think in a couple of very
famous cases that oops well we put an
intern in charge of a huge brand
on the social media well because we
didn't know.
Yeah. That could be really unfortunate
and it's unfortunate for everyone.
Yes. Now you've also written, Jane, now you
have some great posts on LinkedIn - thank you - so you've
obviously spent some time on crafting
those - absolutely - and one of the things
that you said in your four
social media myths that must be busted is
that content is king? Is that what you
said? I'm not quite sure. So I'm
very adamant that content is not king
and part of the reason is that in social
media in particular, marketing more
broadly, but definitely in social media,
you know, we have a lot of thought
influencers in the space. We also have a lot
of people who get into social media
because they can and so that muddies the
water a little bit and so sometimes we
fall back on these sayings, these catchy
phrases and content is king is
definitely one of those catchy phrases.
But at this point it's almost become
cliché because we
use it so much and so that's part of it.
The other part of it is that content in
itself means nothing without your
community, without the people that you're
trying to communicate with. They are king.
They dictate the relationships.
The dictate the scenario.
They dictate the context a lot of the time as
well and I know that's something that you've
talked about on the show before as well
is context and how important that is. So I
think we have to shift away from using
catch phrases like content is king and
towards what really matters which is
always our online communities and the
people we're trying to engage with.
They're really the people
who rule. Isn't that so? I mean the
customer is king or queen.
Yes. And yet in some ways, you know, they're not
because they're more like princes
and princesses. They're more fickle than,
you know, because Queen Elizabeth walks around
and you always can predict what the
Queen is going to do - she's going to have a
matching handbag and a matching hat and she's
going to stroll and her husband is going
to be trolling along five or six behind.
But princes and princesses we don't know
what they're going to do and I think that's
more what our current customer situation is.
We're not quite sure how they're
going to behave so there you go.
Now how did you become so interested in
social media? How did you make this your
vocation, your business? Really my
background is writing. I've always
been a writer. I care very much for words
and communication so this is such a
natural extension of that, being able to
connect with anybody anywhere and, you
know, share moments and figure out
how, you know, using different words and
phrases influences people and the impact
that that has. So it really started very
much from a place of personal brand
building and evolved out of that. And
the interest comes so much again from
human communication and wanting to
connect through written words certainly
but I've also done YouTube vlogs for
years and so that vlogging experience
has been really monumental for me in
discovering my voice and how to connect
with people in new ways, so. There you go.
Now, where do we find you on YouTube?
Well you can type Jane Barkley. You'll
find me very readily.
Yeah. My username is The Jane Eden which I've
held onto from the very beginning but I
talk about a really wide array of
things. Really the central theme for me
is figuring out how to make that human
connection. So for instance I've done a
vlog about being afraid to die.
Well that's a very broad topic and
there are a lot of people who carry that
same fear and so you know I've had
15-year-olds from across the world message
me in the middle of the night who are
experiencing that feeling and you know
you can almost hear them and their
emotion on the other end of the keyboard.
So I'm never afraid to go into
emotional spaces with people and
share that connection and make
people feel like they're not alone either.
Well that's important. Now you're a graduate
of the University of Waterloo with a
degree in literature. Yeah, my B.A., yeah,
is in English. And was that helpful in
determining your pathway forward Jane?
Yes and no. I think that having a broad
sort of array of interests and
experiences is what you need to be
successful here. Part of what you
can't underplay either is a desire to
connect with people, you know?
And whether you're an introvert or not or
you know the term i really like right
now is ambivert. You know you can be
both actually
and you're really able to be anything
online and still, you know, but you need
to be invested in human connection. Right.
Right. One thing that I will say for me is that
I've always been a reader and so I've
certainly, you know, I did a lot of
reading at U of W and you know the written
word again when I hire I actually look
for writers, that it's the central trade.
I know if you're a writer then you're
going to be able to do well as a content
creator - right - and it's also a skill that
you can't entirely coach into people
either so if you have a really good
bedrock of being able to write and
articulate and communicate I think
that's extremely helpful. So certainly
I don't think that it in particular
prepared me for this but in a lot of
ways that the subject matter and yes a
nice progression. Part of your journey so far.
So far. You've got a long journey ahead of you.
Don't be afraid of that. You've got a
long journey. Yeah okay. So Jane, working in
digital media, working in social media
how are you finding balancing your
professional life with your personal
life because the social is on 24 hours,
seven days a week. Yes, absolutely. So how are you
able to take yourself out of that and
find some balance to your life? You know
a couple of key things for me that
really helped are fluidity and
boundaries. So fluidity to me is being
able to, you know, go out and spend time with
family and friends, devote my attention
to them, but also I mean they understand
what I do. They know that I have to check in,
that I can't be unavailable and so
it's creating spaces where I've never,
you know, talking to someone I'm looking
at my phone at the same time, you know?
I give my relationships respect and then I
also give myself time to check in, you
know, see what notifications, see what trending,
understand what's happening at any
given moment. So fluidity is important
for sure but boundaries too are
insanely important. Yes, so tell us about
your boundaries. My boundaries, so it ebbs
and flows. I will say that especially
when we're experiencing times of crisis
in the world it can be exhausting to be
online. You know when you're getting a
constant barrage of negativity or trauma
or crisis it's very, very difficult to be
constantly connected. We really, really
need to give ourselves permission to
disconnect and to feed the things that,
you know, we need offline as well for sure.
Now one of your
specialties has been teaching public speaking
helping people do presentations -
I know that's part of event.
What kind of advice would you give
somebody that's just graduating from
school that really doesn't have that
personal brand yet should be developing it,
but also how do they communicate
better with everyone?
Sure, well this seems like odd advice I'm
sure but start doing video.
Okay, yes. It's enormously effective and
I've seen this in my classes too. One of
the things that I force them to do and
it's a great equalizer is a YouTube video.
And they don't have to post it online
but I really counsel them to
shoot video, practice, practice, practice,
talk to that camera. It really helps
you to open up and figure out what is my thing?
What is my edge that I carve out? And that's
something you absolutely need to develop.
Like, get clear about that really early on.
What is the thing that I bring, the
energy, the personality, you know? What is
the edge that I have over anybody else
because there will be something very unique
to every individual. To explore that
though you need to practice it.
Most people are not really comfortable
practicing that to people they know but
video is a really easy way. All you have
to do is flip on your camera and take
video of you talking about things that
you're passionate about and start
carving out your voice.
Figure out what you want to sound like
and how you can bring your energy up so
that people get drawn in, right?
That's really, really important that you can
have a great story,
you can have a great product, you can
have a great whatever
the thing is, but if you can't really get
someone excited about that, you know, it's
sort of all for naught. So....
Exactly. So I totally agree with you
and it's great advice and I think we
have to remember that developing a
personal brand or developing brands in
the marketplace, They're called "brands" not
"blands" and you know if you don't take any
risk, if you don't put any sort of
personality or energy then you will have
a bland.
Yes. And you know that's not a good thing
Absolutely. So I've heard. Very good. Now of all
the social platforms that you've been
using at IM@Events, what
seems to be the favorite
platform for you to use in helping
build the - Sure, so I would say that
Twitter hands down is because we do so
much event work, you know, and Twitter
is all about velocity and it lends
itself so well to events so it's always
a primary, primary tool.
Having said that I have to go back to
YouTube because it was so monumental for
me in helping to gain more confidence in
my voice and, you know, the way that I
wanted to convey my message, the way that
I wanted to speak to people. And that
transfers into everything, you know.
It transfers into public speaking if that's
something that you want to do,
it transfers into your client relationships
or, you know, potential job interviews, whatever it is.
You know, having confidence in your
voice is so important. So for me, you know,
I have to say YouTube has been a
big thing but on the client side and
certainly at a business level Twitter
would be, I would say, hands down probably
the favorite tool. You know there's a
fellow in the United States,
lives in Manhattan, has kind of an orangey
complexion and a rather interesting hairstyle.
He seems to support your
passion for Twitter. He's usually on, though,
about three o'clock in the morning.
You're familiar with Mr. Trump?
Yeah, familiar, yes. If you were his
campaign manager would he still have a
Twitter account? Oh man I would never be....
I, you know, I don't, I don't think that I
could put myself in that position.
And, you know, it's something that you have to
think about in terms of who you work
with as a brand. And actually that's
something that my students have
talked about as well as they go out into the
workforce and they're deciding, you know,
who do we want to work with? And that's
another piece of advice I would give
anyone starting out is be very careful
about how you align yourself with other
brands and who you work with because I
think our tendency when we start out,
especially if you're starting your own
firm or you're starting your own business,
you want to work with everybody, you want
to build your portfolio, you know, you
want to get the experience under your
belt and sometimes we sacrifice quality
for the sake of that. But ultimately when
you align yourself with quality people
that feeds back into the quality and
trustworthiness of your brand, right?
Now the event business, it's had its ups
and downs.
I think it's on an upswing right now.
I would agree with that.
So why is that? I think that what I've
seen happen in the event industry over
the years is that what we're really trending
towards right now is creating experiences.
So events have really had to
change as a result of that. It's not just
about, you know, having a venue and
filling it with some stuff that's cool.
Yeah. You know what's happening
now is that event organizers who once were
really ahead of the curve are really
thinking about a holistic sort of
experience that people are going to have
and so social media has to align very closely with that.
How are we creating that experience that
you want people to have, that you want -
the feeling that you want them to walk
away with, you know? There has to be something that
really gels that whole thing so that to
me is where the event industry has
sort of taken up again, taken off again
as people realize that we want
experiences now. And especially because I
think that on the consumer side we're
also in this sort of interesting place
where a lot of people want experiences
not things. Right. Right? So there's a real
opportunity there to create cool
experiences that people walk away
feeling like I would do that again in a heartbeat.
Yeah, so what kind of event now
is really interesting for people?
What's drawing people to a
central place whether it's from an
online perspective or an in-person
perspective. Is it a learning experience?
Is it theatrical? Is it musical?
It really varies because, I mean,
there are groups of people and
communities of people who are very
different and they want something
different so it's really about
connection for sure, you know connecting
with a group of people who are similarly
minded, who are all of, you know, a similar
energy and that varies so much from space
to space - Right. - so I wouldn't say that
there's any one particular event style
that's going to win out over others but
it's always through that mindfulness of that
group of people - who are they, what's
the experience that they want to have,
how are we providing that and taking it
over the top a bit too, right, like
exceeding the expectations that that
particular community of people has.
Yeah. So what's next? What's next for you
personally Jane Barkley and what's next
for your organization?
Well so up next for me I've been doing a
lot of speaking lately and that's
something that I really, really love
and not something I'd say I'm even honestly
that natural at. I get nervous anytime I
have to go up and speak in front of a group
of people - yeah - that's part of why I do it.
And you know there's things - I've been
getting away from my YouTube vlogs for a
little bit so I'm always sort of, you
know, cracking the plan for the next
series of things so there's certainly
things on the personal brand side that I
would love to do. In terms of IM@Events
we have so much going on behind
the scenes right now and I'll give you a
little bit of a taste of that. Please do.
The training is one thing --
Okay. All right, guys, this is on the Q.T. Jane is
letting us in on the back story. Please go ahead.
Well so you know i did mention training and that
is something that hasn't really been
part of our forward-facing messaging, you
know. We have this niche of events which
I love that we've carved that out.
But training has become a much larger part
of what we do. So we've been developing
our training program doing one-on-one
sessions with people so that we can
start delivering that training online to
anybody anywhere. So that's something I'm
really excited about getting going.
The other thing that nobody knows about us
is that we've actually been doing
social media investigations as well.
Oh, tell us about that. Well there are any number of
reasons why, you know, a person or company
might need to be investigated
and we have the tools to be able to do
the online component of that so that's
been a service that it's been very
much behind the scenes, not part of what
we openly kind of advertise or
disclose that we do but it's a really
interesting field right now. It's very
interesting work, but the field itself
again it's an area where there aren't a
lot of people who have sort of vibed
into it yet so that's pretty
exciting work for us as well. That's innovative
and I'm now very worried.
Please disconnect me from everything.
I actually have a MedicAlert
bracelet i'm not allergic to anything or
anything. It just says, "Please clear my
browser history." It says that right there and
hopefully somebody will read that. I'll take
care of it. Yeah well Jane, it's been a
pleasure speaking with you today about
Jane Barkley but also about IM@Events
because I think you've got a real neat
opportunity here to have a lot of fun,
create a lot of value and retire
very wealthy.
Yeah well we'll see about that.
So I think we have, you know, a picture of
entrepreneurship where it's going to
lead to riches and fame and for me
the fun that we get to have and the
people that we get to work with
I mean on absolutely every end of the
spectrum. Again I'm really privileged to
be in this field and and so thankful to
have the chance to talk to people like you.
Well we're thankful for people like you.
Thanks for coming in. Thank you.
Well, thank you Jane and thanks for tuning in
everybody to AQ's Blog & Grill. Now you can
find Jane online at IM@Events.
You can also check her LinkedIn profile
which has got some great posts on it and
check out her YouTube channel because I
think she brought up some very good
points on how we can use that to develop
our own personal voice, our point of view
and our personal brand. Key things.
So thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time.
AQ's Blog & Grill
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