Improve Your Creativity with these Tips from Jason Keath

May 8, 2014

Are you looking to unlock your creativity?

Do you want to continue your education in social media?

Today on the Social Media Social Hour, Jason Keath of Social Fresh joins me to share tips on how to improve your creativity. Jason is the founder and CEO of Social Fresh and an authoritative figure for creativity.

I also share an awesome tech tool with you to help create graphic design images to leverage visuals on social.

About the show:

Social Media Social Hour PodcastThe Social Media Social Hour is a podcast for marketers and entrepreneurs looking to get on the social media fast track. The podcast is an interview format, where each week I get up close and personal with top brands and influencers to talk social media, tech and online marketing. Each week I also share tools that I personally use to help me with social media management, sales, marketing, account management, and productivity.

In this episode, here’s what we’ll cover:

  • Tech Tool of the Week: Canva
  • Jason Keath is working on a book for creativity as well as a podcast called “The Creative Nation”.
  • Social Fresh is a social media education company that hosts industry leading social media conferences and maintains a top social media blog with content and tips for marketers.
  • Jason used to be on the agency side of social media before starting his own social media business.
  • He wanted to fix problems with social media so he decided on doing a conference for education.
  • Social Fresh has been around for five years and has put on fifteen social media conferences so far.
  • Social Fresh has grown into a national brand.
  • Jason Keath talks about the challenges and rewards of hosting the first Social Fresh conference.
  • The product Social Fresh puts out is the most advanced social media conference out there for people serious about social marketing.
  • Jason’s three tips to start a conference: having a support network/partnerships, paying attention to whats on your stage and making sure there is value and collaboration, and the listening to the feedback of attendees.
  • Social Fresh conferences have a similar form to a Ted style event with a single track, one stage, no panels, and lots of value.
  • The speakers at Social Fresh conferences have between 25-30 minutes to speak, which Jason considers valuable because it challenges the speakers to cut out fluff and narrow down to a niche topic that they can dive deep into.
  • This July 17th-18th, Social Fresh will be having their east conference in Orlando with speakers attending such as Dunkin Donuts, Yahoo, LinkedIn, FedEx, etc.
  • Social Fresh’s west conference will be held in San Diego October 29th- 30th.
  • Each conference has a whole new agenda with different speakers.
  • Jason Keath has a list of the speakers attending each conference on socialfreshconference.com.
  • Jason has wanted to do a podcast for a while but wanted to have a topic that was more of a passion point for him but would also touch on his business.
  • Jason decided on doing his podcast on creativity because a lot of what he has done in his life revolves around it.
  • He has always been in the art side of business and has been a writer all of his life, so the creativity gene runs deep within Jason and he has been able to pursue it easily.
  • Jason’s goal is to teach people that you can still increase your own personal creativity and teach your company or organization to be more creative as well.
  • Jason really values creativity and thinks it is key in every industry.
  • Jason believes everyone has that thirst to be creative in their lives, they just need the tool sets and science behind it that will let them own their creativity.
  • Ways to spark creativity: read more fiction, listen to more music, introduce yourself to media, brush up on life to build up your creative fuel tank, actively plan, and have a deeper thought process.
  • Jason believes that the planning stage of brainstorming is essential and needs time to find the right solution.
  • In corporate, Jason believes brainstorming meetings should be led by a team familiar with the topic or a mediator and should have ideas brainstormed even before the meeting happens.
  • The most important thing is to have someone lead a meeting that will let the thoughts and ideas flow.
  • Time to decompress is valuable and Jason says that it’s important to shut off the active and critical part of your brain to allow the subconscious thoughts to rise to the surface as well as allow the creativity part of your thought process to intermingle.
  • If you feel like you are in a creative rut, take some time to do things that get your mind thinking in a different way.
  • Examples of brands that are overall awesome when it comes to creativity are Apple, GE, Lowes, and Coca Cola.
  • Jason says it is not necessarily about resources but more having the time to invest in the right creative angle for your industry.
  • Jason talks about the importance of engagement between company & client and the freedom to represent yourself online as what you want.
  • Great examples of companies with creative content and engagement are Taco Bell and JetBlue.
  • Jason mentions how people can listen to others and can take lessons from them to help drive creativity step by step in your life.

Jason Keath’s Social Media Six Pack:

  • If you were a super hero, what power would you have? Jason would want to time travel.
  • Are you a good baby-sitter? Jason says no, he would probably not be your first pick.
  • What is one food item you can’t stand? Jason cannot stand brussel sprouts.
  • Most annoying word or phrase? Jason thinks “yolo” is approaching that category for him.
  • Excluding english, if you could only speak one language what would it be? Jason would go with French because it is really impressive, romantic and poetic.
  • On a scale from 1-10, in and around 2005 how active were you on Myspace? Jason gives it a 5 or a 6 and was never really a power Myspace user.

Items Mentioned in the show:

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