Thought Leader Life 054: Guest Ted Rubin

Our guest on 23 December was Ted Rubin (@TedRubin).

Ted is a leading Social Marketing Strategist, Keynote Speaker, Brand Evangelist and Acting CMO of Brand Innovators and in March 2009 started publicly using and evangelizing the term ROR: Return on Relationship™… a concept he believes is the cornerstone for building an engaged multi-million member database, many of whom are vocal advocates for the brand, like the one he built for e.l.f. Cosmetics as the Chief Marketing Officer between 2008 and 2010, and the one being built for the new updated OpenSky where Ted was Chief Social Marketing Officer until the end of April 2011. On May 1st, 2011 Ted announced leaving OpenSky and accepting the position of Chief Social Marketing Officer at Collective Bias (whose Advisory Board he joined in January 2011), a company he has worked closely with since it was founded by John Andrews who Ted met through the blogging community when he was leading Emerging Media at Walmart. Effective September 1st, 2013 Ted left his position at Collective Bias and is a Free Agent and Open to Opportunities. In the words of Collective Bias Founder John Andrews… “Ted, you were the vision, heartbeat and soul of Collective Bias, thank you for building a great company. From innovations like cb.Socially to the amazing relationships you built with the blogger community, clients and employees, you drove the epic growth. You will be missed!”

With e.l.f. Cosmetics from 2008-2010 and OpenSky from 2010-2011, Ted has become known for his active use of Twitter where he has in excess of 100,000 followers and grew 60,000+ followers for e.l.f. Twitter handles in 2009, over 100,000 for OpenSky in 2010, and now well in excess of 1MM for Collective Bias and growing every day… all with deep engagement and interaction.

Many people in the social media world know Ted for his enthusiastic, energetic and undeniably personal connection to people. Ted is the most followed CMO on Twitter according to Social Media Marketing Magazine; one of the most interesting CMOs on Twitter according to Say Media, #13 on Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers, 2013, and number #2 on the Leadtail August 2013 list of Top 25 People Most Mentioned by digital marketers. ROR is the basis of his philosophy…It’s All About Relationships! His book, Return on Relationship, was released January 29, 2013.

At e.l.f., Ted’s responsibilities included communicating with and building e.l.f.’s client base (membership increased from 600k to in excess of 2.4MM during his tenure), leveraging brand equity through strategic marketing programs (with many major brands and publishers), and creating/developing/managing a major thrust into social media initiatives and partnerships and building the most highly respected social media presence in the cosmetics industry. In addition, the merging of traditional PR and the ability of social media to create/spread PR opportunities was leveraged to full effect under his tenure… a first for many companies and something which many are yet to understand.

Ted believes the key to continued success for any brand/retailer/etailer is identifying with the customer. Ted is quick to point out “listening is finally getting the respect it deserves through Social Media… listen and adjust your message to make it relevant to your consumer. Brand loyalty declines due to lack of relevance… a direct result of not listening.” “Number one is always try to understand who your customer is and stay true to your brand.”

Ted has a deep online background beginning in 1997 working with best selling author, entrepreneur and agent of change Seth Godin at Yoyodyne, which was acquired in Q4 1998 by Yahoo!

Ted served as a Social Marketing and Engagement Advisor to Big Fuel Communications until they were acquired in March 2011 by Publicis Groupe, and is on the Advisory Boards of Crowdsourcing Week, EvenVoice, Expressible, Flyplist, OpenSky, SheSpeaks, and Zuberance.

A native New Yorker, Ted holds a Bachelor of Science in Business and Economics from Cornell University. He is divorced, has two teenage daughters, and lives in Long Island. Personal philosophy: Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.

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