One of America’s Top Digital Marketers
Jay Baer is an acclaimed keynote speaker, entrepreneur, technology investor, social media and digital marketing consultant and author.
Highlights
- Consulted for 29 of the Fortune 500
- Started five multi-million dollar businesses from scratch
- Author of two best-selling business books
- Named one of America’s top 3 social media consultants
- Runs the world’s #1 content marketing blog
- Given speeches to hundreds of organizations, including the US State Department and the US Olympic Committee
Speaking Topics
Jay Baer can speak on a wide range of topics including Social Media, Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Customer Relationship Management and Customer Service.
Jay will customize his presentation to be relevant and engaging to your specific audience by including relevant and targeted examples.
Book Jay: To place a date hold, check speaking rates or to receive a customized speaking proposal, please visit this page.
See Jay: To see most-requested keynote topics, sample presentations or to check current schedule visit the Speaking page.
For The Media
Jay Baer is frequently quoted by the press about social media and digital marketing and its impact on business and companies. Recent appearances include USA Today, AdAge, MSNBC, Fast Company Magazine, NPR, CBC, and Inc. Magazine.
To schedule a media interview with Jay Baer, click here.
Here’s an interview Jay did with Steve Lundin at Big Frontier in Chicago:
The Jay Baer Story
I grew up in Lake Havasu City, Arizona which has the dual distinctions of being both the hottest city in the U.S., and the American home of the London Bridge.
I graduated Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Arizona. I attended as a Flinn Scholar, a prestigious full-ride scholarship awarded to the top 20 high school seniors in the state. While at UA, I was the President of the student union, and oversaw the production of something like 300 events each year. I also co-founded the university’s first student radio station, KAMP, which is still on-air.
A political science major, I started my professional career as a political consultant, managing campaigns for state-wide, Congressional, and gubernatorial races.
I recognized after a while, however, that the nomadic lifestyle of the politico wasn’t conducive to marital bliss or family harmony, so I figured that if I could get some guy elected, I could market and sell product X too. So I made the move into marketing and public relations, working on projects for PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch, and other major companies.
For a few years, I was the marketing guy for Waste Management, Inc. for the southwest region, and to this day I can tell you more about landfill design and recycling nuances than ANYONE else in social media and digital marketing.
I also took an ill-fated turn on the government service merry-go-round, working as the spokesman for the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections (I am not making this up). My primary job was to give tours of juvenile prison. Indeed, that was just as fun as it sounds, and my government career lasted approximately 120 days.
A Digital Marketing Pioneer
When I’d given just about enough prison tours to go crazy, I was saved by my friends from college who had started the very first Internet company in Arizona, Internet Direct. They needed marketing help. I needed any job other than the one I had. Perfect! I became in 1994 the Vice President of an Internet company without ever having been on the Internet.
My partner invented Web hosting. Before he created the partitioning algorithm, you had to have a separate web server for each domain name. This of course was quite an advance, and we grew from a few customers in Arizona to thousands of customers in 23 countries in approximately 8 weeks.
I was the eldest VP at the advanced age of 24. The company ended up being sold to Mindspring (which is now Earthlink).
I next became the co-founder and General Manager of azfamily.com, a pioneering local content website and Web design firm. At one time we were the second-largest local TV station website in the U.S., doing many millions of page views monthly. These were such early days of the Web that I literally outlined the first site structure on a paper plate in my backyard.
In addition to our content site, we worked on major Web design projects, most notably John McCain’s website when he ran for President the first time, in 2000. Shortly thereafter, the company was sold to BELO Corporation (a publicly-traded media conglomerate).
I moved on to become senior VP for visitalk.com, a voice and video over IP startup that was essentially Skype several years before Skype existed. The dot com bust happened right about then, so I opened my own firm.
My company Mighty Interactive became a leading digital agency in the southwest, being named Arizona’s best digital firm for five consecutive years, and winning many national and global awards. We did great work for many leading companies, and sold the firm to integrated agency Off Madison Ave in 2005.
I started Convince & Convert to provide hype-free social media and content marketing strategy in 2008, and began my very popular blog at the same time.
I published my first book in 2011, began my popular Social Pros podcast in 2012, and my new book Youtility: Why Smart Companies are Helping Not Selling comes out in June, 2013.
When not traveling to give keynote speeches or for consulting projects, I live in beautiful Bloomington, Indiana with my wife and two children.
