Coffee With Scott Popescu

A sensational social media influencer with over 30 million fans in his network!

-Tell us about yourself and what you do for a living

My name is Scott Popescu and I’m based out of Dallas, Texas. I am a self-employed entrepreneur focusing primarily on social media. I started off on social media back in high school when it was more of just a hobby. Little did I know, it would become a full-time job and a major passion in my life. Back in the early stages of my social media career, I became interested in growing a large following because I liked the power and influence behind it. I started my own holiday and hashtag on Twitter back in 2010 called #NationalKissABaseballPlayerDay because I had a 75,000 follower baseball twitter account that was very active for its size. It was then when I realized I could start monetizing this new found hobby of mine and I created t-shirts. I continued to grow on social media throughout the course of high school and a little bit in college.

It was after I decided to hang up my cleats with baseball during my junior year of college that I really started diving deep into social. My network grew from 100,000 followers to over 10,000,000 within the course of a year. Currently, my company BrookHaven Media, has a network of over 30,000,000 followers. We have this combined following on both Twitter and Instagram where we use this large network to bring eyeballs in front of brands. My company can push over 12,000,000 impressions a day on Twitter and receives over 300,000 likes per post combined on Instagram. We work with small and large brands/apps/start-ups to help them not only increase their brand awareness on social media, but also increase sales as well.

Outside from the business side of social media, I also have my own personal brand that is a passion of mine as well. Over the past year, I’ve grown my personal Instagram page (where I post comedy type skits @scotterly) to over 500,000 followers. I’ve also developed an app called Karmatic which gives drivers the ability to connect with each other on the road.

-Making a living with social media?

There has never been an easier time to make money from home. Social media gives every single person the ability to create content and get paid for it. If you told me 10 years ago that I’d be able to make a comfortable living off social media, I would have called you crazy. Now, if you go into a classroom full of teenagers and ask them what they want to be when they grow up, the common responses will be: Youtuber, Instagrammer, Vlogger, etc. This is how fast social media has expanded over the course of the past 10 years. It is truly amazing that an individual can wake up at 10 am, grab their phone, and make more money than someone working an 8-5. This is the type of lifestyle people dream about and to see it happening to more and more people is amazing.

-Why should brands do influencer marketing over traditional TV advertising?

This is an easy one and i'll give the answer to you in one word: Cost. It is so much cheaper to advertise on social media than it is on TV. With all of the different types of social media platforms out there, you can easily target any specific type of niche you want to. Also, influencers play such a vital role behind a brands image that it can become a sensation within a click of one Instagram post. Advertising on social gives brands the ability for their product/service to be seen in front of millions every day. That is why it is so important for companies to start realizing this and focusing more attention here rather than the traditional ways. If you’ve noticed over the past few years, a lot of big time retail stores have been shut down due to the rise and power of social media and e-commerce stores. It’s so much easier for a consumer to open their tablet/laptop and shop online than it is for them to drive 20 minutes into town to make a purchase. Social media and influencer marketing is not only cost effective for brands but it also raises their brand awareness so it will install an image in a users’ mind that might convert over to a purchase later on. Brands need to start adapting to a consumers mindset and switch over to social media marketing

-Is the entertainment industry becoming saturated now due to everyone making videos and going viral?

Not necessarily. Sure, there are a bunch more “Youtubers” or “Instagrammers” but it also still takes a lot of work to produce high quality content. Not everyone has the ability to sit down and create content that other people can relate to. It still takes a lot of time for someone to come up with consistent work that can build up a large enough following that they will be able to monetize throughout their entertainment career. Also, not every individual has a large enough influence or connections to make their content go viral. It takes a lot of networking with other influencers or parody pages to get your foot in the door and start becoming an “influencer”

-Where do you see yourself in 5 years considering you stick to social media?

Tough question because 5 years ago I didn’t see myself working remotely from my phone as a career. One thing though is I will continue to build up not only my business network but also my personal brand as well. I really enjoy making content that other people can relate to and smile about. Growing my personal brand has become a passion of mine and I hope to continue it throughout the next few years. Using my social media presence to jumpstart an entertainment career would be something I’d really enjoy doing since it’s the same space but just a much larger scene. Overall, I want to continue using social media to make a difference in the world and have a large enough influence to change someone’s life.

If you like to know more about Scott, find him on Instagram @Scotterly