Last Updated on May 14, 2021
Jeffrey Powers has been creating content for Geekazine for over 10 years. As an influencer and product reviewer specializing in tech and electronics, Jeffrey has traveled to events such as the Consumer Electronics Show and South by Southwest, to name a few. When Jeffrey is not creating content, he’s creating music in a local band called Trailer Kings. You can learn more at geekazine.com or on YouTube and Twitch 24/7.
Can you tell us a little bit about Geekazine?
Yeah. Geekazine is a website I started back in 2007. It started as just a podcast because I was in podcasting. I was doing some music podcasts I moved over to tech at that point so in October of 2007 I started this podcasting. I quickly moved into the video realm, video podcasting however you say it and I pretty much haven’t looked back since that.
When did you branch out into influencer marketing?
It literally was something I put into thought and back then influecer marketing wasn’t really a thing. It might have been a thing but it didn’t really have the terms put to it. So in 2009 I went Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and I met a whole bunch of people and all of a sudden I started getting emails from these people saying “hey we like what you did we want you to come to our event we want you to cover this, we want you to cover that” and I started covering it.
And then all of a sudden people they started commenting on the YouTube they started commenting on thew website and said “we want to know more about this product or we want you to try this product and see where it goes” things like that. So pretty early on is the answer that just finding out that, you know, this is something that cannot only be a fun thing to do but also a viable business thing to do because just about a month and a half after I started the podcast I did lose my job and I was going back into consulting at that point and then I realized why don’t I just consult as a podcaster and do that. So every now and then I get people that come on and ask me “hey can you help me out, create my podcast, create my video cast” and then I go do that as well.
You are an influencer who also travels to attend numerous events and are in a band so how do you structure your average day?
Well it really depends on the day. There’s no nine to five when it comes to doing this it’s nice if you can do a nine to five off of this and some people do but, you know, in some cases you just have to figure out okay today I’m going to get a late start so I can have a late end. For the band for example we usually play on the weekends but every now and then, especially during the Summer, you get like a Wednesday night gig or something like that. A local bar doing a bike night or special event or anything like that so you just have to make plans for it. There have been a couple times where I’ve actually crossed the streams a little bit. Like for instance I had a trip to California had to do that and I had to tell the band “hey, you know, unfortunately that’s during the work week I have to do the work during the work week” and go from there.
Geekazine covered Hardwarecon 2019, can you tell us a little bit about that?
Oh yeah! Well first of all I travel all over the world. The past week I was actually in Seoul, South Korea covering what’s called Made in Korea which a great event for Koreans because it’s basically a startup event. And I judge the startups and their products if they’re viable not only in their current market but also if they can take the global stage and how much competition and stuff like that. Hardwarecon was a fun event because it’s technically another part of Geekazine called Geekazine LIVE! and basically I go out and I do live events.
And for Hardwarecon I set up a two to three camera system and we basically just did the stage keynotes and panels and I put that up on Geekazine. Of course you can see that on geekazine.com and YouTube channel at youtube.com/geekazine and yeah. So we just did the whole two days width of events it was great so I’m hoping to do a lot more of that. I’ve done a couple since then and it’s just been amazing so I can’t wait to do more.
What is your favorite brand collaboration to-date?
There’s many different things. On this last January at CES I got to work with Qualcomm cause they really wanted to get out the idea 5g is coming. And 5g is not just getting faster Internet but also getting a system where cars can start talking to each other so you know that car next to you is going to make that turn into your lane or if somebody starts crossing the street that, you know, that’s going to happen, you’re aware of it so you can make those decisions so as an influencer I went out to CES for that.
Since then I’ve done a lot of influential programs. As a musician I get – a company called IK Multimedia sends me stuff on a regular basis and that’s a lot of cool ways to make music over the IPad and things like that. Another one for music is a program called Band-in-a-Box which basically is software that allows you to create a structure song so you can work around it. And I’ve been building a second channel where basically guitarists go to YouTube to learn songs and to learn how to solo and thins like that. So there’s channels out there that basically do what are called twelve bar blues YouTube videos but they just play it and then they play along to it so I’ve been doing that on my secondary YouTube channel, which has been a lot of fun. So lots of different ways to influence in different markets.
Andrew is the Head of Client Services for Intellifluence and has a background in communications. He is committed to helping brands get the most out of their campaigns and is the co-host of the Influencer Spotlight series.
