#PowerHunters: Interview with Twitter’s Cory Glauner

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to sit down and speak with Twitters  #1 Most Influential Hunter Cory Glauner of @Gothunts.

Cory  is an avid archery hunter and also enjoys bird hunting and fishing. Cory combines his love for social media, with his passion for the outdoors and we are pleased to share our first of a series of #PowerHunters interviews.

As a  Hunting and Fishing Consultant for many years Cory walks the talk when it comes to social media and you can fnd him hard at work at  Outdoors International or Webdog Services when he is not hunting or fishing. 

At what age did you start hunting?

I started hunting when I was 4 years old. I had a little piece of junk bb gun and I was a grasshopper hunting machine. No bug was safe. That little bb gun taught me how to use “Kentucky Windage”, and I’ve used those skills ever since.

I got my first deer with a bow at 13… spot-and-stalk baby, and it’s been a passion ever since.

Who had the greatest influence on getting you into hunting and fishing at an early age?

My dad. I couldn’t wait to go hunting with him. Here in Idaho you can’t hunt until you are 12 years old, but I went along every chance I got. Through High School, he and I would pack into the Selway Wilderness every other year for 2 weeks elk hunting. I loved it.

Lately we haven’t been able to hunt together as often as I would like. I’m busy with work and kids and he’s busy ranching. I’m trying to line up an Alaska hunting/fishing trip for us next year though. That will be fun.

What is the single most important issue you see facing outdoor sportsman?

New hunter recruitment. Kids aren’t being exposed to hunting and fishing by their parents, and if we’re not careful we will lose our heritage. Every sportsman should do their best to get a kid outdoors fishing or hunting.

Even if they don’t become a sportsmen when they grow up, they will at least understand what it is that we do and instead of campaigning against us they will support us when it comes down to a vote. And it will.

Another trend that I see that sportsmen need to embrace is women in the outdoors. A lot of women are non-hunters (even anti-hunters) and I don’t think they need to be, they’ve just never been exposed to it. My wife loves to hunt and I love to hunt with her. We’ve been on alot of great hunts together and she still has a bigger mule deer and moose than I do, although I’m trying my hardest to beat her. If your wife shows ANY interest, get her out there with you, if you don’t want to share hunting or fishing with your wife or kids because it takes away from your time, then all I can say is “shame on you”.

My mom has always been a (pretty much) non-hunter and I don’t think she ever really understood my passion for it. She hunted a little bit, but I always felt like she just kind of put up with my excitement and stories when I got home from a hunt. This year though, my dad took her elk hunting and she really enjoyed it. Next year she’s even getting a tag. Go mom!

How do you use social media in your business?

Social media is a big part of my business. It is a way for me to make relationships with potential new clients. I’ve made some great friends in the past few years on both Twitter and Facebook. The trick to using social media is to build relationships. Don’t always be selling and be sure to help others promote themselves. The blatant self-promoter won’t have good results.

How often do you get to hunt or fish?

My first year of College I went to the College of Southern Idaho, and I hunted and/or fished EVERY day. No kidding. I should have saved my tuition money. Before I got married, I told my wife: “I hunt. I hunt a lot”. I just wanted to get that out in the clear, so she knew what she was getting into. For the first ten or so years of our marriage… well, I hunted a lot. For about 5 years I guided professionally in Idaho’s Frank Church Wilderness for big game and then for pheasants in South Dakota. I was out in the field months at a time. But then kids came along and I got busy with my new businesses and I slowed down a bit. While I still hunt more than most, I’m not as obsessed with it as I used to be. Which is probably a good thing.

One cool thing about now though is that I get to go on some really quality hunts around the world. I go on “research hunts” every year with new outfitters that we are considering adding to our directory. We try to experience each hunt or fishing trip ourselves so that we can feel good about promoting it to our clients. You can feel safe when you book an “O.I. Approved” with Outdoors International. We do the research so our clients don’t have to. It’s a pretty good gig.

What is your favorite outdoor hunting activity?

Chasing elk in Idaho with my bow. No question. If I’m confident in one thing, it is my ability to call elk and living here in Idaho gives me ample opportunity.

Mule deer hunting isn’t far behind though. There’s just something about a big muley that gets my heart pumpin’. They’re special.

If you were an animal what would you be and why?

Hmmmm….. Good question. I think a Golden Eagle. They can live in almost any habitat, they’re generalists like me. They get to see this great Earth of ours from the best perspective and best of all, they get to hunt for a living. Yeah, a Golden Eagle. That’d be cool.

How were your parents influential?

They were very influential. They made sure that I had the proper tools and knew how to use them well and safely. I remember all of my friends’ parents thought my parents were crazy because they would let me go hunting by myself once I was in Jr. High. Mom and Dad felt that I was safe (and I was) because Dad had “put in his time” making sure that I knew what I was doing. If they hadn’t felt that way, Dad would not have let me go out by myself.

I would get off the bus after school, grab my shotgun, put on my bird vest and head out. I got my limit of pheasants almost every night. Those are some of my best memories, and to this day I truly enjoy hunting by myself every once in a while. It allows me to think and clear out the distractions like no other activity.

If you could go hunting or fishing anywhere where would it be?

Africa. It’s always intrigued me, I think because I’m an animal lover and the diversity of animal life there is amazing. I can’t wait to experience it. This spring I had to turn down a trip to South Africa for an archery plains game hunt and it was a painful decision for me. I’m hoping to go next year. I’d love to take my family with me.

How do you feel about the reintroduction of the Grey Wolf?

Uh, oh. Here we go, the wolf issue. First off, let me say right up front that I’m not a wolf hater. I wish we didn’t have so many around, but I definitely don’t hate them. Nobody appreciates the wildlife and wild places more than hunters do. Non hunters don’t understand that, and I guess when I put myself in their shoes it does seem counter-intuitive, but it’s true. Most hunters are animal lovers believe it or not.

Wolves are just like people. Their cool, but you get too many of them in one place and they start causing trouble for themselves and everything around them. I think it is their similarity with us that makes them so polarizing. Like most political subjects I think that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. We need to control them for both political reasons and biological ones. I’ve seen first hand what they can do to an elk herd and it’s not pretty. In fact it’s pretty devastating.

My wife and I used to work at a lodge and there was a winter elk feeding station just a few hundred yards away. When the winter got rough, the wolves (14 of them) would kill an elk, eat about 1/4 of it and it would freeze and become hard to eat, so they would just go kill another one. I’m not blaming them, it’s just what they do. This went on for a few months. Winter started with hundreds of elk, by the time it was over there were eight. Yeah, some of them left due to pressure, but I know for a fact that most of them died. I saw it happen.

As the #1 most influential person under hunting on Twitter how do you use that for business?

I was one of Twitters’ first users before it was cool. I had no experience in Social Media of any kind at the time, but I had a Web Development client who had written a book and wanted to promote it. He had heard of this thing called Twitter and asked me about it. I didn’t have a good answer for him so I joined to do some research for him. At first I rode the fence and didn’t really ever state my opinion, but then I started realizing that it was just like real life. If you are always wishy-washy and never take a stand, nobody will respect you. Once I made that decision, I was surprised at the organic growth and how many outdoorsmen and women there were and I thought… “hey, I could probably use this to sell some hunts”. I know, I’m slow. But I’m worth waiting for.

Well, since then I’ve kind of learned how to work it. Twitter’s a funny animal, and self promotion doesn’t work very well so I started promoting others and what was weird was that they started promoting me. Now that’s pretty cool. I think people get caught up in the amount of followers they have, how many RT’s they get and lots of other stuff. I don’t think any of that matters all that much. While you do need a certain amount of followers to get started, what you really need are friends in your niche. Don’t follow everybody. That doesn’t do you one ounce of good. Don’t auto-follow. Don’t pay for followers, and whatever you do, don’t auto DM. That just drives everybody crazy, and once you start driving people crazy… game over. Word gets around.

Once you have a good following of friends, the trick is to promote them and their businesses and just be friends with them. Every once in a while I will post a new hunt or a discounted trip or say something like, “just finished a site for the LA Marathon” (with a link to it), but mostly I just talk to people about real life things (a little self deprecation never hurts either). I try not to get carried away on the self promotion. It works, trust me. 40% of my booking business comes from Social Media and 65% of my Web Development business comes from Social Media (mostly Twitter). That’s not too shabby.

What is your favorite quote?

“Not all dogs are fit to hunt, nor in the same way are all men gratified by it. Nor, for those of us who share this dogs pleasure of hunting (if you will,) do I ask special tolerance or understanding. We are as we are and if we seem to you to act immorally it is certainly your right to feel so, but I say most seriously that you exceed your rights when you urge that laws be made in the shape of your conscience to block pleasures permitted by mine. When you prevail you commit a crime against freedom and that’s the greatest immorality I know.”
~ Vance Vourgaily

How important is our second amendment?

There are many who say, “The Second Amendment’s not needed anymore. There’s no threat of tyranny in our government”, but they need to realize that the only reason we have been able to grow comfortable with it is because the Second Amendment has prevented the government from posing a threat to us for all these years. History is littered with stories of unarmed citizens being taken over by dictators. Could that happen here? Not if we maintain the right to keep and bear arms. No other country has the freedoms that we have here in the United States. This is truly the best place in the world to live, and I for one would like to keep it that way. When politicians take an anti-Second Amendment stance, we seriously need to wonder about their motives.

At what age do you recommend getting kids involved in hunting?

As soon as you can, but I think that some care needs to be taken not to force it on the kid. My oldest son Webb (8) didn’t really start showing much interest until this season, so I didn’t push it on him. He has a bow and a bb gun and we’ve started shooting them regularly and he got to go on a deer hunt as well a few days ago. I took one of our good friends’ little girl out behind the house for her first deer and Webb got to go along. The little buck came in to about 20 yards and she shot it with a shotgun. He thought that was pretty cool.

My daughter Braiden on the other hand is 4 and she is rearing to go already. If I was going to guess now, I’d say that she’s going to be my hardcore hunter. My other boy, Cree who is 6 kind of falls in between Webb and Braiden. He’s interested, but not avid yet. I guess what I’m saying is that it depends on the kid. I don’t want to burn them out, but I’m going to get them outside every chance I get.

I wish there was room for more pictures of me outdoors with my kids. You can see more here.

What are your favorite outdoor websites and why?

Wow, that’s really kind of a tough question. I really don’t “surf around” the internet very much. Sometimes I watch hunting videos on YouTube, Outdoor Life has a pretty good site, and there are a number of outdoor blogs that I subscribe to. Base Camp Legends, Double Tough Outdoors, heyBJK, NorCal Cazadora, Dayne Shuda, Deer Passion, Stacey Huston and of course Bulls and Beavers to name a few. I’m leaving a lot of great blogs out here, but these are the few that came to mind first.

I would have to say that my absolute favorite site is Hootsuite because it allows me to combine Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin which makes me way more efficient. I hate to waste time, it’s the most valuable thing I have.

What is your favorite video?

My favorite video is this one where I’m taking my kids bluegill fishing. We had a ball this last summer and I finally got them all hooked on fishing. Pun intended.

Many thanks Cory.

Watch for another #PowerHunters interview next week.
Chris Burget

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