Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - GaryVee: The Social Media Blueprint to Grow Your Business and Brand | Marketing | YAP Live
Episode Date: June 27, 2025Entrepreneurship is pressure, patience, and pain—and most people aren’t built for it. Before becoming one of the world’s top marketing experts, GaryVee worked at his family’s liquor store unti...l he was 34, growing the business from $4 million to $60 million in annual sales. He was playing the long game, even as he loaded up cases of Dom Pérignon in his friends’ BMWs. Just nine years after founding VaynerMedia, he scaled it to over 800 employees, servicing clients like PepsiCo and GE. In this episode, GaryVee delivers a masterclass in day trading attention and social media marketing, sharing how to leverage interest graph algorithms in content strategy and modern advertising. In this episode, Hala and Gary will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (04:22) Why Most People Can’t Be Entrepreneurs (10:51) Doing What You Love Without Burning Out (15:08) The Real Mental Health Cost of Entrepreneurship (21:01) How Gary Spots Digital Trends First (26:16) TikTokification and the Rise of Interest Graphs (35:14) The Power of Targeted Audience Cohorts (39:29) Mastering Platforms and Pop Culture for Virality (42:31) Using Strategic Organic Content to Win (47:50) Why Storytelling Is Everything in Marketing (52:00) Why Small Brands Can Now Beat Big Companies Gary Vaynerchuk, famously known as "GaryVee," is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and CEO of VaynerMedia, a leading advertising agency. He is a pioneer in digital marketing and social media, known for his early adoption of platforms like YouTube and X (formerly Twitter). With over 44 million followers across various social media platforms, Gary is a prolific content creator and host of the top-rated marketing podcast The GaryVee Audio Experience. He’s also a five-time New York Times bestselling author, and was named on the Fortune list of the Top 50 Influential people in the NFT industry. Sponsored By: Shopify - Start your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/profiting. Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/PROFITING Mercury - Streamline your banking and finances in one place. Learn more at mercury.com/profiting OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first 6 months at OpenPhone.com/profiting. Bilt - Start paying rent through Bilt and take advantage of your Neighborhood Benefits by going to joinbilt.com/profiting. Airbnb - Find a co-host at airbnb.com/host Boulevard - Get 10% off your first year at joinblvd.com/profiting when you book a demo Resources Mentioned: Gary’s Book, Day Trading Attention: bit.ly/DayTradingAttention Gary’s Podcast, The GaryVee Audio Experience: bit.ly/TGVAE-apple Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services - yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, Career, Leadership, Health, Growth mindset, SEO, E-commerce, LinkedIn, Instagram, Communication, Video Marketing, Social Proof, Marketing Trends, Influencers, Influencer Marketing, Marketing Tips, Online Marketing, Marketing podcast
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Young and Profiters, welcome to our Yap Live series.
As you know, video is completely taking over
the content game.
And at Young and Profiting Podcast,
we've been embracing video for years now.
You can find all of our episodes on video on YouTube.
But something new is Spotify Video.
And to celebrate the launch of Spotify Video,
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where all of our in-person video content will be featured
on Spotify video.
So that's what you're listening to today.
If you're on audio, it's gonna sound just as normal.
You're gonna hear a wonderful conversation
with me interviewing somebody in real life.
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you can go on Spotify video to watch that or YouTube. So this is our new Yap Live series. That's what
you're tuning into now. We're gonna feature incredible conversations from
people like Mel Robbins, Gary Vee, Hal Elrod, so many more. It'll also feature
some of my awesome speaking engagements like me speaking at Funnel Hacking Live
in front of 7,000 people, which was an awesome experience.
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There's gonna be seven minute videos on TikTok
that crush you three years.
I know where I came from.
It's important to me.
For me, being a nice person
and providing back to the game that put me on is everything.
I have lived a life where I came from the dirt,
now live a life where I see all the tippy top 1%
and I can promise you that money does not buy happiness.
When it comes to entrepreneurship,
my giving a fuck about people's judgment on my failures
is majority of human beings on earth
do not have the stomach to fail
in front of everyone's faces.
Organic content is now the single most important thing
in marketing in the world.
It's the game.
I believe that most people suck at social media
because they try to go viral on every post. and when they don't, they cry to mommy. 49% of entrepreneurs have some sort
of mental health issue, anxiety, NPD. I think the reason that people are struggling is that
we become very wordy. Social media has allowed us to talk and most people talk with straight bull
s***. The reason people burn out is because. What's up, young and profiters?
Welcome to the show.
We've got an exciting conversation in store for you all.
We are live at VaynerMedia offices.
I have the honor and privilege of interviewing one of my all time favorite
entrepreneurs, one of my role models as a marketer, Gary Vaynerchuk.
And we are going to talk all about his come up story.
We're going to talk about
how to become a successful entrepreneur, how to do what you love. And we're going to get
into his new book, Day Trading Tension. It's literally a masterclass on social media marketing
and advertising. I can't wait to share this conversation with you all. Let's get into
it.
Gary, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
Thanks for having me.
I'm so excited. You know, you have been one of my inspirations as a marketing expert, as an entrepreneur.
I've been listening to your advice for a long time. One of the things that I really respect
about you is that you're always giving consistent, productive, positive advice,
very different from other leaders out there. You really spend time with the underdogs,
with the small dogs. My first question to you is,
why is being humble and having humility so important to you?
And why do you spend so much time
teaching young entrepreneurs?
Well, that's very sweet, thank you.
Well, why is it important to me?
First of all, I would say that I got very fortunate.
I think it's in me.
It was, if I'm analyzing at 48 years old,
it was in my DNA.
And then it was reinforced at scale
by the person that probably gave me the DNA, my mom.
So I think humility, and it's interesting.
I appreciate you saying that.
I think as I'm getting older,
people are seeing it in the action.
Cause you know, I'm an interesting communicator. And so, you know, I'm competitive and I'm getting older, people are seeing it in the action. Cause you know, I'm an interesting communicator.
And so, you know, I'm competitive and I'm Jersey.
And like, you know, I curse and you know,
I think early in my career,
I was very empathetic that like humble wouldn't be like
what people first saw.
But I'm very proud that as a leader in my career,
the actions like for you, it's easy as somebody watches carefully enough, that it's something I'm very proud that as a leader in my career, the actions, like for you it's easy
as somebody watches carefully enough,
that it's something I'm very proud of.
And there's much that goes into it.
Why is it important to me?
It keeps me, I think it's an incredible trait.
I think it's a very attractive trait.
And I also think it's a very strong competitive advantage.
I think humility protects you from delusion.
It protects you from getting high in your own supply.
And it just protects you from a lot of things
that I think are yucky for people that win.
You know, like I enjoy being liked more by the people
that actually know me than the ones that don't.
And there are many people that we all put on a pedestal
that are living the reverse life.
And so like it is in my essence.
The reason I give back so much is
I never wanna get away from the kid in the dirt.
Like I know where I came from.
It's important to me.
I'm aware that we live in a world now
where I will literally say something on this podcast,
for sure, because I'm confident in that.
That's my confidence.
That is going to have a positive impact on someone in a real way like actually and that is like
Incredibly fulfilling it gets me high
and I
Just I really almost don't like I'm so hardwired to understand why wouldn't I?
But I'm understand. I'm very empathetic to why I wouldn't
and why others don't.
I'll give you an example.
I have a friend who just like,
she believes like leaving the home,
like looking pristine is like the most important thing
in the world.
And you know, is there a mix of insecurity there?
Sure, but like in her soul, like I know her well enough,
it's like, no, no,
this is important.
How you present, like I like,
I don't know if I'm taking a minute to get ready and go out
and I get guy and girl, there's things, right?
But everyone's allowed to have things
that are religious to them, right?
That are their North stars.
For me being a nice person and providing back to the game
that put me on is everything.
You know, it's everything to me.
Like entrepreneurship as a framework,
especially for kids that came from the dirt,
is what was the game that allowed me to have my life.
I must contribute to that game at all costs.
And that's that.
Amazing.
Well, that's super powerful.
And I know that me and you actually have a lot in common.
We both have marketing agencies, both entrepreneurs,
both have podcasts, both bullish on LinkedIn,
both grew up in New Jersey.
So we-
What part of Jersey?
Wachung, New Jersey.
Oh, I know it very well.
The Wachung Mall, like the Toys R Us and the Wachung Mall What's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your,
what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, from Jersey. Now I'm nowhere near as successful as you yet, right?
So there's 500 million entrepreneurs.
I'm just one of them.
How are you, how did you reach the top of entrepreneurship?
Like how are you so successful?
Why are you an outlier when it comes to the other 500 million
entrepreneurs out there?
My perception of it is it's similar to the iconic people
in other merit-based worlds, sports, music and entertainment.
Like I think what's cool about business is like,
you can't hide.
You know, what I love about sports is like,
you can say you're good at it,
but you have to actually play one-on-one basketball.
And if you lose 11-nothing to your buddy that you said you're good at it, but you have to actually play one-on-one basketball. And if you lose 11-nothing to your buddy
that you said you're good at it, you're not good at it.
Same with business.
You could say, you know this, you're growing up in an era,
like I grew up in an era where entrepreneurship
was not cool.
You're growing up in an era
where it went completely the other way.
Everybody is.
And everybody says they are, but are they?
You know, I'm a rapper.
But am I?
And so, couple things.
One, I think because there's more entrepreneurs than ever,
but they're not really entrepreneurs,
they're aspiring entrepreneurs.
They have entrepreneurial tendencies.
And so it seems like there's a lot more.
That's one.
So to your point, out of all, the base is bigger.
When I was a kid, the word didn't even exist.
Like when I was 13, 16, 19,
I'm like, I'm gonna be a businessman.
That would be the only word I would use.
I didn't even know what an entrepreneur was.
As a matter of fact,
the first time I even remember hearing the word,
it kind of seemed like the thing that,
like you were a loser actually.
Like you said you were an entrepreneur,
but like you were living on a beach and your parents,
like it had a really negative,
and then it went like completely the other way.
So that's one.
Two, back to sports and music,
like Beyonce was born with her voice
and her swag and her talents.
Now she put in ungodly amounts of work as a child to today.
LeBron, as a child.
I think where I really lucked out
is I put in a work as a child in a world
that almost nobody was doing what I was doing at the time.
When I tell you I punted school,
I don't believe that people will believe me when I say this.
But I know that the Adam Blums and the Garrett Van Fleets
and the Pam Moseses
and the Robin Martzes and the Robbie Turnix
that grew up with me know this to be true.
In high school, in high school,
I did not do one homework assignment in all four years.
Not one.
Not only that, somewhere around, I believe sophomore year,
but it might even been second half of freshman year,
I, for four years of high school,
did not open a book once.
I did not hand in one book report,
and I guessed on my Scantron all four years,
A, B, C, B, A, all four.
I got zeros on tests.
I was 243 out of 254 in class rank.
I had a 1.6-something GPA, and I got a on tests. I was 243 out of 254 in class rank.
I had a 1.6 something GPA and I got a D in speech.
I went so to the extreme.
Even today where entrepreneurship is allowed,
we're like a 14 year old entrepreneur now,
we're like, yo, you got it.
Like you're the next Zuckerberg, right?
And we champion them.
Even those kids aren't 100% entrepreneur
and completely punund school.
It's very rare.
So I think the reason I stood out was I put in way more work
than everybody and had natural talent.
Yeah.
And that's really the answer.
Yeah.
And so I'm the same.
Like I was always selling things as a young kid,
leading things as a young kid, inventing things.
And so I was naturally an entrepreneur,
like right, I dropped out of college to become an entrepreneur, you know? And so I was naturally an entrepreneur, like right, I dropped out of college
to become an entrepreneur, you know?
And so it was very natural to me.
For people who don't take risks naturally,
who aren't naturally creative,
do you think they're cut out for entrepreneurship?
No.
I mean, creative is different,
but risk is the requirement.
Yeah.
Because you're naturally risking from the second you start.
You were saying, I am good enough
to stand on my own two feet
and I will either succeed in all of your faces
or I will fail in front of all your faces.
And the majority of human beings on earth
do not have the stomach to fail in front of everyone's faces.
One of the other ways I could have answered
your last question is because I'm not scared to lose.
Yeah. Why did I achieve a lot?
Because I wasn't scared.
Like, you know, like, yep, like, and I'm very,
there's many things I was scared to do.
Like, I don't want to do, I don't want to jump out of a
plane, so I'm not a good plane jumper.
Like, I don't want, like, but like, when it comes to
entrepreneurship, my giving a fuck about people's judgment on my failures
is zero.
And it's been zero for so long that it's so ingrained in me.
And if you can't deal with judgment,
and if you can't deal with taking a step back,
you know how humility works?
When you make a lot of, do you know what it feels like?
You're going through a very interesting journey
and so a lot of entrepreneurs right now,
one of the worst feelings in the world
is to make a lot less money professionally than you used to
because you once taste the alternative.
Never making $100,000 a year and living $70,000 a year
and being happy is one of the great lives of all time. Getting up to 400,000 a year and being happy is one of the great lives of all time.
Getting up to 400,000 a year,
but then having whatever happened,
that job loss, new side hustle loss,
like and going to 180, ooh, that's tough.
Fine first class, then never being able to afford it,
and now sitting middle seat coach,
that fucks with people's psyches, not me.
Yeah.
Not me, up, end, as if, like,
what are you gonna say to me
that's gonna make me value your opinion
in a world where I know you've got a lot of things
not going well too?
Okay, so sticking on this being a successful entrepreneur,
I know something that you talk about often
is doing what you love and how it's so important
as an entrepreneur to actually do what you love or you're gonna burn out.
Correct.
So talk to us about that
and how VaynerMedia is doing what you love.
I love that, that's a great question.
Doing what you love and also having the capacity
to be comfortable with discomfort
and being patient in eating shit is a very interesting enigma.
And I appreciate the way you asked the question
because it's gonna allow me to double click into it.
The reason VaynerMedia and VaynerX, the holding co,
is me doing what I love,
it's because I'm willing to eat the crow
in building this infrastructure
to be the foundation of all my other future behavior.
So is VaynerMedia my full Nirvana moment?
It is not.
But I like it, I love operating.
It sounds like you'll resonate with this.
When you're a real purebred entrepreneur,
you're happy selling anything.
Yeah, it's fun.
Like I'll sell sneakers.
It's my favorite thing to do, so.
You know, and so like, okay.
But I also have the capacity to be strategic,
make less money, be uncomfortable.
Like I worked at my dad's liquor store
until I was 34 years old.
I need every kid to hear this.
I worked in my father's liquor store
until I was 34 years old.
So I had patience.
That was, in one side, the reason I did it was
I was so thankful and grateful to my parents
for bringing me to America
and like changing the course of my life.
And I love them and we're very close in age.
My parents were 22 and 20 when they had me.
So we're like borderline friends.
Like it's the best.
And I knew that I believed that I was gonna be
a great entrepreneur and I somehow had the wisdom
at 22 years old to say, you know what?
I'm gonna go in here and build something huge
from my parents and then I'll have time to bounce out
and go do it for myself.
That was the greatest decision I ever made,
but fuck, it was hard.
Yeah.
Like, you know, like working in a,
like you know what I mean?
Yeah, a lot of people end up resenting their parents
if they push them towards anything
that's in the family business,
but you're grateful, right?
No, my parents, honestly,
they were agnostic.
Like, it was weird.
By the time I was 16, it was pretty clear
to both my parents that I was good.
But they didn't go like, the reason I love my parents
is they didn't go weirdo on me
and try to turn me into like a slave, right?
They just, it kind of just was.
We were all just kind of moving, you know?
I was very immigrant.
We're just like, you know, you're doing what you have to do.
And I walked into it.
Like I was like, I'm gonna come in like rec house
and literally took shoppers and scalers
and built Wine Library,
one of the biggest wine retailers in the country.
And everybody from watching went to Wine Library.
It was awesome.
And it was really a great chapter,
but fuck, I'd be lying to everyone if I didn't say,
like I'm unstoppable with judgment,
but I promise you, five years after college at 27,
when I'm working the floor,
helping people select wine during Christmas,
and some of my buddies that I grew up with
now are in Wall Street and driving into our parking lot,
and they're BMW, and they're buying a case of Dom Perignon,
and I'm carrying it out to their car,
and putting it into their trunk,
and I see the way they're looking at me like,
man, and I know I'm gonna fucking be bigger than everyone,
holding your breath is fucking hard
and I'm fucking unstoppable.
So if it even registered to me,
the normal person with their relationship with judgment,
fuck, that was hard.
And the bigger thing that was hard was my dad
was not paying me that much money
and I was building a huge company.
And then I started forming, I think calling it resentment would be too much, but I started
having feelings.
Like the business went from 4 million to 60 million and I'm still making 80,000 a year.
You know, if I would have been better off going anywhere, I would have been making millions.
So you know, I think, but again, I was making my own bed.
The reason it was cool was I knew I chose to do it.
Just like I chose to leave and start VaynerMedia.
Yeah, makes a lot of sense.
Okay, one more question on entrepreneurship
because I wanna spend most of the time on your new book.
And this one is about mental health.
So I feel like it's gonna become like a hot trend
where entrepreneurs are gonna start focusing
more on mental health. As I'm doing my podcast, I feel like more people going to become a hot trend where entrepreneurs are going to start focusing more on mental health.
As I'm doing my podcast, I feel like more people are talking about it.
And I read that entrepreneurs spend 73% less time with their friends and family.
49% of entrepreneurs have some sort of mental health issue, anxiety, ADD, things like that.
So my question to you is for all the entrepreneurs out there
or people who wanna be entrepreneurs,
what's your advice to make sure that we're taking care
of our mental health and our relationships?
I mean, I've been pretty consistent on this.
Like long before I think we've gotten more thoughtful
about the mental health aspect.
Like I will never to the day I die understand
why anyone would choose anything over being happy.
Mm.
I think people think money will cover up the scars
and make you happy.
I believe that people that don't have money
believe that money is happiness.
Mm-hmm.
And that if they buy a BMW or get some,
an attractive husband or wife or have three homes
or have a seven-carat ring or a private chef,
that that will unlock the happiness.
I've lived a life where I came from the dirt
and now live a life where I see all the tippy-top 1%
and I can promise you,
and one day you'll find out if you don't believe me,
that money does not buy happiness.
It creates convenience.
It creates opportunity to do things.
But I'm talking about happiness.
So what is my recommendation?
Fuck around and find out.
That's my recommendation.
If you do not believe me or the other people that spit it,
who've lived it,
the reason people burn out is because they choose money,
not entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship without the money is the game.
You and I weren't picking money
when we were selling candy in school.
We're just like living our life.
It's somebody-
Inventing.
Yeah, people were gravitating towards trumpet.
People were gravitating towards Spanish class.
People were gravitating, like, nobody,
I didn't read a business book in second grade
to open up a lemonade stand.
My mom didn't tell me to do that.
It was the light.
It was all I knew.
It was my hard wiring.
That's different than, I mean, I need to,
and that's why this fake entrepreneurship era is tough
because a lot of them are making a bad name for the game. They're like, entrepreneurship fucked with my mental health.
It's because you fucking were trying to use it to cover up your issues.
Therapy should have been what you were doing, not entrepreneurship.
I've never said that before and I appreciate your reaction.
That's actually the truth.
People thought the money could cover it up.
The money accelerates it.
Money exposes you.
It doesn't change you.
Yeah.
So what would I say?
I would say what I've been saying my whole life.
Even my first book, coming out the gate, my message,
even you said it earlier, like it was crush it.
Cash in on your passion.
Everybody who's listening right now,
think about the thing you would do 24 seven if you could,
if you really could, what is your play?
What is your downtime?
What is your leisure?
What's your favorite golf, cooking, music, skiing, travel.
Like if you can spend your twenties trying to make a career
in that you will win.
If you go and try to be practical and be an accountant
because your dad said so, or you think it's cool
and be an entrepreneur when deep down,
you know you don't have the stomach for it, you will lose.
And so I think the reason that people are struggling
is that they're not in their right path.
Yeah.
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But what about the entrepreneurs that are doing really good, but they're obsessed with
being an entrepreneur and they're spending so much time on their business that they ignore
their relationships.
It means that they may not value their relationships as much as they want to say they are.
Got it.
You know, a lot of people like to talk shit
without going to the third level.
Yeah.
Gary, but you don't get it.
I'm not spending enough time with my boyfriend.
I'm like, maybe you don't like your boyfriend.
Because I promise you, if you're obsessed with your boyfriend
and your business, you don't make the time.
Yeah.
Actions over words.
We become very wordy.
We're really fucking wordy.
And this is not just Gen Z or millennials,
like boomers are wordy as fuck on Facebook.
Humans have become incredibly wordy
because there's somewhere to put your words.
Social media has allowed us to talk
and most people talk straight bullshit.
And so, Carrie, you don't get it.
Like I miss my kids.
I'm like, go see your kids.
Yeah.
People are not accountable.
People like to posture for optics
but have a different reality.
Mm-hmm.
You know, so because if you actually mean it, you would do it. for optics, but have a different reality.
Because if you actually mean it, you would do it. Yeah.
Yeah, be honest about it.
Be honest about your priorities.
I think people just are getting really good
at looking for pity.
Yeah.
I'm gonna struggle to cry for someone
who is actively fully in control as an entrepreneur,
who's crying about it.
And now someone's gonna be listening and say,
well, I have a job and I'm stuck.
No, you're not.
You could sell your home.
You could pay rent at a smaller apartment.
You could sell your car and take public transportation.
Many people did for many generations.
We've just gotten so entitled and are looking for easy.
Do you know how many people complain about money
and buy Starbucks?
So many.
And take Ubers and go to Coachella?
Like if you're complaining about money, save it.
Yeah.
Well, let's move on to some of the marketing and tech stuff.
I wanna talk about your day trading attention new books.
So you've been on the cusp and the cutting edge
of a lot of things.
You were on the internet doing e-commerce
before it was hot with Wine Library.
You were one of the first pioneers on YouTube.
So how can you tell when things are gonna get hot?
You know how there's like good A&Rs and music?
Like how'd you know Lady Gaga was gonna be big,
whoever discovered her?
Like he or she was just had a knack for it.
Usually that knack is because you know
how people are gonna feel.
So I have a very good feeling
of what the general public likes and doesn't like.
But also I put in the work,
back to what we were talking about earlier.
When YouTube, when I jumped on YouTube in February of 2006,
it went all in, I spent most of the summer of 05
reading TechCrunch every blog post.
And they would write about the new startups.
If I hadn't put in that work,
I would have clicked on the articles that led me there.
If I didn't work 15 hours a day building winelibrary.com,
sitting next to Eric Kastner, my developer,
who probably was the one that said,
read this TechCrunch article,
because three years earlier I asked him,
can I put wine videos on the website?
How much would that cost?
And after he told me like a billion dollars to host them,
because it was old back then,
he was like, you're probably gonna like this
because it's free.
I'm like, it's free?
You know, and so I'm good at human psychology.
I'll give you a real interesting one
that you might find interesting,
since you're such a young buck.
But back in 2007, when I was yelling about Twitter,
almost everyone would say to me, this is so stupid.
Who cares that you're walking the dog?
Who cares if you're eating pizza?
And my answer was everyone.
And people were like brain fucked with that.
They're like, what do you mean?
Now that must seem mundane to all you youngsters,
like everybody shares everything about everything.
Back then, nobody shared anything about anything.
So, I think human psychology helps me, right?
Like, why did I understand musically?
Because I understood that it was putting in front of,
when it was only 14 year old girls,
it was still putting content in front of them
based on content they liked,
not based on following someone.
I saw that in Tumblr when I was an early investor in Tumblr,
and I knew why Tumblr was winning.
It wasn't the social graph people,
it was the interest graph.
What are you into?
Yeah.
And I always thought that was more powerful
because Dustin and I could have been best friends
in junior high, but then by high school,
if our interests changed, right?
We all lived through junior high and high school,
high school and college, college and post life.
We all saw one or two or three people stay forever.
A lot of times it's just because they've been there
for so long and you just got war stories together.
It's not even like you are into the same shit anymore.
But the natural human flight is you do change friends
based on interest, times in life, things, right?
And so that made more sense to me.
So it's the skill of human psychology.
It's the putting in the work.
Like I wake up in the morning and I look at the app store
and then I play with things.
If I think ReClip is interesting,
I download and play with it.
And right now the only ones that are playing with ReClip
are Jen Alpha.
It's like me?
I'm a nine year old.
And so like I put in the work, I stay curious, I watch.
And then there's always moments where there's a tipping point.
And I've been pretty good.
Dustin's filming me in the back.
For all the people that really follow me.
Obviously D-Rock is doing his own thing
and I always have different people filming. Dustin's now really been locked in with me for all the people that really follow me. Obviously D-Rock is doing his own thing and I always have different people filming.
Dustin's now really been locked in with me
for a little while and he's been here five, six.
So he's now seen a cycle and here's what I mean
where I'm about to go next
if we're getting very marketing nerdy.
He was here when Be Real was starting to get hot.
He was in the meetings filming me when I was like,
ah, I think it's a feature.
Like now it's not him reading about it.
Now it's not the kids, everyone who's listening right now on podcast, like me talking about, no, no, I think it's a feature. Like now it's not him reading about it. Now it's not the kids, everyone who's listening
right now on podcast, like me talking about,
no, no, he lived it.
So he can see that like there is a skill set
to being good at it, not just throwing against the wall
and see what sticks.
And so, you know, I'm excited about this skill.
I focus on it very heavily.
For example, the cliche question people ask me all the time
is like, okay, so what's next?
I'm like, I don't know.
But the second I see it, I go all in, I taste it.
And whether that was Vine, where it did mean something,
but then it sold quickly, or it was Social Cam,
or Vero, or all these other things that,
Peach was a big one for a week back in 2014.
I'm very focused on paying attention, putting in the work,
saying maybe.
You know what fucks everyone up?
I say no.
TikTok, no.
And I always say maybe.
With a hope to yes.
I say maybe with a hope to yes
in a world of people that say no.
Yeah, because you wanna make sure you capitalize on it
while they're still under priced attention
like you say in your book, right?
That's right.
The thing that many people will definitely understand
right now that are listening is if you did move on TikTok
when I was yelling about it every day, six years ago,
that would have been good.
And now that I think people have gone through a cycle,
cause I was big enough at that time,
unlike 10 years earlier, that enough people heard that.
Enough people didn't go, you know why? Insecurity.
Everybody that could and go crush it was on Instagram and they didn't want to start over.
Well, I got a million followers on Instagram.
Like zero on TikTok.
And people got caught.
Yeah.
So talk to us about the supply and demand curve that happens on social platforms.
At first, if they're meant to be big, the ones we all know, there's so much attention
there, but there's less content creators.
And so anybody that's posting is gonna get more
of the percentage of the attention.
As it becomes normalized, it gets harder to go viral
or get as many people to see it.
And then at some point it becomes really challenging.
Kind of like the thing everyone's dealing with
on Instagram right now.
Because so much attention got deviated to TikTok.
Not that anybody on TikTok is only on TikTok
and not on Instagram.
Obviously the very young may be that way,
but most people are on both.
It's just that pre-TikTok,
it was four hours on Instagram for that person
instead of two,
because two is now on TikTok.
The problem is at the same time that that went down
from an attention standpoint,
the amount of content that's being posted on Instagram
is through the roof.
So yesterday more content on Instagram
than any day prior in Instagram's history,
yet the attention is now fragmented
between YouTube shorts, TikTok.
By the way, streaming services, by the way,
Twitch, by the way.
And so what ends up happening is
there's only 24 hours a day,
there's only so much attention,
but there's more and more supply of content.
So you have to know how to day trade it,
like a stock, somebody who day trades stocks,
you're buying in nanoseconds.
Whether it is the actual social media platform,
buying ads on the platform,
the influencers on the platform to do deals with,
or anything else in between,
and across all these platforms,
from LinkedIn to Pinterest to Snapchat to YouTube to YouTube shorts to Facebook
to Reels to Instagram, and then the units inside.
Do you post carousel? Do you post a video?
Do you do a reel? Do you do a long form picture?
Do you do a lot of copy? Do you do no copy?
Do you do emoji? What time do you post?
Like, this is fucking science.
And like talent, like if you're remarkably beautiful,
that will probably work.
If you're remarkably funny, that'll probably work.
But for the most people, like being good at it
is the point of this book.
I really like, this is the most textbook
that I've ever written.
Like I'm going going there.
And you know, I'm very proud of how well I've played
all of the instruments. And I just wanna I'm very proud of how well I've played all of the instruments and I just want
to try to help people get better at it.
Yeah.
Because it is the game.
Yeah.
I loved your book, by the way.
I thought it was, you guys gave me an advance copy and I read it and it was great.
Can I, can I, can I reverse this on you for a second?
Sure.
So you might be the first person I'm really, or maybe the second, but I didn't get to ask
them.
Like, so obviously because of your success and your knowledge and your strengths,
I kind of wrote this book for someone like you.
Like this isn't a, you weren't gonna read this book
and be like, oh, this is like, of course.
Like I was, I'm curious what parts or what things
or what hit for you.
Well, it solidified things for me.
So for example, I'm one of the biggest
LinkedIn marketing experts.
I teach like a two day class.
It's the most popular class that I'm,
I can hack the algorithm and that's why people hire me. So one of the biggest LinkedIn marketing experts. I teach like a two-day class. It's the most popular class and I can hack the algorithm
and that's why people hire me.
So one of the things that's happening this year
is that they're prioritizing interest relevancy
over engagement probability.
It used to be that you would post something motivational,
something inspirational.
If people shared it, you'd go viral.
Now it's all about posting a specific topic,
educating people and then LinkedIn will match users
based on the things they like, the interest graph.
Exactly.
So I actually wanted you to,
can you go super deep on the interest graph
because I feel like this is the major trend happening
with all social media sites.
And that's what I, from your book,
I was like, oh, he's right on the money.
This is, yeah.
This was, I told my brother that I thought
Tumblr was gonna be bigger than Facebook and Twitter.
I'll never forget, I called him after I invested,
I said I got the biggest, I went Twitter, Facebook,
Tumblr in my investing, those are the first three companies
I invested in, in my life, out of a liquor store
in New Jersey, it's like funny, it's like,
you can see I'm laughing at myself, it's so improbable,
like I don't even, because it's my life,
I don't even think, like it's absurd, comma.
I thought Tumblr was gonna be the biggest
because of this conversation,
just took 15 years for it to happen.
Again, everybody, social media for the first decade plus
was very simple, it was like email marketing.
You would get as many people to follow you as possible,
and then you would post,
and a percentage of those people would see it.
That was the game.
And that was easy for me to figure out,
because I did email marketing in 97, 98, 99
when that was like new and I was a big winner in that game.
That was underpriced attention.
I was competing against liquor stores
that were making catalogs,
but I was getting to the customer for free
instead of how much a catalog costs
and getting to them faster.
It was huge.
It was foundational.
So I saw the same thing in social. So I masked
big followings. That was the focus. Tick tockification of social media, like I talk about in the
book, that interest graphic algorithm is now going to eat up everything because it's better.
It keeps you on the platform longer. Let's use common sense. You go to your Facebook,
you're now 27. You went on Facebook at 18, the people you followed are people you met
like one night hooking up or at a random party or whatever,
and now you're seeing posts of them in Ohio
with their aunt and you're like, I don't give a fuck.
But just like email, we don't unsubscribe
from our fucking list, we just delete it or archive it.
Like we don't put in the work to clean up our shit.
So you kept seeing shit you didn't give a fuck about,
which made you not spend four hours on it,
it made you spend 14 minutes on your feed.
Then you go to TikTok,
and you're seeing unlimited shit that you fuck with.
And four hours later, you're like,
what the fuck just happened?
That's good for TikTok, that was bad for Facebook,
now all of them are gonna be like TikTok,
and every social network is gonna have the for you page DNA
in them for quite a while now.
Maybe forever, cause it's more humanly true.
That's what I focus on.
And that's why focus on your niche
is about the fuck up everyone.
You're gonna need to talk about more things than ever
that are true to you,
because you're gonna need that content
to find more different audiences
for you to be as big as you want to be.
I was gonna ask you, does that mean riches
are in the niches now because of the interest graph?
But to your point, if you've got multiple topics.
It's an end game.
Got it.
Think about how weird I am.
The reason I know everybody from afar,
especially in the game you're in are like, what?
Like garage sale videos.
Then I, I mean, my grid has been fucked up for 12 years.
And I was like, make a good grid.
It's gotta be on brand.
I'm like, you fucking have no idea what you're talking about.
The grid is like 5% of the consumption.
The feed is the whole game.
So you go to my fucking thing, you're like, who is this?
Jets video, garage sale, keynote, board meeting,
V friends, what the fuck is that?
Like people are like, what?
I'm confusing the shit out of people
because I don't care about the grid.
I care about being as relevant to as many different people
as humanly possible.
So it's really just about posting one post
and that could go viral to different people rather than-
Well, I'm so glad you just said
that I was about to jump in earlier.
Another thing, let's talk about viral.
Sure.
I'm gonna use baseball.
I know it's not as popular anymore,
but it's the easiest one.
Going viral is hitting a grand slam.
Do you know anything about baseball?
A little, I know enough.
Enough to be dangerous.
You know what a strikeout is?
Yes. Good.
Most posts are a strikeout.
Okay.
Right?
Doesn't do what you want it to do.
I'm in the business of singles and doubles and triples with the occasional home run and grand slam, but could give a shit
about hitting a grand slam. Or if you don't follow baseball, everyone I'll be I won't
use an analogy. I don't ever think about going viral ever. I only think about making good
content that is valuable to the people on the other side. And that means that most of
my stuff will consistently do solid,
occasionally do better than solid,
and once in a while go viral.
I believe that most people suck at social media
because they try to go viral on every post.
And when they don't, they cry to mommy.
So you're more about posting as much as you can.
Hopefully they all do pretty good.
And posting as much as you can
is also based
on self-awareness of like, I start with like,
do I have something to say that could bring someone value?
Again, I need everybody to hear this.
That comes in all shapes and sizes.
I mean this.
If you're funny and you do a skit, like King Batch,
that's value.
You made somebody smile and it's a fucked up world
out there and the feeds are fucking negative
and media is negative
and like that little ha ha ha.
If you're attractive,
like people like looking at attractive people.
If you know something about LinkedIn,
that's valuable to the people that want LinkedIn.
Like we all have value.
If you know something about BMX or wine or sneaker,
like value, value, value.
I think people have niched themselves in a corner.
What happens if you know a lot about sneakers
and you know a lot about bourbon?
Post both.
But I don't wanna fuck, I gotta fucking,
they algorithm, and then people are super insecure.
They almost never post
because they don't think it's gonna do well.
As if that means anything.
Like, okay, you normally get 5,000 views on your video
and this one got 49.
What is, okay.
Like what is the fucking,
what is the matter with this?
Right?
Like, I mean, seriously, we're just like,
it's like we treating our lives and social media
like we're still in junior high.
Hey, yeah fam.
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Speaking of niches, let's talk about creating audiences because like you just talked about,
we can talk about multiple topics.
We don't have to be scared about that.
We can be a dynamic person on social media,
which means we're gonna be speaking to multiple audiences.
That's right.
And you say we should develop cohorts with teats.
So what do you mean by that?
When I make content, sometimes I'm like,
this piece of content that I'm gonna make
is gonna hit 45 to 55 year old first time moms
on the coasts.
More New York LA mentality,
then London, then Ohio, then Spain.
So if I know that I'm doing that,
don't you think that my adjectives and analogies
tone intent, right?
So I want everyone who's listening
to start thinking about cohorts.
Gary, what do you mean?
I just do sneaker content.
Okay, well there's a lot of different niches
within sneaker content.
There's people of high net worth like myself
who can afford bougie fucking, you know,
Nike, Air Force One collaborations.
There's other people who just like really like New Balance.
Like there's the Reebok movement
that I'm getting into as well.
Like there's a lot going on.
Crocs, if you wanna expand it a little bit.
Like, do you know who you're making this video for?
Because everyone's going to vanilla.
I make content for entrepreneurs.
I'm like, okay, knock yourself out.
Like, imagine how much better a piece of content is
is that you know that you're gonna make,
I'm gonna make content for first generation
Hispanic entrepreneurs that are 18 to 22,
that came from immigrant parents, that came from Mexico.
I'm gonna use analogies.
I'm gonna make reference to rigatone.
I'm gonna talk about San Antonio culture.
Like, like. Use their slang and however they talk. I'm gonna talk about San Antonio culture. Like, like.
Use their slang and however they talk.
100%.
It's called relevance everyone.
If you're not relevant to someone,
the second I make a long tail bar stool joke,
every bar stool dude is like, fuck yeah.
Like, like it's not super complicated.
And so, because everyone gets so boring
in vanilla right away.
People say to me all the time, they're like,
it's a really funny thing that I fuck people up with.
Because I've been so consistent and growing
and all this stuff, but then sometimes they'll be like,
but Gary, you say the same shit.
I'm like, what do you want me to make up stuff
I don't believe in?
And then they go, if they stick with me in that convo,
they start to realize, ah, I say the same macro 15 things,
but the way I say it differently and how and where and what and to whom, that's the game.
So cohorts, these are consumer segmentations.
In old television talk, it was,
we're trying to reach the 18 to 35 year old demo.
I like to think, and I know I'm looking at your crew a lot
because I like doing that, like,
I like to think everyone in here is at a point
in their lives where they realize an 18 year old person
and a 32 year old person,
the same person are very different.
But that was television, you didn't have the internet.
Now that we have the internet,
everybody who's listening should be posting on Facebook.
It's huge, still.
I'm getting 25, 30 year old audience on Facebook.
Now they're on there like once in a blue moon
compared to whatever,
but you should be relevant to Facebook audience.
You should be relevant to TikTok audience.
Snapchat's culture is slightly different than TikTok's.
TikTok's like, it's all different rooms out there
and you want to be in every room.
And so, what I talk about in the book about cohorts
is consumer segmentation.
And the reason I say with teeth is AdLand,
Don Draper, advertising, marketing agencies,
the big brands
that we work with, the biggest brands in the world.
They like to talk about consumer segmentations,
but they have one.
They're like, we're gonna sell this beer
to health-seeking enthusiasts.
They make it fucking broad as shit.
Because they're gonna make just a super,
they're gonna make one commercial on television
and health-seeking, what they're basically telling you is super, they're gonna make one commercial on television and health seeking, what they're basically telling you
is like, let's make a beer commercial
where like the couple went to yoga and after had a beer.
You see what they're doing?
What I'm saying is if you want that beer
to be relevant to a lot of people,
like you need to go deeper in that
and it needs to be like yoga moms,
young yoga moms in Kansas City,
you're gonna make a very different piece
of fucking Facebook content or Instagram content
than if you say professional moms in New York City
who are having their first child at 40 and fuck with yoga.
Can you imagine how different those two pieces gotta be?
Yeah, very different.
Well, that's called fucking cohorts with teeth.
Love it.
And so that was your first variable
of your modern advertising framework,
also the day trading attention framework,
and then you lead into something called PAC,
platforms and culture.
Pachink is huge.
Platforms and culture.
If you take anything out of this interview
and you wanna crush social,
obsess with platforms and culture.
Platforms are, what are the platforms currently doing
that they give a shit about?
So when Facebook announces carousels,
good news, they need to test it.
That means you should be making carousels
because more people are gonna see it organically, right?
If the trends of the consumers on the platforms
are people like Skits, that's a platform and culture thing
because you gotta always know what's going on in culture.
Culture is pop culture.
Do you know that baggy pants are back?
Like, cause tight jeans were fucking crushing
seven years ago, right?
Do you know that Crocs came back five years ago?
Because six years ago they were dork bill USA,
but 20 years ago they were killing it.
Do you know what's going on with Aiden Ross
and Sexy Red's controversy or don't you?
Do you know, like, do you know pop culture or don't you?
Because if you do know pop culture,
you're able to create crazy relevance, right?
Do you under, like, because you're able to integrate that
into your copy or the creative itself.
There's a few moments, there's three weeks to seven weeks
there where the corn kid is a social media obsession
or that the Walgreens private label nice mango gummies
are hot with gen alpha for a week.
But if you're in the fucking gummy business,
you should know that or you sell candy, you should,
like, do you have a pulse of popular culture on everything?
Because what's pop culture to maybe us
is definitely not pop culture
to somebody that lives in Peru.
Like, you know, like there's people that literally,
I had a friend literally, cause I'm 48 now,
so most of my friends are fucking finished.
And what I mean by that is like deep pop culture.
I literally had a friend six months ago text me,
yo, have you heard of this guy Bad Bunny?
I'm like, what the fuck?
I'm like, dude, please don't text anybody that.
Like, you know what I mean?
I literally took a screenshot of me
DMing Bad Bunny in 2017 for him.
I'm like, yes, I've heard like,
rousing him of like he's finished,
he's a fucking suburban dad.
Like, do you know or don't you know?
So culture matter is heavy for content
because we're gonna have to be better than everybody else.
And if you can interstitial pop culture, you will win.
Like, you know, it's a lavender latte at Starbucks for the season.
You can factor in, I like that you see like, but notice what just happened.
She like shook her head because that one hit for her.
Whereas sexy red and Aiden like, you know, like, so imagine if I want both of them to
give a shit about me, I've got to do both those things. Because I've got one second in feed for them to give a shit about me, I've gotta do both those things,
because I've got one second in feed
for them to give a fuck.
That's okay.
Yeah, platforms and culture.
To me that's very point in time, right?
They're always changing, you've gotta know
what features are hot on the platform.
You've gotta know the algorithm, right?
You've gotta know what's hot.
Day trading.
Then you have strategic organic content,
and to me that's more about understanding human behavior.
Strategic organic content is the content
that follows the PAC framework in my mind.
If you know those two things,
then you make according to that, that is the outcome.
That is the content.
I'll give you an example.
It sounds like I haven't dug under the hood,
but I will after this interview,
that you're doing real work in LinkedIn.
So that means most likely that you want on the P part,
the platform.
I know that because I also heard you talk about
what the platform's doing.
If you knew more about, this is how you get way better,
this is how I get way better every day.
In the PAC framework, you could get to a place
pretty quickly, six months,
where you really know how the platform works.
You've clearly done that on LinkedIn.
What is really cool for you to go to the stratosphere
is if you actually knew what was in pop culture talk
for literally SaaS salesman.
For literally, I know this is gonna resonate with you.
Like if you knew the fucking slang and the shit
that every Fortune 500 CFO cared about,
or every late stage VC CIO,
now you're fucking cooking.
Got it?
Because now it's not just,
you know that this kind of content will work,
now you know even what the video or picture needs to do.
Got it?
That's pack.
And so what, and then what we call SOC,
strategic organic content, is the framework.
It's the reason I created SOC
and we run it heavy here at Vayner is organic content,
meaning posting without media behind it or amplifying it
is now the single most important thing
in marketing in the world.
It's the game.
If I needed to put the S in front of it, because by making it strategic,
I'm trying to make sure that everybody in my company
and all my clients and anybody around me
realize I need you to think about this.
That's what we've been talking about for the last 10 minutes.
There's a lot of people listening right now
that I can feel them right now
as they're walking the dog on the treadmill,
I can feel them saying, ooh, there's a lot to this.
It isn't just like, no wonder my videos are not doing good.
You know, there's something to this.
That's how I think about this.
Yeah.
So I want to dig in on strategic organic content.
So one of the things that I want to write my first book on
is human behavior online.
Because I feel like if you understand human behavior,
even if algorithms are changing, certain things don't change.
You always wanna see a face.
You always wanna have a hook.
Everybody wants things shorter and skimmable, right?
So there's always things.
That last one, the first two I liked a lot.
The last one's an interesting one for me.
I guess it depends on the platform
and what the purpose is, right?
You'd be shocked.
I mean, I promise you, we'll clip this in the future.
There's gonna be seven minute videos on TikTok
that crush in three years, crush.
The thing that, this goes back to a big thesis in the book.
If it's good, you can do anything.
If it is a wildly compelling 19 minute video,
you can crush on Instagram, though it is very unlikely
to be good enough to be able to do that.
Right?
So I just, the reason I jumped in is you're not wrong.
I just wanted to add a curve ball to everybody listening.
It's not universal.
Just because you make, people make unlimited
seven second videos that people stop watching
after a half a second,
because it's a shitty seven second video.
And there's also incredible amounts of outliers,
if you pay very close attention, of longer form video in social,
a minute, two minute, three minute, four minute that have a lot of validity.
And honestly, for a lot of people listening,
they might've just heard something that got them excited because in their gut,
they're like, you know what? I really can make epic four minute videos.
I guess TikTok's not for me, but it is.
There's a reason these platforms, back to P,
have extended the length of their video time.
There's a reason.
So, what should we do when we have
really good performing content?
We should amplify it.
If you can afford to spend media dollars
after a piece of content went crazy,
then you should do that.
And if you're just a creator by yourself
and you're like a kid,
if you're listening right now and you're 16
and like you dunked on your little sister
in the basketball room in your room
and it has three million followers on TikTok
and you have ambition to be known
and you wanna do something with it,
don't let the algorithm be the only way you get reach.
Google, how do I run ads on TikTok?
ChatGPT, how do I run ads on TikTok? Chat GPT, how do I run ads on TikTok?
Read and learn, you know, like how everything works
or watch a video and then you as a 16 year old
take your 40 bucks and spend it
on getting more people to see it.
Yeah.
Okay, so we-
Because the world has shown you that it's good.
You're not guessing.
You didn't dunk on your sister and then spend 40 up front.
This is how all advertising work as you know.
We guess.
Now we can live in a world where we can do it
post spend media, not pre spend media.
It's huge.
So once we see something working, lean into it,
invest in it, don't just invest in things
that you haven't tested yet basically.
Think about it, it's like working out.
Like if you see something's working
and your physique is looking bad,
why would you stop and try to do something else
and hope it works?
Like you got it, go.
We have not figured it out
because the way media had worked forever was
you spent the money on something you were guessing on.
You thought the commercial would do well.
You thought the billboard would go well.
You thought your newspaper ad was good.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, so where does storytelling fit in with all of this?
Like oxygen.
Storytelling is omni.
I don't even, as you know,
I barely, it's not something I really touched on a whole lot
cause it's oxygen.
Life is storytelling.
Everything's a story.
I don't want to get super philosophical here,
but everything, every person in the world,
all 8 billion of us, everything we believe in is a story.
All of it.
Amazing.
It's the whole game.
The reason I don't really go into like
storytelling all that much is like
my book on storytelling would be literally one page.
It's everything.
The end.
Meaning like the reason you believe in
anything you believe in is because you bought the story.
Yeah.
So I think a good way to round this out would be to get a full
example of somebody using the modern advertising framework.
If you can just think of an example and walk folks through.
Mr. Beast.
Sure.
Let me make it easy and lazy for everyone.
Be perfect at one of the greatest platforms with
attention, thumbnail, first, second, every beat of three or four minutes or whatever the science is there. Be perfect at one of the greatest platforms with attention.
Thumbnail, first, second, every beat at three or four minutes
or whatever the science is there.
Copywriting, what time to post, language translation.
Crush, be consistent, eat shit for years to figure it out,
then explode, then use that attention as a platform
to build a absolute media empire and CPG empire, right?
And notice what he does.
He goes and tests Twitter, right?
I'm hearing Twitter is gonna give me a trillion views.
Like he's, you know, I've never really fully crushed YouTube
because there's a lot of post-production
and I'm not living that life.
But we've had better years and worse years,
but that was a commitment.
I mean, there's really, I mean, King Batch,
I mentioned him, but like, you know,
Vine comes out, bring value, you can be funny, make skits.
It was underpriced attention, him and Jerome Jarre
and Logan Paul and all those characters, you know,
Rudy, Moncuseau, like they're like literally in fucking,
like, I mean, is anybody paying attention
who's in these movies?
They were from Vine, right?
They stole, I almost said stole.
They didn't, they operated as a great marketer
on that attention they built.
If I was there, so I'll tell you what they did.
They took all that attention from Vine
and most of them put it on Snap
and became big Snap story people.
And then boom, TikTok and Instagram
kind of went to short form video
and they took it over there and then to YouTube and then to television and Instagram kind of went to short form video and they took it over there
and then to YouTube and then to television
and then to film, right?
And it works hand in hand.
Clicks, the video game player and all these streamers,
I mean streaming is such an opportunity
like Kaisanet and like Aiden and Clicks and Bugha
and like all these, you know, like just, there's really unlimited opportunities.
Poppy soda, prime energy drink,
ocean spray, I spoke about, they didn't even do it.
Opening of my book, a random guy
is drinking a fucking ocean spray,
listening with Fleetwood Mac music in the background,
going down his skateboard longboard,
it goes viral on TikTok
and it sells out of ocean spray around the country.
Like, you know, these are like, this is marketing now.
The era of television commercials is over.
Outside of the Super Bowl, where it's very important,
and I recommend anybody who's listening,
who's a Fortune 50, Fortune 500 company,
to deeply consider the Super Bowl,
because it's very underpriced attention.
I can run every wheel and cranny that I have,
and I can't spend $8 million to get 150 million Americans
to watch a full 30 second video.
Are you fucking kidding me?
But Super Bowl does,
people watch those Super Bowl commercials.
The problem is if the video's not good, you've lost.
Right?
But outside, we no longer live
in a television commercial world.
We now live in a social media advertising world
and everything starts there
and then you can do marketing campaigns and billboards.
Everybody's billboards, every big company's billboards
should be imagery that was already proven out
to be successful on social.
That's a very different world for everybody
who doesn't come from marketing, it's the reverse.
Yeah, so short question before we close this out.
In terms of entrepreneurs
and your marketing advertising framework,
your day trading attention,
how can they use this to compete with the big dogs,
the Fortune 500 companies?
It's the first time we can.
Because for the first time ever,
the creative is the variable of the reach.
And that's marketing jargon, so let me say it again.
For the first time ever, how good your picture or video is
can lead to millions of people seeing it
that never existed before.
In the history of time, you'd have to be on television,
or on the biggest magazine or newspaper
to ever get a million people in America
or the world to know anything,
and you'd have to spend millions of dollars for that.
Now, every day, we all know,
every day that happens to somebody.
Now, what we've also learned is,
just because you go viral once
doesn't mean you're gonna be a billionaire.
It usually means that you're gonna have this moment
that you refer to your whole life,
and you're actually gonna be sad six months later
because you weren't able to capitalize it.
That goes into being a real entrepreneur.
But for the first time ever, entrepreneurs,
you have a fighting chance.
Amber Chamberlain's coffee can compete with Folgers.
Charlie D'Amelio's popcorn can compete.
Logan Paul and KSI's energy drink is really competing. Mr. Beast chocolate is really competing and they're the preview not the anomaly. I started a wine brand and
Sold it to consolation for tens and tens of millions of dollars
Because I made organic content on the internet about wine and then started a wine brand that will be a very normal occurrence for a long
time
Well, Gary, this has been amazing. This has been a master class in day trading attention
and social media marketing.
So I end my show with two questions.
I ask all my guests, what is one actionable thing
our young and profitors can do today
to become more profitable tomorrow?
The number one thing they can do
is to be honest with themselves.
Every single person, stop this podcast right now,
go to the mirror and literally actually tell yourself,
what are you actually good at?
Not what would you wish you were good at.
What are you actually good at?
If you're asking me,
I'm answering your question literally.
How to be more profitable is completely and utterly
based on self-awareness of what you're good at
and or what you like.
And most people lie to themselves because they hope
instead of their being real with themselves.
And what is your secret to profiting in life?
And this can go beyond business and money.
By giving more than you're taking.
Amazing.
I believe the number one reason,
I think we might have just touched on it.
I talked about it yesterday in something I was doing.
The reason most people struggle on growing in social
and in life is when they post on social
and when they act in life,
they worry about what's in it for them.
I'm looking to go viral.
I wanna get followers.
I wanna sell something.
If you think about your audience instead of you,
the things you want will come to you.
Amazing.
Well, you're really easy to find.
So where can everybody go find you?
I'm Gary VEE everywhere, so that should be it.
Amazing.
I'll put all the links in the show notes.
Gary, thank you so much for joining us
on Young and Profiting podcast.
Thank you so much.
Yapp Gang, this conversation lit a fire in me,
and I hope it did the same for you.
This interview was an absolute dream come true for me.
Sitting down with the Gary Vee in person at his office was totally surreal and it was an
unforgettable moment for me. I'm doing more of these in-person interviews and this one reminded
me why I started YAP in the first place. Gary Vee is the reason I became a podcaster. He's the
reason I built my personal brand on LinkedIn. He inspired me to do so much of my journey and
meeting him did not disappoint. He's a real deal in real life. He's not just an icon. He inspired me to do so much of my journey and meeting him did not disappoint.
He's a real deal in real life. He's not just an icon. He truly cares about helping the next
generation of entrepreneurs. And today's conversation left me rejuvenated. I love being
an entrepreneur, but it's not easy. And Gary reminded us that success isn't just about being
fearless. It's about acting despite fear. He worked in his dad's wine store until he was 34.
But that's not the part of the story that people glamorize. But that's where his greatness was
actually forged. He wasn't chasing fast money. He was building a legacy. He took risks. He stayed
curious. He played the long game. And he did it by being patient, experimenting constantly,
and putting purpose over profit. And that's why he's winning.
The truth is entrepreneurship is not glamorous.
It's hard.
It's lonely.
It takes resilience and the willingness to fall and get back up again and again.
But if you feel that fire in you, don't let age fear or outside opinions hold you back.
I started this podcast at 30 years old and all my friends told me I was too old to start
a podcast that it was too late to start a podcast. But look at me now. I have a top 100 podcast, a number one entrepreneurship
podcast. I have the number one self-improvement podcast network. They call me the podcast princess.
If I had listened to my friends at that time and thought that I was too old to get started,
none of this would exist right now. Gary dropped a ton of gems on digital marketing. We're in a
war for attention. The rules are changing fast. To win, you've got to know your audience, your platforms,
and your strengths inside and out. He broke down the biggest shift happening right now,
the tick-tock-ification of social media. Interest-based content and interest-based
algorithms are running the game and relevancy is everything now. This is a golden era for creators
and creator entrepreneurs because anybody can compete
with big brands if they truly understand what's trending, whether you have 100 million followers
or just 100.
You don't need a huge team, you don't need a huge following or budget to win anymore.
You just need to be plugged in and as Gary says, they trade attention like your business
depends upon it.
Alright gang, thank you so much for spending your time with me on this Yap Live episode.
Seriously, it means the world to me that you chose to tune in to Young and Profiting Podcast
and be a part of this conversation with the amazing Gary Vee.
And if you enjoyed this episode and learned something new, why not drop us a 5-star review
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to the show.
It helps us bring in new listeners and I'd be incredibly grateful for it.
And don't forget you can now watch all of our live and in person videos just like this
one directly on Spotify video. We're now on Spotify video. You heard me right. We're also
of course on YouTube. I've got 60,000 subscribers on YouTube right now. If you're new to the
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videos. I love to connect with you personally.
So come find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn.
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It's Hala Taha.
I love to converse with you guys in the DM.
So don't be shy and reach out.
And before I sign off, I want to give a special shout out to Paul on my team,
who is my producer.
He keeps the show running smoothly.
His attention to detail and behind the scenes,
coordination is something that I'm so, so grateful for. Paul, thank you so
much for all that you do. I'm so grateful for you. Until next time, this
is Hala Taha, aka The Podcast Princess, signing off.