#AskGaryVee Episode 196: Snapchat Influencers on Content Creation and the Future of Snapchat

– Hey Gary. I’m Matteo from Italy. Amazing country. Super girls, super food but dire
strait of gambling addiction. I opened a non-profit that
operates in the space and I would like to hear
from you on this point. As a marketer, how to involve
our members to spread the no gambling cause so to
reach more and more people. Thanks a lot. You rock. – The no gambling cause. Italy has great food and great
women but a gambling problem. – And so how do we? – How do you advance
the no gambling cause? – Matteo wants me to help him
do a marketing campaign to stop people from gambling? – [India] Basically. – Because he thinks
gambling is ruining Italy. – [India] Yes. – The food and the
girls part is fine but the gambling is a problem? – [India] Yes. – And so he wants to create
a marketing campaign to stop gambling? – [India He just wants to
know your thoughts would be to advance the
no gambling cause. Any cause regardless of what,
by the way I like gambling. Any cause’s expansion
has to do the right creative in the right medium. To me, if he’s got a lot of
passion to stop the gambling cause there’s a very smart
strategy tying in what we’re doing here to go younger. Usually the thing that you need
to do to stop the movement is to go younger, it’s really no
different than Facebook and Snapchat even, the
generational differences. The way you get people to
stop using drugs or drinking and driving and all the things that
have happened in propaganda in the US to stop things that
people were concerned about was you’ve got to win the youth
culture around that subject matter and then let it mature. So I think Matteo and the people
in Italy that want to stop the gambling culture in that
country should be looking more aggressively toward
Snapchat and Instagram. Two platforms that are
doing extremely well in their country. Anything to add youngsters, I
know that’s kind of a left-field question, I’m not sure
where India was going with that strategy. – [India] Well,
Andy just pinged me. That question wasn’t
supposed to be there, sorry. – See, that made sense to me. Thanks for ruining the show.
Let’s go to next question. – Can’t go to Vegas.
– What’s up Gary?

My name is Aaron Martinez and
I hope you like the hat but my question for you is I have a
YouTube channel that has grown from 0 to 88,000 subscribers in
a little bit under 10 months. Now on my channel I upload
Snapchat tips and tricks but I try to do a little bit of other
things in the earlier stages of my channel but they
didn’t really work out. Going into the future may be
passing 100,000 subscribers, what do you think I should do? Primarily stick to Snapchat or
try to do different things and if so what? Thanks guys over VaynerMedia. I hope you guys have a nice day. – Aaron I think and I’ll let
these guys jump in because I’m sure they have a lot to add to
this unlike the first question. Aaron, I think a couple
things that struck me with that question, number one, this
magical number of 100,000 followers or your first thousand
or a million, I’m telling you and I’m telling this because
of a lot of heart for the youngsters sitting with me right
now these are the wrong metrics to reverse engineer against. More importantly if you were
here what I would need to know we were just talking for second
as DRock broke the sound is what do you want to happen. I think one of the biggest
mistakes by so many Snapchat and YouTube influencers right now
they want to become Hollywood famous because they grew up
where that was the pinnacle and to me I keep trying to remind
them my early days with Jerome and Rudy and Brittany Furlan and
that whole space with the Vine influencers that were definitely
the spark that you’ve watched have the Instagram and Snapchat
thing very different than the generation of YouTube
that I grew up with. In 2022, in 2024 the most
famous person is not the person that’s on a TV show on MTV, it’s
a person that’s dominates this which is the new television. Just like being a cable star
wasn’t interesting in the early 80s but then eventually if
you’re the number one star on HBO show which to remind
everybody, you guys are too young for this, HBO’s was shit. HBO was a shit place
to go 1982, 1984, 1986. You were a B,
C-list, D-list, F-list. Nobody wanted to be a
Netflix star 48 months ago. Nobody. Now everybody
wants to in Hollywood. First and foremost, Aaron, I
think that you need to decide what you want to happen. You want to get your
art into the world? Is it about money?
Is it about fame? And I think you need to own
your vanity ’cause way too many people try to
bullshit it, number one. Number two, you gotta go
where the attention is. To me, enormous emphasis on
Snapchat and YouTube and now look one minute Instagram videos
probably opens up a lot of creativity for a lot of people
here and definitely people that are watching so that
because a new thing. Look, MusicAlly, actually
this is a question from me real quick, are any of the three
of you playing on MusicAlly? – Yeah, I downloaded it
after hearing you talk about it a couple of times. – Have you had the time yet to
look at what’s going on there? – Little bit. – This is what so
interesting, right. A lot of my YouTube
celebrity friends when Vine came along were like eh. I’m like you came from
YouTube that’s what was just being said five minutes ago. Then a lot when Snapchat came
I was telling a lot of Viners, like this thing I’m telling
you and they’re like eh. And then of course now
everybody’s there and now even MusicAlly right? Snapchat its at it’s apex but
ironically I think Snapchatters as I’m giving you advice right
that go and really go all in on on MusicAlly are going to win
those junior high people are gonna be here in 36 months
and be like holy shit that was such a good idea
or it could go away. But much like what happened
on Vine, this is such a good learning from Vine, we were
talking about Vine off as DRock broke the sound. The people that won on Vine
have been able to siphon that attention and be
successful on other platforms. Not everybody. – Some.
– Exactly. Not everybody because some of
them would held on Vine either because it didn’t have enough
talent to be anything more than a few minutes but some were. And it’s no different than being
a really good actor on a hit show on CBS for two seasons and
then coming back two years later on ABC and siphoning
some of that audience and building on that momentum. These are channels and
doing the right thing. Aaron, I think what you need to
use this and I would say this the three individuals here
who I have a lot of heart for. 80% tripling down on what works. You guys can fucking draw. You’re funny and intriguing.
All that stuff. – Can’t draw.
– I cannot draw as well. – Can’t draw.
– But you want to learn? – Maybe someday. – Never?
– Never. – Correct. So 80% of that and
20% experimenting. That’s what you should be doing,
Aaron, from my point of view. Gang? – Can I say something?
– Yes. – Nobody cares
about subscribers? Nobody cares about followers? It’s all about influence. If you can actually create a
sustainable amount of influence or something that you can
actually push to other platforms that’s something
people care about. Numbers is not something that
people are going to care about in the future. 100,000 subscribers or a
million subscribers if nobody is consistently watching
your videos nobody cares. – I agree with that. Brands care now
’cause they’re not sophisticated in
their language. – They won’t three
years from now though. – Well it depends. The answer is results should
and always do matter at the end. There’s a lot of things. A metric can be accepted by a
marketplace like Nielsen ratings that doesn’t map to a results
yet the entire $80 billion advertising industry most
of it doesn’t quantify against actual results. They quantify against metrics.
I’m with you. And by the way all my
behavior maps to your rant. – Right.
– That’s what I’m living. No question– – Metrics in general are broken. The whole industry
is broken on metrics. – The metric that should
matter is how many did you sell? Of whatever that is. And when I mean sell, you
know, I want you to donate to my nonprofit. That’s a result or you did a
show and how many people showed up to it to watch you
paint for an hour. India? I think that’s the case. Any thoughts on
Aaron’s questions? It’s funny we all
actually know Aaron– – And you hate him.
– No, he’s great. – He’s like the nicest guy. – He does like Snapchat
tutorials and tips and tricks on his YouTube. Absolutely that’s something we
need to us expand upon because he has identify what he wants
to be not someon with 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. Whatever he wants to
turn his career into and then play to that. I think you’ve clearly got some
chops and I think the question becomes what, what do you that
at this young, and by the way for all three of you, what
do you at this young of an age want to happen and then try to
do project who you think you are in the balance of vanity, money,
happiness, work-life balance, these are a lot of things you
have to project at a young age. Yeah, right. And by the way everybody’s got
different percentages of it. Two minutes and that’s that.
Let’s move. I’ve got this client thing. We broke sound, we were late,
fucking people people running. – [India] Ben.
– Ben.

I’m Ben from Israel. I’m a professional
Snapchat artist and YouTuber. I have one very important
question to ask you in a country that is known as a startup
nation there is one problem, one ironic problem. As much as were innovative
the problem is we suck in social media marketing. Now people here
just don’t get it. What we do the creators on
social media such as Snapchat and YouTube are you
doing the correct thing. They don’t give us a
lot of room to work. They don’t pay us
to get our job done. The thing is people like us want
to live doing so that we love. And we know how to talk
to the right audience. Now how can we convince the
mainstream media that what we do is the right thing? How can we convince someone so
big as the mainstream media to change their ways and give
us, the underdog, the chance to create something amazing to do
something that really counts? Thanks man, appreciate
it and love your work. – What is his name? – [India] Ben.
– Ben. What you have for Ben? Well like what you said
everything’s converting, this is the new TV. And so if the mainstream media
is still thinking about the old-style they’re going to miss
out on the new audience that’s becoming of this and I
think that there’s not much convincing, they can
just look at numbers. They can look all the people
that are on Snapchat right now. Less people are watching TV. I’m not watching TV anymore. If you ask all the other
people they’re on YouTube, they’re on Snapchat and
it’s becoming outdated. – Absolutely go where to where
the audiences are and if you have something
compelling to say, say it. Make that content.
It doesn’t matter if– – But how do we answer his
question how do you think, agreed we’re all gonna head nod,
what about convincing these individuals to do it? You’re in a tough spot right now
because it’s coming to you right now, right?
– Yeah. – When the inbound traffic’s
coming to you and saying hey can you draw this for my
brand, you’re not worried about convincing ’cause
you don’t have to. Thoughts? – First off, who cares what the
mainstream media thinks just do what you’re going to do anyway
and be consistent about it and then success will eventually
come if you’re talented. Outside of that how do you get
what you deserve to be paid? Well you’re going to get what
you deserve to be paid and if you’re not getting what you
deserve to be paid then ask for what you deserve to be paid. – Or, I agree, very honestly. That was a great
question but tough shit. My whole life has been
predicated on selling something that is ahead of the market. You have to wait. The answer is the market’s
going to pay for what they think it’s worth. People like us here couple
things I’m going to pick at and I love you. Thank you
for the kind words. People like us want to get paid
for something we want to create. So does everybody. Everybody wants to be able to
be paid to do what they love. Every single athlete that grows
up from 6 to 14 years old would like to be paid to be a
professional athlete. Another thing that I liked and
I’ve heard this from this sector including you guys,
I’m a professional YouTube and Snapchat.
What does that mean? Do you just say
we’re professionals? It sounds like if you’re going
to say the word professional– – I even hate the
word influencer. I hate the word influencer.
– These get into semantics. I’ve talked a lot
about this on the show. You call whatever you want but
to me being a professional means that you actually
do it for a living. And so too many people
I’m that without being able to do for a living. This is what your
platform is trying to solve. Here’s what I would say,
you know, tough shit. You live in Israel,
tough shit. They’re not spending
as much money. The other thing is
you’ve got to prove it. One thing that a lot of
influencers are not proving is yeah you’re talking
to the right audience. Listen if you’re
selling insurance the 40 to 60-year-olds, do you have the
audacity to tell them that they should be on Snapchat to sell? What you’re going to say if you
really get put into the corner is no, I don’t know. It’s so funny. I love watching everybody’s,
everybody under 27 is. And so if you’re selling to
27 and unders in the US then Snapchat and Instagram
becomes very compelling. If you’re selling retirement
home space, Snapchat’s probably not the right platform today. I do think Snapchat, much like
Facebook, will age up in a way that most people don’t believe. I do believe that in 24 months
most 55-year-old men are on Snapchat. And I think that
confuses people. – Sooner than that.
– We’ll see. It’s on the record
we’re about to find out. What happens is it that it
either happens or doesn’t and here’s the more interesting part
whether or not it happens at all, sooner than two years in
two years, is kind of irrelevant because whatever does happen
is what you have to act around. I would tell you that there’s
plenty of people making money off of Snapchat and YouTube,
you have to go and grab it to your point and more importantly
if you don’t then maybe you’re not a good salesperson and
maybe you’re just a creative and you actually need a sales partner. There’s that part of it. Because the creative world
and the business world are very often at odds. There are a few that cross and
have both skills and mom and dad had sex of the right moment
and gave them those talents but a lot of people don’t. And that’s something else
that we have to factor in. India. That’s it for those two.

stars came to be and know which
ones took the right steps and didn’t so much. Someone like Cyrene, like
myself, storytelling, drawing on Snapchat a platform it’s
vertical, where do you think a logical next step would be if we
want to continue making content like we’re making knowing the
Snapchat can’t just be the only thing that we’re on. I think there’s several
different things in play here. Number one, first and foremost,
I really recommend to you and this genre I would love for you
guys to make the physical manifestation of
these products at scale. I think one of the great
opportunities for you guys this is not answering your question
I just want to get this in the show before I forget. I truly believe that both of
you have the ability to make millions of dollars a year in
prints of your drawings if you figure out that
connection point. And you need to
think about that. That is a real-life thing that
you need to figure out tomorrow. – [Taylor] She’s
already selling her’s. – I’m sure you are. I think you have the ability to
take a snap that you draw on top of and have 41,000 people
buy that $19 poster at scale. I think that’s a real business
for the artist the Snapchat. That’s random. As far as your question, which
is if Snapchat was to have a 24 month more run because something
came along, I think you have to understand, I know, I think you
have to understand that your art is your skill set. It’s funny on Snapchat
right now that’s peaking very
aggressively. For Taylor, his skill
translates to every medium. Your advantage because
there’s drawing capabilities on top is different. It is unique to that platform. And that is something
have to think about. And you have to think about
what does that actually mean. And I would say that yours
doesn’t naturally transpose into everywhere else
because it stands out. I still can’t wrap around my
head around that picture that you drew. So crazy but I don’t
think if you drew it on a piece of paper or if that was on a
post on Tumblr that I would react the same way. That’s just truth and that’s the
reality and guess what that’s just life. The people that were amazing at
radio because they had amazing voices and they were comfortable
to be in the booth and then went to television and they were
scared of the camera, they lost. And so that’s something to
think about, that’s just real.