#AskGaryVee Episode 27: What's the Deal With Ello?

great for jabs, but not for right hooks. Any ideas or predictions on
using it to make right hooks? – David, there’s an
interesting thing here, and I’m gonna deep today, because I just got a
whiff of the questions, and so this could be a very deep episode. A deep and deep episode. I said it twice. Deep and deep episode
of the #AskGaryVee Show is coming guys, so like, a lot of you have left in the comments, like, I like when you get very detailed, I’m gettin’ detailed today. Let’s get into it. First, you have to debate the philosophy of a holistic social media approach of, should you just use Instagram as a jabbing platform by itself? Should Instagram be a
place where you’re jabbing, because you also know a lot of your fans follow you on Twitter and Facebook and things of that nature, and a lot of times, I mean, look, I used Instagram as jabbing
for the first couple of years, a lot of selfies, a lot of sneaker shots. Right? But if you’ve noticed,
with the #AskGaryVee Show, I’m using Instagram as a
right hook platform, lately. If you look by percentage, over my last 15-25 photos, as a matter of fact, lately, I’ve tried to throw some more jabs in ’cause I felt there was a little too much right hook going on. I’m now putting up 15 second
versions of this episode and in the copy saying “Go into my profile, because in my profile “I am linking to the current episode.” So the only way to actually
drive people out of Instagram is by changing your
URL in the edit profile part of your profile, and so that’s the way
to throw a right hook. And so, yes, you could put a piece of creative on Instagram, that works, and then, in the copy, drive people that see
that into your profile and then link out and
convert your right hook as driving them there. And so I’ve done both. Though, I for a long time, and still, probably, at this point and that’s why I’m testing, I’m always going against my own stuff, all of you could call me out and say “Gary, didn’t you say not to do that?” I’m always going against my own POVs to always taste, right now I’m
not sure exactly where I fit, but like, intuitively, I’m feeling that the jabbing on Instagram
is a great way to go. So if you look at your whole
thing as a holistic play, and you’re on all these platforms and your core group is following
you in multiple places, maybe Instagram is where you’re jabbing, maybe Facebook is where you’re
throwing that right hook. So, that’s the deep
steak on the bone, today. Answer to that one. – [Voiceover] Mount Dream asks:

What are your thoughts
on using Kickstarter to start a business? – Mount Dream. I wanna climb that mountain. Mount Dream, Kickstarter. First of all, I think it’s a
great way to start a business. Tons of people have started businesses on the back of Kickstarter. Didn’t Oculus Rift start
on the back of Kickstarter? And sold for two billy on Facebook? So, what do I think?
I think it works. Here’s what else I think. I think there’s a lot of people that put shit businesses on Kickstarter. This is a classic question of, do you think this
platform can work to do X? The answer is always yes. Especially when it’s already happened. The problem is, do you suck at it? Do I think people can make a million dollars selling on Ebay? Yes. The talented ones. Do I think you can make a lot of money by making YouTube videos? Yes. The talented ones. Do I think that you could become a Vine celebrity on Vine and make lots of money, millions? Yes. The talented ones. And so over and over, my classic, do I think a basketball has an ROI? I do. LeBron makes a shit, LeBron will be a billionaire
because of a basketball. That’s the ROI of it.
I will not. So, can Kickstarter be a great platform to kick off a business? It can, but people that have
bought into this notion of, Oh, it’s easy!
Just go on Kickstarter, people are gonna give you money, and then you start a business! They’re lost.
L-O-S-T, lost. And that is the problem
in our society right now, all of this (bleep) works! Do you have the talent to execute? – Yo, what’s up, Gary?
And DRock, of course.

– Yo, what’s up, Gary?
And DRock, of course. – DRock?
– My name’s Daniel Dennehy, I’m a music producer slash freestyle soccer athlete with Red Bull, check out my freestyle
soccer videos on Instagram, @ImDanDennehy.
– The plug, I love the plug. – Okay, get that (bleep) out of the way, no one wants to hear about that. – Well, you wanted to drop it.
– My question is, is there ever such thing
as too much jabbing? You know, like, is there ever any time where you should just not
really give out much content, or maybe not reply to everybody, so you keep a sort of mystique,
or a bit of aura about you? Or should we just open the floodgates and just have everything transparent? What’s your thoughts on that? Thank you very much, God bless, peace! – Peace! Dee, as I’m gonna call you, this is a great question! And this is where I, you
know I wrote that piece, maybe we should link this, Stunwin, follow along
here, of the one like, maybe my advice isn’t good for you? Yeah, the answer’s yes, there is an absolute time
where there’s too much jabbing, and there’s an absolute time where maybe you should not be in the exact jabbing business at all. You actually asked two questions, Dee, you asked, is there too many jabs? Sure, the reason I wrote the book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right-Hook? Is ’cause the people that I thought best understood social media were in the jab, jab, jab, jab business. And so, the other
question you’re asking is, should I build a brand
or create a scenario where there’s no jabbing? You know who did that? Apple. Apple is just in the right hook business. Look at Apple’s social media engagement. Look at Apple’s real care for their fans over that 10 year period. They just made the best
crap they could make, and then they dominated for that period. Now, then, Samsung came along and started playing
with that vulnerability, and now we have what we have. But for a lot of people there’s mystique. Mystique or exclusivity, look, there’s a business model for me. Here’s a good example! I’m announcing right now that the #AskGaryVee
Show is paywall only, four dollars an episode. How many of you are paying? How many? Leave in the comments. Don’t (bleep) me. And here’s what I know. 90% of you are not paying. But if I have enough of 10% of you paying for four bucks an episode, it might be a better
ROI than what I’m doing. I don’t believe that, because I like the jab business, and I like building up the equity and the awareness, and
you passing on the video. You know, to people.
Caught that, DRock? And, you know, I want that, oh, that was, passing on would be sharing, I actually did subscribe call-to-actions. Subscribe anyway! And so… you know, there’s absolutely a way to play through exclusivity, like the reverse of me is that person, and that works, too. It’s about self awareness. Do you know why I play the jab business? ‘Cause I like you guys. I just like people. If I didn’t like people,
I would go the other way. Never get to me, paywall, hard to get to, secret events where you pay a lot of money, have an island where I charge you a lot of money to come to. But I like people, I
wanna touch all of you. Yeah, I know that sounded weird, but I wanna touch all of you! And not that weird way. And so the answers were clearly in that given response. I am on fire today.

– [Voiceover] William asks: Is there any strategy behind following thousands of people on Twitter? – There’s an absolute strategy to following thousands of people. I employ it. I do not consume content
that much from Twitter, or if I do, I’m thrilled
to get the real stuff along with the emotional stuff. Too many people are utilitarian, it’s black and white. I’m only gonna follow people that put out good content or things that I’m interested in, because you use it as truly
your news consumption, and I think that’s great. As a strategy for a public figure which I am, Z-list, but I am, it’s incredible how much
it means to somebody when I go and follow them. And I’m very flattered by that. And I get it, because I get super pumped if a Jets player, I freaked
out when David Nelson our third, fourth receiver last year, followed me on Twitter, ’cause
it meant something to me. So I understand it, I
have the empathy for that. So what is the strategy? Guys, you’ve been watching a show we’re on 27 now, I’m in the depth game. I love the width game and I
do a lot of strategies for it, but I’m in the depth game. That’s why I’m doing this.
The unscalable. How many minutes late are
we for this taping today? 15? Right? I got real problems right now. Things are popping up on
my calendar right now. I got problems right now because it’s also a heavy Jewish holiday, and I gotta get the hell out of here before the sun comes down, or I’m in big trouble, and I’m trying to squeeze in, but I’m the depth game. I didn’t skip today, I’m taping for you, because I wanna continue to
bring you the stuff you want. And you know what’s the stuff you want? You want me to follow you on Twitter. ‘Cause it feels good. ‘Cause you get to brag around your friends who are also into social media, or the Jets, or wine, and be like Gary Vee followed me! I get this as a consumption. You know, it’s funny, I look at stars, celebrities, they go on red carpets and they run into another star that just bubbled up,
and the one person’s new, so of course they’re a fan of this person, but then they’re like,
“Oh, I’m a fan of you!” and they’re blown away
’cause they’re still fans! We’re all still fans,
no matter who you are. People that are way bigger than me, when they find out that I tweeted them, or favorite something, or
say something about them, they get so crazy, and I’m like, “You? What?” I mean, we’re all fans forever. And so there’s an absolute strategy in following a bunch of people. It is about giving them
something they want. And when you give people
something they want, they appreciate it.

– [Voiceover] Everybody asks:
What do you think of Ello? – Alright, alright,
alright, I get it, I get it. It’s been building, it’s been building. First of all, I’m on Ello, a
lot of people don’t know that ’cause it’s Ello/Vaynerchuk. ‘Cause somebody squatted Garyvee. Give it back, give it back. I think Ello’s got some problems. I think that when you
raise venture capital money like Ello did, 430,000,
or I’m hearing 435. There’s a little bit of a problem there, because they’re gonna have
to build a business model, and so the question becomes, if they’re not gonna sell your data, that means they’re gonna
have to charge you. And so my question for you, and leave it in the comments, this can be the question of the day, along with give me some of the feedback for if you’re gonna pay
four bucks per episode, is, and then critique
the episode, by the way, I wanna make a stake in the ground here, for episode 27, too many
of you are literally answering the questions, and I get all excited
and see what you guys think about today’s episode. Can we have a holistic answer? Especially for you hardcore Vayniacs, and the VaynerNation, can you guys do me a favor? The 150, 400 of you? Can you critique the episodes
and tell me this was, for example, today you’re gonna say, this is by far the best one ever, because you went into such detail, I took a lot out of it. Like, can you give me that, like, your muscles look bigger, can you give me like, critiques? And then you can answer
the question of the day. Today’s question of the
day, jumping in backwards, is will you pay $10 a month for Ello? But like, back into that, look, they’re in a business model, VCs want return on their investment, they didn’t just do it
for kicks and giggles. These guys, gals, people part of the team, they need to build a product
that delivers on that, that is the intent, or at least somewhat, you know, the question becomes, are they gonna charge you for it? Because that’s really the only other angle on a social network to really drive there, and they may come up
with something innovative and God bless them, and
I’m rooting for everybody all the time. My big thing is, people don’t care that you’re selling their data. That’s right, let me say it again. People don’t care, because
the dirty little secret, and we’re gonna look back on
this video in three years, six years, nine years, I’m
gonna look smart again, which is this: we actually
want ads that are targeted. I actually wanna see Lionel
Richie and root beer ads when I’m in the market
for another pair of Pumas or another pair of Nikes
like I normally wear, I want to see sneaker ads. We want to see them, way,
way, way more than you think. And somebody will jump in the comments, three or four of you,
and say “No, no, no!” Cool. Fine. But the data, my gut, my intuition, the things I’m seeing, is we’ll take them if they’re good. Once they stop being ads
and they start being content that’s the forefront of what
I’m trying to push, here. That’s what’s going on back here. When it actually brings you value, and then, oh, okay, it sells you, you know, like sports, like
I actually like sports, no wonder I buy jerseys! Get it? So.
A couple of things. One: I think it’s structured
with some vulnerabilities. Two: This has happened a bunch of times, and we’ve seen this a bunch of times, Despora, all this stuff,
this happens a lot. Three: so far, I’m not
in love with the product, that much, though I do
like that they’re moving, and they’re making changes,
so big ups to that team. My intuition early on is, I don’t know, I don’t see it, like, becoming the next Facebook, by any
stretch of the imagination. That being said, this is
not normally in the process where I draw a line and make a prediction. I’ve many times said, I’m not Nostradamus, I just know when to react, it’s too early for me
to make my final call, I wanna see more behavior. But my intuition is they’re gonna come out and charge you, or do something else, that is gonna turn off a lot of people, not to mention, not as
many people, theoretically, excuse me, too many people, theoretically, like the notion, but then
when it comes to actuality, like, we like a lot of things in theory, but then we don’t act on them. This feels like one of them for me. You heard the question of the day, you just watched the best
episode of this series.