“Aesthetics or copy?” – Both. You know, the variable
of success is creative, but I think the copy, the words that you support, you know,
I see it a lot on Instagram. I’ve tested the same
picture with different words posting at the same time of day just for my own education. And the truth is that’s not
a controlled environment so it’s not science, but it’s anecdotal. It’s fun to see. I mean clearly the words, some people are going to react, and the reason I brought
up Instagram to everybody is we all know that Instagram
is massively visual. But people still read the copy. I mean this is crazy, I saw
somebody at a conference giving advice that you shouldn’t write long form copy on Instagram. And I was laughing because
it’s just a simplistic answer. I actually think long form copy is one of the big arbitrage
opportunities on Instagram. And so I think they equally matter. I think you’ll get results predicated on where your strengths lie. I’m not very good at the picture stuff. I’m not really even
good at the copy stuff. I’m really good at the video stuff. So that’s it, you know. That to me is, the answer’s both. And it will always be both. And it’s happened so much. Just do it. What was, you know, was
that the three words? Or was it the awesome
imagery that came along with the initial kind of campaign? Was it Beau Jackson like this? Or was it the slogan? I mean there’s always that. I mean, would priceless
from MasterCard pop if the first video wasn’t
emotionally rippling and got you? So the answer is both. You need both to be, you know, to really have that massive upside. And one can drag down the other. I just realized I did this.

video quality more essential
than in years’ past? – [India] (mumbles) more
essential than in years’ past? – No. Eat it DRock. Best question ever. Well, let me go into it. India, I feel like I have
some depth in this episode. Look, at the end of the
day, creative is subjective and we all like different things. Plenty of people, 20
years ago, most of our parents, even mine, for
an old guy, told us that rap wasn’t music, like can we get over, like that reality TV wasn’t entertainment, that YouTube wasn’t real stars. I mean this always happens
guys, so you know like plenty of people like
content that doesn’t have the perfect mic or the perfect lighting, that being said, a lot of
people made comments that my last video, the networking
video, was different than the others. Hmm, makes sense, Sid
did it instead of DRock, you know, and they didn’t
say they liked it better or hated it worse, or this was, it’s just different, but that
doesn’t mean that there’s one that’s right or wrong. Clearly there is enormous
upside to great editing, and lighting, and mics,
you know, like clearly, there’s value to that, but there’s also, listen, Wine Library TV worked,
and Steve, I looked like a hostage in Iraq.

my question is about the new Fountain app. I recently became one of the beta experts in the fashion and beauty part of it, and I wanted to know your thoughts on people using video to ask questions and do you think that they will
pay for it to ask questions and have them answered by an expert? Love your answers. Thanks, bye. – Dawn, this is a tremendous question with a very important answer. I think that people will pay for anything. Let me say that again. People will pay for anything if they perceive it has value. If there was an #AskGaryVee Show in 1967, and I’ll be like, “Hey, groovy cats, “it’s the #AskGaryVee Show, “really excited, ho, Dawn
you’re thinking like, “will people pay for water? “Are you, that’s totally
far out, that’s, no way.” That would be the wrong answer. What happened was Poland Springs, and I’m sure plenty of people long before Poland Springs
I’m just not educated, on the early days of the water industry, people came along and convinced people that bottled water had value. I mean, you go ask your grandparents. Here’s a little fun weekend challenge. Go ask your grandparents
what they first thought, if they can remember,
not ’cause they’re old, just like if they can remember, what they thought about the
idea of people paying for water. Think about how you feel. Steve, how do you feel on the notion that, I mean, I don’t know if you know this, but you have, at certain times, paid three to four dollars
for a bottled water at an airport or some scenario. You absolutely have done it. What do you think about that? – I paid three dollars for a water in Central Park the other day. – [Gary] And? – I was really unhappy about it. – Yeah, I mean, it’s a
absolute brain twist. People will pay for answers even though so many people
are watching right now, you have a free show here that
you don’t pay for answers, from somebody very qualified,
thank you very much, but I do think people will pay. Now, are you good enough? Have you built up enough brand equity and have you created the
perception of the value to your answers to have
that be the case for you? And more importantly, how
many unicorns are there to be able to do that? How many people have built up
enough historical execution, and have charisma and ability to answer? How many Jack Welches, how many Mark Zuckerbergs,
and then more importantly, the people that have
actually pulled it off have to be in a very
interesting part of their career or enjoy it. I love Q and A so much that I have to do this
show for me for happiness, not for the ROI on the time. I’m sure it’s building audience, there’s a lot of good variables, sure it’ll be a right hook
with the #AskGaryVee book, but the truth is, the amount
of money I’m gonna make on the book is shorter
than if I did six speeches, so it doesn’t make sense mathematically and so a lot of people
that would be good enough to pull off having people answer for them would never want to do that as a business. Like you know, so I think it’s an interesting challenge. What I would say is
there’s probably, uniquely, a hundred to 10,000
people that look the part, similar, to be very honest,
with as much humility as I can possibly say this, similar to me that can probably pull it
off to a meaningful scale. My intuition is, there’s a lot of people that can get eight people to
pay to answer their question, but that’s not real. – [Voiceover] Zac asks,
“What three questions

“How do you retain and increase followers after taking over social
media from a company who bought their initial fans?” – Clayton this is a great question. I think this is a good one at this point. In the maturity of social networking, people realize buying fans on any platform has absolutely no value. You eventually get exposed for being the scum-bucket that you are. And so, I would say that the, the… Listen, there’s two different
ways to buy fans, right? Like, buying ads on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, to then,
if people are interested, to follow is a smart move. Just buying, like you know, going on ebay and buying 5,000 bots makes no sense, but the funny thing is the
answer to your question is the same way you would if it was zero. Whether you have zero followers for a new wristband brand or you’re a coffee
company that they bought a thousand fans on ebay to try to make it seem like there was somebody, you’re move the next day is the exact same which is let’s start from the beginning and try to make it work. So, what you’re looking
for is engaged fans, converting fans, people
that will buy your book, your wine, will watch your show, will pass it on. Like, what you need to do for them is you need to provide them value, and so providing value is the whole game. Whether that’s listening
on Twitter and engaging. Whether that’s putting out great content. Whether that’s sweepstakes, entertainment, information. Whatever it is, you need to provide value. You need to put out good content, you need to listen. You can talk great, you
need to listen great. You can talk great, you
need to listen great. You can talk great, you
need to listen great. And if you’re Meerkat cooking
show is good, you win. And if your Meerkat cooking show is shit, you lose. It’s not really complicated. This stuff is quite basic. You need to put out good stuff, and the question is what is good stuff? Good stuff is different to everybody. You know, like Steve. Name three good music things. Musicians, bands, name three, any three music things that are good, go. – SoundCloud is good. – [Gary] No, no, no, no, acts.
– Acts? – [Gary] Yeah, things that you listen to. What are three things that
you want to listen to? You were willing to give your 20 minutes that is very valuable, and I will sit down and listen to these six songs. Name three acts. – Flux Pavilion. – [Gary] Good. – Maddy Young. – [Gary] Good. – And Lionize. – Good. I have no fucking idea who
any of those three people are. Staphon. Go to him. I know there’s a light but figure it out. Staphon, your turn. Name three good music things. – Kanye, Jay-Z, Kanye. – [Gary] There we go. Great. India? – Um, oh my God. – [Gary] I don’t care. Don’t blank, you know music, go. – I do, um, The White
Stripes, Colts and probably, like the Beach Boys. – Good. Let’s just figure out what just happened. Three lovely people that are into very different things. They would. Steve, what do you think about Kanye? – Um, I think he’s kind of a jackass, but I thought “Bound To” was a good song. – Good. Staphon, your overall
thoughts on the Beach Boys. – I’ll give you some when
I listen to the music. – There you go. India, what are your
thoughts on Lionel Richie, one of my favorites. – He’s great. – Good, me and India agree. So, bottom line is it’s
quite simple, right? What is quality is 100% subjective. There were plenty of people in Hollywood 20 years ago that said
this reality TV stuff will never work. It’s not produced well, it’s not good, it’s not interesting. There’s a million people that
think the Kardashian’s suck. There’s a million people
that think they’re great. There’s tens of thousands
that think I’m great. There’s tens of thousands that just don’t realize I’m great yet. I mean, the bottom line is
it’s all very, very simple. Quality content is subjective. What is not subjective
is what happens next. AKA, you may sit and say I’m
putting out great content, but after four and half years of 13 people are subscribed
and paying attention, you just might not be that good. You might not be good at the content. You might not be good at
getting the content out there. It’s a mix of the two. I’m a by-product of the mix of the two. I’m good enough to put out
content that people like. But I’m also good enough
getting it out there and using the marketing
to bring in awareness, and both matter. Both matter, but that’s really it, right? Like that’s really it. Like, whether you have a billion fake fans or zero fans, aren’t
you in the same place? Zero fans? Yes, you are, and thus, it’s like me. If I decided to start doing
wine content again, right? If I decided to do that, you know, I have to start kind of over. Like, of course I have my base. People that used to watch the show, and things of that nature, but if it’s not good. If episode 1,001 of Wine Library TV is just a disaster show,
then it’s very unlikely chance that it will be successful. So, the quality of the content
really, really matters. And then all the other growth hacking marketing strategies, all
the stuff we talk about, those are just support systems to give that stuff a better chance to succeed.

“You’ve done two long-format web shows, “in a world where gurus
advise keeping online videos “short and sweet. “What gives?” – Chris, a couple of things. First and foremost, it’s
always very dangerous to listen to the advice
of online marketing gurus. I think what gives, is very
simply, something that I think is the right advice, which
is quality trumps everything. Right? And so, I remember in 2007,
being flown out to Mountain View in Sunnyvale by Yahoo and
Google to try to figure out what gives with Wine Library TV. Now remember, this is eight years ago, trying to figure out why
my show was doing so well, even though it was long. And so the real answer was quite simple. Quality is quality is quality. If I’m able to put out a 15,
20 minute, 30 minute show, and I can captivate and hold the audience, well, then it has a chance of doing well. If I can’t, then it won’t. I mean it’s not super complicated. There are plenty of shit 14-second videos. There are plenty of waste-of-time,
never-get-off-the-ground, one minute shows. You will watch a three-hour
Avatar, because it’s good, you will not watch a 15-second commercial ’cause it’s crap. So the length is not the
variable of the quality. As a matter of fact,
to break DRock’s heart, neither is the sound, or the
lighting, or the production, it is the message, it is the
message, it is the message. I’m telling you, it’s the message. Now, DRock has come into my life and made everything much better. So I do respect the
production more than I did in 2006, ’07 and ’08. But the truth is, for the fist pump that he just put out behind the scenes, the bottom line is, if he
wasn’t dealing with this kind of quality, all the
production he put out still, wouldn’t, matter. – [Voiceover] Paul asks,
“Can you provide insight into

“differ for a free service
versus a paid one?” – When you’re throw the
right hook that’s free I get excited because
there’s less friction, and it feels like I’m gonna really be able to land that right hook. The problem is, there’s a
really funny thing about free. Free creates a scenario where people value it for what it’s been put out. It’s really interesting. I think that a lot of people who watch this show value it quite a bit. I think that the 10% left,
if I started charging four bucks an episode,
or two bucks an episode, the you know, actually you know what, that’s gonna be the question of the day. And I know this is a tough question, and by the way, I will
not be charging for this, so don’t worry, don’t hedge and say zero, I don’t have any plans on it. But if I was, what would you pay to watch an episode of
The #AskGaryVee Show? And yeah that’s the real question. And clearly, I expect most
of the comments to be zero, or no, because I respect that there’s so much content out
there, but I do believe that my content is better
than a substantial amount of content out there in the world. Especially when it talks about new platforms, business,
running businesses, leadership, entrepreneurship,
start up, tech culture. So, I do think that we’ll
see a surprising number, and I’m sure you’re
probably getting answers right now in Meerkat,
so Staphon, feel free to not shout it out, cause
I want to be surprised. But I do think that
it’s really funny to me to think about the 10% of
you that I would expect to pay for it that if you
were paying four bucks for it you’d actually value the show more. It’s really quite interesting psychology. So, how do I act differently? One, when I throw right
hooks, for example, when I tweet out later
today that episode 80 is up. You know, I expect to
land more than saying, “Episode 80 is up, pay
me three dollars Snapcash “if you want to watch it.” You know, I have a little less angst of the conversion because I know that there’s no friction financially, which is one, besides time,
finance is the friction. And so, I think it’s got a
totally different cadence, different expectation,
different pressure hold. I think it’s easier. – Hey Gary, answer my question.

“could Mercedes build a smartphone?” – Chris, everybody can be
in everybody’s business, if you’re good enough. Could Dion and Bo Jackson play both football and baseball? They could. They were good enough. Could I? Neither. I mean, the answer’s absolutely. Remember, Nintendo started
as a playing card company. Sony, which made televisions, decided to become a major player in the video game space. Microsoft became a major
player in the video game space. Mobile’s going with the watch. The Apple Watch thing’s incredible. Apple as a phone provider
was a brain twist. We just forget, ’cause it just happened. What’s that? You like it? You like the show? DeMayo’s all excited. He never gets excited. So, I think the answer’s yes, but what Mercedes has to do is have the talent internally
to be able to pull it off, but I believe that the internet
is shrinking the middle and infrastructure costs. I don’t know what DRock’s looking at. But, I believe the internet is shrinking the middle and infrastructure costs, which make me believe that anybody can go into anybody’s business, if they have the talent, and so I think that will play itself out. So, I do believe that this’ll
be a good video to make and I’ll enjoy watching it in 15 years. I do believe three to five
to ten major companies in certain genres, as
we see Google going into self-driving cars, and
the question at hand, which is a great question, I’m gonna make some predictions here, and I’m not usually right
with my predictions. I’m a fast adviser, and then I execute. I’m not a great predictor,
but I will say this Nike feels like a company to me that will pull off being in a business that none of us can wrap
our head around right now. I’m going with Nike. I also think Starbucks has
the potential DNA to do it, and then I think somebody rogue and old that we disrespect,
whether it’s IBM or GE, you know, I think
somebody more traditional is going to go into a business
that none of us would expect. And by the way, before I
go into the next question,

I was wondering, if you created
a social media platform, what would be your key feature and why? Can’t wait to hear your response. See ya. – See ya! So, I’ve long had an idea, and I’m gonna share it with you guys, which is the notion of a social network that looked like Instagram, but more like Path, like you
could put any piece of content, could be a picture, a video, audio file, more content-agnostic so
not just picture or video, but also the ability to
do audio on top of that, but the whole website, the whole app, the whole social network
was predicated on the notion that you can only speak
once a day in any 24 hours. So as soon as you put
out a piece of content, you would no longer be able to put out another piece of content
until 24 hours later, because my belief is that the
supply and demand of noise is the real issue with social networks. Path went down how many people you follow. I think it’s the amount
of pieces of content. I still think it’s
gonna be a big business, I still think that restrictions
is where the action is for the short term, and
I would not be confused if we all look back at this video, and talk about how I
predicted somebody going and executing this billion-dollar idea. I think the restriction of
one piece of content a day is where it’s at, because
it forces all of us as content providers, which all of us are, to put out the best
piece of quality content ’cause it’s that restriction, plus, there would be oomph behind it. Imagine I would say,
“Happy birthday, Alex,” and that was the only thing
I could say that day, wow! In a world where there’s
so many other things I want to put out, so my social network would be predicated on one piece of
content per person a day. – [Voiceover] phone4life
asks, “Gary, I’m 71 years old.

– [Voiceover] Chris asks, “What
surprises or interests you “about brands with High Brand Equity, “but don’t have huge budgets?” – Chris, this is a great question. That was a lovely Instagram photo. This whole Instagram
thing is gonna be awesome. As a matter of fact, you know what? I almost didn’t do this episode, so DRock, I know you’re disappointed with only two questions, but that’s better than zero
and you’ve heard that before. You like that? You like that, Staphon? So, that actually gives me a second here to push the VaynerNation ’cause I know we went out
super late the other night. Instagram photos, Instagram questions, let’s link up how you do that, let’s get on that for
the rest of the week. Chris, it’s a great question. You know, look, this is
why I love social media. I believe that social
media is the plumbing to word of mouth in our society and I think there’s a lot of brands that don’t spend marketing that just win on having a great product. If you make a great product and you get people to taste
it, physically and literally, meaning try your app,
check out your store, wear your hoody, or actually
try sauce and it’s delicious, word of mouth will kick in. I think the world we live in now, it actually speeds that up because when somebody had that sauce, now they take a photo
and put on Instagram, be like, “This is delicious.” That’s a lot better than 1997 where, like, I had this sauce and then, like, Staphon and
I are playing basketball, we go, “By the way, the sauce,”
like, what? I did that once? Like, I think it was impossible to amplify the way we are now on an
individual person level, so I actually think the era of companies with very limited or zero
marketing budgets is here and I do think social
media is that foundation. So, what interests me is that
this is the greatest time ever to not have a marketing budget
in a world as a marketer because so much of it can
be organic and authentic. It’s hard, you have to be great, and most of all, your product
has to be sensational. So I think the brands that will break out, the products that will break
out in the next half decade with zero dollars are gonna be anomalies, but that’s predicated on them actually making a phenomenal product. – [Voiceover] BlueArcher
ask, “If you could create

on franchising your company
when you can’t be sure if others will care for
the brand in the same way?” Harold, that’s a great question. I think the real answer to that needs one more layer of context. When you say, “franchising your business”, building a consumer-facing business, a retailer, a QSR, a
restaurant, then franchising is a tremendous model, we’ve seen it from McDonald’s, to Five Guys, Sonic. I mean, it’s a great thing to do. It’s the right business
model, or it’s a phenomenal version of the right business model. You can go private, if you want. What I’m concerned about,
and what I don’t know, and India, I didn’t really ask you, is– Show India, everybody’s
probably missing India. – Hi. – [Gary] You can get a
little camera time, Staphon. Are you going down the
route of selling your name? The reason I’m asking
that, and I don’t know if you can figure it
out from the question, a lot of people try to franchise “me”. I know there’s a lot of
“gurus”, and “advice people”, where they teach the– The amount of people that pitched me, when it was at its heat, in 2010, on the idea of a “Gary
Vaynerchuk Crush It! Course”, and they would be the person teaching, and they would siphon back up to me, that was something I
wasn’t comfortable with. Because it wasn’t something
I felt represented me and I wouldn’t want to
franchise that route. So if you’re asking that,
that’s super uncomfortable to me, somebody representing
you, a big concern of mine. As far as a retailer or a restaurant, I feel super comfortable with that. Many people have pulled
off making sure the brand was insured by lots of
rules, lots of legal jargon, lots of training, whatever
it took to scale that. Anything from your end?
You get anything there? Alright. So that’s the
answer, I give you both.