#AskGaryVee Episode 107: Long Instagram Captions, Museums, & Gary Asks Himself A Question

“one step ahead of the game. “What are your social
media plans for 2016?” – Colton, my plans for
2016, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, two, three, four, 35, six, 37, 38, 39, 40, and beyond. I went further than you guys thought. – [Staphon] Yeah. (laughs) – My plans for all those
years are the same thing which is, my friend, and
everybody in VaynerNation, I don’t know what my 2016
social media or business or brand building plans are because I, for the billionth time
on this show, Colton, am a counterpuncher. I react to the opportunities
in front of me at that moment. January 2016, six months from today, is an eternity in the game. Microsoft is buying up stuff, SnapChat is growing by the second, Instagram’s ad product could be incredible if it gets deeper and more detailed like its Facebook father company. Facebook continues to be much
stronger than people think. Twitter’s video product evolves. Influencers, especially long tail, call it 1000 to 100 thousand
people following them, continues to be an interesting arbitrage. Where’s the white space? Where do all of you, all of you, think that you should be doing this, and where should it be Y, right? This is X, and I’m always in Y. So my 2016 plans are
to play more Y, right? Ya know, play in the white space. Find the arbitrage. Market where people actually are. I didn’t know podcasts would
become interesting again. I didn’t know that SnapChat, well I did, but like maybe three years
ago I didn’t know that SnapChat would get older. I didn’t know that Periscope
and Meerkat would be invented. They didn’t even exist six months ago. I mean, Periscope did. It was bought by Twitter,
but then brought internally. These things didn’t, in
theory, exist six months ago. These are things we talk about. There are people in the
VaynerNation that have used them to grow their audience, like I don’t think people understand… As a matter of fact, you know what? Real time, right now, because
I’m continuing to test. We’re going in a little bit
different direction, Staphon. I’m going to bring up Periscope. We’re gonna Periscope right
now instead of Meerkat. Let’s just see. Let’s just see, right? Ask, here we go, ask, this is real time shit. #AskGaryVee. No, didn’t wanna do that. Good, #AskGaryVee behind. Hey everyone, good to see ya. Thanks for tuning in. There we go, like… I don’t know if I can actually stop the broadcast for a second. Nate just did? Nate? I like that. OK, it is on. OK, good. So, #AskGaryVee behind… There’s a whole lot of gray. Sorry guys, I hope you enjoyed
yourself for a quick second. Boom, this is D. Rockefeller. Here we go. – [India] That’s awesome. – You haven’t heard me say that before? That’s what I always say all the time. D. Rockefeller. What’s that? Yeah, you like that, right? Right, there’s India. Got a lot of hearts. Yes, here we go, alright. So, my friend, to wrap up
this long ass question, I’m not sure, but I’m gonna react. Just like right now, I had a feeling that I wanted to Periscope,
and that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna react to the
opportunities in front of me, and that’s why I don’t plan too far ahead. You know what my plan is? My plan is to play in the white space, the underpriced arbitrage
of the consumer’s attention and the places where I think
uniquely you can storytell that brings value to those people for the moments in time where they matter. E-comm, search, banner, YouTube, Twitter, ya know, the narrative of my entire life.

“when they write essays in
their Instagram captions? “We’re here to look at pictures,
not read endless shit.” – Reg, don’t say we. Say I. You are here to just see pictures. Plenty of people like Humans of New York, like all these things. People like the long-form
written context around a photo. Reg, you can continue to
just go through the photos, and you should, and do
you, and I appreciate that, and 90% of the people are
down for that as well, but I see an emerging
opportunity for people to write long-form copy on
top of photos on Instagram. India, do you ever find
yourself reading something that’s more than a sentence? Let’s get over, DRock, you’re not showing
India’s, you’re not gonna. Do you find yourself reading more, have you ever read two
sentences on Instagram? – Yeah, oh yeah. – How about three? Give me three. – Like, five, six. – [Both] Yeah. – Seven? – Yeah, some accounts, ya know,
that’s what they do great. They’re good at storytelling, and they tell the story in the captions– – And do you like it? – Yeah, I really like it. – See Reg? There’s no we. There’s you. You don’t want to read, but India, and platforms evolve. Like, that’s just the way it is, right? And so, the answer to your question is people are gonna do their thing, and you should say I
next time instead of we.

“when their main point of
contact with their audience “is online platforms? “Is Instagram the museum of tomorrow?” – Coline, it’s not that
Instagram’s the museum of tomorrow or any photo app that is around, I mean obviously Facebook and Twitter, but obviously Instagram’s
winning in the current state. In the future, there may be others. I don’t think they replace it, but because at some level, going
and touching and feeling it is still a value prop that
a museum delivers, right? I mean, photos of these paintings
have been around forever. There was a point in
time where Life magazine, if it covered a museum, would
be that same replication because everybody read Life
magazine in the entire country back in the heydays of print
in the 50s and 60s and 70s, and so I don’t think they replaced them. Not at all, as a matter of fact. I mean, as a matter of fact,
I think they enhance them. I would argue that there are
more people on the bubble of going to a museum that
are now going to museums because they see a
great photo on the Gram, and it creates a consideration point. So I actually think museums
need to go on the offense on places like Instagram and
use them as gateway drugs to get visitors to come to the museum, and I highly recommend those museums show a little personality besides just a photo of the damn thing ’cause we’ve seen the damn thing, right? Show a little of the personality of the people that are working there, or the little unique things
that make that place special, or like I don’t know, like the
gold faucets in the bathroom, like give me some goddamn reason besides the artifact, museum. So I audited myself, and I’m
taking in serious consideration

So I audited myself, and I’m
taking in serious consideration that I just might be a two or a three. My question is, man, is if I am, do I need to go get my college degree? Like what, how do I put
myself in that position? Because I really don’t know how to, I only know how to make doors. I don’t know how to walk through them, if you know what I mean, and ya know I’m all EQ and no IQ, so if
I have to go get my degree, that’s gonna suck. – Charlie, great question. I’m super into this. I think if you’ve audited yourself and you feel like, ya know, you need to have, you
need to attach yourself to a leader, a CEO, a
number one, a founder, and you can be a supporting cast member because I guess making doors
not walking through them maybe you, I don’t know, but maybe you understand
the tangible execution, not the architecture. Maybe you’re the greatest
mason in the world, and you need just a really solid
architect to be successful. I would say it has nothing
to do with getting a diploma. It has everything to do with if you’ve been auditing yourself, and you started with,
“I’ve audited myself,” which I appreciate, and you know, for anybody who’s watching this who doesn’t understand auditing themselves and I’m a number two or three, these are themes that
I’ve been talking about in the first 105, 106 episodes of the show which is if you know yourself,
you have self-awareness, you have a real chance to succeed. I would tell you, Charlie,
that you don’t need to get a degree unless
you wanna go latch up to a number one that values that degree, and the truth is you’ve
already lost that game because if that number one values it, they’re gonna wanna go with
somebody who’s got a degree from clearly, in my opinion,
based on the vibe of the video, comes from a better school
than you would go to. Take it from me, I mean
Mount Ida College isn’t like rolling up any like
unbelievable excitement for anybody who’s an educator. And so I would tell you your journey, your focus should be finding a number one who shares your DNA and philosophy. You guys can be similar, and
she could just be an architect and an incredibly strong leader, where you could be that support system. So find her, find him, find the number one that is the match to you. Not find the number one
that you clearly think society has created. To me, more number ones
actually look like you on paper, so I actually think you’ll
be able to find that. I think number twos, when
they’re not the straight man or the straight woman,
when there’s still also a little bit of magic,
a little EQ over IQ, make great number twos. I still think one and two
in that play is great. I think three, four, five,
six, somewhere along the line, you need that straight,
really straight person, and so your job is to really go out and find that person. Find that number one that
matches your skill set, that matches your philosophy,
that you can really jam with. Find your number one.

Hey Gary, great show. Totally obsessed. My favorite thing now,
ahead of Game of Thrones. Anyway, here’s a question for you. If you had a business or a blog or a personal brand or a book, how would you get more people to know about you and to buy that? How would you get results? I guess at the end of the
day, Gary, I’m asking you how would you get results? Thanks, love the show. Gary, great question. Looking great, by the way. (giggles) Ya know, one of the things I haven’t talked about on the show a lot, I’ve talked about it a little bit, and I saw people get value from it in that local, small
business biz to dev thing is the gross underestimation
of distribution in a JV, joint venture environment. There are so many of you on this show with businesses that
have locked so heavily into social media, ’cause
that’s how you view me, as the way to get distribution, you have left some of the
greatest opportunities on the table including if you are not hitting up the
top 100 blogs in your space, if you’re selling cupcakes, and you literally aren’t
spending the time to figure out what the top 100 cupcake content
sites are on the internet, and then sending an e-mail and saying, “Hey, I’m India from India’s Cupcake Shop. “I love reading your site, Cupcake Daily,” This is me, typing the e-mail. “I love reading your site, Cupcake Daily. “I’m very passionate. “Here’s my site. “Here’s my Instagram. “I would love to write for you once a week “on new sprinkles concepts or
on decorations that matter. “I will give you my labor for free, “and what you’ll give me is
distribution and awareness.” If you don’t realize that, ya know, it’s like Kendrick Lamar. Did anybody pay attention
to what Kendrick Lamar did? If you don’t know who Kendrick Lamar is, he’s a rapper, an artist, and he went on to a lot of other albums as he was starting to get a little fame. He leveraged that to get on, and he came in trying to kill it on, like he basically went on everybody’s track and he tried to be so much better than the persons whose song it was that everybody was listening be like, “Oh shit, that guy’s dope. “Like, I’m gonna check him out.” That’s what India, the cupcake lady, wants to do on Cupcake Daily. Oh, crap, that was such a good thought. Let me follow that. And so, in the earliest
earliest earliest days of me building my brand,
I went on wine blogs and wrote blog posts to contribute, and because I had the chops, ya know, Kendrick spits incredible lyrics, India writes about incredible toppings, and I talked about
incredible things about wine that people hadn’t thought about, that gave me the ammo for my
work to have a positive ROI. The truth is a lot of you
don’t wanna put in the work because the output of your content in video form, in audio
form, in written form, isn’t good enough. You just aren’t good enough. What you’re selling, they’re not buying, and the quickest way to find out is to actually go on a road show, put in the 40 hours a day
to get yourself into places where you, why can’t you
e-mail all 500 people on YouTube that have
some level of audience and ask them to be
interviewed on their show? Or to be part of it? Why can’t you? Why can’t you ask? Why can’t you ask? Why can’t you ask? That, my friend Gary,
is what you need to do. If you’ve got something to sell, you need to go and knock on doors, right? Ya know, you gotta know how to build ’em and walk through them. You gotta knock on doors,
and you’ve gotta ask like, “Can I guest contribute to your world? “Can I write a blog post? “Can I just show up and like?” How do I bring value to what you need because all these people that have homes that have audiences, they need more content to feed them. Content costs money, so people
coming in and contributing, it’s the ultimate kind of leverage deal. You come and you write for
me for free ’cause I need it, ’cause I need to keep feeding
the kids I have in the room, and you need kids for
what you’re gonna do, and that is something that 99.999999999 of you are absolutely not doing enough of. Putting in the work to get in front of
audiences to be discovered. Putting out a picture on
Instagram and holding your breath and hoping somebody’s gonna see it ’cause you used a (censored)
hashtag isn’t enough. Go out and take it, and
that, my friend Gary, is what you should do if you
want something to happen. Two minutes.