#AskGaryVee Episode 145: How Do You Market a Product You Wouldn't Normally Use?

“how do I build a community on it? “Jab, jab, jab, and
hopefully someone notices? “Cheers bro.” – Uh, cheers bro. I think the great thing
about Medium and one of the reasons I invested in it,
one of the reasons we write for it is you actually just
have to put out good content because they’re doing two
things that are intriguing. One, there’s a viral loop. People sharing, recommending
it at the bottom. I was one of the early people
to growth hack a little bit and ask for the hit the
recommend which created virality. But they also use human editors
who just see a good piece of content and populate it to the email, to the top of the page. This is an incredible
opportunity, my friends. Medium, in a lot of ways,
has Reddit and Digg dynamics that we haven’t seen in a
long team where you could be anybody, you don’t have to
just ooze the juice of your social networks to get people
there, but you could be anybody who writes a good,
solid piece of content and then the machine, not
the community, humans, can decide to populate it and
then give you an opportunity to then siphon. The really Holy Grail for a lot of you, and the reason I’m pushing
so many of you in the Vayner Nation to write on it is you
can write a nice piece of content, get lucky, but
probably not lucky ’cause it was a good piece of content, but a
little serendipity along with that good piece of content
and now you’re populated. You get, you know, a couple
hundred, a couple thousand, people follow you off of the
base of that being featured and away you go, you start building. And so, that’s for
people with no audience. For all of you that are lucky
enough to have some Facebook, some Twitter, some Instagram
followers and users, you should put out content
there and use that as an opportunity to be discovered. And so, you know, I’ve used
Facebook very successfully to drive people towards Medium. Email services to drive
people towards Medium. Which then gets people
reading and recommending which creates more virality, which
gets more people to recognize me and it just becomes this viral loop. So it’s not about jab,
jab, jab, right hooking, where that’s a world of put
out content and then ask for something. This is more about just putting
out good content and letting the chips fall where they may. I think the other thing you
can do is go out to other people that have audiences or
other publications that may, then, want to re-publish your publication, but has a link that says,
“This was originally written “in Medium,” and that links. And so, you’re trying to
create a viral loop because the recommend at the bottom
of Medium creates virality within Medium, there’s a big
audience there and that’s where your opportunity lies. Very tactical off the
gate on a Monday morning.

“services I provide for
clients in the same market “while respecting their
competitive advantage?” – That’s interesting. And we kind of play with that
a little bit with VaynerMedia. Not that we have any direct competitors, but sometimes they’re some nuances. Providing value to different
companies or individuals that are competing in the
same environment is tricky. First of all, you know, I
would never be in environment of like, Pepsi and Coke,
or where there’s complete direct competitors, you’ve
got to be very, very careful. Number two, I think
that you need to really, really give thought about
how many different thesis’ and strategies do you actually have? How many different things can people do? This is where you cannot
just put one, kind of, blue print and deploy
it against each client, you’ve got to come up with
unique value propositions creatively and strategically,
that allow them to kind of offset the competitive set. I think the answer is very carefully. I think this is a massive
challenge and I think that one of the things that I would
recommend to you is actually broaden the industries your
in just for that reason. Because I think that humans
are emotional and they may not, even if you think
that you’re proving them separate value, they may not. And the consumer’s perception is king. But I think, to me, it’s not that hard. Because I do think you can
get very different strategies, very different creative executions
amongst those strategies to make an action that those
companies or individuals want to happen. I think the bigger problem
is, those individuals feeling as though that is happening
and that’s the vulnerability of your actual business. Perception, my friends, is
absolutely reality because that’s what people are
making judgements on. I mean, who else is making
the reality as a reality decision? There’s no reality lord that comes down. I am the reality lord! Like, there’s no reality lord. Perception is reality
because human’s perception is their reality. They’re making decisions
on that and that is the vulnerability in that question. I can’t wait to see the graphics of.

“and everyone froze to
figure out who did it, “do you have an embarrassing moment?” (laughs) – I do have an embarrassing moment story. In second grade, this is a
classic, it’s one of the moments I realize how amazing my mom was. I’ll get to that punch line at the end. Mom, I know you’re watching these shows, I don’t know when the last
time you thought about this was ’cause we don’t talk about it a lot. In second grade, just a
normal day in second grade, just doing my thing, we got
to the Pledge of Allegiance and we got to the Pledge of
Allegiance and I really had to go to the bathroom. And so, I’ve been known, my whole– Man, into like 13, 14, 15 I would hold, if I had to pee, I would
hold my pee-pee to make sure I wouldn’t pee. So, in second grade I’m doing
that because I have to go to the bathroom. And I’m at my desk. And remember the desks
that had the whole thing? You know, like, you had
the chair, you had to go in like this, you had to go in
like this, and then the desk was here, right? So, I’m to the right of
it, there’s the part here, and we have to do the
Pledge of Allegiance. And so, because I guess I
didn’t realize I could hold my pee-pee with my left
hand, but when I went for the right hand, I decided to press
my pee-pee against the chair. This is a true story, by the way, to make sure I wouldn’t pee. This was unsuccessful and
I peed all over my desk and all over my pants. And obviously, everybody heard the pee, everybody looks back, unlike a fart– Yes, Matt? Do I get my new phone? – Yes. – Awesome don’t– – Don’t what? – Last time we had a weird bet. Yes, obviously, unlike a fart where
you could be like India did it, this was pretty obvious. I think I was wearing
light pants, you know? And so I had to go to the
nurse and I went home and when my mom picked me up she
told me the story of how my dad once peed in class. Which I found out later was not true, but she tried to make me feel better. Big kudos to Mrs. Zosnuski
second grade class. I am flabbergasted of how
little flak I had to take for that event. I went home, changed, came back to school. Good job with my mom, too,
not letting me do what I wanted to do, which was stay home. I was stunned by the lack
of being made fun of for it. A lot of maturity in that
1983, 84 second grade class. So, that is my embarrassing story moment. – [India] Good story. – Feels like there could be
a really funny visual T-shirt

You know, let’s do a
podcast exclusive today. – [India] You should bring that up. – Is this the guy who
ac– did I see this right? Is this the guy who, like, switched? (mumbling) Two and a half hour drive or whatever? Or is that somebody? – [India] Yeah, that was him. – Do I do a good job paying
attention to Mike, India? – Great job, excellent work. – Thank you, India. But I don’t know, the answer is, that happens with me all the time. Like, I stop and start
things all the time. I love when people are
like, oh you said you were always gonna, yeah okay, and what? Like, Jesus Christ. When you’re innovating at scale, some things hit the ground
and so it lost momentum. That’s the answer to your question. And good news, I’m gonna
do one after this episode ’cause I feel guilty, okay? Great, you feel good about yourself? Yeah, I feel guilty, we’ll
do an exclusive podcast question today. Big ups to everybody on
their treadmills and driving in their trucks.