#AskGaryVee Episode 38: Virtual Reality, Content Creation, and No Excuses

“Can anyone create good micro-content? “How can you make sure
your team consistently “creates good content?” – Joe, great question. First, for everybody who’s
watching and/or listening, I want to talk about the
term “micro-content.” It’s something I started
using three, four years ago. Hasn’t really caught on. I myself don’t know how often I’m gonna use it going forward. But the notion was
content made specifically for the platform. You know, the videos and the pictures, the quotes, the written words
that worked on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest,
Instagram, Snapchat, Vine. It was the context of the book
“Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.” DRock, throw it up there. Throw it up there, show it. They got it? – [DRock] Mmhmm. – [Gary] You got it, ok.
– [DRock] Mmhmm. – [Gary] So, you know, how do you
make good micro-content? How do you consistently
get your team to do it? First of all, content
is subjective, right? Steve likes “Game of Thrones” shows. I don’t, not that I don’t like it, I just haven’t even seen it yet. Some people watch “Game of
Thrones” and don’t like it. Very few, I think,
’cause it’s very popular. But you know, it is
still clearly subjective, that’s number one. Number two, how do you get a
team to be good at anything when you’re scaling your
kind of P.O.V. on the world and marketing to a 400
person, and downstairs, lot of comments about
downstairs, we’ll get there, um, organization. It’s about education,
but I would actually say that for me scaling and
getting my team to get there has a lot to do more with osmosis, right? Like putting it into their water stream, versus having a class that teaches it. Sure you can write a book. Sure we have lunch-and-learns
and learn-ups within the new organization, but they’re not attended that well. Need to talk about that, by the way. Um, what’s happening more here is that people are doing
and people are smart. You know, it starts with hiring
good people, smart people. And then when you realize
that you’ve hired somebody who’s not capable of learning
through that process, well then you gotta make some decisions. But to me, making good content takes a couple core pillars. Number one, you’ve got
to respect your audience. Meaning, you’ve gotta
respect the psychology of what they’re doing when
they’re on the platform. I know a 40-year-old woman
is in a different mindset when she’s on Facebook versus
when she’s on Pinterest. And that is how I try
to story-tell to her, because I know on Pinterest,
she intent to shop, aspiration to shop, and on Facebook, she’s keeping up with her
world or consuming information. And I strategize around
that, the psychology and the platform itself. Number two, when I say respect, I put out content that
I think she will like versus what I’d like to accomplish. Yes, I’d like to, give me a bottle of wine. Yes, I’d like to, a little faster, Alex, I know it’s early. Yes, I’d like to sell this,
but if I put it in a way that is more interesting to her, five under $10 bottles
of wine that, you know, help you get through the day when you have eight-year-old kids, and then you’re targeting
eight-year-old-kid moms, you’re going to start getting into a game that gives you a better chance. You know, 12 wines somebody
who’s 38 will like, and then you target people
from that were born in 1975. These are all strategies that will work. Again, very heavy Facebook. Or Instagram, taking a glamour
shot of it, in an angle, and it’s just like cool and nice. It’s like it’s all the kind of stuff. Respecting the audience,
respecting the platform, taking your agenda and making it third. – [Voiceover] James asks, “What are your thoughts on
podcasters and YouTubers

– [Voiceover] James asks, “What are your thoughts on
podcasters and YouTubers “building a business
model around donations?” – James, great question. You know, it’s a trend
we’ve seen for a long time. I saw bloggers do this back in 2003 using PayPal as a tip jar. Right, there was a, you know, this has been a thing that’s
been around for while. I think though, as the
evolution of the Internet is happening, much like the
reasurgence of podcasts, I see this model in a
world of post-Kickstarter, becoming more of a trend. I definitely see it as something
that I won’t do for myself because I’m just using my
content as a global jab, but I could see myself that if
it was the only thing I did, if I was only this, right? If I was only the character that I am when I put on the podcast
and the show, meaning, when I say character, I
want to define that for you. Meaning, this is what I
do for a living, right? I put out my marketing thoughts. Like, I’ve had my career. I don’t wanna be a practitioner anymore, I don’t wanna run this company. And I just wanna write books,
speak, and put out the show, I would probably go
with that kind of model because I need a sense of
and a source of income, and more importantly, you start realizing, and this is a great piece
of advice for all of you, no matter what you do,
sell cheese, put out shows. Whatever you do, and a lot of you do a lot of different things,
real estate, you know. That 5-10% that most
give a crap about you, boy! The VaynerNation, boy! That stuff really matters,
and a lot of times you can rely on them because
they’re getting value. I have been blown away, humbled even, by the amount of people who have commented over the last seven to 10
episodes saying things like, “Man, I’ve come to realize
I’m really into this show.” Or, “This is my best part of my day.” Or, “This is when I get
motivated,” like, you know, it starts becoming valuable. And then I can see the kind of, it’s a hedge against
I’m charging for this. It’s kind of like a guilt move, but it’s also like a support me move. You know I think it’s a
very viable kind of attack. And if you’re considering it, or anybody here is considering it, you know, if you have
enough mass of loyaltists, you can actually make it valuable. You know, if you only have seven people that give a crap about you
and they give you $10 a month, you’ve got 70 bucks a month. Not gonna necessarily crush it that way, but if you’ve got a real big audience and you can get that
5 -10% to really support, there’s some dollars behind it. – Hey, Hunter Walk from Homebrew.

We do seed-stage investing, and I’ve got a question for Gary. Gary, what’s up with virtual reality? (laughs) – What’s up uh, with virtual reality? First of all, Hunter, great background. As you guys can tell,
Hunter was in the office We’re talkin’ biz. We’ve done some mutual investing together. He’s a great V.C., a great blogger, great Twitter personality,
you should check him out. Link him up during the thing, do something DRock to help the dude. Anyway, Hunter, that’s a great question. I wonder, it’s funny, because I know what you do for a living, I’m like “Hmm, is Hunter looking at this space?” You know, I’ve been talking
and I’ve been doing this move and if you’re listening, I’m
putting my hands on my eyes. Uh, Oculus Rift, it’s coming. You know, I very much think that, look I mean, I hate predictions, but we’re getting close
to the end of the year, where I think we’re gonna force me to do a prediction show,
when I say we, I mean me. Uh, I, uh, 2014, I think by 2024 for sure, that’s 10 years, I think by 2021, V.R.
is gonna really matter. I think video games,
television, and movies, a.k.a. entertainment, and I don’t want to get crass,
but I think porn as well, I think those four categories,
from a business standpoint, will be heavily affected
by virtual reality. And then by virtue, I see advertising going there. Because all of the
sudden, you can imagine, if I’m playing, you know, Madden and I feel like I’m the quarterback, and all the signage
around the stadium is now Lionel Richie, root beer,
wine, things of that nature, you can see how advertising
gets filled into it. I, look, I’m in the
eyes and ears business. If you want to know what business I’m in, and if you want to get a
cut, DRock, of a video clip for a 50-second video for my
YouTube channel, take this one. Because, once and for
all, stake in the ground, I’m in the eyes and ears business. Where ever the eyes and ears go, I go. Right? If I think the ears are
moving quicker and quicker to podcasting because
connected cars are here and mobile devices are here, I start podcasting, get it? It’s how I move. And so, V.R. is coming. As an investor, under the
context of you, Hunter, and asking that question,
I am looking at it. I’m looking at the production companies, the people with the kind of 360 cameras that are gonna be in it. Video game producers that
are gonna play in it. I’m a big believer. I think it’s a little early, and it’s definitely early for mass. But I think over the next three years, you’ll start seeing sprinkles to it, and I think five to seven years from now, virtual reality will have a real place in our society, bigger than
people think right now. In the way that you
didn’t think older people would take selfies three years ago, that’s what I think about V.R. Meaning, a lot of you don’t
think it’s gonna happen. I just do.

“I know you hate talking about ROI, “but how do you show someone
there’s a true return “on your efforts on social media?” (sighs) – Well, how did he set
the question up again? “I know you hate talking.” – [Steve] I know you
hate talking about ROI — – Yup. – [Steve] but how do you show someone there’s a true return on your efforts — – Robert, I love you for this question. DRock, definitely edit this
out and make it one question. It’s called “ROI of Your Mother, Part Two” because I want to put this
right to bed once and for all. The “ROI of your Mother”
concept is to make fun of traditional media ROI, not to get away from social media ROI. I, Robert, I love to talk
about the ROI of social media. I don’t want to run away from it. I’m all-in on it. Once and for all, I wanna talk about this. I love ROI. I sell stuff. It’s what I do. Nothing matters to me otherwise. No marketing media reports, no rewards, no AdAge mentions, that’s
not what I play for. I wanna sell coffee, I wanna
sell cheese, I wanna sell wine, I wanna sell gadgets,
I wanna sell sweaters. I wanna sell you if you let me. That’s how I roll. And so, how do you prove it? You prove it. Meaning, there’s a lot of ways to do it. I don’t know what you’re trying to sell and I know a lot of brand
managers from big brands kind of follow me and watch me here. It’s very easy to prove
the ROI of social media. When we post the T-shirt
that we want to sell, let’s link that up. By the way, never got
around to posting T-shirts, so now it’s 20 bucks not 14,
the reverse engineer thing. I apologize, VaynerNation. We see the sales. When I post, when we run
dark posts for Wine Library, we see the sales. When we ran that campaign
for that one organization, we got 2400 sign-ups, versus
the 60 sign-ups they got for doing YouTube videos
and billboards and all that, and they spent 10 times more there. It is very easy, my friend, if you have the direct channel connect. What I mean by that, I
don’t know what that meant, it just spewed. But if you can prove
it out on the back end. So for example, let me explain. For most of the clients we work with, when you’re a CPG company, and you sell your product to
Walmart and then they sell it, it gets hard to prove the ROI of a post. But when you’re Gary Vaynerchuk and you have winelibrary.com
and you post it, and it goes directly back
to you, you can see it. Guys, the only reason
I have so much bravado is I’m seeing the math. I come with bravado when
I have intuition, right? But I’m always hedging. Watch my narrative. I’m always like, “There’s
something happening here.” Look what I just did with virtual reality. I’m nuancing it. Yes, I’m making, I’m hedging, but I’m still making a commitment. But the insanity that you’ve seen from me on Facebook dark posts,
or the emerging insanity on Pinterests’ ad product once it gets a little bit more price
effective in that scale, that’s nothing you’ve seen
from me since maybe 2009 “Crush It!,” when I really
believed in YouTube because I was feeling it. Guys, I’m feeling it right now. How do you prove the ROI? You create a connective
tissue to show you that this thing did that. Now that’s direct response selling, right? That’s D.R., and that’s fine. I’m a branding guy. You need a mix. Because if you keep throwing right hooks, it has diminishing returns. But it’s never been more easy to prove the ROI of social
media than it is right now, because you can just link it directly to the dot com attribution,
whereas you cannot do that for print, outdoor, radio, or television. You just can’t. You can’t do it in the same exact way. You can create a call to
action in those commercials, and you could track it,
and you can and you will, and that’s why those channels
matter still as well, but it’s very easy to put a
link in any piece of content, even an Instagram where
I put in my headline, you guys know what I’m talking about. So, you know, misnomer. I do like talking about
the ROI of social media. I just don’t like that
it’s not understood that it’s more obvious to track
it than it is in traditional. And more importantly, I don’t wanna talk, turn, t-t-t-turn all of you into direct response sellers, because then you’re far
too much right-hooking. So a lot of times the
best pieces of content are engaging and jabbing where there is no link
out to a call to action, so there’s a drop in the
correlation of sales, but you’re doing the better
overall thing for the brand. My friends, it’s branding and marketing, not just sales, but social
media can show you sales. – [Voiceover] Roberto asks,

“What do you is a bigger
obstacle to success, “a lack of time or a lack of capital?” – Roberto, this is a tremendous question. I think the biggest obstacle to success is a lack of optimism. That question in itself
is the problem, my friend. Right? You’re looking at two things
that are both negatives, and guess what? Both of ’em are obstacles. When I started winelibrary.com, transformation for my business, I had time, I worked my
face off every minute, but we didn’t have a whole lot
of money in our profit center so it took more time, right? It’s just the way it is. Today, I have more money,
but boy, don’t I have time. But neither, ever, ever, will be an excuse for me. And so, just to drill
this through the throat of the VaynerNation, that’s
right, I went that graphic, don’t smile DRock,
here’s the bottom line: I refuse to allow you to get
an answer to that question because both of them are firmly square in the excuse column, and I
have no patience for that. There will always be problems. Let’s talk about a million other things that are a way to stop success. The health and well-being
of your family members so it takes your mind away from execution. The country you live in’s government and political concepts in these moments, a la, startups in China that I’ve invested in that got traction, but then people that were
wired in to the government decided to not allow it to happen and then the start up disappeared. Not as easy to be an entrepreneur there, it’s still a communist country. Sorry, it just is. And so all these things
can be problems, right? There’s a competitor
with a billion dollars who’s also skilled and
punches you in the mouth and knocks you out in
the first round, right? The world changing. I mean, there’s just a
million obstacles, right? The media, one bad coverage of you. A moment in time. You know what I think about a lot? You know what I think about a lot? Let’s get really real here,
this is why we did this show. I always, I’m a human being, and I always think about a moment in time. What if I just say the wrong
thing at the wrong time? Right? What if I call out China for
being a communist country in an episode while I’m on a rant, and somebody who’s watching
doesn’t like the way that tastes and that takes away a business opportunity for me in China in seven years? Even though I’m not trying to zing, it’s just things that I saw. What if, you know, what if what if I look down on my phone while I’m driving even though
I’ve really not done that, and I hit somebody and I kill them? And that becomes the story, and then like forget about the story, about what you think about me, I will never recover from that because I killed somebody because
I needed to check a Tweet. These are moments in time. So there are so many things that can keep you from
being successful, right? The people that you invested in having something bad happen to them so it slows you down. My friends, there are a
million reasons why not, but there’s one great reason why, which is, you just gotta persevere, no matter what it is. It’s just the way it is. It’s hard being an entrepreneur. It’s hard building a business. Everybody thinks it’s so easy, that there’s an entitlement. There’s a disaster, zinging China? Here comes my U.S. zing right now: there is an insane generation
of 18 to 25 year olds that think they’re entitled
to having a business because they saw the
social networking movie and everybody’s decided
that if you’re a kid and you know what tech is. Because you used Instagram early on, you’re entitled to
actually build a business. Building a business is hard. And you know what makes it really hard? Everything that happens
every day of every moment. So, you can pick time, you can pick money as the one or two things
that you think stop you from winning your game, but the truth is, there’s a million reasons. 99% of businesses go out
of business for a reason. And that reason is, it’s hard. And so, if you’re watching this show, I’ve got a sense of who you are, and you need to start
creating layers and layers and layers of skin to
be able to get through. Because the glamour of
being an entrepreneur, the goodness, you know you get
very confused by my optimism. Because it’s my optimism, I can’t help it, it’s just how I roll. It’s probably one of
the variable 1% reasons why I’m successful. But please, don’t get it twisted. This is hard. Every day is hard. And if you don’t have the
stomach to weather the storm, you will not be successful. And by the way, let me throw you a real weird curveball, and that’s okay. People have to look
themselves in the mirror and understand if they’re
number two, three, four, five, six, seven in an organization, That has differences
of being a number one, but maybe that’s where
your skill set sits. Maybe that’s how you make
your fortunes and happiness and all the things that
you’re looking for, and so. That question got me
goin’ a little bit, Steve. Because it’s under the context of excuses. And I will never make an excuse. Everything that’s a problem with me, everything I don’t achieve, everything that’s a
problem at VaynerMedia, and everything is my fault. And I succumb to that, and I respect that. And I actually think that’s
the way it should be. And so, um, no excuses my friends.