“of Instagram. Like now people
try to sell a fridge on it. The fuck?” I like how you delivered that. Yeah, I mean this is clearly
the theme of the show. Oh, by the way. Real
quick shout out to Scott. This is an incredible personal wine box. Let’s give them
PersonalizedWineBoxes.com shout out. I love how people are hacking
me for free promotion. I feel like a sucker right now, but like, I do love. And Chris, this is insane. I mean, Chris Green, this
is just absolutely insane. Show them up, D-Rock. This is unbelievable. He dismantled it. How about this? I mean, does Aton know about this? Listen, I just said it earlier. People are ruining Instagram. People are trying to sell their fridges, people are trying to sell clothes. There was one that I saw, “Why are people trying to
sell food on Instagram?” But I didn’t think I could stop from laughing through that question from India. The bottom line is attention,
attention, attention. That’s where the value prop is. You know, the reason I
picked both those questions is to thematicsize this episode. I don’t know what that means, sorry. Grammar police. But the theme of this show is very simple, which is Instagram has the attention, people are gonna sell on it, get over it. That’s what’s always gonna happen. And, so, the reason people
are trying to sell you a fridge on Instagram is the same reason you asked the question on Twitter. Which means, it caught your attention. Where as if they tried to
sell their fridge on Twitter, I’m not sure it would have. Get it?

“on Instagram when people
can just go to the “ACTUAL STORE to get
what you’re selling?” This is gonna be so fun. This new format is gonna be so fun. All right. One more time, what’s the name? – [India] Lati? (laughs) – I’m so pumped we came up with this. Latte. Latte. Lati? Lati, great question. Listen, Lati. The reason this is happening is because marketers ruin everything. Anytime a lot of people
pay attention to something, and that’s what’s happening on Instagram, it evolves, right. It started off as artistic
photographers doing their thing, then people started moving and
kind of putting their selfies and their lives on there, started
becoming the new Facebook. And, so, once there’s that much attention, business people, like myself,
and others can’t help it but go in there and try to
start selling things to others. It’s just the way it is. Now, the nice thing
about Instagram though is is that it’s not gonna
pop up in your feed. You gotta follow them. So, clearly you followed this person, or your friend followed this person, if they showed it to them. I’m not sure how you saw
somebody selling there, but you’re more than welcome to unfollow. So, you know, you can take
your time and go on Twitter and complain about it, which I love, I love the sass, but the fact of the matter
is the quick unfollow will keep you away from it, unlike other platforms. I expect Instagram to go that route, because that’s how you make money. But that’s the reason. The reason is because
people are paying attention, and where people are paying attention is an opportunity to sell. Just like listening to the radio,
just like watching TV, just like turning the
pages in a newspaper, just like go on an internet
websites with banners. If someone’s paying attention,
someone is trying to sell. – [Voiceover] Ryan Andrew says,
“Marketing to the next generation

“evolve in the future?” – You know, Andrew, I took this question without really even knowing where the heck I’m going with it, because the
truth is I’m not quite sure. I think one thing’s for
sure, is if Instagram ever layers Facebook’s
targeting capabilities on its platform to users, it would become one of the
great ad-products of our time for, you know, 2016, 2017 to 2020. There’d be a two to four year run there. It would be incredible. So, that’s interesting to me. Will they use its sister company’s data to plug in there to reach
to people I wanna reach? If I could reach all wine-fans right now based on Facebook data
in an Instagram photo, (releasing air) So, that’s interesting, I also think that, I also think that it’ll
be interesting to see if Instagram goes into wearables, or into more camera-culture. There’s something about smart-cameras in a whole different way than
we’re even thinking about it. Here’s a good one, what
about smart-contact lenses? Like, if I wore contact
lenses, and if I went, it would take an Instagram photo. That’s interesting to me,
so, like how does Instagram layer into the emerging tech that a lot of people don’t talk about? That’s cool, and so, I’m not quite sure. Here’s what I do know,
it has the attention of the consumer at scale right now. They’re doing very subtle changes. They had a product-change
the other day, right, the UI changed a little bit. It was so subtle, right. I noticed it, but I didn’t
hear a headline about it. I noticed it, and it
didn’t stop me in any way. I thought that was super interesting. I see you guys are, right, it was subtle, did you like it, do you not like it? Did you even think about it? – [India] It’s just more
aesthetically pleasing. – Is it more aesthetically
pleasing for you? Yeah, I mean yeah, just super subtle. – [India] Also, it’s all in symbols now; it doesn’t say, like, on it. – Right, it just knows. We’ve just evolved,
right, in our language. Anyway, so, and there’s hashtags, emojis. From what I know about Kevin Systrom, whom I respect a ton,
and I know lightweight. I know a little bit, but I
really know more from afar. He’s a very thoughtful CEO. I think he cares about the product and the audience tremendously. Obviously, my first answer right away into commerce, business,
you know, that’s how I roll. But I think he’s really consumer-first, he understands it needs to stay sticky. Don’t spam it out, don’t ruin it. I’m interested in the
kind of contact lens thing that I brought up, and
some maybe far-fetched, far-out, I like saying far-out. You know, just some forward
thinking around the hard, something about the hardware
in Instagram makes me excited. I think it’s gonna evolve past the phone; and I think that has the potential to be extremely intriguing. I’ll make a prediction,
I don’t predictions; I only react to what’s happening. But I’ll make one for fun. I think Instagram will be
a leader in the next-level hardware version of photos. Because I think it’ll happen in the next three or four years, and I think Instagram can hold on to its leadership.

on Instagram, and I am a
10 year old makeup artist, and I just have one simple question. I post looks on Instagram
and people ask me to like their pictures, in exchange, they like my pictures,
and I was just wondering how you would handle that. – Nya, first of all, adore the hustle, crushed that I wasn’t lucky like you and wasn’t born during the internet era. Do you know how much
fun these two would have mixing up videos of me talking trash as a 12 year old baseball card dealer? We could have had an amazing narrative. I’m pissed. And watching you talk
about your background in this short little
video, including the fact that you said, I’m a
makeup artist on Instagram, right, that has been, for a lot of people, that’s a little moment
in there that I want everybody to wrap their head around, not on YouTube, on Instagram. The mediums continue to change. The experts in those
mediums that move first and best will always win, a la
what I wrote in Crush It!, oh, I don’t know, six
years ago, coming true, Nya is, soon, Crush It!’s gonna be older than the people asking
questions on this show. Nya is a real life version of
that dream come true for me, so I appreciate you for that, Nya. Boy, look at what you’re
doing there, Staphon. Staphon, by the way, is
trying to take a picture of the screen, taking, so
god damned meta over here. If it’s in, say podcasters,
I know a lot of you love listening, but this
has been an episode to watch just to see what meta Staphon is up to. Nya, the answer is I’m
not a big fan of that, it doesn’t feel authentic. You like my posts, I like your posts. There’s something about the karma and the energy of that kind of tactic that I think doesn’t really work. And so, what I would recommend you to do is be a good Samaritan
and a good community of Instagram fashion world user. Meaning, I would spend an hour of the day going through all the
people who are actually putting out content that
you actually do like, and heart that up, and take
the 10 to 20% of people that then find you because of that, and then 10% of that 10%,
1%, that authentically wanna give you love back,
and there’s something bound in that authenticity
that is so much greater than the scale of the growth hacking, or the black hack growth
hacking that that is, that I don’t think
brings you as much value as you may think. So, darling, if you’re
willing to listen to me, I think you go about it the high brow way. But the way to get results,
and the way I got results on Twitter was you actually gotta go out and give some love. You have to take an hour of your time and give some love. And so, the first thing I
would do is watch this video, then go directly to your parents, and find out if you can go to
sleep an hour later each night so that you can actually execute this.

“I am starting a wedding
invitation and stationary boutique called Spokenforco. I publish a post on the
company blog every Tuesday. I spend 10 to 15 hours on each post. I create visuals to promote
these posts on social media. However, I realize that I
am getting way more likes on my hand drawn lettering
posts compared to these non hand drawn ones. What should I do?” – Vivian, you’re spending
way too much time on it in my opinion. 10 to 15 hours feels
completely disproportional to the value exchange that
you’re getting in return. You need to figure out
how to do it faster. You also need to become
a little less romantic, and you need to figure out what your micro-version of that is, because content is a gateway drug to opportunity, and I think your supply
and demand or your value and return for the time is off kilter. You’re also in a space and
you’re a part of this world, because you love the
design and the creation and you’re an artist at heart, and so I don’t wanna tell you what to do, but from a business context, and that’s why you asked it on this show I think there’s an inefficiency there, and you need to figure out how to make that 10 to 15 hours
closer to one to two max, 45 minutes preferably, so you
can do a hell of a lot more. Every Tuesday is not enough. I need more often. The only way I can get
it more often from you is if you allow yourself to go faster. This goes back to an earlier
question in this marathon of Ts and Is. I think you’re going way too
down the perfection variable. To prove out my point,
I would ask you to try to do what you can do. Do me a favor. Next Tuesday, spend two hours on it. See what it does, and
see what the results are. You may learn from that, and if you hate what happens, and there’s not a lot of engagement do it one more time, and
if you can get me to three strikes where it doesn’t work
in three straight Tuesdays then you can go back to doing your thing, but my gut tells me
that won’t be the case. – [Voiceover] Lisa asked,
“What’s your spirit animal?”

of direct message on Instagram. Is it an untapped resource?” – Autumn, the problem with direct message on Instagram, right, is
that what we’re asking is so far what I’ve seen well actually, you know, it’s interesting. Instagram direct message is interesting, because most people are not following too many people that they don’t wanna be following on Instagram. It’s very different than
Twitter and other places. I mean, really if you look at the forum, I love to look at the
big data of Instagram, because I have a feeling
that most of the direct message stuff is a hell of a lot more scandalous and a hell of a lot more inappropriate than I think people realize. Anecdotally what I’m hearing is happening with Instagram direct
messaging is a hell of a lot of flirting and a hell of a lot of I’m trying to look for
the right words here. Because you’re only
following people you wanna follow, I think from a
marketing standpoint, it’s hard to get into that, because
I look at it like texting. It’s a place where people have no interest in having people market to them, and I would stay very away
from Instagram direct messaging as a marketing tactic,
because I think it’s an inappropriate place to go. – [Voiceover] A.J. asks, “How
can I engage with an audience

through my GoPro. Any tips on differentiating
my content from other GoPro accounts?” – Andy, this will have to be a part two, because I can’t give you tips without knowing what your
objectives and agenda are. I need a little more color. Get back on the show. – [Voiceover] Jared asks,
“Gary, why are scared of cows?”

– [Voiceover] Luke asks, “My
litte sister has Instagram and Snapchat, but has
no interest in Facebook. What do you think the
future holds for Facebook?” – Luke, I think Facebook has an issue about the growing population. I don’t see your little sister and her little friends jumping
from Snapchat and Insta into Facebook as they get older. No, Insta and Snapchat will
become more like Facebook, but will Facebook be
in a place where it’ll be able to keep it’s 35 to 70 year olds on it’s platform and not have them go down to Insta and Snapchat. Listen, Zucks is an assassin. There’s a reason he bought Instagram. There’s a reason he tried
to pay three billion. Let me just remind the market Stunwin. Steve’s not here often these days. Let’s just show him. – Hey everybody. – [Gary] He’s like all super
VIP and never around anymore. He tried to buy Snapchat
for three billion. I think what the future
holds for Facebook is if they keep crushing it and
doing the things they’re doing which I think they’re doing well, and they hold onto their
30, 32, 35 and above crowd, it’ll be an enormous business, but over time that will corrode over 15, 20, 30 years, but don’t forget Insta is the new Facebook right now. They’ve got a long lineage. They’ll have to make sure
that they get the next one after Snapchat, and that’s probably their
biggest vulnerabilities for a decade out game, but don’t forget they bought Oculus, and so they’re doing a lot of stuff. Look at them like Google. Facebook is the infrastructure
for over the top television or for free internet in America, or has the number one
phone in seven years. That wouldn’t surprise
me, because that’s where I think Zuck’s leadership is taking them. – [Voiceover] Melissa asks, “Hey Gary,

– [Voiceover] Abram asks,
“How do you optimize the use of hashtags for campaigns? Hashtag.” – Abram, this is a great question. I think we can get very
detailed for the VaynerNation on this. Hashtag culture is very
very important specifically to Instagram and Twitter. Let’s start there. That is really the two
places it is massive and on some level, Pinterest as well. Less on Facebook. Tumblr, for a while there
it was very very important. Snapchat, not at all. LinkedIn, not really. We’re really talking
Twitter and Instagram, first and foremost. There’s another question that’s
going to be on the episode, in a couple of questions where
the guy used 17, 18 hashtags as his entire post. I think hashtags are an
incredible way to get discovered, I think it’s important to
think about it two ways. I think you’re asking, how do
I get my hashtag going, right? I think. Even if not, by answering
that it’s going to help a lot of people here. I have the #AskGaryVee
hashtag, #AskGaryVee, Gary Vee Show I use on
Instagram and Twitter. I’m really just using that
for fans that are looking to go down the rabbit hole
more than getting it away for awareness. You’re saying for a campaign,
and I think people really need to understand a couple of things. Number one, hashtags are not ownable. Let’s just, I’m going
for, podcast listeners, I’m going for a big dramatic pause here. You should have seen the way I reacted. I’m going to do it again. It’s important that you understand this. It is insane to me that
people in 2015 still think they can own a hashtag. I walk into tons of meetings
where the brand’s like, let’s own the hashtag #GetEm. I’m like, what the hell
are you talking about? First and foremost, any
hashtag you can create, tomorrow I can jump in and make a hashtag. We can remember all the way to
the infamous 2008 or ‘9 time when Skittles put out that
hashtag and then people started putting things that were
very crude against it, because Skittles homepage
was a filter and a stream of everybody using the
hashtag and then, you know, body parts and rude and crude
things started showing up on their corporate page
because there is no ownability around a hashtag. My answer is this, flip it. Instead of trying to own
or establish a hashtag for a campaign, look at the
hashtags that are trending and very popular on the
two main platforms already and try to figure out
how to reverse into them by putting out your piece of
content, storytelling, and then using three or four hashtags
that are riding the wave. I wrote about this a million years ago, riding the wave of a hashtag. One of my first Mediums, I think. That’s the answer. Reverse it, don’t try to establish one, ride the wave of four or
five that are working, that tie in and be creative
into what you’re putting out. – [Voiceover] Leonard asks,
“You’ve talked before

– [Voiceover] Rob asks “On Facebook the separate business pages are easy to handle, on
Twitter I can switch between accounts on my iPhone with ease, but not on Instagram. Do I need separate accounts that the app hasn’t made it easy to handle, or is there a way to
successfully use one account for all three things without it being jumbled and ineffective.” – Rob, this is a tremendous question, and what I love about this show, somebody in the comments said, this is becoming more like
a master class mentorship, and I think it’s because we’re doing very specific questions. That’s what’s great about Q and A. Oh, a couple of things
by the way, real quick, DRock, Staphon, team, everyone, great new video that just came out about – you’re giving Staphon the credit? Right, ’cause you did the new Twitter one that’s about to come
out later today as well. We are crushing the video game. Show Staphon, and Staphon, you
look at him with the camera. It’s like a little meta thing going on. Let’s link that up right here. Will the Twitter video be up by the time this episode goes up? Great, let’s put that over here, and that one’s for you, DRock. And so a couple of new videos, and why I love Twitter
video, and more importantly, ’cause it’s just true, more importantly, the One Is Greater Than Zero thesis. These videos are great. They’re top line thinking. This show is great
because it’s practitioner. Let’s get to the answer, ’cause I’m being long winded here. You know, Twitter,
Facebook do make it easy. Instagram’s newer, even
though it’s become humongous. People forget how young the company is, and it’s a pain in the ass, much like it was the pain the ass for me, with Wine Library and Gary Vaynerchuk, GaryVee, and on Facebook,
when I used to have personal pages, before fan pages existed, and I maxed out my friends limit. That was a humblebrag. And yeah, so it’s a pain in the butt, but I think you should separate the three. Instagram has become a safe haven for people to consume content. They don’t want ads. They don’t wanna see things
they don’t wanna see, and I think it’s actually very important on Instagram specifically for you to segment out all three. I do think over time
Instagram will figure that out as it evolves as a product, or maybe not, ’cause they wanna make that friction so people aren’t hitting it too hard from too many different directions, but to answer your question practically, you need to create the three accounts, and it’s gonna be a pain in the butt because you gotta sign out, sign back in, but is that really that tough?