“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.

to engage with customers, even
if they’re not in your market and will never buy from you? – Robert, this is a great,
great, great, great question, because riding the hashtag, I
wrote a blog post about that, ding, you know, and all that stuff, but your questions is the
right question, which is what’s the ROI of jumping in– So the Apple watch comes
out, and everybody’s talking about it, what’s
the ROI of you know Twinkie putting a Twinkie
on their wrist and saying yea this is our version of it,
or riding a trend and putting out content of what
everybody’s talking about whether it’s that new
technology, a new app, Meerkat, a new celebrity, you know, whatever it is, if they are not likely to buy from you. Look, I think the value is
very low, and I think that that may throw somebody
for a loop, but the truth is, the one upside is the home run, the anomaly, which is,
you get somebody because they care about that trending
topic, and they amplify you, which then brings people
awareness to your high end shoe store, or purses, or your $50,000 pieces of art. So, as people
have become the infrastructure of media distribution, riding
the conversation of what people care about, with
the hope that they create the retweet, the reblog, the
share, that then creates the amplification of awareness
to somebody who is connected to them, does have some Hail Mary, some rogue, long tail upside, but speaking to,
and communicating with, people who are not going
to buy your product no matter what, does not
have enormous ROI. Never did in the old world,
has a little bit more now, because they have the
opportunity to share it and bring awareness to people
who may buy, but it is absolutely limited and it’s
a tactic that needs strong strategy around it. – [Voiceover] Brendan asks,
“I’m biking across Canada

and on a recent podcast of Carl and Mike, we answered five of your
questions of the day in five minutes. So, we want you to answer one of ours. – Just one, Gary Vee. – That’s it. – [Voiceover] Carl and Mike ask, “Gary, what do most people want
to get out of social media?” Carl, Mike, first and foremost,
I just instructed India, let’s show India, you know,
because India just told me an awesome story that
like, people are starting to recognize her from the show. You’re India from the #AskGaryVee Show? I love that. Carl, Mike, listen, it’s very simple. What people want out of social media completely maps to what
they want out of life. They’re, you know, social
media, internet life, internet culture, I was
saying something the other day that meme culture has taken over culture, I was talking today to
the VaynerMedia team, you know, because the internet is life. And so, what people
want out of social media are the things they want in real life. They want the fame and notoriety, India, they want, you know, they want this. You know what they want
out of social media? They want this, my friend, right? ‘Cause they want this in real life. They want a place to express their art and show the world their art, India. You know, and so like,
these are the things that people want, exactly
what you want in life. What do I want out of social media? I wanted to interact with more people, I wanted the vanity of being
like, are you Gary Vee? Sure am, you wanna take a selfie? Like, I wanted to fulfill the
things that were in my heart getting out there, leaving a legacy, not realizing how much I loved to teach, but that’s what Wine Library TV and the #AskGaryVee Show
are, who knew? F student, A teacher. And so, like, the things are
really interesting to me are that people want what they actually want, and what social media allows
them to do, my friend, is use the backbone of the internet to cut out the middle of the gatekeepers that used to keep us away from that. Who the (beeping) would have hired me as a college professor
teaching marketing? No one. Guess what? That is what’s interesting about the world we’re living in now. Direct the consumer, my friends. You wanna watch me on the show? You wanna follow me? How many people are on Meerkat right now in the middle of the day? There’s 318 people that are
busy in the middle of the day, get back to work, that
are deciding that this is valuable to their time. A bunch of people are about to reply, this is work, and you’re
right. This is good content. I appreciate it. And so, that’s what it allows to do, it allows to actually map exactly what you actually want
in life ’cause you have no restrictions to actually achieve it. – [Voiceover] Sandy asks,

“what is the Facebook
equivalent of riding hashtag?” – Robb with two Bs, first of all, India? India, is it true that Robb with two Bs pisses you off that there’s two Bs? – I just want to know why there’s two Bs. – Now, that’s how his parents named him. I mean, this is a tough
place for you to go as a girl named India. – It’s true, it’s true. – All right, so, just wanted to establish that.
– [India] I just want to know – [India] about two Bs. – I mean, you’re not Karen. Sorry, Karens. Robb with Bs, it sounds
like this is a little bit of a black hat, or at least gray hat, Facebook hack, growth-hacking move, which, listen, I believe in
being smart and effective. That seems to be… It’s an interesting tactic,
but you’ve nailed it, and you edited your own
post, so you nailed it. You realized that cool, OK, so there’s some tool that’s telling you this video of a kid falling
in the snow is going viral, why don’t you just take it and
post it, which will then work because humans react to the same things, which will then boost
your edge rank, right, which allows other content
that is around fitness to be seen by more people, so
that would be the value of it, but you’re right, if you’re putting out, if you’re a fitness play, like look, if I, in Gary Vaynerchuk’s
fan page, start putting out, like, penguins falling off trees and giraffes eating Sour Patch Kids, ice skaters falling into the
water but then getting saved, or the Mentos and Pepsi thing, yeah, I mean, that would bring
maybe some general awareness, but it would also dilute why people signed in for my channel. If Spike TV now started
playing soap operas, maybe they’d do OK, or a reality, this one’s the reality TV thing that a lot of people struggled with, like, what do people watch it for? I think media’s becoming agnostic, so I think everybody can
play in a lot of genres, so I think the risk is actually better than it was three or four years ago, but I do think that you
can dilute your brand and then get away from it, and
if you’re a fitness channel, I mean, look, let’s take a step back. What are you trying to accomplish? We’re all happy here, Andy just texted me, I think we’re gonna get a million
organic views on the video and I’m like, “Cool!” but is that accomplishing what I want? Are the right million people gonna see my Monday Morning Motivation video? Link.
(ding) Three, hat trick. Yes, but what am i trying to achieve in trying to find
like-minded business, hustle, growing your base and be
appreciative, gratitude people, I’m trying to grow more of my audience. You may get a million views on that penguin jumping off a tree, but did they stay for your fitness? If they don’t, then you
really accomplished nothing. – Hey Gary, I’m sick today,

“How can I filter years
of exciting adventures “and experiences into value “that someone would
actually be interested in?” – Carolyn, first of all,
that is my favorite picture that has been put up on Instagram so far. It’s a phenomenal picture. Thank you so much, thanks for
listening, watching this show. By the way, this is a
good time to just say get your questions on
the show using Instagram, look at that execution as inspiration. Look, I don’t know. Are your 71 years of
experience interesting? Does anybody give a crap? I mean, you know, I just went from such a lovely place to such a negative place. Throwing curve balls out
there like we do on Mondays. Monday show.
(ding) Monday video. That’s two times you gotta
put it in there, Staphon, if you’re doing the editing. I don’t know which one’s your half and which one’s the other half. So, Carolyn, really what
it comes down to is value. It’s all value exchange. I very much value somebody
who’s lived 71 years long for life advice just on living! Right? But what also matters is how
you’re gonna communicate it and in what form are
you gonna monetize it? Do you wanna put out a show
where you answer questions, or put out content, or tell stories, but then how are you gonna monetize it? Advertising? I mean, there’s just so
many open-ended questions that need to be asked of you based on your question, but
here’s what I would say. There’s a lot of ways to make money. You could have subscription,
you can have coaching, you can sell content,
you can sell advertising, you can build up equity
by putting out content and putting on a conference. There’s a ton of ways. I really do think I’m one
of the golden examples of how to make money
without directly selling it. Meaning, again, there’s a
lot of my contemporaries who sell eBooks, or white papers, or access to their VIP place. I do none such things. I put out the content at
scale, hence, this show, but then it builds brand
leverage that allows me to charge a lot of money to public speak, or when my book comes out, it allows me to have a big
fan base to get a leverage of a big upfront, where I
don’t even need all the books to sell, though I wanna
fulfill that contract. It gave me the leverage to
start a social media agency with my brand equity that
then I operated around. There’s a lot of ways to make money. You’ve got to decide how. If that’s even your goal,
I’m making the assumption ’cause this is a business-oriented show, but it’s all about content, baby. It’s all about content,
and what you’re putting out matters in two forms. One, is it valuable to an audience? Value’s subjective, but two,
how do you want to communicate? Is it video form? Is it audio form? Is it through amazingly cute
and amazing Instagram photos? Like what is it that you do? There’s that Moments in New
York, or what’s that guy, People of New York? – [Voiceover] Humans of New York. – Humans of New York! That was just pictures on Instagram that led to a big book deal, like, how do you communicate,
do people like that, and then how do you decide
to make money on it? That’s really the game.

“What value do you place “on getting out there
and pressing the flesh, “in order to expand your fanbase?” – Heromoviepodcast, can I call you HMP? I think I can. HMP, you know, I have
enormous value in it. You go into a confined area, where there’s like-minded
fans to exactly what you do. And, you know, listen, nothing replaces a nice little selfie, or a hug, or a high-five. You know, I think you use the digital world as a gateway drug, to then meet in person, to then solidify, and then kick back out
into the digital world to create amplification. So, I’m a huge fan of
pounding the pavement, showing up in real world places, and it continues to be a reason I go to things like South by Southwest, and I’m a big fan of it. I don’t think you can just
do it in the data world, we’re still human, for now. Robot culture coming, but
not right this second, and so market in the
year that you live in. 2015, hitting the pavement? Yes.

“that giving away some
of my best work for free “might mean others perceiving
it as less valuable. “Is this a true risk, “or is this where the right
hook balances it all out?” – Carlo, this is a solid question. You know, I think at some level, there is a risk about giving
away your best work for free. For me, that’s been the
gateway drug at some level, because I think best
work needs to be defined. It depends on what your work is. For example, I’m blown away by people who don’t realize that their best advice is exactly what you
should give away for free, because if you’re in the
selling-advice business, you really need to give contextual advice. So I can theoretically talk
about Snapchat being important, but then when I meet the tire company, we have to formulate it to
work within that context, and so that advice is
then gonna be specific. If you’re a painter, and your best work is the
greatest painting you ever made, and then you gave it away for free, that’s maybe a little
bit of a different game. But if you strategically gave it away, like to a very important museum, or to a very important billionaire, that puts it in the
prime spot in their home, could that then become the gateway? The problem is, with this question and this debate, is that when you are
doing something for free, it needs to be strategic, because what you’re looking to do by giving something for
free, is to create leverage, to then do something that is not for free. And so, you know, DRock
could’ve made a video for a bunch of different characters, and maybe it wouldn’t have
panned out to have the ROI that he received by doing
a video for me for free. And so, I think that often times, people look at this as
a blanket statement. To me, all the good stuff
I give away for free has strategic purpose. I understand why I’m doing it, and that’s why it becomes
so much easier to do, even though I don’t always expect the outcome of that action. And I think that becomes the big part. Way too many people do things for free, give away their best work for free, and then expect this windfall behind it, and when it’s not delivered,
they become disappointed, and within that disappointment, they don’t follow up, and do it again, and make it a replicable action, which has more upside in
three out of five times, where it brings value. You focused on the two out of five, and that kinda squashed you, so that’s my answer. – [Voiceover] Darth Bill asks,
“Should a new small business

where I need to hire an office assistant. Sales are great, but I don’t
necessarily have the capital to pull the trigger. Any creative ideas on how to achieve this?” – David, that is a great
question, and it’s really fun to be in the presence of DRock, one of the people who
I think payed forward and is going to feel the huge
dividend on the way back. Meaning, I know a lot of
real hard-core watchers and listeners. I know that you DRock first
at a video for me for free. Was that Clouds and Dirt? That’s epic, let’s link that up. And, you know, that led to a relationship which lead to a full time gig. And now, will be my heart and soul as long as he’ll have me in my video’s world, which, you know, Super Bowl videos of the Jets winning. Amazing, you never know DRock. So, I think one of the things you can do is use your social capital to put out there that
you’re looking for somebody and that this how you can compensate. Obviously, money is the accepted
compensation in our society but I gotta tell you, like
I think that there’s a day and age with the internet
being a middle platform where other things can be used. And so, I don’t know So, obviously you just felt an
edit because DRock screwed up kind of like Pete Carol
at the one yard line by not double checking the card. Because I’m not double checking the card, or the card went weird on you. Okay, well, you messed up.
– [DRock] (mumbling) – Yeah.
– Right, let’s get a DRock messed up alert. I wanna make sure, I
wanna double check this. Just so you know, I do double check so I want to see if it’s pretty, but it better really over the top to rock the DRock messed up alert it better be legit, ’cause it only happens once every 66 episodes. Does anybody think it’s
interesting that it’s episode 66 one more six, the devil, the
Patriots won, Belichick. And so, anyway, going back
not sure where it got cut off but just make sure you edit it weird DRock everybody knows that there was a mistake on your end. I think that there’s a lot of ways to be able to barter out that service. I would literally put on Craig’s list and on your social media, and e-mail blast and take your ten closest
friends and have them blast and say look, I’m looking for this, this is what I can offer. Maybe that’s minimum wage, plus I’ll give you all my
services free for a year or there’s a million ways to hack. I think that we in our modern
society across the globe outside a very rural part pockets in parts of the world that you know, I’m not educated enough to know this. We are really in a flat
out currency exchange game and I’m a big believer
that over the next 50 years because the internet shrinks the middle but there will be an
opportunity as a matter of fact I’m gonna make another
prediction, Staphon, that there will be a major
platform in the next 15 years that is a major top 50 start-up that is infrastructure for us to trade. Like, straight up like
Ebay, Craig’s list, mobile you know centric where it’s just like, you know I have this coat laying around and someone’s like, “Cool,
I’ll mow your lawn.” Like just, there is so
much inefficiency and stuff and services provided I think you should go that
route maybe make a video maybe take the momentum of this answer go really do something the other thing is to
really pound the streets meaning just like know,
no rock unturned right, just ask a lot of people there is a lot of people out there and I think in our
society not paying in cash feels taking advantage I think I’ve consistently
been on the offense in nuances of like border exchange I just think there’s a
lot that can be done maybe maybe you have a collection
of rare baseball cards that somebody wants. Or, you know you’ve 14
pairs of awesome Nikes maybe you could’ve six. You have assets around you,
your time, your services a crap load of stuff in your house trade that for what you need. Or go with do your when
good enough of a name to make a promise that hey I can pay this but I promise you as soon as we get going I’m gonna make you the full time person I think the one thing that I promise you that you need to make sure you do. is a lot of people
promise and don’t deliver and I highly recommend you
don’t make that promise unless you feel like you can deliver and the reason I make so many promises I always say to myself,
even if I fail business wise I’ll go to my own bank
account and close the gap. If you’re willing to go to that level and I don’t know your
personal finances, but anyway, barter, barter, barter. Hey Gary Vaynerchuk this is
Colin AKA Dj Veaux here