Fourth, scale the unscalable. That means refraining from one of the biggest mistakes I see authors make: bulk emails. They usually read something like, “Dear Friends, I never normally do this but I have a book coming out and it would mean the world to me if you would buy it . . .” The authors are going for efficiency, and it stinks. It might work on your aunt or your BFF, but who else is going to feel moved by such a plain-vanilla, impersonal missive like that?
Before the launch of my last book in November 2013, I spent all of August writing email after email to people from whom I wanted help. “Dear Bill, it was so great seeing you last month at the conference in Reno. Did you connect with those people I set you up with? Anyway, I’m writing to you because I have a book coming out, and it would mean the world to me if . . .”
See how it’s done? And I did it over and over again, personalizing every email so that the recipients knew that I was paying attention to them and that I truly valued our relationship. And I didn’t just ask them to buy as a favor to me. I gave them real reasons why I thought my book might be of use to them, their friends, or their employees.
Fifth, create opportunities. In the fall of 2014 the podcast scene was starting to really happen. So I did a ton of interviews with all the emerging podcast people, achieving something I call equity arbitrage—where two people or entities get ROI based on the mutual exposure they gain by joining forces. I barely mentioned the book during the entire thirty minutes I was on the air. Instead I focused on providing as much value as possible to their listeners. It was my one shot to let them know I was someone to trust and take seriously. Since then this has become a popular tactic, but now there are so many more podcasts and so much more competition for ears that it’s not as valuable as it once was to be a guest, though it’s still worthwhile to appear on them and promote. But as you read this book, there is probably some new platform that has come out just waiting for someone like you to use in a creative way that gives you leverage and visibility.
Finally, remember that whether selling books or Barcaloungers, on social media or in a brick-and-mortar store, you won’t convert unless you appeal to your consumers’ emotions. When you’ve got that, you show them your value proposition. And then you stand back while they pull out their money. Heart, Brain, Wallet. Every time.
CHAPTER 9
THE PLATFORMS
* * *
IN THIS CHAPTER I’LL TALK ABOUT WHERE THEY ARE AND WHERE THEY’RE GOING.
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Debating the current state of the Internet has become as much a passion for some people as sports, music, and celebrities. For years now the five to fifteen platforms that dominate our society, whether Blogger and MySpace a decade ago, or Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook today, have been fuel for conversations around what stock prices will do, where society is going, and where creative things are happening. These hubs have become integrated into our daily lives as much as television, radio, and magazines used to be, and there’s no more interesting time to talk about them than while they still capture the consumer’s imagination.
It’s a challenge to answer questions about social platforms because in the time it takes you to utter one sentence, they’ve usually changed again. However, as I updated and elaborated upon these answers, I realized that the real value isn’t just in the analyses, but in the overall pattern that emerges. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen tech wreak enormous cultural and social change on our world, and it won’t be the last. And we’re all still here. Businesses are still being built, people are still innovating, and the world keeps turning. My hope is that reading this chapter will help more marketers and brand managers welcome change rather than fear it.
The Big Picture
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What will the next big social network have to do to challenge Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram?
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There are two keys to the success of a social network.
1.Win over the youth market. The network that makes Snapchat feel like it’s for old people will be the next social superstar.
2.Be extraordinarily useful. Instagram was just a place to post pretty pictures until people realized it actually made them better photographers. The visual intimacy of the pictures made people feel close to other users, and eventually the social network developed to support that closeness.
In sum, if you’re trying to develop the next big platform, create something the youth of the world didn’t know it couldn’t live without.
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Which currently popular social media platform will likely be extinct by 2020?
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The two most vulnerable platforms today are Tumblr and Google+, mostly because big conglomerates own them. For all my concerns about Twitter, I have faith that Jack Dorsey will figure out a way to make it relevant and new-user-friendly again. But Tumblr is owned by Yahoo, and despite all those politics of being independent it’s still part of a big holding company. Google has shown a tendency to cut bait if something isn’t working, no matter how much they invested in it, and there’s no doubt that Google+ isn’t working. It’s possible Google will cut Google+, retool it, and reintroduce it one day, but I think it’s a fair bet that Google+ as we know it will not be around in a few years.
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Social media marketing is not as dominant in other countries as in the United States. For example, in Germany a meerkat is still nothing more than a cute animal. Is it really worth our time to put content on these platforms, then sit, wait, and hope they gain traction?
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Meerkat was once just an animal in the United States as well. A face book was a college directory, a twitter was the sound of a happy bird, and a periscope was that thing sailors use to see out of submarines. Every platform has potential, but it will be infinitely more valuable to you if you get there first and make your name for yourself before the masses show up.
I have plenty of cash, and yet I sit on practically unpopulated platforms. It is beyond me how some entrepreneurs who have no cash, whose only assets are raw talent and time, could possibly question the value of getting in on a platform before it has proven worthwhile and started monetizing. You’re going to cry because you don’t have enough money to compete with the big guys, but then you’ll cry about wasting your time on something that’s free? Where’s the sense in that?
The upside of being an early mover in a new platform is so much greater than the downside of waiting there for months only to find that it didn’t pop. I’ll sit on a platform and hold my breath for five to seven months when it’s not particularly valuable so that I can be there when it is. And then I can ride that wave for twenty-four months before the platform adds an ad product that makes it more expensive. So, yeah, I’d say experimenting with unproven platforms is definitely worth your time, no matter what country you live in.
That advice goes double if you’re a small business or start-up. The only assets you have against bigger, wealthier competitors are raw talent and time. So use the time from 3 to 7 A.M. if you must to establish yourself on new platforms and overindex there before money starts becoming a variable. Corporate America isn’t as nimble as you. You’ll have made plenty of inroads by the time your larger, more established competitor notices that the new platform has gone mainstream, and then in all probability it will take them a ridiculous amount of time to get approval to divert resources to it. Meanwhile, you’ll keep making inroads, getting a stronger foothold, and building your connections and brand awareness. Extract the value of the platform before its ad product becomes mature so that by the time it becomes expensive you’ll be ready to move on to the next new frontier.
YouTube
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I make my living off YouTube and lately people have been asking what my next step is because they don’t think YouTube can last forever. I think it will only continue to grow. Should I hedge my risk by expanding to other platforms or stick to YouTube?
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The guy who asked
this question, Matthew Santoro, has more than 2 million subscribers on YouTube.
I’d venture to say he knows what he’s doing.
Always follow your gut and do what you know. If you’re putting up content and blowing up on a platform, go with it. And if you’re wrong and the platform starts to crater, it’s not the end of the world. Early in my career I loaded my videos exclusively on Viddler. Once YouTube came out it didn’t take long to realize going whole hog on Viddler was a mistake and I made the correction, jumping to YouTube. As long as you adjust in real time, you can’t go wrong.
* * *
Why do you rarely recommend YouTube in your digital recommendations despite the 1 billion active users per month?
* * *
I’m not good about admitting to mistakes, mostly because I honestly don’t believe I’ve made that many in my career, but this is one of them. I think YouTube’s value is so obvious, second only perhaps to Facebook, I just forget to push it. In fact, one of the reasons I decided to do The #AskGaryVee Show was to increase my presence on YouTube.
Twitter
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Is there value to following thousands of people on Twitter, or should you only follow those who bring value to you?
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Everyone likes to be noticed, especially by someone they respect or admire. I freaked out when former New York Jets player David Nelson followed me on Twitter, and I’m always amazed by how much it means to people when I follow them, even though I’m only on the celebrity Z list. I’d like to see more people worry less about the value they gain from their followers and more about the value their engagement provides others.
I initiate a lot of strategies toward increasing my reach—what I call the length game—but when I’m on Twitter, it’s all about depth. I want to give people what they want, and if they want engagement or time or attention, I’m happy to provide it. That’s why I film The #AskGaryVee Show, too; it gives me a chance to go deep and detailed. It’s not always easy to go deep, because we’re busy running companies and living life, but it’s crucial to building that relationship that will make all the difference when your customer is ready to buy.
* * *
I understand that marketers ruin everything, but is Twitter’s latest algorithm change going to damage user experience and the essence of Twitter?
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When Twitter announced it would be following Facebook’s lead and switch to an algorithmic feed instead of a chronological one, a lot of people predicted the end of Twitter. Because that’s what always happens when a platform makes a change—the die-hard users cry and threaten to take their toys and go home, and then whaddaya know, they stick around and adapt. So long as Twitter continues to offer value, it will keep its user base. The experience will only be irrevocably ruined for those people who are irrevocably put off by the 7–10 more tweets that appear in their stream.
Have you ever dated someone who’s drop-dead gorgeous only to discover he or she is not that nice? Maybe you broke up with that person right away, but a lot of people wouldn’t. They value the beauty so much they keep going out with that mean person even though he or she is mean to their friends and hurts their feelings. It’s only once the value of the beauty no longer outweighs the nasty disposition that they quit the relationship. Of course that process would probably speed up if another drop-dead gorgeous person, this one with an awesome personality, were to come along. The second that something loses value to you, you stop paying attention to it.
So will Twitter’s switch to an algorithm that tries to make the deluge of information on the platform more relevant to users kill the platform? Only to those people who don’t value everything else Twitter does for them.
* * *
I don’t understand why I barely see @garyvee in my Twitter feed, but you’re all over my Facebook account.
* * *
Because Facebook has done a better job with its data and makes sure that what you see is relevant to your interests. Twitter is a busy, busy place, and it’s exceedingly difficult to get noticed there anymore. Hence the changes to the algorithm. Believe me, if you’re not seeing me in Twitter, it’s not because I’m not tweeting away.
* * *
Why is Twitter so much like a wall in a public bathroom?
* * *
I would argue that it’s not. Anonymous apps like Yik Yak offer far better opportunities for people who want to make statements and take positions they might not want the whole world to know are theirs. I’m always far more scared of the people on Twitter who say scary shit and don’t even mind showing their faces than the people who hide.
Snapchat
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Why are so many people afraid of Snapchat, especially marketers?
* * *
Because most people want to do what they already know. Ninety-five percent of digital and social agency marketers have never even tried to use Snapchat and don’t understand how it works. It’s not like other apps; it moves left to right instead of up and down, it has the Discover tab. It’s weird. And they’ve read in the headlines that it’s the app that lets the fourteen-year-olds send naked photos to each other. They have not taken time to figure out if there’s a way to adapt it to suit their purposes. And that, in a nutshell, is why most marketers suck.
Not because they’ve rejected Snapchat per se, but because the suspicion and reluctance with which they approach it is the same they have for every new app. It’s why they’re late to the party every freaking time and then spend an inordinate amount of money and effort scrambling to catch up once they get there.
Marketing today is for the forward thinking, the brave, and the young at heart. If you’re scared to innovate, you’re too old for this and you stink.
Facebook
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What are your thoughts about Facebook’s ban on like-gating?
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I think Facebook is maybe one of the worst PR companies in the world. At the end of 2015 they made a move that will help ensure that when people like a brand, they really do like it and aren’t just liking it to win a prize or get some more points on a video game. The only people who should have been upset about this are those with no imaginations and no confidence in their brand. Making sure that users are seeing things in their feeds that they actually want to see is good for everyone.
* * *
Marketing to the next generation through Facebook is on par with putting ads in the Yellow Pages. Facebook is dead. What’s next?
* * *
Facebook is so not dead. If anything, it’s just starting to grow. I’ve made the mistake of counting out a platform or service prematurely. In 2003 I predicted that SEM and Google AdWords was dead, when in reality it was just starting.
I’d say that Google search is destined for Yellow Pages obsolescence. You used to have to go to Google to look up what you wanted. Now it’s all just coming to you, not on the right side of your desktop but in your actual feed. If you know how to target and create content properly, your consumers will have a constant reminder, in the best way, of how relevant your brand is to their lives.
* * *
I don’t get it, Facebook. You decide to not show my book page to people. Do you think a lack of success will make me give you more money?
* * *
I wish people would stop complaining about the cost of doing business on Facebook. It is like any other medium in the world. TV channels aren’t going to run your ads for free. The post office isn’t going to ship out flyers and advance copies of your book for free. This idea that because Facebook started out as a free social network it has to continue giving away organic reach is crazy. It’s one of the most efficient ways to deliver content to people in the world. You don’t think that’s worth a little money?
To anyone who feels he or she has a legitimate gripe, by all means use the free alternative to Facebook to alert people to your brand or book or business. That would be email. I’d love to see you get results even cl
ose to what you could do with Facebook. You can rant and rail against the cost of Facebook, but in the end you’re just talking to yourself, because Facebook doesn’t care. Nor should it.
* * *
Will Facebook video become a rival for YouTube as a monetized video platform?
* * *
It already has.
Some viewers noticed that I started uploading #AskGaryVee shows straight to Facebook instead of attaching a photo linking to my website or the YouTube video. I did that because posting natively is always the way to go. I like to say that I don’t pay attention to data, but what I should say is that I don’t pay attention to data unless it tells me something important. And Facebook has some of the best data out there, including some that tells me if I upload my videos natively, about 20–30K more people see them than if I link to YouTube or my website. On top of that, Facebook now shows view count so I can build brand with perception in the same way as I build it on YouTube. It allows me to embed videos on other sites. I’m eliminating friction and making it easier for more people to see my content, which is valuable. And providing value is always what I care about the most.
#AskGaryVee Page 15
