#AskGaryVee

by Gary Vaynerchuk

  So how do you judge an influencer? By a ton of things. Who is following them? If you’re going after some fifteen-year-old kid with a fan base of screaming girls, but you sell Pampers to middle-aged moms, you’re going to miss the mark. So you need to know who they’re reaching. Once you know that, you need to look past that top-line number of followers and look at the actual engagement happening on each individual post. First off, on a quantitative level, you’re looking for what that engagement is as a percentage of their overall followers. Then you need to look at each of those interactions from a qualitative standpoint to see if those interactions are superficial or if they’re actually interested and engaged. I may not have the biggest following on Instagram, but I know that my posts could do a hell of a lot more for Office Max or Staples than another user with forty times my following because my people aren’t just following me because I’m hot (although to be fair, since I’ve started working out, I’ve gotten significantly more attractive); they’re in it for a much deeper reason.

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  My brand doesn’t even have a Vine account. Should Vine be a platform I consider if it’s not somewhere we’re already active for brand development?

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  Your brand should be on any platform that has meaningful scale within your target audience. It would be crazy to not be present on a platform on which your customers are also present. (This also applies to platforms that your audience might be on in twenty-four months, too. Please recognize what’s happened to Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat over the last decade as their user base has matured into a much older one and as parents have been forced to go there in order to communicate with their children. Let’s make sure to wrap our heads around that.)

  Here’s another way to look at it. This is like asking if your brand should run TV commercials even though you don’t have your own TV show. Of course. You’re looking for awareness and contextual relevance. It’s not just about siphoning that influencer’s followers off onto your own fan base within the platform. If you’re selling to that audience, and a Vine celebrity can get you that reach and that association, you’re winning.

  That said, of course it would be a more ideal execution for you to already have a Vine page that can be tagged and allow you to get those extra 4,000 followers. Then you can remarket to them over and over, and ultimately drive down the cost of acquiring them by increasing their lifetime value. Work on that, because you should be there.

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  When you contract with an influencer, do you instruct them to continue to make the kind of content your brand is already making, or should you let them speak with their own voice and on their own terms?

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  This is the biggest debate that I see going on between brands, entrepreneurs, and influencers. I am a humongous believer in letting the DJ do her own thing. If you write a song, and one of the biggest DJs in the world wants to sample it in her set, get the hell out of the way and let her do it. That DJ is famous for a reason. She knows what she’s doing. No brand is going to know an influencer’s audience the way the influencer does. And to be honest, influencers have to bring that context to their audience for the sake of their own brand, not only so that they can continue to monetize, but for the sake of making your content. It is in your best interest for them to put your product in their own context. Now, you may not like that. There’s typically a huge disconnect between the talent and the decision maker on the brand side. At the end of the day, it’s your business, and you always have the option to say no. In fact, I think you should absolutely have approval. Obviously I’d never recommend anybody pay money for a product they don’t get to see in advance. But that approval really only exists for the fringe 1 percent of craziness, not for you to add your creative two cents.

  There is a reason you’re paying an influencer to reach their audience. They know what they’re doing. Even if all you want are their followers, you still need your product to be presented in the right tone. I often like to hedge on answers, but in this case I’m very comfortable being definitive. Let the talent do his or her thing.

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  Can an influencer on Vine, Snapchat, or Instagram drive app downloads given the platform limitations against linking out? How can we prove that their content directly affects the KPI?

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  The first half of this is a silly question. The answer is “Of course!”

  For one thing, Instagram now does have ads that link out. You could use an influencer’s content to get the recognition, and then market against his or her fans with an ad that contains a click out. You’re paying twice, and taking a bigger risk, but that is an execution I believe would work.

  Otherwise, simply run a controlled test. Establish a baseline of daily app downloads given your current ad spends and measure against it. If you’re getting between 300 and 500 downloads a day, and then you get 1,000 on a day when you run an influencer post, well, then you know something is working.

  Way too many people are looking for the reason that something isn’t working instead of the reason that it is. It’s basic. Snapchat is just awareness, I get it, but at a certain point, you’re going to hit a point of consistency in downloads that you’ll be able to measure against. That’s when you want to get into something like influencer marketing, because then you’ll be able to measure in a controlled state.

  PHILLIP GIMMI

  @PHILLIPGIMMI

  www.PhillipGimmi.com

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  What is the tactical and strategic pathway to become an influencer? I am all in when it comes to all forms of marketing. How do I connect with influencers, leverage their brand equity, or grow my own?

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  Asking “how do I become an influencer?” is really no different from asking “how do I become a star?”

  The really funny first answer is that you have to have talent.

  The next funny answer is that you have to put in a ton of work.

  These are both very clichéd, basic answers, but they happen to be massive truths. I will say that the one new truth is speed of adoption within a new environment. If you pay close attention to the people who popped on Vine, or the people who popped in the early days of Snapchat or Instagram, they all happened to be the Christopher Columbus of their platforms. They were early. So as those platforms took off, they developed disproportionate amounts of followers as new users joined and found them.

  These days it’s going to be way harder to be the next The Fat Jew or Fuck Jerry (even though many have tried) because they succeeded in the landgrabs of the early days of their platform. So if you want to be a video influencer, you can go and attack YouTube, Instagram, or Snapchat, even though they’re established markets, or you can use those platforms to hone your talents. Become an expert, and then when the next big thing in video comes out, use your new skills to jump on it and become a first mover.

  So the biggest move here is to be a first mover on a platform I don’t even know about yet . . .

  And then have tons of talent . . .

  And then do a lot of hard work.

  CHAPTER 12

  STOP WITH THE EXCUSES!

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  IN THIS CHAPTER I’LL TALK ABOUT GONE WITH THE WIND, HOW TO MAKE DEPRESSING CONTENT PALATABLE, AND RAISING THE DEAD (INDUSTRIES).

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  Throughout the relatively short history of The #AskGaryVee Show I’ve fielded numerous questions from people convinced that their especially dull or outdated industry or uninspiring job poses a special marketing challenge. It’s stunning how many remarkable reasons and circumstances people can come up with to explain why they haven’t met with success. Of course, the problem doesn’t usually lie with the type of industry or job. The problem lies with the individual who can’t see opportunities when they’re right in front of his or her face. There might not be any easier place to make your mark than in an environment where few people, if any, are putting much effort into making their mark, or where everything has staye
d the same since the dawn of time.

  What I find heartening is what often happens after I answer these kinds of questions. A high percentage of people will email me afterward to say, “Hey, you were right,” and tell me that my answer sparked the beginning of a mind shift that led to rapid gains. I have no interest in being a motivational speaker, but it’s scary and exciting to see how little it sometimes takes to change someone’s perspective. Maybe we all look for excuses to explain why we don’t achieve what we want to, and we should be more self-aware and recognize how much control we actually have over our own fate, even taking into account the barriers like racism, sexism, and nationalism that many of us have to face. It’s amazing how as soon as you make the shift from “I can’t” to “Why can’t I?” you go from defense to offense, and as everyone knows, the best place to score is always on offense.

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  How do I create interesting content for a boring product or a stale industry?

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  A white lawyer defends a black man in a small southern town. A spoiled rich girl gets married three times and survives the Civil War. Boy meets girl. Recognize any of these? Shaved down to their core, To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone with the Wind, and Romeo and Juliet sound pretty damn boring. Their lasting power lies in the fresh, imaginative, daring, surprising storytelling of their creators. There is no boring if you tell your story right.

  If you’re asking this question, your problem isn’t your content; it’s your mind-set. You have to shift your thinking immediately. You cannot change your output unless you change your input.

  Start by thinking of every possible way your business, brand, or product touches people, from what they eat, to their hobbies, to their conversation topics. Don’t box yourself in. Use your imagination and map out all the options if that’s helpful. For example, a hardware store. You are sadly mistaken if all you see are tools, adhesives, and paint. Other people see their dream home, their kids’ fort, a finished honey-do list, a new vegetable garden, or a bird feeder. They see their problems solved, their rainy days filled, or their closet space doubled. They see Habitat for Humanity or Eagle Scouts or Pencils of Promise. They might see sweat and exercise, or inspiration, change, craft, and fun.

  Next, think outside your industry altogether. When I was still selling wine, people would always tell me about other retailers that were doing interesting things and suggest I go for a visit. You know what my answer was? “I don’t give a crap.” The truth is despite all my years in wine, I spent an amazingly little amount of time within the industry itself. The same can be said for the agency industry, even though I’m working in it now. I’ve been to maybe six other agencies in my life. I don’t follow industry news. I try not to listen to what else is going on.

  And that is why I have been able to innovate over and over again. I don’t want to copy what everyone else is doing—I want to stand out. So I stick to what I’m really good at, and I search for inspiration where everyone else isn’t looking. My experience in toy collecting and baseball cards gave me the perspective to attack the wine-collecting world in a new and fresh way. I looked to Silicon Valley and Hollywood to create Wine Library TV. I used my business skills to create an agency that focused on business results more than creative, I used what I had learned from SEO, email marketing, and content marketing in the late 1990s and early 2000s to figure out how to create strategies for the new social media platforms. If you’re launching a fitness app, pay attention to what’s happening in the food industry, the rock climbing industry, even hip-hop or sports. Think completely left field. The best way to stagnate is to pay attention to everyone else because they’re doing the same crap over and over. And guess what? The same old crap sucks.

  Taking an open, optimistic attitude will keep your content fresh and exciting, and allow you to change the world’s perception of your “boring” product.

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  How can a nonprofit that works to solve a serious problem, like human trafficking, make depressing content dynamic?

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  No one ever said content had to be fun or light. You have to respect your topic and contextualize it for your platform. Though you probably can’t make your content light, you can certainly work on keeping it simple and easy to absorb. Create narratives through infographics, slide shares, videos, pictures, and quote cards that get your story across without requiring people to dig too deep. Make sure you pay attention to the colors you use and the music you choose.

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  My goal is to wake the dead, aka the funeral business. What are your thoughts on bringing relevance to a gray-haired industry?

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  I’m fascinated by this business. This wasn’t the first time someone in the funeral industry asked me for some ideas. I once recommended to a funeral director that he should become the number-one flower content site on the Internet, thus creating a positive connection to his work. That’s what I’m talking about when I say that companies need to become media companies and start writing content for and getting involved in areas that are related to them. Don’t comment on your competitor! Instead, comment on something completely out of the ordinary yet surprisingly relevant.

  Whenever someone breaks new ground in any industry, especially one with as much history as funeral direction, they will likely be accused of disrespect. And maybe they’re right. Maybe innovation is inherently disrespectful of what has come before. Anyone in a highly sensitive business, such as funeral directors, hospice workers, and the like, would have to tread especially carefully, of course. Their job is to guide people through a difficult time when they’re at their most vulnerable. But even as we entrepreneurs and innovators disrespectfully bring progress to our industries, we can avoid offending consumers by being understanding, compassionate, and empathetic. And that’s not just people whose business is to help the grieving. It’s true for all of us.

  Innovation is what wakes up sleepy, gray-haired industries. When I started in the wine business, wine was serious and sophisticated, and its experts were sixty-year-old gentlemen, not twenty-five-year-old Jets fans from Jersey. So I came in and I innovated. I started a dot-com in 1996. I started a YouTube show less than a year after YouTube launched. I started posting content on Snapchat and Pinterest before almost any other entrepreneur knew what to do with them. When you get in early, you have the freedom to play and improvise and figure out what works best.

  CHAPTER 13

  GRATITUDE

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  IN THIS CHAPTER I TALK ABOUT WHAT I DO WHEN THINGS GET TOUGH, HOW TO ROMANCE YOUR AUDIENCE, AND HOW TO BUILD LIFETIME VALUE.

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  I’m often asked what fuels me, and 80 percent of the time my answer is gratitude. I’m glad I was born in a communist country and got to move to this country, where capitalism is revered and appreciated. I’m thankful that I haven’t had a lot of pain in my life, though it’s because I lost three of my four grandparents before I ever knew them. I’m grateful for the best mom in the world, for the best wife in the world, for a dad who taught me not to be full of shit, and for all the people I love.

  I won’t say I know how to teach you to have more gratitude, but I can say that if it is something that can be developed you should go figure out how. Gratitude is my weapon in my day-to-day life. Period. Being an entrepreneur or a CEO is a stunningly lonely job. That’s not talked about much (though it did get discussed more frequently for a while after a spate of suicides within the tech community). As the head of a company, you are the last person in the line of defense. You are entirely responsible for everything. It’s a huge eye-opener when you realize that you are responsible not only for yourself and your family and loved ones, but for other people’s, too. The enormity of that obligation hit me hard when I was a kid building up Wine Library to 150 employees, and weighs on me even more now that VaynerMedia has nearly 600 employees. Keeping that commitment front-of-mind while battling all the competitors trying to beat you and put you out of business, all whil
e navigating dynamics you can’t control, from Wall Street to geopolitics, can weigh heavily even when you’re not faced with a business catastrophe like losing an important deal or going out of business.

  Gratitude is what has gotten me through my toughest moments in business (yes, there have been some, though I don’t talk about them much). Whenever I have lost a deal to a competitor, or an incredible employee, or millions of dollars in revenue because a state changed its shipping laws and won’t let me sell there (damn you, Texas!), I default to gratitude. Because I recognize that even if I had invested in Uber, and Woody Johnson decided it was time and I did buy the Jets tomorrow, none of it would matter to me at all if the next day I got a call that someone I love was sick or had died. Keeping that perspective allows me to handle anything and everything. Whenever I’ve been in my loneliest place with my biggest headache, thank God I’ve been able to step away from it and remind myself of all the great things I’ve been given. It’s impossible to complain and get too down when I do that.

  Gratitude is what allows me to live my life the way I do, but it’s also a core element to the way I do business. I never, ever take it for granted when people take minutes out of their ridiculously busy worlds to watch my show or read my blogs or books. I spend much of my time online trying to thank my fans, followers, and customers as often as possible. I don’t understand why more brands and businesses don’t make that their mission, as well. It’s not as if consumers are limited to their neighborhoods or even their cities to find what they need or want anymore—the world is at their fingertips. It seems to me that when the competition is that widespread, you should be falling all over yourself thanking every damn customer who decides to spend some of his or her hard-won money with you.