Gary Vaynerchuk's Blog, page 23
September 27, 2019
How We Created 7 Million Extra Views
We wanted to share some tactics and examples of how we (Team GaryVee) create content for Gary’s social channels!
To really break it down, we used some examples of content we created from an episode of 4Ds (a business consulting session that Gary does for entrepreneurs, personal brands, and SMBs) based on The GaryVee Content Model.
For those of you who don’t know, here’s a quick explanation of what the content model is:
The GaryVee Content Model starts with a “pillar” piece of content – this could be a daily vlog, Q&A show, keynote, podcast, or any other piece of content that directly documents Gary’s life. Then, we use that pillar piece of content to create smaller pieces of “micro-content” – images, short videos, mashups, GIFs, articles, memes, quotes, etc – that we can distribute across the platforms that matter.
On July 23rd, Gary recorded a 4Ds session which we broke down into 30+ pieces of micro-content to distribute across 6 – 10 different platforms. In this case our “pillar” piece of content was the 4Ds episode.
To learn more about the content model in detail, check out this article and Gary’s 86-page deck that goes along with it.
Here’s how we thought about each clip from the 4Ds episode and some context on why we made it:
Clip #1: I Enjoy The Game, Not The Trophies
To decide on the title for this particular micro video clip, Gary and the team came up with four title options and posted it as a poll on Twitter.
When we presented it on Twitter initially, we also shared the video clip with title options and subtitles to engage viewers (since many people browse Twitter without their sound turned on).
Using the poll option on Twitter allows the community to easily vote on the best title, and choose which one they like best. This also lets us involve Gary’s community more in the content production process, which is always something we try to do.
Letting people participate early in the process (before a clip goes out) makes the process fun, exclusive, and builds some excitement within the community for when that clip actually goes live.
Clip #2: Of course your employees don’t care as much as you do
We’re always looking for strong, actionable messages that Gary talks about and in this one, there’s a little bit of a twist.
In this video, Gary mentions how most employees at VaynerMedia are out of the office by 6pm. We thought viewers would find that surprising and interesting, given Gary’s work ethic and how much he works.
We framed this clip to appeal to two different audiences: 1) employers, and 2) employees. Employers are the ones evaluating employees and doing the hiring / firing, but employees are sometimes misunderstood as “not working hard enough.”
When Gary stands up for the employee and shares some of his countercultural points of views about management, we’ve found people respond really well to it.
Clip #3: “I owned weedlibrary.com in 1997”
In this part of the 4Ds session, Gary talks about owning a cannabis-related domain name in 1997 and being ahead of the curve when it comes to rise of cannabis.
From there, he started talking about a different topic – how he doesn’t feel the need to brand himself as a “cannabis expert” despite being ahead of the curve, and how many people are “chasing” new trends.
We ended up not using this clip because Gary jumped from one topic to another within a few seconds. Because he didn’t fully finish his thought process, we didn’t feel like it would provide enough value to the audience, so we didn’t put it out.
Clip #4: Stop posting “booty pics” to get more likes
Gary often tackles topics that other people shy away from. When that happens, we jump at the opportunity and chop it up into a micro clip because that’s a big part of what makes Gary so refreshing to listen to.
That’s why we produced this video:
When we produced this video (and when we produce Instagram video content in general), there are 4 things we try to include:
A 3-5 second “hook” – We move a 3-5 second video clip to the front of the video to capture people’s attention as they’re scrolling through the feed. The hook is the portion of the clip before the audio tag. Audio tag – After the hook, we always include the sonic branding audio tag. This is a mandatory part of every clip – Gary really believes in the future of voice, and this is how he’s going to establish his brand in audio form. Title – Next, we craft a title that gives actionable advice based on a quote or statement Gary said. This is something that we’ve seen our audience respond well to. Call to Action – At the end of the video, we typically have a call to action that directs people to do something. The core of Gary’s message is to “do” so we try to close with some specific direction of what you should be thinking about or doing next.
Clip #5: A video for TikTok
Gary’s been super bullish on Tiktok lately and we want to make sure that with any video, we think about how we can tailor the content to that platform.
Once we found a moment from the video that we thought would work for TikTok, we found a trending song on TikTok that matched the moment from the video that we wanted to share. When we found the song, we did our own version and our own edit in Adobe Premiere.
Once we finished the whole packaging of that clip, we exported the clip to TikTok, and chose the muted version of the same song to overlay when posting (so the algorithm would know we used it).
Clip #6: The podcast triple threat strategy
When Gary gives tactical advice, we really like to take advantage of that and build it out into a deeper, more in-depth video clip.
That’s what we did with this video – Gary broke down why podcasting can be a great hack for producing more content. We inserted some slides, music, and editing to make it easier for people to follow along and implement the advice.
To take full advantage of this concept, we also created a cartoon to publish on LinkedIn, as well as a cartoon slide deck that breaks down this concept in a clear, step-by-step way.
We only showed you a few examples of the pieces of content we created from this hour long 4Ds session, but here’s the total impact of the ~30 pieces of content we put out:
We also put out this blog post, a podcast, and several other posts not included above 
September 25, 2019
Strike While It’s Hot: It Doesn’t Matter If A Platform Is Around In A Year
I’ve been really hot on TikTok recently.
At the time of writing this article, I believe that TikTok and LinkedIn are two of the best platforms for people to go from zero audience to actually having one because of the ridiculously high organic reach.
I’m getting emails and DMs from people who are literally joining TikTok and getting thousands of views on their first piece of content – the attention that’s available right now is just that high.
But I’ve been hearing from some people who ask things like “what if TikTok dies”? “Is it just a fad?” “What if I spend time putting in work and it goes away?” “What if it goes away like Vine?”
This guy asked a question along those same lines:
The truth is, it really doesn’t matter if TikTok is around in 6, 9, 12, or 24 months – that’s not the point. I don’t care if it’s gone in a year.
Here’s why:
You get still get the brand value
It doesn’t matter if a platform goes away because if you attack it when it’s hot, you still get the BRAND value. And when you get brand value, people will find you even when that platform goes away.
That’s why we still know who Tila Tequila and Dane Cook are today – they built enormous brand value back in the heyday of MySpace. P. Diddy still trades on the equity he got during MTV’s heyday from crushing it back then.
Many of the biggest stars on Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube popped on Vine first – like King Bach and Logan Paul.
Let’s not forget that I built my brand on Twitter initially when I was building Wine Library. Eventually, those people followed me on other social platforms even as Twitter went down a little bit in attention over time.
Here’s the punchline:
This is a combination of 1) attacking the current platform while it’s hot, and 2) not shitting on newer platforms as they get more and more attention.
People either don’t attack a platform hard enough, or they wait until a platform proves that it’s “established.” Many actors and actresses in Hollywood who didn’t want to go on Instagram a few years ago realize that they made a mistake now.
A good way to balance this is the “79/21” rule.
In other words, spend 79% of your time on the platforms that bring you the most value (right now, that’s mostly Instagram for me) while spending 21% of your time building on other platforms (LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, and other things are in my 21%).
Over time, platforms will transition from your “21%” into your “79%” – and when that happens, you’ll be ready.
The learnings will translate
Even if a platform goes away after a few months or a year, the learnings translate to whatever comes next.
Before Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, I had accounts on SocialCam and DailyBooth.
SocialCam was a mobile app where people could capture and share videos online and on mobile. On SocialCam, I learned how to create vertical video content and the dynamics around it. I deployed those learnings on Vine. Then, I took all of those learnings and used them to crush on Snapchat, and then completely dominate on Instagram.
If you asked me why I dominated Instagram over the past couple of years, I’d say it’s because of the things I learned on SocialCam that helped me become a great creator of IGTV videos. And right now, the reason I’m doing well on TikTok is because I did well on Vine.
The thought of making videos on your mobile phone was really new back in the SocialCam / DailyBooth days. The first time I did a selfie video was on SocialCam. The first time I took a selfie was on DailyBooth. But those learnings are still helping me today with the channels that matter now.
So it doesn’t matter if it’s going to be around or not. Striking a platform while it’s hot matters way more than if that platform is around in a decade.
The post Strike While It’s Hot: It Doesn’t Matter If A Platform Is Around In A Year appeared first on GaryVaynerchuk.com.
September 23, 2019
Read This Before You Make Another Decision
It’s just the truth – you don’t know the alternative and you never will. There’s no time machine, there’s no future machine, there’s just no way to really know whether you made the right move or not. Whichever decision you make, you won’t know how the other one would’ve played out.
Let me give you an example…
Let’s say you start your business (instead of doing something else like staying at your job), and it becomes huge and you turn out to be right in your hypothesis. And let’s say that led to a big meeting in a different country and you had to fly there – and in the process, your plane crashed and you died.
That would’ve turned out to be a bad idea.
There’s no way of truly knowing. If you follow my content, you know that I famously passed on investing in Uber in the angel round twice, which means currently, I missed out on $600 million. You could think that’s a mistake, but maybe if I did invest in Uber I’d be somewhere else right now picking up a disease that would end up killing me a year later!
Everybody thinks they can have the perfect decision. There is no perfect decision. There’s just life.
So pick one and be happy with it!
2. Instead of trying to make the perfect decision, create more opportunities.
Create more 10-15 minute meetings to open the gateway to new relationships. Run more marketing tests to give you the opportunity to find a strategy that works.
Some of the best decisions I’ve made were things that didn’t look that good on paper in the beginning. Plenty of serendipitous meetings have led to incredible partnerships and investments that were completely unexpected in the beginning.
Be more efficient with what you do so you can do more things, and so you don’t have to worry about the subjective and uncontrollable factors like “knowing” what’s good or great. In other words… create the volume you need to give you a better shot at finding those opportunities that will lead to success and happiness instead of debating what’s going to work.
3. 9 out of 10 times, the right decision is the fastest decision.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be thoughtful, it means you spend your days becoming a practitioner and becoming great at what you do without overthinking every move.
In a world where everyone tries to make the perfect decision all the time I go the other way – I think every decision I make is a mistake, and if something works out, it’s a happy upside.
I just value the speed of the decisions I make over perfection because I can always fix the wrong decision. I assume everything is a mistake, I’m thrilled when it works out, and when it actually turns out to be a mistake, I make a change.
It’s a big reason why I’ve been able to build big businesses fast.
4. Stop caring what other people think about your losses.
My losses are my losses. I don’t care what you think about my loss because you’re losing plenty on your own.
Once you really get to a place where you don’t care what other people think, you get to a place where you can move much faster. When you’re not spending time worrying, you’re spending time executing. Speed matters more than ever in the world of business today and when you’re not spending time worrying about what people think, you’re in execution mode.
This ties into how I think about building culture in businesses – when you feel safe in your work environment and feel safe to have conversations, you’re not spending time scared of whether someone is trying to “ruin” you or undermine your success. It allows employees to move faster and execute on their actual work instead of trying to navigate politics.
I do everything I can to put myself in a position where I’m in constant execution mode at all times.
If you got value from this article, please share it on Twitter!
The post Read This Before You Make Another Decision appeared first on GaryVaynerchuk.com.
September 20, 2019
Like They Say, Nothing In Life Is Free
Never ever do something you can’t afford financially or emotionally.
That being said, some make emotional decisions over the idea of “free work.”
As they say, “nothing in life is free.”
People treat this as a privilege issue but I think it’s an opportunity issue. Many can afford it but aren’t taking the risk because they don’t value the exposure, relationships, learnings and I respect that if that’s one’s opinion.
Obviously sustained free work is impossible and the length is predicated not only on one’s savings but also their side hustle, how they spend their money to live, if they’ve made money before, if they have to help their parents, or a number of other things.
An increasing amount of skills that are wanted in the real world don’t require a college degree, nor has the curriculum caught up to the actual needs of the marketplace.
And for many, the opportunity to work closely with others who have succeeded in the industries that they are most interested in, or even better – and this is really where I’m going with this hypothesis – if you’re able to get to the top 100 people in your desired craft or industry and that requires an unpaid free consultation, an unpaid 2 month internship, a 4-month project, or 2 videos to be made for that person, then this is something you have to highly debate.
This is “your foot in the door.”
People make the debate that you should “know your worth” and that the person may be taking advantage of you – I just don’t see that because A) you don’t have to do free work, so somebody else can if they choose to, and B) in the course of my career, I’ve seen an uncomfortable amount of people go on to achieve big successes in their fields.
When I ask them how they got started, many started with extremely humble starting points producing for / creating for / bringing value to someone who was at the top of that game at the time. That could be an unpaid or very low paying internship, starting their own company for consulting and giving that person a creative project project for free (because that person’s logo or name brought value for them to build their business on), or something else.
The reality is, life is not binary. Why are we in a culture where it’s perfectly fine to go into ~$50,000 in debt for a diploma that brings no value and then go into the ecosystem and struggle to find a job – yet the idea of working for Anna Wintour, producing content for free for her Instagram while at 7pm to midnight flipping thrift store buys or working at a restaurant, living in a studio apartment with 2 friends, and using that opportunity to get into the fashion industry (if that’s your passion) is demonized?
That is a much more specific and subtle execution of “free” but an important one because a lot of people are closed out to it – because just like how they think I’m saying “free all the time”, they’re saying “never never never.”
This is my definition of free work.
When I think back to Wine Library, in the first few years of trying to build a presence locally, I would give my services to go people’s homes. Somebody would come in and buy a nice bottle of wine – and not only would I offer to host a wine dinner for them that had 5-10 of their neighborhood friends, I also offered to bring the wine for free because I felt that I would meet ~6-7 couples who had been shopping somewhere else who would then consider Wine Library.
When I started VaynerMedia, I didn’t have money (because I didn’t pay myself much when I was building Wine Library) — that’s why the company’s first location was in a conference room in Buddy Media’s office.
Many of the clients we got at first were paying us very minimal fees. We also did several projects basically for free – aka I would spend 3, 4, 5 hours of my time in a conference room strategizing and ideating for companies on how to create their social media strategy. I did that for countless companies, I also flew to many company offsites (on my dime) and gave speeches on where social media was going.
So not only was I not paid, I lost money, But I knew the awarenesses I would get from the audience and the words coming out of my mouth could and would lead to business development.
To this day, with the leverage we have and awareness we have at Vayner, I still will strategically give a speech or do a consultation for free on my dime. I literally did it a the Tuesday after Labor Day this year – on my dime – I spoke to a group of very senior executives.
A lot of people take a very emotional POV on this. I’ve spent my life paying tens of thousands of employees – at this point, it’s not about not wanting to pay, it’s about creating a conversation where people can be a little bit more strategic about understanding what value do they have to bring and how can they monetize it in a better way? We herald Beyonce when she trades her concert for Uber stock which became far more valuable than she would’ve been paid there.
I genuinely believe that the binary transaction of “work for cash” is ideological. I believe that there are many other things going on, and the social currency / awareness / learnings / opportunities are very real. There’s also the ability to redefine yourself, the ability to prove to somebody you can do something, the ability the work for a week to make friends with people who could become your best friends, potential spouses, mentors, co-founders, etc. This binary thought of “never work for free” is crazy – trading your services for something in return happened long before currency hit the system.
When I say work for somebody you admire or someone at the top of the craft for free, I’m not saying “let Beyonce take advantage of you” or “let Joe the CEO take advantage of you”, I’m saying I genuinely believe you’re going to extract more value out of Beyonce from working for her for free than getting paid $41,000 at an entry level job at a music company.
Strategic free work is being self-aware enough to know why you’re doing it. You know that you want to be in the architecture industry, music industry, or media industry, and you know have something of value to bring (like understanding and executing on TikTok, for example), and you offer Tiktok content creation for the leading architects in the world.
Free work is also about putting yourself in the best position to succeed. Let’s say you want to be in the football business – and that you’re a content creator for Tom Brady. But your hope is that it will lead to some other opportunity in the industry down the road. After a while, you realize that it’s not going to happen – you don’t feel like you’re getting “value in return” because you’re not being introduced to others, not learning much, etc.
Good news is, you’re in control.
Literally a week later if you feel like the Tom Brady job isn’t going to lead to the opportunity you thought, you’re in control to leave. You’re also in control to persevere for another month and stay until everyone’s more comfortable and the kimono potentially opens up.
You’re in control. You’re in control of even considering this as a thesis – just like the people who are adamant that I’m a bad guy or that this bad advice. I’m empathetic to them. But I’m no more “right” than they are. For the individuals that read this article, you get to decide.
The demonization of free work or spec work is fine, it’s just something that I know thousands of people have used to become uncomfortably successful. And those are just the people I know of – which means many many more have.
People say that the ones who can do free work are privileged – I argue that the ones who fight against it are privileged and don’t realize how many people would just like a foot in the door. Those people who fight against it don’t realize how many people can never get a shot, and the aggressive, creative idea of “I’ll show you” is exactly how people who wouldn’t have had a shot actually started the process of getting the shot.
The post Like They Say, Nothing In Life Is Free appeared first on GaryVaynerchuk.com.
September 13, 2019
Your View of Money Changes After 35
How you think about money today is not likely how you’ll think about it tomorrow.
According to our Gary Vaynerchuk and a new study from CivicScience people’s perspective on money changes as they get older. In fact, those under the age of 35 are twice as likely to believe that money equals happiness.
Likewise,
Gary asserts that those under 30 are too often in a rush to chase money for material
possessions like BMWs, Rolex watches and vacations they believe will impress other
people.
“You will
never ever care about money the way you did before,” says Gary. “It won’t
happen … You get less fancy with your vision as you get older.”
Credit: Civic Science | https://civicscience.com/latest/
As people get older past 35, they start caring more about things like health, family, friendships, and their home life. These are the sorts of things that really impact happiness and how people define “success” over the long term.
The watches you buy won’t make you feel as nice in a decade.
Gary believes that happiness is the unlock over money. “I just want to chase happiness and put health on a crazy pedestal.” As a boy his great grandmother taught him a lesson he never forgot when she said, “if you got health, you’ve got wealth.”
It also explains
why, Gary says, some friends are truly happy and not wealthy, while others are
worth millions of dollars and are “miserable as fuck.” Too many people focus on
the money when it’s about doing what they want to be doing.
In the end …
“Money can’t
be the north star.”
@garyvee”
The post Your View of Money Changes After 35 appeared first on GaryVaynerchuk.com.
September 6, 2019
Join Team GaryVee: How To Make Instagram Content
On August 12th, 2019, I sent a voice memo to my team:
I wanted to find a way to add more post-production capabilities beyond what we have on our own team and empower content creators out there to just “make.”
So I came up with an idea:
#JoinTeamGaryVee – a way to open-source our content production to the entire Vaynernation.
Check out the announcement blog post for more context – below, you’ll find some guidelines and tips for making and submitting the best content for my Instagram.
Read carefully and save this article if you need to – even if you’re not planning on submitting content, there’s still a ton of value in here for those of you trying to grow your brands online
Join Team GaryVee: Where and How to Make Content for my Social Media Channels
Over the past several years, I’ve been going really hard at putting out content every day and documenting. In the process of doing that on my own (and then later with a big team) since ’06 with Wine Library TV, I’ve seen so many content creators put out amazing content without a lot of resources.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can support all the Drocks, the meme-makers, and amazing content creators to go out and “make” even more…
So on August 12th, 2019 I sent this voice note to my team:
I wanted to find a way to 1) empower creators to put out more content to grow their brands or their portfolio (like these fans have made in the past):
And 2) expand the post-production capabilities of our team given our incredibly large database of content (and how much we could be putting out).
So I came up with an idea:
#JoinTeamGaryVee – a way to open-source our content production to the entire Vaynernation.
Here’s how it works:
You’ll go through videos using my YouTube main channel, GaryVee TV, the GaryVee search engine, and the #JoinTeamGaryVee social channels for updates (keep reading for more info on all this).
If you’re a videographer or video editor, you can watch my videos on any topic, chop them up, and make the best 1-5-minute (or so) clips for my Instagram – all IGTV.
If you’re a designer, you can go through my videos, and design an image like this one based on a quote you liked.
You’ll submit your content through this link.
Here are a few tools and sites you can use to find the best content:
The GaryVee Search Engine
Using the updated GaryVee Search Engine, you can type in any word or phrase and find moments related to those terms from my entire database of video content.
For example if you want to make a video around the concept of patience, you can type in “patience” into the search engine:
Hit “search”, and you’ll see all the videos where I mentioned the word patience:
You can sort by relevance, newest video, or oldest video.
If you hit “watch” on any of the results, you’ll be taken straight to the exact moment in that video where I said those words.
You can use it to find different moments where I talk about specific topics like blockchain, regret, saving money to go on the offense, or anything else. Even if it’s super specific, like that time I talked about sending a Jay Cutler fan a gift when I worked at Wine Library. You can use it to make amazing videos and video mashups for Instagram.
YouTube Channel: GaryVee TV
If you’re not looking for a specific moment (i.e. if you just want to browse longer form content), you can browse videos on my second YouTube channel: GaryVee TV. That’s where my team posts things like longer form interviews, keynotes, and clips that aren’t on my main channel.
#JoinTeamGaryVee Social Channels
My team will also be uploading content on a brand new #JoinTeamGaryVee YouTube channel – we’ll be putting up announcements, updates, and special chunks of raw video footage for you to look through and edit into the best short Instagram clips. Make sure you follow the #JoinTeamGaryVee IG, Twitter, and YouTube.
Here’s what’s in it for you…
Once you feel good about your video or designed image, submit it through this link.
If end up posting it on my Instagram, I’ll tag your handle in it which would give you exposure to millions of people. It would be incredibly valuable for those of you trying to get video editing jobs, or just want something to add to your portfolio.
“Any tips for editing Instagram videos? What kind of things do you look for?”
I break everything down in this article:
Read it carefully and if you have any questions, hit up my team on Twitter @TeamGaryVee.
Excited to see what you come up with 
August 22, 2019
Announcing My Baseball Card Set With Topps!
I’ve teamed up with Topps to create my very own baseball card set!
It’s so fun for me to have this partnership – the 11-year-old me would not believe that this would have ever happened.
Topps DIRECT360 features designs, themes, and players that I felt reflect the concept of “living your hobby” – something you know I’m super passionate about if you follow my content.
There’s a little countdown timer on this page and once it runs out, the cards will be gone! Here are the details:
Collector’s Edition is guaranteed to include one autograph. That autograph could be mine or a player included in the autograph checklist. Base set is $20, no autograph. Both sets include 41 total cards and have the opportunity to win a GaryVee 360 Access Experience card. Those include:
2019 Topps Baseball Series 2 Box Autographed By MeGroup Dinner in NYC with MeOne-on-One Five minute video call with MeJoin Me in a Suite at an MLB Game in NYCCollection of GaryVee Books Autographed by Me
The complete set includes:
(14) Bowman by GaryVee Cards
Cole Roederer
Jordan Groshans
Jordyn Adams
Colton Welker
Casey Golden
Yordan Alvarez
Marco Luciano
Keston Hiura
Jo Adell
Casey Mize
Luis Alexander Basabe
Jarren Duran (first ever Bowman card!)
Luke Heyer (first ever Bowman card!)
Kelvin Gutierrez
(11) Live Your Hobby Cards
Mike Trout
Andrew McCutchen
Clayton Kershaw
Fernando Tatis Jr.
Didi Gregorius
Noah Syndergaard
CC Sabathia
Trevor May
Alex Bregman
Bryce Harper
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
(10) Wine Pairings Cards
Ronald Acuna
Nick Senzel
Pete Alonso
Eloy Jimenez
Shotei Ohtani
Aaron Judge
Cody Bellinger
Mookie Betts
Javier Baez
Christian Yelich
(6) Card Hunting Cards
Don Mattingly
Frank Thomas
Ricky Henderson
Dave Winfield
Darryl Strawberry
Vladimir Guerrero Sr.
The post Announcing My Baseball Card Set With Topps! appeared first on GaryVaynerchuk.com.
August 19, 2019
The Best LinkedIn B2B Marketing Strategies for 2019
There are massive opportunities on LinkedIn right now.
It’s available for everyone but especially for those in B2B – here’s why I think it’s probably the most important marketing channel in 2019:
LinkedIn started as a site for people looking to get a job or to fill a job. People used it for posting resumes, connecting with people they already knew, and finding jobs through people they knew.
Then, things started to change.
People started reaching out to make connections with people they didn’t know. It became a way to meet new people.
Now, LinkedIn is a content platform. This huge shift from one-to-one interactions to content publishing is pretty new for the platform.
And the organic reach is incredible right now.
The best way to grow on LinkedIn by 1) engaging with people and 2) publishing more content.
1. Engage
Engaging with other people puts you in a position where you become part of the community. There are a couple of ways to do this.
The $1.80 Strategy
Every day, find 90 LinkedIn posts that are relevant to your business and leave your “two cents” in the comments. 90 x .02 = $1.80.
The key here is that the comments can’t be bullshit spam. You need to actually consume the content you’re going to engage with, put some thought into it, and comment with enough substance that it will get someone’s attention.
Finding posts to engage with is easy.
First, follow people, influencers, and publications that are relevant to your space.You’ll start seeing their posts in your feed.
You can also search hashtags related to your industry and check out the posts that are attached to them.
The third way to find content to engage with is looking at the “today’s news and views” section, in the top right of your LinkedIn home page. If you click through those, you’ll see trending posts on each of the respective topics. You can then share your own POV, a relevant article, ask a question, or whatever—just get involved in the conversation.
The more thoughtful engagements you put out there, the more you’ll put yourself in a position to succeed. It’s not quick or easy in execution, but if you hit 90 engagements a day, I promise you will be flabbergasted by the upside you’ll see.
The High School Party Strategy
Think back to high school.
You probably knew someone who wasn’t quite one of the popular kids, originally, but managed to rise the ranks of popularity. One common way to do that was to throw a party.
The same strategy can work for B2B marketing on LinkedIn.
Host a small in-person event for people similar to the types of clients you’re targeting. You can fill the room by reaching out to people individually, targeting an ad to specific locations, or posting organically to leverage that reach we talked about. The important thing is that everyone gets together and they remember you as the one who organized it.
You will have a much easier time converting those people, and all of their connections, to clients in the future.
2. Publish and Promote
Producing and publishing content on LinkedIn right now is a huge opportunity – especially right now with the way LinkedIn’s organic reach is through the roof. Let’s talk about some of the best ways to do that.
Create and publish a “hero” video
This is one of the best, most efficient things you can do for your business.
A hero video is a signature video that’ll play a key role in defining what people think of your company. And if done right, it could change the trajectory of a business.
Dollar Shave Club is one of the best examples. Their “anchor” video went viral on social media, and resulted in 12,000 new signups in the first 48 hours after the debut.
Purple mattress did something similar with their video.
Check out this article for a full guide on how to create one: Why Every Small Business Should Have A Super Bowl Commercial.
Start a niche podcast
This is almost a virtual version of the “high school party” strategy and it has a few amazing benefits.
Number 1… if you’re putting out valuable content, you’ll build your reputation as a leader in the space. Everyone wants to do business with the top dog.
Second, you can actually invite the executives of the companies you want to work with to be guests on your podcast. They’ll be flattered. You get a valuable guest, and you’ll be stunned by how much easier it becomes to get their business down the line.
You can film the podcast and distribute it as a video on LinkedIn, just share the audio link in a text post format.
Be the “TV Show”, not the “commercials” on the TV show
What this means is… instead of trying to sell people on your product or business, bring them value through either entertainment or education.
Think about the type of content you like to consume. Chances are, it’s either entertaining you or educating you in some way.
There are just way too many people out there immediately trying to sell their products, especially on LinkedIn with spammy messages.
The way to stand out in 2019 is to start the process of building a relationship by providing value in the form of entertainment or education, build your reputation, and let people come to you instead of you chasing them.
The post The Best LinkedIn B2B Marketing Strategies for 2019 appeared first on GaryVaynerchuk.com.
August 2, 2019
5 Pieces of Career and Business Advice for 2019
This is one of my most talked about pieces of business advice that I get asked about constantly, and it makes sense why.
If someone in my company acts like a jerk to everyone they work with, here’s how I handle it:
First of all… I don’t “look the other way” even if they happen to be someone who’s crushing their numbers. To me, culture drives the organization at the core and if that’s ruined, nothing else matters.
Then, I sit down with them and try to have a conversation.
I take the blame first because it’s my company and every problem is my fault – I ask them what I’ve done wrong to put them in a position where they feel like they have to act that way. Are they not clicking with someone they’re working with? Is something going on at home? What am I missing?
I also spend 80% of our meeting trying to make them feel safe and penetrate any insecurities that might be the source of the issues.
Sometimes, the person will turn their behavior around in a couple of months. Other times, it’ll continue and I’ll let them go. If their bad behavior continues and you’re a CEO who keeps them around because they’re hitting their targets, you’re sending a clear message to other employees about what you really think about company culture.
2. Focus On Your Own Happiness More Than What Other People Think of You
There are so many people who hate their Mon-Fri and genuinely cheer for the weekend as soon as the week starts.
I have zero problem with people looking forward to the weekend, but if you dread Mon-Fri, why would you want to live your life that way? The truth is, if you factor out sleep, you basically live to work. It makes up the majority of your life. If you’re unhappy at work, then it’s time to take a step back and ask yourself what you’re actually doing — not by judging yourself or beating yourself up, but by thoughtfully analyzing what you could do to change your situation.
I want to make people realize that they should focus on maximizing their happiness, not necessarily the dollars to take an extra vacation a year, buying things out of insecurity or unhappiness, or pandering to other people’s opinions of you.
3. The Best Sales Strategy? Stop Trying to Sell the Unsellable
It’s been fascinating to see the evolution of how people interpret sales, especially since the rise of the internet.
But there is one huge mistake that I think many salespeople make – and that’s trying to “convince” people who don’t want to buy. They try to sell everyone instead of the people who actually want to be sold to. It’s a GIANT waste of time when you could be moving on and talking to more potential buyers.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk (@garyvee) on Jun 25, 2019 at 12:30pm PDT
4. Chase the Process, Not Just The End Result
If you love your process, you’ve already won.
I LOVE my process of business, I’ve often talked about my life goal of buying the NY Jets. But really it’s the journey that brings me happiness – a big reason why I picked that as a goal is because it’s such a big “North Star” for me to aim at. It allows me to continue doing what I love for a long time.
You need to figure out something that you enjoy doing so much, that just doing it makes you happy, not just the end result.
5. If You’re A Boss Realize You Work For Your Employees, Not the Other Way Around
This one hits close to home as a CEO and manager – really wish more people understood this:
I work for my employees. They don’t work for me.
Many people may think this is counterintuitive to being a “boss” but I actually believe that this is an incredibly important part of being a boss.
The owner of a business is entirely responsible for everything that happens under that umbrella, including the employees. If you don’t like how something is happening within your company or how employees are performing, it’s your processes or frameworks that created those issues in the first place.
Everyday I think about how I can put players in a position to succeed – that means delivering feedback with radical candor in a constructive way, observing everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, and understanding what everyone cares about at any given time.
The post 5 Pieces of Career and Business Advice for 2019 appeared first on GaryVaynerchuk.com.
