Gary Vaynerchuk's Blog, page 39
February 20, 2018
How To Use GIFs in Your Instagram Stories
You can now add GIFs to your Instagram Stories.
Guys, Instagram just launched an incredible new feature for marketers and storytellers. They now allow you to use GIF Stickers in your Instagram Stories.
Take Advantage of Instagram Updates in 2018
As we continue to watch Instagram and Facebook innovate, it’s important to understand why these companies actually succeed.
A number of social platforms like Vine, Twitter and Myspace, lost their competitive advantage when they lost the ability to rapidly improve and iterate on their product. They became romantic about 6 second video or 140 characters being the only way to communicate and eventually missed out on other opportunities to tell stories in new and interesting ways.
Instagram as a platform and product continues to impress me by adding features like text only stories and the ability to use GIFs inside Instagram Stories by accessing Giphy’s API of over 1 billion images.
As someone who is a practitioner of what I preach, I am always willing to taste, test, try and learn. As an entrepreneur and marketer, It’s important for me to tell you why and how you should be using Instagram Story GIFs.
How To Use GIF Stickers In Instagram Stories Using The New Giphy Update
The second my team and I saw the opportunity we’ve been creating and learning by going all in on producing more custom GIFs for Instagram Stories. I already have around 20 Instagram Story GIFs that are available to use:
I created a handful of other funny and tactical GIFs and I’m just getting started.
Here’s How to Find and Use Instagram Story GIFs
If you want to use the GIF stickers in your Instagram Story follow these steps.
Open Instagram Stories and record a video or take a photo
Click the GIF Sticker Icon
Search @GaryVee
Then select a GIF and post! Just like anything else, trying something when it’s new equates to underpriced attention. Because I am already making GIFs for Instagram stories, I consistently show up in searches for Entrepreneur, Hustle, Monday, and more.
I really think this has the potential to be used by millions of people inside Instagram’s community.
I love the feature and am going to keep creating more content for Instagram Story GIFs 
February 8, 2018
The K-Swiss GaryVee 001 “Crushing It!” Colorway is Coming!
As many of you know, I released my first ever pair of sneakers in collaboration with K-Swiss on November 14th, 2017.
Despite all of the doubt, VaynerNation showed up and the shoe was a success. I remember going into full customer support mode when K-Swiss’s website broke down at midnight during the launch
February 6, 2018
The Breakfast Club: GaryVee
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Gary Vaynerchuk is buying PureWow
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February 1, 2018
Post 4Ds: What Happened to TwoBlindBrothers Apparel After Spending a Day at VaynerMedia
This is an article series I have been wanting to do for a while, which is an in-depth testimonial and interview with attendees of VaynerMedia’s Daily Digital Deep Dive (4Ds).
My goal has always been to build my full-service creative agency, VaynerMedia, into a business where we say ‘yes!’ and provide value across the board. Our newest offering, The Daily Digital Deep Dive is a 1 day in depth consulting session created to do just that.
Over the past 8 years we have worked with companies large and small from AB InBev, Chase and GE to small 1-100M dollar SMB’s.
As the CEO of VaynerMedia, it has been an enormous goal of mine to be able to share this expertise and share the stories of other companies and entrepreneurs we have helped, from seasoned veterans to those just starting up.
Today’s interview is with Bradford Manning The Co-Founder of TwoBlindBrothers Apparel who attended the 4Ds on December 12.
TwoBlindBrothers is a one-of-a-kind apparel company that combats blindness through commerce, donating all of their proceeds to funding blindness research and being part of the cure. They have experienced enormous growth as a company appearing on Ellen, TED, CNBC and many major media outlets, being one of the fastest growing cause-based companies in the nation. With all of the overwhelming opportunity that has followed, Bradford and Byran have decided to go all-in on helping impact retinal disease research and fund cures. For this, they needed to leverage and grow their amazing brand.
Bradford, having consumed some of my content prior to attending the 4Ds recognized that VaynerMedia does things differently 
January 29, 2018
The Cream Rises To The Top in Coffee and in Personal Branding | Veecap
The reality of what you see in DailyVee as a vlog documenting my life is only 15 minutes of my 15 hour day. So a lot of the nuances and complexity of these meetings never actually get seen. After seeing a few comments on YouTube about my meeting with an employee bubbling up, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for this #VeeCap to highlight the unseen interactions that happen every single day as an entrepreneur.
I asked TeamGary to follow up with a VaynerMedia employee Andrea to gather more context on what was going on in order provide more value as a secondary piece of content.
Andrea has spent 3 years at VaynerMedia working as an Account Supervisor with clients like Mondelez, PepsiCo and GE.
But right now, and what you don’t know, is that she’s preparing to make the single biggest decision of her life. Andrea is leaving New York next week and her entire career in advertising. At 27, she has decided to sell everything she owns and travel the world!
It’s sounds like a crazy decision but one that is more common than you might think. As the CEO of an 800+ person digital agency, I have seen hundreds of people come and go. Some spin out to other agencies, others start their own business, and some even do the unexpected, like pack up and travel the world in pursuit of a new career.
Andrea is passionate about health and wellness with a specific interest in how to use our environment (i.e, natural foods) to heal our bodies.
After some traveling, she would love to work with people that are sick and help them make food choices that can reverse symptoms or, work with someone on the side of policy to change what kids are eating in schools.
If anyone in the VaynerNation thinks they can help, please hit her up on Insta and say hello.
She’s embarking on a new adventure and gathering inspiration for what’s next. The three minutes of the meeting you see in the episode, and the extended section below was a moment for us to say “goodbye” (although if things don’t work out I told her she will always have her position here) where she asked for some input and advice.
Where does she go? What does she do? How does she break through in such a complicated industry such as health and wellness?
I love this topic because it is so central to my core thesis on self-awareness, doubling down on your strengths and paying attention to what makes you pop. This may not be fully clear in the episode which is why I’m trying to expand through these articles but as a general piece of advice, no matter who you are or what you want, you need to “do you” and go all-fucking-in on the 1-2 things you are good at and can make money with and provide value through. As long as the intent is pure, you will win. I love that Andrea is investigating wellness, which is a massive industry, but when we spoke about what she should “do” and where to find the white-space, I reminded her to forget about the white spaces and forget about the margins where so many people spend too much time trying to be something they’re not.
Every world and every industry is going to be equally complex and I promise you the one area that you are going to excel is going to be predicated on where you have the most natural strengths.
This is what it means to let the cream rise to the top and a message I think is enormously valuable to those in business or trying to build a personal brand. The very first episode of WineLibraryTV I ever did, I dressed up in fancy clothes and spoke like I was at a country-club. 7 minutes later, I realized that this was going to be on the internet forever and if I wasn’t true to myself, I would have lived my life in regret. I knew for myself, that I had to be authentic and do what was right for me, by doubling down on what I believe in and utilizing my natural strengths as a communicator, even if that means going outside of the norm and talking about wine tasting like rocks and dirt. I felt infinitely more confident and happy because I was able to “do me” which made producing the show genuine and fun.
The other day when my videographer Babin asked me if I was worried about being “pigeon-holed” into just 1 thing, I responded with the simple truth that “you are what you are” and if you’re good enough, you will win.
I’m an entrepreneur who loves building businesses. I never limit myself because I just do what I am going to do. It doesn’t matter if I used to be the “wine guy.” The results are irrefutable and the cream rises to the top.
So I’m fascinated by the notion of being in a business where the cream rises to the top instead of the made up white-space that you aren’t really passionate about. You need to embrace your north star and go all in on the things that matter to you. There is plenty of white space in that to succeed and most importantly you are going to be happy with yourself because you are being authentic and staying in your lane.
When my team interviewed Andrea, this was her take away from the conversation:
“No one’s goal should ever be, “Let me identify the white space and fill that.” Your goal should be, “What do I wanna do? What am I passionate about? What am I good at?”, because you will inadvertently create your own white space if you do. I think what Gary was getting at is people can tell when you are truly authentic. If you’re really good, and if you’re better at X, Y, Z than someone else … You’ll shine. There could be 50 yoga studios or health and wellness practices in New York, but if you provide more value, and you live and breathe what you are doing, somehow the cream rises to the top.
Never base your ambitions off of what other people are doing. Don’t worry about how to catch them, or how to compete with them. And just be open to letting things naturally unfold.”
When we discussed whether or not Andrea thought this was a risk, this is what she had to say:
I’m 27, so you have to think about, how will this impact my career? I won’t have a 401K, I lose my health insurance. I know the advertising industry and it’s very secure and I can basically get a job anywhere I want. Working at VaynerMedia opens doors. My family and friends are here. It took me a long time to make the decision.
But what’s interesting and I think what ties back to Gary’s ideas is that I actually think it’s more risky to not do it, because then you will never know. When things are good, it makes it even harder to leave because it’s so easy to become complacent. It’s easy to not rock the boat. But if you don’t ever rock the boat, then you’re doing yourself a disservice, and you don’t learn and grow and evolve and change, and gain new perspective.
I’ve done a lot of that in New York, but I’ve plateaued here. I have to take that risk. I’m actually not scared. I feel like what scares me is being stagnant.
And maybe that’s the truth for you and maybe it’s not. Whatever the case may be, you also need to be empathetic to the individuals who want more security and structure and safety around what they are doing. But the reason why it’s important to me is that I always want to empower others to get “theirs.” Of course I support Andrea and think her version of happiness, which is predicated on taking “risk,” is great. That’s what she wants and that’s what I want for her. The biggest thing is to be self-aware. To love what you do and chase after what you really want. She’s the perfect example of it, and one story I’m glad myself and the team were able to expand on for all of you.
I hope you enjoy the episode and the clip of the full meeting below.
Location
VaynerMedia, New York City
Guest List
Ryan Serhant – The Million Dollar Listing
Gunna and his management crew
DailyVee 404
Full Meeting
Thanks for reading 
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The post The Cream Rises To The Top in Coffee and in Personal Branding | Veecap appeared first on GaryVaynerchuk.com.
