This December our MD, Jodie, went along to Vaynerworld in London to meet Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary Vee (as he’s affectionately/more simply known) is perhaps one of the globe’s most well known social media marketers so Jodie made the trip to see him in person…

And here’s the proof!

Gary Vee: Social media expert

During three webinar recordings and a Q&A session, we picked up some of the following things from the man himself, regarding his book and his thoughts in general. His words are emboldened.

“Jab, jab, jab, right hook is an analogy for ‘give, give, give, ask’.”

This mantra should underpin all social media activity. No needless self-promotion, it’s all about giving value to your audience before asking for anything (the sell!).

 

“I’m not interested in convincing people to spend their money with me, I’d rather spend those three hours finding 30 other people who want to”

This is about sales and business building! Why waste time on people who you have to convince when you could be finding people who are more willing?

 

“Convenience will trump privacy any day of the week – two extra steps to make something private won’t happen”

As much as people may want their lives to remain private, their need for quick and easy access to facilities will trump this. If a platform makes you search around too much to make something private then most people won’t do it out of convenience. We are every much in an era of impatience.

 

“I like being tracked, it’s giving me a better experience”

Here, Gary is talking about the fact that websites and social media platforms now know exactly what you’re doing and what you’ve done and so they tailor advertisements to your interests. Gary said he likes being tracked online because he get targeted ads on wine and Lionel Richie (his interests!)

 

“Crime is down because the shadows of privacy are going”

Gary explained that everything is in the spotlight now, so it’s harder for people to hide any mis-doings – not least because everyone’s phone tracks where they are every second of the day!

 

“I know everything I say is on video and that makes me a better person”

People are much more aware of what they say, as there will always be others who can listen or read what they’re saying. Now people are more careful with what they say and how they say it, so as to not offend others and to not make themselves look stupid. For Gary it’s about leaving a legacy, about knowing that his great great granddaughter will watch his videos and read his blogs.

 

“For every instagrams there’s a tonne of instashits”

This is about thousands of companies being set up each year but only the ones that are properly executed being successful, like Instagram (which sold for $1billion).

 

“I would rather someone rolled up to me, stabbed me in the chest and stole my wallet, than took my mobile phone away”

People put huge value on their mobile phones. They are often a storage facility for memories (photos, videos, music) and their ‘umbilical cord’ to the rest of the world. Our phones now hold a great deal of our private lives. There is a huge sense of vulnerability and exposure that comes when all of this is lost or taken from us. Cards can be replaced, memories can’t.

 

“How many people, by show of hands, every 24 hours even when they’re asleep are never out of arms reach of their phone?” (unanimous show of hands)

Today’s culture of staying connected to the online world means that phones have become a prominent tool in daily function, including access to information and people as well as the more mundane services that phones provide (camera, alarm clock, mp3 player)

 

“Michelin invented their restaurant rating system to get people to drive further – they fixed their business problem of people not wearing out their tyres fast enough by getting them to drive more!”

This is about solving business problems by asking the simple questions. Michelin wanted to know ‘how do we make people drive further’ [so they’ll need new tyres quicker] they then created the Michelin guide which saw them rating restaurants and putting together a list of the best, thus getting people to go and visit them by car. Genius!

 

“Twitter is the only social network, everything else is a content platform.”

I love this quote. Much more conversation both between friends or between an individual and a group/brand now take place on Twitter. The ability to interact with anyone and everyone facilitates this. Facebook and the other platforms do not facilitate interaction like Twitter.

 

“Charities are even worse at right hooks” 

Every other tweet a charity posts is a right hook, a plea for a donation, but really charities can use emotion as a huge seller, and create stories around the amazing work that they do.

 

“People will approach us with only a month to go until an event… and I say it’s too late!”

This is about social media being a maratho, not a sprint, and about how people will enlist social media help with only a month to go until their event, when really it needs to start much further in advance so they can create stories (jabs), and build interest, before the event invitation (right hook) actually happens.

 

Gary Vee is the author of some amazing social media books and we profile him in our blog about every book a social media marketer should read.