How to Win on Facebook and Social Media in 2025 | The 505 Podcast PART 2

0:00Something people might not know about you is that you've won the lottery a couple of times. yes share that story yes where did i just put that out was that in a what is that a daily v recently we got a we got a secret source by the way i've never won the big lotteries i have won the pick three in new jersey three numbers not the big six but here's what's crazy about this story so i've won the lottery twice in a in like a significant way for me at that age the first time I was 18 and I was thinking about my, I was living in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, thinking about Edison, New Jersey, where I grew up.

0:38And so much so that right before I went to my friend Brandon Warnicke's house, I stopped at the Crousers or the 7-Eleven and bought the phone number, pick three, pick four, 756-1407. And I'm watching, I'm literally at his house. I'm like, like let's put on New Jersey 12 or whatever where they do the lottery. And literally, 1407, I played it box, not straight, which means it could come out in any order. And it was like seven, four, one, and then I jumped up off the couch when it was the first three numbers. And like seven, four, one. If this is zero, I'm gonna shit my pants. Zero. Explode, get in the car and drive back to Crousers to cash in my tickets and won like, I think it was like 300 bucks a piece, it's like$3 ,000, which was like a billion dollars at the time.

1:27And then the other time I won was 963, another phone number of mine. And I watched it with my cousin Bobby. Basically, same story. I've literally won the lottery, pick three, pick four, three times in my life. I played it probably like 500 times because I did a lot from like 18 to 22. Because I was at the liquor store and before, like, you know, before the drawing, you're just at the cash register. Like, ah, let me put in a pick, right, right? I've won three times. I've watched myself win it twice. I've only watched the lotto on TV like five times. It's super wild. That is nuts. That's so funny.

2:05You preach so much about patience, but I feel like you move quite fast. Yes. Macro patience, micro speed. Okay. At the level that this company is at right now, you have a thousand employees across different countries. 2 ,500. 2 ,500. Okay. 2 ,500 employees across different countries. how do you still get them moving quickly on the things that are on social that are literally 72 hours it's over like how does that work now that it's grown to this size we have a team internally and i myself still every day if i see something so for example i realized one second videos on facebook crushed instead of a photo like today like today still works you should do this okay if you post photos on facebook don't make it a photo make it a one second video it will get dramatically more reach.

2:52I will literally, when I'm like, wait a minute, this is working for me, then I'll go check Wine Library, like I'll check five, seven sources. When I'm firm, I will literally go to my inbox, go to team at VaynerX and literally email the entire company. Mike, right? I will literally randomly email every employee and the best part of it, all of what I have to say is in the headline, right? no grammar misspellings 30 of the company just started so they don't know how to like read gary so they're like what the fuck did he say and i'll just be like yo one second and that's still family business for me even though we're a corporation now i run it and i live it and i feel it like it's like a mom and pop thing okay now what is what does that mean to other people that are working at you know starting their companies i have like a three-person company so we're trying to you know trying to make it yeah culture as we build it up so i'm curious yeah i mean think rule one is like don't be a dick like nobody you got to work on that yeah yeah like it's real though like like you know what's funny about that like i think you guys will appreciate this like don't be insecure the only reason people are assholes is because they're insecure like yes we're aware that like like kudos to you that you're like do you know what big of a deal it is to get the three employees like i'm impressed by that in reverse don't don't do that like don't think you're somebody like humility is the fucking best you know like be nice like over communicate at three people at 10 people at 20 people everybody should know you inside out when we had 50 to 100 people i knew everything about everybody i knew everything about everything like we were all fucking in it how many people are now here in the ny office well since we're post COVID we've out we have how many are supposed to be here yeah like 1100 how many are here 500 we have to we have we don't have every day everyone in because we're out of real estate we have to like address that next year wow yeah that's gonna be crazy what Brayden forgot to tell you is that it was at six but because he's being a dick it's actually at three it's not true this is bullshit I would really say that you have to understand the following the number one way to build something big is to make the first 10 employees family now that doesn't mean over like in fact you should be firing a lot to get to 10 because you're you know you're you're hacking it when you're little are you were you trying to find people early on that were specialists or swiss army knives and then nobody knew anything about anything okay back then but now let's let's use now today yeah is I'm a tip specialist.

5:31Now I'd say it's so big. But at the time I was double fucked because I needed generalists, but nobody knew anything. I was just hiring kids and teaching them. I was paying people to teach them. If you talk to, if you literally, literally, literally, if you go to the people that worked at Vayner in 2011, 12, 13, deep down they'll tell you, I fucking got lucky. I fucking got paid. And like, I got paid, and this was 2012, like people were getting paid 40K, 50K, it was a lot like those numbers, but they're like, I got paid to like launch my career because by being at Vayner for those years, I became the expert of social and look, I'm now the VP of this or the SVP.

6:18Like you go look at the LinkedIn profiles of the people that were here, 11, 12, 13, 14, like people are CMOs of fucking Fortune 5 ,000 companies. CMOs. How would you seek out these great people that were at other companies to come help build what you wanted to build here and build this vision? Word of mouth of people as we started growing, like we'd hire somebody from an agency. If they were good, I'd be like, yo, who else is like you? Start to build it up. And what's the cost of bringing on maybe a B or C tier player versus spending the extra money and bringing on that A player who really knows their shit?

6:53It depends. For us, it was unique. Nobody knew. So I was looking for A personality, A work ethic, A like homie, like your brother and sister and cousin. In fact, everybody who was supposed to be an A player agency-wise that I brought in all failed. They were too bougie. They were too in the old school. They were lazy. They were sizzle, not steak. I'm obsessed with being B player in like skill and like brain firepower and a fucking down for the cause. Yeah. I love that. You know what I mean? Is it still right now in your opinion, posting great content at scale? Is that the game? Is that what we're in?

7:38Yes. Okay. And what would you say to somebody who's like, I'm only dialed. And by the way, great content isn't judged by you. it's judged by the organic views achieved not you spent money on paid media to amplify and like it got nine million views i'm like no it didn't you paid for nine million views it got is organic and that's where people get fucked up go ahead you brought up that you have to be really good and dialed on every social media to be great there's people who are like really good and dialed on one maybe two like you said instagram and tiktok is the excuse of oh maybe we don't have enough time or we just don't get the other ones is that just an excuse like you're just like you just don't want to be that good i mean or you're content sure yeah you're making money you're good yeah but like it this is the like zucks movie like you know what's better than a million dollars a billion dollars like if like okay i'm glad you have a million followers on tiktok and instagram you know what else would be awesome a million on linkedin and two million on YouTube and 500 ,000 on fucking X and 750 ,000 on snap like why not what are your thoughts on his little speech that just came out talking about how they want to be one-stop shop they want you to come to meta and do everything for you I'm just curious I said should no I know but I'm saying as far as like ad agency land goes he's like it felt like that video he was like I'm we're gonna do everything and even though they still have people running their ads I was just curious what your thoughts were if you saw what I'm talking about no I didn't see Mark Zuckerberg saying I'm trying to put you out of business no but he just made this video and I had saw like a lot of people on LinkedIn and marketing space we're talking about this or like how's this gonna affect agencies I'm just kind of curious what your thoughts are that that he should do that Mark's job is to get every dollar for his company and you'll ever the agencies will adapt the best ones yes which means there shouldn't be that many left just Yeah, because I'm willing to sell hot dogs.

9:39Like Mark's job is to do that. And my job is to make sure I have a good company. And Meta's very important, Facebook and Instagram. But so is event marketing. So is influencer marketing. So is being on top of culture. Like teaching brands that they should do brand deals with Siegelman Stables is a$100 million agency in itself. Right? Like, so I have to have, so we're a leader in culture strategy. Like, do brands know that the FaZe Clan is about to have another moment because they're building back up or don't they? Probably not. Right? Yeah. There's also live social shopping. Yeah, which you've been big on.

10:21Right. Meta's nowhere on that. Zuck should be doing that too, but they're all focused on AI now as they should be. Live social shopping is a fucking pimp on the ass of AI. So what do I think about that? I think that makes sense to me and they should. and Google should be trying to do that and like they're all fighting and we're all fighting. This is fucking entrepreneurship and business. What do I think about it? I think I'm not like everybody else that says oh they can't and that won't work and fuck Facebook and I don't think of those terms like Mazel Tov good for you. I better fucking pay attention because you guys aren't fucking around and I better make sure that I have a ton of value.

10:57I have like 37 things I'm working on to offset what AI could do to us. Like actually. Talk to me a little bit about that. Like what are some of the things? Because obviously I know you guys are integrating it if you can, if it's like allowed or like, I don't know. Of course. Focusing on things that are not AI oriented, experiential. Like I think event marketing is massive. Cultural. I just gave you two of them. A third one is becoming JV departments. Meaning literally Vayner is half your marketing department, my employees, and the other half is your employees and I train all the employees. so like literally becoming the marketing department for everyone we call that vayner colab it's very clever colab plus colab yeah yeah yeah so we do that for a lot of clients so if we're we're your marketing department and we all use ai so like whatever you know tons of things what about being in the culture like you just brought up face clan right do you think AI will ever get to a point where it's like it can detect other do you just kind of got to be in the course it can detect it you can literally go to chat gbt right now and be like like which IRL live streamers are most popping off not named Kai Sinet and Aiden Ross like AI is my partner in in this work because just information yeah I still have to be smart enough to prompt engineer I still have to know who the fuck Kai Sinet and fucking Aiden Ross is to ask that question Yeah.

12:25Kids know that shit. CMOs don't know that shit. Yeah. 100%. Early days when you were in these meetings and you're pitching them, what would you say when you're batting against companies that were much bigger than you guys? I didn't even think about them. We were charging$5 ,000 a month. We were trying to get$60 ,000 a year. When the companies that I've now become bigger than were getting paid$8 million a year. Wow. Okay. What does it look like now? If a company comes to you, what are you trying to do for them? I'm like, what is the pitch that you would like? In a perfect world, they pick everything.

12:57They're like, we want to do it all. What does that look like? Basically, our thesis is very simple. I do not want you to waste money on marketing anymore, either on the media side or the creative side. Here is how you should do that. You should work with us. The end. Straight and simple to the point. Straight and simple. To your point, if they're like, all right, Gary, but we can't do everything with you. I'm like, give me social, creative, and media because that is the game. It's still all social. It's not even, but you have to understand for Fortune 5000, it's just becoming social. Yeah, they're just starting to take away from broadcasts.

13:33Just starting to realize they should spend more on social. That's right. You're obviously talking about content at scale. That's how you win. But if you don't have a great strategy, do you think that content at scale just leads to quicker failure? You're just like - Sure, but strategy comes in shapes and sizes. Sure. Like what's my strategy with BeFriends? My strategy with V friends is to get every single human being on earth to know what V friends are Right so like you talked about that you said you're like I'm willing to do 9 10 11 people I don't care. I will yeah, we love that You're like I'm gonna fight for these five or ten people today.

14:09I'm getting 14 new fans You know, that's real shit to me. So like what's my strategy? My strategy is scaled awareness You know, that's very broad underneath that it's like okay I know I can crush with 15 to 45 year old dudes because that's my demo collectors like it all gets nuanced underneath there but yeah I mean if you don't know what the fuck you're doing you've lost and so like but strategy comes in all shapes and sizes macro what are you trying to accomplish you know most corporations don't have strategy because they're just trying to hit numbers to not get fired or entrepreneurs and creators are the reverse they're just trying to make money fast god it's so it's so interesting it's right such an interesting game that people are playing you brought up a niche and and everyone's doing it yeah that's like and i'm right yeah like you know what i mean like by the way some people will make fast money but fast money is vulnerable have you seen other 25 year old dudes make fast money yeah they go into a bad place they fuck like crazy they they buy dumb shit like crazy and then they're 28 and in a ditch mentally i don't want that for my boy like i i like it up front like it's fun for a second but like that fun goes away quick people don't get it people don't get it by the way i think sometimes people think i don't get it they're like you don't want to have fun i'm like that's not what i'm saying in fact for all the dudes that are listening if you go nice and slow and build it properly you will have unlimited fun 100 you said you there was a video nine years ago that costas pulled up and it was about like college graduation we both we both had seen it college or college people are getting ready to graduate right now i was wearing a white t-shirt in that one that was my first video i ever came across it by the way you and many that was a in the parking lot i was like d-rock stop i just had a fucking jolt like one of those moments i knew it while i was making it i'm like this is gonna change shit for me and it did it was one of my most viral videos of all time what would you say to these college seniors getting ready to graduate right now same shit by the way i ran that video the other day and everyone's like this is so because it's true which is for everyone who hasn't seen it 22 to 30 is when you go high risk and dream everybody tells you that now you're grown go get a real job that's insane 23 year old dudes and ladies is when you can have four roommates and eat ramen and you have no kids or spouse to worry about and mommy and daddy are still kind of around kind of something, you know what I'm saying?

16:39Meaning like, even if they're not financially helping you, which they shouldn't be, but I know a lot of you get paid by your parents, even though you're grown, they're at least there. You know what I mean? At least you could crash it. Like at least you could live, like I see no downside in living with your parents at 25 to chase your dream. You want to be a fucking actor. You want to be a fucking, you know, you want to be a fucking influencer. Like 22 to 30 is when you go crazy high risk. After, now, if you do it on your own dime, if mommy and daddy are paying for everything, then you're a fucking loser.

17:09But if you do it on your own two feet, living humbly, going hard, then at 30, if you didn't pull it off, if you didn't become fucking Brad Pitt, if you didn't become Mr. Beast, if you didn't become fucking Zucks, then you go work for an insurance company. People have it so wrong. 22 to 30 should be when you go crazy. Now that video was, it was, I called Babin when I was quitting my job at the Lakers and I was like, I need some advice. And he's like, you've called me last year at the same time. I was like, you know what you gotta do. And I had seen your video recently when I was quitting like a year ago.

17:41And it's crazy because obviously we never met. And like the impact you can have on someone from never even seeing them is nuts. I feel like with social. That sentence that you just delivered is single-handedly why I continue to make content. If that sentence wasn't the biggest thing I believe in the world, I would never be a public figure. Just to remind you, like, that's not what I was chasing. I was 31 and I was like, I better make some wine videos to sell wine. This YouTube thing is the next email, Google AdWords website. I was just following what I'd always done. 97, I launched a website. That was insane.

18:2098, I'm email marketing. What? Everything was direct mail, newspaper, and catalogs. 2001, I bet the farm on Google AdWords. What? Didn't exist one minute ago. 2003, blogging comes along. Oh, fuck, I can't write. I had to sit on my hands. It was devastating. 2003 to 2005 was the toughest time for me in my career. 2003 to 5? 3 to 5. Blogging had exploded. I knew it was going to be huge, but I couldn't write. Hey, man, if you had chat in your corner. But how cool is that, right? Yeah, that's crazy. The one chapter when there was something that was happening in my entire career that I wasn't on, it was blogging.

18:57Wow. That's why I went so hard on blogging because I was like, video I can do. You can do video? I can talk. I just can't write. That was it. And so, and I had no money back then. I couldn't hire someone to write for me. Yeah. You briefly mentioned it earlier about changing up your YouTube strategy. So now I'm curious going into these next six, 12 months. What do you think is the most important thing that you need to be focusing on for Gary Vee? Overall? Let's go overall. Let me go with overall. Because you're going to really be blown away by my first answer. Okay. Actually going back to being Gary Vee.

19:29Okay. I've been checked out of Gary Vee land for two years. I've been head down VaynerX V Friends in fact even doing this podcast is me coming back like even what you guys clearly like DailyVee being back like I haven't done that in years post Labor Day I'm rising like a phoenix I'm doing Tea with GaryVee everyday I'm doing a new podcast show I'm doing IRL streaming everyday I'm gonna be on tons of podcasts I'm gonna be fucking everywhere. I love it. So the entire answer to your question is coming back to being primary Gary Vee. Secondarily, I am the godfather architect of the document don't create, right?

20:19So that was like such breakthrough ideas, right? Like film everything and right? 2026 Gary is produced with purpose and document don't create. So in 2026, I will make content around something I care about. I care about AI influencers. Instead of random clips of me mentioning it, we're going to make a proper 12-minute video where I really make a fucking video. With the AI influencer topic, do you feel like... I know all of us here have seen a video, and it's been an AI person. We haven't known it. Yes. But let me ask you this. In like a few months, do you feel like maybe the verification badge will be blue with a green if you're a real person?

21:01And do you think that when that happens, that as soon as you see that green thing, or like purple thing, if it's AI person, do you feel like that starts to happen where people just swipe right by? No. You don't think so? No. Okay, why? Because I think we just care about liking shit as humans. Go deeper on that. I think 50 to 60 % in year one of that world, if that was true, would completely swipe by it because they have an ideology. Yeah, agreed. And I think the other 30 to 40 % would be like, I don't give a fuck. that person's hot or that was interesting or i'm curious about that belt or i i laugh at the same jokes they're not going to give a fuck i don't give a fuck yeah how about that yeah like guys most of the content we consume is not just about the human being the fuck are you watching star wars for that's acting yeah why are you reading information those are words i don't give a people People are over ideologizing the delivery mechanism.

22:02I don't care if it's you or you that decided to make an AI squirrel to tell me about how to share. So our whole thing is like the 505 pod. We're rocks. Like our listeners are all rocks. You think we should make a little rock that like talks? And he's like telling information about the videos and shit. I do. And I'll tell you why. Okay, go. That intellectual property is worth more. I own the one-handed crack, by the way. I do own that. I own 505rocks.com, too. Yeah, I love it. I had a bunch of random ones with rock in it. I want to take it back to another old YouTube video that you made, and it was about when you turned 32 on your 32nd birthday.

22:41You said, I fucking hate the number 32. I thought it was so funny. You're like, 32 sucks. It's the first number that gets cut off the calendar. Like, fuck that. but in that video you had a real like sense of discernment where you're like i'm just not where i want to be yet and it almost felt like the the the conversations you've had with so many people saying you're so young patience practice that in that moment it almost felt like you had the opposite mindset of like i'm 32 i'm getting older i still have so much that i need to accomplish it actually different but it's a good observation and i'm sure there's some percentage but i was there and i know not really what was going on with that kid that you saw was that was the pre-dawn of me being the 34 year old version gary v coming all out i was stuck with the situation i had with my dad i was 32 and i was like fuck man i just spent a decade building this massive business and gave up my personal time.

23:45When I tell you I did nothing fun in my 20s, I did nothing fun. I maintained girlfriends just to literally almost have someone there when I came home. I was in a place where I was so obsessed with putting my parents on, which was awesome, to about 30. And then I was like, to 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, that era. I was like, fuck, man. like I got to get going but it wasn't out of like me being impatient. It was about me being overly patient and what you saw in that video or felt was I was already like I'm coming. Like I already, like in fact, notice in this interview I said I didn't make business content or do it until 34 but to your point, there were a couple of stagglers of those one-off videos, Gary V 180 or like Ustream video.

24:39There's like this period between 30 and 34 where I made these one-off, there's like 13 of them. Yeah. These one-off videos that were not about wine and that guy was starting the process of me going to what you know today. Yeah. And that's what you felt. Gotcha. I just thought it was so interesting because. And by the way, do not mix up patience with hunger and ambition. I am hungry as fuck. I'm ambitious as fuck. That's what you saw in that kid's eyes. You can be both. I think people when they hear me say be patient, they hear me say be lazy and complacent. There's a reason that they're not the same words.

25:18Go to the fucking dictionary. Patience, complacency, and laziness are not defined the same way. I believe the friction between ultimate hunger and fire and actual patience leads to the greatest fucking bridge. And I think a lot of motherfuckers that hear me are like, he's saying for me to be complacent or yeah I don't have to work yet I'm not saying that work your fucking dick off but don't judge yourself when you only get nine views absolutely and don't have envy and jealousy of some 27 year old who's got 10 million that has nothing guys every 26 to 29 year old that has a ton more money fame and success than you has nothing to do with you literally nothing nothing none of those people are taking away your opportunity it's you versus you yeah you can we can all get a slice of the pie the pie is unlimited endless it's infinite i hate when people like oh that guy's taking like people that guy got my spotter that guy's that guy copied my content i'm like motherfucker you copied someone else's content the are you talking about oh like people are always like i'm like motherfucker you know how many gary v's are out there there's so many like the whole game yeah Not because I'm brilliant, I just happen to be there first.

26:35That's all. There's plenty of Gary V's before me. They just did it on radio or television. It's just the way it worked out. Absolutely. I've watched people use, what's worked for me is I make up shit. I'm so weird. My reading comprehension's so bad. I am so weird in that I know stuff, but I don't know the actual way to say it. and so I came up with so much my own vernacular and then I just watch people like use that vernacular but I don't sit around like all these fuckers everyone said like oh I watch people the TikTokification of like you know like stuff like that I don't get upset I'm flattered I'm flattered you're like the homie that you hang around and you start picking up on their jargon by the way in real life I'm that person I started for and by the way I started saying heard instead of got it.

27:30Now like just all my whole world, everyone's like heard. And everybody like comes into it. They're like, what is this shit? I'm like, but by the way, I do not believe I was the person that invented heard. I'm sure I subconsciously heard someone say it. Like the audacity to think you're the one. By the way, when I said earlier, everyone's like, but Gary Vee's a Zay Frank or a Rocket Boom or even a Dane Cook and Tila Tequila. Throwback. Right? So like I don't think I invented anything. I think I've added my variation like we all have because I'm uniquely me. But man, people are audacious out here.

28:08Insecure. They really are? They really are. Like I watch everybody move because I spend a lot of time watching people move. I'm at events where I'm like staying in line because I don't even give a fuck. And like people going in front of the line like, I have 80 ,000 TikTok followers. I'm like man people are fucking emotionally broke lack of humility is destroying a generation yeah 100p well you're doing good getting them back on it with your content so I have two more for you we're going to get you out of here on time I want to know about the platforms you want to spend the most attention on right now like what are they list them for me that's a really good question me or what I want all of you to do me me I already alluded to i've got to get much more serious of my youtube and my podcast okay because i've come those require production and more meaningful thought i took my social media excellence and i bled it into my youtube proper and and and podcast and that hurt me there so i gary have to do better at that in a world where many of you got that right so i've got to do better with that in 26 okay and live streaming okay give me the other platforms It was real quick for other people.

29:24Other people, it is a Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts. Still Shorts, okay. Shorts, Snap Spotlight is a monster for people. Really? Yeah, because no one's fucking with it and there's a lot of attention there. Okay. Here's how it works. An 18 year old that you're all trying to get on TikTok and Instagram, they're messaging on Snap. They're not looking at Spotlight often, but just enough that there's so much attention there and no one's fucking there. Okay, I love it. Twitter X is a monster. Monster. And a lot more people should be IRLing. And then finally, here's a good one.

30:04Actually, I'm so glad. I would have not. I'm so pumped right now. Everyone who's listening, this kind of audience, all of you have to give a real try. Oh, this is gonna be so good. Ready? Many of you who are listening right now will never become me. And you're trying to be. And I don't say that because I think I'm cool, I'm going to say something important. Many people listening right now are destined to be hundreds of thousands of followers, not tens of millions, which is still remarkable. But a lot of people here who are trying to have millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions and are destined to fall short and will not win and then have to get regular jobs, if they start live social shopping, will be able to make millions of dollars selling stuff on whatnot and TikTok shop and all the future platforms.

30:49So I think there's a whole group. I think 80 % of people listening right now are 43K, 113K, 400K. We'll never get to like the millions of dollars a year they're trying to get to being just an influencer, but actually have salesmanship in you. If you've ever sold blow pops or candy or t-shirts or DVDs, if you sell and you're an influencer, immediately get your ass to Whatnot and TikTok shop and start selling shit. Selling things that like you buy on TikTok shop and then, right? Well, that's affiliate. You're saying build your brand off of that. Yeah, I'm saying for you, you guys should literally sell a pet rock on whatnot and TikTok shop and just see how it goes.

31:31I don't know if you guys are salesmen or not, but there are a lot of people listening right now. You know who's a good demo for this? Pretty girl culture. Pretty girl culture. You look at pharmaceutical sales and real estate. There's a lot of young women right now who are attractive and they feel like that's going to get them there and it needs more but they happen to be good at sales. And there was a whole generation pre-internet that those pretty girls went into real estate and pharmaceutical sales. I think a lot of these girls are not going to get to that place and instead of going OnlyFans because that's the easy way, I think the other thing to consider is live social shopping.

32:08I love it.