Paid Ads, AI, and Organic Social Content — What Actually Works Now

24:11By the way, I'm gonna say something profound. How many people here saw Star Wars a little bit? Just raise your hand if you know Star Wars. Actually, watch the first Star Wars. Star Wars 1, the 70s one, Well, not episode one, the Jar Jar bullshit. The first one. Raise your hand if you see them in the first Star Wars. I will tell you, four, exactly. I will tell you, that's right, sir. That's exactly right. I will tell you, this is really deep. I'm just, I don't know if I've ever shared this. I don't know why, but even as a child, Obi-Wan getting killed by Darth Vader felt weird to me in like a good way.

24:49this is getting super weird just stick with me I don't like when people have an ideology but then change their opinion on it when they get hurt if AI puts me out I'm gonna be happy I'm gonna be Obi-Wan I was an old Jedi and it was time for me to get killed

25:16if you believe in the game if you believe in the principles of capitalism and democracy and the merit and no eighth place trophies you have to be prepared to die you can't cry about the new thing because it's going to screw you up or you're tired and so I'm ready for it I'm ready to fight it doesn't matter that I've been good and right for 30 years but I'm not going to cry about AI because I'm a real one

25:50and I think you should all stop being scared of it and crying I think you should understand how to use it you're not going to be put out of business by AI you're going to be put out of business by someone who uses AI better than you Yeah.

26:05So true, the architect. It's a weapon.

26:11Let's talk about the AI tools. Let's talk about the ChatGBTs, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude. I hear you talk about ChatGBT a bunch. Do you test the others? All of them. And what do you, when you're testing them, what are you looking for on that to see? The results. The results. The results. How good is the information I got on the other side, from my opinion. If you want to test different AIs, test it with things you really know. I really know the New York Jets. I really know a lot about wine. I grew up in that business. I know a lot about marketing. Make sure you test with things you know, because that will be how you can quickly get a feel.

26:51Go to your real interest or knowledge bases on your testing. But just testing the results. but my long-term view on this is a little nerdy. I don't know if anybody here grew up in big data but big data seemed like a big competitive advantage 10 years ago and then everybody realized well all the other big companies have it too and it's actually a commodity. I actually think the LLMs that everyone's trying to figure out right now, which who's gonna have it better? I don't think this is a Google search game where there's a winner takes all. I think there's gonna be commoditized Apple and Microsoft and like Google and Facebook and Chinese companies.

27:24I think there's gonna be a lot of strong LLMs and I think it actually gets commoditized over the next decade. In the short term, there's a lot of value in it, but I think AI is gonna, especially with AI startups, there's gonna be a lot of lost money because it's similar to Web1, Web2, the crypto booms. People get very caught up, but then a lot of things get commoditized. So as builders in AI and as investors in AI, just gotta be very thoughtful. don't get seduced by the moment where you feel like you got it. Everybody's gonna have it. And then what happens? And you gotta be very strategic, which is why I think brand is gonna matter quite a bit in an AI world.

28:06Reputation. That's why I want people to build their personal brand. I think those things are gonna matter. How often do you test them? We're big in our office. We push our people to use AI every day. Do you test Gemini? Do you test it daily? Yes. Because sometimes I'm busy and I won't test something new, but on a flight here, me and my brother looked at six different new things. It's also coming out every day. You don't have to test, I don't have to test the big ones that often. Once you test Perplexity or Gemini or OpenAI and ChatGPT, I'm testing the derivatives, these small startups that are building apps, trying to figure out who's moving fast, but the speed in which you can close the gap on a startup.

28:53When I invested in Twitter in 2006, seven, excuse me, I was like, okay, it'll take somebody a year and a half to build a competitive product to this. We have some great AI companies here. I know it's not lost on them. They're too smart. They're like, that app can be replicated pretty quickly. And I think, so that's why I think brand and other things are gonna be the moat, not the technology. You build an awesome app. If someone's looking to compete with you, they can look at it and pretty much replicate it for nothing because copiolating is here. We all told every kid to be a coder. Unless you're one of the best coders in the world, the rest of the market is getting commoditized.

29:29Being an average coder is now the worst job to have. You better be an electrician. Yeah, electricians are about to cook. It's true, electricians are about to do super well. The amount of electricians we need to stand up the infrastructure for AI and electricity. Like literally, if you have like a, if you have a bozo kid in school right now, and he's like 15, you're like, what are we gonna do with it? Make him an electrician. If he's great with, or she's great with their hands, I'm not kidding. It is, the numbers are staggering on conservative estimates. And that's just amazing, isn't it? How crazy the world works?

30:09Who would, especially with the way the world's been, who could have ever thought that electricians we're gonna be the heavy six figure compensated. And I love that, right? We had the rise of white collar. I think we're about to have the amazing rise of blue collar because of the infrastructures. And I think that's awesome. Like, and then someone's gonna cry about it. But Gary, I went to Yale and I made, I have so much debt and now my bozo buddy who just drank beers and did keg stands makes 500K being an electrician, I can't get a job. I'm like, that's the game. You should have been born 30 years ago.

30:43You know, just the way it works. Just the way it works. It's our job to adjust to the reality of what's happening versus having an ideology of how it should be that benefits us. And that is the breakthrough, right? I appreciate that, Kel. That is the line. Our job as parents, as humans, as American citizens, as entrepreneurs, as bosses, as leaders, is to adjust to what's actually happening versus wanting it to be a certain way on an ideology that has self-interest to us. That's good. I think so. I think that's the mindset of a true leader, entrepreneur, winner, man.

31:32You know, there's some real stuff coming, brother. It's changing. Yeah, like I'll give you an example. I love hard work more than anything. I can clearly see two three day work weeks in an AI world in 20 years. I'm not gonna cry about that. Like I got 3 ,500 employees in my marketing company. It's like you try to get someone to come to the office five days a week, it's like I'm more likely gonna win the lottery. I don't cry about that. It just is. I can adjust to it. I can hire people who do wanna do that. And then the people that don't wanna do that, like why didn't you get the job? Because I didn't, you didn't want to.

32:15Like it just, that's the game, you know? We've said that in our office. I stuck with four day work weeks, not two to three. That's 20 % off the norm. And people are complaining about that. And they're allowed, by the way, they're allowed. I'm on both sides of this. I have a bunch of CEOs and owners and entrepreneurs like these kids don't wanna work five days a week. I'm like why would they wanna work for you for$70 ,000 a year for five days a week when they can make 80 grand on TikTok brand deals by dancing in their living room?

32:53There's no crying in baseball, my man. How about the AI tools that are more specific to social media, the ones that can... They're all gonna be in the platforms. There's not a single tool, cap cuts, all of this is gonna be by default in the platform. It's already happening. You can already use these tools on your Instagram stories. You know, take out the people in the background or put yourself in a new setting. Everything will be default on the platform for free. You'll be, the way you post inside of Facebook or Instagram or TikTok will just be there. It will be default tool. That's why I don't invest or talk about outside tools.

33:30it's all gonna be there. It's there now. Are you using any outside tools right now? No. Sora 2 I guess, but Sora 2 is gonna be a TikTok in itself. It's just, it's gonna be TikTok where all of it is AI. And we'll see if that works or not. Whether they win or somebody else builds a platform like that. I can see a social network where every single piece of content is AI, seems natural to me. I feel what's coming.

33:59A small to medium sized business. Let's go small. Good. How, what do you feel their digital marketing team looks like right now? Size wise. A small company? They themselves, the owner does it. Let's say a company doing 50 million. Five zero? Five zero. How much do they spend on marketing? Eight, nine percent. I think they need four to seven full-time employees. Videographers. Yes. Content, I mean contents. I think a shredder, somebody who shoots and edits like Train does for me, like a shredder, somebody who shoots and edits. I think a leader of that department, likes the throat to choke if they're not doing what you want.

34:50I think that you need somebody who is doing community management, like in the trenches. I think that's a lost art that has a tremendous amount of value. And then the ideas person. Sometimes the shredder doesn't have enough ideas. Sometimes they do. But an ideas person, the creative or strategist. What are you using to post in the distance? Set it up, do you set it up for the week, for the month? Day by day. Day by day, it's all anything we see. Day trading attention. if I literally I would be scared to schedule my next week social media post because too much can change in a week. You understand, I believe marketing is the offense of a business, let's talk sports.

35:36Marketing is offense. Marketing is offense. The amount of people here that dismiss it or see it as a cost center or don't put in, you know what the biggest issue for a lot of people is? they don't know how to judge if it's good. I really do believe that marketing today is so important for a small and medium-sized business that you kind of have to understand it as the owner at least at the same level you understand finance. I don't think anybody here has, I'll speak for myself, I am not a CFO. My financial literacy, like coming into the game, was nowhere. I'm still super bored. Vayner, 3 ,500 employees.

36:20I'm running a$350 million a year P &L. And my CFO comes in. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm still not that, but I know it. You understand? I'm not in it. I'm not passionate about it. I don't want to talk about all the treasury and the taxes and the bank covenants. That is boring ass shit for me. but I understand it so that my CFO can't put us out of business. I need all of you to view marketing that way. I don't need you to love it or understand it the way I do but I need you to understand it enough to know what's going on so that you can judge if you hired some bozos or if they're good or if the agency you work with is good or bad.

37:10Like you've got, I think it is a prerequisite at this point and I think a lot of people are mailing it in which then keeps them, a lot of people here are good because of sales or because of financial discipline. They're a good defensive team, right? They're good at winning games 10 to seven. The problem is when you run into a competitor that has a big time offense, you lose 24 to 10 even though you beat everybody 10 to seven up until that point. Marketing is important. It is the oxygen and the offense of a business and it is starting to gain in importance and I think everyone in this room should understand it a little bit more.

37:49What do you feel the next Netflix show, Social Dilemma? Right. What's gonna be the Social Dilemma documentary in five years that we're gonna talk about versus what the current Social Dilemma was? Overcoddling. We've created zoo animals. Who has a kid over 18 in their lives? Raise your hand. Raise it high. Because it's awesome. Congrats. Ready? I'm going to tell you the greatest secret. Let me tell you where the secret comes from so you can respect it more. It's not my opinion. I get probably 10 to 45 ,000 DMs a day. Across my 55 million followers across all the channels. A day. I, for years, have read a shocking amount of them.

38:39Now I use AI, dump it all in and really get a sentiment. One more time, 18 years or older, let me tell you the greatest insight that I have that blew my mind six years ago because I didn't know it, because I didn't know what rich kids were dealing with. If you have an 18 year old, and really it's definitely 22, 18 is still on the hair young side. I'm gonna go 22 years old and older, raise your hand. 22 and older. Anybody who just raised, one more time, hi please, 22 or older, kids. I mean some of you look good. If any one of your children that are 22 or older are still getting money from you, you've got a problem.

39:21A dollar. I think the social dilemma documentary of five years from now will be understanding that we all over corrected over the last 30 to 40 years in parenting. You can't be your kid's friend. You can be friendly. But you cannot be your kid's friend, and more importantly, you cannot be your kid's bubble. And let me really hurt the feelings of the people that raised their hand and are hearing me and are like, eh. Do you remember, OGs, what it was like back in the day when you needed a little help after you were 22? You borrowed money from your parents. And you paid them back. These little fuckers aren't interested in that concept.

40:06But I'm not gonna shit on them. I'm gonna shit on you. Let me tell you the insight that blew my mind. DM after DM, conversation after conversation. When you're a 25 year old man and your parents are giving you money, you're taking it because you want the car or the watch or go out on dates or you wanna live in a nicer place. But the insight is they think you think they're a loser.

40:33You so don't believe that they can stand on their own two feet, you're paying. you have no idea what you're doing to their self-esteem. They're telling you to their face, thank you, daddy. But behind your back, they're not saying that. I cannot explain how much pain is going on. This is my prediction for what is not being talked about so much right now that will be talked about. Now, this is the most important part. This is not an absolute sentence. Everyone has their own, the last thing I'd be interested in is to tell someone how to parent. Everyone knows their own circumstances. So there's a million variables to this story, but I think it would surprise the room how much pain someone who's taking the money is in because they're not outwardly saying it.

41:18That is the insight that I believe is most misunderstood today that in five years will be talked about more. One man's point of view. Completely agree. You've been talking a lot lately about one piece of content, me putting out a first post on LinkedIn could get as many views as one of your content pieces that you put out because of AI. AI looking at the video and getting... Because of the algorithm. Because of the algorithm. This should excite all of you. If you feel like you could do something, let's say it's not just for business. What about this incredible organization? What about, you know, these algorithms, you know, this social media marketing is not just for making money.

42:01One of the reasons I like the craft is its communication. Maybe you want someone to win election next year at this time. Maybe you want more people to know about this incredible organization. Maybe you wanna support your neighbor because their house burnt down and you're trying to raise some funds to get them back on their feet. The nobleness that communication from humans is that is incredible. I need everybody to hear this. I've worked very hard for 20 years to amass my following base. Literally, if you've never posted once on social, tomorrow you could post a video and it could get more views than my post that day.

42:36We are in the greatest era. We are actually no longer in social media. We are now in interest media. I'm sure all of you know this who consume content on TikTok or Instagram. You're not getting content from the people you followed nine years ago. You're getting content of the thing that you're currently into. Fishing, politics, sports, like whatever you're currently into. And so yeah, I think this is incredible It's incredible merit. Kind of stinks for some of us OGs that built up big followings, but actually back to what I said earlier about being Obi-Wan, I cried zero about that. I'm actually excited for all of you.

43:12I'm excited that if you make something of value or something that hits funny, silly, attractive, informational, I love that you guys and gals can literally start your journey today. That's profound levels of merit. Nobody in Hollywood deciding you're good enough. Nobody in the local media deciding your story's worth it. You have the ability to literally reach the entire world. That is bananas, my friend. Does that differ between videos and just regular posts with still images? Is one better, obviously? There's no better. It ebbs and flows and it changes every day. Hence why I called the book Day Trading Attention.

43:51It changes all the time. Sometimes a photo does better. Sometimes written copy only. Sometimes a photo with long copy. Sometimes a short video. Sometimes a long video. It ebbs and flows. But the one common thread is that people were genuinely interested in it. You know? And again, we can't judge people's interests. I think we all know that like being attractive is something some people will be interested in. Being funny, being informational, being vulnerable, being a good storyteller. There's a lot of ways to go about doing it. That's exciting. I will say this, and maybe this will also liberate some people of maybe some anxieties, concerns they have.

44:29The algorithm doesn't change you or isn't coming at you. The algorithm is exposing who you are. This whole, like, people get caught up in these conspiracy theories of, like, China's pushing this. I remember the one about a year ago. TikTok in China is pushing engineering and math and brilliance and here just like brain rot and garbage and that's how they're getting us. And I'm like, that's not happening. And people believe this stuff. I don't, like, if you all opened your Instagram or TikTok and I got to like take it and look at it for five minutes, I would have a tremendous insight into what you're at, where you're at, what you're into.

45:10Some of you definitely don't want me to do that. But I'll tell you, this is very important to me. I want you to hear this. if you feel any times like if you feel like you're on your phone too much and you don't feel good after it's probably because you're consuming too much politics and I will tell you you can change that. Literally how many people here don't love their algo right now? Just raise your hands. Let's be a little vulnerable and honest. Raise your hands. Like you don't love it. Good. Six, seven of you. Fair enough. I will tell you this is unbelievable for the six or seven of you that were honest which means about 15 or 20 in the room.

45:46You can literally go to Instagram or TikTok right now and go to search and literally search happiness, enter, and like three or four posts. Kittens, enter three to four posts. Think about things you're into. Cooking, skiing, the Utah jazz. I don't know what gets you excited. Hit enter. Like four or five posts. Close your phone. You will be stunned what your algorithm looks like tomorrow. and so we are in control. The world has done a really good job in tricking us and scaring us into thinking that we're not. We are 100 % in control and so I highly recommend you play with that. I think you'll find it interesting.

46:32It really is stunning and by the way, we change. I'm sure everyone here goes through ebbs and flows of like you get into the news, you get a little bit deeper and you're like, ugh. You get out of it after a cycle. There's other things, your interests change, but you're literally going to search on your social networks and type in some words, like four or five posts from those words, do 12 minutes of work, your algo changes forever. It's true, I cleaned mine up for this.

47:04Boats to Milwaukee Tools to Gary Vee. No, it is so true on that, so it's. It's profound. I mean, we have become unbelievably good at this. It's TikTok's fault. It's Mark Zuckerberg's fault. It's Facebook's fault. It's Trump's fault. Biden, Mondani, America, Russia. We have lost our way with thumbs. It's your fault. I am super happy in life because I think everything is my fault. And that's not beating yourself up. that's understanding the power of accountability and that you can change. Nothing scares me. I live in New York City. We have a new mayor. Some of my friends are like, this is it! It's over!

47:50I literally, today, seven or eight of them on the flight out here, I'm like, move! Utah's awesome! I'm going there right now. Salt Lake crushes, move! Like, I don't know what to tell you. You are fundamentally in control of everything. And these politicians have done a good job on both sides saying, this is what's scary and you can't do anything about it, but I can help you. And I spend my life making content saying, nothing's scary, here's how you get happy and make money and I can't help you, but you can help you. And that is what I believe. Thank you.

48:40Accountability. It just works, it's true. You could be in a very toxic relationship. I get that you're insecure. I'm aware that you became insecure because one of your parents or both your parents put you into that place or circumstance or something left field. But people who've been insecure have done the work. Whether it's therapy, whether it's changing what they read and consume, whether it's changing who they hang out with. There are people that have come out of much tougher circumstances that have achieved. Look at some of the variables that the people in this room have dealt with. And I just think we're capable.

49:15Let me phrase, I know humans are capable, but it takes accountability because the blame game has really put people into a rut. And so many of these kids are blaming mommy and daddy for everything. And that's not going to work. And as if there wasn't enough things to divide us, gender, race, politics, nations, Now we're into this new generational warfare. These Gen Z kids are getting unlimited content in their feeds. The boomers fucked it up for you. I mean, as if there wasn't enough things to be mad at each other for, we found a new thing. Like when I grew up, who's in Gen X? We were like, remember when we were growing up?

49:56Like, I never even heard of any of the generations. Who knew what generation, I didn't even know that was a thing. So I just think the world continues to find things to divide us, to make you mad at someone. Like there's some 26 year old walking down the street today like yelling at some poor 80 year old woman being like you boomer ruined it for me. She's just buying pasta at the store. Like leave her alone. That was New Jersey right? Yes. Jersey's a little interesting. One last question. Please. I just want to sit up here tonight to do to support Warrior Rising. and get their mission together.

50:33Yes. What should we all do right now as far as to post? How would you do it? What would you say to grow? I would tell everybody to take a photo if you're not interested in being front of camera, but I would tell this crowd you should definitely be front of camera, because this is one of the more attractive crowds I've been in front of for a long time. But if you're not comfortable with that, just take a photo of something here and write several nice sentences and post it. You never know who's on the other side. Again, this was one of the most important things I said tonight. We're not in social media anymore.

51:10If you have 19 followers, you might get 5 ,000 views on YouTube Shorts or on LinkedIn or on Facebook for this post. That is profound merit. So I would say, by the way, I'm gonna remind you, it's free. Do you know how crazy it is that you can post on these platforms for free and reach millions of people? Do you know how advertising has worked up until this point? If you want a newspaper ad, in the biggest newspaper in this town, you don't just get it for free. If you want it to be on TV, or radio, or send a direct mail flyer, or buy Google AdWords, it wasn't free, friends. This is free. I love when people are like, huh, I'm shadow banned, or I hate Instagram, I'm not getting views.

51:54I'm like, motherfucker, it's free. It's free. It's free. It's free. Do we tag you in this? How do you? Get more views? I think that you use that, let's make up a hashtag. What hashtag would you like to use? We are Warrior Rising. We are Warrior Rising. Great. For everybody that posts that, I will look for that hashtag tomorrow morning and I'll reshare a bunch of them to give a ton more awareness to the organization.

52:33And more importantly, you've already accomplished what you tried to do there. I filmed this whole thing. I'm gonna put this on YouTube. I'm gonna have clips from it. Like, this is important. Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention. And thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.