Social Media Is In The Past — Welcome To Interest Media | LinkedIn Premium Livestream Q&A

0:00This is the GaryVee Audio Experience. I believe we are now in the not social media, but interest media. Meaning social was inherently like who is your social network? Who are your friends? We are now in an era where what are you interested is coming to you from the algorithm. And so what you should be looking at is views. The only thing I really care about on every platform is views achieved because the creative is the variable to the views now. People that are watching right now that have never posted, if they post a remarkably good piece of content, that piece of content now has the ability to get more views than something I post and I'm one of the most followed people on LinkedIn in the world.

0:37That is profound. I personally believe the core metric now in the game is views. Because views are now achieved. So when you're talking about views, just to dig in here, are you talking about video? Are you saying we should all be doing video? Or are you just being, no? Nope, to your point, views is, I'm using it as slang. That is for video, but for example, when I look at my Instagram photos, it's reach. It's reach. How many people consumed it? You know, and so, but I'll give you an example. Right now on Instagram, back to like, we were talking before we got on here, like let's go into details.

1:10If you are very into pictures on Instagram and you want to get a lot of people to see it, which is the point of the whole thing, instead of posting it as a picture, post it as a one second video. As a one second reel. As a one second reel. That will get more views than the picture potentially. And by the way, it flips sometimes. Other times the picture is. So I'm obsessed with the algorithm. I want to know how every algorithm works. What are they overvaluing? Do they like reels, carousel, PDFs? Like this is something I spend enormous time on. Well, so I love hearing this. And I also think about how many of these platforms exist.

1:45And it is a great sort of run up to this question, which comes from Amy O'Donnell in Bowling Green, Ohio. Ooh, Bowling Green. Right? I like it. Amy is a regular Hello Monday listener and very often on the platform. So it's great to hear from you, Amy. And you ask a question I have. I know it makes most sense to build and maintain your brand across all platforms. However, if you could just choose one, what would it be? I would have to know what the person is trying to achieve. So for example, if you were selling women's clothes to Gen Xers and boomers, it would be Facebook proper. Yeah. If you are an accountant trying to build an accounting firm, it would be LinkedIn.

2:26in. If you were starting a healthy gummies candy for kids and, you know, that you're targeting moms, but young moms and maybe even, you know, 18 to 25, then TikTok gets very important. So the answer to that question is you have to reverse engineer the upside of the audience that exists in which platform at that moment. Because as you can imagine, if I was targeting college kids and this interview was done in 2010, the answer would be Facebook. Now Facebook is literally grandmas and it used to be literally college kids. And so things, TikTok is very underestimated on how many people 30 to 50 are on it.

3:08People want to default and think the kids are on it. It is a huge platform for 40 to 60. Huge. So those kind of things. Well, I think to your point, where do we get those insights? I mean, you're Gary Vee, you know this stuff. How does Amy know this stuff? There's this great site called Google. Okay, fair enough. No, but it's really, it's fun. You're making fun of me a little bit. I'm really not. I'm actually trying to really help the audience. It's pretty stunning between, and by the way, I'm even giving an answer of two years ago. With chat GPT and perplexity, like it is scary. You can literally type in to an AI chat GPT environment right now, like the most hardcore question.

3:46You can literally say, how do I find out if I own a pizzeria in Brooklyn to get to more people on TikTok? enter the answers are real yeah they're real whether it's linkedin or youtube shorts or snapchat or instagram or tiktok or facebook every one of these platforms have different algorithms different features different opportunities to make different levels of content one has to get good at understanding the the overlay of what are you capable of for example i'm not a very good writer even though i've got six new york times best-selling books i audio them wow I audio my books I interview we take it from my content like interviews like this I'm audio so if I'm not a good writer I'm not going to sit and try to write three paragraph posts on LinkedIn it's not what I'm capable of I have a lot of written posts on LinkedIn they're the transcriptions from video because I can speak this is comfortable for me and so I think one self-awareness of how you create content two you've got to learn the algorithms like the cat's out of the bag like you have to know how these things work what does the thumbnail have to look like what are the first three seconds of the video what's the copy how is the same many people here post the same video on every platform and don't realize that every platform is going to treat that differently and so you've got to actually learn the skill and the skill you can learn by a million different reasons there's many people like me that put out unlimited free content about the skills there's tons of books there's seminars like this there's just so many ways to learn and you've got to even understand yourself in learning.

5:16I learn by audio, again, not by reading. And so you've got to learn. You are somebody who really fully embraces social media. You spend a lot of time being very strategic about how you use it. You also know a lot of people can waste a lot of time on social media. We have another question, but before we get there, I want you to advise us on how we be strategic about using that time. If you want to be a professional athlete and you practice for thousands of thousands of hours, and you're not great at practicing, meaning you're not practicing the right crafts, you're only focusing on things that come easy, but you're not working on the hard things, or you're delusional, and you're five foot four, and you think you're going to the NBA, all those things will not lead to you being in the NBA.

6:02I think it's very similar to what we're talking about here. I think people have to be honest with themselves. You know, if you're sitting right now, and you're like, I'm gonna be the next, you know, call her Alex Cooper, like, do you have that kind of personality? Is that your framework? Like, are you capable of doing that? So A, being realistic. B, are you doing it well? There are many people watching right now that when I say things like LinkedIn is one of these big opportunities, which I talk about often, and I can go into details in this interview, and they may watch in 30 minutes after we go through it all and say, he's wrong.

6:34I've been doing this for a year and nothing good has happened. You may not be doing it well. Like, this is a real thing. Barry Gottlieb from West Palm Beach, Florida asks, how do you learn what the algorithms are? Magic question. So when I say the algorithms, I'm referring to how content shows up in people's feeds. It's the For You page on TikTok. It's your default video page on the other platforms. Learning what they're doing is a game of listening. Every platform puts out stuff. LinkedIn puts out information about new features, things that they value. Adam at Instagram has been making a lot of videos the last 18 months, the CEO of Instagram.

7:19I watched one yesterday. He talks about things that are happening with the algorithm. He talked about resetting your algorithm yesterday. His video yesterday was, if you don't like what you're being recommended, here's the way you go into Instagram and completely clear it, and your feed will look totally different. It's gonna look a little weird at first because that's to learn you. So, you know, the answer to the question for that gentleman is research, like really actually actively seeking out the information. Every platform is talking about things. And many humans like me are talking about the algorithm and how to get views, how to maximize reach.

7:53You've just got to start researching it. I so appreciate that you used the word listen. I think that is such an underused and under understood, if that's even a way to describe something, word. And when you're listening, you're not just listening to the information coming straight at you. but from the side as well, right? You know, it's funny you bring that up. It's one of the funniest things that me and my team think about. When people see me, I'm a yapper, right? I'm yapping here. This is how people normally see me. But the reality is that 90 % of the time, I'm not doing things to be seen. 95 % of the time.

8:27And in that time, I'm doing predominantly listening. My entire career is based on listening but it's hard to see that because I'm such an active talker. In fact, I even talk to listen. A lot of people struggle with my podcast because I do interrupt my guests a lot and I have to adjust because I didn't even realize I talk to listen. Like to me, I'm always trying to understand why. The curiosity is insane. What a gift. If everybody's watching right now, if you have a kid that's curious, I know it can be like annoying, you know, when they're like three or four, like why, why? What a gift. Please do not suppress it.

9:05please champion it. 100 % but don't call it a gift because if you call it a gift people will think they got it or they didn't and another thing about curiosity that's so critical is that it's something you can stoke and you better be stoking it. That is such a great call out. I love you for bringing that context. To your point, everything in the world is something one can develop more of. It takes work, like exercise, you can get muscles anywhere if you put in the work. There's obviously some people that are gonna have higher ceilings because DNA is a real thing. But to your point, there's not one thing you can't grow into or be more of if you want to put in the work.

9:46I got the impression from listening to Day Trading Attention that your learnings on branding are constantly evolving. So what's changed about your thinking since you recorded the audio book? Oh God, I love that question. Actually a lot. This is insane. So the book just came out. and isn't that your new book yeah I mean literally one thing I'm working on right now is called handle strategy so brands creating secondary handles so that things that they're too precious like about their grid on Instagram if they won't post it there let's just use New Balance if New Balance on at New Balance the CMO or the founder or the creative lead doesn't want to post it there you know creating an account called New Day by New Balance where they can put it there.

10:35So handle strategy was not even talked about in day trading tension and I'm obsessed with it. A huge one that came up since I wrote and recorded the book is called attempted virality. I think the best practice of anybody who is a brand or a person or a brand that's doing a lot of content monthly on social media should have one post a week that attempts virality. It's completely off the reservation. Right. The single reason you're making it is you see something in trends or you have an idea that might go crazy. It might flop, but 52 times a year as a big brand, you should attempt virality. So attempted virality is not there.

11:18Handle strategy is not there. Right. Is that because virality is more important relative to other things than it was? No, I think it comes down to the creative mindset that I think attempted virality, it means that you understand what's happening, which is these platforms are getting to a place where one post can change your business or your life. Like actually. I don't think people like really understand. And attempting it will force you to really learn the mechanics. I love you, thank you. That's exactly right. Can I say one other thing? Okay. One last one. I know you gotta, Barry, bear with me.

11:49One last one. Literally the question you asked me earlier, what are you most excited about? Literally social live shopping, not a reference in the book. So literally, this is what's so cool about the concept of day trading attention. This game is moving fast. Yeah. That you have said since the beginning, this game is moving fast. So I can't really think of a better person to talk about personal branding with. I will tell you that sometimes, even still, I think about personal branding and it gives me a little bit of a, what are we talking about? So what are we talking about? You know, it's funny you bring that up.

12:25When the term started to get momentum, a lot of people talked about it in a, ooh, that's icky, or is that even like a, what is that? And I would say, and I've been saying it now, I guess for maybe 15 years, I would say it's slang for reputation. And immediately all the iciness and all the ick would go away. And so I think, you know, that word brand doesn't feel human. And I understood why it happened. But what we're talking about is a very important thing. It's your professional reputation in the context of this talk. and when I think about what every employee, and I have many of them, and I said to somebody yesterday in a meeting, he was almost like kind of apologizing about applying for other jobs because he thought I would be upset.

13:14And I said to him I was happy. I could tell that he was a little weirded out and I was like, you have to worry about you and your family. Like I love you and you love me and we have a good rapport but you should have optionality. You are in charge of the personal brand that gets you there. That's right. And so for me, a lot of people who are watching, they don't realize that they're one LinkedIn post away from a recruiter or a company seeing them as valuable, which may lead to optionality they want. Whether that is the unfortunate thing that happens sometimes and somebody being let go and you needing that optionality, or you on offense, not defense, deciding, you know what?

13:51I'm burnt out by this. I don't like my new boss. I need to move. there's so many things that happen in life. Well, you know, we all have a reputation. We all have a personal brand. And I think what we're talking about when we're talking about the tools that you embrace and you said strategically, is being the drivers of our own personal brand. How can one build a personal brand without videos? Let's say your camera's shy. I mean, I think a lot of people have. I mean, there's a lot of people who've done it in audio and written word. There's a lot of authors who may appear occasionally in an interview like this.

14:24Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell has a huge brand. He shows up occasionally in video form but he's not pumping the video kind of content that I am. And so I think it's been achieved. I think you can win in written form. Look at Substack. There's tons of people who are just crushing as writers. I saw a lady freak out over a lady the other day in a cafe and I didn't know who the person was and the person next to me was like, oh, that's that author. and the person was like, how did she know what she looks like? We never see her. Like, that's a real life example that happened in the last year that I can answer this question to.

15:00So the answer is, look, written word, audio and video are the mediums. Yes, look, video killed the radio star. Like, there's a reason. Video is a bigger platform, no question, than the other two. But the other two are monsters. And I think there's a lot of people that could crush in being like hidden podcasters. Literally do a podcast where you can't even see their face. If the content's good, people will consume. Yo, everybody, thank you so much. Just jumping in real quick in the middle of this podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review for this episode.

15:36And I'm gonna get you back to your pod right now because you don't need me talking about that. But I realize I'm lagging on getting the support of my podcast listeners. So reviewing this episode and overall would mean the world to me. Five star, four star, three star, fuck it. Two-star, one-star, honest feedback's fine. All right, back to the show. So this question comes from Sean Salisbury in Charleston, South Carolina. And I think that you're particularly well-positioned for this question because you are a founder. You have founded companies, big S, at the end of that. Sean asks, when you're leading your organization, how do you communicate and develop your personal brand in such a way that it doesn't compete with your company's brand?

16:17this is a really fascinating question and it's grounded in one of the things that i'm spending a stunning amount of time on over the last decade the world's obsession with or instead of and say more i will i'm going to give it real effect here i believe that 99 of human beings love the word or and i believe that i love the word and re-ask that question right now thinking through the framework of or versus and. Go. Okay, so Sean, on your behalf, I ask Gary, how do you communicate and develop your personal brand in such a way that it does not compete with your company's brand? It does not compete.

16:59For example, I am, to your point, wildly positioned for this. My personal brand is ahead of every business that I have founded and run. The Gary Vee brand is bigger than the Wine Library brand. It is bigger than the Resi. Well, Resi's a pretty big brand. It is bigger than VaynerX. It is bigger than Empathy Wines. Hopefully in the next decade I'll fix this, but it is currently bigger than VFriends. And so I view them as an and game. The content I do on LinkedIn as Gary Vee is a gateway drug to VaynerX business. It is an and game. You know, so many of us are on LinkedIn because we really want to support some business endeavor.

17:37Yep. Right? Yep. And yet, we need to be very cognizant of who we are and our unique voice. How would you suggest that people figure out how to amplify what is unique about their own voice? By bringing in more of their personal life. By bringing in other interests. I think LinkedIn, one of the biggest opportunities in LinkedIn is to treat it like every other platform. So I believe that if you are selling wine or sneakers or you're a pottery maker, I think everything should show up on LinkedIn. I think there's an enormous amount of people on it. Yes, there's a lens to business, corporate, professionalism, but I think many people would enjoy when they're on LinkedIn a piece of content that was out of the realm of it.

18:21But to answer your question directly, I may make a piece of business content on LinkedIn, but if I reference me being upset about the Jets game on Sunday, that's bringing a little human personality. And I think a lot of us should be bringing in more things around our interests, whether that's skiing or cooking, or you like that new like Rabbi Love Show on Netflix that was hot the other day with Adam Brody. Like bringing a little humanity. I think even people's profile pictures, I would actually make a huge recommendation right now. I think a lot of you need to get your stuffy from seven years ago suit and tie photo out of your profile on LinkedIn and get a little bit more of who you are as a human.

18:59Now, by the way, you might be a really dapper dresser and then keep it if it's authentically you. But I feel a lot of people show up into my office for a business meeting that look very different than the way they're showing up on LinkedIn. And I actually think that that is becoming more and more of a detriment. I think that posturing is starting to be looked at as not authentic. And I think there's an opportunity for people to tweak. Well, I would just push you to think about the way in which we authentically connect with people. And you mentioned the Jets game earlier. And I was like, yeah, what that Jets game did is it was like a hand held out to people who can be like, oh I get Gary Gary's my guy because we like the Jets now I'm going to take what he has to say yes that's exactly right by the way that's a really important call out I think people keep things out because they don't want to mix this goes back to and and or yep they're like Gary I only post about fashion here how can I post on Instagram about skiing I'm like because it's not that serious okay it's like you're reading the next question yeah go ahead so this one comes from Mary Nesnov in Muskegon, Michigan nice that was a mouthful wait what It was.

20:06I wonder what it's like in Muskegon today. Mary, tell us in the comments. What if your personal brand has changed through your life? How do you navigate that change? I love it. Thank you. That was really kismic. Yeah, I think you're allowed. By the way, you may know this because I think you do know this. From 2006 to 2009, I was the wine guy. Yeah. That's how I first knew you. Yeah. In my head, a little bit, you're still Gary the Wine Guy. Of course. I still like bringing it up once in a while. and Dustin's shaking his head in the background. Sometimes I just get on a kick and want to do more wine content.

20:40And by the way, it doesn't perform as well, you know, at times and other times it performs great. It's down to the piece of content. So what I would say to everybody is good news. The algorithms have changed. No longer is it solely about who follows you. I made a hard pivot from wine only content to business. And then at first it was tactical business. Then it became like motivational because I realized people weren't doing the things because it was more about emotional frameworks than actual tactics. Now I'm back to like more tactics because I'm like, I've talked enough about the emotional framework.

21:07And so you're just allowed to ebb and flow and good news, the algo has changed. I think a lot of people would be blown away if they went to their platform of choice that they built the most equity with and understand the most and posted something left field today. One of two things will happen. It will do terrible. Yeah. Or it will do remarkable. And I wish that people understood both are good. Yeah. terrible because it's a signal? Because that's exactly right. You're learning from the terrible. You post something and you'll see that the audience didn't necessarily like that. But that doesn't mean you never post about skiing again.

21:45Do it five to 10 more times and then maybe it's not the right thing. By the way, I might be looking at it pessimistically, which is rare. The 11 people that do like it, that's valuable. And so you've got to really think of this much more 360. Jonathan says, what are the biggest challenges you've faced in personal branding? And how did you overcome them? Mine is actually the other side of the pillow, I think, for a lot of people. The one that most people struggle with that was not my struggle is they think they're still in seventh grade and they worry about judgment. You post something on LinkedIn and someone says, you're stupid, and then they clam up, which is devastating to me.

22:23I'm desperately trying to get people out of the insecurity of middle school and high school in professional settings. My toughest challenge was I made a delusional, optimistic ideology that I was gonna reply to every person that ever, ever mentioned me in social media. And I did that from 2007 to 2011. That makes me tired to just think about it. It was crazy. I actually spent most of 2010 and 11 going to sleep at 2 a.m. because I would spend like 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. answering everybody on Twitter predominantly back then. I struggled with letting that go. because I felt community building was important.

23:01I felt like having relationships was important. And so my biggest struggle in building a personal brand was that faithful day in 2011 when I realized the math was beating me and I had to step off that perch that I was standing on for four years. You have been so good over the course of your career at predicting where we are going. Not where we are today, but where we are about to be. You said to get to platforms first or early and the moments when there's real opportunity. So help us read the future a little bit. The one that I'm most comfortable putting on video and trying to be historically correct is live social shopping.

23:39Talk to me about that. I believe the buzz of 2025, 2026 will be live social shopping. TikTok shop, an app called WhatNot, people, basically QVC within social media. It's here. why I've been good is I tend to talk about things that have happened but the masses haven't recognized so I'm not guessing that's why and I'm always tasting you know we talked earlier like when I'm early on Snapchat or TikTok or the things that I'm on I was also early on Social Cam and Peach and all these other things that didn't make it so I'm always putting in the work just in case does anybody out there remember Peach?

24:18Peach was a good one you know Photo Booth was an amazing platform live social shopping has happened. It's gonna explode next year. So for a lot of people who are watching, if you sell something, if you're a retailer, if you're a retailer and you have a physical location, especially if you're Main Street, think about a Main Street downtown store right now. Monday through Friday is dead. It's just the world has changed. Online shopping, rents are getting harder to justify. I believe the cliche tchotchkes, you know, whatever kind of clothing store, whatever you want to call it. I believe that Main Street, Monday through Friday, in five years, you'll walk down Main Street and half of the owners or the employees are going to be on live shopping.

25:07They're going to turn their stores into studios because the opportunity is there and they're going to have to. And so I'm very, very, very hot on live shopping and I highly recommend people dig deeper into it. Okay, so it's not going to surprise you that a lot of people, now that we're talking about trends and things coming in the future, have a lot of questions about how AI is going to impact. Yes, that was this year's buzzword. Well, and this year's reality. It's very real. We're very positive in ways that we're totally questionable. Like everything on Earth. Right? Where are you excited about AI?

25:40And where are you sort of waiting? I'm excited about AI in the same way that I was excited when Adobe came out and Photoshop and the internet. Like it was much better to go on Yahoo and Dogpile and then Google than it was to go to the yellow pages. I'm obsessed with efficiency because every human being is. There's a reason convenience is king is one of the great sayings in the world. So I'm incredibly excited about efficiency. I personally think that the conversation of everyone losing their jobs is misunderstood. You know, when the tractor was invented, 80 % of the society worked on a farm. That tractor put people out of business so they could go on to do much bigger things.

26:27That's how we got highways. You know, like real things happen. So look, do I think if you're a designer and you don't have any ideas and you just make things that other people have ideas, do I think your job is vulnerable? I do. And I think you should get ahead of that and try to learn the skill. I always say when there's a big wave coming, Don't be scared of it and put your head in the sand. Grab a surfboard and try to run it and go with it. And so AI is coming. I think it's going to help us do a lot of things. I'm very excited about it medically. I will tell you, it's not everybody I invite into the studio who tells me that my job is in question.