The Only Marketing Strategy You Need for 2026

10 Dec 2025 · 58 min

Ask about this episode

Ask anything about it. ChatGPT or Claude reads this page and answers with the times it was said.

Connect VO and ask about every podcast you hear, including the moments you saved. Add to ChatGPT · Add to Claude

In short

The GaryVee Audio Experience: Episode Summary

Episode Title

The Only Marketing Strategy You Need for 2026 Podcast Description In this episode, Gary Vaynerchuk discusses how businesses can effectively leverage social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to connect with their target audience and expand their brand. He provides tactical advice on content creation, highlighting the difference between using personal profiles and company pages, and emphasizes the importance of utilizing AI tools like ChatGPT for content generation.

---

Key Highlights

  1. Introduction to Opportunities
  2. NFTs and VFriends: Gary encourages listeners to engage with his NFT project, VFriends, emphasizing the need to activate their book game NFTs for unique experiences.
  1. The Importance of Engagement
  2. Gary shares his extensive experience managing multiple businesses and emphasizes the high stakes for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
  3. He highlights the need for SMBs to adapt to market changes to prevent losing market share.
  1. Understanding Consumer Behavior
  2. The podcast stresses that many business owners often overlook the real preferences and behaviors of their consumers.
  3. The importance of being present and active on social media as a means to connect with customers is emphasized.
  1. Content Creation Strategy
  2. Gary challenges attendees to produce 12 creative posts daily across 5 different social networks: LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, and TikTok.
  3. Quality of content matters, but quantity is essential to capture market share.
  1. The Reality of Social Media
  2. Gary asserts that the current landscape of social media is more favorable than it has been in years, especially for organic reach.
  3. He urges businesses to utilize social media actively, as it doesn't require significant financial investment and can yield high rewards.
  1. The Role of AI in Content Creation
  2. The episode discusses leveraging AI tools like ChatGPT to enhance content generation:
  3. Example: Using ChatGPT to write posts or articles relevant to your industry.
  4. Gary encourages listeners to become comfortable with AI and integrate it into their marketing strategies.

---

Tactical Advice for Businesses

  • Focus on Output: Businesses should prioritize creating more content rather than getting caught up in perfectionism.
  • Utilize Different Platforms: Each platform has its nuances. While TikTok is great for fun and engaging content, LinkedIn is ideal for professional networking.
  • Engage with the Audience: Replying to comments and engaging with other users is crucial for visibility and building connections.

---

Common Questions and Discussions

  • Content Strategy: Gary emphasizes creating diverse content, from personal experiences to industry insights, and encourages businesses to experiment with different content types.
  • Video Content: For those hesitant about video, he suggests starting with simple videos that provide value and build credibility over time.
  • Personal vs. Business Branding: Gary recommends using personal branding as it provides flexibility for future endeavors beyond current business ventures.

---

Key Takeaways

  • Social Media is Essential: In today's digital landscape, neglecting social media can lead to significant losses in market share.
  • Embrace Change: Adapting to new technologies and platforms is crucial for staying relevant in business.
  • Focus on Value Creation: The best content serves the audience and provides them with insights or value, rather than being solely promotional.

---

Conclusion Gary Vaynerchuk’s podcast emphasizes the pressing need for businesses to adapt to the ever-evolving landscape of social media and marketing. By prioritizing content creation, leveraging AI, and engaging with customers, businesses can effectively grow and maintain their market presence.

For those looking to implement these strategies, the podcast serves as a motivational guide to taking action and realizing the potential of social media marketing in the coming years.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Hear the part that matters, and keep it.Open this episode in VO. Double tap your headphones to save a moment as you listen.
Get VO free

Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:11This is your opportunity, you know why? this is the Gary Vee audio experience before you go to the podcast I've got a big announcement I know several years ago a lot of you bought 12 books of 12 and a half to get the NFT the book games NFT I also know that a lot of people have dropped off on their journey with VFriends which is a massive mistake because what we're doing on Burn Island and what we're doing on base with book games is remarkable so you need to go to VEEFriends vfriends.com slash old books. Go to vfriends.com slash old books with an S. You will go to that landing page and we will help you explain if you are trying to figure out where your NFTs are, how to bring them over to the website and how to start activating them so that you can start using them for all the incredible exchanges and draws and raffles and experiences that we're doing for people that actually own the book games.

1:08So please go to vfriends.com slash old books where you can start your journey on reactivating your book games journey. What I really, really want to talk to you about is what's the punchline of the conversation you're having with yourself right now with what you're dealing with. You know, I think what I see happening overall, so just for context for the room, VaynerX, the company that I run, as you can see, has a lot of businesses in it. Obviously, VaynerMedia works with the Pepsis and the Procter & Gamble's and things of that nature. And that's gonna have a very different strategy and mindset than a lot of people in this room.

1:43But the Sasha Group, if you see it there on the screen, that's named after my dad, Sasha. And that is an agency that works with SMBs and businesses that generate half a million dollars to$10 million. And that's been probably the most exciting part for me over the last nine months because the stakes are so much higher. When Coca-Cola loses a little market share, it is what it is. when we lose 20, 30, 40, 50 % market share, it's a huge impact on our actual life. And I grew up in a family business environment. I was born in the Soviet Union. I moved to the States when I was a kid. And I eventually worked for my dad's liquor store.

2:21He lived his American dream from going from a stock boy to owning a liquor store, which was remarkable. And when I was 14, since I was the oldest in the family, you get dragged into a liquor store. I was doing great, by the way, if you were wondering. I was making$2 ,000 to$3 ,000 a weekend selling baseball cards in the malls of New Jersey back in 1989 which I don't know how many of you have $3 ,000 or$7 ,000 or$15 ,000 when you're 13 but when you have$3 ,000 or$13 ,000 when you're 13 you're basically a fucking billionaire. So I was living good. I loved life. And then one day I turned 14 and my dad dragged my ass into the liquor store and says you work here now.

3:01And I was like how much are you going to pay and he said two bucks an hour. And that's a far cry from making a thousand dollars a weekend selling sports cards. I don't know how many of you have a Soviet father but there wasn't much of a negotiation. So at 14 I started to go down the path of the context that I think we share which is a business that is in the realms of under 10 million dollars a year take home, things of that nature, that world. And that is really the foundation of how I see the world. right? And so when I sit here and I think about multiple things that people here are going through actually how many people here run a shop that has more than 10 employees?

3:40Raise your hands. Good. About half. Like that is a totally different dynamic as you start getting into double digit management of people. There's a whole other layer of just not outflanking. It's what I know half of this room is thinking about. Motivating, retaining, feeding all them like the whole dynamics. And so, you know, I come here today with a very practical energy of trying to hope that in a room of this many people, that 3 % of this room actually finally hears what I'm saying because unlike 2009 when I started to talk about these things or 2006 even, when I started talking about these things, there's nobody, you know, in 2009 I was like, you should be on Twitter and you would be in the crowd and be like, he's a fucking genius.

4:28It was like profound, like what does that even mean? You know, it was like this like thing. Nobody here today is confused that human beings' attention sits on social media at scale. Everybody has an opinion of that. Unfortunately, many people here deploy their human opinion when thinking about your actual business. The consumer you're trying to reach to sell your service to is really not super interested on your hot take of what 13-year-olds are doing on TikTok. They're not super intrigued by how much you like or dislike Facebook. They just live their life, see things, and spend their money. And so there's so many things to talk about in this room.

5:16First and foremost is a very simple question that everybody needs to ask themselves that is, here's a good one, by show of hands, who here would like to grow their business this year? I'm just curious. Please raise your hand. Just look. All right, solid. Good, thank you. A little weirded out by the couple that didn't raise their hand. I have no clue why you're here. In that world, wouldn't it make sense to actually try to execute on the reality of what the consumer's doing? I'm aware that, when I look around this room, And again, I think you'll appreciate, I hope you appreciate this. I'm aware that a lot of you have done this for a while and have built an actual network and great reputation in your general region and are building and have built your business on doing the right thing, being a good person, working hard, and building on word of mouth.

6:09I appreciate that. What I think a lot of you who've lived through other soft markets, because when I look in this crowd, there's youngsters in this crowd who haven't lived through it yet. Some of the OGs here rolling up to get a cup of coffee at this conference, see somebody under 30, you're like, kid, you don't even understand what happened in 2008 was a motherfucker. Right? That. We know that, right? Here's where it gets tricky. When we go through up and down cycles, for a lot of people that just raised their hand and went through it, at the time, they had less to lose. At the time, they had no choice.

6:43At the time, they were the young buck and as a matter of fact, they actually used 2008 to actually accelerate the growth of their business. The problem is it's different for those people that navigated to 08. They're in a different life cycle. They're a little more bougie. Their overhead's a little higher. They don't go to the Holiday Inn on their vacation anymore. Right? And now they're caught because they're softer. And so it's not as fun to do the things that they had to do in 08 because it was much more fun to do the things they did in 19 because it was easier. I love what we're sitting through right now in this room.

7:19This is when we separate people who have stomach for it and people who don't. We all know that there's a lot of people that entered this business in 2016, 15 that aren't going to make it through because they only trained in the softness. They don't like the dirt. They don't like the grind. I don't think anybody here is going to like what's about to come out of my mouth. In the deepest of my heart with enormous compassion, empathy, and deep want for happiness and everybody in this room, I want every single person here posting 12 different creative posts across five different social networks a day.

7:59I want every person in this room after this conference, after this talk, to go home tomorrow and post somewhere between eight and 15 pieces of content on LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok, and I want you to do it every day. What I just said is 100%. It's non-debatable fact that the people that are outflanking in every micro segment of every business, in the output of creative, and of course the quality matters. Of course the quality of what comes out of your mouth is a variable of your success. But before you even start the debate of what do you say, or what are you talking about, or how are you doing this, the data is undeniable that the companies and humans in service businesses that are outposting its competitive set are picking up market share by the simple fact of there's just too much attention of society on these seven to 10 platforms.

8:59So it's just classic, right? Like every single person here knows how to get into better shape. There's not a person in this room that does not understand that it is a combination of eating better and going to the gym. I think we can all agree, not everyone in this room is doing that. Right? I struggled with that for 40 years. 38 years, I never wanted to do either. And then I just, one day on a plane, decided this is not gonna end up well. And I started working on it. Nine years later, eight years later, I still never want to do it a single day. I'm being really serious. There's not a single, I literally hired a full-time human being to be my babysitter and travel.

9:36I'm being dead serious. I got to the financial level where I finally figured it out. I'm very good at being accountable to others. to my family. I'm a good boss because I think I work for them, not them for me. That's a whole other thing for the people with the 10 employees. By the way, I'll go real fast here. You have 10 more employees, I'll give you one sentence that will disproportionately help you through this window. You work for them, not the other way around. You get into that mindset, it gets real good real fast. If you actually care about them, not what they are supposed to do for you, it gets real good real fast.

10:05That's being an actual boss. You know, the reason I stand here and I'm putting this framework up and I want to use this health comp is just because it comes natural to me to do 10 posts a day, I know that for 80 % of this room it does not. But just like the journey I went on, which is I didn't want to die at 65. I thought it would be better to live longer. I like it. I'm doing something every day for nine straight years that I genuinely, genuinely hate. Genuinely. Brian, when I wake up every morning, I'm like, this sucks. Like I don't want to do it every day. And so I don't care how much you hate social media.

10:47I don't care that you've decided it's ruined the world and the kids and the this and the that. I genuinely don't care because your customer doesn't care. It doesn't care what you think of it. I just desperately need you to stop losing market share because if you're not gonna do it, somebody else is and those referrals are great and they'll keep you going, but I don't have to explain to anybody here that if you don't get more, it's eventually gonna run out. How many people here are retiring in the next five years? And I don't mean, before you go, sir, you're really hyped, huh? You're ready for golf, huh?

11:25You heard that, you're like, fuck this shit, I'm golfing. Yeah, I get it. No, no. How many people here are retiring within the next five years, not because you're gonna crush it and buy an island, but because you're old and you're finished. Raise your hands. Five years. How many people? You didn't want to be old, you're back down. This is super important. If nobody's in this room raising their hand, everything we're about to talk about the rest of this talk is only gonna become dramatically more relevant, not less. Unfortunately, we're not going back to the telephone the way we all grew up if we're over 50 here.

12:06We're like, you're not gonna go to the wall and spin the thing and call. Like we're just letters, you know, letters not gonna gain market share in the next decade, right? Like even our precious Google that has been foundational to the way the world has worked over the last 25 years, 20 years is being challenged now with chat GPT and artificial intelligence, even that. Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. that's why I'm interrupting let's keep going on this show but follow the podcast it'll make my mom super happy so how many people here do pretty solidly in search engine optimization SEO or SEM raise your hands for leads even the people that are outflanking here that are actually growing through that even that tried and true guaranteed execution now has for the first time a clear technology change that could change everything because if this thing keeps getting as good as it looks like it's gonna get, you're just not gonna go to Google at all.

13:09You're gonna go to ChatGPT or something like that. Or Microsoft just made a$10 billion investment in it and we might be going to Bing, because Bing might be run on chat. This is how the world works. And again, what's so cool about getting the gray hairs, under 35, how many people are here under 35? Raise your hands. Let's clap it up for the youngsters. I like that.

13:29So many advantages for being in that game, right? Because what I'm saying here is much more natural. You grew up with that, you're like, I get that. that just seems normal. The thing that you don't have with under 35 is the gray hairs of experience. We've been through the patterns. Has anybody here ever wondered why so many service businesses are called ABC? ABC Laundries, ABC Carpet Cleaners, ABC. That's right, watch this kids. Under 35, get ready to have your head blown off your body. The reason there's drillions of ABC businesses is because when the world did not have Google and it had something called the yellow pages.

14:07When you would go to see somebody to clean your carpet, they did it in alphabetical order. And so if your company was called ABC Carpet Cleaners, you were basically the first result on Google and you got the business. That little tiny story is all I care about to talk to you right now. There are people in this room that will do one fun fact, one video of here's a fun fact of the opportunities in mortgages Just that. Here's a fun fact of one opportunity in mortgages. Post that on Instagram Reels and TikTok and with no followers. You do not have an account yet and it's your seventh video and one video like that may go viral and lead to more leads for you in a 24 hour window than you would get the entire year.

14:57That happens every day. yet we continue to choose not to look. What's happening in this room is people are choosing not to look. You've just made a decision that you can't get business from TikTok. You just made that decision. You didn't post 50 times on it. You didn't optimize your profile. You don't have your website linked to the URL of your TikTok and then a video did solid and you got leads. You just decided. There's way too much deciding on subjective opinion in this room, and it's not about this room, it's the whole world. The reason I can say it is I see the data across the whole world.

15:35This is what's happening. This is why there's a supply and demand opportunity. Life is very simple. It's supply and demand. It's actually shockingly simple. If you understand supply and demand in every aspect about everything about life, you will start to understand how to make decisions. Very simply, the thing that I want to compel this room to is to understand the single biggest opportunity of under supply, not enough posts against demand, too much consumption is leading to remarkable opportunity. I'll tell you the place that I really think a lot of you should be very comfortable. I can wrap my head around like, Jesus, I'm gonna make videos on TikTok.

16:13That's nice, Gary, but I just can't get there. The place where I think all of you can get to and should on a daily basis is LinkedIn. LinkedIn should be a very cozy place for this room. there's nothing intimidating about it for this room. Right? The only thing about it is you should probably update your photo. Most of you... The photo from 13 years ago with a suit and tie is just not a good look. Let's get that photo updated to actually look like you and maybe a little less stuffy. But LinkedIn should be a place you should dominate. LinkedIn today is acting the way Facebook did about 12 years ago.

16:50LinkedIn is, if you haven't looked, but I have a few... Actually, how many people here by show of hands consume information on LinkedIn? They go to their LinkedIn and they read stuff. Raise it high. I want everybody to look. Look, raise it higher, please. I see a lot of half hands. Please just do this for me. I want everybody to look around. Keep it up. These people go to LinkedIn and read articles and information. There's an enormous opportunity on LinkedIn, right? And now, the thing that I'm most excited to tell you, you don't even have to make videos. You don't even have to make videos. I know that a lot of people don't want to do it.

17:22They feel awkward at it. They're self-conscious about how they look. They don't think they have the gift of gab. There's three different ways to sell. There's video and it works the best. If you're willing to get out of your comfort zone or if you're naturally, like anybody here who's got a sense of humor and feels they have a level of charisma and isn't making videos on the internet is just leaving pure money on the table. That's just facts. But for the people that feel a little bit more self-conscious or aren't feeling as strong, the written word on LinkedIn crushes. The written word. And again, here's the key.

17:55This is how you're gonna sell. You need to make it something bigger than about you. The post isn't like, I've been doing this for 16 years, you should hit me up. That doesn't work. The post should be like, did you know? If, you know, here's what's going on. Here's some information you can use. The more you treat it as if you work for Bloomberg and you're on TV or you work for the Wall Street Journal and you write about the mortgage industry, the more you treat it as you're the news source, and by the way, because we all know there's a level of localization to this, like if you're the local newspaper more than the Wall Street Journal where you're making it into context of a new bank's in town and here's what it means against a rate or things that are actually true to the citizens, the combo of LinkedIn and Facebook for so many people in this room is a remarkable, remarkable brand building exercise, referral exercise, you will be flabbergasted.

18:55Where it gets super interesting, for everyone in this room in my opinion, is what happens next when you go through a path of doing this for a couple of months. When you go through this for a couple of months, you start to run out of ideas. Some of you will run out of ideas after the first post. It happens. You know, you overthink it, you're not sure exactly, I mean it, you know, I get it. But it's all based on ideas. After a while, especially if you start following other people. People ask me where do I start? I always say go to Instagram and TikTok, put hashtag mortgage, mortgages, lending, all that, and just follow 50 accounts.

19:32The content flowing to you will start to spark contextually what works, right? You can do that on all the platforms. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, on and on. Where I get really excited for this room is if God forbid somebody calls my bluff on this and does it for three months, then it starts opening up a whole different game where you start getting a hair more comfortable and you realize, wait a minute, so I've made 100 videos on mortgages or just this, that, the other thing. What if I just make a video about fishing? Stick with me here. Or golf. Or cooking. Or motherhood while holding a job and holding both hats.

20:15Or anything. The New York Jets getting Aaron Rodgers, for example. Something, anything. Anything. You make a video around something that matters to you or that you also know. This is where it gets super interesting. One of you makes 71 posts on all these platforms like we talked about over two months. You don't get much. By month two, you're questioning why you listened to me in the first place, because this has been a complete waste of time. You're pissed. And then you decide to remember this part of the talk and you know that you're going to your bowling night with your buddies and you make one video about bowling.

20:57You post it. And that bowling video gets more views because it's something people actually want to watch. Very few people want to hear about mortgages from you unless they're in market, right? We would all agree that this is not the coolest industry that ever existed, right? It's needed, but it's not sexy, right? Whereas bowling for a very small group of people is very sexy, not for 99%, but for 1%, right? But here's where it gets super interesting. That bowling video that somebody actually wants to watch because you said, this is how I spin it. That's the video that the person nine miles from your home sees, looks in your profile, sees this is what you're doing for a living, is actually in market and you get the email.

21:46That, to me, is the greatest opportunity for business people in sectors like this and it's one that so few people do and understand and the ones that do are picking up market share in the same way that the few hands that went up about Google search, I promise you, in this room, and Google search is much more expensive today than it was 15 years ago, but if you talk to the OGs in this industry that built some big firms or the national players that are your tollboots or, you know, people like Zillow that built their entire business on Google search, it worked out for people because they're the tollbooth to referrals.

22:26The tollbooth to referrals or to attention or to information more than anything is brand. Nike did not get me because I typed in I want to buy sneakers on Google, enter, and then the ad showed up. Nike got me because they've been branding for 30 years and I want to be associated. If you were able to micro brand around this subject matter in your world, that is your business. Your word of mouth referral, reputation, that's called brand. That's called brand. But that's only as big as the 50, 60, 90, 12, 39 people that you've done business with and the four people that they've told. That's 200 people, 50 times four.

23:12When you do what I'm talking about for the last 30, 40 minutes, you start having the ability to have much more. You start having the ability to become so popular that you're now referring out leads in areas that you don't do business to other people and your referral business is bigger than your core business. And that's a fun business by comparison. This is a huge opportunity. I hope you're really grasping about it. Honestly, I'm gonna roll for a few more minutes, but I really wanna set up everyone's mentality because I predominantly wanna do Q &A because that's the thesis, but I know for the majority of this room, we're in 101 land, and people have very basic questions.

23:51Please do not be scared to ask a very basic question. Most of the people in this room are not on this journey yet, so everyone's in the same place, so start thinking about your question. But just to recap it and frame it, I believe that the market, minimally this year, isn't gonna be a fiesta. I think we can all agree it's not gonna be on fire. I believe that people get scared in those environments. I believe people go on defense in those environments and actually go backwards. That anything that you have been doing that's been progressive the last two or three years, you actually go back to tried and true, right?

24:26We're not gonna do that. We've been doing a little social media, Gary, but now it's a little bit scarier. We're gonna go back to calling people, tried and true. I love when people go tried and true in dark times. That's when we get market share. Your competitors in every single one of your markets is gonna go backwards during this time. A little less$2 ,000 wine night to get referrals because they want that$2 ,000 because they're not sure if more money's coming in. This is your opportunity. You know why? What I'm asking you to do with social media costs$0. I'm not asking you to run ads. I'm asking you to know that we are now living in an era in social media that we have not seen since 2011, which means in 2011, you could post on a Facebook fan page and get a lot of people to see it, and you paid nothing.

25:09For the first time since then, because of TikTok, and now every company has had to follow TikTok, because I'm sure at this point, somebody here, almost everybody here has been affected by their niece going viral on one post about their sunburn, or a friend putting out something silly about a dog getting a million views. It's giving you awareness without having to pay for it. That is the ultimate for us salespeople. Could you imagine being able to get a full page ad in the newspaper for free? Could you imagine running local commercials on television for free? Can you imagine getting radio reads by the two biggest radio stations in your town for free?

25:51That is what social media is. It requires you to do work, but what are we doing here if we're not working? People love to talk big game. and then they have to do it. We have to work. Nobody flew down here for kicks and giggles. If you decided to come down here, you're a worker. That's how I see it. That's what I like about giving a talk here. I'm not talking to everybody in this industry. People made the effort to be here. That means they're trying to make the effort to grow. My question is when somebody who's consistently been right for 20 years about this stuff gives you the full blueprint, why you won't follow it.

26:31I'm always fascinated by that. And it goes back to my health and wellness thing because it doesn't come natural. And that makes sense. This is the best opportunity to get serious about social because of the double dynamic of the organic reaches up for the first time in a decade while this industry is about to go on heavy defense and you're gonna be able to pick up market share. I hope you take it serious. Thank you. Thank you.

26:59If you have a question, please raise your hand. All right, very good. Got some hands. Beautiful. Here we go. We're going to go first right here. Stand up. What's your name, my friend? Hey, I'm George Hassett. George, pleasure. I'm a former owner in Florida. And I recently went all in on social media, posting consistently five days a week. On what platforms, brother? Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Amazing. Go ahead. So keeping that up, gotten some business, gotten some posts that kind of, you know, gotten out there, gotten about 2 ,000, 3 ,000, 5 ,000 plays. Love. Some with 100. Any advice? I mean, I'm all in.

Read the full transcript

27:33I'm sticking with it. I know it's the future. When you say some business, how does it feel? Like two leads, one lead, zero leads? What's some business mean? I would say probably about six leads. Okay. Two of them were tangible enough to close. Good. So do you feel like that money so far since May makes your behavior on it ROI positive? Not about the money ROI, time ROI. I'm on no shit. I mean, do you believe that the money that you've made so far justifies the time that you've put into it since May? No, no. Why? How much time do you put into posting every day? Well, it's more the thought behind what I'm posting about.

28:11I don't like to do the silly, stupid shit that everybody's trending with. Right, agreed. So I really try to get good information, useful information. And so you're struggling with getting that out of your head onto video? Nope. So how much time are you putting in? Not very much in the grand scheme of time. So, you know, probably about 30, 45 minutes a day. Cool. Keep going. Any more of those? No. Because it's mentality. You decided, like, you're putting in a lot of time. Then we're sitting for three minutes, and we're like, crap, it's only 30 minutes, right? I would argue that can get down to eight minutes once you stop thinking about everything.

28:52Don't worry about the lighting, don't worry about, like, just talk. Yeah, comfortable in my own skin. Just anything I could do to have more results quicker or it's just about to be... Quicker is the killer of life. Right? The second that word was put in that sentence, it speaks to the vulnerability. I did hundreds of videos for multiple years before anybody watched my wine show. Hundreds for multiple years before anybody watched. I didn't have the luck of TikTok going viral 2000. I had YouTube where people didn't even go to YouTube yet and we used to embed. Do you remember this? you know everyone in my age group where we used to get the videos on YouTube but nobody went to YouTube so you embedded the video on your blog and I needed people to go to winelibrary.com slash TV to watch the video and leave comments in my WordPress plugin.

29:40No, this is like you're in good shape brother. I think what you want to do is collaborate with others. Maybe do stitches, duets, right? You see other people making mortgage content. Maybe you comment on that. Do you see this whole green screen movement? Have you seen my content where I'm in the video and there's a headline. I think that for your industry is a monster. If I'm everyone in this room, I set Google alerts to every term in the mortgage industry, see what news comes in, even put like mortgage rates, Orlando, Florida, enter like as a Google alerts. If you don't know what that is, just Google Google alerts.

30:14They'll show you how to, I know it's funny but it's true. And so now you're getting something with an article that comes in, you have a thought on what that means. because look, me and a lot of people that are not in this industry, we can be smart, but we don't know every nuance that you know. That's why we need you. So you making a green screen video over the, does everybody know what these, have you seen these videos where like there's the article and the person's talking? You do a good job of making your size. Yep. Exactly. Because when you're doing it, you can move yourself around and you think about creative strategy.

30:44I think that would crush in this industry. So I think you have to make different types of content and more, but you're not allocating a lot of time. 30 minutes. I mean, yeah. Cool, next. Where's the runner? Yep, there we go, my man. How are you? Great, sir, thank you. What's your name? Jason Sharon out of Charleston. Pleasure, sir. Follow your stuff closely, watch everything on YouTube. I found three videos where you kind of flirted or talk about maybe getting the orange history. Yes. If you make that decision, can I be your first guy in the interview? Yes. Yes, thanks.

31:22And I'll tell you why. It goes back to the comment I made about Zillow or in the restaurant industry. I did it in the restaurant industry. I saw what OpenTable was doing. How many people here have used OpenTable? Beautiful. OpenTable moved first on Google. They just bought the names of every restaurant on Google. People search restaurants on Google. They showed up first and you're like, oh, this is the thing that I signed up for. And then they sold it back to people. My friends, I want you to make content because I don't want you to pay the referral fees of the future. You think Zillow and Google are bad?

31:54Wait till you see artificial intelligence. They're gonna charge you up to the cent on the referral because they'll have the math. They'll be like, how much does he make on this? 3 ,000 bucks? Good. The referral's 2 ,900 bucks. Enjoy that shit. This is important. I'm not up here, ha, ha, ha, let's fucking dance on TikTok. I'm up here like this is brand and sales and business. and if you lally gag, you will continue to lose market share. It will happen. And I spoke at an event just like this, just like this many, many years ago of the limo and taxi ownership society. And I said, this Uber thing is not a joke and they laughed at me.

32:36They said, nobody's gonna do that. It's too expensive. Do you understand what kind of connections we have with local politicians? You don't get it. and I said, you don't get it. Technology is undefeated. So please, let's stay on this and get serious. And it's about mindset. I so appreciate that you're doing it. You're way ahead. It's funny when you talk through it, it's like 30 minutes a day, right? You're watching YouTube videos for an hour a day. You know what I mean? I'm not saying you are, but you know what I mean? It's not a lot of time, so let's keep it going. What do we got? Thank you. Hey, Gary.

33:10How's it going? So now that everybody's attention span is a lot shorter. short form content, vertical content is, I guess the easiest route to go. How do you feel about YouTube content and the longer form? I feel very good about it. Mr. Beast is gonna be a trillionaire. It's the same way, the way I think about short form and long form where Mr. Beast is gonna be a trillionaire is the way I think about a basketball. You know what a basketball is? Great. What's the ROI of a basketball for you? How much money have you made because the invention of the basketball? Me, I'm negative, because I've had two knee surgeries already, right?

33:45But LeBron is going to make billions because of it. The piano, zero for me, quite a bit for Billy Joel and Elton John. That's how this all is. When people are like, social doesn't work for our industry or for me. Yes, it does. It doesn't work for you. You suck at it.

34:06So long form, short form, they both work. Some people are really good at like one-liners and they're comedy writers and they've got improv DNA and they crush in short. Other people are just like, you know, they got real substance at a 20 minute podcast. I mean, everybody here should do a 20 minute podcast interviewing every local business in their town. That's all you should do. Just do a podcast, just interviewing every local business in town so that everybody locally listens to this podcast because it's all the businesses in town and then you're the host. They become aware of who you are and you get everybody's mortgage business.

34:39That's long form. then you can chop up that long form into three or four pieces of short form. There's strategy here. But I got to get everybody here just going to dig under the hood to put in the work. I got to get you your appetites up to like this is real. That's what, I can't get this all accomplished in this hour. I need to get you curious and focused. This is not hard. Start a local podcast. Where are you from, brother? Miami. Great. Start a SMB Miami, small businesses in Miami. Just one great thing about how do I make content? You message any small business owner in Miami to be on a podcast, the answer is yes before you say send.

35:21People got egos out there, my man. Right? Me on a podcast? Hell yeah. Now you've got it. Now they're posting it on their pages and you're getting awareness. Now you're looking at the 25 minute video and you're taking two 30 second clips out and that's your post for social when you're running out of ideas. Thanks. You got it, brother. What's your name, my friend? My name is Joe from Orlando, Florida. Nice to meet you, Joe. We started messing with Instagram and show reels and everything. Yes. And we heard a timeline make sure that the design of the timeline also matters, not just the content itself and the video.

35:59You mean the way your grid looks? Yes. Is that what? The way your grid looks, yes. I have a very passionate disagreement with that. I know that people like a certain aesthetic, especially in fashion and beauty and high-end brands. But I mean, you can go look at my Gary VEE account right now. My stuff is all over the place because it's maximized for when it's in people's feed to get interested, more so than when they land on the page if they're making a decision to do business with me. And we feel like we have pretty strong data that confirms that. What about concerning when you can choose the highlights to send the clients to a particular direction.

36:34Yeah, I mean, those... It's a video to create content. Yep, it's a nice little tactic, as some of you know who live in Instagram. On pages, there's that little section with the little circles across the board that says highlights, but the click-throughs on those are so small in comparison to getting your content right post by post. So it's nice to have. It's not something I would say is not something you shouldn't be doing, but I can tell you, for example, for me, who spends 15 hours a day thinking about this every day, I haven't spent a minute thinking about highlights in the last six months.

37:06Okay, just to finish it up and follow up, concerning IG, because sometimes going to multiple platforms confuses the hacker of everyone. No, it doesn't. At least to me, it does. Well, that's you. And it doesn't confuse you. That's a statement for the people who don't want to put in the work. Right? You're not confused when you go see Nike on TikTok and then you see Nike on Twitter, you're not confused. That's just subconscious bias of you don't want to be on seven platforms. Towards that direction, do you think that the content on Instagram should be different than goes with TikTok? I don't think they would be different because it's more business-gear, but do you have an advice to say the same?

37:47I do think the context of the, if I gave this talk this morning to the auto society, it'd be slightly different, right? Like, you've heard words I've said today that made it contextual to your industry, the housing market, right? But it would still be the general thesis. That's how I think about different social platforms. When you know TikTok's a little bit more fun and free, you could be a little more loose. Maybe you're not wearing your suit. Maybe that's where the bowling video goes. At first, at this level, where you don't have huge teams, and even 30, I don't laugh at 30 minutes. It is still work, you know?

38:19I don't mind when people post the same video every place. The one thing I always ask them is, please change all of the copy. A LinkedIn post with a video, you're gonna say different sentences than maybe something on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok. But once you get addicted to the growth of your business through this model, you will make the content contextual to the platform. And there's nuances. And again, what's cool is I talk. There's all my social handles. It's GaryVE everywhere. You can go right now to my TikTok and Instagram and see I have the same video, but you can see that I post-edited it differently and have a different copy.

38:52Cheers, my friend. Next. Hi, man. Hi. Hi, thanks so much. What's your name? Oh, sorry. You're good. Go ahead. I love her. She's amazing. My name is Gay. I'm a loan officer out of Colorado Springs. And I am thinking about, like, so I just learned about ChatGPT and all this AI. Yes. And my question for you is, I know you're a visionary. I know you're probably much more well aware of the capabilities of that than most of it. Like, we're talking about, you know, Facebook right now or LinkedIn, which is very old technology. Yes. So talk to me about ChatGPT and things like that and what are the forward-thinking things that I should be thinking about now to be in that space in the future?

39:32First, I appreciate the visionary thing. I always think that I'm just practical but I'm just not excited about yesterday. When people are like, you're seeing around corners, you're a visionary. I'm like, no, I'm not. The world is addicted with yesterday and I'm passionate about today. I'm scared about tomorrow because you can guess wrong. I just live in today. Everything we talked about so far is not something that's coming. It's something that's happening right this second while we're sitting here. As far as ChatGPT, it's here. You know, there's videos of me six years ago on panels about AI. I'm like, I can't wait, but I gotta see the one.

40:08Well, guess what? ChatGPT, that's what everybody should write down in Google just to see it. Like, remember, this is like, it's 1999 and I'm saying everyone go check out Google and 90 % of the audience. I was doing it back then at Chamber of Commerce in New Jersey with 12 people, but 11 of the 12 didn't go look at Google. And for every one of those real estate agents, mortgage brokers, tire resellers, they all could have picked up market share on Google if they did. Chat GPT, I'll give you an example. You know how everyone here is like, man, I don't know what I'm gonna write on LinkedIn. It blew you away, right?

40:47I literally, I don't know if you, there's no way the cameras are good enough to zoom in, but maybe people in the front row can say it. I literally have goosebumps right now because this is insane. You can go to chat GPT and say, write an article about the current state of the mortgage market in Colorado Springs in the voice of Mike Tyson. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding with this. It's true. With a flair of flavor from the book of Lord of the Flies. Enter. and you will watch artificial intelligence write a four, I mean, if you go to type in, how many people here have not heard about ChatGPT yet?

41:27Because it's very new. Just raise your hand. It's okay. Be humble about it. When you leave here and break and you type in ChatGPT into Google, ironically, most of the articles are how all the school boards in America right now are banning it. Because these kids are writing papers in a second.

41:47You always know when something big is happening when schools ban it. Right? So, chat GBP, what do I think? I think for a lot of people here who are gonna struggle with what do I, you know, time. So, it's a mitzvah for me. It's a blessing for me. I have terrible grammar. Like, the reason I blew out on video was I can't, I can't write. I mean, the biggest joke of all time is I'm a five-time New York Times bestseller. The way I do my books is audio. I'm writing a follow-up to one of my biggest books, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, coming out later this year, profound concept, Jab, Jab, Jab, Left Hook.

42:26And it's ironic, based on a talk, I wrote that 10 years ago and it was like, hey, it's time to understand content. That book was just a bunch of examples of posts on Facebook and Twitter and it helped so many, I mean, it's really, really, that's why I love doing this. By the way, back to the opening line of this, I can't wait to get two of you to email me in three years saying this was the talk that doubled your business in the store in this time, because that's what happens, if you actually do the right thing. It's just the way it is. Anyway, what should everybody here do on ChatGPT? They should absolutely go home.

42:56First of all, you're gonna be blown away. This is like the first thing I've seen in so long that I'm like, oh my God. So first you just need to see it, so I'm so glad this will be the time you first, but next, I think you're gonna write a lot of LinkedIn posts with it. For someone like me who doesn't have the time, patience, or capability to write a LinkedIn post, it's now just about the ideas. Check this out. ChatGPT, write an article comparing the current state of interest rates to 2008, to 1979, and to 1954. Enter. Then you get a whole bunch. Then you go in and edit and add a couple of sentences making it yours, and then you've got a LinkedIn post in three minutes, which means you can make 10 of them, brother.

43:44Awesome, let's keep it going. Who's got the mic? Hi, there you are. What's your name? My name's Elizabeth. Elizabeth. I have only been a mortgage broker for about three years now. Okay. But I have four kids. Yes. What's your opinion on filming? I don't have a lot of time in my day is what I'm getting with this. No shit. Yeah, it's crazy. So, what is... Did you just call them gremlins? Yeah. I love that. She is the coolest. You're right. Go ahead. What is your opinion on posting content and filming these videos when you have kids that want to be in them with you and they want to be on mom's hip or they want to be in the background.

44:19I can't always just shut the door and ignore them. But if I actually think that I'm working out there. My opinion is the scariest place on earth for me to talk about is talking to people about raising their kids because it is the most personal decision on earth. My opinion is I have 50 million followers on social across all the platforms. I've never posted my children once. but my children haven't asked either. So that's a journey you have to go on. I think I'm a little bit separating you and this question. In general, I think parents making decisions for children to be that exposed is a slippery slope for those kids as they grow up.

45:01But I think it will work. At the end of the day, I think actually it's all one big game of self-esteem that if you're able to instill self-esteem into kids, they'll figure out all the pros and cons of society. You know, I think that's up to you and how you see the world. Look, it's very effective. The reason people put their kids in their content is it gets more engagement. Yes. You know, which I think if that's the reason you're putting your kids in the content, that's a pretty shitty reason to put your kids in the content for like when people do that. But that's also, who gives a shit about my opinion?

45:36and that's them raising their kids the way they see fit. I think that it's something you have to give a lot of thought to, but to your point, maybe two of the four gremlins really want it and they're destined to be public figures and this is just good practice, no different than people told my mom, me selling every day lemonade and bubble gum and baseball cards was bad, I needed to focus on school, they were wrong, right? So, you know, maybe those two need to be in the content because they're gonna start getting their context on what they're actually gonna do. So it just really comes down to how you see it.

46:10You're welcome. Hey, David. Hey, brother. Gordon from Arizona. The half-retired dude. Yeah? Yeah. I'll be there in a couple years. Respect, brother. All right. So the question is, the names on all these platforms. Yes. Do you have the business names? Do you use personal names? I do think personal name, Gordon, is if you're willing, no different than the parenting thing, if you're willing to go there. personal name is amazing because look what will happen with you. You'll do this for six years professionally with your personal name and then you're going to have a whole other chapter of your life.

46:44And you may want to use social to meet people in your new area to put out other content. You might start a kind of side hustle half business when you're done with this because, you know, the great dream of retirement for people that have, you know, certain DNA lasts about six months, right? It's great on paper and you think you're going to do all these things and then it's Tuesday, April 9th, four months in, you're like, what? I'm bored. I gotta do something else. And now you're in a financial position, a life position, maybe to do it around fly fishing or bowling or rock climbing or cooking. And by having it still be your name, you've got a platform.

47:20You don't have to start over. It doesn't go from mortgage man to like cow tipping man. You know what I mean? So that's why we go with name. You got it, brother. Hi. Hi, my name is Heather from Arizona as well. Pleasure. And thank you. Thank you, Heather. What do you think of Be Real? And is it a platform for our industry and adults? It's definitely a platform for adults. Back to the whole like, you know, people were too slow on TikTok because they thought it was teenage girls. I don't think it's a platform that is important for this room yet. And I don't think it will be if I'm right, but I'm guessing.

48:00The reason I don't put out a lot of content on Be Real as I'm still watching to decide. What happened, to be real, is what I thought would happen, which was it was such a singular platform where you take a photo and it shows both sides of the camera. Anybody who has teenagers in their lives knows this platform for the other 60%. They have no idea what we're talking about, but it was a social network that you take a photo, it shows what you took a photo of, but it shows you while you're taking a photo. It took advantage of both cameras. I thought it was a feature more than a whole platform. And sure enough, TikTok and Instagram, and they all copied it and kind of killed its momentum.

48:34So it could, it could innovate. They could come out with a new feature that keeps building on it. But for now, I don't see that being as a meaningful platform. If I could just get this room to post four times a day, one on LinkedIn, one on YouTube Shorts, because YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world after Google, and Shorts there do very well for search. So if somebody's that, I mean, the amount of people that search for mortgage information on YouTube is profound. so your short could show up. If I could just get this room to post one LinkedIn a day, one YouTube short, one Instagram, one TikTok, and reply to three people on Twitter when they search the term mortgage and they answer people's questions in the ethos, that would be a huge, remarkable accomplishment, so I'll focus on that for now.

49:19Say that again. YouTube shorts, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, one a day on all those platforms. Facebook, excuse me, that's a fifth Facebook fan page, and then reply to three people on Twitter from your Twitter account by going to Twitter, searching the term mortgage, mortgage rates, interest rates, you know the terms of your business. You know the things that people are asking. Search those things, hit enter, see people. I know what people think. They're like, well, I'm in Arizona and it looks like this account's in Philadelphia but just keep building brand, keep building referral opportunities, just keep building.

49:54Reply to people. This is how I built my Twitter. When I was not known by anyone, I went to Twitter in 2007 and I spent five to nine hours a day while I was running a$50 million wine retail business because I wanted it. And instead of watching fucking Seinfeld at 8.30 at night, I had my phone next to me and kind of watched Thursday Night Football while I did it and I replied to every single person in 2009 to 2011 that talked about wine in any shape or form. Headed to Napa, looked at their account, they live in Texas. My wine store can't even ship to Texas because of state laws and I would say, here are the three wineries that you should go check out.

50:31Enter. You know why? Because when that person appreciated it, they told their sister that lived in New York, a place I could sell. Like, what pisses me off about referral based industries that shit or don't take social media serious is social media is word of mouth on steroids. Next. Hi. Hey Gary, Melissa Pluckett from Idaho. Nice to see you Melissa. Nice to see you too. In your opinion, Well, we're trying to educate the up and coming people. The new generations that are gonna be buying homes. Which is, of all of them, the best social media platform to reach out on to do education, would it be TikTok?

51:09Yes. Okay. The attention of 18 to 35 that is on TikTok is profound. And then also, with the podcast, how does one go about picking Gary Pee as a guest on their new podcast? Yeah, girl. Yeah, girl, that's right. I love the ask. You know, weirdly, harder and easier than people think, meaning, as someone who gets asked truly 100 times a day, 99 % are no, but it's super weird, I just say yes randomly all the time. You can go to YouTube right now, type in my name, sort by lowest view count, and you will see hundreds of podcasts that I've done that have no views because I at the time wasn't big enough.

51:57They didn't have a platform. So if you email me, I will absolutely take it. I love it.

52:05Thank you. George Berkeley. I met you back in last February in Atlanta. And 26 years as a mortgage broker, you know, a dire conservative. I have a liberal millennial son that works for me. He was 31 years old. Yes. Was with me about six months. And I asked you, how do I support my liberal? Yes. I remember this brother. You said, it's not about being red or blue or purple. And you were frickin' spot on bro. I went back, read your book 12 and a half, got it on Audible. Dude, it was a game changer. And I found out I struggled with kind hander. And the book, it saved me a lot of Dr. Phil and Jerry's for a time, but it's been a real game changer.

52:47And I would recommend anybody in the audience here to read that, it should be a must read. but thank you, it's definitely made a difference in my business practice. That means so much to me, George. Thank you so much.

53:02Thank you for doing that. Thank you so much. Hi. Hi, how are you? I'm quite well. The goat, let me start. You're amazing, I'm here for you. I'm super excited to watch you. Question, vulnerable question. Yes. I have a 14 year old daughter. Yes. Lives on Snap. Yep. Lives on Snap probably for us not to... See, yeah. So tell me how that plays in, because you brought up Snap immediately and I have lots of rejection around it, so I hope that you surrender. Yeah, so of course she's living on Snap because it disappears, but good news. We all lived on Snap growing up because these platforms didn't exist and our parents had no fucking clue what we were doing.

53:39Like, I love how parents are like, this is unacceptable. I'm like, how we all grew up? Yeah. What do you think, your mom was on the three-way call listening to you? some, but it was hard to pull that off. Right? So like this new concept that like we should be spying on our kids 24-7 is the actual issue, not that they're getting away from us. But how does that play in the business? In the business, Snap has a platform called Spotlight that is similar to these feeds. The reason I didn't bring it up a lot through here is I still think they're a step behind everything else. They're way further along than be real and there is opportunity but I think back to the question earlier, if we're gonna try to reach 18 to 35 to start really building out our lead for the next decade, that's a TikTok Instagram game right now where you're gonna get much more dividends against the time allocation.

54:28I needed that, thank you so much. You're welcome. Let me sneak one or two more in. Okay. Hi, darling. Hi. I'm Fannie Mae West. And my problem is that I don't know much about social media. I don't need to be on there. I'm on there. I have people manning my social media, but just how it all works, I have no clue. And so I do videos. I do financial tips and all that. I'm not consistent. And with how to put it all together, how to make it work. The editing. Everybody looks so nice. and I'm like, I don't feel like I'm excited. Fanny, you look nice. Thank you. You're welcome. But I don't feel like I'm excited.

55:19I'm not. Well, because you're not taking it serious. Fanny, if I told you you're going to get 100 referrals from it, if you go five posts a day, every day, I have a funny feeling you'll be excited about it. Fanny wants to sell shit. It's not that I'm not excited about social media. I think watching me maybe is not so... Ah, of course. You don't want to get the views and the watches and then. Yeah, you don't want to get into the rat hole, the insecurities that come along with all of it. Yeah, and the lighting and you know, for me I don't want to look crazy. So I have to make sure that. When you say you don't want to look crazy, do you mean like you want it to look good or you're worried that crazy shit's going to come out of your mouth?

56:00I want to make sure I look good when I'm on camera and then that I'm seeing the right lights and lighting. I did one and it was so dark. I was like, ooh, this is so bad. Like, we have to get our self-esteem up. Fanny, like, listen, I respect when people want to look presentable and professional. Everybody gets to rock the way they want to. I'm aware that a lot of people feel uncomfortable if they wore a hoodie and a hat to a keynote presentation. That's appropriate. Or cursing. For a lot of people, that's not appropriate. I respect that. We all get to do it our way. I just want to get you into a place where you're not crippled by getting opportunity because you're worried about a nasty comment or not getting enough views.

56:41Because that's when we get into the, this is just wrap, people have their self-esteem wrapped up in it. And then they start doing things that they don't even believe in. And it becomes a whole big game of insecurity. Most people are not posting because they fear people's opinion. Right? And so like, I don't want that for you. So like, just remember this and I'll, because I've got to wrap up. I want everybody to hear this. Because this is something that a lot of people are dealing with in this room. If somebody takes the time of their day to come to your page and make you feel bad, you shouldn't feel bad for yourself.

57:16You should feel bad for them.

57:20That person is hurting. That person is hurting. That person's in such a bad place that the only way they can get a little relief is tearing someone else down for a microsecond of them being able to have relief of their own internal pain. Never feel bad for you. feel bad for them. Hey 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.

From the publisher

In today's episode, I talk about how companies can leverage social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to reach their target audience and grow their brand, and give some tactical advice about creating content on personal profiles VS company pages, leveraging AI and ChatGPT to create more content. Hope you enjoy!

More from The GaryVee Audio Experience

All 546 episodes
The Only Marketing Strategy You Need for 2026The GaryVee Audio Experience · 58 min
Listen in VO