The Real Reason Social Media Isn't Working for You

0:00I don't have all this time to make content. My response is tough. If you want it, if you want to sell homes, there's a lot of people listening now that got to the Rover from a Toyota, no diss on Toyota, because they did knock on a thousand doors because they did send direct mail. You know, that foundation of the grind of real estate of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. That new foundation is called social media content. But unlike direct mail, one piece of content. for some unknown reason, and I know why they can go into it, but it gets 3 million views instead of your normal 1 ,300, changes the course of your career.

0:39There's no door you could have knocked on, no flyer you could have sent to mail, or no phone call you could have made from 1970 to 2005 that would have compounded your business 50x. Yes. But there is a social media post that can do that. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

1:03Gary. Yes, sir. We have real estate agents listening far and wide and they're bombing down the road in their Range Rovers. They're doing 80 miles an hour and they want to know. Wait a minute. They're driving rovers? I mean, like they're already doing solid. I think as soon as you get your real estate license, you get a Range Rover. Got it. Got it. And now you have to work to pay for it. Got it. And they're all wondering the same thing. And we polled. And here's what they told us. They said they're making more social media posts than ever. More than five a week on average, but they're getting less leads and less attraction from the marketing they're doing.

1:33What are they doing wrong? Well, I just laughed inside my own head when you said five a week. I posted 397 pieces of content yesterday. Wow. So how about that, everyone? Is that right? That is a true statement. How do you do that? You really fall into the framework of P &H, which is something I'm going to start pushing more and more, which is platforms and handles. Platforms is I'm on seven to eight platforms, nine. with Substack now. I have multiple handles. There's a post I got a half a million views yesterday called Uncle V, which is I'm the uncle of the kids on TikTok and the content I put out is more uncle, not friend or dad or, you know, leader.

2:15And so I'm very impressed and empathetic to the people riding the rovers who think five posts a week is a lot. That would be like me saying for everyone who's in shape physically that would be me starting this interview saying hey brother uh so my people i just pulled them they did three push-ups last week who someone gave you my workout routine this must have been our producer i'm gonna get on this and i don't mean three sets and i don't mean three days of 100 push-ups i mean three push-ups five pieces of social media content in 2026 in a week is equivalent to three total pushups for the week.

2:57So is it a quantity game? It is a quantity and quality game. Quantity is not subjective. Quality is. Okay. Right. So everyone here on the other side, listening to this podcast is debating quality. They're also, you know what they all just said? They're like, Gary, what are you talking about. My job is to sell houses. I've got to be at open houses. I have a team to manage. Like I don't have all this time to make content. My response is tough. If you want it, if you want to sell homes, there's a lot of people listening now that got to the Rover from a Toyota, no diss on Toyota, because they did knock on a thousand doors because they did send direct mail.

3:36You know, that foundation of the grind of real estate of the eighties, nineties and early two thousands, that new foundation is called social media content but unlike direct mail one piece of content for some unknown reason and i know why i can go into it but it gets three million views instead of your normal 1300 changes the course of your career there's no door you could have knocked on no flyer you could have sent to mail or no phone call you could have made from 1970 to 2005 that would have compounded your business 50x. Yes. But there is a social media post that can do that. Everyone knows that I'm literally getting, you see this?

4:16I know that everyone who just heard that knows I'm right, knows it's possible. Doesn't mean they know how, doesn't mean that they think it will, but they know it's true and it's not a lottery ticket. I think it's very manageable. I've devoted my career to being good at the craft. It's no different than staging a home. Sure. Is staging a home a skill or are you lucky? It's a skill. You know how to make the couch and the carpet and all the shit. Well, making social media content is a skill. I know, and I'll do it right now, that I can say go to garybee.com slash attention and I put out a 50-page deck for my last book, Day Trading Attention.

4:54That is free. No excuses. Especially if you have a rover, you can afford a$30 book. But even if you don't want to, there it is. It's garybee.com slash attention. I know every day at Gary B, I put out content of how to do this well. I also know that I tell people over and over don't listen to what I'm saying, watch what I'm doing but I also know that yesterday when I landed in Atlanta for this amazing keynote, and thank you for having me it's an honor I ate some gummy bears in my hotel room and I wasn't supposed to do that and that's called lack of discipline they are delicious though and Mike Vicanti, I hope you're not listening but my trainer would be pissed if I told him the truth this morning that I ate 40 gummy bears for no reason, and oh by the way that probably cost me 80 bucks because you know how the fancy hotels exactly and uh and and that's basically the punchline i am incredibly unbelievably uncannily disciplined when it comes to business i am not that psycho dominator when it comes to health and wellness i've become much better you can look at my old videos versus now i've gotten the results but the wah wah from all the real agents and everybody else I'm like well it used to be well guess what used to buy beachfront property in Malibu for a lot less 40 years ago too the supply and demand of attention I actually think of social media like real estate is that right I think of attention as an asset real estate asset sure and the reason I've been so good is I'm good at finding new neighborhoods or new states or new countries like when I was yelling at everybody in 2018 for TikTok that was buying beachfront property in Costa Rica 40 years ago.

6:31I was right. How many of you actually did something about it? Very few. Correct. And the ones that did are the ones that say something on stage when she opens for you guys today or the thousands of DMs I get. Many do. 99 % don't. I can't sit on this podcast and make you do something. But what I can tell you is if you're driving right now, walking your dog on the treadmill, I know how everybody listens to podcasts and you don't realize that the world's attention is in mobile devices and on these seven to 12 platforms and that that is an opportunity to sell homes, well, I don't know what to do for you.

7:05The end. I could literally leave now. I might even leave now, brother. We're going to try to keep you for a few more questions. So if I do wake up tomorrow morning and I hear this and I get it and I go make my profiles on these seven sites and I start posting, is there a specific type of content that I need to be putting out there? Because more often than not, we hear that real estate agents are making post after post. The number of likes and interactions are going down. They're not sure if anyone's listening. They're not being shared. Of course, when you make content that's selfish, you're not going to get as many views.

7:37Like I, my sister's a real estate agent. Please find her Liz Novello. You should refer her or whatever. Give her some action. Where is she an agent? She's in Jersey. Okay. Everybody go find Liz Novello. I think she's got as Liz Novello Vaynerchuk, just so she gets more views. So you can find her. I'm sure. What would you tell her if you, if she was sitting here? How would you coach her? I spoke to her yesterday about this. I was like, you have to, she, she went heavy on content. Now she's like, like, you know, listen, she's a, she's a real estate agent. That's also a full-time mom and she's going through her life.

8:05Right. But what I told her and what I'll tell everybody right now is you have to make content. We all understand that. But the reality is, is that if you're making content that's in your self-interest, you will lose. I believe all 11 ,000 people I'm about to talk to are in their own self-interest every time they post. Wow. With all due respect, please buy this home from me. Please connect with me and let's refer with each other so I make money. So I make money. So I make money. So I make money. How the do you think this is going to work if every post out of your mouth is buy this from me, for me, for me?

8:42How about making a piece of content about the school system in the area you, how about you talk about you know the the values of the park review the park in your town that might be a gateway drug to someone being interested in your town now you brought them value now you might be the right person and i've said this at real estate conventions for a trillion years become the mayor of your town become the pr agent of your town on social tell people why they should move to your town, school district, the park in, in Springfield, Melbourne, New Jersey, short Hills. You should talk about the wine library, my family business.

9:20It's one of the best wine stores in the country. Some people might literally move because they like wine that much to that general area. Uh, how about teaching other people how to be a real estate agent? How about, how about my sister making content about balancing being a real estate agent and a mother. That would be wildly approachable. That would be incredibly valuable for a mom. Half the room I'm going to talk to right now is trying to balance that. It's incredibly challenging. I'm very empathetic to it. It's an incredibly difficult game to navigate. You feel guilty on both sides of the equation.

9:53That makes you connect with the audience on the other side. And who knows? All of a sudden, I like Sally. I like Liz Novello. I like Jerome for connecting thing with me? How about talking about the New York Jets or cooking or hiking? How about becoming a human being that other people are intrigued by? And then because they like you, you know, like in real life, how about the real estate industry knows this? The are you doing at the PTA? You're at the PTA, not because you love the PTA. You're there to connect with people that happen to then want to sell their home and they happen to then want to use you.

10:28How about you show up like that on social instead of wearing a suit and try to look the part, even though you've never sold a home in your life. There's a big shout out for 23 year old dudes. Dressing the part doesn't mean you are the part. It's going to hit good with this audience. Yeah, I think that's going to land. No, that one's going to be good. Don't you hate being the last to know? Me too. That's why you need to subscribe to this YouTube channel. That way you'll get a notification every time we have a new episode. Please like and subscribe and leave us some comments. We wake up every day in Czech because we want to hear from you.

11:02What else is going to land, not as nice with this audience of your crew that listen to this podcast is, no one gives a shit that you're the queen of the town and you've been doing it for 25 years. They do. They do. They do give a shit, but not on social. And that emerging talent and that emerging consumer base is coming up. and I know every 53-year-old that has dominated their 20-mile radius for the last 15 years is pissed right now that there's some 24-year-old that just sold a house and they don't understand how that happened and the answer is social, right? And so it's coming from every angle.

11:38The battleground in real estate is clearly playing out on social, clearly. AI is looming. We had a lot of questions about that. Are we going to be replaced by AI? How do I use AI in my business? Do I have to be leading with it? Look, AI is the biggest technology shift in our society since the internet. It's a very big deal. And I will tell you right now as a human being, if I was, I'm in Atlanta right now and I, if Rips needed a house and I had to buy him one, I'm going to chat GBT and saying, who's the best real estate agent in Atlanta? And whatever shows up, shows up. That's it. And so what are we talking about?

12:13This industry knows how profoundly game-changing Google was. Let there be no confusion. Zillow was built on top of Google. Right? Compass was built on top, right? Kellers exploded in their, I watched it. I was there early on SEO and SEM. AI is massive. How do you show up on the results for an AI search? You make content. Got it. The end. I will say right now, if you're a modern real estate agent, more than 50 % of your time is to make content. Wow. And you have to then do everything else in the 49%. 50 %? Yep. Because it will work. Would you lean towards a type of content? Is it video? Is it making the static posts?

12:57Is it certain platforms? Where would you tell us to start? Yes. All aboard. Yes, sir. You know, for me, I'm not a good writer. So what I do is I make videos, but then it's transcribed into written form. I do that with a team. Today, if you don't have a team, you could do it with AI. You know, Substack. I brought it up once again. Doing a Substack around your Essex County, New Jersey. I'll just keep sticking to Jersey. If you do the Essex County real estate Substack, and you're a great writer. Look, I don't like to write. I like to make videos. I like to do podcasts. It comes natural. Do you know how many people want or enjoy sitting down on a Saturday afternoon with a glass of wine or a bourbon or a sparkling water or tea and just writing four or five paragraphs about what happened in town, there's a lot of people that can do that who are petrified to be on camera.

13:47And it's Substack and writing that is gonna lead them to selling a lot more homes. It's all out there. Everyone listening knows, but they don't wanna do video content for social. They were good at door knocking, but they don't wanna do Substack or LinkedIn. They all know it's true. The question becomes, are you gonna be 38-year-old Gary? 38 year old gary knew eating like not sleeping a lot and never going to the gym was not going to work out and he decided that he just had to break it and it didn't come natural to him so it took him all of 38 years to start the process and this morning when i went to the gym this morning i did not want to go we didn't get in until 12 45 in the morning i had this whole day I have to fly to London after this.

14:36I did not want to go to the gym this morning. I literally wanted to get punched in the fucking mouth more than going to the gym this morning. I'm not kidding when I say that. But you went. But I went. Why? Because I don't want to die earlier than I can. And if you want to sell a house more than you did yesterday, I highly recommend getting off your fucking high horse and looking for the excuse and being like, oh, I used to get views. Like, this doesn't work anymore. Do you know how one-dimensional real estate agents are? They're just on Instagram. That's right. And a little bit of TikTok. You mentioned that there's all these different platforms.

15:14Platforms. Every single real estate agent listening to this podcast must daily post on Facebook Blue Classic. Okay. YouTube Shorts. Okay. Very important YouTube Shorts because Gemini is going to be one of the biggest AI agents and it's getting its content from YouTube Shorts. Instagram. TikTok, Twitter X, growing day by day in written content. And I don't want to hear like, well, it's political and I hate it there. People buy houses from Twitter. This one's gonna really stun a lot of you. Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting.

15:53Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. Snapchat spotlight. Really? Snapchat has its own TikTok Instagram version. and it's called Spotlight. No one's marketing on it. It's crowded with 25 to 35 year olds. If you have a market where you do rentals to that crew, post-college, young families, no one's there. So you're gonna stand out. You can post the same damn video you posted on YouTube. We'll get to that in a minute. I'll get to that in a minute. LinkedIn, a monster. If you're a top 5 % agent listening right now, rich people who are professionals are on LinkedIn and when they're going through their feed looking for SaaS business and sales tips and my content, they also might be moving to the suburbs of Chicago and if you're a Highland Park real estate person you start with like, are you moving to Highland Park?

16:45And that's the opening line in the thumbnail. I'm like, oh, I might be moving to Highland Park. And then there's Substack, which I'm obsessed with. I think it's becoming more like Twitter and Instagram. There's Beehive for B2B if people on the commercial side, I know this probably is... No, we have a decent commercial audience too. So commercial real estate agents, I know you think none of this is for you, between YouTube shorts to show up on AI, because I can tell you I did that search for VaynerMedia. I did the search looking for real estate people recently for an office in London and an office in LA.

17:18Wow. AI. You would have showed up if you made content. So commercial has to be on YouTube shorts, LinkedIn and Substack or Beehive has to happen. Okay. These become the platforms I'm obsessed with. Now the rules of posting. Because you mentioned it, you alluded to it. Can I make one video and put it everywhere? Or do I have to make unique content for each platform? You can make one, but I would change the copy and maybe the hook and a little bit of, just a little tweaking. Okay. Right? Because the LinkedIn crowd is different than the Snapchat crowd. And you want to be contextual to the room you're in.

17:46Sure. Right? I'm doing this podcast. I'm talking about real estate. I'm making it contextual. Yes. I'm talking about staging a house. I don't bring that up in a construction industry or a dentist industry. Right? No, they couldn't follow something that sophisticated. We understand this. So that's where I'm at, brother. And by the way, if you don't have time, stop taking money out of your firm and start hiring people to help you do social. That was where I want to go next because you've grown a giant online marketing company. Yes. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of companies from all over the world hire you all.

18:19Yeah, we went from zero or two, me and my brother, to almost 3 ,000 employees in the last 13 years. It's staggering to even talk about. And a lot of our listeners are running brokerages and they're running large teams. From a leadership perspective, how do you make sure that everyone in a company of that size understands the vision? And how do you execute on all of these plans? I want you to title this podcast, Selfless is Greater Than Selfish. How do I grow? I actually care about what they care about. This industry is so sales driven, so money driven, which I don't mind at all. I'm a pure capitalist entrepreneur all the way through.

18:54but of course some of your best people are leaving your team because you're a yeah that's right to it friends let's get to the punchline like why would somebody want to hustle for you and not go somewhere else if you do not have humanity if you do not care about their bank account as well if you don't care about their life like i'm supposed to be filmed right now by someone on my team something happened in his life last night we landed there's a big trip we I got this, I got this interview, I got the keynote, I got to go to London. Sure. And I sent him home. I love that. And it didn't even cross his mind that he could ask.

19:29I just saw his face look up when we got off the plane last night. That's called humanity. That's called being a human being. Something that I think this industry could use a lot more of. I love that. How do I lead? Why do I have sticking? Not only do I have 3 ,000 employees, I just texted Haley Grant this morning. I texted Haley Grant this morning. This is real. It's Sunday. Where's my phone? I want you to, you know, no, no, I know you believe me, but I want you to look because it matters to me. Here it is. Haley Grant. You can read what I wrote. It's very simple. Happy 10. That's it. I texted happy 10.

20:08She's been here 10 years. You're wishing her a happy business anniversary? Yes. What time was that? 10.34 a.m. On 10.34 a.m. on a Sunday. And what did she write back? Thank you, G. Let's make it the best year yet. This is called humanity. She's big on the emojis. Yeah, she had some emojis. But to me, why did I bring that up? Friends all behind the cameras. How long did that actually take? First, it took me the minute to read. First, I had to care enough to have an admin team that is giving me anniversities and birthdays every morning. First, I had to care, intent. First, I had to f***ing care.

20:44Sure. next I had to take .3 seconds to text happy 10 do you think Haley appreciated that? I sure do I think that meant the world her yeah and by the way we're so close that it didn't mean the world her because I interact with my people so much it's not like left field you know like I'm in it with my people be a human being I'm stunned by these leaders that start these brokerage that think they're special do you think I give a that you sold 4 ,700 homes for 3.3 billion dollars What does that make you better than me? The audacity. Like we need more humanity. We need more humility. Look, I have plenty of bravado and passion and conviction on this podcast right now.

21:26But that doesn't compromise the humility and humanity that I bring to leadership. That has been the foundation of why I have everything. That's why it grows. That's why it grows. That's why I keep people. That's why no one will ever beat me because I'm going to out nice guy them. I love it. Last question for us. You don't need to be here today. You've been incredibly successful. You get to pick and choose what you do. You have been a tremendous friend of the real estate industry. And I checked. I went all the way back. Even when you were teaching people about wine, you were talking about real estate.

21:53Yeah, I like it. Number one, why have you been such a friend of the industry? And number two, you've decided to come here and pour into agents today. And now you're pouring into agents across the globe. Why do you do it? Because I respect this crew. For everybody who's been listening, if you made it this part and you haven't hung up so far, all of this is coming from Jersey immigrant love. This was just a love letter to this industry the last 20 minutes for me. It's just the way I communicate and what I want people to hear. Because I think I'm going to be able to break through to 33 people that most people can't break through.

22:24Because I'm not tricked by their facade. And I'm just giving it to them and I want them to win. News alert. Besides Liz Novello, I do not care if anyone does anything I just said. It's a sister. Just to remind everybody. Correct. Literally could care less. but I can't control it. Even with my own sister, I can't control her. She's so capable and she's going to do her thing and her and me and all of you, we go through waves. I actually want to say this because this might bring value. I know a lot of you did have a good chapter with social content. Six months of this or one year of that. It's kind of like working out.

23:00I do the same. You go through like a year or two and you crush and you lose it for like 60 days and you're like. That's because you get hurt and then you stop and now they're four weeks later. Yeah, that's right. You get dinged up or you start to compromise. You start making excuses or because it doesn't come natural, you feel like you did enough and now you can chill and vacation. I'm here because I respect this industry in a lot of ways. For all of the shortcomings that I worry about in social content, people grind. People drop off their kids at school and then go to an open house and have three people show up in the middle of winter.

23:34People grind in this industry, right? and you know I respect the work ethic of the majority of the people in this industry. I think a lot of people go into this industry because they think it's easy and what I like about this industry is the industry spits those out fast. You know when the markets are red hot a C-minus player can be good. You know 72 % of everyone that gets a license is out of the industry within 24 months of getting it. Makes sense to me you know and so for me it's about the 28 % that are listening right now. You know, that's what this is about. Or with the hope that one of the 72 percenters are listening right now and realize I'm talking real truth and we're going to save them and make them part of the 28 instead of the 72 in this podcast.

24:17I think this is an industry worth fighting for because I think a lot of people stand on their own two feet. I think it's an incredible industry for people that try to balance the rest of their lives. I like industries that bring value to people who have this as their side hustle because they are a full-time stay-at-home dad or look this is also a sales driven industry I like sales even though I don't like when people go in for the kill in all their content I'd like people to have a little foreplay with their content a little romance like you can't just roll up to somebody at the bar and hand them your hotel key and think you're going to convert unless you look like you and it's remarkable but like you know like I think people need to be a little more strategic I think people need to be more patient I think people need to bring more value but I'm never scared to ask for the sale I'm building a Pokemon like Marvel Universe called VFriends, this is the Notorious Ninja hat right?

25:10I want every person who has a kid that buys Pokemon to go to VFriends.com V-E-E-Friends.com I want them to learn my world, I'm not scared to sell I'm just scared to sell without giving value and I would argue that 99 % of the content coming from real estate is a cold start. Here's my open house. And I think there's more to be done, more building up your personality. And I would say this should be fun for people. Your hobbies are your gateway drug to selling more homes. If you're into golf, more golf content mixed around your real estate content. Is that why it worked so well with wine? You were almost speaking poetry to wine drinkers when you were making those videos.