The Social Media Opportunity In 2026

0:00If you're here and you want something to happen, the fastest and most significant way to grow a business, besides the operational part, to grow a business, it's called social media. I don't know if you heard, it's free. Everyone's always mad at it, but the fucking thing is free. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. All right, let's get into it. So much to talk about. When I think about talks on the way to them, I try to think about what today, as I'm sure, actually, by some noise, how many of you consume some of my content? Woo! So you can imagine the thing I think a lot about when I speak is if I'm putting out so much and I'm putting it out every day, what can I actually bring in value that might be a little bit different?

0:51And so it's why I really love Q &A. But what is also interesting about what I do for a living is like the sign said earlier, I think a lot about day trading, attention, because I think when I look at a room like this, the reality is that no matter what you do in here, whether that's B2B, B2C, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're an employee, fitness industry, wine industry, sneakers, it really is not any difference to me because the reality is if I talk about attention, it is relevant to everyone in here, including people that are running for local office, for people that are trying to raise money for their favorite charity, for people that are trying to impact their school.

1:37The thing that I've been obsessed with since I was selling lemonade at seven years old, and on a stage like this maybe 10 years ago, I realized, man, I don't even really remember pouring the lemonade, and I had an epiphany that when I had lemonade stands, my friends would hold down the lemonade stand, and I would walk around the streets of New Jersey and try to figure out where to put my signs. I've been chasing attention my whole life. And so baseball cards went well for me because I gave thought to how my table looked at the show. My dad's liquor store was real easy for me. I would watch people walk in the store and I would pay attention to how they would move and I changed the way our setup was and I made sure the stuff we wanted to sell was in front of them instead of somewhere they couldn't find.

2:22As you can imagine, when I launched winelibrary.com, a website, it's crazy. The fact that I launched winelibrary.com in 1990, how many people here were not born in 1997? Make some noise.

2:35Getting fucking old. Getting old up here. The fact that I launched a website in 1997 and there was something about YouTube, we were talking about YouTube, and I made a reference in there of when I started, and in the reference it said that I started Wine Library TV five months after YouTube came out, and I thought that was too soon, so we looked it up, and it was actually wrong, but the other direction, YouTube came out, I think, December 15, 2005. I launched Wine Library TV February 21st, 2006. And it's probably the thing that what I'm setting up here for you is it's kind of scary how big the opportunity is for everybody in this room, regardless of where you're at, if you actually make a commitment to what I now recognize is the commitment that I've made my whole life and very aggressively for the last 20 years, which is if you actually understand where people's attention is, And then you actually figure out how to storytell on those platforms, whether in the written word, in video, or in audio, and most of all, which I think fucks up most people, you stay patient and try to actually bring value, not extract value.

3:44You know, it takes me two seconds. When I go to the airport, somebody rolls up, they're like, Gary V, I'm not fucking growing. Like, it takes me one hundredth of a second to know why. Because they're only about themselves. They care about how many followers they get. They care about how many likes they get. They care about how many fucking things they sell. There's just like literally no relationship with the audience. I know why I get this stand-up here. I know why I get this love for you. It matters to me to provide value. I'm not scared to be a businessman. I got sneakers to sell and books to sell and wine to sell and be friends to sell.

4:16I'm not scared, but I don't understand how people don't understand what's happening. The whole world's competing now. Every single person's competing with every single person, in every business, and how are you gonna break through? You're not gonna break through by showing the same shit. A billion people are posting a fucking flexi watch. That shit's not gonna break through. I think that most of us, in general, need to understand the science behind the game, and the game is attention on this device. There's eight or nine platforms that dominate this thing. And the question to me that I always think about when I look around the, by the way, That lime sweatshirt you're wearing is fire.

4:58Fire. Can we clap it up for the, can you stand up? Shit, it's nice.

5:08Attention, shit caught my fucking eye. Look, listen, it's the same shit for the last 20 years. Like, marketing is how you grow a business, right? Obviously the product has to be good, but you have to get out there and create demand for your business. Right, you can do it through word of mouth. You can be great at what you do and people talk about it, that's great. But if you want to accelerate, and I have no idea, I mean there's no reason anyone's in this auditorium right now on this Thursday unless they're trying to grow. So I'm just defaulting into thinking everybody here has ambition and hunger and trying to do shit.

5:46So I know everyone here is trying to do something. What I'm always confused by is why we keep looking for some sort of shortcut. My favorite entrepreneurs are fitness entrepreneurs. Fitness entrepreneurs make me laugh so much because unless they cheat, which I know a lot of fucking people do, they know the way to do it is the discipline. Like, you gotta do the exercise properly. You've gotta do it every fucking day or often. And you've gotta eat properly. Like, people know how to get into better shape. there's no fucking secret I mean there's no Benzig or whatever the fuck that shit is now but you know like the right way to do it is pretty simple with the gym and with your fork and spoon but it's hard to do but fitness entrepreneurs are always like rolling up they're like yo but yeah but how do I do it fast and I'm like you spend your day every day teaching people that there is no fast physically but you're looking for fast business wise The reason I pound patience, and I know, I watch the data.

6:51I know how many of you are tired and have no interest in me telling you it takes time. I get why everybody wants it fast. Everybody wants it fast because the world's insecure. Everybody wants to win fast because they want to show everybody else that they won. I understand you want to prove it to the girl that didn't fuck with you in high school. I get that you want to prove it to your dad who never said you had it. I understand. all this shit, all this business stuff, it's all this. It's always this. I understand fake it till you make it. I understand, I'm watching it all. It's all I do. All I do for life is watch people.

7:29Nothing confused me about people. I understand y 'all. I get it. The problem is, it's the same shit every time. For example, the thing that breaks my heart is that people actually think money makes you happy. I know what people say when they don't have it. They're like, cool, give it to me and I'll figure it out. I get it. How many people here have rich friends? Make some noise. Of the people that just made noise, how many of you have rich friends that you know right now are super fucked up, super unhappy, drugs, alcohol, all sorts of shit, make some noise? That. All of them. You're right, bro.

8:13Bro, honestly, on some real shit, one of the advantages of growing up in the dirt and coming up a certain way is you have lots of friends and a lot of family that you know live not in a millionaire lifestyle and you watch. I wish some of my millionaire friends could have the lifestyle of some of my high school friends that are deeply happy but don't make the same level of paper. Money doesn't make you happier. Money exposes you. Money and fame expose. They don't change. He changed. He didn't change. You didn't know him. Now you know him, you understand? So that's a whole separate thing. But on this business front, I'll give you, you know, maybe I had it right with my first book.

8:53My first book, subtitle of Crush It was Cashing In On Your Passion. Maybe what was clear to me in my early 30s has become, again, very clear to me as I get closer to 50. I don't know how you can work hard enough to beat your competition if you don't like the thing you're doing. I watch every day for the last 20 years people chase whatever current trend they think they can make money in real estate every 8 years crypto, cannabis like social media influencer like I've watched people's profile on Twitter over the last 15 years change 9 times of what expert they are you can't win if you don't like it because somebody else likes it and they're going to outwork you you can't it's not sustainable unless you love the fucking process it's too hard to be an entrepreneur I know it got cool because I'm 47 I remember when it wasn't cool I'm a direct beneficiary of it becoming cool this is not the life I expected businessmen were just behind the scenes and you lived and you built businesses I understand that it's pop culture now I understand that people aspire to it, but if I could wish anything for everybody in this room as I look corner to corner, besides health, I would wish you self-awareness.

10:19There's a lot of people sitting in here wanting or are delusional that they're a great entrepreneur, and what they really are is a great number two and a great number three. The number four at Facebook and Tesla made a lot more money than 99.9 % of the number ones that started companies. Thanks mom.

10:45Self-awareness. Everybody's so focused on what they wish they could be that they're not paying attention to who they are. So I, thank you. Seriously.

11:01Let me tell you why I understand all my spiel to be true. because I've been putting out and millions of other people have been putting out the direct black and white content to make it work. There's unlimited content on how to build a business, what the right tactics are, how to use Shopify, how to use WordPress, how to use eBay, how to use TikTok. There's unlimited content. The reason I started to over time evolve into like I gotta figure this out because why hasn't everyone figured it out? You start realizing it has nothing to do with the tactics. Literally, literally, there's nothing from a knowledge standpoint when it comes to business that isn't available for free.

11:50I don't know if you've heard about Google or ChatGPT or YouTube. Use those three free products and you can get the direct answer. I don't know what the fuck you're doing with your notebooks out here. There's nothing to write down. It's all here. It's not the tactics. Right? Look, there's a lot to the tactics. Let me segue to the tactics for a second. Do I believe, and I look at, like a lot of times when I come out to a talk, I'll look on social to see who's here, what you're talking about, and then I'll look at the profiles, try to get a sense of the feel. Do I believe that most people here don't understand the science of social media?

12:31The answer is yes. Do I believe when I look at all of the accounts I looked at over the last couple days hyped for this event or here or what have you that when I look at your profile I'm like oh they don't understand that the thumbnail has no shot or oh fuck they're one of those people that think on Instagram it's all about the picture or the video and they put no effort into the copy which is why it's not happening for them. Do I look at TikTok and be like oh they just posted their Instagram reel on TikTok or vice versa. That's why they don't get it. Do I think that there's extraordinary science behind the art?

13:01I do. The thumbnail matters. The first three seconds matter. The style matters. If you're still doing what you did for, like, how many people here are stagnant in their growth on Instagram? And don't be full of shit. Raise your hand because I want everybody to see this. Actually, stand up. Please. On some real shit. Are you stagnant on your growth on Instagram? Put on the lights. No, no, no. This is good. By the way, I'm standing. I'm standing. So, thank you everybody. I wanted everybody to visualize it. Actually, if you can keep those lights on, that'd be epic because the dark freaks me out. It doesn't.

13:39I just like seeing the faces for reaction. Listen to me. The reason everybody stood up is all that social media is supply and demand. My favorite thing is like, Gary, you need to help me. I've been shadow banned. No, you haven't, Don. You just suck. Nobody here is shadow banned. You're not shadow banned. And you just haven't changed up your game in the last three years, and there's more people posting on the platform than ever, and some of the attention is now fully just on TikTok. It's called fucking supply and demand. You remember when I was yelling and going crazy five years ago telling you to get on TikTok, and you were like, nah, fuck that shit, that's girls that dance that are 14?

14:18You fucked up.

14:22This game is simple, but hard. Just like getting into better shape. There are core platforms that have the world's attention. Almost everybody here does not post three times a day on LinkedIn. Everybody here should post three times a day on LinkedIn. I don't care if you sell t-shirts. I don't care if you sell peach ice cream. LinkedIn is not what it was when we all came out the gate. It's no longer a recruiting tool. It is a social network that has crazy organic reach, that has very high value customers, that are usually at work when they're in it, so they're paying attention even more because they don't want to work.

15:00And so, you know, I can go around the world and speak and I can put out the content. But when I was thinking about this, I'm like, look, I can go into the tactics. You know, I can tell you right now that on Instagram, if you post an image first and a second carousel video instead of just a Reels video like we've all been doing, it will do better. There you go. Go. Good. Go. Write that shit down on your fucking pad.

15:25But what I know is that when you do it seven times, or 12 times, and it doesn't go, because the quality of the content wasn't good enough, that you stop. And so I guess for me at this point, I'm just trying to figure out, what are people worried about? What's stopping people? And it's all the same cliche shit. Some people don't like the way they look on camera, but you don't like the way you look on camera because for some reason you've decided to value a stranger's bullshit comment on you coming from their own hurt instead of the way you feel about your own self.

16:04Like the thought of how many people here don't want someone from their high school or college or a neighbor or a coworker or even worse, the thing that kills me, that you literally are not building your future because you're worried about Johnny Pants 67 coming on your account and fucking shitting on you. Do you understand how sad of a life it is to spend your time at night laying in your bed, going around your feed, seeing someone's bright light, and you're in such a bad place that you want to say you suck or you're wrong or fuck you? You shouldn't be feeling bad for yourself. You need to feel bad for these people.

16:46We need more empathy. Like, this is someone who's hurt. Anyone, the thought of spending a second of my time to hurt someone else's feelings is fucking insane to me. Brutal.

17:06So I'm just gonna, you know, I'm trying to systematically think about, like, why won't you post 33, like, if you're here and you want something to happen, the fastest and most significant way to grow a business besides the operational part besides the fact that it has to be able to operate to grow a business it's called social media I don't know if you heard it's free everyone's always mad at it the fucking thing is free I built my daddy's liquor store not with social media I built it with newspaper ads shit cost money television commercials that were local we didn't have that kind of money that cost money fucking billboards those motherfuckers took my money Google AdWords killed for me but it was still fucking money this shit's free and I don't know if you paid attention what happened the last two years in social it changed social for the first 10 years was based on the social graph now it's based on the interest graph Let me explain.

18:15The first 10, 12 years of social media was more like email marketing. You amass people to follow you, you post and a percentage of them opened, right? They saw it. Now, the algorithms are taking over and it's around interest. There are people in this room who've never been on TikTok who can leave this conference and say, fuck it, Gary got me, I'll do it, let me go. And their first post with zero followers can get 8 ,000, 20 ,000, 100 ,000, a million views. That's real. That happens every day. That's insane. Not only is it free, it actually is being seen. Unlike all my clients who continue to buy TV commercials, who here has seen a fucking TV commercial ever besides the Super Bowl?

19:04We don't even watch regular TV and cable TV anymore. Every one of you fuckers have four, you complain about money, but you have six subscriptions to every streaming service. You haven't been on fucking HBO Max in 100 years. YouTube, social, streaming. We don't even watch those things. So look, there's such an outrageous level of opportunity right now and it's a game of the haves and have nots meaning either you see it, aka either you decide the world sucks and everything's hard and there's a lot going on, I get it, or you decide not. Sometimes when someone's complaining and is my homie, I give them my phone and I'm like, look at my stream.

19:47My stream is like fucking kittens kissing each other, like the fucking sun coming out. My stream's positive as fuck because I protect my fucking sanity.

20:07no shit you're gonna be upset if you only consume negativity no shit you're gonna be upset if the core people in your life spend 100 of their time complaining and it's hard almost all of us have either a negative mom or dad that's already hard and that shit's hard but i remind my friends i'm like you're 40, you're gonna still complain and blame mommy and daddy for everything? Instead of buying a fucking Maserati, go get therapy, dick.

20:44And I get not everybody can afford therapy, but exercise, free meditation apps, like just genuinely putting positivity in your ears instead of negativity. the number one thing the world lost was accountability. We've gotten so good at telling everybody else in the world what they should be doing. We love pointing fingers, right? How about thumbs? Where the fuck have thumbs gone? Let me give you the biggest indication that you're a fucking loser entrepreneur. I'm gonna give it to you right now. You blame the current president for your shit.

21:31I love that. I'm an entrepreneur, I'm an entrepreneur. And then you're blaming the president? You fucking suck. As if. I've made plenty of money as an entrepreneur with Republicans and plenty with Democrats. Give me an independent and I'll crush. I don't give a fuck.

21:52That's right. People make me laugh. People talk real shit, but then we just aren't accountable. Here's another one. How many people have more than 10 employees? Raise your hands. Good. Let me tell you the funniest thing about running a company. 100 % of the shit that's wrong is your fault.

22:18It's crazy. I sit with my homies. I read all the DMs. I'm in it. You guys know. You get responses sometimes. I'm in it. Gary, you don't get it, my CFO sucks. I'm like, no, you don't get it, fire him. You hired him. Every single thing in your business that is broken is 100 % your fault. You don't like the taxes in California? Move to Texas. Hooray! We found the Texas dude. Like, people are just so interesting. We're in a really challenging spot. You know who I blame? Eighth place trophies.

23:04Can somebody ask AI who the fuck invented that? Because I want to kick them in the dick. Eighth place trophies fucked everything up. We taught kids that losing was bad. We need to teach kids that losing is good. This is the mistake. because what happens is, listen, I have 2 ,000 employees now at VaynerX globally and a lot of them are under 28. About seven years ago, before this even became obvious and kind of talked about, even before the whole like, and by the way, enough of bashing Gen Z. The people that bashed Gen Z made them. Bash yourself.

23:43Like, you're mad at your, like I get all these conversations like, Gary, my son, he's a real mess. I'm like, hello, 25. I'm like we start talking because this is interesting to me and I care and I want to help and then you find out that there are parents paying for their 25 year old's life I'm like you want and they're complaining that their kid's not like it's impossible it's impossible to be hungry when you're fed you know and listen everyone's got different circumstances I'm talking general and everybody's got their own shit I get that but the eighth place trophy thing killed us we made people scared.

24:20I don't know if you're paying attention. That's all that's going on here. In business, in life, it's just one game of fear versus love. And fear's got a lot of momentum. How many people here are happy? Make noise.

24:36I definitely do not believe that, by the way. That was some loud-ass, like, not everyone's fucking happy, but I'll take it. So let me, given that everyone here is happy,